Chiang Kai-Shek was kidnapped by his own guards because he was too preoccupied on hunting down the communists to the ends of the earth to stop the Japanese from running rampant.

I’d love to hear your explanation of how 8000 people hiding in one of the most remote regions of China came to win the civil war, if not through widespread popular support.

Because both of the major parties benefit from excluding the competition.

It’s kind of like, if your car won’t start, you need to take it to a mechanic, but because it won’t start, you can’t drive it to the mechanic. We need to change how our elections work because FPTP prevents us from implementing the policies we want, but it’s precisely because it prevents us from implementing the policies we want that we’re unable to change it. It’s a catch-22.

I never said, “well that’s just your viewpoint,” or anything like that. Not sure where you’re getting that from.

I answered the question very clearly. Advocating for peace necessarily means rejecting the idea that a given war is necessary to confront foreign threats. Peace advocates in every conflict, by every side, are frequently labeled as traitors who support the worst offenses of the other side, “you’re either with us or with the terrorists,” as Bush said. The tankie label is simply another form of this. I don’t see what’s confusing about that.

I feel like I answered literally exactly this in my response.

What you’re saying is exactly what British social democrats would have said to people opposing the war, that Germany isn’t peaceful, dovish, or isolationist, that they know that, they don’t care, and are only ignoring imperialism when Germany does it, and it’s also what German social democrats would have said to people opposing the war, that Britain isn’t peaceful, dovish, or isolationist, that they know that, they don’t care, and are only ignoring imperialism when Britain does it, and so on.

I answered that. What I said is what I’m on about.

Maybe you can rephrase that to mean something clearer, if my answer isn’t what you’re looking for?

What question did I not answer?

I think you may have misunderstood me. I’m not saying that imperialism is justified because of the possibility of a vacuum, I’m saying that the possibility of a vacuum is an acceptable risk for the sake of opposing imperialism.

You asked what I’m on about and I told you what I’m on about. No question avoided.

And there you have it. If you advocate for peaceful, dovish, isolationist policies, you are a tankie because you’re letting other nations that aren’t those things win. The exact same logic that caused “leftists” to rally around their own imperialist governments in WWI. Germany wasn’t socialist, so why should the British socialists let them win? Britain wasn’t socialist, so why should the German socialists let them win?

The phrase-bandying Trotsky has completely lost his bearings on a simple issue. It seems to him that to desire Russia’s defeat means desiring the victory of Germany. (Bukvoyed and Semkovsky give more direct expression to the “thought”, or rather want of thought, which they share with Trotsky.) To help people that are unable to think for themselves, the Berne resolution made it clear, that in all imperialist countries the proletariat must now desire the defeat of its own government. Bukvoyed and Trotsky preferred to avoid this truth, while Semkovsky (an opportunist who is more useful to the working class than all the others, thanks to his naively frank reiteration of bourgeois wisdom) blurted out the following: “This is nonsense, because either Germany or Russia can win”

What is the substitute proposed for the defeat slogan? It is that of “neither victory nor defeat." This, however, is nothing but a paraphrase of the “defence of the fatherland” slogan. It means shifting the issue to the level of a war between governments (who, according to the content of this slogan, are to keep to their old stand, “retain their positions"), and not to the level of the struggle of the oppressed classes against their governments! It means justifying the chauvinism of all the imperialist nations, whose bourgeoisie are always ready to say—and do say to the people—that they are “only” fighting “against defeat”.

On closer examination, this slogan will be found to mean a “class truce”, the renunciation of the class struggle by the oppressed classes in all belligerent countries, since the class struggle is impossible without dealing blows at one’s “own” bourgeoisie, one’s “own” government, whereas dealing a blow at one’s own government in wartime is (for Bukvoyed’s information) high treason, means contributing to the defeat of one’s own country. Those who accept the “neither victory-nor-defeat” slogan can only be hypocritically in favour of the class struggle, of “disrupting the class truce”; in practice, such people are renouncing an independent proletarian policy because they subordinate the proletariat of all belligerent countries to the absolutely bourgeois task of safeguarding the imperialist governments against defeat. The only policy of actual, not verbal disruption of the “class truce”, of acceptance of the class struggle, is for the proletariat to take advantage of the difficulties experienced by its government and its bourgeoisie in order to overthrow them. This, however, cannot be achieved or striven for, without desiring the defeat of one’s own government and without contributing to that defeat.

When, before the war, the Italian Social-Democrats raised the question of a mass strike, the bourgeoisie replied, no doubt correctly from their own point of view, that this would be high treason, and that Social-Democrats would be dealt with as traitors. That is true, just as it is true that fraternisation in the trenches is high treason. Those who write against “high treason”, as Bukvoyed does, or against the “disintegration of Russia”, as Semkovsky does, are adopting the bourgeois, not the proletarian point of view. A proletarian cannot deal a class blow at his government or hold out (in fact) a hand to his brother, the proletarian of the “foreign” country which is at war with “our side”, without committing “high treason”, without contributing to the defeat, to the disintegration of his “own”, imperialist “Great” Power.

Whoever is in favour of the slogan of “neither victory nor defeat” is consciously or unconsciously a chauvinist; at best he is a conciliatory petty bourgeois but in any case he is an enemy to proletarian policy, a partisan of the existing governments, of the present-day ruling classes.

The Defeat of One’s Own Government in the Imperialist War, V.I. Lenin

As near as I can tell, advocating for peaceful, dovish, isolationist policies is enough for someone to be considered a tankie (ironically enough). WWI era socialists who did not fall in line behind their governments certainly faced similar accusations.

It’s kinda unavoidable that if one major power loses influence, another will benefit from the vacuum. You can’t really oppose your own country’s imperialism without making the case that other countries taking advantage is an acceptable risk.

This is more or less the story of WWI. With the increasing tensions and military buildup, socialists of countries across Europe formed the Second International and agreed in the Basel Declaration, which said that they would use the crisis to rise up simultaneously against every imperialist power and put an end to both the war and to capitalism:

If a war threatens to break out, it is the duty of the working classes and their parliamentary representatives in the countries involved supported by the coordinating activity of the International Socialist Bureau to exert every effort in order to prevent the outbreak of war by the means they consider most effective, which naturally vary according to the sharpening of the class struggle and the sharpening of the general political situation.

In case war should break out anyway it is their duty to intervene in favor of its speedy termination and with all their powers to utilize the economic and political crisis created by the war to arouse the people and thereby to hasten the downfall of capitalist class rule.

But once the war actually broke out, most of them found reasons to rally around their country’s flag. German socialists pointed to the conditions of serfdom under the Tsar and pointed to the massive colonial empires of Britain and France, while British and French socialists argued that Germany undemocratic under the Kaiser and had more responsibility for starting the war. They mostly agreed that both sides were bad, but they said they were only fighting to safeguard their countries “against defeat” rather than for victory, but regardless, for all intents and purposes it was the same thing. Of course, in all of these countries, there was considerable political pressure and propaganda pushing them to fall in line and to regard the enemy as worse, and many people did what was personally advantageous regardless of what they had said previously.

There was only one exception, where the socialists took advantage of the war to overthrow their government, without regard for the possibility that it could help the other side, and they did end up ceding a fair bit of land too, but they were able to put a stop that that theater of the meat grinder everyone was being fed into.

Here’s the thing. I’m trans. On our own, we represent a tiny sliver of the voting public, not worth considering from a strategic standpoint. But there are plenty of other groups of people in the same boat. Together, we are worth considering - but only together. “What force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one?” If we try to build a coalition in which we abandon any group that the democratic politicians deem too much of a liability to be worth protecting, that is no coalition at all, and I well understand that after Palestinians, I will be next. The very same logic that these people were willing to deploy against them can and will be deployed to justify abandoning me and mine.

What advantage do I gain from joining together in a “coalition” in “solidarity” with these fair-weather friends who will drop us at the first sign of trouble? Honestly, they are more of a liability than an asset, because if I’m buddying up with them, it damages my credibility among potentially more reliable people who have good reason not to trust them. I would rather do it the right way and build trust even if it means building from the ground up.

I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but these disagreements are meaningful and important. This election may be over, but the question remains of what the appropriate strategy is going forward, whether to build a coalition that will treat an offense against one as an offense against all, and ensure that anyone who comes for any part of it is unelectable, or whether to “vote blue no matter who” as we are picked off one-by-one, in exchange for temporary, short term security for some.

I voted for PSL, personally.

Kamala lost more because of the economy than because of Gaza. But if people want to blame protest voters, and they really, really do, then I’m happy to take advantage of that narrative because that claim only helps us by suggesting that we weild more influence than we do and are more important to win over than we are. I’m happy to point out that they’re wrong because I’m an honest person, but if they really want to push a narrative about how important and influential my faction is, then I mean, I’ll take it. “Never interrupt your enemy when they’re making a mistake.” Plus pointing out the fact that they’re only helping us is probably more likely to get them to stop than trying to appeal to the facts.

Pronouns and males in women’s sports are dumb wedge issues to lose an election over, just to cater to the precious feelings of 1% of the population. And now ALL of us queers are under threat.

The moment the democrats take a step back on this, the republicans will take two steps forward. If we don’t fight them here they will keep coming. Give an inch and they’ll take a mile.

I agree that this shouldn’t be front and center to the campaign. It wasn’t. All they did was (somewhat) stand their ground when the republicans attacked them on it. Ceding ground would be selling out members of their own base to appease a small percentage of people who are so obsessed with us that they’ll vote to hurt us regardless of anything else on the ballot, and those people are going to vote republican regardless. The number of trans people may be small, but if we get sold out it tells every other minority that the democrats will sell them out too whenever it becomes politically convenient.

Yes, economic issues should be what democrats focus on, and yes that’s something that benefits queer people along with everyone else, but ceding ground to appease bigots is a terrible strategy.

Jill set and lit the bomb, and lifts up a big expensive sign saying that defusing bombs is antisemitic and what Putin wants. Bob tries as hard as he can to put out the bomb anyway, but Jill made sure to design it such that Bob can’t defuse it. So, once it’s clear his efforts are futile, Bob runs as fast as he can away from Jill and the bomb, and the bomb blows up.

When does it become Jill’s fault that she did actively take harmful actions?

The funniest thing about is like, I live in fucking Illinois. And I voted for the Dems downballot where it actually matters. All the words spilled, all the hate and anger that’s been directed at me, has been over a single third party vote in one of the safest states in the country. The vast majority of Americans live in safe states too.

In reality it’s just about enforcing the social norms of the tribe.

Never claimed that and explained my logic plenty of times elsewhere, not interested in doing so with a low-effort troll.

If I have a choice between bad and worse, I’m taking bad, what kind of lunatic would intentionally choose worse?

The vast majority of people would choose worse, at least in some situations.

Philosopher Bernard Williams proposed this thought experiment: suppose someone has rounded up a group of 20 innocent people, and says that he will kill all of them, unless you agree to kill one, in which case he’ll let the rest go. Act Utilitarianism would suggest that it is not only morally permissible, but morally obligatory to comply, which Williams saw as absurd. As an addendum, suppose the person then orders you to round up another 20 people so he can repeat the experiment with someone else, and if you don’t, he’ll have his men kill 40 instead. Congratulations, your “lesser-evilist” ideology now has you working for a psychopath and recruiting more people to work for him too.

Even the trolley problem, which liberals love to trot out to justify their positions, is not nearly as clear cut as they try to pretend it is. A follow up to the trolley problem is, is it ethical to kill an innocent person in order to harvest their organs in order to give five people lifesaving transplants? The overwhelming majority of people say no.

Act Utilitarianism is something that seems intuitive at first glance, but is very difficult to actually defend under scrutiny, and there are many, many alternative moral frameworks that reject its assumptions and conclusions. Liberals don’t seem to realize that this framework they treat as absolute and objective - that you would have to be a “lunatic” to reject - is actually a specific ideology, and one that’s not particularly popular or robust.

Realistically you’re right, but also tourists disrespecting the cultural sites they’re visiting is especially grating, particularly when it’s a white guy and in a nonwhite country, and Americans specifically have a reputation for this sort of thing which some of us are embarrassed by and want to distance ourselves from.

Like, if this was a Japanese person who was doing it to spite the imperial family, I’d be totally fine with it, but this guy just seems disrespectful of the culture in general, like, if there was some kind of cultural site dedicated to spiting the emperor, he’d likely deface that just as readily. Practically speaking, whatever punishment is applied to shitty tourists will also be applied to political protestors, so legally it’s better if it’s a slap on the wrist, but we can still say the guy sucks.