Memes

I'm going to take your question as genuine and answer in equal.

It's a bit more complicated than that. Most leftists will agree with you, the USSR and other Eastern Europe countries that were communist did a lot of damage and most likely more harm. They committed atrocities. They were authoritarian. It was disgusting.

The leftists who still prop those countries up on their shoulders are what many call tankies. Today they sing praise about Russia, China, and North Korea, but your observation is correct, they won't ever move there. These are individuals who repeat propaganda and are, ultimately, just red fascists. When you actually dig into their ideals they parallel and sometimes mirror Nazis.

I believe leftism cannot have an authoritarian element to it. I think most social hierarchies need to be destroyed. I think the only way to have a socialist society is through democratic means. Democracy in the workplace and national level. I think most of us can agree workers need higher wages and there is a wealth gap that needs to be dismantled. I think most of us believe healthcare needs to be universal, food and shelter and water, education, information (internet), speech, and much more should be free and readily available. There is this element of freedom that needs to be achieved that isn't found the countries that are "communist".

I don't want to explicitly say those communist countries wasn't "real communism", but fascists, authoritarianism, always appropriate from progressive movement. There is no freedom, especially of workers, under a dictatorship. If workers are starving, dying, being outright black bagged and killed, i don't think that can be considered communist.

It's an unfortunately nuanced subject, where people don't agree on the underlying definitions of words. For instance, I think you're confusing "capitalism" with "democracy". You can have authoritarian undemocratic capitalist countries, where you can't talk shit about your government.

For me personally, I think communism has too many issues to actually try, but I like some of its theoretical tennants when compared to that of capitalism. Those goals are something to strive for. The spirit of communism is helping eachother and rewarding work, and the spirit of capitalism is sacrificing others for personal gain

Because they are reacting to living under the oppressive structures of late capitalism. Having been raised in a capitalist world, they naturally overemphasize economic systems and their alternatives and make assumptions about government.

So when they communism theyusually mean communism + some equitable government or just they mean socialist democracy.

Funnily enough, you live pretty well in China these days if you're a good little capitalist.

Though to be fair, DPRK is the way it is at least in part thanks to the Americans obliterating their cities and farm land. But we can ignore history to make a "I used to be in a communist country and it's bad, trust me bro" statement.

And I agree, I prefer to live in a system where prisoners aren't primarily minorities or political prisoners. And where the prison system isn't the most populated in the world, and rife with for-profit forced labour.

I would also be curious to hear which definition of "capitalism" and "Communism" you are using. That is, if you are open to dialogue.

A number of reasons. Just like you claim a Communist party almost destroyed your country, Capitalist parties destroy and are destroying many countries as well. The existence of bad Communist parties does not itself mean Communism is structurally a bad thing, as pursuit of a Stateless, Classless, Moneyless society is a noble goal for humanity.

I think it's fair to say that decentralization is a good check against Authoritarianism, and as such, this should be extended to the workplace, not just government.

As far as why Lemmy leans left, the founder is a Communist, and principles of decentralization and federation tend to appeal far more to leftists, while Capitalist-inclined individuals have Reddit.

This community is on lemmy.ml, which explicitly leans hard left. Maybe a memes community on another instance would be less like this

'in the past'

How old are you? If your claim to authority here is that you grew up being told history by the winners, what should that mean to us?

What was done in South America for a century was done in a decade in Eastern Europe when the west finally won the cold war. Read Shock Doctrine.

Saying that any existing communist party looks like what we, or theory, want(s), is like saying that North Korea is a Democratic Republic because it's part of the name. Authoritarians love corrupting the meaning of words so they can keep people ignorant.

Grass is greener on the other side

What Country?

how old were you when the USSR fell? Did you experience communism, or the capitalist takeover after communism fell?

Because they hate the system they live in and communism is the only modern alternative that has ever existed.

When someone comes up with an alternative to both, humanity will move forward.

"They took my father's slaves!"

Shut the fuck up, colonizer.