Quote:
If your first instinct as a westerner is to criticize and lecture 3rd world communist movements, instead of learning from their successes, then you have internalized the patronizing arrogance of the colonial system you claim to oppose.
I wrote my thesis about how we can learn from Cuba’s green farming movements (because they were essentially locked out of capitalism) and was criticized for it.
Western liberals who think they are entirely objective and free of bias really struggle to get to grips with how much of their world view is just patronizing racist chauvinism.
Also I’m not even sure why liberals are permitted on lemmy. Send them and their disgusting violent ideology back to corporate media.
They don’t have any problems with US corporate media’s ideology. They’re just mad reddit took away their app treats.
Man I’m just here for the memes :(
The lemmy.world version of this community has politcs banned
Lemmy libs in this thread showing they have an aversion to reading
there are libs on Lemmy?
Check on some .world comms and let us know what you find. Hint: it’s libs as far as the thumb can scroll.
Almost every community on every instance of Lemmy is a liberal circlejerk lol
Wait lol you’re a MAGA account but you accidentally came to the right conclusion? JDPON Don does it again.
it’s always hilarious when conservatives are right on accident and they don’t even know why
“Successes”?
Most of them are 3rd world countries because of these movements…
The few who succeeded only use “communism” as label but are aggressively balls deep into capitalism like China.
Most of them are 3rd world countries because of these movements…
Lol. Name one country that went from first world to third world because of communist movements.
Easy, South Africa
surely this is a joke
Oh looks, another example of the meme right here.
I dont oppose colonialism. Its anti-colonialism that have created the worst blood thirsty and arrogant country in the world with its Uber capitalistic ideology: The US… Should have the “US” remained into UK colonies, we would have a better and more peaceful world right now. Same could be sayed about Israël and China… Hmmm… I see a pattern here… One common things between these… UK!
I dont oppose colonialism
The US was not an anti-colonial country; it was a british settler garrison that broke away in order to conquer the continent unhindered by British treaties with native peoples. Westward genocidal expansion and the theft of land were the goals.
The actual anti-colonialists in the revolutionary war (the indigenous peoples), rightly sided with the British in that conflict. Unfortunately their loss resulted in the decimation and near-genocide of hundreds of tribes. Sun-yat-sen and Ho Chi Minh and other revolutionaries were rightly scared that their countries would suffer the same fate.
I was aware of the atrocities and agreement violations, but not that perspective that colonials wanted to get free from any agreements the British did with the natives… Is that a common knowledge in the academia, disputed or a minority one? It is not to discredit it at all the idea, just to genuinely know its status at university level?
I believe they have noted it, but they consider it more minor and less important than Marxist historians do.
Interestingly just like the british, the US itself went through various phases of disputes with its own settler frontier terrorists that it empowered, when it wanted to do the conquering in a more “orderly” manner (although the goal never changed). A lot of these are chronicled in Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz - an indigenous people’s history of the US.
Thanks for the info and all references you do in Lemmy. I don´t consider myself with a similar ideology as you, but indeed I am learning lots of info from your posts.
No probs!
Lol biggest woooosh of all time xD
Biggest clown of all time
I dont oppose colonialism. Its anti-colonialism that have created the worst blood thirsty and arrogant country
That’s insane. The supremacy and dehumanization here is crazy
I dont oppose colonialism.
What an amazing self-tell.
Wow the number of oblivious wooooshist is damn high among tankies wannabe…
You’re not making a joke, though, you’re just antagonizing for no benefit.
I dont oppose colonialism
Oh! So you are just a Western colonist who spread the patronizing arrogance propaganda your “leftist” westerner compatriots are slopping up. The wall is that way, go face it!
Woooosh xD
Clown
Most of them are 3rd world countries because of these movements…
There’s far too many of these to list, but lets take Vietnam and the DPRK as examples:
- Between 1963 and 1973, The US dropped ~388,000 tons of napalm bombs in vietnam, compared to 32,357 tons used over three years in the Korean War, and 16,500 tons dropped on Japan in 1945. US also sprayed over 5 million acres with herbicide, in Operation Ranch Hand, in a 10 year campaign to deprive the vietnamese of food and vegetation cover.
- US dropped large amounts of Agent Orange, an herbicide developed by monsanto and dow chemical for the department of defense, in vietnam. Its use, in particular the contaminant dioxin, causes multiple health problems, including cleft palate, mental disabilities, hernias, still births, poisoned breast milk, and extra fingers and toes, as well as destroying local species of plants and animals. The Red Cross of Vietnam estimates that up to 1 million people are disabled or have health problems due to Agent Orange.1, 2
- US Troops killed between 347 and 504 unarmed civilians, including women, children, and infants, in South Vietnam on March, 1968, in the My Lai Massacre. Some of the women were gang-raped and their bodies mutilated. Soldiers set fire to huts, waiting for civilians to come out so they could shoot them. For 30 years, the three US servicemen who tried to halt the massacre and rescue the hiding civilians were shunned and denounced as traitors, even by congressmen. 1
- In 1967, the CIA helped South Vietnamese agents identify and then murder alleged Viet Cong leaders operating in villages, in the Phoenix Program. By 1972, Phoenix operatives had executed between 26,000 and 41,000 suspected NLF operatives, informants and supporters.1
Vietnam and the DPRK are absolutely success stories, for breaking their colonial chains, and defeating the most powerful and evil empire in history.
Alse China is not a capitalist country, its a mixed economy with the planned socialist sector predominant, and the communist party standing above the political system.
- The backbone of the economy is state ownership and socialist planning. 24 / 25 of the top revenue companies are state-owned and planned. 70% of the top 500 companies are State-owned. 1, 2 The largest bank, construction, electricity, and energy companies in the world, are CPC controlled entities, subject to the 5 year plans laid out by the central committee.
- Workplace democracy in action in the CPC.
- Is modern day china communist? Is it staying true to communist values?
- Didn’t China go Capitalist with Deng Xiaoping? Didn’t it liberalize its economy? Is China’s drastic decrease in poverty a result of the increase in free market capitalist policies?
- Is the CPC committed to communism?
- The Long Game and Its Contradictions. Audiobook
- The myth of Chinese state capitalism. Did Deng really betray Chinese socialism?
- Tsinghua University- Is Socialism with Chinese Characteristics real socialism, or is it state Capitalism?
- Isn’t China revisionist for having a capitalist sector of the economy, and working with capitalists? Why isn’t it fully planned like the USSR was?
- Castro on why both China and Vietnam are socialist countries.
- Roderic Day - China has billionaires.
FYI i am currently working in Vietnam. Let me be clear: its a tourism country, corrupted and social programs are a joke compared to Europe… China is one of the worst countries in distribution of wealth. The communist country is a capitalist mafia ruling the country (and the party itself).
But yeah, i do agree, US is a dickhead country.
Communism is not, never was and will never be about socialism.
Like seriously, guess which country (the state itself) is spending the most of its GDP in social help? Not even the first one, look at the top ten. Guess what? None of them are communist countries or even had communist at the head of the state during their history…
Most of them are 3rd world countries because of these movements…
with perhaps the exception of south korea and with some good will taiwan, not a single capitalist country reached the so called “developed” status coming from underdeveloped. all of those who did received a downpour of american taxpayer money.
What you call taxpayer money is called investment. South Korea and Taïwan are good example, but the most obvious are all the old soviet satellites countries of eastern Europe (except bielorussia for obvious reasons).
Take romania for example, from shithole to okay country.
If you are offended by this, you might be incapable of self-reflection
Imagine getting offended by this instead of just being anti-colonialist
Why do white crackers have to be so set in their ways?
Simply put: maintaining the status quo is prerequisite to their comfortable living.
Dang I didn’t know there were successful communist nations in developing countries.
What do you call Cuba, China, Vietnam, Laos, the former Burkina Fasso under Sankara, or the former USSR? Do you sincerely believe those countries had a better standard of living for all people, especially workers and peasants, under capitalism? Isn’t the great fall from grace of the USSR proof that the benefits their people had received were indeed the fruits of socialism and not the “rising tide” of global capitalist development (which was actually exacerbating poverty in the global South outside of the socialist countries)?
Maybe it’s just capitalist propaganda but from what I’ve heard, China is a mass surveillance state which doesn’t protect any of the citizens rights for privacy and has lacklustre working environments which is why everything is so cheap to be made there. Cuba is stuck with a poor economy, but I guess that’s all developing nations so i don’t know much other than that. For Vietnam my source is a friend who’s family mostly live in Vietnam, he says people in Vietnam dislike communism but can’t say it out loud. And I don’t know much about Laos or Burkina fasso.
To be clear I do consider myself a leftist and anti capitalist but I don’t believe there have been many properly successful socialist nations outside of Europe really.
China is a mass surveillance state which doesn’t protect any of the citizens rights for privacy and has lacklustre working environments
It is a mass surveillance state, but it’s definitely not any more mass surveillance than any developed country. Maybe one important difference is that in China the government has fewer restrictions for how they will spy on you, but in the US for example the NSA will do blatantly illegal things that aren’t even allowed under the Patriot Act and no one can do anything about it, so the extent to which surveillance is legal or not is irrelevant IMO. I would understand your criticism if China was actually a very repressive country where dissent wasn’t allowed and a huge portion of the population was jailed, but I think the quick response to the anti-lockdown protests and the fact they jail far fewer people than the US (while having 4x the population) means that it’s not a very reasonable criticism. Especially not when you consider the Western countries built up their stability while exploiting others, and China had to go through a hard process of occupation, civil war, and then many mistakes during the Cultural Revolution which still breed resentment at the state, even if things have gotten better.
As for the working environments, you’ll always see the worst of the worst in negative coverage of China (the suicide nets in Foxconn factories, for example, which to my knowledge have been debunked). Still, it is undeniable that China has had pretty bad working conditions. I think the key element to understand why working conditions are poor, yet more than 80% of Chinese people approve of their government, is that Chinese people understand that their government is committed to improving things and they consistently see those improvements. They also have a much more responsive political system that listens to their individual concerns very well, so whatever problems they have are more likely to be dealt with than if they had a situation in a western liberal democracy, where you write a letter to your representative and your representative has been paid off by 3 different lobby groups to ignore your concerns.
Cuba is stuck with a poor economy, but I guess that’s all developing nations so i don’t know much other than that.
That’s a huge understatement. Cuba faces a horrible, economy-stifling blockade from the US that essentially shuts them off from the entire global economy because they can’t access the global banking system or buy a huge number of basic goods. Despite that, they’re a global leader in medicine, have a far better education system than the US at all levels, have sent revolutionaries to assist in decolonizing countries in Africa, and were leaders of the NAM.
And I don’t know much about Laos or Burkina fasso.
Laos is honestly quite similar to Vietnam.
Burkina Fasso had a very successful few years of developing infrastructure and improving living conditions for the people under Sankara. It’s a very tragic story because he was assassinated and replaced by a regime that reversed much of the good he had accomplished. Nowadays, Ibrahim Traore is essentially just playing it back with many of the same ideas Sankara had, and he has been massively popular and successful for it (look no further than the fact his security team have had to stop many assassination attempts already, much like Castro).
To be clear I do consider myself a leftist and anti capitalist but I don’t believe there have been many properly successful socialist nations outside of Europe really.
What has been successful in Europe? Yugoslavia and the Warsaw Pact countries were great, but could only exist because of the pressure of the USSR on the capitalist bloc. All the social democracies are only social democracies, they have never put the workers in charge of their own destiny and are therefore not socialist at all.
Ok, first of all you clearly know a lot about this than I do and I would love to learn more, where do you find information related to socialism and socialist nations? Obviously I cannot expect to learn all of this from you.
What has been successful in Europe? First of all many European nations such as Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands have a progressive multi party system which prioritize good urban planning and privacy laws (the latter I am not 100% sure about but believe to be true) And the European union as a whole regularly enforce regulations ensuring fare practices among big companies such as recently they enforced apple to require side loading and meta to remove the consent or pay advertising model. As well as when apple was required to use usb-c on there iphones. This is just my limited knowledge so feel free to prove me wrong and two examples may not be enough evidence.
Also I read your other arguments but I simply don’t have enough knowledge to have anything to say about them, but I very much go by the quote “absolute power corrupts absolutely” and therefore find it difficult to believe that any dictator can be better than a democracy.
Ok, first of all you clearly know a lot about this than I do and I would love to learn more, where do you find information related to socialism and socialist nations? Obviously I cannot expect to learn all of this from you.
I learned a lot of the history from Michael Parenti’s Blackshirts and Reds and Vijay Prashad’s Darker Nations. You don’t have to read the entire books, they have lots of lectures on YouTube. Here’s Parenti’s Yellow Lecture.
You can also could read China Has Billionaires, it’s a good essay that explains why China is the way it is and why socialists should understand it.
First of all many European nations such as Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands have a progressive multi party system which prioritize good urban planning and privacy laws (the latter I am not 100% sure about but believe to be true) And the European union as a whole regularly enforce regulations ensuring fare practices among big companies such as recently they enforced apple to require side loading and meta to remove the consent or pay advertising model. As well as when apple was required to use usb-c on there iphones. This is just my limited knowledge so feel free to prove me wrong and two examples may not be enough evidence.
Those are good things, but they’re really just regulations. The urban planning is clearly miles ahead of NA, but it’s still comparable to Japan and we could probably all agree Japan is not a socialist country.
The main difference between those countries and a socialist country like Cuba or China is that in Europe, owners of industry, financiers, real estate moguls, and other capitalists have a lot of influence and political power as a function of the capital they own. They move the capital around to where it will make them more money. They will move capital across borders to colonies and neocolonies where labor and resources are cheap. The state responds to their needs.
Meanwhile, in socialist countries, the state takes the capital under its democratic control. In China, for example, the state is growing its control of private companies and steadily implementing more measures to reduce the power of their capitalists. Even when Deng liberalized their economy a great deal, they never stopped regulating the flow of capital, still having strict controls on investments.
“absolute power corrupts absolutely” and therefore find it difficult to believe that any dictator can be better than a democracy.
I think there’s 2 levels to this quote. First, how could power be held non-absolutely? Through a constitutional republic with a balance of powers where each branch of government keeps the others in check? What Marx shows us is that, make the political system how you will, if the state remains a bourgeois state the ruling class will keep using political power to protect the interests of capital. There is no way around that, all regulations will be stripped away as the rate of profit falls and the capitalists go hungry. They’ll descend into fascism if their profits are threatened enough. So ask yourself, doesn’t capital already hold absolute power?
Secondly, if I take it at face value that the way a state is organized makes a big difference and it matters how much control any given individual has (which I think is true, even though it kinda contradicts the previous point that all power is class power) that’s still not a reason to say European and North American democracies are less dictatorial than any socialist democracy. Check the link I put in my first comment to see how China’s system works. The USSR had a similar system with soviets making up the democratic structure, with democratic power over each workplace and each community, which would go up in levels up to the CCCP. People think that these countries aren’t democratic because they’re one party states, but the truth is that they just make their limitations on what ideologies are not allowed to take control explicit, instead of implicit like they are in the liberal democracies.
don’t believe there have been many properly successful socialist nations outside of Europe
???
Dang I didn’t know there were successful communist nations in developing countries.
Funnily enough, two started off as developing and ended up as world superpowers.
I’m assuming your talking about Russia and China I think it very fare to criticise them, considering they are both totalitarian nations which don’t respect the needs of there citizens.
The USSR (Soviet Union) and the PRC (China). The USSR is not Russia, and it doesn’t exist anymore.
And of course it’s fair, and in fact important to criticize them. We have the benefit of hindsight and can see how some of their decisions were serious mistakes. On the other hand, it’s also important to analyze what they did good and learn from that too. Neither was perfect, both were improvements, and the terrible fates of Russia and Ukraine after the fall of the Soviet Union is proof of how much good the SU was for its citizens.
which don’t respect the needs of there citizens.
They both inherited countries plagued with regular famine and have both eliminated it. In fact, in 1983 the CIA documented the SU as having a better typical diet than the USA. Clearly they respected the food security of their citizens.
The SU managed to rapidly build low-cost housing after repelling a HUGE invasion of extermination from Nazi Germany. The “commieblocks” were critical in housing people after war. China has also made huge strides in home ownership and elimination of poverty. Meanwhile, poverty and homelessness is increasing under capitalist countries, with them doing little to resolve their housing crises. Clearly they respected the need for shelter of their citizens.
Keep in mind, that both these countries were devastated by world wars and civil wars. Their countries started off in serious crisis and had already had revolutions. If they didn’t respect the needs of their citizens, they would have ended up failed states overthrown by their desperate population or quickly collapsing to invasions.
As for China, the government, despite censorship and political repression, still remains popular among its citizens, according to censorship-resistant US studies[1]. It’s largely avoided war, hugely reduced poverty, and has become a world leader in technology.
There are many valid reasons to criticize these countries and it’s important we do that. But they clearly respected the basic needs of their citizens. There are few other countries which have done more to reduce poverty and homelessness than them.
Thank you for telling me that. I never really thought that communist nations have done good things in the past, I suppose I already knew that about china. But I did not know that about the USSR. There is no education about any good thing communist nations have done well, at least in the curriculum I grew up with. And communism is therefore ingrained in people essentially as a synonym for bad.
Glad I could help :) My curriculum was similar, mine didn’t really talk about communist countries at all, and since a lot of our media like movies come from the US during the Cold War, when their government’s biggest enemies were the Soviet Union and the worker labor movement fighting for more worker rights, those movies often chose communist countries or communists as an easy choice for villains, so there’s a shallow but very widespread and normal idea that those countries are just simply evil, and ours is good. On top of that, most newspapers and television channels are owned by the richest people (mega-millionaires and billionaires, not just middle-class money), rich enough to own or invest in them, and funded by large companies advertising, and usually the people with that much money love how capitalism is working and are threatened by socialism or communism, so they have a self-interest in highlighting all the mistakes of those countries and all the wins of their own. I was amazed that a few years before, the US government was putting out posters like these during World War II, where Russian and Chinese soldiers are celebrated as allies alongside Canadians and English!
On a related point, it’s also important to remember that many people instinctively compare these countries to rich, developed countries like Britain, the USA, and others, instead of comparing them to how they were before and after. I used to do this too, but countries are so different, with different histories, resources and neighbors that it’s usually unfair to simply compare them like that. This short 3 minute clip from a Michael Parenti lecture gives some good examples of this, focusing on their experience talking to Cubans.
trying to remember the whiteboard in that show
Yeah that’s so true there are only 2 politics forever and when one lose the other gain that is so true not
socialism or barbarism baby, and you’re on the side of the barbarians
I am? How is that true?
In the case of capitalism that is literally true. Capital will try to destroy any country, culture, ecosystem or set of beliefs that can’t be exploited, or that threaten it’s ability to exploit. It literally is a case of “you have to pick one, and only one can win.” Liveable planet, or capitalism. No other options, no way to avoid the choice. Not choosing is choosing.
If it wasn’t clear, I abhor this doomer mindset that benefits nobody except the class war leaders and weapons manufacturers. Not a single mention of improvement, only destructive hate and the naive intent that any of that leads to actual community in any participants. Hate binds a war like cult that has utterly forgotten about how humans can help each other and prosper from it. Choosing is choosing. Choosing a hateful side or the other hateful side and never thinking about your own ideas, needs of many, morals and ethics, or your own belief is utter disgrace and folly
That doomer mindset that benefits nobody except the oligarchs, the mindset of…pointing out that the oligarchs are oligarchs? Genuinely confused here. You seem to be interpreting physical observations are some kind of provocative personal statement. Slug and salt physically cannot coexist. Flame and gunpowder physically cannot coexist. Capitalism and a healthy, peaceful living world physically cannot coexist. Pointing this out is no more “hateful” than pointing out that 6 times 7 is 42.
Choosing a hateful side or the other hateful side and never thinking about your own ideas, needs of many, morals and ethics, or your own belief is utter disgrace and folly
The needs of the many is actually our whole thing here, and the thing about the needs of the many is that if you actually take it seriously, what usually happens is that the sideliners who have spent much less time examining the facts will call you hateful for pointing out that the hell empire built on mass-subjugation is unsurprisingly the primary obstacle to the world we want. And that a house with a rotten foundation stands no hope of reconstruction.
While bewildered, I really am trying to approach this openly, which is why ive gone back and softened a couple embarassing redditisms in the edit. So genuinely, and in a spirit of understanding: what is your critique of my assessment?
I have a cold and clear hate towards capitalism. It cuts surgically and makes a difference. Your screaming flailing buckshot is a good product for rage bait and political pundits to consume. Learn to not be an extreme capitalist creation that rolls around bouncing against it’s playground fence. The only game that wins is to not play and climb out. You afford no energy toward actual revolution or change or demand or function or policy or anything in this rant, and nobody that reads it is inspired to do it either. You benefit the status quo which is hyper capitalist. If your focus is destructive and nothing else, in an actual uprising you will not help and even hinder it’s progression. Nobody wants to dismantle only for dismantling, all persons need cause and just inspiration for the actual replacement that will stand in its place. 60% debating philosophy, 20% condemning 20% war cry. Take a small piece of policy and put it in there, and watch the change it makes. Then, swap out your statements incrementally until they are 100% policy. Replacement policy. This is a real path should you tire of trudging in this insane climate
Got it, content of critque=
Okay okay, for real. You seem to think that because I recognize the necessity of uprooting capitalism, I have nothing positive to replace it with? Cause brother lemme introduce a concept you may have heard of before;
I don’t think anything about you. I am critiquing what you are saying. It is a handful of childish statements and reveals a critical need for education
There are two classes, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. There’s myriad bourgeois ideologies and myriad proletarian ideologies. When the proletarians come to power, the bourgeoisie oppose their ideology and their state. That’s true of third world communist projects.
Nope, there are as many people and they are different. The buregoise are a plague a systematic plague and you help them by having a class war that they become desperate to win. We can have beneficial policy and support each other while dismantling the oligarchy without being feral assholes ourselves
What are you talking about? The “peaceful” status quo is already a class war. Capitalism is devouring the planet by creating conditions that will inevitably displace hundreds of millions of people as ecosystems collapse over the next ~20 years. I don’t even want to imagine how many people are going to die of starvation, heat stroke, or gunned down at the borders by the fascist stormtroopers. That is a level of violence that no socialist state has ever unleashed on the world, not even in WW2. There is no “beneficial policy.” Capital only responds to profit, that’s why workers strike instead of appealing to the good nature of their employers. Don’t you think the same applies to the whole system? The capitalists, executives of energy companies for example, have known they were destroying the world for decades. In the early 2000s they were writing letters to the Bush admin asking the government to put stronger regulations on them, because capital is entirely incapable of stopping itself from the race to the bottom, to make the most profit possible out of the exploitation of labor and natural resources. You should seriously consider how possible it is to stop these processes without revolution.
Why should I consider that when I haven’t expressed that standpoint? What do you mean there exists no “beneficial policy”? There is a class war yes and I aim to win it. You seem to want to attack random people with facts you absorbed about how bad capitalism is. Rage bait consumer is just another hook in capitalism you eat greedily. You give nothing to improve or develop an actual communist uprising except hatred. Why should I be lashed you imagine as if I am a pig of the greediest cunts? You have zero interest in actually growing political movements and culture, and an intense fire at breaking society down. It is symptomatic of capitalism and you will most likely not be freed from it by dismantling anything but will carry this hate your life out and point it to new things until it kills you. Your hate is manufactured and consumed just like any capitalist product
The buregoise are a plague a systematic plague and you help them by having a class war that they become desperate to win.
These were your words from the previous comment. Are you against class war or not?
And when I say there’s no beneficial policy I mean you won’t ever get lasting reforms by electing better politicians, you’ll just get temporary concessions that will be taken away the next time there’s a crisis. I think looking at the fall of European social democracy since the dissolution of the USSR should prove my point: European workers opted for just getting “beneficial policy” instead of revolution, and now the benefits are gone.
Against class war? What does that matter for our discussion? There is a class war going on right now.
If there is no benificial policy, you should not argue or fight any revolution. Why do you keep talking about cases where there is concession with hyper capitalist corpos as if that is what defines beneficial policy? What are you smoking?
I thought when you were talking about fighting for beneficial policy what you meant was running electoral races trying to elect progressive candidates. IMO the better way to describe a revolutionary state is that it’s a whole new system with a different structure, it’s not just a matter of “policy.” Talking purely in terms of policy is missing the forest for the trees.
It seems like you think I want some kind of idiotic peaceful revolution? Or why post that?
You never explained what you believe in. You just came here with a kneejerk reaction to the meme that criticizes the way westerners often do want an idiotic peaceful revolution, when we explained why we disagreed with your reaction you have just been on a tirade against “hate” which is deeply anti-materialist. If you agree with the revolutionary agenda then by all means, I’m sorry for dogpiling you, but you shouldn’t spend so much energy arguing against people who also agree with you on the broad strokes?
How can you possibly read what amounts to “consider the context of your beliefs” and decide to leave this sarcastic, nonsense comment?
My beliefs is that capitalism is an abhorrent apocalyptic cult. The text says I should consider so I considered. I realised I don’t care about fucking bickering about “the other side” because it’s childish. I want to only talk about benefits of policy that is fully opposing capitalism
So what does any of this have to do with the OP? You’re the one bickering and being childish here. You’ve not said anything of substance and simply left a sarcastic comment.
Nope, I am engaged in political debate. Only you have chosen to bicker and that shit you care to focus on instead. Want to answer or is this just another walk over?
Lmao your very first comment ended in “not” like a teenager in 1992, are you sure you haven’t chosen to bicker? Also answer what? That’s the first question you’ve asked me in this grand political debate you are engaged in.
I am hard pressed to think of any Americans older than twenty five that I have ever met IRL that was truly opposed to colonialism. High-schoolers and college students; sure. That’s about it though.
EDIT: To be clear, I am not defending colonialism. I just don’t think most Americans understand or think about its impact. Out of sight. Out of mind.
This l find a general attitude among the Westerners.
May I recommend a book: The Jakarta Method, by Vincent Bevins. Humanized Communism in a way that profoundly changed my thinking.
Name one successful communist movement.
The PRC is quite obviously the easiest example, but I’d say every existing Socialist system has achieved remarkable success in the face of horrible opposition.
I’m willing to take the bait, but first re-read the meme and tell me what you missed?
I didn’t miss anything. I just see people throwing their opinions around without providing any supporting data.
I see that OP posted a long list of links in the comments to support their point of view. I haven’t read them yet, so I can’t say I agree or not, but now their opinion is not completely invalid.
I haven’t read them yet, so I can’t say I agree or not, but now their opinion is not completely invalid.
The state of liberal “intellectualism”.
Go read them
Vietnam, Cuba, PRC, DPRK, USSR (for 80 years at least). All of them defeated either US, Japanese, French, and German imperialists, and uplifted their people despite the US never letting up.
The PRC’s acheivements:
- Uplifted more people out of poverty than any country in history, so much so that if we remove the PRC from rankings, world poverty would be increasing.
- Eliminated Urban Poverty. On track to eliminate all poverty within a decade.
- CGTN documentary - China’s war on poverty
Some of the USSR’s acheivements:
- USSR had a more nutritious diet than the US, according to the CIA. Calories consumed surpassed the US. source. Ended famines.
- Productive forces were not organized for capital gain and private enrichment; public ownership of the means of production supplanted private ownership. It was illegal to hire others and accumulate personal wealth from their labor.
- Had the 2nd fastest growing economy of the 20th century after Japan. The USSR started out at the same level of economic development and population as Brazil in 1920, which makes comparisons to the US, an already industrialized country by the 1920s, even more spectacular.
- Free Universal Health care, and most doctors per capita in the world. 42 doctors per 10k population, vs 24 in Denmark and Sweden, 19 in US.
- Had near zero unemployment, continuous economic growth for 70 straight years. The “continuous” part should make sense – the USSR was a planned, non-market economy, so market crashes á la capitalism were pretty much impossible.
- USSR moved from 58.5-hour workweeks to 41.6 hour workweeks (-0.36 h/yr) between 1913 and 1960
- USSR averaged 22 days of paid leave in 1986 while USA averaged 7.6 in 1996., 2
- In 1987, people in the USSR could retire with pension at 55 (female) and 60 (male) while receiving 50% of their wages at a at minimum. Meanwhile, in USA the average retirement age was 62-67.
- All education, including university level, free. 2
- 99% literacy.
- Saved the world from Fascism, Taking on the majority of Nazi divisions, and killing 90% of Nazi soldiers. Bore the enormous cost of blood and pain in WW2 (25M dead), with the bloodiest battles in the history of warfare.. An estimated 70% of Soviet housing was destroyed by Nazi invasion. Nazis were in retreat after the battle of Stalingrad in 1942, a full 2 years before the US landed troops in normandy.
- Doubled life expectancy. Eliminated poverty.
- Combatted sex inequality. Equal wages for men and women mandated by law, but sex inequality, although not as pronounced as under capitalism, was perpetuated in social roles. Very important lesson to learn.
- Combatted Racial inequality.
- Feudalism to space travel in 40 years. First satellite, rocket, space walk, woman, man, animal, space station, moon and mars probes.
- Soviet power production per capita in 1990 was more than the EU, Great Britain, or China’s in 2014.
- Housing was socialized by localized community organizations, and there was virtually no homelessness. Houses were often shared by two families throughout the 20s and 30s – so unlike capitalism, there were no empty houses, but the houses were very full. In the 40s there was the war, and in the 50s there were a number of orphans from the war. The mass housing projects began in the 60s, they were completed in the 70s, and by the 70s, there were homeless people, but they often had genuine issues with mental health.
- 66% of Russians polled in 2015 want the USSR back. The story is the same for all the former eastern-bloc countries: 72% of Hungarians say their country is worse off now than under communism, 57% of East Germans, 63% of Romanians, 77% of Czechs, 81% of Serbs (for Yugoslavia), 70% of Ukrainians, 60% of Bulgarians.
You either never went.to cuba or you are bending reality to fit your narrative.
Also, are you uaing the USSR as EXAMPLE?! you need better undertanding of people’s lifes befora talking shit. I have many friends that lived in the USSR and NONE of them.feel it was good at all
Edit: Americans angry at other non americans because they live in a hellscape. Just vote better dudes. Comunism doesn’t work but having a country with socialist politics like Free healthcare, free universities, labour laws and retirement support is amazing (believe me I know, I live in one of those)
Be less angry and Be better my american dudes!
Cubans are more satisfied with their political system than americans
According to a bunch of polls, in the majority of former eastern block countries most of the population (as high as 70% and no lower than 40%) think life under socialism was better. Also, you were literally given a big list of sources for the USSR example. But clearly didn’t bother reading any.
2 things can be true at the same time. Im not american i dont care. But saying ussr and cuba are amazing shows that you are very very young or very uninformed
You’re a big fan of Cuba under Batista then?
Tim Pool ass comment
The DPRK defeated the US despite it killing 1 out of every 5 people, and having nearly half their country destroyed:
Vietnam suffered similar ruthless civilian bombing campaigns and massacres, and defeated the US.
Why are you arguing that their military movement is what made them successful? Vietnam is successful from their governance not because many died.
Vietnan won militar combat against 3 imperialist countries, if you havent heard about it
Yes, that’s literally what I responded to. Governance is their real success story is my obvious point
I don’t understand. Nearly every successful anti-colonial revolution in the 20th century was communist or Marxist influenced, Vietnam was no different. Vietnam was successful because their decades long struggle against french and US imperialism, guided by Marxist theory.
My clear point was a revolution is one thing but running the country so well ever since is their real success story :)
Ah my bad, yes I agree, both are success stories.
Militarily driving out the French and Burger imperialists was a prerequisite for their governmental success. After all, if they hadn’t done that, they wouldn’t be governing themselves in the first place.
unironically calling the DPRK a success
Typical arrogant chauvinism, that this very meme highlights.
Just go live there.
Yes
You can look at China right now, especially in the context of the US basically shitting the bed completely, and see success. It also depends on what you’re using to determine what “success” is. If the marker for comparison is a capitalist country… lol we see how well that’s playing out.
No system or place is perfect, but the US has trillions of dollars at its disposal and does zero for its people. Meanwhile, even folks with a meager income can live a comfortable life in China. I’ve heard this verbatim from Americans that have lived there—some of which for 15+ years.
@ceryxia @dessalines
That depends on what you mean by “successful.” Successful at achieving communism? None of them so far. Successful at overthrowing capitalism? Many of them. Successful at maintaining the dictatorship of the proletariat and preventing it from becoming revisionist or reactionary? A few, such a Cuba and North Korea.It really depends on how you define “successful.” If your measure of success is based on how closely these societies resemble Western, liberal, capitalist societies, then, yeah, you’re probably not going to see a whole lot of “success,” but that’s not what these revolutionary movements were trying to achieve. I would say that first and foremost what essentially every communist movement was striving for was just autonomy and independence, and many have been successful in that regard. Vietnam is an independent nation, instead of a French colony. China, similarly, is no longer under the thumb of the British. You may not like what these nations do with their autonomy, but that is what they were striving for and they have achieved it.
I have a better one:
About all politics. No exceptions.
Signed: Brazilian.
I like how the circle also looks like America and Hawaii and parts of Canada are not included lol
The capitalism can not spread where the ice flows and the coconuts reign.
My only complaint is that the Baltics aren’t included in the Shut The Fuck Up Zone.
Is that a whale
The “Shut the Fuck Up Gringo” whale.
Wow. Not everyone agrees with what’s going on, so let’s alienate those people too, because they live there. This is some wild stuff. Oh, NM, this is .ml lol
Also, with your SFT being super corrupt, deforestation of the Amazon, Indigenous land rights and illegal mining, and the military getting involved in politics, and a slew of other issues in Brazil. Maybe look inwards before trying to silence others.
Everywhere has issues.
… And a swing and a miss
…no? Pretty spot-on.
Why? What’s your wisdom you’d like to share with us socialists outside of the imperialist countries?
