Comment on .ml has got to be the only place on earth where I'd get downvoted for a comment like this

• Alcoholicorn@mander.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  70 years under siege. We’ve seen what happens when counterrevolutionaries win, it looks like modern Russia.

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  • trxxruraxvr@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    If that was a siege then every country in the world was under siege by either the US or the USSR at that time.

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    • Alcoholicorn@mander.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      There’s a fundamental difference between the side supporting democratic movements all over the world and the side arming dictators and terrorists to suppress any democratic movements and overthrow democratic governments.

      Capitalism necessitates imperialism to maintain the rate of profit.

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      • trxxruraxvr@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        Nice strawman, but all the non-capitalist countries are still stick with dictators.

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    • Amnesigenic@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Half right

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• frisbird@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  And in those 70 years, at the height of the GULAG population, they still didn’t come close to the USA’s domestic use of authority. The USA, just considering prison population, imprisons more people per capita than nearly any other country in the world, and more than the USSR did. But that’s just prison population. The USA is also the only country in the world that charges prisoners hundreds of dollars per day just to be in prison. At least in the GULAG system every prisoner made minimum wage for the labor they did and they came out of prison with a savings account. The US also uses prison slave labor to produce over $11B annually in profits for the state and private corporations.

  But again, that’s JUST prison population. The US also has the largest parole system in the world and it’s 2x bigger than the US prison system. People on parole are monitored, surveilled, and controlled by the state. They have to work to pay back their prison debts and the state “garnishes their wages” or, said another, way steals their money. The US has the worst recidivism rates in the world as well.

  So when you say the USSR was authoritarian for 70 years, are you also willing to say that the US has been authoritarian for decades as well? Or is it different because people get to vote for whoever will preside over the expansion of the prison system?

  Not to mention police budgets. If you combined all the local police budgets across the country it would be the third largest military in the world. The NYC police budget is larger than the DPRK’s military budget including their nuclear program. The ICE budget expansion makes federal police another military-equivalent putting them in the top 10 largest militaries. So the the US holds number 1, number 3, and number 7ish of the largest militaries in the world, 2 of whom it uses domestically and it’s not authoritarian?

  Black people and indigenous people have been trying to tell the rest of the world just how authoritian the USA is. Maybe the issue here is that you’re part of the privileged group of people who just don’t experience the authoritarianism all around you.

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  • trxxruraxvr@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Yes, the US was also bad. That doesn’t mean the ussr didn’t fail and always was a dictatorship.

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    • frisbird@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      So when the CIA said that Stalin wasn’t a dictator but rather a captain of a team, and when the entire constitution of the USSR allowed for recalling of politicians, and when they built very complex voting systems that dwarfed anything the West has ever done? And when Stalin tendered his resignation 3 times and the bureaucracy rejected it three times? And when he died owning almost nothing and as a national hero? And when Kruschev took office despite being deeply opposed to Stalin and leading a faction that opposed Stalin’s faction?

      Remember that Kruschev was appointed the same way every prime minister is appointed, by election from all the other ministers in the central committee.

      The central committee was in turn elected by delegates who in turn were elected by the people.

      So no, the USSR was not always a dictatorship. But more to the point, it was less authoritarian than the USA

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• Amnesigenic@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  The USSR was not free to implement anything dumbass

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• umbrella@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  they went through a major world war with a big part of the victims and were hostilized by the us for the next decades, just like every other socialist country that dares.

  lift the cuban embargo and see them flourish (you won’t)

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