Keeponstalin
@Keeponstalin@lemmy.world
- Comment on What can US citizens do to fight/prevent their country enabling genocide? 1 day ago:
Check for any local organizations such as DSA. Their mailing lists can keep you posted on protests near you
- Comment on What can US citizens do to fight/prevent their country enabling genocide? 1 day ago:
The No Thanks app let’s you can barcodes to quickly check if a product is on the BDS list. You can also search. Either way it only takes a few seconds to check if unsure about a brand
- Comment on History Channel 1 week ago:
ScienceDirect is ‘an independent socialist magazine’? Lmao, that’s hilarious. That’s where those latest quotes were from. Monthly Review publishes articles from many credited economists, sociologists, and historians. You’re reactionary (lack of) understanding of what socialism is doesn’t change that reality. You’re responses make you seem incapable of reading more than a single sentence, missing the rest of the entire paragraph, let alone paper.
Dylan Sullivan is an Adjunct Fellow and PhD candidate in the Macquarie School of Social Sciences, Macquarie University, where he teaches politics, sociology, and anthropology.
Jason Hickel is an author and Professor at the Institute for Environmental Science & Technology (ICTA-UAB) at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. He is also a Visiting Professor at the International Inequalities Institute at the London School of Economics, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He serves on the Climate and Macroeconomics Roundtable of the US National Academy of Sciences, the advisory board of the Green New Deal for Europe, the Rodney Commission on Reparations and Redistributive Justice, and the Lancet Commission on Sustainable Health.
Richard Wolff, another economist, explains socialism in a very clear and comprehensive way. If you’re not intellectually curious to entertain Richard Wolff, I’m done responding. On the other hand, I’m happy to engage with someone interested in learning and discussion.
- Comment on History Channel 1 week ago:
Given these issues, it is clear that the standard public narrative about the history of extreme poverty needs reassessment. In this paper we assess this narrative against three indicators of welfare (real wages, human height, and mortality) for five world regions (Europe, Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and China) from roughly the 16th century onward. These datasets point to three conclusions:
First, it is unlikely that 90% of the global population lived in extreme poverty prior to the rise of capitalism. Historically, unskilled urban labourers in all regions tended to have wages high enough to support a family of four above the poverty line by working 250 days or 12 months a year. Extreme poverty seems to arise predominantly in periods of severe social and economic distress, like famines, wars and institutionalized dispossession, particularly under colonialism. Rather than being the natural condition of humanity, extreme poverty is a symptom of social dislocation and displacement. It is important to emphasize that the data here focuses on extreme poverty, as it is defined in the relevant literature, not the higher consumption thresholds that are required to achieve “decent living” today (e.g., Edward, 2006, Kikstra et al., 2021).
The second conclusion is that the rise of capitalism coincided with a deterioration in human welfare. In every region studied here, incorporation into the capitalist world-system was associated with a decline in wages to below subsistence, a deterioration in human stature, and a marked upturn in premature mortality. In parts of Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia, key welfare metrics have still not recovered.
Our third conclusion is that in those regions where progress has occurred (as opposed to recovery from an earlier period of immiseration), it began much later than the Ravallion/Pinker graph suggests. In the core regions of Northwest Europe, welfare standards began to improve in the 1880s, four centuries after the emergence of capitalism. In the periphery and semi-periphery, progress began in the mid-20th century. Further research is needed to establish the causal drivers of these improvements, but existing data indicates that progress was achieved with the rise of organized labour, the anti-colonial movement, and other progressive social movements, which organized production around meeting human needs, redistributed wealth, and invested in public provisioning systems
- Comment on History Channel 1 week ago:
If one starts from the assumption that extreme poverty is the natural state of humanity, then it may appear as good news that only a fraction of the global population lives in extreme poverty today. However, if extreme poverty is a sign of severe social dislocation, relatively rare under normal conditions, then it should concern us that - despite many instances of progress since the middle of the 20th century - such dislocation remains so prevalent under contemporary capitalism. Depending on the subsistence basket one uses to measure poverty, as of 2008, between 200 million and 1.21 billion people live in extreme poverty (Moatsos, 2017, Moatsos, 2021; see also our discussion in Appendix VI).18 While direct comparisons with the wage data are difficult because of the variety of baskets used, this suggests that under contemporary capitalism hundreds of millions of people currently live in conditions comparable to Europe during the Black Death (Figure 4, Figure 5), the catastrophes induced by the American genocides (Figure 7) and the slave trade (Figure 9), or famine-ravaged British India (Figure 11). To the extent there has been progress against extreme poverty in recent decades, it has generally been slow and shallow.
Conclusions
In sum, the narrative that the rise of capitalism drove progress against extreme poverty is not supported by empirical evidence. On the contrary, the rise of capitalism was associated with a notable decline in human welfare, a trend that was only reversed around the twentieth century, when radical and progressive social movements sought to gain some control over production and organize it more around meeting human needs. As for the condition of extreme poverty, it cannot legitimately be used as a benchmark for measuring progress. Extreme poverty is not a natural condition, but an effect of dispossession, enclosure, and exploitation. It need not exist anywhere, and certainly should not exist in any just and humane society. It can and must be abolished immediately. If our goal is to achieve substantive improvements in human welfare, progress should be measured against decent living standards and access to modern amenities. Capitalism currently shows no signs of ever meeting this objective, and imperialist dynamics in the world economy seem actively to prevent it. As we have seen, the historical record is clear that public planning and socialist policy can be effective at delivering rapid economic, technological, and social development. Rediscovering the power of this approach will be essential if Global South governments are to increase their economic sovereignty and mobilize production to ensure decent lives for all.48 Achieving this objective requires building political movements of the Southern working classes and peasantries powerful enough to replace governments that currently are captured by political factions aligned with national or international capital; reducing reliance on core creditors, currencies, and imports; and establishing South-South alliances capable of withstanding any retaliation. Progressive formations in the core should be prepared to support and defend these movements.
- Comment on Trump official declaring ‘anyone who preaches hate for America’ will be deported worries users: ‘They just skip the First Amendment’ 4 weeks ago:
Someone need to drag this to the supreme court before legally innocent people get targeted and deported.
That’s already happening, they’re getting tortured in El Salvador. No due process, just sending people straight to the camps for their speech, protests, or looks
- Comment on ‘Snow White’ Banned in Lebanon Due to Gal Gadot Being on Country’s ‘Israel Boycott List’ 4 weeks ago:
As far as I can tell when she served she only helped trained the troops who were committing the war crimes on-the-ground.
She’s also been steadfast in her support for Israel, promoting the propaganda about the mass systematic rapes by Hamas on Oct 7th which no evidence of has come to light in over a year. While also having nothing to say about the systemic torture and rapes of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons, which include the torture and sexual assault of Palestinian children, and silence about the genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. She served the IDF for 2 years and is still a steadfast supporter. That shows she is aware of the war crimes the IDF commits and supports them. Otherwise she would be on Breaking the Silence.
forward.com/…/gal-gadot-snow-white-israeli-palest…
Her going on actual raids in Lebanon or piloting the bombs or air strikes is not a requirement for people to boycott or Lebanon to ban the movie.
If people in the 1930-40s boycotted a movie featuring a soldier that served in Nazi Germany (because of the acts of Nazi Germany), despite that soldier not seeing action, that would be just as justified. Especially if that soldier still supported Nazi Germany.
- Comment on ‘Snow White’ Banned in Lebanon Due to Gal Gadot Being on Country’s ‘Israel Boycott List’ 4 weeks ago:
They either have the choice of deferring and spending 1-2 months in jail, or serving and committing crimes against humanity.
- Comment on How do the Republicans feel about Project 2025 now? 1 month ago:
YouGov has good data
I don’t see any drastic changes on Trump’s approval, but there’s unfavorablity across the board otherwise
- Comment on I'm sure people fall for this type of greenwashing all the time... 2 months ago:
Is the text ULTRA Concentrated not clear?
- Comment on The creator of upcoming life sim Inzoi says he was "recklessly brave to even think about creating a game of this scale" 2 months ago:
To be fair, at least No Man’s Sky followed thru with all the updates down the line. Should’ve launched like that, but at least they added it all for free after the terrible launch
- Comment on Receipt checkers trigger me 2 months ago:
The premise that stupidity is inherited from parents is one based on eugenics and false. It’s still a funny movie, but it’s also important to recognize that it is based on a false premise
- Comment on [deleted] 2 months ago:
Some great videos on the subject:
Franz Fanon vs Identity Politics
- Comment on What are the democrats actually doing to help? 2 months ago:
What? Leeja Miller has no illusions about Trump being a fascist , Project 2025, or how Trump’s 2nd term will ruin Democracy. She’s a lawyer, so you won’t see her advocating for a violent uprising. She’s focused on what to do within our current institutions to fight back against Trump and Fascism. If you’re looking for revolutionary thought, I would highly recommend Franz Fanon
- Comment on What are the democrats actually doing to help? 2 months ago:
I highly recommend Leeja Miller to understand what needs to be done and how much of that the Democrats are doing currently
- Comment on Nature is healing 2 months ago:
- Comment on Nature is healing 2 months ago:
If you’re happy about mass deportations, you’re genuinely a fascist
- Comment on "Star Trek is dying." How would you sell it to a younger audience? 2 months ago:
Nice
- Comment on I wonder how things are going in America today... 3 months ago:
Not really when your mentioning conservative values as a counter balance to progressivism. I’m glad you clarified but it certainly didn’t come off that way
- Comment on I wonder how things are going in America today... 3 months ago:
You mentioned conservative values multiple times, so I took that at face value
- Comment on I wonder how things are going in America today... 3 months ago:
When you mentioned conservative values of not relying on outside sources, that’s what I thought of due to the historical context of individualism that the video goes over. Didn’t mean to imply you were personally against those things.
I’m talking about like, not participating in the economy as much. Growing your own food, relying on yourself as much as possible
I’m guessing you’re referencing reducing personal consumption? I’m supportive of that, the idea is rooted in anti-capitalist sentiment. Growing your own food is just a fun hobby, I don’t think that has any real political leaning. Food Cooperatives with local communities, such as a neighborhood garden, are left-leaning tho.
Conservatives have historically used the rhetoric of “relying on yourself, not others” to justify gutting social services and replacing them with private businesses as a way to accelerate profit seeking.
No, community driven is great. I want to do more myself
- Comment on I have $5 genuine United States dollars here. 3 months ago:
Hold. In a week you’ll have $7
- Comment on I wonder how things are going in America today... 3 months ago:
such as individuals wanting to support themselves without relying on outside sources
You mean we shouldn’t have social welfare programs?
No public healthcare, no public housing, no public infrastructure, no public health services, no free public education, no universal basic income
How are any of these bad?
- Comment on Why do some people assume all immigrants are illegal and should "go back to where they came from"? Shouldn't that logic apply to all non-Native Americans? 3 months ago:
It’s origins (and current day continuation) are in white nativism which of course intersects with the white supremacist and American exceptionalism sentiments that has been around since the origins of the US
- Comment on "Border Czar" Tom Homan unveils new deportation plan 4 months ago:
I know. It isn’t about existence. It’s about doing things through the appropriate legal channels. The entire world isn’t entitled to live in the US, just like the entire population isn’t entitled to drive on public roads or practice medicine.
Illegal immigration is a symptom of a broken legal immigration system. This is by design by both Republican and Democratic Administrations for decades for the benefit of corporations. Illegal immigrants do not desire to be here illegally. If they were able to come through legal channels, they would, but that’s not possible with our current legal channels.
Not only that, but there was a skyrocket of asylum seekers during this administration. They’ve combined to create a system in which people are used as balls in a shell game while their asylum cases are pending. This never should have happened in the first place.
It shouldn’t, but it’s intentional to perpetuate the two-tier immigration system for cheap labor. We need an expedient system to process everyone properly without denying them entry.
The solution to millions of people breaking the law is not to get rid of the law. Reform the process? Absolutely. But the government saying “We don’t care that you broke the law” for years got us to where we are now. Once our systems aren’t under such severe strain any longer, then we can make clearer decisions about who to let in.
You’re acting as if these people are breaking the law intentionally, instead of the law being unjust and used to exploit these people because of their desperate circumstances. Reforming the response from deportation to processing is entirely my point. And the process for legal processing needs reform too, as I mentioned before. The strain it’s under is deliberate and by design, it’s not an accident.
We certainly should make the facilities humane, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t exist. People aren’t being put there to be worked to death or exterminated. It isn’t fascist any more than normal prisons are.
There is no ethical way to have concentration camps. Nor is there any legitimate reason to have them. US prisons literally use slave labor, so that’s not really helping your point.
Legalization wouldn’t necessarily end their systematic abuse. It would, however, encourage illicit employers to continue seeking new immigrant employees and disregard citizens in the process. That’s not good for anyone other than the people running these businesses.
Legalization would give them the same worker rights that regular Citizens have. Not to say US citizens aren’t systematically abused by corporations either, but that illegal immigrants are abused even more.
Why is one city spending more on a problem that Biden created than Biden is on a problem that’s existed for decades? It’s likely that the impact of immigration and asylum seeking falls somewhere between the Cato Institute’s numbers and FAIR’s.
Because neither the Democratic Party nor the Republican Party care about people anymore than they can be used for exploitation by corporations to increase profits. Homelessness is a systemic issues that’s due to the privatization of housing, pricing millions of people out of affording the basic necessity that is shelter. Instead of helping them with Housing First, the US criminalizes homeless and exploits them through the prison system.
The two-tier immigration system is far more profitable, by magnitudes more than the costs to accommodate them.
It doesn’t help that the Biden admin is unpopular in general, as is the media that’s been running its cover for the last four years. Even if the admin had a response, barely anyone would have listened. As far as I’m concerned, they deserved to lose that trust
Definitely. Both parties work at the behest of the donor class, of capitalist owners who’s only interest is accumulating more capital by any means. Leeja Miller has a good video on why right-wing populism scapegoats immigrants.
- Comment on "Border Czar" Tom Homan unveils new deportation plan 4 months ago:
Illegal immigrants are not illegal because they want to be. The issue is with the legalization process, which being artificially long to the point of years and the circumstances of seeking asylum attribute to illegal immigration. Deportation does not solve anything, legalization does.
Neither is crime inherent to any ‘race’ or ‘culture’ that is a completely racist idea that has no bases in reality. Crimes comes from poverty and is dramatically reduced when uplifting the material conditions, such as access to basic necessities and education. Deportations are not any solution.
- Comment on "Border Czar" Tom Homan unveils new deportation plan 4 months ago:
Regardless of how long they’ve been there, it’s still uprooting millions of people. It’s by definition ethnic cleansing. Uprooting the hundreds of thousands of Israeli settlers in the West Bank would also be ethnic cleansing and unacceptable. That’s not a good solution in any respect other than cruelty
- Comment on "Border Czar" Tom Homan unveils new deportation plan 4 months ago:
Would you say the same thing about people who drive with or without driver’s licenses? Or practice medicine with or without board certification?
A person’s legal existence is not the same as someone practicing without a license. You know that.
The Biden Administration invited people to flood to the country under a revised asylum system that’s created a six year long backlog of asylum cases. There is no reason that refugees from every other nation on earth should go to the US specifically or during this time period other than the President throwing open the doors to them.
We are in agreement that the way Immigration has been handled under Biden has been absolutely terrible. The process to legalization is unnecessarily long and results in this backlog, which only contributes to illegal immigration and increasing costs to process
That starts by enforcing the law and treating people who employ illegal immigrants as criminals themselves. But giving amnesty to everyone who breaks the law only incentivizes people to continue breaking the law. Thus, their illicit employees need to be removed, at least for the time being.
Totally agree that companies that exploit illegal immigrants should be prosecuted.
Illegal immigrants are not illegal because they want to be. The issue is with the legalization process, which we’ve touched on already. Deportation does not solve anything, legalization does. For anyone who does crimes, it’s still more affordable to incarcerate than deport but that’s a very small fraction of immigrants that we’re talking about here.
Define “concentration camp.” They aren’t being rounded up to do forced labor and be executed like in Nazi Germany. Also, is Obama a fascist?
The links I provided have more information. We’re talking about millions of people. I’m certainly against Obama’s cages, it’s completely draconic at the very least if not fascist in some respect.
An economy that would be crippled if slavery was abolished deserves to be crippled. These jobs should go to legal immigrants and citizens
Yes, and the way to do that is through legalization, not deportation.
Are legal immigrants making these contributions, or are illegal immigrants doing so? And if asylum seekers are contributing so much to local economies, then why is NYC sounding the alarm on how costly the current system is to the city? They’re slated to spend $12 billion on the problem over the next three years. Furthermore, Congress has found the current policies have cost over $150 billion, with some estimates going as high as $400 billion. We can’t sustain that kind of spending.
Both, and the sources I provided go into it for both legal and illegal immigrants. That wasn’t congress, that was The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) which is an anti-immigration nonprofit with many ties to white Supremacists and it’s findings are completely flawed the tax burden is closer to $3.3 to 15.6 billion, over a magnitude less than the revenue they help provide. The sources I provided previously go into that.
Also, illegal immigrants categorically do bring in crime, by immigrating illegally
It’s categorically a crime because that’s the entire point of having a two-tier immigration system which I know you don’t agree with. It’s as much as a crime as jaywalking is. It’s an unjust law that only perpetuates the two-tier immigration system. Again, legalization is the way to solve that, not deportation. Legalization would also increase the amount of taxes they would have to pay, like regular citizens.
I don’t care about “white nativism.” I care about the law, our ability to sustain ourselves as a nation, and with limiting security concerns related to bringing in millions of people whose identities can barely be verified at all. None of this has to do with the color of anyone’s skin.
Then I think you’d genuinely find those sources I linked interesting. I’m not attributing the racism to you, but mass deportations are rooted in racism and white nativism and why that connection exists is important to recognize.
The issue isn’t completely cut and dry. Even among people do support legalizing illegal immigrants, almost everyone insists on a background check and over half would require them to have a job
Even within the polls where deportations have majority support, in the same poll, there is much more support for legalization. That contradiction is due to the Biden admin having no counter message against the right-wing framing of the issue since the Dreamers under the Obama campaign
kff.org/…/political-preferences-and-views-on-us-i…
- Comment on "Border Czar" Tom Homan unveils new deportation plan 4 months ago:
The only difference between legal and illegal immigrants are paperwork. There is nothing wrong with people seeking asylum. That is not ‘abusing the system’. There is nothing wrong with immigrants. They are not ‘bringing in crime’ or ‘abusing social services’. They are responsible for less crime per capita than US citizens and contribute far more to social programs than they take out. Not that either of those would justify their forced removal.
The only problem with immigration is that illegal immigrants are exploited with a two-tier immigration system. Where companies, mainly agriculture and construction, exploit them with incredibly low wages and zero worker protections because they know illegal immigrants have no recourse.
Not only would mass deportations result in concentration camps, which is overtly fascist, they would also cripple the US economy by removing that pool of over-exploited labor from US businesses.
Denying asylum and mass deportations come from a white nativist sentiment. There is plenty of evidence that disprove each of those sentiments. The insanity of mass deportations are matched only to the rampant racism used to justify them.
Economic Impact
Myth : Immigrants are a drain on the U.S. Economy and Reducing Immigration would make our economy stronger. Fact : The United States needs immigrants to stay competitive and drive economic growth, Particularly as our economy starts to reopen, individuals who create jobs are absolutely critical to our recovery. Immigrants are innovators, job creators, and consumers with an enormous spending power that drives our economy, and creates employment opportunities for all Americans. Immigrants added $2 trillion to the U.S. GDP in 2016 and $458.7 billion to state, local, and federal taxes in 2018. In 2018, after immigrants spent billions of dollars on state and local, and federal taxes, they were left with $1.2 trillion in spending power, which they used to purchase goods and services, stimulating local business activity. Proposed cuts to our legal immigration system would have devastating effects on our economy, decreasing GDP by 2% over twenty years, shrinking growth by 12.5%, and cutting 4.6 million jobs. Rust Belt states would be hit particularly hard, as they rely on immigration to stabilize their populations and revive their economies.
Taxes and Essential Services
Myth : Immigrants are a burden to essential services like schools, hospitals, and highways. Fact: Immigrants make significant contributions to our economy on virtually every front - including on tax revenue, where they contribute $458.7 billion to state, local, and federal taxes in 2018. This includes undocumented immigrants, who contribute roughly $11.74 billion a year in state and local taxes, including more than $7 billion in sales and excise taxes, $3.6 billion in property taxes, and $1.1 billion in personal income taxes. These billions of tax dollars fund our schools, hospitals, emergency response services, highways, and other essential services. These revenues would increase by $2.18 billion annually if undocumented immigrants were given legal status as part of an immigration reform package. Additionally, immigrants make enormous contributions to Social Security. If current legal immigration levels were cut by 50%, the Social Security fund would lose $1.5 trillion in revenue over the next 75 years.
IRI
> There are 45 million immigrants living in the United States. Making up 14 percent of the national population, immigrants are a vital part of the social, economic, and cultural life of all American communities. > The economic role of immigrants has frequently been misunderstood. On the one hand, immigrants are a big and important part of the economy. And, on the other hand, immigrants are disproportionately concentrated in low-wage jobs. Both things are true at the same time.
Other sources:
They didn’t do this due to public opinion, legalizing illegal immigrants is far more popular than deportation, despite the Democratic Party not doing any counter messaging against the right-wing narrative. They moved to the right at the expense of voters, it gained them zero voters.
- Comment on "Border Czar" Tom Homan unveils new deportation plan 4 months ago:
We’re talking about mass deportations, genius
Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, or religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making the society ethnically homogeneous.