TheOubliette

@TheOubliette@lemmy.ml

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What is it called when you believe the U.S. political parties shouldn’t exist?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Nonpartisan. Though there are not really movements against this, just small nations that ban parties.

  I will push back on your opinions, though. “Division” is not a moral or political quantity. It is not itself good nor bad. Trans people were universally oppressed for centuries. Now they have some protections. This is a consequence of struggle against transphobia, that struggle is inherently a division. There are transphobes and pro-trans people. The pro-trans group should win. For them to win we need to support them materially and in as effectively as possible, which means through organized work. Progress against oppression only occurs through division and struggle. And the best vehicles for this are organizations - basically parties or very similar apparatuses.

  The two-party system is a symptom of deeper problems and they shouldn’t be summarized as division. The two-party system is really just a very effective way for the ruling class (business owners) to achieve their ends while still providing a venue for “the political”, often struggles and oppressions that they personally exacerbated. For example, some of the earliest institutional racism in what would become the US emerged due to worker solidarity and struggle. The ruling class decided to divide and conquer: they created a race-based system, defining a new class corresponding to “black”, who would be the most exploited, and exploiting everyone ekse skightly left. This is not theater, as the oppressed are facing actual oppression, but it is cynical: it’s really about profit maximization and controlling workers. The two-party system makes this kind of thing a constant endeavor, you can spend all of your time invested in struggles imposed by the ruling class and exemplified in the parties, and in doing so never focus on the underlying system that creates it. But of course not every oppression makes its way into this attempt at distraction, as when the oppression is bipartisan (no division in that case but still bad!). For example, both parties are in favor of the genocide of Palestinians and both actively ensure that it happens. A few decades ago both were purely transphobic and did nit evdn exhibit today’s liberal cooption of the struggle (notice that it has slowed down).

  Most importantly, the two-party system prevents popular politics that runs counter to ruling class interests. Their greatest opponents are the left, so the US political system prevents left parties from functioning abd becoming popular. Want to run as a third party? Well the Dems will gladly do a last-minute change to how many signatures you need to gather to get on the ballot. They can meet the number because they will pay people to collect them, but you have to have already prepared a horde of volunteers. Organize a socialist party? They might just plain kill you.

  It is not the existence of parties that is the problem, but the stifling of left parties, of those that can challenge the systemic causes of oppression.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Do I fit into any subculture? (I'm from the UK if that helps)⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Ignore trying to identify and fit into some niche subculture. Instead, just make friends based on your interests. Let any subculture participation emerge naturally. There is no need to granularly define and name and restrict yourself to one thing or social group and this can actually be arbitrarily limiting and divisive.

  For example, find some friends to safely go to music events with. Sounds like that’s something you’d like to do.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Water Boil Advisory⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah by replying I think I’m giving the false impression of taking you seriously, person whi thinks things that happen are impossible.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Water Boil Advisory⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Hmm I never said that.

  This you?

  You drive door to door leaving flyers. […] Why do you think municipal or county staff can’t drive

  Anyway…

  Hey there champ, those are different words meaning different things. Love this strategy of yours known as, “pretend to be less literate than a gradeschooler”, though.

  You’re talking about what Amazon and USPS can do. They can do it (Amazon not every home in a given area) because they’re equipped to. Saying that the water company should be able to cover a town with flyers because USPS goes door to door is about as logical as saying USPS should fix a water main because the water company does it.

  Okay so there’s this thing called paying for goods and services. I know, difficult concept, but stick with me. Companies and agencies with liabolities write things called “contracts” or “budgets” where they pay others to handle needs for goods and services. Such as paying USPS to knock on doors like they often will for packages, leaving behind a flyer. Crazy, I know. There are already municipalities that use Amazon delivery drivers for services due to neoliberal austerity, but that is an actual thing that happens.

  These are just some competent, simple options. They could also use a slew of government workers, contractors, hell they could be lazy asses and supplement with day laborers. The sky’s the limit.

  Now, if the law requires something that will always change the calculus but that doesn’t seem to be the case here

  Oh? How does it change the calculus?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Water Boil Advisory⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Ok, where do you get those 50 people?

  There are places that regularly do this. Where do you think they get enough people to visit and/or mail every address? Who works at the post office? Cops? First responders? Utility workers? Social workers? Delivery drivers?

  This is not just a failure of imagination, it is trying to pretend this kind of operation doesn’t already happen every day right where you live.

  Do you have 50 people sitting around on-call 24/7/365 just in case they need to go knock on everyone’s door?

  Why would they need to?

  Are you taking them off of other jobs to go do this? If this happens at 3AM on a holiday weekend, there’s probably a pretty good reason those other people are already on the clock, like maybe fixing whatever issue is causing the advisory.

  Yes you are taking people off of other jobs to do this. Why would they all be working on the problem that caused the boil notice? Do you think your mailman is cranking on water mains?

  Are we relying on volunteers? How are we going to get ahold of them to let them know, let alone guarantee that they’re actually going to show up.

  If you wanted to use volunteers you would do it by having a group ready to meet up, get trained, and then do these kinds of tasks when needed. You would get their phone numbers in advance and then call around to get together a group. This is how all civil volunteer groups work. Search and rescue. Emergency volunteer firefighters. This is an everyday thing and very basic. Why imply it’s impractical?

  We gonna mobilize the national guard to do it? How long is that gonna take to get going?

  The governor could do that, yes. They mobilize very quickly, they do evacuations for natural disasters. They train for this kind of logistics thing. But sending notice in the mail would be much cheaper.

  Maybe we’ll just press-gang the first 50 people we can get our hands on to do it. What could possibly go wrong?

  “What about [stupid thing]? You’re so dumb for thinking the thing I just made up.”

  But let’s say getting the people is a solved problem. How are they getting around? Not every area is easily walkable.

  The US is car-dependent. You would use cars. Those owned by the authority, municipalities, owned by USPS, cop cars, etc. How do you think your mail works? Purely pedestrian?

  Do we have 50 municipal cars on standby for them to use?

  For an area with 55,000 people? Yes you have 50 vehicles that could be used, though you don’t need 50 because you can do 2-3 per car if you’re doing the door knocking strategy.

  And yes most municipal vehicles are “on standby”. Tons sit in parking lots all day. Ask your county about their staff vehicles and the reservation process.

  Are we going to have additional people driving them around to the needed areas in vans?

  Why would they need to?

  Are they using their personal vehicles and will need to be compensated for gas and mileage (not to mention probably an insurance nightmare for those people using personal vehicles for non-personal use)

  Could be. Depends on exactly how incompetent the water authority is. As we can see, publishing info in the internet equivalent of a dark corner in a broom closet is a strategy they actually went with.

  They are liable for this and can opt for as expensive snd dumb or cheap and efficient of a method they’d like.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Water Boil Advisory⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Naw, I think “but we have cars” was silly, not clever (funny how you dropped that pretty quickly).

  Hmm I never said that. You’d rather make stuff up than acknowledge an everyday thing is actually entirely feasible?

  I think “but you can get people and a plan immediately while also fixing the problem” is silly, not clevet (admittedly places that require certain notices will also have a plan to implement it as required by law, not I’m thinking about wherever OP is which I’m assuming doesn’t have that).

  Thanks for explaining how your idea that this can only be done ad hoc is actually dumb, refuting your own point!

  I think comparing with organizations that need large coverage for their daily operations (not necessarily 100% of homes in a day, mind you) is silly, not clever.

  What are you even talking about? Use your words.

  Feel free to move on.

  But your bad faith obstinance is funny. You can go ahead and ignore my advice and embarrass yourself as much as you’d like.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Water Boil Advisory⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  This is literally something that already happens every day for junk mailers and junk from Amazon and you’re trying to die on the hill of saying it’s basically impossible. There are regions where direct verbal or written notice is required by law. These are things that happen and happen efficiently and in very boring ways, despite your continued attempts to argue about this from the position of, “nuh-uh it’s too hard” ad nauseum.

  And this is in defense of instead publishing this information in a dark corner as if it’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

  “But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?” “Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard’."

  And no, I don’t think the water company would have an army of 50 people ready to do an organized canvas of the town (unlike the Postal Service, which has a roster of dedicated mail carriers)

  Paying 50 people for one day of flyering is an army? How much do you think it costs to send a letter? A water boil notice already means they have failed their own liability and could cause very serious and expensive harms. Yes they have to pay for that (possibly literal) shit.

  Just admit you were being silly, not clever, and move on.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Water Boil Advisory⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  You drive door to door leaving flyers. Small crowds of teenagers and college students do this for political campaigns. Why do you think municipal or county staff can’t drive, knock on doors, or drop flyers? You can easily do 100-200 houses per hour if it’s just flyers and no converdationd. You can do the whole thing in a day with 50 people.

  It feels like you’d think the US Postal Service is an outlandish fairy tale. “They do what!? Drop of letters and packages to every address? That would take years!”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Water Boil Advisory⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  A competent state would go door to door, not make those affected constantly seek out this type of information. It is a basic public healtg failure.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  This video has some nice sentiments but it is also rife with inaccuracies and misleads. Of course, dividing and conquering is a core reason for marginalization, but who drives it? With whom did Nazis or the KKK find purchase? Why were they not suppressed? The deeper social forces, those with power, did not really oppose them, and in fact, they created or leveraged them as needed for their own purposes. Namely in response to the conditions they had already created - and the “they” were the liberal bourgeoisie and capitalism itself.

  The Nazis built their ranks largely from the petty bourgeoisie and their children. The people that were beating up communists and lgbtq people were the sons of shop owners during a time of economic downturn. That downturn was itself created by the forces of imperialism and therefore capitalism: Germany had fought in an imperialist war (WWI) to stake a claim in the imperial core and lost. Its new position was that of an imperialized country in capitalist mode of production, stuck with infinite foreign debt, decreasing wages, and spiraling unemployment. In this context, there were backlashes and attempts to organize. The social democrats gained some power but repeatedly entrenched themselves in the liberal system, reinforcing it and therefore continuing its failures and oppressions. The communists broke with this and took more direct action, taking towns and cities through orgsnizational prowess. The socdems threw the police at them over things like this as well as the proto-fascist jackboots that would become the Nazi Party base, those sons of shop owners. In addition, there were monarchists, liberals, conservative nationalists, and fascists.

  It is in this context that the fascists rose. Not simply by “dividing”, but by reacting to the social forces that threatened a vulnerable bourgeoisie: the communists above all. They absolutely scapegoated minorities, yes, but the social function of the fascists and how they grew was actually their anticommunism. This is why they were funded and why they were tolerated, just like how the cops protect Proud Boys and fight BLM protesters. They serve to protect a subset of private property and are funded to do so. The Nazis did things not dissimilar to the cryptofascists taking their guns to “protect businesses” against BLM-adjascent property damage. But they operated over years of unrest from liberal (capitalist) policies and where it was largely communists that threatened capital.

  The Nazis’ rise shortly before Hitler became chancellor corresponded to two major kinds of events: first, economic downturn and therefore displeasure at the consequences if the capitalist status quo (with which most parties had associated themselves) and repeated decisions to build rightward coalitions against communists and, ultimately, simply give the position of chancellor to Hitler in order to expediently resolve a weak coalition.

  So, when watching this video, literally a propaganda film from the US government’s war department(s), ask whether there is any discussion of the material forces at hand, of political struggle, of anticommunism, of capitalism, of the reasons for economic decay, of who funded and worked with Nazis, and why. They tell a story of the “Aryan German” being taken in by the Nazis because his identity matched their propaganda. But there were many who supported or tolerated Nazis that did not match their propaganda and were even targets of it! They tended to be petty bourgeois or the children of them. The film says normal Germans asked themselves how this happened as if it were a surprise. This is a lie: these were open political developments spanning decades at the forefront of everyone’s minds and were part of active and highly local political struggle. The film peddles the many falsehoods of American mythmaking about freedom and empty ripe land, lies to hide the reality of a country built on settler colonial genocide and racialized chattel slavery. There were people on that “empty” land already, they were killed or driven off by the same governmental organizations that commissioned this film. The film says the land is free and skin color doesn’t matter even while at the same time Jim Crow waa in effect. The film says Nazis outlawed speech and that in America you can say your politics without such retribution and then America launched hard into the Cold War and an anticommunist, anti-black purge. The film says that what made Nazis wrong was race hate and militarism and then just a few yeara after thia film bombed out every population center in the north of Korea directly killing 20% of the population while constantly publishing racist claims against Koreans.

  So yes, absolutely oppose Nazis and race hate. But don’t trust a film like this for a valuable history lesson. You will be unable to recognize the patterns and harma that are currently right in front od you.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The dying empire continues to lash out and pax americana is a myth.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Nazis executing civilians is bad. Partisans executing civilians is bad. A bad action is bad no matter the intention. Insert some quote about how the history is filled with good intentions.

  Again, this is not a serious geopolitical thought.

  Tell the ‘unlawful’ killed that it’s ok, it was a growing power who haven’t attacked someone for a long time and just tries to lift your country out of poverty that bombed you to bits not the cashking warmongerer, and see if they agree with your reasoning.

  Respond to my reasoning in any way whatsoever.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  This is just a stream of rhetorical posturing to avoid ever directly addressing any of the criticisms presented.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I think you missed my point, entirely. I wasn’t saying that governments committing atrocities in other countries versus their own people were any different, morally speaking.

  Then why say “their own people”? It doesn’t make sense. Parent didn’t use that qualifier. Maybe you used it because it is so often used in combination with the other terms? Either way, I am singling out this qualifier because it is a way that PR and propagandistic terms color our thinking. It does not mean I think you were being malicious.

  I was simply pointing out that the quality of life for the working class, and low amount of wealth disparity, etc in this country is largely due to Socialist policies keeping Capitalism in check, and also pointing out that Capitalist policies cause atrocities, in general.

  But these countries don’t have socialist policies! They are capitalist countries run by capitalists and capitalist parties. I already described the causes behind their social safety nets.

  This was in response to the comment saying that countries were hiding atrocities behind the banner of Socialism.

  I understand. I actually interpreted parent as being critical of the Eastern bloc, but I didn’t comment on this.

  Atrocities of any kind are abhorrent and I agree that they need to be denounced.

  I agree in the abstract sense but just like with “their own people”, what gets called an atrocity, how its veracity is established, and how often it enters discourse are all subject to the propaganda we are all immersed in. In addition, the context in whicj atrocities are “denounced” matters. Were the people tallying up lists of Saddam’s crimes in 2003 just denouncing atrocities like good, empathetic humans? Were they not helping to build consent for a much worse invasion? What about the US’ genocidal sanctions on the country for the prior decade plus? We, of course, do not live in a vacuum and what we are told to denounce is often aligned with ruling class agendas.

  The overall topic of this thread is that baby leftists want to keep criticizing and denouncing the targets of US empire that they are told to hate. They have not engaged critically with the denunciations themselves and when others do so they begin insulting and deflecting. And they certainly don’t exist within any project to actually achieve anything against atrocities, because if they did they would be laser-focused on their own country where they can do actual organizing work, which will largely be in the US and Europe.

  As an example of liberals’ having their attention to atrocities dictated by think tanks and imperialist media, we can look to Yemen. I could not get liberals to care about the US-backed bombing campaigns and US blockade of Yemen. Schoolbuses bombed, weddings bombed, basic civilian infrastructure bombed out to attack food, water, and electricity. Aid rotting on ships because the US prevented them from docking and unloading for 8+ months. Nobody even talked about Yemen in the US or Europe. Not regularly. You don’t see lemmy.worlders bringing it up all the time as atrocities you should denounce every time the topic of the US itself comes up. Every time target countries of US empire are mentioned, hiwever, it is time for kneejerk denunciation ans bad faith insults at anyone with a modicum of understanding of geopolitics.

  I also agree with pretty much everything else that you said. Socialism is near dead and dying in Europe.

  It’s gone. It fell with the USSR and then NATO-led balkanization of Yugoslavia. Europe is capitalist.

  I just think that the sprinkle of Social policies that is left in the EU still holds back Capitalism from being quite as horrible as it could be.

  I might agree but I frame it differently. The social policies remain because they are too popular to remove, but capitalism is eating away at them from multiple directions. Privatization is everywhere, as are benefit cuts to siphon into militarization. The latter is only possible due to fearmongering over Russia. But more dangerously, European countries oppress the left, such as banning communist parties or even expressions of solidarity with Palestine. That results in “the discourse” being dominated by liberald and protofascists. But the liberals are presiding over declines in conditions due to capitalism, so when they lose popularity, protofascists gain it. This will produce repeated one-two punches of austerity, dismantling social programs, and scapegoating marginalized people. And all while the US drains Europe’s industrial base. Europe’s utility as a forward base against the USSR is gone and they are now a bloodbag for US’ vampires.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  “Neighbor” was never an important detail, and only someone struggling to string together some type of deflection from the point would focus so deeply on it.

  Neighbor is the only qualifier that makes your claim arguably true for, say, 30-40 years. You included it yourself, I didn’t make you so it. If you get rid of the term “neigbor”, you are simply wrong.

  Instead of running away from it and trying to blame me for noticing, you could just acceot where I am correct and try to synthesize.

  You will get into conflicts and be consistently wrong if this is how you respond to correction.

  The point, as is abundantly clear to anyone with a couple of braincells to rub together, is that these countries are doing that now, as in at this moment, and are targeting civilians, which the person in responding to gladly ignored with their “but no, everyone says Russia is bad” bullshit.

  That applies to several countries, including US-backed Israel and the US-backed reactionaries in Syria, which is why the term “neighbor” does so much work. And in providing that obfuscatory defense, you are doing the thing you claim others are doing, which is excusing and minimizing war and death on civilians.

  And you have the gall to accuse me of making a bad faith argument. Once again, pathetic.

  It requires very little gall. You are putting on quite the display at the moment with the flurry of insults and deflections.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Notice that rather than address the absurdity if an “anarchist” ahistorically defending US imperialism, you’ve decided to make things up on my behalf.

  Kill the Redditor in your brain.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m glad it’s helpful! I could tell that you are trying to figure these things out and apply them in good faith. Happy to answer any questions you might have. Otherwise, just keep reading and challenging yourself!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  So you have no defense for your selective defense of US imperialism and lash out at others when it is noted.

  Anarchist instance btw

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Fools get downvotes here. When the US launches a violent offensive directly on a neighboring independent country with the intent of destroying its people and conquering its land, which NK and Russia are currently trying to do, maybe you’ll have a point.

  “Neighbor” is doing all of the work here, as the US had pushed its frontiers far away from itself for about a century. Of course the US has actually invaded:

  • Canada
  • Mexico
  • Cuba
  • Guatemala
  • Puerto Rico
  • Haiti
  • Hawaii
  • Grenada

  [More but I don’t feel like compiling the full list]

  And some of those in the last half century or so!

  Of course, if you remove the morally meaningless qualifier of “neighbor”, your point goes entirely out the window. I think this is obvious to everyone, including you, so really the question is why the need to lie to yourself about US imperialism? Why downplay it in bad faith?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Shoot… US imperialism is soft-serve ice cream compared to the empires of history.

  Amartya Sen estimated that Indian capitalism killed around 4 million people per year as compared to China’s more planned economy. Indian capitalism was maintained by the British and the US as part of “decolonization” and the superprofits reaped from India and ending up in the US are basically public record.

  This is a larger total number than basically any older empire you can think of.

  Those military bases by and large extend the American security umbrella to protect the host country, not to put its population to the colonial boot and extract wealth.

  Oh sweet summer child. Those are forward bases for US imperialism. They have been used to stage and supply every oppressive US war and to control shipping routes. They don’t all just sit there doing nothing. How much did Vietnam enjoy the “security umbrella” of US bases, again?

  This is just plain dishonest imperislist propaganda.

  Yeah they sort of have to tow the line on US foreign policy

  US bases are a symptom of already being beholden to the US. The people of Okinawa hate the US base there. It is only there because Japsn was conquered in WWII and surrendered to the US, and the US built it into a satellite for harassing Korea, China, and the USSR.

  but it’s a far cry from, say, the Boer enslaving natives in South Africa or Alexander the great wiping out populations who defied him.

  US imperialism is carrying out a genocide in Gaza right now via their ethnic supremacist proxy and just toppled the Syrian state, which will likely go the way of Libya if it doesn’t balkanize first. The US supports its ckient states that engage in slavery, such as the Saudis or Qatat, where South Asian laborers are brought in and their passports stolen.

  The US supported apartheid South Africa in a way that is very similar yo how it supports Israel.

  The US has a long laundry list of dirty deeds, but overall the US “empire” has led to the longest and wealthiest period of global peace and scientific/technical/social advancement in the history of humankind.

  Where is this period of global peace? The US is engaged in constant war. Where is this wealth? If you exclude socialist blocs the trends on poverty reverse. Scientific advancement was global and much of what you could list will have Soviet or Chinese workers behind it.

  That doesn’t excuse anything but neither is it particularly useful to condition our allegiances on utopian absolutes of moral purities. When we do, evil wins (e.g., see recent election where 10M Democratic voters stayed home).

  “If we don’t accept evil, evil wins” just listen to yourself, it doesn’t even make sense in this simplistic form.

  And who are “we”? Your statements place you squarely against those who suffer under global capitalism, dismissive of ongoing genocide. You’re basically doing the Stephen Pinker thing, and he is full of shit in addition to being buddy buddy with Epstein.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  “Both are bad” is not a serious geopolitical thought. Every real project will have negative aspects, so if you reduce your analysis to declaring something bad for having bad aspects you will never be able to discriminate between, say, the Nazis and the partisans who fought them and liberated their countries and concentration camps.

  Or, in this case, being unable to discriminate between the global seat of capital behind basically every single war and an ongoing genocide and a growing power who hasn’t had a war in decades and works to get countries out of IMF debt traps. You prevent yourself and others from seriously contending with how the world works and what place you can have in it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Your instance is full of incurious liberals

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The LGBTQ+ community is not a monolith and you do not speak on behalf of us.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  “against their own people” is a chauvinist attitude. Why would it be particularly bad to oppress people in “their own” country vs other countries? The only way this logic works is if you subscribe to nationalism and are projecting it onto others.

  EU countries overlap with NATO, an aggressive military force that, among other things, destroyed Libya, turning it from the highest HDI African country into a hellscaoe with open air slave markets fought over by warlords. Would it be worse for that to happen to Germany?

  EU countries also still have their own neocolonies. Sahel countries are still trying to kick out the French, who saddled them with debt and still controls their banking systems. Would it be worse if that were happening to French people?

  Finally, there are no socialist countries in the EU, nor “socialistic” countries. Every EU country is run for and by capiralists and by capitalist parties. They have social safety nets left over from the cold war when they were combatting and coopting communists and they are now being slowly dismantled by capital.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  authoritarian regime

  Both of these terms are obfuscstory propaganda that mean a person hasn’t placed enough scrutiny on what they have internalized. That might sound like I am simply attacking you, but I mean this as a way of answering your (combative) question: you want a space where people have some basic ideas about cold war propaganda but where they retain a significant amount of chauvinist framibgs from that propaganda. You can find like-minded people wherever left education arrests itself, which is why you won’t find it in organizations or spaces that require reading on these topics.

  To explain my response, I’ll go over the two words.

  Authoritarian. This word is poisoned beyond clear meaning. Every state is authoritarian, so what is the meaning of calling a particular state authoritarian? Every revolution is authoritarian, so do you also criticize them as such and seek out anti-revolutionary spaces? In reality, I know that this term is just thrown around in chauvinist contexts as a dog whistle. In this context it just means “bad” and “the enemy”. It’s the liberal version of, “they hate us for our freedoms”.

  Regime. This term is synonymous with givernment or state, but just colors it as, again, “bad”. Venezuela must always be described as being led by a regime, not a government. As a target of imperialist propaganda, it must be implicitly propagandized as illegitimate and bad. Think of someone saying, “the Biden regime”. How often do you hear that phrase? If you’ve heard it, it was a socialist trying to make this point and even the playing field.

  If you remove the propaganda aspects, your framing becomes, “still not pretend it isn’t a government”. Becomes less spicy, doesn’t it? Despite having no differences in meaning outside of implying it is bad.

  Finally, Xi didn’t make himself president for life, he must be regularly reelected. The government itself removed term limits in the normal way: with a vote. Imperialist media calls this “president for life” because they are chauvinists. When the US had no term limits, was every president “president for life”? Aren’t term limits antidemocratic, i.e. more authoritarian?

  In short: please do some self-criticism on this internalized chauvinism and you will find it easier to find comrades. You are currently in an incoherent position and that means you’d only find comeradery among the incoherent snd incurious. Be around people that challenge you based on their reading and knowledge.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I recommend backing up a bit so that we can frame these questions.

  One of the more pointless questions anyone asks is a simple binary of, “is XYZ socialist?” Being real people doing real projects in the context of global capitalism and relentless imperial oppression, there is no such thing aa purely socialist, but many things are projects by socialists to advance socialism. When people learn this, they start to use the term as a shorthand: “my communist organization is socialist”, “the Cuban revolution was socialist”, “China is socialist”. These claims only mean that the project is a socialist one. This is different from saying any of those projects have achieved socialism. None of them have and I have yet to meet a socialist who defends China while saying they have achieved socialism.

  So really, this is a question of semantics and language using similar or identical terms with different meanings, and this is one of the reasons why those who read up on the topic have such a dramatically different opinion from those who do not.

  So, for example, China has a stated ambition of becoming socialist within the next 30 years or so, setting concrete targets for what that means. And it is still a socialist project created and maintained by socialists.

  Regarding owning the means of production, this is a Marxist concept. Marx’s postulate was that the ruling class is that which owns/controls the means of production and that society is then crafted according to the interests of that ruling class. Under feudalism, the ruling class was landlords (own/control land), with the major underclass being peasants, serfs (they work the land). Under capitalism , the ruling class is the bourgeoisie, those who own factories, shops, etc and the major underclass is workers, those who work in the factories and shops. Marx hyoothesized that the proletarians who work in ever-concentrated companies would have the capacity to take the means of production by force and then continue running it themselves.

  So why am I giving this crash course in Marxism? Well, because Marx himself described the period in which the working class had seized the means of production from the bourgeoisie not as socialism, but as the dictatorship of the proletariat. A period in which society still functions as capitalist in many ways, as the mode of production has not changed and production itself must be maintained, and the bourgeoisie still exist, but in which the working class has become dominant and can oppress the bourgeoisie. China is firmly in this category, exactly what Marx described as this transitional period of unstated duration, attempting to survive and thrive while under constant pressure from imperialists.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨You don't need to answer this⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Many people do say that I deserve to be murdered, actually. The cool part is that I am right and they are wrong.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨You don't need to answer this⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Nope it is a great, correct, and good way of thinking. These are thieves and murderers and they rarely receive justice.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨You don't need to answer this⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Dead CEOs is a moral good

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I'm not worried you're worried⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  What is the right side of history, dipshit?

  Being against genocide. You should try it sometime.