You people so naive its toxic. Ill leave this here for reference about one of the many examples as to why communism is not the way to go:
Thank me later.
The people who told me that were 100% boomers. There’s that idiotic saying “if you’re not liberal* when you’re 20, you have no heart. If you’re not conservative when you’re 40 you have no brains” ok boomer.
Note this is using the US meaning of liberal, not to mean “capitalist”.
I was slightly conservative when I was young. Now I don’t know what political orientation I have
Any opinions at all?
I don’t know what it’s like to live under communism, but I do know what it’s like to live under capitalism and it’s grip tightens more and more with every passing year.
I don’t think anyone knows what it’s like, was there any communist country which wasn’t also both a dictatorship and poor?
Pretty hard seeing the good and bad of communism when it’s always alongside the two worse things that can happen to a country.
P.S. Wait, actually not the two worse things… there’s also war, and that applies to most of them too.
Have you read my comment?
I know capitalism don’t work, everybody does now.
That has nothing to do with the fact we didn’t manage to have one successful exemple of communism either…
I don’t have a post for this, but also as a testament to China’s poverty alleviation campaigns, world poverty is increasing if we exclude China.
When they write the history of the early 21st century, China’s uplifting of millions of people out of poverty will be one of humanity’s greatest acheivements.
Wrong, from the link I posted:
Capitalist hegemony has short-circuited people into buying wildly illogical and ridiculous propaganda like: “Lift yourselves up by the bootstraps” (which shows the almost religious power of capitalist propaganda, that the impossible can become possible), or “Communism doesn’t work”, when in fact Communism did work extremely well.
Examples from this post by /u/bayarea415, Stephen Gowans - Do publicly owned, planned economies work, Ian Goodrum - Socialism vs Capitalism and quality of life, and yogthos’s USSR acheivements post about the USSR specifically:
- 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.
When it is claimed that a system works, we should ask, who it works for. Capitalism benefits a tiny number of rapacious capitalists, to the detriment of the rest of us, while Socialism works for the masses.
For an overview of the soviet experiment, watch this brilliant talk by Micheal Parenti, or read his article, Left anticommunism, the unkindest cut.
Also read this great article by Stephen Gowans, Do publicly owned, planned economies work?. Audio on youtube
Bonus vid about cyber-communism: Paul Cockshott - Going beyond money.
More sources: Socialism Crash Course, Socialism FAQ, Glossary.
I don’t think anyone knows what it’s like, was there any communist country which wasn’t also both a dictatorship and poor?
Most steadily improved their material conditions and did not have dictatorships.
Pretty hard seeing the good and bad of communism when it’s always alongside the two worse things that can happen to a country.
Explain, please.
P.S. Wait, actually not the two worse things… there’s also war, and that applies to most of them too.
Are you saying most Communist countries intentionally started wars?
Most didn’t? Can you give a few exemples then?
You don’t start a war unintentionally… but i didn’t say start, just being in a war.
Also i don’t imply it was because of communism, my point is that, how can we judge communism if other devastating sociological factors are involved.
Now, i don’t have a point if you say most of them were better for it, but i don’t know any who did so i’d love to educate myself…
A few examples include the USSR, Cuba, PRC, etc. Life standards dramatically improved, life expectancy doubled in the USSR and PRC and jumped around half in Cuba, literacy rates jumped to 99%+ from less than 50% prior, education access, healthcare access, food access, housing access, all dramatically improved. Wealth inequality also fell down dramatically.
Here’s an example of wealth inequality over time in Russia:
And how the Soviet Democratic process functioned:
So USSR was a dictatorship, the country was in ruin after WW2
The 3 factor i mentioned are there.
The data shows what everyone knows, capitalism increase inequality. But what it doesn’t show is how communism made the country improve, because it didn’t.
What i’m saying is, it couldn’t help because of the war and Stalin. We don’t know if it would’ve otherwise.
Cuba again is a dictatorship, and wasn’t rich.
The PRC is a dictatorship, China went on a horrible famine with Mao. Nowadays getting richer only because of how their economy is now fully capitalist.
So let’s say you had significant data that showed it improved some things socially. And let say you somehow managed to prove its causal and not coincidence.
I would still rather not say dictatorships like USSR or PRC are good to live under.
That’s my point, even if communism was good, dictatorship is a plague that makes any system a nightmare.
So USSR was a dictatorship
No, not even the CIA thought the USSR was a dictatorship. You can’t just make unsourced blanket claims based on your emotions.
the country was in ruin after WW2
Yes, they did around 4/5ths of the fighting against the Nazis in totality.
The 3 factor i mentioned are there.
If you conjure them into existence from your imagination, sure.
The data shows what everyone knows, capitalism increase inequality. But what it doesn’t show is how communism made the country improve, because it didn’t.
GDP per capita rose dramatically, wealth inequality dropped massively, life expectancy doubled, literacy rates trippled. The USSR had free healthcare and education, and guaranteed housing and employment. They ended famine, and made it to space from being a semi-feudal semi-industrialized nation 50 years prior. They democratized the government structure. Life absolutely improved not only under Communism, but because of it.
What i’m saying is, it couldn’t help because of the war and Stalin. We don’t know if it would’ve otherwise.
What on Earth are you trying to say? Of course the USSR had to focus on its military to survive, which impeded consumer good production, but life absolutely improved.
Cuba again is a dictatorship, and wasn’t rich.
Cuba is richer than under Batista despite a cruel embargo, and isn’t a dictatorship. You keep throwing out unsourced opinions as though they are facts.
The PRC is a dictatorship, China went on a horrible famine with Mao. Nowadays getting richer only because of how their economy is now fully capitalist.
The PRC practices whole-process people’s democracy, the famine under Mao was the last famine in China’s history of frequent famines, and China is Socialist, it has a Socialist Market Economy based on Socialism With Chinese Characteristics.
So let’s say you had significant data that showed it improved some things socially. And let say you somehow managed to prove its causal and not coincidence.
I have.
I would still rather not say dictatorships like USSR or PRC are good to live under.
You would have sided with the Tsars? The Kuomintang? The Russian Federation? What on Earth are you talking about, here? You’d rather live in societies with less freedom and lower quality of life metrics?
That’s my point, even if communism was good, dictatorship is a plague that makes any system a nightmare.
You have no point, only vibes and a firehose of falsehood. Read Blackshirts and Reds.
Are you a commie?
Most of us here are communists. Anti-communist platforms like reddit already exist.
Of course, I’m a Marxist-Leninist. Most people on Lemmy are leftist of some sort.
“You will be more conservative as you grow older” is not a truth, but a threat. If you don’t become a conservative under their regime, you won’t become old.
Removed by mod
Are the tankies in the room with us now?
What is “tankiness?” Any support for AES?
Also, in AES countries it isn’t “privledged elite vs poor bastards.”
Seize the means of production
Honestly, if your goals include conserving an inhabitable environment for the human race in the future, conserving a semblance of wealth for everyone but the top, like, dozen people on Earth, conserving the rights of workers and consumers against an overwhelming opposition, conserving democracy for future generations (and all that against the best efforts of a supposedly “conservative” party), your parents may have been right.
What if my goals include family values, such as opportunity for my kids to earn a good living, live a long and healthy life, enjoy the environment, in a world better than the one I had?
Then you have to join in the fight for those things and educate yourself. This world is not getting better, and the reason for that is the productive political economic system in which we live.
I have the same values and I am a Marxist communist. That means I work for political struggle with the systems that oppress and exploit to for improving conditions for all, and also work to try and educate workers about the class dynamics of this struggle, and the revolutionary potential of the working class.
I’ve only gone further Left.
Whenever people say that you grow more conservative when you get older, they’re working from the premise that you’ll grow more affluent and comfortable later in life. For Americans, that just isn’t true anymore. Wages are mostly stagnant, home ownership is much less attainable, and cost of living is at an all time high. Yet for some reason, pundits just can’t figure out why millenials aren’t getting more conservative as they age, or why zoomers appear to be following this trend.
What if you start to become better off, but realize so many other parents are unable to provide for their kids like you can, and you can’t hope to provide for your kids like the wealthy can? What if paying exorbitant amounts of money for your kids education drives home the point that we need to make that investment for all kids futures? What if you are more often on the hiring side and realize your well being depends on the next generation having opportunities and the means to successfully achieve them?
Then you are alright with me. I think a large amount of our problems as a species come from those with a lack of empathy. If everyone thought like you, then we wouldn’t have the vast wealth inequalities and greatly varying qualities of life between working class and upper class.
On the other hand, if everyone had empathy in the first place, I think we wouldn’t have the economic systems that put profits over people.
The Mode of Production determines social thought, not the other way around.
You don’t think that more empathetic people would be involved in creating fairer modes of production? I think sociopaths and those lacking empathy are at least part of the reason that capitalism still runs rampant in the world, but its just my opinion.
If you downvoted me don’t know why, just adding my opinion.
I know plenty of people that grew up in capitalism and still have empathy, and also hate capitalism, so I guess I don’t understand exactly what you mean, either.
You don’t think that more empathetic people would be involved in creating fairer modes of production? I think sociopaths and those lacking empathy are at least part of the reason that capitalism still runs rampant in the world, but its just my opinion.
The base creates and reinforces the superstructure, which reinforces the base, not the other way around.
The base creates and reinforces the superstructure, which reinforces the base, not the other way around.
I don’t know what this has to do with empathetic people and sociopaths. I understand that the system that we live in is more likely to produce sociopaths than a Socialistic one, but I don’t think that doesn’t mean we can’t talk about them and their hindrance to our advancement, considering that they do indeed exist.
I usually appreciate you spreading knowledge, but I don’t really see what you are trying to add here. Nothing I wrote disagrees with anything you said, and vice versa.
You said if people were more empathetic we would have a better Mode of Production, but the process is reversed.
yup it applies only to the privileged class, and of course only people in that class would think that is the general experience.
Yeah, though there’s also the phenomena of older folks generally being more against change and clinging in the past more, the idea being that you have less future to look forward to (since you’re closer to death than your birth) so instead you look towards the past and become nostalgic about it.
there’s also the phenomena of older folks generally being more against change and clinging in the past more,
That’s more a consequence of the moment. Older people like stable material conditions. And with programs like pensions, public health care, and a safe suburban neighborhood with good amenities, they see the status quo as worth defending.
But swing through North Africa and the Middle East during the Arab Spring (anyone remember that?) or pop over to the UK in the wake of the last election cycle or visit an impoverished neighborhood in Haiti or a bombed neighborhood in Lebanon and you’ll find plenty of elderly revolutionaries.
you look towards the past and become nostalgic about it
People may be nostalgic for their youth, but they are rarely nostalgic for being treated like a child.
And you’re going to find it hard to locate a South African native nostalgic for Apartheid or a Pole or Romanian who misses occupation or a Chinese national who pines for the Century of Humiliation.
Westerners coming out of their post war pre-Reagan Golden Era just have more to be nostalgic for.
Oh yeah, that’s definitely why older folks are socially conservative, although usually when I hear people say this (and definitely in the context of this meme) they’re talking about becoming fiscally conservative.
All of that is the same here in Germany. Check out the stats on home ownership here… But oh man are the kids flipping to the AfD (far right nazi party) quick and in huge numbers. It’s scary to see.
Honestly, that makes sense to me. It seems like when economic systems start breaking down for people, they turn to populism. It’s either left-wing populism, which argues for reigning in the excesses of capitalism, or right-wing populism, which scapegoats minority or immigrant groups. Right now, the youth in the U.S. are interested in left-wing populism, but right-wing populism (AKA Trumpism) is the only thing making it into the political mainstream.
Where are those youth in the US? While they seem loud online, why hasn’t that translated into votes?
The youth in the US is mostly actually leftist, and they give them the choice to vote for a centrist or a right wing candidate. That’s a big part of the reason. Also, just the fact that the youth also votes less, on average, even those youth who identify as right wing.
I know because I am an actual leftist, and I didn’t vote for a long time into my adulthood, because it feels like a scam. I finally got over the fact that not participating in the vote is worse, but I completely understand the apathy amongst actual leftists in the US. We’ve had no true representation in our whole lives.
Because for every loud voice you read on lemmy there’s 1000 boomers and nut jobs that either a) don’t use the Internet regularly b) don’t leave Facebook or c) hide away in right wing circlejerk sites like truth social and 4chan. A and B just being old, and none of them being people that can handle having their views challenged, which is definitely going to happen in a space like this.
German government should just ban the AfD and end with it.
While that sounds like a good idea, it’s not really a solution. You can’t just ban a political party because you don’t agree with it, that wouldn’t be democratic.
You 100% can, fascists are a national threat. Entertaining them via “civility” is nonsense.
The Nazi Party being banned was good, just not enough
Fuck this “goody two-shoes” bullshit, ban and repress.
You can only get more conservative when you have things to protect like a house and a pension.
Most millennials retirement plan atm is die of heatstroke in 150 degree weather in a 8 person shared apartment in Alaska.
Statement unclear whether increased conservatism is the natural result of property/capital or if property/capital are merely requisite.
That and the lead poisoning.
I have a house and a pretty sizable retirement account.
I will GLADLY take a lower home value, higher taxes on my retirement, higher taxes in general, so long as the ultra wealthy are also taxed accordingly.
Or you’ll get more communist when you have people to protect, like children or friends who start getting sick now that they’re not young anymore
I became a socialist because I was an “essential employee” during the height of the pandemic. I was treated like shit by my company, the customers, and the government while they sung my praise. I watched my grandpa get good cancer treatment with the VA (shocker, I know, but it happens) while my sister and grandma had to fight insurance for cancer treatment.
We can’t make a perfect world, but we can make a better one. And it starts with a socialist economy.
I became much more progressive after living in a “blue state” for much of my adult life. It’s hard to miss that the most successful economies in the us are also the ones who pay most attention to quality of life. We can look at the contrast in our neighboring states, and see the advantages brought by near universal healthcare, investments in an excellent education system, care about the environment, higher minimum wage, support for unions, and so much more
You can only get more conservative when you have things to protect like a house and a pension.
In aggragate, that’s the more reliable way to make a population more conservative, but remember that a reasonable portion of fascists in a society that is going in that direction are going to be people who either lost that or never had it and, in either case, blame some minority for that fact. (The majority are still people like you describe, though, the petite bourgeois, etc., who feel insecure in their holdings)
I agree if you mean neoliberal-conservative
Luckyyyyyy!
How is it that some of us get further left and some people go right? Even poors and immigrants go right and vote against their own interests. I really don’t get it.
Broadly speaking, I’d say it’s done out of fear. Voting conservative feels like staying the course and not challenging the status quo, even if it’s not ideal. Voting change could be seen as a threat to “stability” even when it’s a false narrative.
To add to what you said I’d also argue it comes with finding financial success while lacking the awareness of how lucky one had to be to achieve that kind of success in life.
– although lately I have also seen a lot of people that lack the imagination to consider a reality different from what’s presented to them by the status quo.
On second thought, that latter point just sounds a lot like Indoctrination.
Yep this. It’s a combination of becoming more financially well-off, combined with loss aversion, combined with a sense that the culture starts to alienate you. It’s like grandpa simpson said: “I used to be with it. But what was ‘it’ changed. And now what I’m with isn’t ‘it’, and what is ‘it’ is scary and strange.”
How many millions died under Stalin, Mao, Che?
Makes me think of the old Samuel Clemmens quote
THERE were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak;
whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror—that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.
~ Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
It’s so easy to pretend the mob that turned on French nobility in the 1800s or the Qing Dynasts and Russian Tsars in the 1900s or the Arabs who lashed out at European occupation in the 2000s were simply seized by mania or some animal impulse.
It’s so easy to pretend they had no grievance, they suffered no generational atrocities, they had no motivation for their violent uprising, save the insidious Mind Virus of Leftist Agitation.
It’s romantic to see the aristocracy and the colonial governments of these nations as martyrs of a golden era. They were cruelly deposed by savages for the crime of living the gentile and sophisticated life. They were the Eloi, dragged into the dirt by vicious Morlocks who envied their perfect beauty.
But it’s all bullshit.
The aristocracy were monsters. They maintained their grips on the people through generation after generation of terror, torture, and enforced ignorance. They were cult leaders and warlords who claimed turf through centuries of conquest, inquisition, and cultural indoctrination.
When these archaic institutions failed, we like to blame the revolutionary leaders who happened to climb atop the ruins of their bloody legacy. But they were simply at the right moment in history to witness a corrupt edifice crumble under the weight of millions of their own dissatisfied subjects.
How many do you think? Legitimately, what’s your understanding of history? Where are you getting your numbers?
How many millions died under Kissinger, Truman, McCarthy?
don’t know, tell me with sources, please
Well, for one example: Kissinger approved Operation Menu, which is estimated to have a death toll of at least 100.000 civilians, and this is just ONE operation. Operation Condor, an anti leftist repression campaign in the Americas, has an estimated count of 80.000 killed and 400.000 political prisoners. These are just specific cases: the “knife wounds” amongst the “amputated limbs” for an analogy.
They’re just past the end of the pier, those big things that aren’t seals.
Millions Nazis, yeah
You’re right. Maybe we shouldn’t have a state people suffer and die under.
Straight up I was conservative as a young teen, because that’s what EVERYONE was here in Utah when I was in the LDS church.
Now I just keep floating more and more left as time goes on.
When I was a teen, I was definitely fiscally conservative. Paying better attention to how you use money is easy to understand and a central pillar of politics. But it was a sheltered life in a town with all well-paying jobs, no diversity, and an excellent education system.
Now I keep floating left the more I realize how many people missed out of that picture.
But it was my kids that really did it. Fighting for better opportunities for them easily turns into wanting a better world for them to live in. I’m more worried than ever about my government’s poor money habits and when it will eventually come due, but we’re in the middle of a rolling disaster of short term and misplaced spending, our politicians more concerned with scapegoats and spite than actually benefitting their constituents
My brother in Christ, im sorry to inform you but the upcoming fiscal crisis are gonna be some of the least of your kids worries. I’m still probably closer in age to you rather than them, but i grew up knowing that money is gonna mean jack shit once the water starts boiling (metaphorically, but hyperbolically realistic). We’re the frogs in the pot and the economy is gonna be the least of our troubles. We’re seeing a global rise in fascism, climate disasters, war, inequity, and yes financial instability. If you wanna help your kids, get involved in the community and organize. Start unions at your work places and march in protests for a better future. I’m not talking about a stronger or more fashy future, but one where we work together. Join or make mutual aid networks where you live. The best thing you can do for your children (imo, coming from a young person) is help set up the future you want for them. I would hope that’s one of community and mutual aid where we help each other not because we expect a reward or are paid to, but because together we stand taller and can hoist up those who cannot stand on their own. I hope i don’t sound too preachy, but it sounds like you love your kids so I implore you to get involved further. The future did not look kind to me when I was a child, and it looks even less hospitable now. We can change that. Direct action and mutual aid are the way forward to a better future imo.
Same homie. I can’t even imagine what it was like to be a leftist after 9/11. The whole fucking country was blood thirsty. Heard my friends say some of the most abhorrent shit, and just brushed it off as patriotism.
So fucking glad I found my way out.
I went from “socially liberal, fiscally conservative” in high school to liberal to communist to anarchist back to communist now I think I’m democratic socialist in my 30s? Just basic safety nets and unions, please.
I grew up in a rightwing household, and unquestioningly drank the koolaid until my late teens. The right’s bullshit eventually became impossible to ignore, so I dove right into the ‘both sides!’ trap and rode the Libertarian train for a while.
It became really easy to articulate what I didn’t like about the right; describing what was bad about the left was just echoes of Fox bitching about things like them voting on emotion instead of logic… but no real examples.
Around my mid-twenties I finally realized ^that was projection; then 2016 happened and holy shit they’re running Trump and Hillary?? Easily the two most hated candidates in my lifetime… against Gary Johnson - an admittedly goofy personality but likeable and most importantly not crazy, THIS IS THE LP’S TIME TO SHINE! …yeah they got 3% of the vote. We won’t ever see better conditions for a 3rd victory, so, pipedream shattered.
Guess I’ll have to just pick a lesser evil, so let’s see what we have to work with…
-
there’s the red team. Burn through our fossil resources with reckless abandon. War, war, war, and more war. Shave social services down to nothing so we can claim ‘fiscal responsibility’ which is good I guess (hey! eyes down here, we’re done talking about the war part), a blatant integration of religion and politics, and they want to make life as miserable as possible for my gay/colored/female/nonchristian friends. Fuck, that’s pretty bad…
-
Alright, next we have the blue team, which is the opposite of all those things, at the exceedingly high cost of… getting cockblocked by the red team when they try to implement those things… and… well there was that time Bill lied about getting a blowjob- outrageous! Surely the red team does a better job of keeping it in their pants… *checks* …uhh, nope! Fuck, I’m starting to become aware of my own cognitive dissonance and it feels like absolute shit.
So I start voting one issue at a time, crunching both options against eachother and choosing the one that’s best for the US. That way there’s no bias and I won’t be part of this tribal bullshit plagueing our politics… Weird, when I ignore affiliation and vote on policy alone, my ballot becomes solid blue. What are the odds of that?! Next election, solid blue again. And again.
My desire to be ‘independent’ on label alone is pretty much gone at this point, and I’m being more and more vocal about supporting leftwing policies. Family isn’t a fan, but they hit me with the shit OP is poking fun at - I only shifted blue because I’m poor! Once I make more money, just you wait and see, I’ll come crawling right back.
Now, I’m not rich or anything, but I’m (finally!) not living paycheck to paycheck. During all ^that I wandered into the military which gave me access to all kinds of socialized resources which have enabled me to get where I’m at now and have made a pretty significant improvement on my life. The thing that pisses me off about those socialized services is WHY THE FUCK DOESN’T EVERYONE HAVE THIS?! So wearing camo for 4 years for some reason got me this VIP tour of what we should should be doing for everyone.
I was a late bloomer, I got there. I haven’t missed a single election since 2016, big or small. Solid blue. I’ve gotten to the point where I’ll even look up the voter registration of candidates for nonpolitical positions like judges, and red is a deal breaker.
The better off I become, the more blue I get. The notion of red-shift with income is trash.
Well said!
Thanks for sharing! I feel like this is representative of a small but important political group recently.
Alright, next we have the blue team, which is the opposite of all those things, at the exceedingly high cost of… getting cockblocked by the red team when they try to implement those things… and… well there was that time Bill lied about getting a blowjob- outrageous! Surely the red team does a better job of keeping it in their pants… *checks* …uhh, nope! Fuck, I’m starting to become aware of my own cognitive dissonance and it feels like absolute shit.
The DNC isn’t to the opposite of the GOP, they are aligned on the vast majority of issues and use the rest to yap loudly in disagreement. Dems aren’t left.
During all ^that I wandered into the military which gave me access to all kinds of socialized resources which have enabled me to get where I’m at now and have made a pretty significant improvement on my life.
Social programs aren’t socialized, that’s a bit of a misnomer.
However US Corporations that exploit US Workers and Workers abroad are subsidized, even for their losses. Us Taxpayers pay them while they exploit us further and Social Services get gutted and crumble. Gotta love neoliberalism, where socialized welfare is bad for workers, but good for corporations.
Edit: not actual socialism like worker owned, just socialized losses, as in the working class paying taxes foot the bill for the corporations benefit and privatized gains
Have you read Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism? It analyzes modern Imperialism, where workers in the Global North are both exploited by their bourgeoisie and yet benefit from the fruits of Imperialism, forming a labor aristocracy.
It isn’t Socialism for corporations, it’s Imperialism in action.
No, I have not. I’ve only touched on the book Consequences of Capitalism so far. Thanks for the req, I’ll check it out.
Socialism isn’t the right word, it’s not like they are worker owned in any regard. It’s just that the subsidies they receive for the benefit of their private business and profits for shareholders come from taxpayer money. Further redistributing weather to the wealthy at the expense of the working class Americans, and further enabling them to exploit us more. Their gains are privatized and their losses are socialized by the working class.
No problem! Lenin’s writing is very eye-opening as it’s Marxism applied to more modern, international Capitalism, but he may not make the most sense if you aren’t already familiar with Marxism.
I’m somewhat familiar with the principals, but not enough to thoroughly explain them in a casual conversation.
It’s definitely eye-opening to contextualize things like Nationalism, Fascism, Colonialism, and Imperialism within the Capitalist mode of production
Edited my comment to distinguish between genuine socialism and the welfare of corporations being socialized thru taxpayer money for their benefit and our expense.
You may want to swing back to Principles of Communism as well as Socialism: Utopian and Scientific by Engels, then Wage Labor and Capital as well as Value, Price and Profit by Marx before getting into Lenin if you’re not confident in the basics of Marxism. Lenin is Marxism applied to early 1900s Capitalism, which has largely grown along the lines he analyzed and predicted (among numerous other analysis in theory and practice).
there’s the red team. Burn through our fossil resources with reckless abandon. War, war, war, and more war.
The blue team is doing the same thing: burning through fossil resources in the name of war. The military complex doesn’t stop or change when blue or red are elected.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Israel_in_the_Israel–Hamas_war
I encourage you to keep studying and researching. Politics isn’t a football match where teams compete against each others and “left” and “right” are two buzzwords.
https://archive.org/details/lawauthorityanar00kropuoft/page/n5/mode/2up
I encourage you to keep studying and researching. Politics isn’t a football match where teams compete against each others and “left” and “right” are two buzzwords.
No offense but I think OP has a better grasp of this than you do
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