Check out my "Read Theory, Darn it!" introductory reading list!
My dad: “Yeah, maybe a good solution to the problem of not being able to pay rent would be government-provided housing”
Also my dad: “Socialism is horrible! If it wasn’t, then why would EVERYONE be trying to leave Communist countries like Russia and the rest of Eastern Europe???”
I wonder what the modern world would look like had the USSR not been dissolved, and repaired its relationship with the PRC.
To me the biggest hypocracy in general when it came to forms of communism.
It's a failed ideology, it will always collapse in on itself as soon as it grows.
Followed with
We need to destroy it at all costs to keep it from taking hold anywhere in the world.
You don't need to stop something that's self defeating. It's like the tower of babel story in the bible. Mankind was building up a great tower because they thought uniting they would be a powerful as gods, so god knocked over their tower, scrambled their languages to divide and conquer the world.... Isn't that kind of an admission that, God believed without his interference man can be as strong as he is?
Yep, really US foreign policy purely supports that which it can profit from, and it can't do that if the population starts using its own resources for its own benefit rather than allowing them to be stolen by the US.
why would EVERYONE be trying to leave Communist countries like Russia and the rest of Eastern Europe???
China is empty. Russia is empty. Cuba is empty. Vietnam is empty. South Africa is empty. They've all been hollowed out by the scourge of Communism. That's why nobody lives there anymore.
Meanwhile, the US is the most populous country on Earth. We have the densest cities. We have the largest apartment towers. We have the most-used transit systems. Our nation is full to bursting thanks to all of the people who want to live here. And the more traditionally conservative, the more flagrantly capitalist, the more Christian and Based and Traditional, the larger the US State. That's right, folks. West Virginia, South Dakota, Utah, and Idaho are the four most densely populated corners of the planet.
I didnt know i was living in a communist country
Its also strange that there are anti-communist stickers in a communist country
Its also strange that there are anti-communist stickers in a communist country
No it isn't. Revolution isn't the rapture. Fascists and liberals don't just cease to exist.
Socialism is the people. If you are afraid of socialism, you're afraid of yourself.
Rest in Power Fred Hampton, a brave Marxist-Leninist that tried to do what was right and got murdered by the US police for it.
The same folks I know who wouldn't even consider a conversation about socialism are not going to be swayed when I quote any black man to them, much less a panther.
Totally fair. The trick is to meet them where they're at, and then work from there. The folks you're thinking about will take a lot of effort, but if union organizers can do it then so can you
"No, no, they tries to tricks us, precious [capitalism]! They wants to take you from us, stop you from helping us, precious, gollum!"
"but you're gonna take my private property !"
I think "private property" isn't well defined in socialist discourse and this idea of no private property gets a lot of backlash from some. A distinction between personal and private property needs to be made where one is used to generate capital in exchange for wages and the other is your dildo. The dildo is your personal property and no one is going to take it. A piece of land can be someones private property when they employ you and pay you a wage to work it - you get payed a pittance and they, without work, take the cream.
Its well defined IMO, but anti-communist propaganda intentionally spreads the wrong definition of it to make communists look scary.
A distinction between personal and private property needs to be made where one is used to generate capital in exchange for wages and the other is your dildo
That's always the definition. It is well defined, the problem is that there are national propaganda machines outright lying to the people.
I think it's generally well-understood amongst Socialists, the issue comes from those first learning about Socialism and thinking it is applied as dogmatism to the strictest degree, and isn't a drawn out process of iterative improvement following revolution. For such people, they need to know if "going along with" Socialism means they can't have a gaming PC or something, but the reality of Socialism is that it isn't nearly as rigid or strict as it is stereotyped as.
This is a reasonable explanation, similar to the ones I write on the spot when attempting to explain things. Made more difficult by the fact many signs barring entry to owned land say "private property" (or some variation on it, at least in France and the US)
Capitalism sucks because of oligarchs and kleptocrats, and socialism also sucks because of oligarchs and kleptocrats.
Remember Stalin and his style of socialism? Just because one hell sucks doesn’t mean another hell is better.
The only type of socialism which has made any kind of sense in recent times is the Nordic Model.
Edit let’s not kid ourselves about the “greatness” of socialist countries when China has 50% poverty rate
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/poverty-rate-by-country
Here’s also a great article on how everyday life was like in the Soviet Union, https://shs.cairn.info/article/E_ANNA_682_0305?lang=en
Remember Stalin and his style of socialism?
No. Cuz I wasn't alive at that time.
But yea, I did read about it in This Soviet World, Soviet Democracy, Russian Justice, and Blackshirts and Reds
Cool, also read about it on neutral sources
Wikipedia, especially English language Wikipedia, ain’t exactly neutral. And anyway “neutral” is fantasy. It doesn’t exist.
"neutral" as if.
Edit: also oh no! Not the Stalinist... prohibition on using handcuffs?
Chapter X, Russian Justice
But the idea was there in the minds of those who were to define the penal policy and the Code of 1922, and set down the principle that punishment was not for the purpose of revenge and might not have for its purpose the infliction of physical pain. With this beginning there was a steady progress toward the removing of those indignities that tend to degrade a man, until the Correctional Labor Code of 1933 completed the process. In the meantime various amendments have prohibited torture, the use of handcuffs, solitary confinement, deprivation of food, or any other measure that would have the effect of degradation or do physical harm to the person.
lol what a cherry picked example, ignoring ranks of his people getting picked up by state agents to be put to death. How disingenuous
Jesus, how fucking illiterate are westerners that they think fucking Wikipedia is a neutral source.
All you have to do is come up with a new name for it. It's not like any of them have a clue about what socialism actually entails.
Historically, such a strategy doesn't actually work. Sooner or later, you get accused of being a godless commie or a tankie anyways. You can either stand firm in your beliefs and attempt to sweep away the dirt of the Red Scare to accurately contextualize Socialism and AES states, or fail to support them at all, leading to issues like Trotskyism (poor understanding of theory and a lack of support for AES) or PatSocs (Nationalist Socialists in the Imperialist countries).
It had everything to do with human greed.
As long as there is the suggestion or possibility, no matter how remote that anyone of us can become enormously wealthy, we won't want to change the system.
But the talking head on Fox told me what to think about socialism, using no facts or common sense.
What am I supposed to do? NOT believe them?
Ignore what politicians say, look at what they do.
Both is good. Sometimes politicians are quite honest in an explanatory way for their actions, both need to be taken into account. They don't have to be honest, but their stance is usually projected clearly.