Jury’s out on whether or not I’m a liberal. I tend to get accused of all variety of political positions depending on the political affiliation of the speaker in attempt to either generalize to unite their tribe against me or to purity test me out of a shared space of allies.
In other words, Republicans tend to call me “liberal,” “communist,” “socialist,” a “radical leftist,” etc. and tankies tend to call me “liberal,” “fascist,” etc.
I gel pretty well with sane socialists though, which I’m told is distinct from liberalism?
Either way, I’m anti-tankie, so you can go ahead and lose your mind at me if you like.
Geling with sane socialists is enough for me to have a decent opinion of you off the bat. Lol I’ll be long winded but I won’t lose my mind at you🙂
I’d draw the line for socialist at with anyone that’s for abolishing private property. (Not personal property like your tooth brush or house). Any property that generates money like factories, work equipment, stocks, apartment buildings.
I don’t care if you think the government should own these things or if you think co-ops that give all their workers a seat on the board should. As long as you think the workers should own and control it collectively you’re cool in my book.
Curious if you agree with that or if you think the Nordic capitalist states are socialist.(They’re just capitalist states with nice welfare programs built on top, still better than other forms of capitalism) But they are called social democracies and that gets confusing for a lot of people.
We might disagree on China and Russia but I we both probably have the complaints with them you do. Real difference would probably be how we order which countries are worse and how. I’d order these three this way
Worst USA, Russia, China Best
USA is worse then Russia in my mind solely by its capacity for doing evil. I think the will to do it is about on par for the two.
“Socialism” is a direction on a spectrum to me, not a destination. If something is kinda socialist but not completely “socialist,” I don’t think it’s meaningful use of time and energy to label it No True Socialism.
You brought up the example I’ll use: The Nordic states are more socialist than the US, for example. I think they do their economy better than we (the US) do things. In other words, we in the US need more socialism, like the Nordic states have.
Are they adhering to Marxist principles strictly, by some the definition of “socialism?” Of course not.
I also don’t think Russia or China are either, nor was the USSR. As in Animal Farm (for obvious reasons), a visionary’s vision was perverted by people who sought to seize power for themselves and just go right back to doing 9/10 of the misdeeds the old regime did under a different flag.
I don’t think a socialist revolution to install a socialist state, let alone one free of innocent blood, is even possible. We don’t have many examples to go off of in history, but it’s like, 3/3 off the top of my head went very sour a la the above. The tankies that are so bold as to risk being banned for “racism” by their home instances by admitting the USSR/China/DPRK aren’t perfect all claim that they are only imperfect because capitalists opposed and ruined their revolutions from within and without, but that stinks of fascist/authoritarian-type logic of, “The enemy is both weak and strong, and anything that we do wrong is their fault, not ours.”
In sum, I don’t think we’re likely to live to see a true national-scale Marxist economy, let alone enough to get a good sample size that it’s worth stating Marxism is clearly superior to capitalism in every way, but from what I’ve read Marx write, I think he had much more right than he had wrong. I think Stalin, Putin, Xi Jinping, and the Kim dynasty are awful. As you say, the only limit to the horror they’ve imposed on the world is their GDP and military might. Stalin had a really strong run on record-setting atrocities what with things like the Holodomor.
China is playing a thousand year game, so as their GDP and military might meets and likely exceeds ours, they may or may not start invading everyone they think they can get away with to do increasingly awful things to the people of the world. Obviously they’re genociding the Uighurs as we speak. I imagine they’re smart enough to stay under what they perceive as the nuclear line. I don’t think they think the US is willing to nuke them over Taiwan, so I think it’s likely we’ll see an invasion of Taiwan soon, and I’m honestly surprised they haven’t done it while the US is busy with Israel/Iran and Russia/Ukraine. Maybe they’re waiting to get their microchip factories up first.
I get why you think of it as a direction and not a concrete definition. Seems like most people think of it that way, like when the government does stuff it’s socialism and when it does alot of stuff it’s communism.
Kills me that that’s the way people think of it because of how unproductive it is but I get it…
I don’t think anything is bloodless. Staying status quo and voting is super bloody with all the conflict and genocide going on too. I would like an end state that creates a better world for workers.
I’d argue the USSR was socialist and that they improved the lives of workers dramatically. That can be compared to the previous feudalist monarchy they had their bloody revolution against or the clown show capitalist country that took their place after.
I’m not saying the USSR was perfect and didn’t commit any atrocities but I’d say they were one of the better countries for their time. I think there’s a lot of propaganda, especially on the English internet about them. This is something I found a couple years ago that the CIA declassified mentioned Stalin not being a dictator and explained a bit of how the actual politics work.
I don’t think me and you were going to get to the bottom of it, but if you weren’t aware historians really contest whether or not the holodomor was intentional. What’s funny to me is almost nobody knows about the Bengal famine which was done by Britain. Around the same time. It was racially targeted at Indian people and it killed nearly as many people but no one ever talks about it. Only bring it up to say the holodomor wasn’t good. It was an atrocity regardless of if it was planned or incompetence but it’s weird to me. How much we let it influence the legacy of the USSR as opposed to other countries with other atrocities.
In case you don’t believe me, it’s very contested:
As far as the uighur genocide, have you considered how weird it is that the same countries that are supporting Israel’s genocide in Palestine are the ones calling out China for this?
At the same time there is shit like the link below that makes me wonder if genocide is apt or if the treatment of uyghurs is more similar to how black Americans are treated in America. It seems like there is extra prison time and use of Labor in prison, but it doesn’t seem like a wholesale slaughter or cultural erasure.
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Damn seems like it’s the “tankies” getting removed and not the smug liberals. I wonder what else you’re wrong about.
Your comment appears to bear very little relevance to what I said, other than maybe it being translated to “ha ha, you got your comments removed!”
I wasn’t really responding to you, since I couldn’t see your comment. The thread just appeared to be leftist responses being removed.
Were you posting like a stinky lib or posting like a cool tankie?
Oh, I’m definitely not a tankie, no.
Jury’s out on whether or not I’m a liberal. I tend to get accused of all variety of political positions depending on the political affiliation of the speaker in attempt to either generalize to unite their tribe against me or to purity test me out of a shared space of allies.
In other words, Republicans tend to call me “liberal,” “communist,” “socialist,” a “radical leftist,” etc. and tankies tend to call me “liberal,” “fascist,” etc.
I gel pretty well with sane socialists though, which I’m told is distinct from liberalism?
Either way, I’m anti-tankie, so you can go ahead and lose your mind at me if you like.
Geling with sane socialists is enough for me to have a decent opinion of you off the bat. Lol I’ll be long winded but I won’t lose my mind at you🙂
I’d draw the line for socialist at with anyone that’s for abolishing private property. (Not personal property like your tooth brush or house). Any property that generates money like factories, work equipment, stocks, apartment buildings.
I don’t care if you think the government should own these things or if you think co-ops that give all their workers a seat on the board should. As long as you think the workers should own and control it collectively you’re cool in my book.
Curious if you agree with that or if you think the Nordic capitalist states are socialist.(They’re just capitalist states with nice welfare programs built on top, still better than other forms of capitalism) But they are called social democracies and that gets confusing for a lot of people.
We might disagree on China and Russia but I we both probably have the complaints with them you do. Real difference would probably be how we order which countries are worse and how. I’d order these three this way
Worst USA, Russia, China Best
USA is worse then Russia in my mind solely by its capacity for doing evil. I think the will to do it is about on par for the two.
“Socialism” is a direction on a spectrum to me, not a destination. If something is kinda socialist but not completely “socialist,” I don’t think it’s meaningful use of time and energy to label it No True Socialism.
You brought up the example I’ll use: The Nordic states are more socialist than the US, for example. I think they do their economy better than we (the US) do things. In other words, we in the US need more socialism, like the Nordic states have.
Are they adhering to Marxist principles strictly, by some the definition of “socialism?” Of course not.
I also don’t think Russia or China are either, nor was the USSR. As in Animal Farm (for obvious reasons), a visionary’s vision was perverted by people who sought to seize power for themselves and just go right back to doing 9/10 of the misdeeds the old regime did under a different flag.
I don’t think a socialist revolution to install a socialist state, let alone one free of innocent blood, is even possible. We don’t have many examples to go off of in history, but it’s like, 3/3 off the top of my head went very sour a la the above. The tankies that are so bold as to risk being banned for “racism” by their home instances by admitting the USSR/China/DPRK aren’t perfect all claim that they are only imperfect because capitalists opposed and ruined their revolutions from within and without, but that stinks of fascist/authoritarian-type logic of, “The enemy is both weak and strong, and anything that we do wrong is their fault, not ours.”
In sum, I don’t think we’re likely to live to see a true national-scale Marxist economy, let alone enough to get a good sample size that it’s worth stating Marxism is clearly superior to capitalism in every way, but from what I’ve read Marx write, I think he had much more right than he had wrong. I think Stalin, Putin, Xi Jinping, and the Kim dynasty are awful. As you say, the only limit to the horror they’ve imposed on the world is their GDP and military might. Stalin had a really strong run on record-setting atrocities what with things like the Holodomor.
China is playing a thousand year game, so as their GDP and military might meets and likely exceeds ours, they may or may not start invading everyone they think they can get away with to do increasingly awful things to the people of the world. Obviously they’re genociding the Uighurs as we speak. I imagine they’re smart enough to stay under what they perceive as the nuclear line. I don’t think they think the US is willing to nuke them over Taiwan, so I think it’s likely we’ll see an invasion of Taiwan soon, and I’m honestly surprised they haven’t done it while the US is busy with Israel/Iran and Russia/Ukraine. Maybe they’re waiting to get their microchip factories up first.
I get why you think of it as a direction and not a concrete definition. Seems like most people think of it that way, like when the government does stuff it’s socialism and when it does alot of stuff it’s communism.
Kills me that that’s the way people think of it because of how unproductive it is but I get it…
I don’t think anything is bloodless. Staying status quo and voting is super bloody with all the conflict and genocide going on too. I would like an end state that creates a better world for workers.
I’d argue the USSR was socialist and that they improved the lives of workers dramatically. That can be compared to the previous feudalist monarchy they had their bloody revolution against or the clown show capitalist country that took their place after.
I’m not saying the USSR was perfect and didn’t commit any atrocities but I’d say they were one of the better countries for their time. I think there’s a lot of propaganda, especially on the English internet about them. This is something I found a couple years ago that the CIA declassified mentioned Stalin not being a dictator and explained a bit of how the actual politics work.
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80-00810A006000360009-0.pdf
I don’t think me and you were going to get to the bottom of it, but if you weren’t aware historians really contest whether or not the holodomor was intentional. What’s funny to me is almost nobody knows about the Bengal famine which was done by Britain. Around the same time. It was racially targeted at Indian people and it killed nearly as many people but no one ever talks about it. Only bring it up to say the holodomor wasn’t good. It was an atrocity regardless of if it was planned or incompetence but it’s weird to me. How much we let it influence the legacy of the USSR as opposed to other countries with other atrocities.
In case you don’t believe me, it’s very contested:
https://husj.harvard.edu/books/contextualizing-the-holodomor-the-impact-of-thirty-years-of-ukrainian-famine-studies
I’m curious what you have against Xi?
As far as the uighur genocide, have you considered how weird it is that the same countries that are supporting Israel’s genocide in Palestine are the ones calling out China for this?
At the same time there is shit like the link below that makes me wonder if genocide is apt or if the treatment of uyghurs is more similar to how black Americans are treated in America. It seems like there is extra prison time and use of Labor in prison, but it doesn’t seem like a wholesale slaughter or cultural erasure.
https://youtu.be/AgtbZGrO3S0?is=FsbGx5cvt7nP7Pth