Anytime I hear people say dumb shit like this I just start listing all the times anti-abortion activists either successfully murdered or attempted to murder their political opponents in the name of the pro life movement. A hit list of judges, physicians, nuns, retired old ladies that like to knit, they absolutely didn’t give a single fuck about any of this struggle session bullshit wreckers like to trot out to sabotage effective resistance
Then I end with the date Roe got overturned, but they still somehow cannot connect the dots and want to talk about registering new voters or some fucking bullshit
My take home message is it turns out that when white people actually want something they magically know what effective forms of protest actually look like (???!)
start listing all the times anti-abortion activists either successfully murdered or attempted to murder their political opponents in the name of the pro life movement. A hit list of judges, physicians, nuns, retired old ladies that like to knit
The problem is that this form of violence is implicitly endorsed by the state and by a majority of the ruling class. They don’t see it as competition to their monopoly on violence.
However, if leftist groups were to emulate this level of violence it would be condemned by every media outlet for weeks. Liberal politicians would rush to condemn the violence and lay the groundwork to justify an even more violent retaliation.
I’m not saying that violence is never the answer, but if you are not on the side that has a monopoly on violence then you have to be much more aware of how your actions may validate the state’s ability to do violence upon yourself and your cause.
First things first: white people bad! If you have questions I’ll try to answer em, but the settlers in a settler colonial state are unequivocally bad.
With that out of the way, the person you’re replying to is assuming you are already aware and recognize the ways that protest and direct action are coded and racialised in media. Pictures of white people are used with captions about a peaceful protest, pictures of black and brown people are used with captions about them “turning violent” and looting.
The narrative that creates is one where white people are nonviolent and it’s the black and brown people who are associated with direct action.
The point the person you’re replying to is making by saying
turns out that when white people actually want something they magically know what effective forms of protest actually look like
Is that the media narrative about white forms of protest being nonviolent is a lie.
When I, or anyone else for that matter, talk about how white people are bad I’m talking about how the position they occupy in society is bad, not how an individual has committed some original sin of whiteness and must atone.
Whiteness is a social construct used to enforce racialized class society.
A person can no more atone for the classification society created and laid upon them than they can shake off that classification itself.
The thing that is bad about white people is their position in racialised class society in the settler colonial state. An individual white person can uphold all the rules and morals you could name but will still occupy the role of oppressor in the hierarchy everyone lives under.
The usual response people give to me is something along the lines of “well what if a white person fought against racial oppression, they wouldn’t be bad and you would be wrong!” Combined with usually either Lincoln or John brown as examples. Those are great examples of how the settler colonial state will protect itself and will find an outlet for its appetites. Lincoln fought against the Dakota uprising and brown was killed for his insurrection.
I don’t bring that up to make an easy dunk over the head of some guy I made up, but to preempt the response that seems to be on everyone’s lips.
If a person is raised as a certain type of person with every aspect of society behaving towards them with respect to that typification, included in which is the normalization and reification of the relationship that type is a part of, the person will “be” what that type is within that relationship.
Remember the funny dub king fu movie, “we trained him wrong as a joke”? Imagine “we trained him to be white as a way to ensure the propagation of class society”
All of what you’re saying makes sense, and I believe you believe what you’re saying.
I don’t know if I buy that everyone that says white people are bad have this much thought going into it. My experience with people suggests that this simply can’t be true, as there are far too many individuals (especially with the access to information we have these days) that seek others to think for them and act according to their declarations.
What you’re saying, however, all adds up. I don’t disagree with anything you’ve said.
It may come as a surprise to you, but my views are not birthed fully formed out of my forehead.
It took years of reading, conversation and consideration to reach that place. A huge part of that wasn’t even reaching the conclusions but was instead figuring out how to put them into words and how to express them under the sort of violence and history averse liberal framework of polite discussion that people expect.
All that is to say: Very little of what I’ve written are my own original ideas and thoughts. Am I letting others think for me? I demonstrably have. Am I acting according to their decisions. I am at this very moment doing so.
So I’d say it’s less important that people have thought and read deeply than it is for them to recognize and accept the correct understanding.
To put it another way, if you holler “think fast!” and toss a ball to someone, does it matter if they trained extensively to recognize that it’s better for them to make that catch than the third baseman or just whipped around and caught whatever was coming reflexively?
It doesn’t matter in that case, but it would be best if a person figure out weather it’s a kitchen knife, water balloon or baseball before they move to make the catch. The analog to our trained catcher there maybe would be a vanguard party, whose members train and study to be able to lead movements and recognize and counter any reactive or reformist tendencies within those movements.
Maybe when a person who doesn’t express it like I have or in the context of the settler colonial state says “white people are bad” it doesn’t matter if they can do so or simply responds “I hate them” when pressed.
The onus is on all people of right mind and heart to hear the cry of the colonized, and not upon the colonized to fit their protest into the presuppositions of their oppressors.
I know this is a late response, I did just forget to respond, but looking through my past conversations lead me back here.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with utilizing information uncovered by others to guide your worldview. I think it’s elegant, why reinvent the wheel?
However, we live in a world filled with people that have been trained by social media to find the fastest route to justifying their personal views.
Think of it the same way as the “20% of the population, 50% of the crime” statistic. Big number better than small number. Small number responsible for bad big number, small number bad. No nuance, no context, they see the statistic and think “me me no number good, but I don’t like black people so this tracks”.
You can clarify all you want after the fact. When your message is “yt ppl bad” you cannot expect that every person reading will go through your detailed and nuanced explanation of why whiteness is bad. The average person will see the surface level and go no further.
Just food for thought. This isn’t just about “the colonized fitting their protests into the presuppositions of their oppressors”. Think about all these white people suddenly behaving like they’re being “oppressed”. I’m sure you’ve heard about it, despite it being fucking ridiculous considering it’s entirely online.
When Billy the inbred sees “yt people bad” do you think he’s going to give a shit when you give a detailed and nuanced explanation of why whiteness is bad ? No, he’s going to take 5 minutes learning what “yt” means, then be insulted. Then he’s going to experience more of that shit, and come to the conclusion that he’s oppressed. But he feels fine! He gets to fuck his sister everyday, if that’s being oppressed then sign him up!
Suddenly, there’s -1 person that thinks oppression is 1) still a problem and 2) really as bad as people say it is.
Seems like a recipe for two sides that hate each other. Don’t know how you see that ending in anything other than bloodshed.
Yeah, I meant to reply initially but things got in the way.
Sure, if something I say doesn’t add up please let me know.
To put it simply, I think statements like “yt people bad” or any of the variants are too reductive for their explanations to ultimately matter, regardless of merit.
If 1 person sees your message, challenges you, and positively receives your explanation that’s great! That is the ideal circumstance. What about the people who don’t think they need an explanation, either because they “know” (in quotes because, again, most people likely have not read as much about this as you) or those that just outright refuse what you’re saying? The reality is that for that 1 person you enlightened to the truth, 100 more people saw it and you do not know if they actually read your explanation.
Not choosing your words carefully might seem fine, because you think having the moral high ground precludes any need. Ideally, yes, this is how it should be. The truth should reign supreme, but we both know it doesn’t otherwise we wouldn’t be dealing with any of this in the first place.
The reality is that how you think it should be perceived is not how it will be perceived by the majority of people who will see your message. Whether they are for or against the message in your explanation. One side sees it as being attacked, the other genuinely hates white people (when the reality is they hate rich people, and it just so happens that the “whiteness” you mentioned is related to being rich).
A place like Lemmy, with such a small community? Makes a little more sense, as these ideas are shared pretty well here and discussion is (for the most part, looking at you Hexbear) ok. On literally any platform with a sizeable userbase (lurkers)? Absolutely not, the net result is ultimately in favor of polarization. Whether they’re feeding one side or the other, it flows both ways.
I am not of the belief that continuing to enable polarization on both sides will lead to a positive outcome for anyone involved. Am I asking you to be prescient, perfectly predicting how every individual person will perceive your words? No, that’s ridiculous. You’d end up never saying anything out of anxiety, and that’s just as bad. But pretending that this kind of rhetoric is somehow acceptable is wrong, especially when we have so many words to choose from.
Am I reading this right? Are you saying basically “you may have a perfectly reasonable, consistent understanding that I can’t oppose in good faith but because other people might not like it you shouldn’t say it”?
I want to also point out that you put the words “white people bad” in the mouth of the top level commenter. If you’re so concerned about people getting spooked by that rhetoric then maybe don’t drag it into a conversation!
What a difference a month makes! It’s like I’m talking to a different person!
You’re right you didn’t explicitly say that I shouldn’t use those words, but when you say that they’re too reductive, they make people feel attacked, result in polarization and are unacceptable it’s hard to reach the conclusion “oh, they’re just saying I should be more careful when using unacceptable rhetoric”. When something is not acceptable I don’t generally consider it fine if used carefully.
And I want to restate theyre your words. If the mere invocation makes people tune out and ignore the speaker, why did you say them?
Isn’t all this predicated on the assumption too that I’d go into long winded detailed explanations when not writing comments on the anarchist memes board of lemmy.ml?
And to connect a string from my earlier comment, I said your reply was confusing and asked you to make it clearer. Difficult to interpret seemingly out of context statements like “we wouldn’t be dealing with any of this in the first place” were what confused me. What did you mean by that? What are we dealing with and how would truth reigning supreme keep us out of it?
Yeah, you completely missed the fact that I referred to the full spectrum of people that will respond to your post. Both people that disagree with you, and agree with you.
Ideally speaking yes, your long winded explanations should immediately strike as true in others minds. They don’t, sorry to burst your bubble.
Also, no, I very explicitly stated “yt people bad, or any of the variants”. I’m aware you don’t read, hence the comment about skimming.
Imagine considering yourself sound of mind when you can’t even handle talking to people that are essentially children. Stay on that high horse.
I’m even more confused now. None of these people who disagree and feel attacked and repulsed by my rhetoric are here. None of them responded to my comments. None of them even downvoted my comments except one on my first reply to you.
Why are you bringing up people who aren’t here a month after the fact?
What other variant of “white people bad” is the topic of our discussion? How are variants germane to our conversation?
There are plenty of people who might not respond well to long winded explanations all the time, and if I were talking to a person in that situation I wouldn’t be talking like I am here and now, because it’s different and we speak differently than we write.
I’m starting to get the feeling that you disagree and feel attacked and repulsed by my rhetoric, which seems like a fair change from a month ago. Is that so?
So you won’t tell me what I’m missing, but will restate over and over again that I just didn’t read?
Come on, I treated you with complete kindness and understanding and never downvoted your replies or assumed you were trolling. If you really think I’m missing a point, please show me the same courtesy I’ve paid you and point it out.
Treated me with kindness? No you jumped on your high horse, don’t act like you were doing me a “kindness”. You’ve made it very clear what your intention was.
Besides which, I was addressing what you got wrong about what I’ve said. You kept willfully ignoring what I wrote. Why would I waste more words on someone that isn’t reading?
I asked if I was reading what you wrote correctly and gave a summary. You accused me of not reading and continued to do so with every reply.
I want to understand what you’re saying. if you think I’ve missed an important point, copy and paste it in front of a “>” so I can see instead of just repeating that I didn’t read.
i’ve tried to be clear and ask specific questions about the parts of your comments that are confusing. i’ll copy and paste em here for you so you don’t have to go looking.
I’m even more confused now. None of these people who disagree and feel attacked and repulsed by my rhetoric are here. None of them responded to my comments. None of them even downvoted my comments except one on my first reply to you.
Why are you bringing up people who aren’t here a month after the fact?
What other variant of “white people bad” is the topic of our discussion? How are variants germane to our conversation?
I’m starting to get the feeling that you disagree and feel attacked and repulsed by my rhetoric, which seems like a fair change from a month ago. Is that so?
Why are you bringing up people who aren’t here a month after the fact?
Yes, I addressed this. If you’d read what I said, I very clearly stated that on Lemmy it’s likely fine. On any major social media site, it isn’t.
What other variant of “white people bad” is the topic of our discussion? How are variants germane to our discussion?
The exact comment that sparked this entire thread. It’s germane because it is literally the point of the discussion? Do you understand why I’m claiming you don’t read?
I’m starting to get the feeling that you disagree and feel attacked and repulsed by my rhetoric, which seems like a fair change from a month ago. Is that so?
You started to get this feeling because you didn’t read what I wrote. I’m sorry I didn’t perfectly MLA format my essay for you, Mr. Debatelord, I’ll do it better next time (I won’t).
You completely assumed I was disagreeing with what you said, when the reality is I’m talking about how the thread is perceived as a whole. You would have understood this if you read what I wrote.
i didn’t ask why you were bringing up people who aren’t here after the fact in response to your statement that on lemmy it was probably okay, i asked it in response to your claim that you were referring to all the different people who would respond to my post. i was asking it because after a month, only you had responded to my post and we had a perfectly fine conversation. even looking at the votes there was no indication that anyone had a problem with my comments.
in direct response to it being likely fine i asked if all this was based on the assumption that i’d talk this way everywhere.
I was asking those questions because it seemed like you were trying to construct a situation where your reasoning held but i didn’t want to make that assumption and accuse you of that so i asked you to elaborate instead.
I wasn’t able to find any variant of “white people bad” in the top comment. if you can point it out that would help me understand. i’ll quote the entire comment here so you don’t have to go looking:
Anytime I hear people say dumb shit like this I just start listing all the times anti-abortion activists either successfully murdered or attempted to murder their political opponents in the name of the pro life movement. A hit list of judges, physicians, nuns, retired old ladies that like to knit, they absolutely didn’t give a single fuck about any of this struggle session bullshit wreckers like to trot out to sabotage effective resistance
Then I end with the date Roe got overturned, but they still somehow cannot connect the dots and want to talk about registering new voters or some fucking bullshit
My take home message is it turns out that when white people actually want something they magically know what effective forms of protest actually look like (???!)
your formatting and structure wasn’t what made me think you were the one who felt attacked and repulsed, it was your use of offensive stereotypes when describing a person i actually needed to orient my responses and thought towards. what i’m specifically referring to is using broken english and invoking “billy the inbred”.
later on, your continued suggestion that people on other social media sites and who would read my comments would respond badly to “white people bad” combined with the fact that I couldn’t find any example of it in the top comment made me think you were bringing something you disagreed with into the conversation and trying to put it on someone else to make space to talk about it (think someone who blames something incidental on a political issue or party: I stub my toe and blame the reTHUGlicans, etc), which dovetails with the idea that its actually you who has some problem with the rhetoric.
but it would have been insulting to assume the worst so i asked questions instead to gain a better understanding.
Edit/tldr: The topic could not have been more meta, and instead of treating it as a meta commentary; you acted like you took it literally and behaved as if I was throwing up strawmen or secretly disagreeing with you. This is why I scoff at the idea that you want me to think this is a conversation, when that was very clearly never your intent.
Can you tell me where I brought up other social media platforms? Because if you had read what I wrote you’d have seen that it was immediately after talking about how others would perceive your post.
To put it simply, I think statements like “yt people bad” or any of the variants are too reductive for their explanations to ultimately matter, regardless of merit.
Nothing about what I’ve said has deviated from this message.
By the way, no I chose my words carefully. I never stated that this post or these comments would be seen on other platforms. It seems like the only issue you have with what I’ve said is that I didn’t preface it with “If you speak like this on other platforms.”.
Beyond which, you realize that before this conversation it wasn’t like I was totally unaware of what oppression was? It’s not like I lived in a bubble, I just don’t like how conversations about this topic always become racially charged despite that never being the real problem.
It’s funny to me that you refer to any of this as a “conversation”. Obfuscating my points by conflating both of my subjects (you and the person who sparked the thread), being “confused” despite the fact that I was very clear with my words, arbitrarily deciding that I must just disagree that oppression is real; all of these things point to debatelord tactics. I am mortified for the people you speak to regularly if this is the shit you put them through during “conversation”.
Lastly, what point is there in trying to refine the opinion of someone who is already aligned morally with you? Why, if we’ve come to a point where we have an understanding, would you point fingers and act as if anything other than complete acceptance of your message is incorrect? Why is there no room for refinement of your perspective? What makes you think that this is any kind of meaningful discourse? Especially when you take into consideration that your response implies that you don’t speak like this on other platforms?
On literally any platform with a sizeable userbase (lurkers)? Absolutely not, the net result is ultimately in favor of polarization.
and later on, clarifying that this was in reference to social media platforms:
Yes, I addressed this. If you’d read what I said, I very clearly stated that on Lemmy it’s likely fine. On any major social media site, it isn’t.
and to your point i did notice that you said that in reference to how people not on lemmy would respond to a post on lemmy. the underlying assumption that i would use the same language reasoning and approach on a different platform is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. people post differently in different places and frankly they probably don’t go 20 replies deep over it in most.
but that’s not at all my only issue or misunderstanding with what youve written.
I don’t think you’ve deviated from your message, i’m trying to understand why you brought it up in the first place when the top commenter didn’t ever say it. i’m trying my best to do so by asking you what you think as opposed to making assumptions and putting words in your mouth.
am i correct in saying that the topic in question that you don’t like becoming racially charged when race is never the real problem with it is how teaching that social change is achieved by being reasonable is a form of whitewashed history?
Do you think Lemmy has a sizeable userbase compared to other platforms? Because I don’t. It’s grown considerably, that does not make it large enough to be directly compared to something like Reddit, Xitter etc.
My only comment to your next point is: why try to convince others that are morally aligned with you? Why waste your time talking to people who won’t disagree with you?
I brought it up in the first place as a meta commentary on how threads like this are perceived on larger platforms. This is not the first time a debate like this has happened, it will not be the last. I was merely examining how something like a reductive statement can backfire unintentionally.
For example, I agreed with everything the original commenter stated. Right up until they brought up how “white people suddenly know how to protest when yadayada”. This statement is what I’m talking about when I say “yt people bad or variants of”. Granted, with explanation the statement makes perfect sense. Without explanation, as is the inevitable conclusion of most reductive statements, sparked the talk about lurkers.
am i correct in saying that the topic in question that you don’t like becoming racially charged when race is never the real problem with it is how teaching that social change is achieved by being reasonable is a form of whitewashed history
You aren’t correct until you make this paragraph make sense. I’m not implying you should be reasonable with fascists.
It’s a hard sentence to parse. I tried to write it a bunch of ways to avoid using “scare quotes” and that’s the best I could come up with.
I’m asking if the topic of this thread, that the conception of social change as achievable through being reasonable is whitewashed history, is the topic around which conversations “always become racially charged despite that never being the real problem.”
With that out of the way: how is
My take home message is it turns out that when white people actually want something they magically know what effective forms of protest actually look like (???!)
White people bad? I just can’t figure out how to get there.
As to why I’d try to convince someone morally aligned with me, first of all I’m not sure that you are and second I’m not trying to convince you of anything, I’m asking you questions to try and understand your views. I was explaining before how it would have been fine if the top comment was “white people bad” even though it wasn’t.
I don’t think lemmy is comparable in size to the big social media platforms. I do think that if what I said was as upsetting as you say, there would be a lot more downvotes on it. I don’t think lemmy has the same ideological makeup as the big social media platforms, but look at my response to your glib categorization of the top comment as “white people bad”: 7 to 1 versus your 3 to 7. Even accounting for wildly different ideology here, surely the sub-humans you described earlier are on lemmy in greater proportion than one in eight!
Ok, for one thing it’s more like a paragraph than a sentence. For another, I’m not saying you should be reasonable with the people in power. I’m saying you should be reasonable with the idiots who outnumber you. Because yes, the average American reads at about the 6th to 8th grade level (looked it up to verify after the other response, was a little off). If you genuinely believe that a person who reads at that low of a level looks beyond surface level, I don’t know what to tell you other than you are optimistic verging on naive.
My take home message is it turns out that when white people actually want something they magically know what effective forms of protest actually look like (???!)
Tell me why being white is relevant after the rest of their message when white people aren’t the only ones that are anti-abortion? Tell me exactly why.
Ah yes, big number better than small number. You sure did get me, wow.
Reading level based on school grades has everything to do with a persons vocabulary and ability to parse complex passages. It is not an indicator of a persons ability to understand complex ideas or think deeply.
Being white is relevant because the top poster is talking about
all the times anti-abortion activists either successfully murdered or attempted to murder their political opponents in the name of the pro life movement.
Those people are overwhelmingly white. The top poster isn’t talking about people who line up on one side or another, but people who take direct violent action. When it comes to anti-abortion activists those people are white.
The top poster isn’t saying that white people are bad, they’re saying white people know that direct action works and are allowed to use it. That is descriptive of a trait that the racist settler colonial state has, not some hive mind all the white people tap into and use to coordinate their actions to avoid repercussions.
I’m not sure what you’re talking about when you say you don’t think we should be reasonable with the people in power, I asked if the topic of this thread, that the conception of social change as achievable through being reasonable is whitewashed history, is the topic around which conversations “always become racially charged despite that never being the real problem.”
I didn’t reference a bunch of Reddit crap to “get” you. I brought it up because it represents a real life measurement that ought to bear out your thesis that people can’t stand what I say but it doesn’t seem to.
Reading level has everything to do with critical thinking. The fact that you’ve even tried to suggest otherwise completely proves that I’ve been wrong in trying to converse with you.
I finally understand what you’ve been trying to ask.
Is the idea that " ‘change can be achieved through being reasonable’ is whitewashed history" the topic around which conversations ‘always become racially charged despite that never being the real problem’.
Just so we’re clear, there are more ways to use quotes than scare quotes. No, the answer is no. People are primed to hate these days, it doesn’t really matter if you’re white skinned or otherwise.
And, if you read what I fucking wrote for the 15th time I actually did answer you. Very clearly. Being reasonable with the people in power is not how change is achieved. Violence is, and the whole god damn point of what I’ve said is that violence is a pretty bad fucking solution for all of us when it’s pointed at the wrong people. Especially at such a critical juncture of human history.
I’m not engaging with you further on this. My advice to you is stop skimming when you read.
I can think critically just fine despite not having literacy in hundreds of languages. If literacy were correlated to critical thinking skills the person with the most languages under their belt would be the best critical thinker.
So if the topic of the thread isn’t the thing that becomes racially charged, what is?
Yes, in fact, learning more languages is correlated to stronger critical thinking.
By the way, are you English as a second language? I’m curious because many of the things you’re “misunderstanding” actually seem like language barrier issues.
To your last question, as it turns out, I can’t decipher what the fuck you’re trying to say. It is nonsense. I’ve tried to translate it for you, but then I answer and suddenly your question shapeshifts and seems completely unrelated to what I thought you asked.
You said you finally understood what I was asking a reply or so back. It was in reference to my question about what becomes racially charged. I asked using a simple yes or no format and you said no, but now I’m asking in a more open ended way: What is the topic that “always become(s) racially charged despite that never being the real problem”?
Yes, I assumed I understood what you were trying to say. Unfortunately the logic of what you’re asking shifts the same way the direction of your goalposts do. And I’m certain it’s because you haven’t taken the time to read what I’ve said.
There is no specific topic. Racially charged topics are, and they always have been, a waste of fucking time. The second we moved past phrenology should have been the end of this notion that physical traits determines societal value. It doesn’t matter what your perspective is, race is a made up concept that shouldn’t define who you are.
It doesn’t matter if you think you’re proud as fuck to be white under the umbrella of “whiteness” or proud as fuck of being black under the umbrella of “blackness” or whatever other words you arbitrarily assign to this issue. If that pride leads to innocent people being hurt, you are always wrong.
The reason I’ve asked what topic you were talking about so many times is because you said
It’s not like I lived in a bubble, I just don’t like how conversations about this topic always become racially charged despite that never being the real problem.
I wanted to know because the topic of our conversation and the post were commenting under and the top comment we first started talking about are all things race is pertinent to. I didn’t want to assume that you had regressive, essentialist liberal ideas about race, so I asked.
Since you gave voice to your ideas about race: can you expound a little on how racially charged topics are a waste of time? We can’t change our history and remove the social construct of race from society and it has had material effects that anyone can see. Are those effects and their remuneration racially charged topics? If they aren’t, what is?
In response to your edits: I don’t think we’re morally aligned and I don’t think the average person is incapable of understanding that “white people bad” doesn’t mean white people are bad because of their skin color but instead means that the position they occupy in society is bad.
Where did I decide you believe oppression isn’t real?
If it’s driving you up the wall this much, stop replying. Click the check mark instead of the link and don’t worry about it.
You think that the average person, keep in mind the average person in the United States reads around a 6th to 8th* grade level, will read further than white people bad? That, my good person, is blind optimism.
I’m starting to think you disagree and feel attacked and repulsed y my rhetoric
People think contradictory stuff all the time. I didn’t even realize it was contradictory until you explained that my assumption that you were the person repulsed would mean that you also think oppression isn’t real.
I’m not even sure that I agree that one flows from, implies or requires the other but it wouldn’t be the end of the world if it did.
assumption that you were the person repulsed would mean that you also think oppression isn’t real.
Here is proof you do not read. “Disagree and are repulsed”. Disagree. You very clearly stated that you, for some reason, think I disagree with your message.
Edit: sorry, sorry. You said you were beginning to think. Lest I be guilty of the same thing you are. Although, truth be told, with how clearly adversarial you’ve been I doubt that the distinction matters.
Yeah I said that, but I don’t believe that people have internally consistent ideas. Like I said, you could disagree with me and feel repulsed by my words and still believe that oppression exists. It’s not a problem, no one’s gonna whip out the uno contradiction card.
It’s not a debatelord tactic to accept the possibility that people can hold different ideas at the same time and try to understand them instead of boxing them into a corner and whipping out logical fallacy words.
I’m not being a debatelord when I entertain the possibility that you could think two things that are in opposition at the same time.
You’ll have to forgive me for reading you extra carefully and responding based on that. I don’t want to come across as having only skimmed your well thought out responses.
What are the goalposts here and how does someone score? I’m not thinking like that, I’m just trying to understand someone who seems to have an interesting viewpoint that’s different than mine.
Oh my responses were written hastily, mainly because I have other things to do. Especially better than talking to someone who’s clearly only interested in winning the “conversation”.
Who knows? It’s your game, I’m not the one making a mountain out of a simple concept. I’m also not the one cherrypicking.
I’m not trying to win, I’ve only asked questions to try and understand you. In response I’ve been accused of skimming and not reading multiple times, called names, cussed and insulted.
I want you to understand that this isn’t Reddit and I’m not trying to get you. We’re not having some kind of fight where someone wins and the other person loses.
Look at the US, they begged England for representation. Even after they gave an ultimatum they begged to stay but it didn’t work and they had a war that France won
There is only so much that revolutions could do though. Attacking police and authorities because they attacked you for having peaceful protest? That’s reasonable, it is self-defence. But looting businesses and attacking properties? No. People love the French revolution and abolishing a corrupt regime, but not its subsequent Terror by the revolutionaries.
Edit: after further, conversation. The person I replied turned out to be a communist of whatever type to be turning a blind eye to communist atrocities.
Nobody is talking about justifying random violence here.
At least you’re not one of those leftists. The Marxist-Leninists always advocate for violent revolution simply because of slight inefficiencies. They blame everything as fault of capitalism. I remember at the height of the pandemic, there is the famous news of long line of cars queuing in the motorway in Texas for shopping. A guy (turned out to be a forum moderator) blamed it on capitalism. I pointed out it is straight up lie when it’s clear that it is the fault of the pandemic messing up the supply chain. No one could have foreseen the pandemic and its effects. The guy proceeded to ban me for pointing out the obvious lie.
Leftist know that if violence is to be used, it must be targeted at specific people not random. As for the pandemic messing up the supply chains, the only reason international supply chains exist is because someone can make more money shipping pineapples to china to exploit the workers there and then ship them back to the US to sell for a 250% markup. If providing pineapples to people were the end goal a lot of supply chains would be much shorter and more robust.
Good point. But at the same time, reality dictates that only certain countries could export such and such because of climate and geography. You mentioned pineapples, they could only be produced in tropical countries because that’s where they could only grow. Of course, that will have to undergo an expansive supply chain. Oil is also only in certain parts of the world. These things will have to travel across the world.
You’re not wrong about worker exploitation. But unfortunately, many governments of third world countries actually negotiated for Western businesses to set up shop with them to provide jobs for their own population. They offer cheap services in exchange for high capital and return on investment. However, as these countries become richer, they are also increasing their demand for higher wages and better treatment. Foreign companies then would relocate to another country to continue the cycle, until they run out of countries for cheap labour. That’s why companies would love AI and robots to develop more, so they don’t have to pay for expensive humans.
No, I don’t think I would. And if you learn a bit about Marxism-Leninism you’d see that either people you talked to didn’t understand what they were talking bout, or you yourself didn’t understand what they were telling you. ML theory is pretty clear on why revolutions happen, and how to conduct revolutions properly.
Well, it’s not like people don’t have different interpretations of things. There is a reason why there are so many violent far left. The Red Army faction, Indian and Filipino communists and Bolsheviks comes to mind, all of whom profess to be Marxist-Leninists.
Communists accept that violence is often a valid and necessary form of resistance. For example, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the way Bolsheviks used violence. However, what you said above is just pure nonsense rooted in your superficial understanding of the subject.
Tell that to practical realities lived under the Marxist-Leninist authorities.
The way I see it, ideology is like religion. More often than not, theory and practice do not align. It is especially the case with communism. And look, I will be blunt, you’re committing “No true Scotsman” fallacy. You’re right in theory, but again, the practical reality says otherwise. You claim there are no true communists or Marxist-Leninists who would advocate for wanton violence, but the reality is that there plenty of examples. The Bolsheviks arrested farmers who are apparently too rich. But it is an excuse for collectivisation of farms under state control. Marx also did not believe in the existence of state (he thought it should be a transitional entity towards collective ownership of production under classless structure). And yet, no state who profess to be communists, or its variation, ever relinquished power.
Having grown up in USSR, I think I understand the practical realities of Marxist-Leninist authority a hell of a lot better than you. I implore you to spend he time actually learn about the subject you’re attempting to debate here because all you’re doing is just making straw man arguments out of ignorance. You also evidently have no understanding of what Marx actually said.
Sounds like you are surprised when confronted with what somebody who actually lived in a communist country tells you about it. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that you think you know more about communism than people who actually experienced it though. That’s very American of you.
The only thing that’s hilarious here is watching western dimwits give their takes on communism. It’s like watching a squirrel give a treatise on quantum mechanics.
US has a higher prison population today than USSR did even under Stalin. So, if gulags are bad, then clearly what we see under capitalism is even worse. Meanwhile, not sure what specifically you need to be told about the purges. All revolutions are messy, and require purging the regressive elements.
What’s really telling is that people like you always have to reach back to the days right after the revolution to find something to complain about ignoring all the decades of how USSR developed after. You’ve just memorized a handful of tropes and you regurgitate them thinking that you’re making some intelligible points here.
The purges happened years after the Bolsheviks gained power. The gulags continued until the fall of the Soviet Union.
So, what would you say about hundreds and thousands of people arrested for simply making a joke, owning a farm, being captured soldiers who escaped from German captivity, making mistakes on a job, the music apparently isn’t working class enough. What do you make of these accounts?
Gulag, labour camps. They’re still prison camps in different name as per the same article you cited: “The Gulag institution was closed by the MVD order No 020 of January 25, 1960 but forced labor colonies for political and criminal prisoners continued to exist. Political prisoners continued to be kept in one of the most famous camps Perm-36 until 1987 when it was closed.”
You still haven’t addressed the accounts of those imprisoned. What do you make of those who were arrested? Do you approve or disapprove of the arrests, before and after Stalin’s rule?
What part of US has higher prison concentration per capita than USSR ever did are you still struggling with?
What’s more, US prison system amounts to literal slave labour. So, if your argument is that communism is bad because USSR had gulags, then it’s clear that capitalism is far worse in this regard. The fact that you still haven’t addressed this further exposes what an utter clown you are.
Meanwhile, why don’t you address the accounts of people imprisoned in US concentration camps on the border, or those of people held in torture camps like Guantanamo. What do you make of those who were arrested? Do you approve or disapprove of the arrests under capitalist rule?
Classic Russian whataboutism. It never gets old, does it? You don’t answer a question with a question. You answer with an answer. A child would even know this. How many times will people tell you, most of the US prisoners are detained not for political reasons. The US isn’t also representative of capitalist countries.
What do you make of China having second largest prison population then?
Again, do you approve or disapprove of those detained under communist regimes?
I love how you immediately start screeching whataboutism when faced with your double standards. The fact that you don’t understand that you have to hold different systems to the same standard shows that you’re an intellectually impoverished person.
Any problems seen under communism are also seen under capitalism, and they’re often far worse. That’s the context for comparing the systems, is one system creating more problems than the other. Even a child could comprehend that, but evidently you are unable to.
How many times will people tell you, most of the US prisoners are detained not for political reasons. The US isn’t also representative of capitalist countries.
Who gives a shit for what reason US claims it detains all the people for. The fact that it detains by far the highest percentage out of any country is what actually matters. Also, if you think that systemic racism is a better reason to detain people that says a lot about you as a person.
What do you make of China having second largest prison population then?
I think that further exposes you either an idiot or a liar because China doesn’t have the second largest prison population.
Again, do you approve or disapprove of those detained under communist regimes?
I think that’s a loaded question asked in bad faith. I don’t think every person detained under communism was detained for a good reason, just the same as I don’t think that every person detained under capitalist regimes is detained for a good reason. However, what I do know for a fact is that capitalist regimes detain far more people than communist ones. That’s the real elephant in the room that you keep dancing around because you’re an intellectually dishonest individual.
Edit: reading at OP’s response below, there is deliberate feigning of ignorance on China having second biggest prison population as well as mass arrest of civilians in Soviet Union. It is true that the West has flaws and has imprisoned questionable prisoners, like Assange, but the Soviet Union has made mass arrests on civilians and dissidents. We don’t see any large scale in the West.
The interlocutor also threw so many links down below on the second comment as gish gallop tactic. No one could possibly write that much in less than one hour since I made my comment judging by the timestamp. This is a standard troll tactic. Many links actually either contradict what the interlocutor say because they only read the abstract and misrepresent the full study, or the research being presented has deliberate bias and/or misinformation. They also throw in too much information for individual counter arguments to be made. It is gish galloping. With all being said, it is very suspicious that this is not a coordinated effort. If not, could be someone with too much time on their hands.
Lastly, the interlocutor says Russians approve the Soviet Union (if that is the case, they would have supported the communist coup against Gorbachev in the 1990s to retain the Soviet Union). I will not bother reading the articles just thrown in (which I doubt the person even have properly read them), but knowing the Russian mindset, they just take in whatever leaders there are. Centuries of top-down leadership made them malleable to authority figures. People are not always predisposed to crave democracy. Many times, they want authoritarianism and the promise of stability and many were nostalgic of either fascist and communist regimes because of perceived stability, despite the iron-fisted rule. If communism is still popular in Russia, then the communist party should have been elected to power not Putin’s party. Nonetheless, the fact that more people defect from communist countries than the other way says a lot about communism.
Edit2: The person made more comments At least he/she admit Russian communists are controlled opposition. But doesn’t Marxism advocate for violent revolution. Why hasn’t the Russians then try to overthrow the current government despite the corruption and if communism is popular as he/she claim? Wouldn’t this show that communism isn’t as popular?
It is curious to see someone moving the goalpost constantly. If one wishes to discuss per prison population, the interlocutor conveniently ignore that the Soviet Union has had more prisoner population per capita then because of political prisoners and arbitrary arrests. Then of course the person will not address those who were arrested for simply making jokes under communism. Either he/she hasn’t spoken to someone arrested before, or maybe served as someone as a communist authority figure in the past? If the person is trying to be humanitarian figure, as it portrays to be, he/she would acknowledge this.
There is no double standard. We talked about communism and its derivative not living up to its standards. Communism pruports to fight against the abuses and yet turned around on its original goals. Capitalism, on the other hand, is not a dogma. It just evolved on its own. Practitioners of capitalism are not one monolith out to abuse workers intentionally. There are still capitalist countries that still have better worker rights than the US.
You brought up US prison population after I mentioned arrests under communist regimes. You doing that implies Americans are being arrested for political reason, which is rare if ever. As you have justified in your previous post: “All revolutions are messy, and require purging the regressive elements.” So you admit that people in the Soviet Union were imprisoned for political reasons. Ergo, and correct me if I am wrong, you’re insinuating that imprisonment in the Soviet Union is political, but it is still better than that of the US because of lower incarceration rate, even though many prisoners in the US are not political.
That being said, you just admitted that now you don’t care why the US has higher prison population and handwaving as to why the Soviet Union incarcerated political prisoners. You compared arbitrary arrests in the Soviet Union to systemic racism of American prison system. Are you diminishing then the severity of arbitrary arrests without warrant and due process with the flawed racial bias of another? You do justify the atrocities and flaws of communism by hand waving it and basically stating that: “Any problems seen under communism are also seen under capitalism, and they’re often far worse.” Are you telling me, that any flaws in communism could be ignored since capitalism is doing it anyway? Are you admitting to what communist regimes have done? Isn’t the point of Marxist teaching is to dismantle the system of capitalism and offer alternative to more humane system than capitalism?
As for China’s prison population. You’d be disappointed to find out it is true. Search it on your Yandex search engine.
Again, do you approve or disapprove of those detained under communist regimes?
I think that’s a loaded question asked in bad faith. I don’t think every person detained under communism was detained for a good reason, just the same as I don’t think that every person detained under capitalist regimes is detained for a good reason. However, what I do know for a fact is that capitalist regimes detain far more people than communist ones. That’s the real elephant in the room that you keep dancing around because you’re an intellectually dishonest individual.
Oh, got a player do we? Want to play that game of answering a question with a non-answer? Do you happen to be a politician? I will give you extra points for even trying to gaslight me that I’m acting in bad faith even though you never initially answered my question, and instead gave all sorts of easy to point argument fallacies. A standard politician with egomania could answer with non-answer while gaslighting people. Anyone reading these comments will see through you.
You have answered my question indirectly anyway. As pointed above, by making ridiculous whataboutism with American prison system and pretending not to know that China has second biggest population, you indirectly admit that you do not care for those imprisoned under the Soviet communist SYSTEM. The problem with your standard whataboutism on prison population, is that US is not representative of capitalist countries. There are many capitalist countries with low prison population per capita. The Scandinavian countries comes to mind. The flaw in bog standard prison population talking point by communist since the 1960s is that they make attribution bias by pointing out the outlier in a trend, while ignoring the rest. They think pointing out US prison system is a gotcha to deride capitalism as a whole, but conveniently ignore other capitalist countries and also that of China, a supposedly communist country.
Lastly, trying to compare US prison population is red herring and a weak attempt at diminishing and distracting the severity of those who suffered under arbitrary arrest in the Soviet Union. Doing so is tacit approval. You accuse me of being inhumane when you compare apples and oranges to hide the suffering of those thousands who just made a joke, owned a farm, a returning prisoner of war, or a musician whose music is accused of not feeling Soviet enough. You are selectively scrutinising one injustice, but selectively ignore another if it doesn’t fit your own desires. You are a communist not because you care, but because you personally benefit from a system where you think you could have power. Same as a libertarian who would advocate for having no government because he would benefit from an unregulated free market. You know what you’re doing. An egomaniac always knows. Hitler and Stalin were also egomaniac.
Never seen such a good bad faith argument, I will give you that. All fallacies thrown into one. Th most egregious being moving the goal post. Accusing someone of which one is guilty of. A certain Nazi said that. Of course the other end of the horse shoe meets the other. I’ve debated many many likes of you to see through the bad faith arguments, especially your having cognitive dissonance right now and the holes showing. If you want to say more logical fallacies, just hit me up. I could do this all day.
If you want to say more, just hit me up. I could do this all day.
I encourage you to spend the same amount of effort you put into your trolling here to educate yourself instead. Let’s just look at what communism actually accomplishes. Maybe this could be start of the education you’re so woefully in need of.
Russia went from a backwards agrarian society where people travelled by horse and carriage to being the first in space in the span of 40 years. Russia showed incredible growth after the revolution that surpassed the rest of the world:
USSR doubled life expectancy in just 20 years. A newborn child in 1926-27 had a life expectancy of 44.4 years, up from 32.3 years thirty years before. In 1958-59 the life expectancy for newborns went up to 68.6 years. the Semashko system of the USSR increased lifespan by 50% in 20 years. By the 1960’s, lifespans in the USSR were comparable to those in the USA:
Quality of nutrition improved after the Soviet revolution, and the last time USSR had a famine was in 1940s. CIA data suggests they ate just as much as Americans after WW2 peroid while having better nutrition:
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 and the average (not median) retiree household in the USA could expect $48k/yr which comes out to 65% of the 74k average (not median) household income in 2016:
The Soviet Union had the highest physician/patient ratio in the world. USSR had 42 doctors per 10,000 population compared to 24 in Denmark and Sweden, and 19 in US:
Here are some academic studies on USSR that you can read instead of trolling here
Professor of Economic History, Robert C. Allen, concludes in his study without the 1917 revolution is directly responsible for rapid growth that made the achievements listed above possilbe:
Study demonstrating the steady increase in quality of life during the Soviet period (including under Stalin). Includes the fact that Soviet life expectancy grew faster than any other nation recorded at the time:
A large study using world bank data analyzing the quality of life in Capitalist vs Socialist countries and finds overwhelmingly at similar levels of development with socialism bringing better quality of life:
This study compared capitalist and socialist countries in measures of the physical quality of life (PQL), taking into account the level of economic development.
This study shows that unprecedented mortality crisis struck Eastern Europe during the 1990s, causing around 7 million excess deaths. The first quantitative analysis of the association between deindustrialization and mortality in Eastern Europe.
Adult mortality increased enormously in Russia and other countries of the former Soviet Union when the Soviet system collapsed 30 years ago. archive.ph/9Z12u
Looks like you have done this before but I got questions: If the Russians love communism, why haven’t they elected them back to power in Duma instead of Putin’s party and letting themselves sit as the second biggest party? Why do you pretend that China has not got the second biggest prison population? How many political prisoners does the west have, aside from Assange, compared to the Soviet Union? How many Soviets were arrested for making jokes as opposed to Westerners? How many people left communist countries than leave capitalist ones?
Meanwhile, the current party is basically controlled opposition. Russia is now ruled by capitalists just the same way as western countries are.
Why do you pretend that China has not got the second biggest prison population?
Why do you still pretend that it does when I gave you two separate sources saying that it does not. Do you not understand the concept of per capita perhaps?
How many political prisoners does the west have, aside from Assange, compared to the Soviet Union?
This is your idiotic argument, so why don’t you tell me.
How many Soviets were arrested for making jokes as opposed to Westerners?
Show me Soviets who were arrested for making jokes.
How many people left communist countries than leave capitalist ones?
Tiny percentage of people left communist countries, meanwhile people who’d love to leave capitalist countries don’t have the means to.
You keep on digging there buddy, can’t believe you do this clown act for free.
Marxism advocate violent revolution, and if Russians do indeed support communism. Why haven’t the Russians overthrown Putin yet? If they have done so with the tsar, why haven’t they done with Putin? Why haven’t the Russians supported the coup against Gorbachev to retain the Soviet Union if they are indeed supportive? How would you address the Soviet Union having had the most prisoners per capita, while it took the United States decades longer to attain similar rate? If it is better in communist states, why are we not seeing people moving to communist countries en masse? Why have we seen more East Germans risked getting shot escaping the Berlin Wall, than West Germans crossing to the east? Why do you think we see more Cubans trek the sea perilously across the Caribbean to leave Cuba than people going to? What do you make of people arrested in the Soviet Union for arbitrary reason? If you are what you claim to be, have you actually heard what they say or do you deliberately ignore them? There should be plenty of Russians still alive to tell their experience being imprisoned for making jokes or simply having farms who you could talk to, no? Do their experience matter to you? If communism is better in Russia, why has it fallen?
No, Marxism does not advocate violent revolution. I’ve explained this to you earlier, but due to poor reading comprehension you’re still repeating falsehoods here. What Marxism says is that the conditions that capitalism creates ultimately lead to revolutions.
Why haven’t the Russians overthrown Putin yet?
Because conditions aren’t right. Again, if you weren’t an ignoramus, and actually read about history of revolutions, you’d understand when and why they happen. You can start by reading this book from Ray Dalio who is a very successful capitalist, so can’t be accused of being a Marxist.
Why haven’t the Russians supported the coup against Gorbachev to retain the Soviet Union if they are indeed supportive
They did, and I linked you a book discussing this in detail in the comment you’re replying to. You obviously didn’t read the linked source because you are just a troll and aren’t actually interested in answers to the questions you ask in bad faith.
To sum up, you don’t actually care about answers to the questions you’re asking. You are here to troll and that’s just pathetic to be honest.
Muscovites stopped the communist hardliners from overthrowing Gorbachev and backed Yeltsin’s support of Gorbachev. Wouldn’t you say that this is essentially stating that the Russians do not support communism?
If the standard of living in Soviet Union is better than today and communism is better overall, shouldn’t that push Russians to overthrow the current Putin government? Why did communism fall in your opinion?
How come you haven’t addressed my questions about prisoners in the Soviet Union and of their experiences? How come you are giving me questions as answers, to my query as to why East Germans tend to risk their lives crossing to West Berlin and more Cubans are attempting to leave than Westerners risking their lives to come in to communist states?
Will you answer my questions or not? Why did more people risk their lives to leave Cuba and East Germany than the other way? Why hasn’t the Russians revolted against Putin despite the excesses of his government? He has high approval rating of 80%. Wouldn’t you say that the Russians actually support him and the system he upholds more than the communism? Wouldn’t you say there is reason as to why communism fell, and now Russians appear to be more supportive of the current status quo?
Libertarians support unregulated free market because they benefit from rising stocks and worker exploitation. Are you a communist because you are jobless and on welfare? Considering how quick you reply with pre-packaged gish gallop comments, perhaps you do not work at all or ever at all? Or do you extort farmers and such? Do you benefit from communism in one way or another? Did you just admit that atrocities in communism is okay, since capitalism does it anyway? Do you believe that two wrongs make a right? Do you relish in power or getting free stuff from communism to have become its supporter?
I’ve tried answering your questions, and it’s pretty clear that you just ignore what I say and keep repeating the same thing over and over. You’re just a troll, and I’m not going to waste more time feeding you. If you’re genuinely interested, then go and read all the materials and resources I provided you above. Of course, you’re not going to do that because you’re just here to troll. I do feel sorry for you, hope you get the help you need one day.
No you haven’t. Do you, or do you not approve of mass arrest under the Soviet Union? Did you speak to anyone arrested by Soviet secret police before? Are you a welfare benefit receiver? Do you have a job to keep you busy enough? Is this why you are a communist?
Anyone with half a brain and could read elementary level will see that you have not answered all my question.
We both admit that the West is flawed. However, just a yes or no. Do you acknowledge that USSR has wrongfully imprisoned and created atrocities that is just as morally bad?
Just answer the questions with yes or no that’s what I am asking of you. Do you approve of Soviet mass imprisonment and purges that happened? Have you spoken to those who were imprisoned? Are you jobless and on welfare?
I already answered this question. Why don’t you answer this question, if you have two imperfect systems and one results in less suffering than the other which system is better?
A rational person would choose the less imperfect system. So, by asking me this question, does this mean you acknowledge and approve the arbitrary imprisonment of Soviet citizens by the government? Are you implying that that is better?
You also did not answer other questions though. If you think the communist system is better, why did it fall? Why do people risked getting shot crossing the Berlin Wall from the east, and Cubans crossing the Carribean, than the other way around? If life is better in communist system, why did so many emigrate despite guaranteed and free basic necessities provided? Do you just want to get free stuff to wilfully turn a blind eye to state repression? Have you spoken to former detainees? Do you have a job?
Except there wasn’t any arbitrary imprisonment. That’s just something you pulled out of your ass and keep repeating. Just like in any system, some people ended up being detained wrongly. It’s on you to show proof that more people were systemically than under other systems. It certainly appears that US wrongly detains far more people than USSR ever has.
If you think the communist system is better, why did it fall?
Plenty of capitalist regimes fall all the time. Using your logic that’s sufficient reason to abandon it yes?
Why do people risked getting shot crossing the Berlin Wall from the east, and Cubans crossing the Carribean, than the other way around?
Why did vast majority of people not do this?
If life is better in communist system, why did so many emigrate despite guaranteed and free basic necessities provided?
They didn’t, very tiny percentage of people leave communist systems, and it’s never to get basic necessities. I guess we’ve already established that you don’t even understand basic concepts like per capita.
Do you just want to get free stuff to wilfully turn a blind eye to state repression?
No this is just an idiotic thing you keep repeating because you think it’s a really clever gotcha. You’re clearly ok turning a blind eye to repression under capitalism though since it’s the system you keep defending here.
Have you spoken to former detainees under your capitalist regime?
Do you have a job?
I do, and I almost certainly make more than your dumb ass.
Never seen such a good bad faith argument, I will give you that. All fallacies thrown into one. Th most egregious being moving the goal post. Accusing someone of which one is guilty of. A certain Nazi said that. Of course the other end of the horse shoe meets the other. I’ve debated many many likes of you to see through the bad faith arguments, especially your having cognitive dissonance right now and the holes showing. Let’s start.
The only person making bad faith argument here is you buddy. Also, if you think that what you’re doing here passes for debate I feel sorry for you.
There is no double standard. We talked about communism and its derivative not living up to its standards.
What standards is communism not living up to, you never defined those. This is literally an example of a bad faith argument and goal post moving on your part.
Communism pruports to fight against the abuses and yet turned around on its original goals.
You have shown no such thing here. What goals does communism turns on exactly? You’re just stating random nonsense here as fact.
It just evolved on its own. Practitioners of capitalism are not one monolith out to abuse workers intentionally. There are still capitalist countries that still have better worker rights than the US.
None of the capitalist countries are able to do what USSR or Cuba have done which is ensure that everyone has housing, education, healthcare, jobs, and a retirement. That’s just a basic fact of the situation.
You brought up US prison population after I mentioned arrests under communist regimes. You doing that implies Americans are being arrested for political reasons.
It implies no such thing, and if you had basic reading comprehension skills then you’d see that I’ve explicitly said that it doesn’t matter why US claims to arrest people.
So you admit that people in the Soviet Union were imprisoned for political reasons. Ergo, and correct me if I am wrong, you’re insinuating that imprisonment in the Soviet Union is political, but it is still better than that of the US because of lower incarceration rate, even though many prisoners in the US are not political.
This is just a straw man you keep building that has nothing to do with anything I said. Nowhere did I say that USSR didn’t imprison people for political reasons. Every country arrests people for political reasons, including western capitalist regimes you’re so fond of. Assange is currently being tortured in UK for political reasons, and that’s just one example. Again, the question is regarding the rate of incarceration, and here USSR did a lot better than vast majority of capitalist regimes.
You compared arbitrary arrests in the Soviet Union to systemic racism of American prison system.
The arrests in USSR weren’t arbitrary that’s just something you made up.
Are you diminishing then the severity of arbitrary arrests without warrant and due process with the flawed racial bias of another?
You have yet to demonstrate on what basis you claim the arrests in USSR were any more arbitrary than arrests in western countries are. What made these arrests arbitrary do elaborate.
As for China’s prison population. You’d be disappointed to find out it is true. Search it on your Yandex search engine.
Why would you lie about something that can be easily googled, you’re an utter clown
I love how this turd edits his comment instead of responding. Also, evidently doesn’t understand what per capita means. This is consistently the case with these anti communist types. They’re equal parts ignorant and dishonest. All they know how to do is to regurgitate the script they memorized and are completely unable to engage in any meaningful discussion.
@crackajack is a troll and a liar completely misrepresenting what he is being told, which is that the same kinds of atrocities that happen under communism also happen under capitalism, and often on a far bigger scale. So, if the person is trying to make the argument that communism is the reason atrocities happen, then the burden is on them to explain why they also happen under capitalism.
It’s almost as if bad things happen in every human society, and what we actually have to look at is what system does a better job mitigating these problems. Of course, this is an adult concept that a troll here isn’t able to comprehend.
Everyone thinking that the only two options are being quiet or being violent.
Strikes are currently making those in power very uncomfortable, and are resulting in genuine progress for workers.
In my area, people camping out in thousand year old trees has protected them time and again from being illegally logged.
Black Lives Matter protests were loud and made the powerful uncomfortable, and despite media narratives it wasn’t “violent protesters” that made the powerful uncomfortable.
It is true that any form of protest that is loud and inconveniencing enough to actually be productive will be met with state violence.
It’s also true that some working for progress do use violence. But make no mistake, it’s not guns that made those in power uncomfortable when it came to Malcom X and the Black Panthers.
The most radical and intimidating (to those in power) things the Black Panthers did were to give free food to schoolchildren, and free healthcare at their People’s Free Medical Clinics.
Building community and mutual aid is subversive.
Building community and mutual aid makes those in power uncomfortable.
Canada’s treatment of first nations is just as bad as the U.S.'s, and we won’t win every time; But neither will the fascists.
People are waking up to the fact that many governments we were raised to trust are committing active genocide, but the protests that will win will not be spontaneous. They never truly are.
The people that are organizing and building community now learned (usually quite directly) from those that made real change decades ago.
The constant cries of “general strike!” (almost exclusively from white people who refuse to learn from those that have done the work) always fail.
They fail because it’s not about just setting a date and announcing it; It’s about having the community, infrastructure, expertise, and experience already in place to care for the people that simply would otherwise starve if the communities of care weren’t in place.
The trust from very reasonably scared people that they will be cared for rather than abandoned.
Successful movements always come from years to decades of building a foundation.
Every protest is an opportunity to build that community, even if individual actions “fail”.
And yes, people will die on the path to real change. But more will die if we simply remain complacent.
I know you weren’t suggesting to give up, and I assume you also weren’t suggesting perpetrating violence to achieve progress.
Even though you weren’t suggesting either, I think it’s worth laying out the bigger picture explicitly.
Building community and mutual aid makes those in power uncomfortable.
Small mutual aid for local communities grow out into large social aid organizations that have political power. Politicians can make them redundant by unemployment, healthcare and pensions, or try to nip them in the bud.
This. Both the government and the major corporations depend on being able to extract wealth from real people getting what they need. If we build dual power structures, help one another out and cut the owner class out of the transaction entirely, we weaken them. Growing food in your garden is revolutionary. Clothing swaps are revolutionary. Cutting the old lady next door’s lawn, then eating the soup she made is an act that strikes at the fundamental underpinnings of the power structure set up by those who think that they should be entitled to our labor because they’ve been arbitrarily designated as the “owners” of things. We can and should remove them from the equation entirely.
It depends on the kind of change you are attempting to make. Revolutionary changes aren’t going to be accomplished without someone getting hurt, but if you are trying to change the name of your town from Lincolnville to Frankville that likely won’t require injury.
So the solution is to rear a generation of children who believe violence, riots, revolutions, and coup-d’etat is the solution for social change? Because the big problem you are glossing over is that these changes throughout history essentially all involved violence to some degree.
Small progress over time happens through peaceful protest, canvassing, voting, and generally making your voice heard.
But you can’t vote your way out of authoritarianism. You can’t vote away a broken system that incentivizes those in power to keep it broken. That change has to come with grand action and all at once.
What “grand action” do you suppose is appropriate in this scenario? I seem to recall some people taking a grand action on January 6, 2021 also. What separates them from you, besides their radically different ideology?
Here in the UK they are slowly but surely banning protesting, peaceful and non peaceful. Take away peaceful protesting there only is one way. Like it or not, they don’t want to hear you or your voice, they just want you to rot and die.
You know what? They were misguided and wrong, but at least the Jan 6th wankers did something. Now there are politicians who are afraid to do their jobs because the same sort of people threaten them.
Then what’s the way forward? Jan 6 V2 but this time it’s left wing people instead? Ok, then what? You can storm in and overthrow all the evil geriatrics and install the utopian government of your dreams, but then what do you do about the 50% of constituents who oppose that move?
The bedrock of democracy is compromise. If you seize power and install a government that works to further your interests and not strike balance between your interests and their interests, you’re an authoritarian in disguise.
Compromise needs two parties, and it depends on perspective. If we put people who organize coups, murderous cops and their enablers, or corporate ghouls imploding our planet while making common people miserable into prison for decades to life, it could be a compromise between not doing that and mobs indiscriminately killing everyone with any kind of authority.
There are two big problems with violent political measures, one is that if they start, they are very hard to stop, one coup may be followed by three more in the same year, and that the democratic system being made ever weaker by corruption out in the open makes it inevitable.
They’re not glossing over it, nor is it a “big problem”; that’s the whole entire point of the tweet. You can’t defeat tyranny 100% non-violently, period.
It doesn’t have to have a high body count on one side, there aren’t many at the top holding the rest of the world back because they only care about stock prices and shareholder value.
In my experience, most people know this, but they change their rhetoric based on how much they sympathize with the cause in question. If they sympathize a lot they support disruptive action, if they’re only kinda sympathetic they call for civility and “reaching out to people”, if they don’t at all they say they’d only support a letter writing campaign.
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