Get ready for your first communist neighbor

[user 37518]

How can an ideology be bad?

Well, I would say that if your ideas or manifesto was the moving force behind the death of 100 million people during the XX century, I think it is a good candidate to what I would consider "bad" ideology, I would also say that Nazism could fit into that category. But hey, thats just my opinion....

 

[user 37518]

You can't blame communism for the fact that some of these countries turned totalitarian, unless you turn a blind eye to the fact that there are totalitarian capitalist countries too.

Tell me the percentage of all the communist countries between the XX-XXI centuries that were totalitarian, and the percentage of capitalist totalitarian countries in the same time span....

The fact that your example of success of communism is some local province in India is not very encouraging.

Exactly which communist countries do you think would be great without the US intervention? Perhaps South Korea would've been better with communism?

You probably would've loved Cambodia during Pol Pot's regime...

How can you pretend that the death of 100 million was only due to "bad implementation" of communism. It's been the most genocide ideology in human history. It is estimated, that the worst death figures during the 400 years of Spanish inquisition is 300,000, that is the most pessimist figure I've found. Mao killed 45 million in 4 years.....

 

[brujo]

Well, I would say that if your ideas or manifesto was the moving force behind the death of 100 million people during the XX century, I think it is a good candidate to what I would consider "bad" ideology, I would also say that Nazism could fit into that category. But hey, thats just my opinion....

Well, if that's your idea of what an ideology is then any discussion is futile. I think that you might be angry with some tax or something that the mexican government put on you, and you have no other means of dealing with that than feeding your fear of ideologies and/or communism.
Grow up, life goes on, you'll learn not to be a crier and to put in context any decisions that an administration makes without catastrophizing.
I'm as pro capitalism as it gets (having a degree in economy fills my fridge every day) but all this craze of calling communism everything that diverts from the blatant neoliberalism that seizes the globe since the late 70s makes me think that perhaps this is not the capitalism that I respect and value.
Giving tax cuts for the ultra rich and killing competition in the process is just making people think capitalism isn't a valid option anymore and consider other alternatives. Communism is just one of those alternatives. Calling everyone that thinks a bit different than you a communist is something that cuts all the debates, without debating about where we want to go as an economic system is a great way to make people want this system to end.

Don't be a kid, Mexico is as far of being communist as it can be, it's just other flavor of capitalism. If there is something that you don't agree with, discuss, but don't turn the idiot wheel, that will make things worse for all of us.

 

[user 37518]

Well, if that's your idea of what an ideology is then any discussion is futile. I think that you might be angry with some tax or something that the mexican government put on you, and you have no other means of dealing with that than feeding your fear of ideologies and/or communism.
Grow up, life goes on, you'll learn not to be a crier and to put in context any decisions that an administration makes without catastrophizing.
I'm as pro capitalism as it gets (having a degree in economy fills my fridge every day) but all this craze of calling communism everything that diverts from the blatant neoliberalism that seizes the globe since the late 70s makes me think that perhaps this is not the capitalism that I respect and value.
Giving tax cuts for the ultra rich and killing competition in the process is just making people think capitalism isn't a valid option anymore and consider other alternatives. Communism is just one of those alternatives. Calling everyone that thinks a bit different than you a communist is something that cuts all the debates, without debating about where we want to go as an economic system is a great way to make people want this system to end.

Don't be a kid, Mexico is as far of being communist as it can be, it's just other flavor of capitalism. If there is something that you don't agree with, discuss, but don't turn the idiot wheel, that will make things worse for all of us.

I love how you talk and tell me to grow up without knowing a single thing and just going by your intuition

You tell me to discuss, I gave a huge list, what more do you want

 

[boji]

Current example is one province of India [who were extra-humanitarian]

Which province? I don't think examples of extraordinary generosity can (or should) be attributed to a people's form of governance. Besides, if the entire country is socialist, the fact that this kind deed is provincial suggests it is likely not due to their type of rule, but might come by an extraordinary leader's communication skills, or a localized religious inclination. Their form of governance may be entirely coincidental.

 

[cyrano]

Which province? I don't think examples of extraordinary generosity can (or should) be attributed to a people's form of governance. Besides, if the entire country is socialist, the fact that this kind deed is provincial suggests it is likely not due to their type of rule, but might come by an extraordinary leader's communication skills, or a localized religious inclination. Their form of governance may be entirely coincidental.

Sorry, my memory isn't what it used to be...

Kerala, I think. Lemme see.

Yes:

https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/how-kerala-managing-its-medical-oxygen-supply-147579
The entire country of India isn't socialist. There's a right-wing elected leader that refuses to act when it comes to Covid. He's very much capitalist AND a US ally. He opened up bank data from the entire country to be inspected by US intelligence under the guise of anti-terrorist action fi, while doing nothing about local terrorism, resulting in thousands of deaths a while back.

 

[cyrano]

Tell me the percentage of all the communist countries between the XX-XXI centuries that were totalitarian, and the percentage of capitalist totalitarian countries in the same time span....

I don't know. Do some research in stead of telling me what to do.

The fact that your example of success of communism is some local province in India is not very encouraging.

As I said, it's a current example.

Exactly which communist countries do you think would be great without the US intervention? Perhaps South Korea would've been better with communism?

Cuba. The entire continent of Africa. Venezuela. Brazil. India. I can give you the entire history of many countries fucked up by US intervention. That would need several books, at least and I suspect it wouldn't change your mind anyway, so I'll pass.

You probably would've loved Cambodia during Pol Pot's regime...

There are examples of the opposite. I won't pretend Russia to be a democracy, even if they have elections. But they're not communist anymore either.

It's not a black and white picture. But there's no doubt in my mind that fi, Cuba, was ruined by the US blockade and not by communism.

In one of the Ebola breakouts in Africa, 22 Cuban doctors (with experience in tropical fevers) were in place days after it occurred. The US sent many soldiers, weeks later. One of the cries of doctors in place was that the US army was getting in the way.

Cuba also produced one of the first effective treatments. They had to syphon it via a Canadian pharma company to get it to US production facilities (Cuba can't scale up the way the US can). Cuba made hardly any money from the treatment. The Canadians sold it to US pharma for 20 million, without any means to syphon some of it back to Cuba.

How can you pretend that the death of 100 million was only due to "bad implementation" of communism. It's been the most genocide ideology in human history. It is estimated, that the worst death figures during the 400 years of Spanish inquisition is 300,000, that is the most pessimist figure I've found. Mao killed 45 million in 4 years.....

You didn't search very well, did you? I can easily find much, much larger numbers for the inquisition.

300.000 (for the inquisition) on a total population of 5 million isn't that different.
45 million (for Mao) on a total population of 750 million isn't that different either.

Don't throw around some numbers without referencing your scale. Besides, these numbers tend to vary a lot, according to source. Some protestant, anti-islam sites come to numbers in the millions for the inquisition. Of course, that's pure propaganda. Nobody has the exact numbers.

You won't see me defending genocide. Not from one side, nor from the other. I'm not even a communist. But I hate constant lies from propaganda. From every side.

EDIT: Interesting discussion about numbers from the inquisition on StackExchange for those of you interested in numbers:
https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/39443/what-was-the-death-toll-during-the-inquisition

 

[PermO]

He opened up bank data from the entire country to be inspected by US intelligence under the guise of anti-terrorist action

He's late to the party...

Europe did that in 2006 / 2007 ....

I think you put too much focus on the right wing / left wing thing, which makes you sound very biased.

 

[cyrano]

Good point, PermO. But the term "communist", or even "socialist" seems even more loaded. How would you refer to it?

Also, Europe opened up bank transfer data, but nothing as complete as India did. The US has direct, complete access to ALL of India's payments. Not that it's that much better, as one of the consequences of the agreement is that we need to specify the reason for every bank withdrawal of our own money over 5.000 € what the purpose is. Of course, it's privacy invasive and utterly useless, as a terrorist can withdraw several smaller amounts of cash, or simply lie...

Now, imagine for a moment, the Russians, or the Chinese would like the same access...

 

[Crosscut]

It seems obvious to those of us outside the US that the country we should be most worried about with the worst record of human rights abuses, pollution, political corruption and a terrifying and imperialist foreign policy is the US.
Under Trump or Biden..... or Obama or Clinton etc.

Nothing new, but maybe stay out of other country's affairs and stop stealing oil?

 

[PermO]

Oh don't worry, China, Russia, Israel, Apple, Microsoft, DARPA, CIA, ... they have it all... they have far more than you will ever be able to grasp lol.

But they are just doing their job, the job of an intelligence agency is to know all, by any means necesarry, the whole paradigm is pretty simple actually.

As far as the ...isms go, it's just ...isms, I don't support any of them.

 

[cyrano]

True capitalism levels the playing field, very few in power actually want that, as they would actually need to earn their keep, not leech it out of society.

True capitalism is killed by monopolies.

In theory, both communism and capitalism have their merits. Until the power adagio kicks in. As in "power corrupts and total power corrupts totally".

If you draw the conclusions from that adagio, you land in anarchism. Keep things small and local to avoid power concentration.

I hope you understand the difference between "anarchy" and "anarchism".

 

[Crosscut]

"True capitalism" or any other form of capitalism is doomed.

It's quite simple logic;

Capitalism relies on profit to function.
The planet we live on has finite resources.
Therefore the resources will run out and an alternative will have to be found.

I've yet to hear any logical argument in favour of capitalism that addresses this problem.

 

[Newmarket]

Ok, what else do you need to call it Communism? a red flag? Isn't that the whole Marxist idea ? the proletariat is good and all their problems are due to the evil burgoisie?

err...no it's not. That's 'just' politics.
I will point out though that it's a 'funny sort' of Communist with an allegiance to the ideas of Marx that declares to be a devout Roman Catholic.

btw - if you insist on commenting on socioeconomic issues then it would be a god idea to learn to spell "bourgeoisie".

 

[Banzai]

Socialist/communist countries are doing everything they can to shred democracies in like kind.

No one is innocent, and the blood we see speaks to our confirmation bias. That bias ought to keep the truth seeker humble and mostly silent, but hey...word battles.

What are you on about?

Which communist/socialist country sent death squads into foreign countries to kill Capitalists?
Which communist/socialist country carried out close to 100 "regime change" operations to remove democratically elected leaders and install puppet dictators?
Which communist/socialist country has imposed 60 years of crushing economic sanctions and blockades on a country that posed no economic, military, or political threat?
Which communist/socialist country indiscriminately targeted the US civilian population with actions and policies designed specifically to starve them into submission?
Which communist/socialist country has at any time in history bombed, invaded, and killed civilians on 4 different continents ?!

No-one targets civilians like the US government does, or on anywhere near the worldwide scale.

 

[JohnRoberts]

It looks like some old arguments are getting re-litigated.

For the record I have long opposed crony capitalism where big business "partners" with big government.... Any concentration of too much centralized power is bad (now it's big tech). Our founders were aware of the risks and tried to limit federal power.... and for hundreds of years the swamp dwellers have worked to get around the constitutional limits.

Good luck to us all..

JR

 

[Dark1]

As someone who lived in a "socialist" country his entire childhood, I can add a few comments. The socialist countries of Eastern Europe were oficially on a constant "road to communism" since anyone half sane can recognize a society witout classes, private ownership, and ultimately money or a state structure etc. is not attainable, so it was presented as just a "goal"... "better tomorrows". We had political classes at school that tried to formalize these idiotic pseudo-philosophies into the so-called Marxism-Leninism framework. So "communism" was just a banner of hatred under which all the enslaved "communist" states were rallied against the West by the USSR. The socio-economic system was a state capitalism (since most proposed forms of "socialism" are also an illusion), without most freedoms today's "socialists" in the West take for granted. No freedom of private ownership, no freedom of speech, no free votes, state control of everything (e.g. you had to oficially ask the state for a permission to go on an out-of-state vacation; and so on). Everyone was poor except the elite, i.e. the leaders of the Communist Party and their loyals. The resources were plundered, the ecosystem destroyed to the point of natural catastrophies (sometimes we even had forced school holidays when the air pollution was at its peak levels). And all this under the "leadership" of USSR, no "U.S. intervention" there -- but of course all the disasters were blamed on the U.S.A. (this hasn't changed, most regimes that still present themselves as "socialist" or "communist" still blame the U.S. for all their countless failures).

 

[Banzai]

First I am not enamoured about the US model, the capitalist and political model of Mexico used to be very similar to the US before this administration.

With the exact same outcome of extreme inequality and rampant corruption.

Second, regarding Biden/Trump, all I am going to say are the following things that I appreciate about Trump's presidency: He didn't engage in any new War, Biden almost instantly attacked Syria and now is on the bringe of causing an international conflict between the West and Russia/China (exactly all the bombing that you complained about was carried by Biden almost instantly as he became president), Trump enforced the Mexico City policy and Biden revoked it whilst calling himself a "devout catholic", Trump is an ass, but at least he was honest about being an ass, Biden is a hipocrite, Trump called mexican immigrants rapists and criminals, whilst I do not agree he was somehow right when he said that Mexico doesn't send his best, unfortunately most illegal immigrants that go there are the most enpoverished and uneducated, that doesn't make them rapists or criminals but I can see his point, so even if I disagree with Trump I dislike Biden more when he says "We look at Mexico as our equal", yeah right....

– Trump dropped more bombs than Bush and Obama. He didn't end any conflicts and continued 7 active wars.

– Trump calls Mexicans "rapists and criminals", a comment which you find understandable and have sympathy for, but you dislike Biden more because he calls you "equals"

then he took his image of the sacred heart of Jesus out and said that he was protected by the sacred heart of Jesus, he contracted COVID some months later, sadly he recovered.

Clearly, you're religious.

 

[Dark1]

What are you on about?

Which communist/socialist country sent death squads into foreign countries to kill Capitalists?

Soviet invasion of Finland in 1939, Soviet occupation of the Baltic states in 1940, Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939 (together with Nazi Germany), Soviet bloodbath following the East German uprising in 1953, the same during Hungarian revolution in 1956 and 1968 in Czechoslovakia, Soviets establishing the North Korea regime after the war, I can go on and on...

 

[trees]

Reverse engineering only gets us so far sometimes.. Need to start a Right to Repair the World.. legislate for the schematics and parts.

Can Group DIY fix the planet?