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This made me remember this pic edit
of Young Stalin
Some people in my group Almost become tankies with It
of Young Stalin
Some people in my group Almost become tankies with It
Is that a molotov in your pants or are you just happy to see me?
Not gonna lie, it gives me a rash. Maybe i need to see a doctor about it. Good thing i've socialized medical care down here.
**wink wink
https://twitter.com/offalnaut/status/925014812786085888
That first reply
Oh God there are even more earnest replies now.
I feel like taking a shot of whiskey every time I see the words "personal responsibility" but I think I'd be hospitalized.
It's kind of funny that I'm in one of the few industries left in the US which has strong unionization and I have the kind of benefits that our conservative friends cannot comprehend, like sick leave, paid vacations, retirement plan, pension, the works. I feel lucky to be in a union in the US where workers basically have the right to work until they die and little else.
Wow, now that's some deep political analysis.
"If it's cool between american kids today, it will change american politics tomorrow"
So the leftists x right-wingers discussion of the future will be about the correct hand to use a fidget spinner?
OP
OP
This got lost on the last page but I found it very interesting, thank you. Black socialists have been struggling to make the movement intersectional for ages. It's a shame some socialists still can't quite put 2 and 2 together.
They have no problem putting 2 and 2 together. They're just fucking racist.
It's already a thing as far as extremely online people are concerned
OP
OP
Here's an insanely kitschy version of the Soviet anthem from the late USSR.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6g89kPGNIc0
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6g89kPGNIc0
I evaluate people's politics based on how their work serves the interests of capital or the working class for which Hillary Clinton fails miserably on that front and at the same time she isn't calling for the workers to seize the means of production so I'm not sure on what planet she could be classified as a socialist. On the other hand I'm not a ideological purist, and I think the likes of people like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren who while aren't socialists according to the classical term have done more to advance the interests of the working class than sects like the sprats and the WSW (who are definitely both socialists but pretty "crap ones").
I dunno man, on a practical level I'm not sure how I'd go about doing international solidarity work if I didn't have some principled opposition to the US imperialist war machine esp when working with communities who are very negatively impacted by western imperialism i.e philippines, pakistan, and I don't think the US left from my perspective has being strong enough on the whole question of imperialism.
I don't get what you are saying here.
But it's completely nonsensical to call Hillary a socialist she is very much the furthest thing from one and proudly wears the non-socialist label on her sleeves, and again as I've indicated before I don't think the "socialist" label is inherently indicative of how good someones politics can be, although I do strongly feel the best social democrats will always fall short because of their unwillingness to challenge the capitalist system, but of course if we are playing with classifications that's because I identify as a socialist that thinks that it's a necessary alternative that people like us run society instead of the 1%!
Marx was from a time before the invention of calculus? Venezuela is socialist?? Socialism == central planning??? Some hot opinions here.
Yeah, you're absolutely right, I'm seeing this happening in Brazil too.
But the thing is: being "cool between college kids" isn't enough for any change, nor is it the determinant factor here. What determines the american politics of the future is the capacity of the establishment to co-opt these popular social movements. Communism was "cool between the college kids" during the 50's and it was quickly brutally repressed with a military dictatorship here. The socialist's ideals for social cooperation/inclusiveness and economy direction was "cool between colege kids" and it was quickly reversed through a coup d'étàt last year.
So, there's a lot of forces in place that should be considered for a really meaningful political analysis, 'cause when something that's cool between college kids can't be co-opted (like socialism, marxism, anarchism, etc) it's quicly obliterated by the burgeoise state.
I know you weren't trying to defend that buffoon, I'm just expanding why this idea is ludicrous and the absurdity of the society we live in when this is the kind of person that has one spot in national television
Definitely subscribing.
While not strictly a socialist podcast, I have been listening to Citations Needed (https://soundcloud.com/citationsneeded) and it has very good anti-imperialist critiques. After I realized the Chapo people were pieces of shit, it has filled that void.
While not strictly a socialist podcast, I have been listening to Citations Needed (https://soundcloud.com/citationsneeded) and it has very good anti-imperialist critiques. After I realized the Chapo people were pieces of shit, it has filled that void.
Discourse Collective has a very good Halloween episode on vampires as a metaphor for capitalism.
Central planning work brilliantly in the short term when you just need to get tractors, trucks and basic goods pumped out en masse. Socialist countries don't fare that well when transitioning to consumer good based economies.
The USSR is arguably the best success story for socialism as it modernized in a decade, ended the regular famines that had killed Russians for centuries and defeated the Axis.
Most other socialist states embraced superstitious nonsense or ignored science and fell into madness. The Soviets got a bit mystical to some extent with Lysenkoism and suffered for that greatly in the form of reduced food production but nothing compared what happened in China or Cambodia.
I think we're going to see the worst problems of modern capitalism soon. We're reaching the point where we basically have an aristocracy that not accountable to any nation state. A country wants to pass social/economic reforms? Nope, all the billionaire just went somewhere else. Want to clean up the environment? Nope, all the billionaires just went somewhere else. Billionaires destroyed the environment? Well, they just went somewhere else, good luck dealing with that without their capital.
National governments were the greatest tool of the worker and that's clearly not going to be the case soon.
Speaking of podcasts guess I'll do one last little bit of self-promotion and post that I actually do a community radio program about radical politics every Friday morning (in Australia) which gets podcasted and edited a few days after it's airs http://www.3cr.org.au/greenleftweeklyradio.
Some of the highlights I've done recently has being a direct interview with a correspondent in Spain about the events unfolding in Catalonia and this Friday I should be doing a interview with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fréderike_Geerdink whose currently touring for a conference about kurdish issues I'm partially organizing that's happening this Saturday in Melbourne.
Some of the highlights I've done recently has being a direct interview with a correspondent in Spain about the events unfolding in Catalonia and this Friday I should be doing a interview with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fréderike_Geerdink whose currently touring for a conference about kurdish issues I'm partially organizing that's happening this Saturday in Melbourne.
I think there may be credible arguments that socialism was, if not impossible, at least infeasibly difficult to implement at scale in various nations under various material constraints over the past 150 years while remaining what we want socialism to actually be, i.e not a repressive state that must disallow dissent to remain operational. I lack the in depth background to really argue at length for that, but what I have read at least doesn't make that sound outlandishly implausible.
Its also fairly clear to me that a ton of those material constraints no longer meaningfully exist. Food scarcity and medicine scarcity are entirely artificial now in a way that they were not 80 years ago (housing scarcity is a bit more complicated but still doesn't meaningfully exist in the sense that there's no reason the homeless can't just have homes). The future looks so much brighter for genuine socialism.
Its also fairly clear to me that a ton of those material constraints no longer meaningfully exist. Food scarcity and medicine scarcity are entirely artificial now in a way that they were not 80 years ago (housing scarcity is a bit more complicated but still doesn't meaningfully exist in the sense that there's no reason the homeless can't just have homes). The future looks so much brighter for genuine socialism.
There are empty homes all over the U.S. More than there are homeless people in the U.S. Housing scarcity is as artificial as anything in capitalism.
It is, but its also the one of the three that maybe has the most social bullshit we have to get through
If we're plugging podcasts I might as well give a shout out to Michael and Us, which started as a Michael Moore retrospective (lol) but since is just a leftist movie podcast, sort of like the Chapo movie episodes but much less edgy. The They Live episode had a pretty fascinating discussion about film under neoliberalism, franchises, nerd/enthusiast consumer culture, and other related topics. Plus, Luke Savage is awesome and cool.
Are you unironically sporting a TPP avatar? Azzanadra iz much confused
Can't a socialist support good foreign policy initiatives intended to protect smaller countries from a large crony capitalist police state?
I think a socialist probably wouldn't support price gouging the global south by limiting access cheap generic pharmaceuticals in order to profit the wealthy domestic drug companies.
Also, I would think a good socialist policy would be to try and limit the genocide of the global south coming from climate change by not proposing treaties that will accelerate it. But maybe that's just me!
This does explain a lot about you trying to argue that Hillary is a socialist though.
Yeah Bonen just gave a few examples of the many problems with the TPP, and that's not even getting into the universally terrible stuff like the IP laws.
Also, Hillary, a socialist? Even Bernie isn't a socialist let alone Hillary. I think Noam Chomsky said it best when he said that Bernie was basically a new-dealer, wonder what that would make Hillary...
Also, Hillary, a socialist? Even Bernie isn't a socialist let alone Hillary. I think Noam Chomsky said it best when he said that Bernie was basically a new-dealer, wonder what that would make Hillary...
Do you really need to keep relitigating the primary? This is the Socialism thread, just let Hillary go.
Edit: I dropped the argument specifically to avoid the entire thread spiraling into discussions of Hillary and people thinking I'm trolling. Until Bonen brought it up again just to pick fights!
My intention was not to relitigate the primaries, rather to explain that if the self described socialist isn't one, then why would Hillary, someone to the right of said self-describes socialist be?
The crazy thing to me is that we are able to take things like this for granted when you have a job in my third world country but US citizens see it as some utopian fantasy.
We have strong unions here (Not really in my) but you can see media going out of their way to paint a negative image.
Could you imagine if America had an actual violent radical left?
Conservatives would be calling for tactical nuclear strikes on college campuses.
Conservatives would be calling for tactical nuclear strikes on college campuses.