Pol Pot also defined himself as Marxist-Leninist. I feel like lines are being blurred everywhere.
Does Lukashenko deserve our critical support in defiance of Western hegemony?
Pol Pot also defined himself as Marxist-Leninist. I feel like lines are being blurred everywhere.
Does Lukashenko deserve our critical support in defiance of Western hegemony?
I honestly wouldn't call him a socialist, more of a nationalist (not the fash kind but "fuck off foreign powers" kind) but Belarus is currently the front line in the NATO-Russian Cold War. To me it seems like he tries to play the two sides off eachother for the benefit of Belarus (this is based and I respect it), but ultimately the country is aligned with Russia due to strong cultural and historical ties. He doesn't seem to be lavishly corrupt (a little corruption is expected and okay). He does maintain that small social safety net which is not so easy for a country like that to sustain under western pressure. Neoliberal regime change would likely be devastating for Belarusians, and we already saw the CIA's dirty fucking hands all over the protests there last year. I'd say he's fine and you should at least oppose the CIA's efforts to depose him.
(Also he kept a bunch of Soviet icongraphy and let Steven Seagal visit his Presidential Palace and pick carrots so for me the cool factor makes me like him lol)
:bruh-moment:
he can have a little corruption, as a treat
but for real, people should be compensated according to responsibility, and if that means he gets a nice house and good food, so be it. anything like the amount of wealth CEOs siphon off their workers today is haram of course
critical support is not about laundering genuine complaints. fuck Lukashenko for doing corruption if he is.
no, you're right, I don't know how extensive his corruption is.
I'm just saying on principle, a socialist society would maintain differing levels of compensation for a while, until the big red communism button is pressed
This is literally a liberal talking point to justify the CEO thing.
Also we're talking about corruption.
I'm talking like slightly higher wages, not billions in tax havens. DPRK has a base salary and a production based bonus, so you will never starve, but still get rewarded for hard work.
"Responsibility"=/=harder work. Responsibility is what the libs will tell you to justify why a CEO makes so much money and it is a weird abstract concept.
Corruption isn't how much a politician is paid. Corruption is abuse of a politician's office for additional illegal monetary gain.
I think we agree on this, we're just talking past each other.
This is very possible lol
I mean if you think the western world is any better with "corruption" I have news for you, they just found different ways to legalize and legitimize it via lobbying and "charity events" and stuff. Corruption isn't such a big deal in Eastern Europe, even the more blatant kind. As long as it doesn't go overboard, there is some expectation that office holders can abuse their power for personal gain a little bit. You'd wouldn't want him to act like an ascetic saint, that'd just be disingenuous, since every politician these days abuses their office and every Eastern European knows it.
Sure corruption is a bad societal ill and is essentially robbing from the public (much like private property), but under capitalism where people are motivated to seek material wealth above all it's unavoidable that many people are going to try to turn their political power into money. But there's still a difference between skimming a few million from the state budget over many years of rule (which I believe is Lukashenko's situation) and orchestrating a scheme to sell off the multi-billion dollar state oil company to your banker friends like Yeltsin did in the 90s. Plus the CIA likes to level vague charges of "corruption" on their regime change targets all the time because you can find it in basically every country.
not even a socialist revolution will completely eliminate corruption, at least not without great effort and some time. So some dude stealing a few million in taxes is not that big of a deal compared to the crimes against humanity that occur everyday in the realm of "legitimate business"
i don't think anywhere is free of corruption, but the learned cynicism of eastern europeans doesn't make it okay or make it necessary for us to lower our expectations. China is executing people for corruption all the damn time, and we applaud it. i'm not going to have a double standard for eastern european 'anti-imperialists'
Ideally there is no corruption, but in practice a few bribes can be overlooked if the politician generally has their people's wellbeing at heart.
ideally, people abusing their political office should be shot in the head
in practice we're approving it on the principle of 'he's good in his heart, really, trust me'
shithead =/= shithead the US should overthrow
Yeah no, that is not what I am saying. Until we hit the communism button, or at least have an advanced socialist state, people in the business of politics will be a little corrupt. If they weren't, they could never get to a position of power. Focus on whether the corruption is getting in the way of governing(such as allowing dangerously sub-standard construction) or violently immoral(such as accepting a concubine). I can understand if you disagree on this point, but I want you to understand what I am saying.