Like I have any money to spend on things.
Got a perfect score on my Communist Manifesto essay for poli-sci cause apparently like 2/3 of the class wrote about the capitalism/socialism/communism spectrum that doesn't actually exist. America rots your brain but at least my scholarship is safe :marx-ok:
capialism is when freedom socilasm is when free healthcare communnisam is when no freedom
In my poli-sci class my lecturer had to remind everyone that Obamacare wasn't "socialized medicine" as many of them had said in their latest assignment.
why does every remotely left leaning subreddit somehow fill up with anti communist "socialists"? its wildly frustrating. to clarify, i'm an anarchist and i'm just waiting for someone to call me red fash/tankie at this point
because bernie rebranded socialism as the mildest form of social democracy.
I'm not an American """"""socialist"""""" as you can see from my reply to OP, but criticizing Bernie is dumb. Socdems in Europe were criticized because they were opportunists who diverted people from actual existing and viable communist parties, as well as diverting people from radical union action.
In the US, there are no viable communist parties, and no large-scale radical unions, so criticizing Bernie from that angle is meaningless. We can't criticize Bernie for stealing voters from non-existent third parties.
that feels like a chicken and the egg problem. There are no viable leftist parties because the Democratic party has shepherd dogs leading us back to centrist candidates. Two elections in a row, we had Bernie, 2024 we’ll have AOC. If we worked our ass off starting now, we could have a viable party by 2024.
The definition of left is very fucking eroded in our current culture. If you stick to making solid arguments you will sway them eventually. Prolly how a lot of us got here.
Counterpoint: you won't necessarily be able to change their views with arguments because they might be people in comfortable positions who don't have any problem with the status quo, and only like the aesthetic of being a rebel.
Its the same good negro/bad negro propaganda used by slavers. Good leftists are those who criticize AES societies and who dont do "authoritarian" things like organizing radical unions or forming militias. Bad leftists are those who point out the massive successes of AES societies, point out the useful lessons learned from their experience and who are "authoritarian" (read : willing to actually do useful stuff other than voting or charity)
So be a good little leftist, don't get out of line, and you're rewarded with patting on your head, like a master would to his cur. But be a bad leftist, acquire actual material economic and political power, you face ostracism, arrest or worst-case execution like Fred Hampton.
criticize AES societies
"critical support"
Bad leftists are those who point out the massive successes of AES societies, point out the useful lessons learned from their experience
You literally just defined criticism as reactionary, cognitive dissonance is off the charts!
why does every remotely left leaning subreddit somehow fill up with anti communist “socialists”?
dialectics go brrrrrr
Had to put down my dog this morning. His health turned south last night out of nowhere. There was a malignant tumour near his heart and fluid was leaking and affecting his heart and oxygen intake. It was really tragic because he seemed healthy and happy as we had to put him down, but he was dependent on oxygen so we couldn't even get a last weekend together.
I’m so sorry about your dog, comrade. I lost my childhood dog to cancer a couple years ago, and it was really hard to process. I wish you peace and healing during this time in your life. ❤️
That's awful. At least he didn't seem scared as he went, way better than misery.
Been there and it’s absolutely heartbreaking experience. I’m sorry that you’re going through this
"Mao had often noted that Lenin had Nicholas "II, the last Russian emperor, shot together with the rest of the Russian imperial family, as Lenin could not make the last tsar into a communist; making the last Chinese emperor into a Communist was intended to show the superiority of Chinese communism over Soviet communism.[234] Puyi was to be subjected to "remodeling" to make him into a Communist."
And he succeeded
Mao has the biggest dick of anyone in history.
Reading about how is interesting.
Puyi had never brushed his teeth or tied his own shoelaces once in his life and had to do these basic tasks in prison, subjecting him to the ridicule of other prisoners.[240] Much of Puyi's "remodeling" consisted of attending "Marxist-Leninist-Maoist discussion groups" where the prisoners would discuss their lives before being imprisoned.[241] When Puyi protested to Jin that it had been impossible to resist Japan and there was nothing he could have done, Jin confronted him with people who had fought in the resistance and had been tortured, and asked him why ordinary people in Manchukuo resisted while an emperor did nothing.[242] Puyi had to attend lectures where a former Japanese civil servant spoke about the exploitation of Manchukuo while a former officer in the Kenpeitai talked about how he rounded up people for slave labor and ordered mass executions.[243] At one point, Puyi was taken to Harbin and Pingfang to see where the infamous Unit 731, the chemical and biological warfare unit in the Japanese Army, had conducted gruesome experiments on people. Puyi noted in shame and horror: "All the atrocities had been carried out in my name".[243] Puyi by the mid-1950s was overwhelmed with guilt and often told Jin that he felt utterly worthless to the point that he considered suicide.[244] Jin told Puyi to express his guilt in writing. Puyi later recalled he felt "that I was up against an irresistible force that would not rest until it found out everything".[245] Sometimes Puyi was taken out for tours of the countryside of Manchuria. On one, he met a farmer's wife whose family had been evicted to make way for Japanese settlers and had almost starved to death while working as a slave in one of Manchukuo's factories.[246] When Puyi asked for her forgiveness, she told him "It's all over now, let's not talk about it", causing him to break down in tears.[247] At another meeting, a woman described the mass execution of people from her village by the Japanese Army, and then declared that she did not hate the Japanese and those who had served them as she retained her faith in humanity, which greatly moved Puyi.[248] On another occasion, Jin confronted Puyi with his former concubine Li in meetings in his office, where she attacked him for seeing her only as a sex object, and saying she was now pregnant by a man who loved her.[248]
Holy shit, I hadn't read anything on this before. They truly broke that man just to make him rebuild himself into a better person. And it worked.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puyi#Later_life_(1945%E2%80%931967)
For anyone wondering where this is from. Looks like most is sourced from the book The Last Emperor.
Asshole is a massive understatement too. He signed off on all the horrible war crimes the Japanese did in Manchukuo, including slavery. He constantly had his servants beat each other, encouraged his wife's opium addiction because it made her "mote manageable", and constantly raped teenage boys (and probably girls).
Dude deserved a painful death, but Mao rehabilitated him just to dunk on Lenin lmao
From what I read it seems like in his later years he was sincerely reflecting on his past and felt massive shame.
Self-honesty and criticism are extremely powerful, and extremely rare
Also, I'd heavily recommend reading up on Puyi's life. Dude went from a spoiled emperor egomanicial sadist who never even had to tie his own shoes, to a common worker who visited a woman in the hospital everyday because he accidentally hit her with a bike.
people here claim that they hate capitalism yet they used capital letters :curious-marx:
says the person with capital letters in his username? sorry, iam the only leftist here.
I find this vote manipulation thing hilarious. I wanna know who the unidan of chapo chat is.
Something something crows something something jackdaws
Updoots to the left my fellow leredditors
My grandad was driven to the ER and tested positive for COVID and then they sent him home despite him having breathing difficulties.
Considering the hospital near-capacity statistics, this is a very normal experience. I did not like this Thanksgiving.
Really sorry about your grandad. Solidarity with your family.
My mom has been brainwashed by capital and still wants to go to work. She's been in recent, continued contact with my grandmother who lives with my infected gramps and claims that since she hasn't been in contact with a confirmed case yet, she's clear.
I'm not too thankful for family rn.
yeeep there's your problem conrad, look like someone dumped Keynesian General theory down your socialist pipeline, completely rotted out the inner lining, ya even got a block up of confused radicals right on the U bend right there, gonna have to tear down the walls and replace the piping
Are there any good sources for learning about the problems of Keynsianism from a marxists perspective?
Michał Kalecki's 1943 Political Aspects of Full Employment is probably THE best Marxist refutation of Keynesianism in the midst of its formative years and maybe one of the greatest examples of predictive analytics in the 20th century
Yup. And unfortunately, as much as I critically support China, they're policies are overall more conservative than the USSR (no universal healthcare, for instance), so it doesn't shift the overton window as much. Especially since China is nowhere near Western European capitalist countries geographically
Not universal healthcare, no. They were working on making it a reality by 2020 but then they got hit by the pandemic.
They so have basic healthcare for regular check-ups and such, and I'm fairly certain that extended to the pandemic, but I believe surgery and certain prescriptions still costs money. Cheaper than the US for sure (at least in raw cost, you have to keep in mind that China still has a lower GDP per capita), but not free.
At the same time, it's important that within living memory even going to the hospital at all was a luxury in China
I've always heard it repeated word of mouth my whole life. But for those who didn't know: no, the tryptophan you consume from eating turkey doesn't make you tired.
The one and only time i worked black friday i took an edible beforehand and showed up around 11pm thanksgiving for an overnight/midnight shift. I was high as fuck the entire shift, and since i was working as basically the cart attendant, that just meant i got to go wander around the store while my boss was too busy to supervise me. Anyway i remember being high as fuck just making loops around the store pretending i was 'putting things in order' while there was a festival of human misery around me
You know I honestly thought the corporations would have made some stupid #resistance "BLM Friday" this year but apparently they don't even care about extra profits from performative wokeness that much.
i think this part if why a lot of leftists become libs as they age. that alienation downright exhausting
This is what not reading Inventing Reality - who dives into specific anticommunist activities the US gov did - does to a mfer (actually i've never read Manufacturing Consent, but if it goes into the red scare as much as Parenti did i might actually read it instead of making fun of the anarcho-bidenist author)
edit: damn, downbeared for saying chomsky is more anti-communist than parenti? smh libs downbearing basic facts
I hate Christmas. Like, not in a "bah humbug" sort of way, but in the naked consumerism involved.
What's the point of sending someone a $50 gift card if they're going to send me a $50 gift card back? And buying consumer goods isn't much better, since the gift recipient could just as easily purchase it for themselves if they really wanted it.
I'd like a society where we focused more on thoughtful, small gifts for each other. It would help build social connections instead of precisely-valued exchanges. But we're all so overworked and exhausted that we don't have time to work on gifts for other people, and so it's easier to throw money at the problem.
The best kind of Christmas presents are ones where someone gets you something you didn't expect or would think of buying yourself but ended up loving. Like 4 years back I got a big box from my mom. Thought it might be a game console and was excited but surprised she spent so much. Instead it was an air fryer she got for cheap and its so much better, probably my all time favorite adult christmas gift.
Its kinda why I think Christmas lists are kind of a stupid idea for anyone really close to you because they could just buy whats on them if they really wanted to.
I think christmas lists are a good idea, but I kinda use them as more of a loose guideline. Like, I intentionally put "funny socks" or "apron with a food related pun on it" to be somewhat surprised, or if the people know your interests well enough, they can get you something you'll really like and still be surprised by.
Wifey and i are getting into zero/low waste and my hatred for this holiday has increased tenfold. Every gift card is more useless plastic that's gonna get thrown in the ground and leech microplastics for centuries. Every cute pre-packaged gift at the store is covered in plastic and is half cardboard (which at least can be recycled). And while it's very sweet when people think of you and put your on their christmas shopping list, i'd honestly rather just have some homemade treats 9/10 than some mall device that's only gonna be used a single time or some clothes that aren't to my tastes.
So yeah i totally agree. I did hand-painted cards for all my family last year and it felt much more real and like i was actually investing myself in their gifts, and i feel the same feeling when i get a gift chosen by someone who knows me really well and put time/thought/energy into it. Gift giving should be so joyous - something you do when you have excess resources to lovingly share, but capitalism actually managed to suck a lot of the fun out of it.
the Press F to pay respects meme is over 20 years old today, feel old yet?
Chapochat’s older generation (like those born in the late 90s) must be so shocked
Chapochat’s older generation (like those born in the late 90s)
older generation (like those born in the late 90s)
born in the late 90s
excuse me whilst i crumble into dust
I think that a large portion of chapos were born in the late 80s to early 90s
We all know that 4/5ths of chapo is 10 year olds but you don't have to bring it up
On DOA we still use the fire emoji thingy for the dead :(
