Every thread I see in which people disparage socialists, they just pass around easily debunked myths about what they REALLY WANT.
"Those LOSERS just want FREE STUFF."
Anyone who's taken a lens to income inequality knows that the so-called economic losers (not poor Americans, the people in the very bottom percentiles of wealth, worldwide) barely get anything even at their most exploitative.
As someone who actually posts in /r/socialism, I don't care much for the censorship, but I don't run the place.
Notice I haven't said anything about you as a person or what your goals are, merely what your post succeeds in doing.
By 'exceeds our ability to moderate', you mean 'exceeds our ability to prevent the rest of reddit from seeing how fucking retarded and delusional we are', right? I think that's what you were going for there.
/u/jackissocool, if your socialist utopia doesn't even work well enough to sustain a Reddit thread how do you think it would be able to sustain a country? You can't just lock those.
I haven't seen any proof myself so i don't jump on that bandwagon but still looking at our history in Latin America does tell a lot. It's not out of the question.
looking at our history in Latin America does tell a lot
Yes it tells that America and the USSR, being the biggest superpowers at the time, were involved in a bunch of proxy wars all across the globe which are collectively referred to as the cold war. This does not constitute evidence btw, it also isn't evidence that the Venezuelan opposition are fascist american imperialist capitalist monsters either.
Venezuela now is not a threat to America, and the USSR is history. The US has no reason to execute some super secret under cover program to take over Venezuela.
Venezuela now is not a threat to America, and the USSR is history. The US has no reason to execute some super secret under cover program to take over Venezuela.
Yeah, Maduro clearly took a meeting with FusionGPS Veselnitskaya. All we need is someone dying after eating a polonium sundae to prove it was Putin the whole time.
The major evidence for US intervention always shows up years later after people stop caring. Usually in declassified docs no one reads. This is how the CIA, NSA, and FBI work.
Also right-wing groups within the opposition are essentially lynching minority groups.
It's possible to say Maduro is doing some terrible shit while acknowledging that the US is trying to instigate regime change and possibly funding some right-wing aggressors.
Also right-wing groups within the opposition are essentially lynching minority groups.
If by "minority groups" you mean Maduro supporters, you're probably right. Meanwhile, the "legitimate" government is arresting opposition leaders in the middle of the night. Neither should be unexpected. Violence is what happens as situations like this deteriorate. The two sides will eventually engage in all-out war with each other.
'Funding opposition' apparently actually meant basketball courts for schools and chicken coops for poor folks, as well as basic civics shit like 'this is what a democracy is' and 'how to monitor for voter fraud' which was apparently very scary shit for the Chavez government.
Yep $60 mil + on basketball courts and chicken coops. I don't know why pointing out the US is involved in regime change is so controversial when it has been an integral part of our foreign policy failings for decades.
Venezuela is a clusterfuck, an absolutely self-inflicted tragedy, but I wish people would stop posting this comparison as if it means anything. It's cringey af. Just stop.
/u/_misha_ You do realize the US stopped caring about Venezuela after Clinton left office? We have way too many other, more important countries meddle in than that godforsaken place. Why would we even waste time and money we don't have, when simply ignoring it has clearly done more to destabilize the area than we ever could?
or we can return the government processes back to their constitution
means? You fucking retarded burger, stop pretending that this isn't just admitting that they have plans to remove him from power by force. But everything The Exceptional America does is good, right? You are fucking retarded man. All you burgers need to be purged.
I consider myself a Marxist, but /r/socialism is fascist moderated sewer that wouldn't know Socialism if it overthrew a democratically elected leader, instituted a dictatorship of the proletariat, put the means of production in the hands of the working class, and then dissolved itself.
This is what happens when you make basic conversations and discourse a matter of competition for points.
Anything that doesn't agree with mod-curated guidelines and user-enforced opinion and attitudes sinks to the bottom or gets removed.. You end up a hive of the most extreme leaning users who refuse to budge on anything because they are rarely challenged or even allowed to be challenged and are near-continuously reinforced in their beliefs.
Doesn't apply to just politician subs. But it happens even in mundane communities like food subs, where no one actually shares and upvotes posts of conventionally achievable recipes on an affordable budget. It's all just highly trained/experienced chef made, instagram-able food pictures.
There are exceptions, but that only happens when the community is small and organic because regulars get acquainted with each other and are less likely to be hostile over the most minor disagreements.
I am 100% not a Marxist, but I am open to Marxist ideas wherever they are compatible with American values instead of the screeching of bitch-idiot leftist children.
Wewladdies, by far and away their largest concern has nothing to do with balancing the country or trying to save it's people -- their primary issue is to stop AMERICAN IMPERIALISM at all costs.
They must have a pseudo-Socialist dictator be supported, if for no other reason than to get back at the evil US.
The revolution in Venezuela needs to be defended. Syria needs to be defended. North Korea needs to be defended. Iran needs to be defended. Palestine needs to be defended. Cuba needs to be defended. These are places that defy US power and economic hegemony.
/u/IslamStandsAlone Half of the these countries aren't even Socialist... why would you directly support their devastating Capitalistic tendencies? Supporting Capatalistic societies empowers the US Regime much more than petty fighting against the US directly.
/u/IslamStandsAlone since when is fucking Syria socialist? You do realize that the government there has a long history of imprisoning communist and leftist parties, right?
Comments like these and /r/syriancivilwar are proof that the average Redditor is retarded when it comes to politics, especially in the Middle East.
Technically, the Ba'ath party is socialist. But I think for a lot of them it's about seeing America as the problem and supporting anyone who isn't aligned with its interests.
If you're not aware, a bunch of Arab countries/parties slap on "socialist" onto their titles and continue to operate fully under a capitalist system. They did this to gain russian support and to create a sense of revolutionary nationalism against whichever enemy they want to rile up the people against, in Syia's case this enemy was the Muslim Brotherhood, Israel, and of course America. This does not make them socialist by any streatch of the imagination.
Так seems closer to the intended meaning of “this,” in the phrase. I don’t think I’d use это in that way, but I can’t quite explain why - just didn’t seem right.
FYI, I’m not a native speaker and it’s been a few years since I studied the language.
Its not what "I think", its a fact that happened in the 60s and up to the 80s, especially under Hafez Al-Assad's regime. I would know because my family lived through this period, and my grandfather was briefly imprisoned during this time. There are also many accounts (and books) that mention this fact.
Communism was not tolerated beyond slogans that Syrian students were forced to mindlessly repeat, the country maintained a a market economy, property, and money, with very few social services. How is this communism?
I stand with the Syrian Communists in their struggle.
Lol all 12 of them I guess. Or are we talking about the YPG here? Which, if you haven't heard, is funded and supported directly by America and its airforce, and does exactly what they ask.
I mean Assad has literally invited the YPG in to garrison territories he's reconquered but doesn't consider worthy of the troops necessary to hold them. The fact that they're tacit allies is not really controversial.
Thats not exactly true. The SAA and YPG have had a lot of fights between them, some of them pretty recent too. Assad has also stated that he aims to regain control of ALL of Syria, including the huge chunk under YPG control. The government was never good to Kurds before the civil war because they feared their independence, the situation is the same now, and as soon as ISIS and the opposition is finished there will be a lot of tension between the government and the YPG.
Yeah, my point is that this tacit alliance is very temporary, and at the rate ISIS is collapsing it won't be long before the YPG and SAA resume being enemies.
I doubt Assad will risk it. He'll probably just suffer, for now, the embarrassment of having a bunch of Kurdish goons play-acting the Yan'an Republic on his national territory. They can be dealt with in time.
I doubt he'll ever deal with them at all, considering they have a lot of support both diplomatically and militarily. Besides he'll have to deal with islamist insurgents first.
When I say "in time" I'm thinking many years or possibly decades. And I wouldn't underestimate the ability of these PKKucks to alienate their overseas supporters eventually.
You're both wrong, but he's less wrong than you are.
I disagree with /u/DistortedLines's comment that "it won't be long before the YPG and SAA resume being enemies" because neither Russia or the US wants that to happen, they want a powersharing deal so that everyone can claim a little victory. The general trend in Kobane and Afrin is against conflict with the govt, and the govt knows that it can't afford to go to war against the SDF.
On the govt side, even if they waited for US SOF to leave they'd still get hit by airstrikes. The US will let its allies get fucked over, but not in a cinematic newsworthy way. Ten years down the track? Sure. Two years down the track? No way. The govt knows this, which is why the Russians are using the threat of Turkish invasion as their sole "stick" vs the SDF; it's all "Sign a peace treaty with the govt, they'll put garrison troops in and then the Turks won't dare attack" there is no threat whatsoever of direct large scale military confrontation between the SAA and SDF. Also, the SAA is fourth on the SDF's list of priorities behind Daesh, Turkey and HTS.
On the SDF side, they know damn well that they can't actually beat the govt army. They've kept their aims limited to confederalism and have no intention to create their own state in the short or medium term.
So there is no reason to expect a resumption of large scale conflict between the SDF and SAA over the next couple of years. It does not benefit the parties to the conflict and it does not benefit their sponsors. No credible analysts expect a resumption of such conflict.
But at least he was wrong about the future, whereas you're wrong about the present. You called the SDF "Assad's puppet, if anyone's" which is flat untrue.
The US created the nameSyrian Democratic Forces, according to the US general whose organization actually did it, and the US continues to puppet the SDF to a substantial extent. Airstrikes and embedded SOF, plus even helicopter insertion from US assets. They ride to war in US equipment, provided and supported by the US; they call in coalition airstrikes with the help of the JTACs embedded with them, but you think they're Assad's puppet? No they're America's, and not even a string puppet they're a glove puppet. Lack of hostility does not imply friendship - that's the kind of thinking that results in "Assad is ISIS's ally" or "Russia is ISIS's ally" or "The CIA created ISIS" etc etc. Any cooperation between SDF/YPG and SAA/NDF has so far been local/temporary agreements against Daesh, and again there's no reason to expect that to change. Bear in mind that SDF give a fair bit of freedom to their local commanders; so neither an localised outbreak of camaraderie or a localised outbreak of hostility (think Hasakah) should be taken to reflect a broader policy from the SDF.
Summary: While the Kurds are tough people very determined to defend themselves, the current success of the SDF is mostly due to US sponsorship and their current objectives are US objectives. They have a non-aggression pact with the Syrian Government which will hopefully evolve into a powersharing agreement which is mutually acceptable. The SDF are neither allied with nor hostile to the Syrian Government, and that's unlikely to change any time soon. Likely future flashpoints in Syria are SAA/Daesh in Deir Ezzor, SAA/HTS in Idlib and Turkey/SDF in Afrin or Kobane.
they want a powersharing deal so that everyone can claim a little victory.
Ultimately Assad will want to regain control of all YPG-controlled area, he won't be happy with an independent Kurdistan, neither will any of the 3 other countries where there is a significant Kurdish minority. Just because Russia and America want their allies to be cool with each other, does not mean they'll be best of friends and that Syria will gladly recognize an independent Kurdistan.
and the govt knows that it can't afford to go to war against the SDF.
They won't necessarily fight, especially not in the near future, but they will be enemies for sure, just like Iran and Saudi.
I don't expect an independent Kurdistan mostly because of Turkish hostility, and imo the Kurdish powers know not to try. However yeah they definitely have opposing values and I can't see any real friendship between the Kurds and the Government so long as it's still called the Syrian Arab Republic.
PissPigGrandpa is probably the best example for understanding the current communist circlejerk over Syria, theres a Kurdish militia that has taken in some westerners (both people who can actually fight & delusional dipshits). There is literally a Jake Gyllenhaal movie being made about him atm after a Rolling Stone article. The dude has no combat experience & he just meme'd his way through the war on social media like a moron sociopath.
Naturally a lot of people get butthurt if the YPG is called "anarchist" instead of "communist". But it boils down to people of a certain mindset believing the Syrian conflict will end with the YPG claiming territory & establishing a modern utopia of communist ideals...
The only thing these countries have in common is being vaguely anti-US, which tells you all you need to know about the core motivations of this worldview
It's just the political extension of 'I hate my parents!'
...Yeah, I mean precisely that. Empowering other Capitalistic societies just because they don't like the US is still a benefit to the US in that you're supporting Capitalism.
Apparently implanting an illegitimate, pseudo-socialist dictatorship (just to push your ideology) is vastly more important to you than actually trying to save a country.
Here's something for thought: America has some documented success stories, as well as failures. Capitalism is much the same. Socialism has absolutely no documented success stories, ever. None.
The revolution in Venezuela needs to be defended. Syria needs to be defended. North Korea needs to be defended. Iran needs to be defended. Palestine needs to be defended. Cuba needs to be defended. My huge disgusting gauged earlobes need to be defended. Fuck you, Dad!
I hate myself as my existence only brings pain and suffering to myself and to those around me including the people that i truly love and would never want to hurt. I'm a mess and every day i wake realising i haven't died in my sleep and everything that I loathe will happen again and again to me and to others because of me, kills me inside to the point that i hate staring at myself in the mirror.
Every second merely existing is a struggle and by God I wouldn't lie that i haven't tried to kill myself for be able to once attain some sort of peace. But there's a part of me that always stops me from doing it. A part that gives me false hope. A part that i hate even more than anything else. It feels like a curse every time picking up a gun but not being able to pull the trigger. If there truly ever was a hell, i have no more doubt that I'm not living one.
Crying yourself to sleep, cutting yourself, hitting yourself until you bleed can only do so much. Frustration still builds up and leaves you more broken than before. It's a horrible positive feedback cycle that never stops.
I truly hope one day I will lose my sanity because a man can only endure so much.
Why am i the way that i am? Because I'm human trash. I'm garbage and worthless. I'll never amount to anything and not a single tear will shed the day that I die. Sighs of relief is what I expect if I'm honest here.
The constant need to scream your lungs out is horrifying. It is truly a nightmare knowing I'll go to sleep and still wake up looking at the reflection in my phone's screen. A sight that breaks my heart. The day i started to hate myself was the day i realised how lonely I've become. It's a nightmare I simply cannot wake up from. I don't know what I've done in my previous life because I can't be convinced otherwise that what I'm experiencing is not hell. Maybe if I knew that, it might bring some relief but maybe that's the purpose behind my punishment.
One of the things that confuse my mind to no end is that even though I'm purely convinced that my life is hell, that it's a nightmare, is that I can't accept to love myself. I hate myself. I want to but i can't help myself. I don't want to look in the mirror everytime and spit on my face. Sometimes all I want to is to gently touch my face with my finger tips, caress my cheek. For once to feel the warmth of something that's not evil and forget about all of this for one instant. Just for an instant. Knowing that at least I'm there for myself.
Am i really human garbage? Am I really trash? I don't remember doing anything to deserve all of this. Then why does my mind justify in hating myself? I don't want to feel alone anymore.
I don't know enough about Maduro to support him.
I do know enough to be suspicious any time the United States government deliberately intervenes in the affairs of another.
The united states government kills Allendes and puts in Pinochets.
/u/AlephNolan Are socialists unable to function without spouting off logical fallacies and dictatorship propaganda?
/r/socialism is one of my favorite subs, right next to /r/LateStageCapitalism. So many angry losers there, and their main dream is to make everyone else poor so they can have excuse to sit around and drink cheap wine all day
If you dream of bringing socialism or communism to the country, then you dream of making everyone poor and miserable. See: all the socialist or communist countries ever. Btw, I come from and still live in a formerly communist country.
Sorry about the angry loser, but that's what it seems like. People absolutely enraged they have to work to support themselves! Or that businesses don't just split all profits among all workers equally! Or that because of capitalists we can't just plant potatoes on the streets of Hamburg and living off the crops :)
edit: I also re-read the post you linked. I don't call poor, working people losers. I call that socialists crying for free money
I enjoy working. I even do a lot of work for free. I don't receive money for making these long posts, and I am not particularly loved for making them. Yet they require effort, don't they? And I'm doing it on my off time, and I'm making a strenuous effort to not attack anyone, even the people who attack me. All of this is a form of work.
What I don't enjoy is the fact that power, wealth, influence, the means of production (machinery, factories, labor forces), the means of automation (databases, programs, computer networks), the means of distribution (vending machines, storefronts, transportation) the means of accumulation (stocks, dividends, bonds, and now cryptocurrency) are demonstrably concentrated in the hands of relatively few, and the relatively few are making a concentrated effort to keep those without means as divided and uneducated as possible, and working to climb over each other, and hating each other, like crabs in a bucket. You thinking I'm a crybaby who just wants free stuff and not to work hard like you is exactly what those of means and power want you to believe. They want you selling them your labor to their profit, while you look down on people who see the system for what it is.
I don't want money. I want a safety net for people who get sick or injured. I want wealth to correlate to labor and not subtle manipulation of financial instruments.
I actually do pretty well for myself, but that should neither be here nor there. I've learned plenty of things from otherwise flawed, stupid, weak-willed, or down-and-out people. Everyone has something to offer.
(assuming you're American) I don't understand how lazy poor people are your main concern when the discretionary budget of the military is so high, when the United States has seven interventions going on as well as many other proxy interventions. The US just sold Saudi Arabia 100billion dollars in weapons, which they (a theocratic monarchy much more harsh than the sort the USA rebelled against) then distribute to Jihadists in the area. I'm supposed to hear this and think US imperialism isn't real?
When corporate profits are through the roof, when the five richest men in the world (all American) have as much money as the bottom half of the world population, something is sick and wrong. This isn't about who works hard anymore, assuming it ever was. It is about means, accumulation, inheritance, land. Skill and merit are secondary characteristics when it comes to what the rich and powerful are capable of. That is to say, they matter, but not that much, proportional to how much you already have. I'm not talking about doctors and lawyers and middle managers and and low-level public servants.
Donald Trump in 2005 (for example) made something like 50,000 dollars per day, if you average out his annual income (his tax returns from that year were released to the public). That's the average annual household income for an American working family. Made in one day. On average. Including weekends. After taxes. He paid more in taxes (how horrible) that year more than most people make in an entire lifetime.
Trump might be a resourceful guy but I doubt he works 365 times as hard as the average family works every day. What it sounds like to me is, he benefits from being at the center of a large network of resources largely built by people who came before him. So long as the scheme of inheritance exists, capitalism can never be the "meritocracy" it touts itself as. And the scheme of inheritance will always exist, because people have things, and they want their children to have them. People inherit more than stuff, too. They inherit ability. To favor someone for their economic performance is simply to favor them for their inherited (or inherent) ability in a certain area of life. If the ability is cultivated, then their ability to cultivate the ability was itself inherited.
Capitalism is not about fulfilling maximum human potential. It's about exploiting existing human potential, and transferring it to points of massive concentration. I'm less interested in convincing people that socialism/communism are good ideas than I'm interested in convincing people that Capitalism is massively flawed, and in the accelerated process of destroying itself, and replacing itself with something resembling postmodern feudalism, as private entities deliberately erode the hegemonic power of nations that has existed for about three centuries.
And he's on the lower end of mega-rich. There are plenty of people who make as much as a working family does in one day, and very little of it has to do with hard work.
I do not actually envy the mega rich. They are surrounded by the most cutthroat and subtle of people, and have to lower themselves to much suckier standard of living to escape that.
I am not favoring corporations and I do believe certain taxes and government control and programs are needed: public health system, schools, roads, that stuff. But you don't have to go full on North Korea / Venezuela / USSR for that. Even if capitalism, even the worst breed like you describe is bad, it doesn't even compare to the effects of socialist or communist governments.
Means of ...
I am from Poland, not USA. And you know what we had before? 50 years of communism, followed by 28 (and continues) years of trying to dig ourselves out of that shit. Now everyone can create a transport company. Anyone can farm land. Anyone can open a grocery store. Start a factory, design vehicles, build skyscrapers, whatever. IIRC there is something like 120 thousand small, private owned businesses (me included), plus i don't know how many medium to large plus multinational businesses plus their investments. You know how many were there 30 years ago? Zero. Everything was concentrated, controlled by government. All companies were owned by the government. You didn't get a fair share of the profit, you were getting only normal salary in quickly devaluating money. And of course it all was barely working, because of incompetent, dumb and evil, but trusted party appointed people were in charge. You went to buy some bread or meat? Tough shit, after 5 hours in line you only managed to buy vinegar. Of course Poland was quite lucky: Pol Pot or Mao killed 2x the population of today's Poland.
Sure, the fact that 5 people control as much wealth as half of the world is not fair, but life isn't fair at all. Babies die from cancer every day, good people die in car crashes, objectively bad, evil people live 'till their 90's in multi-million dollar mansions. But taking their money, spending 99% of it on government program to redistribute remaining 5%, that is then taxed 1% is not fair either. And it's completely and utterly pointless.
Capitalism made it possible for 5 people to become infinitely rich, but under socialism everyone would still be poor, including those 5. I don't know if you post in the subs I mentioned, but take a look at their posts. It's just absurd.
The Eastern Bloc was capitalist, at least according to Marx.
Even if capitalism, even the worst breed like you describe is bad, it doesn't even compare to the effects of socialist or communist governments.
Why, then, is my country (Croatia), in nearly all aspects, either worse off or no better than it was 20-something years ago, when it was ruled by a nominally communist party? (For the record, it was still capitalist during this time, according to Marx.)
Sure, the fact that 5 people control as much wealth as half of the world is not fair, but life isn't fair at all.
The world isn't fair so we shouldn't do anything at all to try and improve it? What would the world be like had Lech Wałęsa had felt the same way?
But taking their money, spending 99% of it on government program to redistribute remaining 5%, that is then taxed 1% is not fair either. And it's completely and utterly pointless.
And it's also a ridiculous straw man that completely misunderstands what socialism is (it's not redistributing money).
Why, then, is my country (Croatia), in nearly all aspects, either worse off or no better than it was 20-something years ago
Poland joined EU in 2004 and that sped up the progress a lot. The country changed more from 2004 to 2010 than it did 1989 to 2004. Croatia joined in 2013 - did you not see any improvements since then?
The world isn't fair so we shouldn't do anything at all to try and improve it?
Oh we should, but not by taking away things more rich people earned or inherited before.
So because a one-party dictatorship says they're "socialist", we should believe them? Why? Should we also believe North Korea when they say they're a "Democratic People's Republic"?
Poland joined EU in 2004 and that sped up the progress a lot. The country changed more from 2004 to 2010 than it did 1989 to 2004. Croatia joined in 2013 - did you not see any improvements since then?
Not really.
Oh we should, but not by taking away things more rich people earned or inherited before.
Why is inheritance fine? They didn't work for it, they just got lucky.
A long time ago, people thought it would be unfair to take away the feudal lords' property. They, too, had inherited it.
I love how that pinko fuckboi is chose not to respond when confronted from an actual person who lived under a communist regime and the only reply is some other kid screeching "REEEEE THAT WASN'T COMMUNISM! THAT WAS STATE CAPITALSIM!"
I don't get why these people think communism is going to be some panacea to all the issues going on in the world. One that always gets me are all these college aged NEETs thinking communism is going to be some super eco-friendly ideology that will save the planet unlike the "unethical and wasteful" system of capitalism when the Soviet Union trashed the environments with their inefficient factories powered by high sulfur brown coal that caused acid rain to destroy most of the forests in the region. The communists didn't give a shit even when the local population cried out.
I'm less interested in convincing people that socialism/communism are good ideas than I'm interested in convincing people that Capitalism is massively flawed,
Anybody can point out flaws
If you can't show how your system is better, you've got nuffin
It has much less to do with demonstrating whether or not a given ideological system is "better." it seems to me to have more to do with consolidating power, thriving on chaos, and preventing the implementation or growth of any movement which would oppose the existing system.
it is very difficult to replace a system that thrives on the chaos of shifting intentions and incentives with a system that requires the cooperation of people who have been indoctrinated to avoid cooperation at any cost. This is why many libertarians and conservatives and ancaps insist that centrally planned economies will fail. To them, the inevitability of rogue agents who don't want to cooperate for the good of the greater whole, whatever that may be, makes Socialism utopian and unrealistic. But I would argue such rogue agents pursuing pure self interest (without dependents or kin or empathy for others) are rarer than they are made out to be.
"We need a system where artists are actually cared for. Instead of my art and writing I'm forced to fill in potholes 5 days a week just to fucking survive! We need a system where I can quit that job and pursue something with actual value."
"The mass line represents the creative and productive energies of the masses of the Chinese population, which are potentially inexhaustible. Party members should take their cue from the masses, and reinterpret policy with respect to the benefit of the masses.
It is necessary for intellectuals, students, and artists to pay attention and involve themselves with mass line work.
Fill that fucking pot-hole with your art, weepy nu-males get bent. Fuck yo couch!" - Maoth mi-Dong
The massive, blatant manipulation of the US media is totally natural but the inevitable collapse of a socialist-retard Bartertown is the work of the CIA.
This has got to be the best excuse to dismiss any internal opposition for the shithole countries in the world since mid-20th century.
Whenever someone says your country is shitty, you just yell "American propaganda," or "Paid actors by the US" and you can muddy the water enough that nobody can finish the discussion coherently.
Gets really tiring to see this despite how fun it was at first.
Of course it is. Only a godless commie would oppose our freedom.
You're not a commie, are you?
On a serious note, I would say people would blame the government for all the shady dealings, too. Look at our conspiracy scene, it's so vibrant and lively.
Corruption is just easier to spot right now because it can largely be blamed on one guy - in neoliberalism, the corruption extends to many individuals, corporations, and institutions.
They are so close to figuring out why socialism has never and will never work.
I'm a social democrat with democratic socialist sympathies.
More than likely makes me a minority in this sub, which is fine, I come here to get information and discussion without having to do basic level arguments with right wingers who think universal healthcare is the worst evil in history.
My position is yes, capitalism is sowing the seeds of its own destruction. Yes we will eventually have Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism. Sadly we won't have FALGS in my lifetime, or even my children's children's' lifetime.
Capitalism isn't going away anytime soon, relative to our lifetimes. In the meantime we all have to live in it, so we can try to mitigate some of its harms. I think a Social Democratic form of governance, segueing into a democratic socialism, is the way to buffer against any harms caused by a change of paradigm at the end of capitalism. So policies like universal healthcare as a right, strong trade unions, investment in small/medium local businesses(better that money goes to Mary down the road in her local café rather than to a Starbucks shareholder) or state ownership of utilities can help in the transition to the eventual end of capitalism.
Many on this sub won't agree with me on that, and that's fine. I don't expect my view to be seen as a great political truth, it's just my own. Certainly there are more things I'd agree with a democratic socialist, or a green eco-socialist or other leftist than with a neoliberal "centre" rightist. A bit of left solidarity can achieve a lot of positive things.
Now I am going to sit back and wait for the "You killed Rosa Luxembourg" jokes.
206 comments
1 SnapshillBot 2017-08-02
Buzzword is, itself, a buzzword now.
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1 TotesMessenger 2017-08-02
I'm a bot, bleep, bloop. Someone has linked to this thread from another place on reddit:
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1 Ranilen 2017-08-02
WTF is that place? I've seen it a few times, but not one of the posts on their front page has a single comment. And they all have the same OP, /u/R10E
1 zahlman 2017-08-02
I suspect it's just a bot that looks for submissions that have reee in the title.
1 RelationDramaMama 2017-08-02
It's always funny when people who pretty much know their theories are bullshit need to control the narrative by over moderating.
1 real_human__bean 2017-08-02
Honestly most of them just want legal weed and NEETbux, the rest is just intellectual trappings.
1 MegaSeedsInYourBum 2017-08-02
We need government issued DinoNuggets.
1 telandrias 2017-08-02
REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
1 dogbref 2017-08-02
F R E E S T U F F
1 MakeAmericaSageAgain 2017-08-02
I want those things, but as a strong, empowered white male who don't need no Marx I stand up for it without the intellectual trappings.
1 AlephNolan 2017-08-02
Every thread I see in which people disparage socialists, they just pass around easily debunked myths about what they REALLY WANT.
"Those LOSERS just want FREE STUFF."
Anyone who's taken a lens to income inequality knows that the so-called economic losers (not poor Americans, the people in the very bottom percentiles of wealth, worldwide) barely get anything even at their most exploitative.
As someone who actually posts in /r/socialism, I don't care much for the censorship, but I don't run the place.
Notice I haven't said anything about you as a person or what your goals are, merely what your post succeeds in doing.
1 EloeOmoe 2017-08-02
Let's be real here. Acting like the kids of /r/socialism represent a political movement of the working class does a huge disservice to Socialism.
1 real_human__bean 2017-08-02
You seem wise and well educated.
What are your views on bussy and mayocide?
1 Butch_Patterson 2017-08-02
I like that you ask the important questions
1 Stinkfished 2017-08-02
1 ownersinc 2017-08-02
Poor people were created to be exploited. If not, why would they choose to be poor?
1 easementbyforce 2017-08-02
I'd love to switch to Socialism, asking as we can get rid of all the people championing Socialism, first.
1 battles 2017-08-02
Every sub ever has these juvenile moderators who get their kicks being dictators... this sub is no exception.
1 Neon_needles 2017-08-02
IN MY SOCLAIST UTOPIA I WATCH ANIME ALL DAY
Edit: Make me mod plz i need a reason to die
1 NationalDenbt 2017-08-02
Nah, they straight banned anime a while ago.
1 grotesquecel 2017-08-02
wtf i love fascist regimes now
1 SaintJason 2017-08-02
In their socialist uptopia they'll end up banning Anime like in /r/FULLCOMMUNISM
1 Mexagon 2017-08-02
This sub knows its ideas are fucking retarded though. r/socialism is actually being serious.
1 ZeitgeistNow 2017-08-02
/u/jackissocool
By 'exceeds our ability to moderate', you mean 'exceeds our ability to prevent the rest of reddit from seeing how fucking retarded and delusional we are', right? I think that's what you were going for there.
1 XavGrav 2017-08-02
It's the reason socialism always leads to brutal repression
It's such an inherently flawed system that you have to constantly silence, imprison or kill anyone who points out that the emperor has no clothes on
1 CC3940A61E 2017-08-02
"reactionary"
they should just be honest and say counter-revolutionary.
1 KT-47 2017-08-02
"Well adjusted productive citizens"
1 NationalDenbt 2017-08-02
/u/jackissocool, if your socialist utopia doesn't even work well enough to sustain a Reddit thread how do you think it would be able to sustain a country? You can't just lock those.
1 Jackissocool 2017-08-02
haha dope
1 CucksLoveTrump 2017-08-02
I hope you see a cat girl and it makes you have a meltdown
1 Jackissocool 2017-08-02
yo, definitely my man
1 grungebot5000 2017-08-02
sexy
1 autistitron 2017-08-02
Are you appropriating/mocking AAVE just now?
1 Jackissocool 2017-08-02
I'm typing the way I speak
1 scatmunchies 2017-08-02
The company that makes the voting machines used in the referendum says there were an extra million votes cast.
Totally a legitimate regime, tho.
1 DistortedLines 2017-08-02
Nah man its either this or US IMPERIALISM (spooky), I mean there is zero evidence for Amerikkka interfering but who needs evidence in current year?
1 Ed_ButteredToast 2017-08-02
I haven't seen any proof myself so i don't jump on that bandwagon but still looking at our history in Latin America does tell a lot. It's not out of the question.
1 DistortedLines 2017-08-02
Yes it tells that America and the USSR, being the biggest superpowers at the time, were involved in a bunch of proxy wars all across the globe which are collectively referred to as the cold war. This does not constitute evidence btw, it also isn't evidence that the Venezuelan opposition are fascist american imperialist capitalist monsters either.
Venezuela now is not a threat to America, and the USSR is history. The US has no reason to execute some super secret under cover program to take over Venezuela.
1 Ed_ButteredToast 2017-08-02
With the limited knowledge i have, I agree :)
1 Works_of_memercy 2017-08-02
That's what Putin wants you to think while he installs your own puppet government ;-)
1 Clark_Savage_Jr 2017-08-02
You've taken your eye off the ball.
While you were watching Trump, Putin has stolen your creamy peanut butter and left you a jar of crunchy.
1 Works_of_memercy 2017-08-02
But I'm always watching Putin with my chocolate eye!
1 Neon_needles 2017-08-02
that bussy is worn old fake news
1 im-a-koala 2017-08-02
So nice of him to upgrade me for free
1 CucksLoveTrump 2017-08-02
That's how socialism works!
1 Conradfr 2017-08-02
Ah the distant cold war.
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/NSA-Spies-on-Venezuelas-Oil-Company-Snowden-Leak-Reveals-20151118-0010.html
1 DistortedLines 2017-08-02
The NSA watches literally everyone as the leaks have shown, I'm not sure why I should be surprised by this.
lol
1 cannedairspray 2017-08-02
lmao omg intel agencies collect intel
1 heavenlytoaster 2017-08-02
I bet it was Russia
1 jubbergun 2017-08-02
Yeah, Maduro clearly took a meeting with
FusionGPSVeselnitskaya. All we need is someone dying after eating a polonium sundae to prove it was Putin the whole time.1 AlephNolan 2017-08-02
The major evidence for US intervention always shows up years later after people stop caring. Usually in declassified docs no one reads. This is how the CIA, NSA, and FBI work.
1 im-a-koala 2017-08-02
Was that supposed to be evidence?
1 wwyzzerdd 2017-08-02
Jet fuel can't melt steel memes.
1 PURINBOYS2002 2017-08-02
We're funding opposition through the state department. It's like a few million a year or so.
Also right-wing groups within the opposition are essentially lynching minority groups.
It's possible to say Maduro is doing some terrible shit while acknowledging that the US is trying to instigate regime change and possibly funding some right-wing aggressors.
Don't let me stop you from grandstanding though!
1 DistortedLines 2017-08-02
🤔
Lol
Never!
1 jubbergun 2017-08-02
If by "minority groups" you mean Maduro supporters, you're probably right. Meanwhile, the "legitimate" government is arresting opposition leaders in the middle of the night. Neither should be unexpected. Violence is what happens as situations like this deteriorate. The two sides will eventually engage in all-out war with each other.
1 die_rattin 2017-08-02
'Funding opposition' apparently actually meant basketball courts for schools and chicken coops for poor folks, as well as basic civics shit like 'this is what a democracy is' and 'how to monitor for voter fraud' which was apparently very scary shit for the Chavez government.
1 PURINBOYS2002 2017-08-02
Yep $60 mil + on basketball courts and chicken coops. I don't know why pointing out the US is involved in regime change is so controversial when it has been an integral part of our foreign policy failings for decades.
1 ThunderCock_Chad 2017-08-02
Money in World of Warcraft has more value then Venezuelan cash.
1 Ed_ButteredToast 2017-08-02
And of other countries too not just Venezuela lol
1 Artremis 2017-08-02
Except nobody is praising the paradise of Zimbabwe in that cuck sub.
1 Ed_ButteredToast 2017-08-02
You're right. I'm not trying to draw a comparison. Just saying what I've found out.
1 EvanHarper 2017-08-02
Venezuela is a clusterfuck, an absolutely self-inflicted tragedy, but I wish people would stop posting this comparison as if it means anything. It's cringey af. Just stop.
1 AltRightRulesReddit 2017-08-02
I'll pay you 2 silver to suck my dick.
1 Miguk_Saram 2017-08-02
When the official exchange rate is 10 bolivars : $1 it does mean a lot.
1 purplepilled3 2017-08-02
They have a leg up on Zimbabwe so its not all bad
1 cochnbahls 2017-08-02
/u/_misha_ You do realize the US stopped caring about Venezuela after Clinton left office? We have way too many other, more important countries meddle in than that godforsaken place. Why would we even waste time and money we don't have, when simply ignoring it has clearly done more to destabilize the area than we ever could?
1 ZeitgeistNow 2017-08-02
/u/_misha_
How does it feel to be decades behind in all of your political knowledge?
1 Ed_ButteredToast 2017-08-02
/u/_misha_
Buttered Toast or gravy??
1 eyedisc 2017-08-02
lol stop being so delusional
1 cochnbahls 2017-08-02
Lol, you read that sentence about sanctions and assume it's code for coup by force?
1 eyedisc 2017-08-02
Did you just ignore the second part of the sentence? Or are you being wilfully obtuse?
1 Neon_needles 2017-08-02
shut up and eat a dick faggot.
Also post nudes, retard. I need something to finger myself to later.
1 JohnBlind 2017-08-02
Hot
1 Works_of_memercy 2017-08-02
Your mistake is reading the whole sentence instead of Assange's spin of it, lol.
1 EvanHarper 2017-08-02
That is the weakest of weak sauce.
1 MakeAmericaSageAgain 2017-08-02
Wtf I love wikileaks now!
1 ZeitgeistNow 2017-08-02
Those damn amerikkkans, wanting to remove a man who starves his people to death and shoots them at protests
Go play in the street, cunt
1 eyedisc 2017-08-02
Invading sovereign countries is wrong faggot
1 Gothmog26 2017-08-02
Oh no. It's retarded
1 eyedisc 2017-08-02
If you support invading sovereign countries, you are certainly retarded, ala Iraq War. LUL
1 ZeitgeistNow 2017-08-02
Because we've totally invaded Venezuela, right? Sanctions are basically the same as boots on the ground, yeah?
Pleassssssse die for my sake and the sake of your family's honor.
1 eyedisc 2017-08-02
What the fuck do you think
means? You fucking retarded burger, stop pretending that this isn't just admitting that they have plans to remove him from power by force. But everything The Exceptional America does is good, right? You are fucking retarded man. All you burgers need to be purged.
1 heavenlytoaster 2017-08-02
Hitlers only real mistake was expanding the borders.
1 throwawaygonnathrow 2017-08-02
ROFL citing Assange as a source on anything.
1 eyedisc 2017-08-02
You are dismissing Assange because you can't actually deny what he is citing.
1 battles 2017-08-02
I consider myself a Marxist, but /r/socialism is fascist moderated sewer that wouldn't know Socialism if it overthrew a democratically elected leader, instituted a dictatorship of the proletariat, put the means of production in the hands of the working class, and then dissolved itself.
1 ricardogce 2017-08-02
Basically, whatever your political leanings, you can count on reddit having the worst possible examples of it.
1 battles 2017-08-02
That is pratically Reddit's slogan.
Reddit 'Everything here is the worst example of that thing.'
SPEZ!!! I got an ideam!
1 OnSnowWhiteWings 2017-08-02
This is what happens when you make basic conversations and discourse a matter of competition for points.
Anything that doesn't agree with mod-curated guidelines and user-enforced opinion and attitudes sinks to the bottom or gets removed.. You end up a hive of the most extreme leaning users who refuse to budge on anything because they are rarely challenged or even allowed to be challenged and are near-continuously reinforced in their beliefs.
Doesn't apply to just politician subs. But it happens even in mundane communities like food subs, where no one actually shares and upvotes posts of conventionally achievable recipes on an affordable budget. It's all just highly trained/experienced chef made, instagram-able food pictures.
There are exceptions, but that only happens when the community is small and organic because regulars get acquainted with each other and are less likely to be hostile over the most minor disagreements.
1 heavenlytoaster 2017-08-02
Why did it take all the way to Trump for politicians to figure this out?
1 Ultrashitpost 2017-08-02
I consider myself a fascist and i take offense to being compared with tankies.
1 ManhattanTransFur 2017-08-02
Amen, brother.
1 Chicup 2017-08-02
The nice thing about Autism awareness is now people are willing to self identify without shame.
1 Ugarit 2017-08-02
I genuinely think there is a significant possibility that /r/socialism is COINTELPRO. It's such a ridiculous car crash of a sub.
1 ManhattanTransFur 2017-08-02
I am 100% not a Marxist, but I am open to Marxist ideas wherever they are compatible with American values instead of the screeching of bitch-idiot leftist children.
1 executorfromshaolin 2017-08-02
Oh god, just kys.
1 Kazruw 2017-08-02
The np link prevents me from fully enjoying this drama.
1 Ed_ButteredToast 2017-08-02
If you're on mobile or using RES, it's useless lol.
1 Meowing_Cows 2017-08-02
Wewladdies, by far and away their largest concern has nothing to do with balancing the country or trying to save it's people -- their primary issue is to stop AMERICAN IMPERIALISM at all costs.
They must have a pseudo-Socialist dictator be supported, if for no other reason than to get back at the evil US.
1 Baxiepie 2017-08-02
Which is weird because just yesterday a. Inch of Marxist were downvoting and insisting that they're not REALLY socialists.
1 Meowing_Cows 2017-08-02
/u/IslamStandsAlone Half of the these countries aren't even Socialist... why would you directly support their devastating Capitalistic tendencies? Supporting Capatalistic societies empowers the US Regime much more than petty fighting against the US directly.
1 Ultrashitpost 2017-08-02
lmao
1 Neon_needles 2017-08-02
Honestly, this guy should just move to the NK and get hyper aids after being raped by a prison gang.
1 Ranilen 2017-08-02
No one in NK has the spare calories for something like rape.
1 heavenlytoaster 2017-08-02
What about the fat baby dictator?
1 Ranilen 2017-08-02
He only rapes missiles. That's why they keep
crashingbeing aimed at the Sea of Japan.1 Skelthy 2017-08-02
His dick is too small.
1 Meowing_Cows 2017-08-02
If NK hits Venezuela with a nuke, which side do the Tankies support?
1 Works_of_memercy 2017-08-02
North Korea, because the US would strongly condemn it.
1 Ed_ButteredToast 2017-08-02
So "hate fuck me daddy" is the approach here?
1 RecallRethuglicans 2017-08-02
What is funny about that?
1 CucksLoveTrump 2017-08-02
It's funny because NK needs to be glassed. Like, yesterday
1 RecallRethuglicans 2017-08-02
What would adding glass do?
1 jubbergun 2017-08-02
Add it to your diet and then let us know. You know, for science and stuff.
1 throwawaygonnathrow 2017-08-02
He should defend it by moving directly into an NK gulag and getting tortured to death.
1 DistortedLines 2017-08-02
/u/IslamStandsAlone since when is fucking Syria socialist? You do realize that the government there has a long history of imprisoning communist and leftist parties, right?
Comments like these and /r/syriancivilwar are proof that the average Redditor is retarded when it comes to politics, especially in the Middle East.
1 scatmunchies 2017-08-02
Technically, the Ba'ath party is socialist. But I think for a lot of them it's about seeing America as the problem and supporting anyone who isn't aligned with its interests.
1 DistortedLines 2017-08-02
If you're not aware, a bunch of Arab countries/parties slap on "socialist" onto their titles and continue to operate fully under a capitalist system. They did this to gain russian support and to create a sense of revolutionary nationalism against whichever enemy they want to rile up the people against, in Syia's case this enemy was the Muslim Brotherhood, Israel, and of course America. This does not make them socialist by any streatch of the imagination.
1 scatmunchies 2017-08-02
Yeah, the "technically," part was sarcasm.
1 heavenlytoaster 2017-08-02
So... Socialists
1 scatmunchies 2017-08-02
Knee-jerk anti-Americanism isn't quite the same thing as socialism, though there's some significant overlap.
1 heavenlytoaster 2017-08-02
This is the internet in the 21st century, they're the same.
1 ManhattanTransFur 2017-08-02
We're all Russians now, bby.
1 scatmunchies 2017-08-02
Так, но не иронично.
1 ManhattanTransFur 2017-08-02
Свертывание в 1991 году было частью нашего плана.
1 darth_stroyer 2017-08-02
Off topic, but why would you use так and not это here?
I'm learning Russian.
1 Br00ce 2017-08-02
google translate most likely
1 scatmunchies 2017-08-02
Apparently google translate uses это. Щи и каша, пища наша.
1 scatmunchies 2017-08-02
Так seems closer to the intended meaning of “this,” in the phrase. I don’t think I’d use это in that way, but I can’t quite explain why - just didn’t seem right.
FYI, I’m not a native speaker and it’s been a few years since I studied the language.
1 Alimentas 2017-08-02
Так is "like this". "Это" is literally "this"
1 scatmunchies 2017-08-02
Yeah, I know. It's been a while since I studied the language, so I guess I made an incorrect word choice. Congratulations.
1 Alimentas 2017-08-02
What are the congratulations for friendo?
1 scatmunchies 2017-08-02
Being correct. It's the most important thing on the internet.
1 Alimentas 2017-08-02
Because he's not russian and just google-translated it. Source: русский. Why are you learning russian anyway? Just curious.
1 darth_stroyer 2017-08-02
My father is Croatian and Russian is the closest language in duolingo. It's just for a bit of fun.
1 [deleted] 2017-08-02
[deleted]
1 DistortedLines 2017-08-02
Jesus christ you're dumb.
Its not what "I think", its a fact that happened in the 60s and up to the 80s, especially under Hafez Al-Assad's regime. I would know because my family lived through this period, and my grandfather was briefly imprisoned during this time. There are also many accounts (and books) that mention this fact.
Communism was not tolerated beyond slogans that Syrian students were forced to mindlessly repeat, the country maintained a a market economy, property, and money, with very few social services. How is this communism?
Lol all 12 of them I guess. Or are we talking about the YPG here? Which, if you haven't heard, is funded and supported directly by America and its airforce, and does exactly what they ask.
1 [deleted] 2017-08-02
[deleted]
1 EvanHarper 2017-08-02
Really if the YPG is anyone's puppet it's more Assad's puppet.
1 DistortedLines 2017-08-02
How so? They're taking massive amounts of Syrian lands and following American orders word by word.
1 EvanHarper 2017-08-02
I mean Assad has literally invited the YPG in to garrison territories he's reconquered but doesn't consider worthy of the troops necessary to hold them. The fact that they're tacit allies is not really controversial.
1 DistortedLines 2017-08-02
Thats not exactly true. The SAA and YPG have had a lot of fights between them, some of them pretty recent too. Assad has also stated that he aims to regain control of ALL of Syria, including the huge chunk under YPG control. The government was never good to Kurds before the civil war because they feared their independence, the situation is the same now, and as soon as ISIS and the opposition is finished there will be a lot of tension between the government and the YPG.
1 EvanHarper 2017-08-02
It seems like we both agree on the facts but disagree over whether all that amounts to "tacit allies."
1 DistortedLines 2017-08-02
Yeah, my point is that this tacit alliance is very temporary, and at the rate ISIS is collapsing it won't be long before the YPG and SAA resume being enemies.
1 EvanHarper 2017-08-02
I doubt Assad will risk it. He'll probably just suffer, for now, the embarrassment of having a bunch of Kurdish goons play-acting the Yan'an Republic on his national territory. They can be dealt with in time.
1 DistortedLines 2017-08-02
I doubt he'll ever deal with them at all, considering they have a lot of support both diplomatically and militarily. Besides he'll have to deal with islamist insurgents first.
1 EvanHarper 2017-08-02
When I say "in time" I'm thinking many years or possibly decades. And I wouldn't underestimate the ability of these PKKucks to alienate their overseas supporters eventually.
1 h8speech 2017-08-02
You're both wrong, but he's less wrong than you are.
I disagree with /u/DistortedLines's comment that "it won't be long before the YPG and SAA resume being enemies" because neither Russia or the US wants that to happen, they want a powersharing deal so that everyone can claim a little victory. The general trend in Kobane and Afrin is against conflict with the govt, and the govt knows that it can't afford to go to war against the SDF.
On the govt side, even if they waited for US SOF to leave they'd still get hit by airstrikes. The US will let its allies get fucked over, but not in a cinematic newsworthy way. Ten years down the track? Sure. Two years down the track? No way. The govt knows this, which is why the Russians are using the threat of Turkish invasion as their sole "stick" vs the SDF; it's all "Sign a peace treaty with the govt, they'll put garrison troops in and then the Turks won't dare attack" there is no threat whatsoever of direct large scale military confrontation between the SAA and SDF. Also, the SAA is fourth on the SDF's list of priorities behind Daesh, Turkey and HTS.
On the SDF side, they know damn well that they can't actually beat the govt army. They've kept their aims limited to confederalism and have no intention to create their own state in the short or medium term.
So there is no reason to expect a resumption of large scale conflict between the SDF and SAA over the next couple of years. It does not benefit the parties to the conflict and it does not benefit their sponsors. No credible analysts expect a resumption of such conflict.
But at least he was wrong about the future, whereas you're wrong about the present. You called the SDF "Assad's puppet, if anyone's" which is flat untrue.
The US created the name Syrian Democratic Forces, according to the US general whose organization actually did it, and the US continues to puppet the SDF to a substantial extent. Airstrikes and embedded SOF, plus even helicopter insertion from US assets. They ride to war in US equipment, provided and supported by the US; they call in coalition airstrikes with the help of the JTACs embedded with them, but you think they're Assad's puppet? No they're America's, and not even a string puppet they're a glove puppet. Lack of hostility does not imply friendship - that's the kind of thinking that results in "Assad is ISIS's ally" or "Russia is ISIS's ally" or "The CIA created ISIS" etc etc. Any cooperation between SDF/YPG and SAA/NDF has so far been local/temporary agreements against Daesh, and again there's no reason to expect that to change. Bear in mind that SDF give a fair bit of freedom to their local commanders; so neither an localised outbreak of camaraderie or a localised outbreak of hostility (think Hasakah) should be taken to reflect a broader policy from the SDF.
Summary: While the Kurds are tough people very determined to defend themselves, the current success of the SDF is mostly due to US sponsorship and their current objectives are US objectives. They have a non-aggression pact with the Syrian Government which will hopefully evolve into a powersharing agreement which is mutually acceptable. The SDF are neither allied with nor hostile to the Syrian Government, and that's unlikely to change any time soon. Likely future flashpoints in Syria are SAA/Daesh in Deir Ezzor, SAA/HTS in Idlib and Turkey/SDF in Afrin or Kobane.
1 DistortedLines 2017-08-02
Ultimately Assad will want to regain control of all YPG-controlled area, he won't be happy with an independent Kurdistan, neither will any of the 3 other countries where there is a significant Kurdish minority. Just because Russia and America want their allies to be cool with each other, does not mean they'll be best of friends and that Syria will gladly recognize an independent Kurdistan.
They won't necessarily fight, especially not in the near future, but they will be enemies for sure, just like Iran and Saudi.
1 h8speech 2017-08-02
I don't expect an independent Kurdistan mostly because of Turkish hostility, and imo the Kurdish powers know not to try. However yeah they definitely have opposing values and I can't see any real friendship between the Kurds and the Government so long as it's still called the Syrian Arab Republic.
1 EvanHarper 2017-08-02
Maybe you should go back and re-read what I actually wrote.
1 h8speech 2017-08-02
I did! How about you?
1 Teresa_May 2017-08-02
That's just to give him some leverage against the Turks.
1 Meowing_Cows 2017-08-02
Sounds about right for radical-leftism, yeah.
1 Gonzzzo 2017-08-02
PissPigGrandpa is probably the best example for understanding the current communist circlejerk over Syria, theres a Kurdish militia that has taken in some westerners (both people who can actually fight & delusional dipshits). There is literally a Jake Gyllenhaal movie being made about him atm after a Rolling Stone article. The dude has no combat experience & he just meme'd his way through the war on social media like a moron sociopath.
Naturally a lot of people get butthurt if the YPG is called "anarchist" instead of "communist". But it boils down to people of a certain mindset believing the Syrian conflict will end with the YPG claiming territory & establishing a modern utopia of communist ideals...
1 XavGrav 2017-08-02
The only thing these countries have in common is being vaguely anti-US, which tells you all you need to know about the core motivations of this worldview
It's just the political extension of 'I hate my parents!'
1 [deleted] 2017-08-02
[deleted]
1 Meowing_Cows 2017-08-02
...Yeah, I mean precisely that. Empowering other Capitalistic societies just because they don't like the US is still a benefit to the US in that you're supporting Capitalism.
Apparently implanting an illegitimate, pseudo-socialist dictatorship (just to push your ideology) is vastly more important to you than actually trying to save a country.
Here's something for thought: America has some documented success stories, as well as failures. Capitalism is much the same. Socialism has absolutely no documented success stories, ever. None.
1 ManhattanTransFur 2017-08-02
1 Malkalack 2017-08-02
Islam stands alone... it also beheads those gay comrades this fuck pretends to care about.
1 FridgeParade 2017-08-02
I don't think any of those are socialist? They are either communist or stalinist.
1 DistortedLines 2017-08-02
why are you the way that you are?
1 Ed_ButteredToast 2017-08-02
I hate myself as my existence only brings pain and suffering to myself and to those around me including the people that i truly love and would never want to hurt. I'm a mess and every day i wake realising i haven't died in my sleep and everything that I loathe will happen again and again to me and to others because of me, kills me inside to the point that i hate staring at myself in the mirror.
Every second merely existing is a struggle and by God I wouldn't lie that i haven't tried to kill myself for be able to once attain some sort of peace. But there's a part of me that always stops me from doing it. A part that gives me false hope. A part that i hate even more than anything else. It feels like a curse every time picking up a gun but not being able to pull the trigger. If there truly ever was a hell, i have no more doubt that I'm not living one.
Crying yourself to sleep, cutting yourself, hitting yourself until you bleed can only do so much. Frustration still builds up and leaves you more broken than before. It's a horrible positive feedback cycle that never stops.
I truly hope one day I will lose my sanity because a man can only endure so much.
Why am i the way that i am? Because I'm human trash. I'm garbage and worthless. I'll never amount to anything and not a single tear will shed the day that I die. Sighs of relief is what I expect if I'm honest here.
The constant need to scream your lungs out is horrifying. It is truly a nightmare knowing I'll go to sleep and still wake up looking at the reflection in my phone's screen. A sight that breaks my heart. The day i started to hate myself was the day i realised how lonely I've become. It's a nightmare I simply cannot wake up from. I don't know what I've done in my previous life because I can't be convinced otherwise that what I'm experiencing is not hell. Maybe if I knew that, it might bring some relief but maybe that's the purpose behind my punishment.
Why am i the way that i am? I..
1 DistortedLines 2017-08-02
thats a big post
1 Ed_ButteredToast 2017-08-02
One of the things that confuse my mind to no end is that even though I'm purely convinced that my life is hell, that it's a nightmare, is that I can't accept to love myself. I hate myself. I want to but i can't help myself. I don't want to look in the mirror everytime and spit on my face. Sometimes all I want to is to gently touch my face with my finger tips, caress my cheek. For once to feel the warmth of something that's not evil and forget about all of this for one instant. Just for an instant. Knowing that at least I'm there for myself.
Am i really human garbage? Am I really trash? I don't remember doing anything to deserve all of this. Then why does my mind justify in hating myself? I don't want to feel alone anymore.
1 DistortedLines 2017-08-02
/u/AlephNolan Are socialists unable to function without spouting off logical fallacies and dictatorship propaganda?
1 AlephNolan 2017-08-02
Apparently an admission that I need to research a subject more is worth being called out waaaaaaay over here. Nice!
1 Xenepa 2017-08-02
/r/socialism is one of my favorite subs, right next to /r/LateStageCapitalism. So many angry losers there, and their main dream is to make everyone else poor so they can have excuse to sit around and drink cheap wine all day
1 AlephNolan 2017-08-02
Oh shit. I didn't know my dream was to make everyone else poor. Thanks for informing me! I'm a better person now.
As for the whole "angry losers" rhetorical line...
1 Xenepa 2017-08-02
If you dream of bringing socialism or communism to the country, then you dream of making everyone poor and miserable. See: all the socialist or communist countries ever. Btw, I come from and still live in a formerly communist country.
Sorry about the angry loser, but that's what it seems like. People absolutely enraged they have to work to support themselves! Or that businesses don't just split all profits among all workers equally! Or that because of capitalists we can't just plant potatoes on the streets of Hamburg and living off the crops :)
edit: I also re-read the post you linked. I don't call poor, working people losers. I call that socialists crying for free money
1 AlephNolan 2017-08-02
I enjoy working. I even do a lot of work for free. I don't receive money for making these long posts, and I am not particularly loved for making them. Yet they require effort, don't they? And I'm doing it on my off time, and I'm making a strenuous effort to not attack anyone, even the people who attack me. All of this is a form of work.
What I don't enjoy is the fact that power, wealth, influence, the means of production (machinery, factories, labor forces), the means of automation (databases, programs, computer networks), the means of distribution (vending machines, storefronts, transportation) the means of accumulation (stocks, dividends, bonds, and now cryptocurrency) are demonstrably concentrated in the hands of relatively few, and the relatively few are making a concentrated effort to keep those without means as divided and uneducated as possible, and working to climb over each other, and hating each other, like crabs in a bucket. You thinking I'm a crybaby who just wants free stuff and not to work hard like you is exactly what those of means and power want you to believe. They want you selling them your labor to their profit, while you look down on people who see the system for what it is.
I don't want money. I want a safety net for people who get sick or injured. I want wealth to correlate to labor and not subtle manipulation of financial instruments.
I actually do pretty well for myself, but that should neither be here nor there. I've learned plenty of things from otherwise flawed, stupid, weak-willed, or down-and-out people. Everyone has something to offer.
(assuming you're American) I don't understand how lazy poor people are your main concern when the discretionary budget of the military is so high, when the United States has seven interventions going on as well as many other proxy interventions. The US just sold Saudi Arabia 100billion dollars in weapons, which they (a theocratic monarchy much more harsh than the sort the USA rebelled against) then distribute to Jihadists in the area. I'm supposed to hear this and think US imperialism isn't real?
When corporate profits are through the roof, when the five richest men in the world (all American) have as much money as the bottom half of the world population, something is sick and wrong. This isn't about who works hard anymore, assuming it ever was. It is about means, accumulation, inheritance, land. Skill and merit are secondary characteristics when it comes to what the rich and powerful are capable of. That is to say, they matter, but not that much, proportional to how much you already have. I'm not talking about doctors and lawyers and middle managers and and low-level public servants.
Donald Trump in 2005 (for example) made something like 50,000 dollars per day, if you average out his annual income (his tax returns from that year were released to the public). That's the average annual household income for an American working family. Made in one day. On average. Including weekends. After taxes. He paid more in taxes (how horrible) that year more than most people make in an entire lifetime.
Trump might be a resourceful guy but I doubt he works 365 times as hard as the average family works every day. What it sounds like to me is, he benefits from being at the center of a large network of resources largely built by people who came before him. So long as the scheme of inheritance exists, capitalism can never be the "meritocracy" it touts itself as. And the scheme of inheritance will always exist, because people have things, and they want their children to have them. People inherit more than stuff, too. They inherit ability. To favor someone for their economic performance is simply to favor them for their inherited (or inherent) ability in a certain area of life. If the ability is cultivated, then their ability to cultivate the ability was itself inherited.
Capitalism is not about fulfilling maximum human potential. It's about exploiting existing human potential, and transferring it to points of massive concentration. I'm less interested in convincing people that socialism/communism are good ideas than I'm interested in convincing people that Capitalism is massively flawed, and in the accelerated process of destroying itself, and replacing itself with something resembling postmodern feudalism, as private entities deliberately erode the hegemonic power of nations that has existed for about three centuries.
And he's on the lower end of mega-rich. There are plenty of people who make as much as a working family does in one day, and very little of it has to do with hard work.
I do not actually envy the mega rich. They are surrounded by the most cutthroat and subtle of people, and have to lower themselves to much suckier standard of living to escape that.
1 Xenepa 2017-08-02
I am not favoring corporations and I do believe certain taxes and government control and programs are needed: public health system, schools, roads, that stuff. But you don't have to go full on North Korea / Venezuela / USSR for that. Even if capitalism, even the worst breed like you describe is bad, it doesn't even compare to the effects of socialist or communist governments.
I am from Poland, not USA. And you know what we had before? 50 years of communism, followed by 28 (and continues) years of trying to dig ourselves out of that shit. Now everyone can create a transport company. Anyone can farm land. Anyone can open a grocery store. Start a factory, design vehicles, build skyscrapers, whatever. IIRC there is something like 120 thousand small, private owned businesses (me included), plus i don't know how many medium to large plus multinational businesses plus their investments. You know how many were there 30 years ago? Zero. Everything was concentrated, controlled by government. All companies were owned by the government. You didn't get a fair share of the profit, you were getting only normal salary in quickly devaluating money. And of course it all was barely working, because of incompetent, dumb and evil, but trusted party appointed people were in charge. You went to buy some bread or meat? Tough shit, after 5 hours in line you only managed to buy vinegar. Of course Poland was quite lucky: Pol Pot or Mao killed 2x the population of today's Poland.
Sure, the fact that 5 people control as much wealth as half of the world is not fair, but life isn't fair at all. Babies die from cancer every day, good people die in car crashes, objectively bad, evil people live 'till their 90's in multi-million dollar mansions. But taking their money, spending 99% of it on government program to redistribute remaining 5%, that is then taxed 1% is not fair either. And it's completely and utterly pointless.
Capitalism made it possible for 5 people to become infinitely rich, but under socialism everyone would still be poor, including those 5. I don't know if you post in the subs I mentioned, but take a look at their posts. It's just absurd.
1 jctoastpig 2017-08-02
These idiots typically prefer equal poverty over unequal prosperity.
1 barakokula31 2017-08-02
The Eastern Bloc was capitalist, at least according to Marx.
Why, then, is my country (Croatia), in nearly all aspects, either worse off or no better than it was 20-something years ago, when it was ruled by a nominally communist party? (For the record, it was still capitalist during this time, according to Marx.)
The world isn't fair so we shouldn't do anything at all to try and improve it? What would the world be like had Lech Wałęsa had felt the same way?
And it's also a ridiculous straw man that completely misunderstands what socialism is (it's not redistributing money).
1 Xenepa 2017-08-02
No true Scottsman
Poland joined EU in 2004 and that sped up the progress a lot. The country changed more from 2004 to 2010 than it did 1989 to 2004. Croatia joined in 2013 - did you not see any improvements since then?
Oh we should, but not by taking away things more rich people earned or inherited before.
No, that's how efficient governments are. Also see why I despise that sub: https://www.reddit.com/r/LateStageCapitalism/comments/6r0wxg/l00l/
1 barakokula31 2017-08-02
So because a one-party dictatorship says they're "socialist", we should believe them? Why? Should we also believe North Korea when they say they're a "Democratic People's Republic"?
Not really.
Why is inheritance fine? They didn't work for it, they just got lucky.
A long time ago, people thought it would be unfair to take away the feudal lords' property. They, too, had inherited it.
I guess a single internet meme is an accurate summary of an ideology and movement going back nearly two centuries.
1 ThunderCock_Chad 2017-08-02
I love how that pinko fuckboi is chose not to respond when confronted from an actual person who lived under a communist regime and the only reply is some other kid screeching "REEEEE THAT WASN'T COMMUNISM! THAT WAS STATE CAPITALSIM!"
I don't get why these people think communism is going to be some panacea to all the issues going on in the world. One that always gets me are all these college aged NEETs thinking communism is going to be some super eco-friendly ideology that will save the planet unlike the "unethical and wasteful" system of capitalism when the Soviet Union trashed the environments with their inefficient factories powered by high sulfur brown coal that caused acid rain to destroy most of the forests in the region. The communists didn't give a shit even when the local population cried out.
1 HeresCyonnah 2017-08-02
Shitposting on reddit isn't work.
1 NeededToFilterSubs 2017-08-02
.
1 Ls777 2017-08-02
Anybody can point out flaws
If you can't show how your system is better, you've got nuffin
1 AlephNolan 2017-08-02
It has much less to do with demonstrating whether or not a given ideological system is "better." it seems to me to have more to do with consolidating power, thriving on chaos, and preventing the implementation or growth of any movement which would oppose the existing system.
it is very difficult to replace a system that thrives on the chaos of shifting intentions and incentives with a system that requires the cooperation of people who have been indoctrinated to avoid cooperation at any cost. This is why many libertarians and conservatives and ancaps insist that centrally planned economies will fail. To them, the inevitability of rogue agents who don't want to cooperate for the good of the greater whole, whatever that may be, makes Socialism utopian and unrealistic. But I would argue such rogue agents pursuing pure self interest (without dependents or kin or empathy for others) are rarer than they are made out to be.
1 Ls777 2017-08-02
If you cant demonstrate that your system is better
Why should we replace it in the first place? Instead of just working on our systems flaws
1 jubbergun 2017-08-02
BUT THAT WASN'T REAL SOCIALISM/COMMUNISM
Every fucking time...way to be predictable, /u/AlephNolan. You could at least come up with something original and entertaining.
1 AlephNolan 2017-08-02
You don't have to yell.
My argument was not this. You can say it was this. But my argument is a little more nuanced.
My beliefs are more in line with the first response to this thread
1 Butch_Patterson 2017-08-02
Oh fuck it all makes sense now.
If the entire economy collapses they can't be blamed for not having a job.
1 Sasukefan99 2017-08-02
"We need a system where artists are actually cared for. Instead of my art and writing I'm forced to fill in potholes 5 days a week just to fucking survive! We need a system where I can quit that job and pursue something with actual value."
1 ManhattanTransFur 2017-08-02
"The mass line represents the creative and productive energies of the masses of the Chinese population, which are potentially inexhaustible. Party members should take their cue from the masses, and reinterpret policy with respect to the benefit of the masses.
It is necessary for intellectuals, students, and artists to pay attention and involve themselves with mass line work.
Fill that fucking pot-hole with your art, weepy nu-males get bent. Fuck yo couch!" - Maoth mi-Dong
1 Cauchemar89 2017-08-02
So we just dump all in the sea and tell them to go build their own Rapture?
1 handsomestalin 2017-08-02
Can we just finally execute all the Venezuelan Kulaks and be done with this already?
1 ManhattanTransFur 2017-08-02
Seth Rich or die trying!
1 Tobans 2017-08-02
You could always skip the first part.
1 ManhattanTransFur 2017-08-02
The massive, blatant manipulation of the US media is totally natural but the inevitable collapse of a socialist-retard Bartertown is the work of the CIA.
1 Notthehalf 2017-08-02
Translates to
1 Pepperglue 2017-08-02
This has got to be the best excuse to dismiss any internal opposition for the shithole countries in the world since mid-20th century.
Whenever someone says your country is shitty, you just yell "American propaganda," or "Paid actors by the US" and you can muddy the water enough that nobody can finish the discussion coherently.
Gets really tiring to see this despite how fun it was at first.
1 ManhattanTransFur 2017-08-02
Unless the internal opposition is within the US, in which case The Russians Did It.
1 Pepperglue 2017-08-02
Of course it is. Only a godless commie would oppose our freedom.
You're not a commie, are you?
On a serious note, I would say people would blame the government for all the shady dealings, too. Look at our conspiracy scene, it's so vibrant and lively.
1 die_rattin 2017-08-02
Also isolationism is bad. It's almost like you can't win with some people!
1 Deity_Of_Darkness 2017-08-02
I'm looking forward to the USA crushing Venezuela.
1 Deity_Of_Darkness 2017-08-02
https://www.reddit.com/r/badphilosophy/comments/6qibir/176_of_all_social_social_science_professors_are/
r/badphilosophy is r/socialism with a philosophy degree working at Starbucks.
1 XhotwheelsloverX 2017-08-02
Didn't that same sub have a Venezuela megathread where they tried to kick out actual Venezuelans?
1 Bob_fromaccounting 2017-08-02
They are so close to figuring out why socialism has never and will never work.
1 PM_ME_HAIRLESS_CATS 2017-08-02
Give them 5 more years to turn 18 and they'll come around.
1 HodorTheDoorHolder 2017-08-02
Tens of thousands in the streets in Venezuela showing support for their government against the violent US-backed right-wing opposition. You won't see this on CNN.
1 Citadelen 2017-08-02
I would post there to trigger them but they banned me for suggesting the USSR wasn't so great.
1 ManhattanTransFur 2017-08-02
Really good distinction.
I'm a social democrat with democratic socialist sympathies.
More than likely makes me a minority in this sub, which is fine, I come here to get information and discussion without having to do basic level arguments with right wingers who think universal healthcare is the worst evil in history.
My position is yes, capitalism is sowing the seeds of its own destruction. Yes we will eventually have Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism. Sadly we won't have FALGS in my lifetime, or even my children's children's' lifetime.
Capitalism isn't going away anytime soon, relative to our lifetimes. In the meantime we all have to live in it, so we can try to mitigate some of its harms. I think a Social Democratic form of governance, segueing into a democratic socialism, is the way to buffer against any harms caused by a change of paradigm at the end of capitalism. So policies like universal healthcare as a right, strong trade unions, investment in small/medium local businesses(better that money goes to Mary down the road in her local café rather than to a Starbucks shareholder) or state ownership of utilities can help in the transition to the eventual end of capitalism.
Many on this sub won't agree with me on that, and that's fine. I don't expect my view to be seen as a great political truth, it's just my own. Certainly there are more things I'd agree with a democratic socialist, or a green eco-socialist or other leftist than with a neoliberal "centre" rightist. A bit of left solidarity can achieve a lot of positive things.
Now I am going to sit back and wait for the "You killed Rosa Luxembourg" jokes.
1 SpectroSpecter 2017-08-02
Are you sure you know where you are
1 thehighground 2017-08-02
That whole sub is pathetic
1 grungebot5000 2017-08-02
liberals
Maduro supporters
u kno the dril
1 HodorTheDoorHolder 2017-08-02
Banned OP for what?
1 Gothmog26 2017-08-02
Pinochet did nothing wrong.