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icantfindaname posted:so do we have to wait until the post-racial Communist utopia is here to take down the giant memorial to the genocidal white supremacist? or is that not allowed even then? His statue should remain until it rots from bird poo poo and acid rain, much like statues of other historical oppressors.
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Sep 3, 2016 23:27
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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blowfish posted:His statue should remain until it rots from bird poo poo and acid rain, much like statues of other historical oppressors.
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Sep 3, 2016 23:32
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R. Mute posted:why Because it's part of that place's history, even if it's not from a glorious part of that history. Erasing all the reminders of the unpleasant parts just makes it easier to forget your country's history isn't all good, instead you should educate people more comprehensively. Note that eventually, it may also become significant as a relic of a period of world history, in which case it should be preserved as an artifact for all mankind and go into a museum.
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Sep 3, 2016 23:46
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Why do so many people on the left criticize other people on the left for being "spoiled privileged brats who fight for nonsensical first world issues"? Who are exactly the REAL left wing protests "fighting the good fight" then? Are there really any? Or do people just like to complain because it makes them feel better for their political activism to be limited to using a keyboard on a message board?
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Sep 4, 2016 00:00
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blowfish posted:Because it's part of that place's history, even if it's not from a glorious part of that history. Erasing all the reminders of the unpleasant parts just makes it easier to forget your country's history isn't all good, instead you should educate people more comprehensively. Another option is just to change / add a plaque. Boom, tone of the exhibition is changed while retaining historical value. Edit: apparently this has been discussed but I disagree with making the historical art just disappear.  Guess I would be okay with moving it to the Museum of Racist Shitbags, though.
Goatse James Bond fucked around with this message at 00:05 on Sep 4, 2016 |
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Sep 4, 2016 00:03
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If the protestors really wanted to send a message they should have altered the statute to look like Zuma
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Sep 4, 2016 00:05
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blowfish posted:Because it's part of that place's history, even if it's not from a glorious part of that history. Erasing all the reminders of the unpleasant parts just makes it easier to forget your country's history isn't all good, instead you should educate people more comprehensively.
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Sep 4, 2016 00:06
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Brainiac Five posted:A Native American group cut off the foot of a statue of a conquistador who ordered all the men in New Mexico have one of their feet cut off in retribution for an uprising. Good on them and the guys who cut off Cecil's nose. See, this I like.
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Sep 4, 2016 00:06
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blowfish posted:Because it's part of that place's history, even if it's not from a glorious part of that history. Erasing all the reminders of the unpleasant parts just makes it easier to forget your country's history isn't all good, instead you should educate people more comprehensively. Do you think Germany should put up a giant, heroic equestrian statue of Hitler in the center of Berlin? It's part of their history punk rebel ecks posted:Why do so many people on the left criticize other people on the left for being "spoiled privileged brats who fight for nonsensical first world issues"? those people aren't acually on the left
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Sep 4, 2016 01:47
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Crime against art and history: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CYTcQUKTVY
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Sep 4, 2016 02:03
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icantfindaname posted:those people aren't acually on the left I see it a lot in D&D and all the time in CSPAM.
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Sep 4, 2016 02:13
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So uh how about that Gabon election guys? Ali Bongo won narrowly due to 99% turnout in his home state where 95% of recorded votes were for him. By narrowly, I mean he won by a margin of 5,594 votes from totally not dead people who definitely showed up and voted for the incumbent. Bongo is of course the son of
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Sep 4, 2016 03:03
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I really only know where Gabon is, that it has oil and that it speaks French otherwise I can't really comment on it. 
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Sep 4, 2016 05:56
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Lawman 0 posted:I really only know where Gabon is, that it has oil and that it speaks French otherwise I can't really comment on it. From what I understand (based on a poorly given presentation that I was hungover for) Gabon is also home to some of the most diverse jungle-forests left on the planet. The junior Bongo, in 2013 I think, agreed to do some pretty serious environmental heavy lifting by majorly reducing logging and export of lumber from those forests,trying to attract (white) ecotourists who spend money and love that poo poo. Of course, considering how many people properly fed themselves from using those forests, and considering how ham-handed environmentalism has been in Africa('Those people who basically created these grassland ecosystems are ruining it! Deport them!"), I imagine it had as much effect as the establishment of a national park in the DRC. That is to say, a shitload of people got hosed over. I'm kind of surprised that the election was even partially free, considering that the Bongos have been running Gabon since independence. Then again, I basically know nothing about Gabon, so I should stop talking.
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Sep 4, 2016 08:39
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A new Boko Haram attack in Niger. http://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/09/five-dead-first-east-niger-boko-haram-attack-3-months/
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Sep 4, 2016 13:33
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This is an interesting article on Gabon: http://www.thestar.com.my/opinion/c...e-migrant-agai/ Also  (mostly sarcastically)quote:And Ping of course is the son of Cheng Zhiping from Wenzhou in China’s Zhejiang province.
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Sep 4, 2016 18:22
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Kinshasa is reacting to President Joseph Kabila's delay in elections with a fair amount of disapproval. At the risk of showing insensitivity and ignorance towards the situation in the Dem. Rep. of Congo, how long has their political crisis been "ongoing?" Their history post-independence seems to be more brutal even by African standards.
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Sep 21, 2016 20:28
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Y-Hat posted:Kinshasa is reacting to President Joseph Kabila's delay in elections with a fair amount of disapproval. At the risk of showing insensitivity and ignorance towards the situation in the Dem. Rep. of Congo, how long has their political crisis been "ongoing?" Their history post-independence seems to be more brutal even by African standards. By one measure, you could say the Congo has been in crisis since independence, with only brief breaks for several name changes. The problem with the DRC is that it is the ultimate pretend-state, that also happens to be incredibly rich in natural resources. The ethnic groups hate each other, various political actors have tried multiple times to break away from the DRC, and twice Rwanda and Uganda tried to dismantle the country. The country stumbles from one crisis to the next, each time surviving with the generous help of outside interests. If anything, you could say that the DRC is the tale of crushing of Africa's post-independence dreams given form. A Festivus Miracle fucked around with this message at 21:11 on Sep 21, 2016 |
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Sep 21, 2016 21:09
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I'd say Congo has been in crisis since it was conquered as King Leopold II's private playground.
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Sep 21, 2016 21:42
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Cat Mattress posted:I'd say Congo has been in crisis since it was conquered as King Leopold II's private playground.
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Sep 21, 2016 21:51
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punk rebel ecks posted:How big is "Socialism" in South Africa? Or does race relations play a forefront in political discourse? Hah -- I was going back over the thread, and realised this got buried under mountains of dumb statue-talk. So, socialism in South Africa... The ANC was pretty much a socialist organisation from the start, and have always been really close with the South African Communist Party. Officially, when the ANC runs for elections, they actually run as a tripartite alliance of the ANC, SACP and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). That said, the ANC has found itself ruling a country full of big corporate interests, and in an increasingly globalised and neoliberal world, and spends a lot of time toeing the neoliberal line. It's worth referring back to the Freedom Charter, a manifesto drafted (collaboratively, via direct democracy) in 1955 by the ANC and its allies. Most of the text made its way into the South African Constitution in one form or another, except this: The part of the Freedom Charter that didn't make it into the Constitution posted:The People Shall Share In The Country's Wealth! There's basically no way the global economy wouldn't punish the country if it tried to nationalise the banks and mines, and so the ANC chose to back down on that. Hell, they even privatised the telephone company in the 90s, which was a huge shitshow. This is compounded by the usual problems of the corporate-government revolving door, and there have been cases where corporations have been caught outright bribing government officials (Jacob Zuma is particularly flagrant about that). These days, the ANC is pretty corporation-friendly. So, quite a lot of Marxist-leaning people are pretty disillusioned with the ANC. The National Union of Metalworkers (NUMSA), the largest single trade union in the country and about a third of the membership of COSATU, broke away from COSATU in 2014. They have since been affirming themselves as Marxist-Leninists and are considering forming a political party. The Economic Freedom Fighters are also ANC breakaways (and also Marxist-Leninist), led by Julius Malema, the former ANC Youth League leader and former ally of Zuma. Malema has his own problems with past corruption (and trans/homophobia, and a bunch of other stuff), but the EFF have had a solid showing in the last two elections. In the 2014 general election, they got just over 6% of the popular vote, while in the 2016 municipal elections, they got just over 8%. They've also done a pretty good job of challenging the ANC in parliament, as well as pulling antics like having all of their MPs show up in red overalls, gumboots and hard hats (and then have the ANC force them to wear suits). So yeah, that's about where socialism is right now in South Africa. You can argue that there's a little bit of race politics there, too, since the EFF's main base of support is in Limpopo province, among the baPedi people (Malema is baPedi), but going by election results they seem to have low-level support countrywide.
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Oct 7, 2016 02:12
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The EFF scares me as they come off very Chavez-esque. So what can be done about a country like South Africa trying to get more economic independence? Also I really wish people would comment about Sankara's rule on Burkina Faso. 
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Oct 7, 2016 17:12
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punk rebel ecks posted:The EFF scares me as they come off very Chavez-esque. Yeah true that on the EFF. I'd be much more excited if NUMSA got themselves together and formed a party, or if the DA could rid themselves of their image of being the rich white people party. Still, I kinda appreciate having the EFF in politics and making bold statements in parliament. It's really easy to dismiss DA criticisms of the ANC as white whining, but much harder when the criticisms are coming from the EFF. As to what the country can do, I guess I'm not enough of an economist to know, but maybe trying to build more local manufacturing and decouple from the global economy? Put controls on foreign ownership in the local stock market? There are already currency exchange controls to try to limit the speculative fuckery that's been ongoing since Apartheid ended. I'm sure I saw Sankara mentioned somewhere on DnD before; I respect a lot of what he did, but I think he was moving too fast on a lot of things, and ended up having to be too authoritarian about it.
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Oct 7, 2016 21:14
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Lead out in cuffs posted:I'm sure I saw Sankara mentioned somewhere on DnD before; I respect a lot of what he did, but I think he was moving too fast on a lot of things, and ended up having to be too authoritarian about it. People always say he was a legitimately good Communist leader. I'm curious if the way people talk up about him is hyperbole and of he was oppressive at all.
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Oct 7, 2016 22:00
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From Wikipedia:quote:In order to achieve this radical transformation of society, he increasingly exerted authoritarian control over the nation, eventually banning unions and a free press, which he believed could stand in the way of his plans.[5] To counter his opposition in towns and workplaces around the country, he also tried corrupt officials, "counter-revolutionaries" and "lazy workers" in Popular Revolutionary Tribunals.[5] Additionally, as an admirer of Fidel Castro's Cuban Revolution, Sankara set up Cuban-style Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDRs).[1] I'm pretty left-leaning, and I think he did a lot of great stuff, but I also like the idea of checks and balances in government, like an independent judiciary.
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Oct 7, 2016 22:45
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Call me a filthy liberal if you must, but I don't think banning unions is conducive to building a socialist paradise. Even the USSR and Communist bloc countries had unions, even though they were all just fronts to give the government rubber-stamp legitimacy. I know that many African nations more or less went straight to socialism after independence. Did any one of them as close to success as Upper Volta/Burkina Faso did? And is socialism a viable alternative in these nations today? I would think that the overbearing neoliberal nature of the IMF and the World Bank, as well as massively corrupt governments mismanaging natural resource wealth such as Nigeria with oil, would dissuade countries from going that route. Additionally, I read an article a couple of months ago that talked about Ethiopia as a country with a budding private sector. get that OUT of my face fucked around with this message at 00:25 on Oct 8, 2016 |
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Oct 8, 2016 00:22
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get that OUT of my face posted:Call me a filthy liberal if you must, but I don't think banning unions is conducive to building a socialist paradise. Even the USSR and Communist bloc countries had unions, even though they were all just fronts to give the government rubber-stamp legitimacy. Trade unions can be surprisingly regressive when the government isn't acting its perceived best interests even if those interests aren't beneficial for society as a whole. Look at police unions in the United States for a more narrow example.
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Oct 8, 2016 00:32
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punk rebel ecks posted:The EFF scares me as they come off very Chavez-esque. If only. Malema is Mugabe's number one fan (even has a shirt with his face all over it he wears at rallies) and has stated he wants to implement the same agricultural policies. Dude is a authoritarian demagogue.
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Oct 8, 2016 08:20
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rscott posted:Trade unions can be surprisingly regressive when the government isn't acting its perceived best interests even if those interests aren't beneficial for society as a whole. Look at police unions in the United States for a more narrow example. Setting that aside, there are many incidents in the history of the American labor movement that you can point to and say that they're self-defeating and elitist. The AFL was exclusively white when it started out and its leaders were elitist assholes in their own right, a lot of unions purged their ranks of known Communists during the McCarthy as a bargain with big business, and they supported the candidacies of Reagan and Bill Clinton before they went and stabbed them in the back when they became president. And in the primaries, the vast majority of unions supported Hillary Clinton, who says she's against the TPP even though she helped write the drat thing as Secretary of State, instead of Bernie Sanders, who joined picketers a few times on the campaign trail. Meanwhile in Europe, there wasn't nearly the amount of necessary resistance from trade unions to push back against proposed neoliberal policies of the EU, and now austerity is the order of the day there. Bottom line: trade unions are flawed, but don't outright ban them. There's a reason why they're first in the crosshairs of budding dictators.
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Oct 8, 2016 10:10
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Bro Dad posted:If only. Malema is Mugabe's number one fan (even has a shirt with his face all over it he wears at rallies) and has stated he wants to implement the same agricultural policies. Dude is a authoritarian demagogue. What the gently caress!? Is this true? Why are all of these leftists leaders/parties are either crazy and bad (Chavez, Mugabe, maybe this dude?) or will be all bark and no bite (Syriza)?
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Oct 8, 2016 15:14
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punk rebel ecks posted:What the gently caress!? Is this true? Well: get that OUT of my face posted:the overbearing neoliberal nature of the IMF and the World Bank Either you try to keep your country in the global economy and that basically forces you to conform to the neoliberal dogma (especially if you are a weak country who needs financial assistance); or you are crazy enough to think you could go for autarky.
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Oct 8, 2016 15:37
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Malema has actually ditched Mugabe since the start of the recent protests, something which made a few people chuckle as he used to see no problem with wearing shirts with his face on it or glad handing with the man and praising him openly. That kind of shifting is something that speaks to a fundamental issue I have Malema, I still don't 100% believe his rhetoric or buy his transformation from the king of bling cadre beset with corruption allegations to fiery leader of the coming revolution and no amount of pounds he sheds has changed my mind. I don't doubt he has shifted opinion since leaving the ANC but how much of his rhetoric is purely responsive to exploit public anger and how much is genuine remains a bit of a mystery to me
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Oct 8, 2016 15:47
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Cat Mattress posted:Well: It's not just full autarky. Syriza could have at least withdrawn from the Euro.
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Oct 8, 2016 17:05
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punk rebel ecks posted:It's not just full autarky. Syriza could have at least withdrawn from the Euro. Long story short, no. Not with the conditions they were given for a "Grexit", not with the time window they had, not the limitations to what the EU allowed them to do even out of the Eurozone. The consequences would have been terrible for the Greek economy and so they eventually went for status quo as the lesser of two evils.
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Oct 8, 2016 17:11
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punk rebel ecks posted:What the gently caress!? Is this true? Why would smart people embrace an ideology that has failed in every single real world implementation? The answer that is staring you in the face is that smart people don't become far leftists.
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Oct 8, 2016 17:13
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Cat Mattress posted:Long story short, no. I'll just agree to disagree. They should have left the Euro. What they chose was to just kick the can down the road by a couple of inches.
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Oct 8, 2016 17:13
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punk rebel ecks posted:I'll just agree to disagree. They should have left the Euro. What they chose was to just kick the can down the road by a couple of inches. Well you are simply flat out badly uninformed then. Greece would have starved to death because they don't grow their own food or produce their own energy and would have been locked out of capital markets. It would have been exactly what is happening in Venezuela right now.
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Oct 8, 2016 17:14
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TROIKA CURES GREEK posted:Well you are simply flat out badly uninformed then. Greece would have starved to death because they don't grow their own food or produce their own energy and would have been locked out of capital markets. It would have been exactly what is happening in Venezuela right now. Venezuela isn't in its current situation from challenging the world economic order. It is in its current situation due to mismanaging the economy, specifically through laughable price control policies, nonsensical nationalizations, and betting everything on oil before the prices collapsed.
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Oct 8, 2016 18:19
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punk rebel ecks posted:What the gently caress!? Is this true? In the defence of leftists in South Africa re:Mugabe, here's an article from 2008, when Mugabe ordered a large shipment of small arms from China to help violently suppress the opposition in that year's election. The South African government were OK with the arms being shipped overland through the country (senior ANC leadership kinda feels like they owe Mugabe), but... quote:Dockers in Durban were refusing last night to unload the ship. The SA Transport and Allied Workers Union's general secretary, Randall Howard, said: "Satawu does not agree with the position of the government not to intervene with this shipment of weapons. Our members will not unload this cargo, neither will any of our members in the truck-driving sector move this cargo by road." And eventually a South African court ruled that they could not be transported through the country, other African countries followed suit, and the shipment had to return to China. kustomkarkommando posted:Malema has actually ditched Mugabe since the start of the recent protests, something which made a few people chuckle as he used to see no problem with wearing shirts with his face on it or glad handing with the man and praising him openly. I suppose it could be argued that he was only toeing the ANC line in supporting Mugabe. Mugabe provided a ton of support for the ANC in exile in the 80s (including hosting military bases), so a lot of the senior leadership (especially Zuma) feel obligated to support him back, no matter how tyrannical he gets. But yeah, I still don't trust him either. And while I think the EFF have a lot of good policy proposals (raising the minimum wage, nationalising government-funded construction, nationalising the mines, land reform), the ways they're proposing to go about those worry me (just take the land, same for the mines). I'd be in favour of land reform in say the distributist style (government buys and provides three acres and a cow to anyone willing to work them). And for the mines, something like gradual compulsory buy-outs of corporations by the government. Hell, you wouldn't even necessarily need to completely buy out a mining company -- you could just buy a majority stake so it becomes government-controlled.
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Oct 8, 2016 21:35
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Quick question about neoliberal power: Has the influence of the IMF and/or World Bank been increasing or decreasing since the Great Recession? Because from what I've read they're the reason many developing nations today can't go the democratic-socialist route (like Greece or Venezuela) and instead get royally screwed beyond economic recognition. Also, am I reading correctly that Nigeria's population is expected by 2050 to be 400 MILLION!? There's no goddamn way that's sustainable! 
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Oct 14, 2016 22:41
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