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Sheng-ji Yang posted:do you consider a Revolutionary Marxist-Leninist Party working toward Communist Revolution in the United States less crazier than the greens? Is that really a question?
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Jan 20, 2016 10:02
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Homework Explainer posted:it's great to see bernie people devolve into john birchers the second any mention is made of actually existing socialism lol Um, excuse me, but did you know that Communism is responsible for the deaths of a Million-Bajillion people?* *wikipedia
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Jan 22, 2016 05:47
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Jewel Repetition posted:Also that web site is practically made of the fallacy of the undistributed middle. They're pointing at how bad unregulated laissez-faire capitalism is and saying socialism is the only alternative. Any system that relies on constant growth in order to function sets itself up for cyclical collapse, and eventual catastrophic implosion in a closed environment (our planet). A system like socialism which doesn't rely on growth in order to function properly, is the only real alternative.
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Jan 22, 2016 05:55
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Jewel Repetition posted:Look up the difference between intensive and extensive growth. I don't think environmentalism is even why Marxists normally theorize the "implosions." It doesn't even really have anything to do with environmentalism, I just felt like saying the Earth is a "closed system" would feel redundant compositionally. quote:Holy poo poo, are you like a holocaust denier but for Stalinism? Horseshoe theory is real. Mistakes were made. If you've got a plan for bloodlessly seizing the means of production, and protecting it from Imperialist aggression I'm all ears. "Class War" isn't just supposed to be a buzzword for tax policy wonks.
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Jan 22, 2016 06:24
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Yudo posted:yeah starving millions of Ukrainian peasants to death is a common side effect of seizing the means of production. It really was though lmao. Holodomor wasn't an engineered genocide but the end result of State Capitalist policies in which grains were being used to accumulate industrial capital instead of consumption. Millions starved in Central Asia too, but they're not white and don't have a lobby in Washington DC so they don't get a special genocide I guess. When "mistakes were made" those specific mistakes were letting Stalin and Mao seize the reigns of power. Just don't try and make me cry big fat liberal crocodile tears for the Kulaks or the Chinese gentry. Jewel Repetition posted:More evidence of horseshoe theory: they use "red-baiting" like rightists use "race-baiting," except at the mention of the USSR instead of African Americans. Horseshoe Theory is reductionist bullshit whose sole purpose is to reinforce Liberal hegemony. Liberals be like: "you don't really want to slaughter the bourgeoisie do you?| Commies be like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygDo4-ksCs4
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Jan 22, 2016 08:30
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The late 19th and early 20th Centuries were an unprecedented orgy of blood and violence unparalleled in all of History, but somehow Liberals are above it all because they had the best intentions. Fukken LMAO. "We didn't mean to massacre hundreds of thousands of Filipinos, but they refused to be our colony!!!" 
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Jan 22, 2016 08:47
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Yudo posted:Yeah it was. Sorry your ideology is even more bloodthirsty than liberalism try to come up with something new. Not even "Holodomor" could be as bloodthirsty as the expiration rate of slaves in the Americas, but I don't see that called an engineered genocide. You've got more sympathy for the slavers slaughtered in Haiti. Jewel Repetition posted:Liberal democracies wage a lot less war, especially with each other, than any other political system. What do you call WW1, Korea, Vietnam, Kenya, Algiers, Iraq, Afghanistan? Because the Liberal system externalizes death and suffering to the Global Periphery does not make it any less bloodthirsty. 500,000 dead Iraqi children lie at the feet of the Clinton sanctions regime, but don't call that a genocide.
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Jan 22, 2016 10:48
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Yudo posted:You are desperately trying to minimize the calculated and cruel murder of millions of people because it makes your politics look bad. I am at least willing to admit that Mass Death happened, and it was a mistake. Which is more than can be said for the Liberal naysayers who outright ignore the crimes their ideological framework was loving built on over centuries and even up to the present day. I can't believe I'm being told that Liberal countries are less warlike while NATO-led coalitions are waging war on 2 continents, and in multiple countries at once.
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Jan 22, 2016 11:01
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Jewel Repetition posted:there are capitalist countries where people aren't starving, so that can't be an inherent problem with capitalism. Capitalism is a global system where local prices are easily impacted by global trends. First World hedge funds speculating on the future prices of wheat can cause prices to spike in countries where food insecurity are highest, like in Africa or Latin America. http://www.theguardian.com/business/2010/jul/19/speculators-commodities-food-price-rises If we were judging individual countries as opposed to the economic systems they operate upon, we could just as easily say that Cuba and Vietnam have never experienced famines under Communist administration. So that can't be an inherent problem with communism.  Also while people may not be literally starving to death unless by neglect from their guardians, millions of people in the United States are good insecure. http://www.feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america/impact-of-hunger/hunger-and-poverty/hunger-and-poverty-fact-sheet.html 48.1 million Americans live in food insecure households, 15.3 million of which are children, and of those tens of millions only 61 percent are taking advantage of assistance programs like SNAP. The most serious issue with being food insecure is the developmental impact, because children who grow up without proper nutrition are at severe risk of development mental or physical disorders which can impair them into adulthood. Hell you don't even have to live in poverty to grow up with a lovely diet, because the food markets are geared towards making nutritionally empty foods the cheapest and most addicting available. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/the-extraordinary-science-of-junk-food.html Americans living in poverty would be astronomically benefited by a socialized food system, which would not need to make its foods chemically addictive for profit, and which would deliver a better range of nutritious foods to all Americans.
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Jan 22, 2016 21:50
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So in your mind socialized agriculture is like The Matrix?
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Jan 22, 2016 22:01
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LGD posted:In my mind socialized agriculture (and a socialized food production system) is what it has been like historically- i.e. absolutely dire. That wasn't a made up example, that was something Viktor Belenko (a Mig Pilot who defected in 1976) actually experienced. He was convinced the U.S. grocery stores he visited were Potemkin villages the CIA set up specifically for his benefit rather than entirely typical examples of things the citizenry had access to because the quality and variety of foods available was so high/large. He also accidentally bought canned dog food and happily consumed it before someone informed him of what he was doing. He deemed it superior to the canned food available to the populace of the Soviet Union. And in my mind socialized agriculture looks more like Thomas Sankara's Burkina Faso, in which lands were redistributed to the peasants who worked them, while fertilizers and agricultural capital were provided by the government. Within 3 years Burkina Faso went from a food importer which relied on foreign aid, to a food exporter which had achieved food security for all Burkinabe. In the United States, agriculture has become so overwhelmingly Capital intensive that it's impossible for small farmers to exist anymore without permanently indebting themselves to the major agcorps. Agricultural lands are slowly being bought up and consolidated by these corporations, or tributized through debt payments and licensing agreements. It's getting to the point where the sheer scale of modern agriculture makes it impossible for farmers to survive, unless of course the brunt of the capital was being covered by society instead of banks and agcorps. Pener Kropoopkin fucked around with this message at 22:46 on Jan 22, 2016 |
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Jan 22, 2016 22:43
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LGD posted:when I tell you that a socialized food system would be wildly unappealing to the U.S. population at large due to quality issues and you respond by saying you're thinking about policies modeled on a country where 80% of the populace is engaged in rural subsistence level farming you're not really helping your case The whole nature of the problem that we've been bringing up is that the ability of the capitalist system to produce a variety of quality goods was never in question, the issue is the ability of the system to distribute those goods where they are most needed. I posted multiple links to qualified sources about the food security crisis in the United States of all places, and major issues of quality with foods that are available to the poor; but then your eyes glazed over and you started blabbing about a Soviet defector eating dog food.
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Jan 22, 2016 23:15
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Jewel Repetition posted:Soviet life expectancy and infant mortality were worse than ours toward the end, because their healthcare deteriorated just like everything else inevitably does in a communist system. Also the increased life expectancy came after the genocide. And when Russia transitioned to Capitalist system under enlightened Liberal rule that all turned around for them.  Oh - OH NO~
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Jan 22, 2016 23:21
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Jewel Repetition posted:The problems with food security here are nothing compared to what's happened in socialist countries. We're not eating cats like Cuba or dying by the millions like the USSR. Plenty of people were eating their pets during the Dust Bowl, and people died by the millions in the colonial peripheries of countries which were nominally Liberal as well. Or to put it in other words: team overhead smash posted:It was awful, but it's hardly uniquely awful in the historical context. LGD posted:food security issues are largely a matter of insufficient income, something that is very easy to address (in a technical sense) via transfer payments, the problem being political will Transfer payments via programs like SNAP may solve the issue of accessibility without addressing the issues of dietary choice, which is why I specifically brought up the common practice of making cheap foods chemically addictive - as that is a highly profitable practice. One way or another, the for-profit system ensures that millions of people won't be able to meet adequate dietary needs either through the lack of accessibility, or through the cultivation of unhealthy eating habits. Simple transfer payments are insufficient in addressing the issue, not unless you're also delivering a basket of goods which guarantees nutritional availability to all households. quote:you are a colossal loving idiot gently caress you too, buddy. 
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Jan 22, 2016 23:44
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Homework Explainer posted:in the spirit of the thread's original subject matter i recommend a purge because i've had this argument so many times and literally no one arguing these anticom positions ever changes their mind. this is a waste of my time and yours Actually I'm a former Anticom who underwent a complete conversion after extensive research. I hope that one day Jewel Repetition too will see the light and slay the Running Dog within.
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Jan 22, 2016 23:46
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LGD posted:How much do you actually know about this poo poo? Transfer payments is a broad label that covers far more than just food stamps, and they've done actual studies on the impact of food deserts. Most of the evidence points toward them having a negligible influence- I think grocery store location accounts for something like 10% of the difference in eating habits. Never said anything about food deserts, only bringing up the issue of the for-profit system cultivating poor eating habits. You can talk about people being empowered to make their own choices all you like, but without a massive public - dare I say - re-education program, there's no guarantee that they will even make the right ones. Michelle Obama tried guaranteeing access to nutritionally dense foods for schoolchildren, and she was called a Communist Fascist Dictator. You bring up the issue of political will without considering that political resistance to an expansion of the welfare state is being cultivated by the capitalist system. What happens if the welfare state is being undermined gradually over time, and is eventually dismantled because of political forces which are shaped by capital? European countries with strong social welfare programs have been backsliding into Austerity for a decade, often in spite of public opinion. Engaging in constant struggle with the political Right only invites the cyclical declines of public health which are endemic to capitalism. Jewel Repetition posted:That's what I was referring to. People in the former USSR aren't starving to death either. When the Yeltsin regime attempted to sell off all public assets through a share distribution program in the late 90s, millions of Russians immediately sold off their shares just so that they could eat. It was a significant causal factor in the consolidation of oligarchic control over Russian capital, and all fomented by the chaos of a Liberal regime. Pener Kropoopkin fucked around with this message at 00:18 on Jan 23, 2016 |
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Jan 23, 2016 00:13
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Jewel Repetition posted:No, it does go back to their socialism. Their backwards economy necessitated the USSR propping them up, so when it dissolved they were left with a famine and had to institute capitalist reforms. Uh, you do realize how the Foreign Aid system works, right? Billions in small developing countries all rely upon the First World to prop them up.
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Jan 23, 2016 00:23
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LGD posted:I don't really care that people all make the "right" choices, you don't really care that you're advocating a system that produces food that is worse than we feed to our pets. I'm pretty ok with where I stand on this issue. I never advocated for the Soviet system, so congratulations on destroying a straw man. There are as many different forms of Socialism as there are for transfer payments. The problem is developing a system which works within the context of existing society, not to try and develop a one-size-fits-all universal model, which is the purport of capitalism. quote:I mean your central complaint right now is that capitalism is making our poorest too fat. It's true, and a social problem we need to address but lol LOL it's so great to live in a system where people can be nutritionally starved, and yet still grow obese and develop severe health complications. LMAO loving LOOOOOL. LGD posted:it's absolutely a social problem and hardly an unqualified triumph, but I don't really know how you can look at the sweep of human history and all of the varied economic and political systems that have been tried and not consider it a success of a sort It is absolutely not a success, because developmental disorders arising from nutritional deficiency have a tendency to make people stupid. It plagues them all throughout their adult lives. The argument you're making here is that it's ok to compound human misery so long as the death rolls stay low. Pener Kropoopkin fucked around with this message at 00:59 on Jan 23, 2016 |
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Jan 23, 2016 00:56
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LGD posted:any attempt to bring up examples from the failed real world attempts to implement such a system are straw men to be dismissed And I could just as easily point to the dismissive attitudes with regard to the artificial starvation conditions inflicted on the 3rd World by global capitalism. Socialized agriculture has real success when it comes to creating self-sufficient systems that solve the issue of food insecurity. quote:and the argument you're making is that the current state of affairs is terrible compared to an imagined ideal- I agree, it is! however you really haven't established why we need to radically revise our entire food production system in the (nebulous) way you're suggesting in order to solve this issue (especially since it seems to be highly linked to income) The issues with our agricultural system are multivarious. Not only does it generate an incredible amount of waste, it fails to adequately distribute nutritional foods to the populations which are the most in need. On top of that it engenders a consolidation of power over the production system into an ever smaller circle of private hands, which profit from the labors of farmers due to the excessive demands of capital intensive methods. It also has an incredibly negative environmental impact due to industrialized methods of meat production, which produce an over-abundance of low quality meat, while generating massive amounts of greenhouse gasses and useless biowaste. Being able to adequately address these issues won't be possible while tying ourselves to a for-profit system of agriculture, because these developments were driven with profit in mind. The ability of people to access the food is only one element of the problem, although it is the one most immediately concerning because millions of people are still technically starving, even if their caloric intake is met.
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Jan 23, 2016 01:27
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Part of the problem when considering the failures of socialism versus capitalism, is that socialist failures have more easily identifiable "villains." Those failed policies were directed by individuals, as part of a social program to guide the development of their respective societies. When a socialist system fucks up it's because a person hosed it up. Capitalism by comparison is faceless. Its neglect is systemic, a feature built into the system by virtue of its immoral desire to accumulate more capital by any means necessary. The victims of capitalism exist as statistical outliers - completely disenfranchised from the normal functions of business. Those who carry out the policies that destroy them do so behind the cover of a corporation, or the state. Limited liability translates into limited responsibility, and the aggregate decisions of speculators can end up generating price famines in the developing world. There is no single person or state to bear responsibility, but millions who are invested into the system. It's an entire class of people which continuously perpetuates this suffering, and Liberals absolutely refuse to come to terms with that fact. It becomes very easy for a person living in the First World to ignore the savageries inflicted upon developing nations every year. They do after all, live in countries which accumulated massive amounts of capital over centuries of global theft. The foundation of the social democratic welfare state is based upon colonialism, and it is continually financed through neocolonialism. It's an inescapable fact, even for countries which did not historically participate in foreign imperialism, because the financial system is now global in scope.
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Jan 23, 2016 14:43
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Sheng-ji Yang posted:nah, it is socialism or barbarism  Jewel Repetition posted:What I'm saying about that is socialism isn't the only solution and capitalism isn't the only cause. Almost every single country in the world is a capitalist nation, directly tied in to international markets and financial flows. Countries which attempted to protect themselves from foreign trade found their markets forcefully opened, either through naked force or through the accumulation of international debts - the forgiveness of which was contingent upon them opening themselves to international capital and markets. Capitalism isn't just "the way things are done," it's the basis upon which the very fabric of global society is developed - and the ultimate shape of that society is defined by its laws. Which country and peoples do or do not acquire a certain amount of goods & resources, depends wholly upon their Capital power. Countries with a high accumulation of capital, like Canada, generate the highest demand and draw resources from the Global South in order to enable their ambitions. To understand why this is a bad thing, you have to understand what happens when and where Capital is realized. The amount of trade received by the Global South in exchange for its resources, is never going to equal the value of Realized Capital in the Global North. If trade were truly fair or equitable, then countries like Canada could not profit from the system. This is what Homework Explainer means when he talks about Superprofits. Countries in Africa, Latin America, and South Asia are kept in a permanent state of poverty with respect to North American, European, and East Asian countries. If Capital were truly realized in the Global South, and those countries were allowed to develop to parity with the North, then the system would collapse. Without being able to extract Superprofits from the South, Northern countries would have to accelerate the rate of exploitation of their domestic labor force, and ultimately invite Revolution. If capitalism is not the only cause of this arrangement, then just what do you believe is causing it, and for what motive? What alternative is there to this system that you believe is acceptable if not socialism?
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Jan 25, 2016 12:09
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It actually makes more sense to take over the Democratic party and turn it socialist, because the entire system is set up to suppress Third Party participation. Even with a widespread base of support.
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Jan 26, 2016 07:02
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The impression I'm getting here is that Jewel Repetition believes socialism is incompatible with pizza.
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Jan 26, 2016 15:12
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Homework Explainer posted:let's not forget that any government acting against the interests of the united states, i.e. nationalizing its resources or daring — gasp — to elect a socialist leader, is gonna get hardcore imperial intervention, whether that's straight military invasion or the manufacture of a coup or uprising One of the least scrutinized aspects of Clinton's foreign policy bonafides, is how her State Department tripped over itself to support the coup government in Honduras.
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Jan 27, 2016 00:56
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Jewel Repetition posted:Someone went farther than that, pretty much saying we're too stupid to choose what food we eat, and we eat too good of food while other people are starving etc. It was pretty easy to see where it was going. You're confusing multiple messages. The point that transfer payments won't address the issue of literally addictive foods and the cultivation of poor eating habits still stands. From a public health perspective, we might as well treat junk food the same way we treat cigarettes. It's not an issue of who is or isn't stupid, it completely rewires your priorities and preferences.
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Jan 27, 2016 10:34
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The Saurus posted:I don''t give a gently caress about luxury goods, but if I have to give up pizza as a precondition of socialism then I'd rather live in a neoliberal paradise. The argument being made is that pizza will be made with better ingredients post-revolution, not that pizza is a bourgeois luxury that will be smashed along with all vestiges of the Old World. Basically what y'all think would happen is this:  Except the Buddai is a pizza. team overhead smash posted:Also way too early to worry about Communism. Socialist revolution first to create the preconditions necessary for communism. Then the question answers itself depending on the type. to keep thigns simple let's say market socialism, so the answer is you get them from wherever you get them from at the moment. Nice and simple. Groceries and farms are already the most common forms of Cooperatives, so it's pretty silly how many people can't conceive of a socialist supply chain for a 3-cheese Supreme. Pener Kropoopkin fucked around with this message at 04:55 on Jan 28, 2016 |
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Jan 28, 2016 04:52
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The Saurus posted:Do animals have the right of ownership over their milk and cheese and eggs? Anything that can't understand this comic doesn't deserve rights imo. 
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Jan 28, 2016 05:20
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Jewel Repetition posted:I'm being intellectually honest. You saying someone needs to read Marx before they can criticize communism is exactly the same as a white nationalist saying someone needs to read Mein Kampf before casting any stones. Is that comparison unfair somehow? Karl Marx did nothing wrong.
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Jan 28, 2016 11:09
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You can't really understand Capitalism in the first place without reading Marx, tbqh.
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Jan 29, 2016 02:14
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LaVoy Finicum would be alive today if he was a Marxist.
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Jan 29, 2016 07:15
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Yudo posted:The labor theory of value--borrowing from and building on Ricardo and Smith--is very dated and not particularly edifying. Well then it's a good thing that's not the only thing Marx wrote about. There's a reason that all the bourgeois papers ritualistically trot out "Was Marx right?" articles every time there's a market crisis, and it's because Marx was right.
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Jan 29, 2016 20:06
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Top City Homo posted:let me tell you something buddy or i s it "comrade" with you people? Because of socialist rationing we can only work up enough saliva for a light drizzle.
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Jan 30, 2016 03:48
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I'd still say Sanders is important, because revolutionary change will never be possible unless enough people believe that a government can deliver vital services efficiently. I don't think it can be understated how massively retarded Americans are when it comes to capitalist indoctrination.
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Jan 30, 2016 15:42
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DOCTOR ZIMBARDO posted:In 1904 your average Russian peasant was a patriotic, God-fearing, Czar-loving sort. By 1917, this was no longer the case. Cultivating a revolution in a Semi-Feudal agrarian society, before television, radio, and the internet is by comparison really loving easy when compared to what we're dealing with now. Propaganda, like all other industries, has only become more capital-intensive over the last century and it's practically impossible to disseminate socialist ideas except through direct contact either in person or over social media. It's impossible to even set up a permanent public presence anymore to radicalize the populace, since Occupy was crushed and had its libraries burned. Early 20th Century Communists could also rely on a strong base of Proletarian support, and Proletariat class consciousness just doesn't exist anymore after a century of ubiquitous Red Scare propaganda. In the realm of possibility, Sanders represents a hard direction in the public consciousness towards the Left, and it's something that can be built upon. Plus I really need that healthcare.
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Jan 30, 2016 17:49
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Homework Explainer posted:*floats by* the cia and nsa monitor social media, please keep this in mind at all times!!!!! *floats away* If I'm not already on some kind of Watch List I'd be pretty disappointed.
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Jan 30, 2016 17:54
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It's no secret that Liberalism is in a crisis, and is completely unprepared to deal with it.
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Feb 1, 2016 07:03
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Feb 9, 2016 02:06
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Basically the argument being made ITT is that immigration is bad, because it means a reduced capacity for consumption by the white working class.
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Feb 10, 2016 22:06
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Tell me more about how bad the Labor Aristocracy has it, because of Central American refugees.
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Feb 10, 2016 22:57
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Basically, it's not an immigrant's fault that Native Labor deradicalized, deunionized, and left itself open for the harshest acceleration of exploitation in the last 100 years. Blaming a Tamil guy with an H1B visa for your own disenfranchisement doesn't cut it, when you've never paid union dues or were even interested in organizing at all.
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Feb 10, 2016 23:20
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