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On October 06 2020 20:59 Slydie wrote:Show nested quote +On October 06 2020 11:22 NewSunshine wrote:
Maybe he can finally relate to the George Floyd protests now.
The whole "don't be afraid of COVID-19, I got through it and so can you" is very much a Let Them Eat Cake moment, too. Tell that to all the people you killed with your negligence, and tell it to all the people who can't afford health insurance because of fucking late-stage capitalism. Just go to a cutting-edge White House doctor, great fucking idea, Donny. It is funny that "let them eat cake" is one of the most successful and longest-living piece of fake-news for propaganda purtposes which will ever exist. People still say it and believe it is true centuries afterwards, and it has been convincingly debunked. https://www.britannica.com/story/did-marie-antoinette-really-say-let-them-eat-cake
Except no one actually goes around saying "remember that time Marie said...". The expression is used more for what it represents than the actual story. Even of people believe the story its rarely used incorrectly contextually.
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Northern Ireland27464 Posts
@Biff In fairness if you were to outline our current systems to an alien or a member of some uncontacted tribe they would be presumably rather baffled as to how it all knits together and why people aren’t a bit more uppity.
All systems have their unintended externalities, capitalism included there. Even enthusiastic capitalists felt it was a system whose productivity benefits would filter through into real human benefits, both in terms of freeing people from abject poverty but also in cutting work hours due to the increased efficiency of industrialised processes.
So one can argue that things have been inverted where the tangible increases in productivity etc haven’t been harnessed for the benefit of the human condition, instead humans have become tools and consumers in the pursuit of perpetual economic growth.
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On October 06 2020 21:06 Rebs wrote:Show nested quote +On October 06 2020 20:59 Slydie wrote:On October 06 2020 11:22 NewSunshine wrote:
Maybe he can finally relate to the George Floyd protests now.
The whole "don't be afraid of COVID-19, I got through it and so can you" is very much a Let Them Eat Cake moment, too. Tell that to all the people you killed with your negligence, and tell it to all the people who can't afford health insurance because of fucking late-stage capitalism. Just go to a cutting-edge White House doctor, great fucking idea, Donny. It is funny that "let them eat cake" is one of the most successful and longest-living piece of fake-news for propaganda purtposes which will ever exist. People still say it and believe it is true centuries afterwards, and it has been convincingly debunked. https://www.britannica.com/story/did-marie-antoinette-really-say-let-them-eat-cake Except no one actually goes around saying "remember that time Marie said...". The expression is used more for what it represents than the actual story. Even of people believe the story its rarely used incorrectly contextually. '
Indeed, very few historical aphorisms match up with what actually happened, but as you say, colloquial meaning and use cares little for what *actually* happened.
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On October 06 2020 19:16 Liquid`Drone wrote:
To my knowledge there's hardly a person alive *, and certainly not participating in this thread, who advocates a system akin to what we saw in the soviet union or any country occupied by the soviet union. GH sure as hell isn't, nothing even remotely closely resembling it either. So talking about the dangers of marxist leninism as practiced by the soviet union and her satellite states is fairly pointless and mostly just serves as a distraction.
GH keeps talking about Freire, not Stalin or Lenin. And most far leftists who concern themselves with socialist theory are similarly minded to that. Step one of 'the revolution' is convincing a sufficient amount of people that it is necessary. Very, very few people are advocating for a revolution without popular support. And then the 'violent' element of the revolution is not 'once we're enough people to violently overthrow society, we'll do it', it's 'once we're enough people to win an election, we have to be prepared to use violence if or after the holders of power refuse to relinquish their power.
It is true that some Eastern European countries became significantly worse because of 'communism'. But those countries did not revolt. They were occupied, and 'communism' was forced upon them. They're irrelevant from a 'revolution' perspective. If you look at for example Cuba, where they definitely had a communist revolution, then it is rather obvious that the Castro regime was abhorrent. However, it is not so obvious that it was worse than the Batista regime it followed. (Honestly, I don't know. I imagine it was a lot worse for the wealthy and in many ways better for the impoverished. This is not me defending Castro, it's just stating that the situation pre-revolution was also really bad. )
As stated, I'm not a revolutionary myself. I just get pretty irked by seeing people continuously, and primarily through the fault of their own, misrepresent what the more revolutionary crowd is advocating for. And, I really feel like I must be cognizant of the fact that 'incremental improvement but plz don't break the system' is a whole lot more attractive of a prospect when you are part of the top ~5% than when you are downtrodden and suffering.
*(In Norway there's a group called Tjen Folket (serve the people) who have something like 50 members total, and that's also just about the totality of their support. They're advocating violent revolution, and are actually Stalinists. So maybe the real number of supporters of that type of ideology is in the 0.001% range. )
** My wife is polish, and while she certainly doesn't support the type of dictatorship found in the soviet union, she's just as much of a leftist as I am, and I know several polish people who easily consider themselves marxists. (As in, idealizing the theoretical framework presented by Marx and expanded upon by later theorists, not as in idealizing the dictatorships created by countries claiming to be marxist. This is akin to being pro-democracy and not thinking the Democratic Republic of Korea is a good example of democracy. I also don't think 'what gets you punched in the face in Poland' is a good metric for 'what behavior you should avoid'.
It's relieving every time I see someone comprehend my posting before disagreeing with it. I'd definitely argue Castro was easily the lesser of two evils between him and Batista and probably between him and Trump if you consider the world is on Cuba's side when it comes to the US's unilateral sanctions.
EDIT: I should also mention this part:
And then the 'violent' element of the revolution is not 'once we're enough people to violently overthrow society, we'll do it', it's 'once we're enough people to win an election, we have to be prepared to use violence if or after the holders of power refuse to relinquish their power.
It's important. It's also important to have the context that democracy didn't get us basic worker rights (or freedom for slaves), or at least not without plenty of blood & violence.
Even with 80% support of revolutionary changes to our system that's still plenty of people for the top 0.01% to hire to dissuade the other 80% (many of which just rhetorically support these changes) with clubs and guns.
They've done it every time in the US over the weekend, 40hr week, minimum wage, etc.
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Yeah, it's kind of telling that Battista is the standard we use to show how great and viable Marxist Leninism is.
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On October 07 2020 00:14 Biff The Understudy wrote:
Yeah, it's kind of telling that Battista is the standard we use to show how great and viable Marxist Leninism is.
The US supported Batista's military dictatorship to exploit Cuba's agrarian resources (among others) for the profits of companies like United Fruit and at the expense of Cubans. Batista was just a goon doing the US's dirty work.
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On October 07 2020 01:07 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On October 07 2020 00:14 Biff The Understudy wrote:
Yeah, it's kind of telling that Battista is the standard we use to show how great and viable Marxist Leninism is. The US supported Batista's military dictatorship to exploit Cuba's agrarian resources (among others) for the profits of companies like United Fruit and at the expense of Cubans. Batista was just a goon doing the US's dirty work.
Sure. And? The US foreign policy has been a disgrace for ever especially in South America. Your point?
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On October 07 2020 01:10 Biff The Understudy wrote:Show nested quote +On October 07 2020 01:07 GreenHorizons wrote:On October 07 2020 00:14 Biff The Understudy wrote:
Yeah, it's kind of telling that Battista is the standard we use to show how great and viable Marxist Leninism is. The US supported Batista's military dictatorship to exploit Cuba's agrarian resources (among others) for the profits of companies like United Fruit and at the expense of Cubans. Batista was just a goon doing the US's dirty work. Sure. And? The US foreign policy has been a disgrace for ever especially in South America. Your point?
It links back to the ease with which people accept those atrocities to secure their comforts and fail to recognize them in consideration for the horrific cost of the status quo when balancing it against revolutionary change.
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If we are gonna take one liberal democracy's foreign policy to invalidate liberal democracy, why not take the foreign policy of one marxist leninist regime and see how it compares?
+ Show Spoiler +
Oh... oh wait...
You know what? Let's not do that, it's too obviously stupid.
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On October 07 2020 01:17 Biff The Understudy wrote:If we are gonna take one liberal democracy's foreign policy to invalidate liberal democracy, why not take the foreign policy of one marxist leninist regime and see how it compares? + Show Spoiler +Oh... oh wait... You know what? Let's not do that, it's too obviously stupid.
Invalidating liberal democracy in total is a bit of a task, I'm just dealing with the one in the US.
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On October 07 2020 01:22 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On October 07 2020 01:17 Biff The Understudy wrote:If we are gonna take one liberal democracy's foreign policy to invalidate liberal democracy, why not take the foreign policy of one marxist leninist regime and see how it compares? + Show Spoiler +Oh... oh wait... You know what? Let's not do that, it's too obviously stupid. Invalidating liberal democracy in total is a bit of a task, I'm just dealing with the one in the US.
Yeah because big countries bullying small countries in their sphere of influence is totally unheard of. Except for, you know, every big country in history.
At least you got a chance to vote for people who don't pursue a shit foreign policy. No one ever got that chance in the system you advocate.
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I think that any ethical discussion that involves powerful countries not exerting any level of influence/power over weaker countries is valid from an ethical perspective, but not something we should expect to ever exist in nature, at least for the next 100 years. From an "effective" perspective, I don't think it is worthwhile to say "well gosh, if only power countries engaged in major power struggles with one another would just leave free money on the table". So long as they feel like they are fighting a fundamental battle with similarly powerful countries, that is strictly never happening. So long as there is conflict between the powerful countries, lesser countries will continue to be subjugated.
There are arguments that could potentially be made saying lesser countries have failed in their fundamental duty as a government: to protect their citizens. The basic idea of a government is that citizens comply with laws and pay taxes for the benefit of social stability and physical security. When a country becomes a puppet for another country, the government of that country has failed to uphold its end of the bargain. That does not mean it is ethical for a more powerful country to subjugate a lesser country, but it does mean that the citizens were not actively protected.
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On October 07 2020 01:17 Biff The Understudy wrote:If we are gonna take one liberal democracy's foreign policy to invalidate liberal democracy, why not take the foreign policy of one marxist leninist regime and see how it compares? + Show Spoiler +Oh... oh wait... You know what? Let's not do that, it's too obviously stupid.
This is more or less what should be brought up every time some revolutionary wants to cherry pick examples from history to prove history tells a different story.
You're always better off arguing that the situation is unique and needs particularly destructive solutions. I hear that from the lefty "revolution followed by institution of nordic social democracy" types. American capitalism is historically the worst iteration of consumerism blah blah worst integration of companies into both major parties blah blah incapable of reforming itself operating within the system.
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On October 07 2020 01:41 Biff The Understudy wrote:Show nested quote +On October 07 2020 01:22 GreenHorizons wrote:On October 07 2020 01:17 Biff The Understudy wrote:If we are gonna take one liberal democracy's foreign policy to invalidate liberal democracy, why not take the foreign policy of one marxist leninist regime and see how it compares? + Show Spoiler +Oh... oh wait... You know what? Let's not do that, it's too obviously stupid. Invalidating liberal democracy in total is a bit of a task, I'm just dealing with the one in the US. Yeah because big countries bullying small countries in their sphere of influence is totally unheard of. Except for, you know, every big country in history. At least you got a chance to vote for people who don't pursue a shit foreign policy. No one ever got that chance in the system you advocate.
The US bullies (or tries) small and big countries all around the world. We have several hundred military bases in dozens of countries. There's literally no other country in the world that even comes close. You can combine several of the next biggest militaries in the world and still not be close.
the United States has approximately 95% of the world’s foreign bases.
www.thenation.com
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And that costs a shit ton of money that could go into, for example, education or training or infrastructure or fighting climate change or...
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On October 07 2020 01:54 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On October 07 2020 01:41 Biff The Understudy wrote:On October 07 2020 01:22 GreenHorizons wrote:On October 07 2020 01:17 Biff The Understudy wrote:If we are gonna take one liberal democracy's foreign policy to invalidate liberal democracy, why not take the foreign policy of one marxist leninist regime and see how it compares? + Show Spoiler +Oh... oh wait... You know what? Let's not do that, it's too obviously stupid. Invalidating liberal democracy in total is a bit of a task, I'm just dealing with the one in the US. Yeah because big countries bullying small countries in their sphere of influence is totally unheard of. Except for, you know, every big country in history. At least you got a chance to vote for people who don't pursue a shit foreign policy. No one ever got that chance in the system you advocate. The US bullies (or tries) small and big countries all around the world. We have several hundred military bases in dozens of countries. There's literally no other country in the world that even comes close. You can combine several of the next biggest militaries in the world and still not be close. www.thenation.com
Let's say the US gets rid of these bases, are you saying you think Russia/China/EU would just kind of let them exist in complete independence? Or do you think they would try to have a similar deal as the US currently has? Imperialism is not ethical, but it is important to keep in mind that these weak countries may not have any other options. Just a different flag in the soil.
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On October 07 2020 02:10 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On October 07 2020 01:54 GreenHorizons wrote:On October 07 2020 01:41 Biff The Understudy wrote:On October 07 2020 01:22 GreenHorizons wrote:On October 07 2020 01:17 Biff The Understudy wrote:If we are gonna take one liberal democracy's foreign policy to invalidate liberal democracy, why not take the foreign policy of one marxist leninist regime and see how it compares? + Show Spoiler +Oh... oh wait... You know what? Let's not do that, it's too obviously stupid. Invalidating liberal democracy in total is a bit of a task, I'm just dealing with the one in the US. Yeah because big countries bullying small countries in their sphere of influence is totally unheard of. Except for, you know, every big country in history. At least you got a chance to vote for people who don't pursue a shit foreign policy. No one ever got that chance in the system you advocate. The US bullies (or tries) small and big countries all around the world. We have several hundred military bases in dozens of countries. There's literally no other country in the world that even comes close. You can combine several of the next biggest militaries in the world and still not be close. the United States has approximately 95% of the world’s foreign bases. www.thenation.com Same can be said for racism inside and outside of its boarders, the US is far from the only racist country and also far from the most.
Average level of racism in China is notably higher than the US. Can't speak for Russia, but based on how they generally view homosexuality, I can't imagine they are much better. But China is wayyyy worse than the US in terms of racism. For them, racism isn't even a question. Its just reality and they are surprised when they realize some people disagree with Chinese genetic superiority.
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On October 07 2020 02:08 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On October 07 2020 01:54 GreenHorizons wrote:On October 07 2020 01:41 Biff The Understudy wrote:On October 07 2020 01:22 GreenHorizons wrote:On October 07 2020 01:17 Biff The Understudy wrote:If we are gonna take one liberal democracy's foreign policy to invalidate liberal democracy, why not take the foreign policy of one marxist leninist regime and see how it compares? + Show Spoiler +Oh... oh wait... You know what? Let's not do that, it's too obviously stupid. Invalidating liberal democracy in total is a bit of a task, I'm just dealing with the one in the US. Yeah because big countries bullying small countries in their sphere of influence is totally unheard of. Except for, you know, every big country in history. At least you got a chance to vote for people who don't pursue a shit foreign policy. No one ever got that chance in the system you advocate. The US bullies (or tries) small and big countries all around the world. We have several hundred military bases in dozens of countries. There's literally no other country in the world that even comes close. You can combine several of the next biggest militaries in the world and still not be close. the United States has approximately 95% of the world’s foreign bases. www.thenation.com Let's say the US gets rid of these bases, are you saying you think Russia/China/EU would just kind of let them exist in complete independence? Or do you think they would try to have a similar deal as the US currently has? Imperialism is not ethical, but it is important to keep in mind that these weak countries may not have any other options. Just a different flag in the soil.
The US ending it's imperialist agenda would have incalculable consequences for the world. Whether it's because we have some sort of political awakening or we collapse in on ourselves would definitely color how that played out.
If you're asking if I think powers like Russia, China, and the EU would still exploit their advantages for global influence? Of course.
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