• 2 Posts
  • 158 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
cake
Cake day: July 4th, 2023

help-circle

  • Is that the guy who was drunk and returning to his hotel room when the gravy seals mowed him down in the hallway? That video was so irredeemably fucked up that if I remember correctly the cops actually faced consequences. I don’t think I ever heard if those consequences stuck though.


  • But ideologically, while not communist, I don’t see how that structure can’t be considered socialist.

    It’s not that it can’t be, I just personally don’t consider a state socialist unless it is a functioning democracy that enacts what is at least an approximation of the will of the workers. It becomes obvious this is not the case when a state is hostile towards workers who attempt to organize.


  • Only because the very concepts of ownership and the collective-individual dichotomy are necessarily vague and subjective. China considers themselves socialist because they equivocate the people with the state. If the people are collectively represented by the state and the state owns (some of) the means of production, then at least transitively the people own (some of) the means of production.

    As an anarchist I don’t believe the state adequately represents the interests of the people, nor do I think it could even if it were radically democratic and egalitarian, though I would still certainly prefer that to the existing status quo. Somewhere a line must be drawn arbitrarily and I prefer to draw it on the other side of authoritarian state control.


  • Socialism isn’t when the government does stuff for the people, it’s when the people take matters into their own hands and do stuff for the good of each other. Even if a state behaves in the most benevolent way possible, it is not socialist unless the workers have collective ownership of the means of production.







  • Schmoo@slrpnk.nettoMemes@lemmy.mlinstance wars
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    29 days ago

    It might help people to see some local journalistic coverage of Cuban elections. Seeing the kinds of things Cubans say publicly about and during the elections can give people a more intuitive understanding of what Cuban democracy is actually like for the people participating in it, as well as start to reveal the outlines of the overton window there.

    Journalism is my preferred medium for understanding the political landscape of other countries; for an example I like to watch friendlyjordies on youtube for a peek into Australian politics. I’m not sure if it would be very easy to find English translated Cuban sources though.



  • we know now that it was the Bolsheviks, and their adherance to strong theoretical study and working class organization that led to successful revolution.

    To give an example, I disagree on this. Now, if you were to approach this discussion under the pretense that my disagreement is based on poor understanding of history or of theory, that would be pretentious, and therefore unproductive if you actually want to change my mind. Instead, keep an open mind and be willing to entertain an alternative perspective.

    In my opinion, the Bolsheviks were oppurtunists who co-opted the revolutionary fervor in order to centralize power and influence in the movement under their control. They did indeed use Marxist theory to guide and justify their actions, but that doesn’t make it right. I understand that Marxist theory advocates for the centralization of power and control, I just disagree with it, which is a view more in line with Trotskyites than Marxist-Leninists.

    I’m not trying to say that you are particularly arrogant or pretentious, but Marx and especially Lenin certainly were, and that is reflected in their work.








  • Why do people engage with anything that makes them uncomfortable? Horror? Tragedy? It’s just morbid curiosity. It’s not a bad thing, really. Any exploration of the human condition is incomplete without a look at the darker side. Some need more light in their entertainment to help the medicine go down, and that’s OK too.