Socialism bad...

@helenS Very John Birch Society cliche fear mongering.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow I have nothing to do with right-wingers and fascists.

@helenS Interesting because that is one of their favorite anti socialist cliches.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow I think the point is that these groups equate social democracy (which is a good compromise between freedom and social responsibility) to the horrors of Stalin and Mao.

@helenS Got to have the McCarthy era caveat on everything. Mao for example is responsible for the greatest increase in life expectancy in recorded history. Stalin for all his flaws turned the most backwards nation in Europe into a super power in a generation.

"social democracy" was invented by a right wing monarchist specifically for the purpose of preserving the status quo.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow Mao's Great Leap Forward resulted in tens of millions of deaths, with estimates ranging between 18 million and 45 million deaths, making the Great Chinese Famine the largest in human history.
Even larger than Stalin's Homolodor in Ukraine.

@helenS Someone has bee reading the Black Book of Communism which even contributors have come out and said it was fiction.

Famine was pretty much something that happened every couple of years in China but after the CPC took over one famine did happen but that was pretty much the end of the repeated cycle.

How about the Bengal Famine? I guess if it is Winston Churchill it is suddenly different.

And the Holodomor is hardly a settled matter and is curiously pushed hardest by the same people who worship Stepan Bandera and the Waffen SS. I should know, since many of them are literally my neighbors.

How about the Chicago Boys fascists of Latin America?

Bottom line even if you accept any of this as easy answers having flawed leaders has nothing to do with socialism, political ideology, or economics.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow Thank you for you informed opinion.

@helenS How about people like Thomas Sankara who made Berkina Faso food independent for the first time after colonialism?

Always have to go digging for the politically useful horror stories.

@helenS again, I need to point this out. State ownership is not the only model of socialism. There's also worker ownership and management of the business, for example mutualism.

@basilfawlty89 Thank you – I am aware of that.

@basilfawlty89 This is where I find myself at odds with anarchists. Because if you really deconstruct things the real difference between "the state" and say a commune is scale.

@helenS then you can't tar all socialism with the same brush. It hasn't led to dictatorship in Rojava or the Zapatista areas.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow well you need to remember it depends on how you define the state. We define the state as a top down hierarchical entity with fixed borders and a monopoly on the use of violence. We want to replace that with direct democracy, voluntary communities and voluntary federations and instead of a police service, instead community self defense.

@basilfawlty89 There are alot of different kinds of states with very different structures. I think it tends to be a moving goalpost for most discussions.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow not necessarily. Like I said it depends on what you define as a state. My definition is the historical definition used by Proudhon. Regardless, even in the USSR there wasn't direct democracy, which is something we aim for. It was still a too down hierarchy where the average person had little day in what happens. In capitalist states, it's the same thing. To my knowledge there are no voluntary communities in any state nor state that doesn't have a monopoly on violence.

The closest compromise I could see with Marxists would be something Libertarian Municipalism/Democratic Confderalism or Zapatismo.

@basilfawlty89 I find that to be a pretty simplistic analysis myself. It also assumes direct democracy is inherently positive. That is literally how the tyranny of the majority happens. And perhaps not in all areas but the USSR did have some direct democracy. In fact modern day Russia still has some of that on the books. That is why the Orthodox Church has so much power and demonstrates an inherent flaw in direct democracy.

I am kind of with Dr. Michael Perenti on this. Anarcho syndicalism is a nice idea in theory but has some serious problems in real world viability.

@helenS Under capitalism 35,000 children starve to death every day. Here in the UK the government decides whether the sick and disabled eat everyday (via the poorly funded welfare rates).

@Entwistle [youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omnskeu-puE]


Just to add to that point.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow At least she was honest..the fucking ghoul!

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow oh Id be quiet happy to let the gov choose who eats because YAY I want to starve the right wingers. No food for right wing filth! I vote aye!

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow yeah but direct democracy here in Oregon finally killed our stupid fucking drug war. and we the people were correct. and Im just done. Im done pretending I dont want to see revolt with the huge levels of inequality.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow Still want a way to vote for it. For real.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acT_PSAZ7BQ]