My Cuban family fled a dictator. Now I’m scared they’ll elect Trump

jeffw@lemmy.world to politics @lemmy.world – 618 points –
My Cuban family fled a dictator. Now I’m scared they’ll elect Trump
independent.co.uk
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They're cultists. If you talk to them in neutral sub, You'll find horribly defective logic and broken definitions ("Your definition of Anarchy is wRoNg, anarchy is an organised system!!!").

If you try talking to them in one of their sub, you'll get banned instantly. Socialists/communists are pro censorship and therefore pro coercion. No wonder, every communist state turned into dictatorship.

I agree with most of what you've said, you should read more from anarchist philosophers like Tolstoy or Goldman though.

Socialists

However I would subtract the socialist from you comment and just keep it at communist, there's plenty of democratic socialist parties that never devolved into rampant totalitarianism like the leninist parties did.

plenty of democratic socialist parties that never devolved into rampant totalitarianism like the leninist parties did

I guess you're right there, still, they tend to be authoritarian - socialism in the soviet controlled republics was rather ugly - centrally planned economy, rationing of everything from meat and sugar to cars and housing, censorship of any political subject in media, ever present corruption, berlin wall to keep people from escaping...

Not a place you'd want to live in.

Not a place you'd want to live in.

Of course not, which is why it's unfair to lump in welfare state creators like the demsoc parties of western Europe, and the brutal leninist parties of Asia and Eastern Europe.

the demsoc parties of western Europe

They often have socialism in their name, but I don't really consider them socialist, as you said - they're welfare state supporters, which is really, really far away from socialism in soviet controlled eastern europe

which is really, really far away from socialism in soviet controlled eastern europe

In that it's democratic and they want to expand rights from just being political to also being economic? Yes I agree, they're severely different from the Soviet style parties, but that doesn't make them not socialist, their left wing members will usually still argue for the ownership of the means of production by workers, usually they just argue for cooperatives rather than mass nationalization nowadays.

No, of course. Only the bad things are socialist! The good ones clearly are not true socialist! /s

You're pretty fucking stupid my man. Leftism is as broad as anything else, and socialism can take a wide variety of forms and positions. Authoritarianism is the thing that causes issues, and that can be anywhere on the left, right, and center. In the traditional political compass (which isn't worth much, but whatever) there's left/right as liberal/conservative, but there's also up/down as authority/liberty.

No, of course. Only the bad things are socialist!

Well it happens it's a shitty system.

You're pretty fucking stupid my man

That's pretty rich coming from a person who probably cant even define socialism, not to mention applying that definition in real life

That's pretty rich coming from a person who probably cant even define socialism, not to mention applying that definition in real life

Projection. Your previous comment pretty much just said it has to be USSR countries, which is absolutely wrong.

Capitalism is a shitty system. So many capitalist countries have horrible living conditions and/or have collapsed. You just don't hear about them because the capitalists want you to support capitalism and hate alternatives.

So many socialist countries have failed because of the intervention of capitalist countries. We can't know what would have happened if they were left alone. If socialism was such a shitty system it wouldn't require intervention everywhere it appears to ensure it fails. It'd be left to fail on it's own. Instead we (the US mostly, with other countries assistance) support coups, replace elected leaders with dictators, assassinate legitimately elected officials, support genocides, undermine labor movements, enact embargos, and all kinds of other things.

Again, if socialism was doomed to failure none of this would be required. There would be no reason to fear it spreading. Instead capitalist countries see it as as an existential threat. Why is that so if it's such a bad system? Could you have been mislead?

Capitalism is a shitty system. So many capitalist countries have horrible living conditions and/or have collapsed

You have no idea what are you talking about. I happen to be born in one of those post socialist countries, and had to grow up in the shit left after that failed system.

Do you know how did it fail? After USSR lost it's grip on the eastern Europe, the governments in these countries for the first time organized free, untampered elections, and the socialists system lost by the vote of the people in every single one of them. Everyone hated it, even the governments that were previously tasked by USSR to enforce it.

And you know what happened next? Decades of rebuilding of the broken economy, EU accesion, access to the common EU market, and the greatest wealth creation in the history of these republics.

Your argument is invalid.

Again, if socialism was doomed to failure none of this would be required

Are you joking? Do you know how many lives were ruined or lost before that cursed thing fell apart??? All the poverty all the repression, it's all fucked up, and you want this pathology to be tolerated around the world?

You bought into a toxic cult. Face it.

Yeah man, I didn't defend the USSR. It was pretty shit. It was designed to funnel wealth out of all the other USSR countries into Russia, specifically into the hands of the elite. It was pretty fucked up and exploitative. I don't know what that has to do with the exact same thing happening in capitalist countries though. Socialism wasn't the issue. It was authoritarianism and imperialism.

You're only talking about USSR countries. That is where you're entire breadth of knowledge is coming from seemingly. There's a whole world out there. Just because the USSR fucked over so many people doesn't mean socialism must. Again, capitalist countries fuck over a ton of people too. Is it also evil by requirement?

Imagine this: In my country capitalism didn't fuck people. To the contrary, it provided them with wealth and prosperity previous generations could only envy

Where are you from? I can bet you they're extracting wealth form places like Africa. Just because you, or people near you, aren't being exploited doesn't mean it's not happening. You are just the one benefiting from it now. Those people benefiting from the USSR's exploitation thought it was amazing too. Who would have guessed that people like being the ones at the top?

Where are you from?

I'm from Poland. I was born around the time socialist system fell, and was replaced by capitalism.

Mistakes were made, hyperinflation destroyed all the wealth that remained in the early 90s, everyone was impoverished billionaire. Wherever you looked it was neverending gray desolation, broken, disfunctional infrastructure buliding falling apart and so on. But then government employed western economic advisors, budget has been balanced, money printing stopped, necessary reforms were made and over the next three decades Poland grew from a complete africa-like shithole into an european economic powerhouse.

Just to put it into number average monthly salary was like 100-200 USD equivalent in the 90s vs around 2000 USD now.

How can you dismiss achievement like this? You can't. You probably were never told about this in the first place. What you should ask yourself is why nobody talks about it?

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If you try talking to them in one of their sub, you’ll get banned instantly. Socialists/communists are pro censorship and therefore pro coercion. No wonder, every communist state turned into dictatorship.

are we talking about hexbear? The sub that is insufferably boring?

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