Kieselguhr

joined 3 years ago
[–] Kieselguhr@hexbear.net 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Give these two articles a good read:

Link 1

Link 2

[–] Kieselguhr@hexbear.net 3 points 1 month ago (5 children)

I'm convinced they go right cause those are the people that vote

You do realise that it's a big part of a politician's job to mobilise the masses to vote?

[–] Kieselguhr@hexbear.net 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

What do you mean my plan?
The topic is:

"Is there such a thing as the ratchet effect?"

Yes, there is.

I'm not American, I just hate both the US power elite and the bootlickers making excuses for them. Fuck them all, because they make the world worse for the rest of us...
I could go on and on about EU neoliberals as well, but that's not the topic at hand, and they are basically behave like vassals to the US anyway

[–] Kieselguhr@hexbear.net 8 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Soooo Dems won't make it better but least won't make it worse.

So seems like disenfranchisement

So the Dems did make it worse by being terrible at running the country during the 20 years they've been in power over the past 30 years?

They fucked up strategically: creating the material conditions for the rise of Fascism
and they fucked up tactically by running two terrible candidates who abetted genocide in Gaza, and couldn't even be bothered to promise a feeble social democratic programme (which would be less than the bare minimum), and because of this tactical mistake they've lost to fucking Trump who is very clearly an idiot.

Calling it a fuckup implies that Democrats actually care about winning elections and developing the country, which is debatable after all these fuckups and all their anti-left rhetoric...

[–] Kieselguhr@hexbear.net 19 points 1 month ago (13 children)

But they did make it worse, their policies led directly to where the US is now.

It's so fucking ridiculous!

In the past 30 years Dems were in power 2/3 of the time, so they very obviously did contribute to the state of affairs that led to Trump being elected twice!

Or if the country moved rightward regardless of what team the President represents, then it means voting in this system is only ceremonial and completely useless activity.

Either Dems are enablers of Fascists or voting is useless, there's no third option.

[–] Kieselguhr@hexbear.net 15 points 1 month ago

That is not the situation today, where most Americans have NO retirement savings. Unless you're redefining what capitalism IS, then that's a problem caused by the people in charge (oligarchs).

Bananas were cheap too... because Western [capitalist!!!!] imperialism supported fascist death squads in Latin America who sold out their country to United Fruit [a capitalist corporation]. It's a whole system of oppression, not just the WASPs you see on Mad Men reruns.

You are the one who is deeply confused.

Capitalism is the private ownership of the means of production. Thinking there was no oligarchy when C. Wright Mills was writing The Power Elite shows that you are not only confused about economic theory, but misinformed about the history of the US as well.

[–] Kieselguhr@hexbear.net 1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (6 children)

Let's bracket the "was the USSR in the right?" question, and let's ask the "how brutal was the Soviet clampdown on these two uprisings?"

  • 1956 Hungary: 2000-3000 killed by the USSR
  • 1968 Prague: 137 killed by the USSR

How does this compare to clampdowns by NATO countries (excluding the US)?

  • Indonesian National Revolution against the Dutch: 100 000 Indonesians killed by the Dutch

  • Algerian War of Independence: 250 000 killed by the French (French estimate) - 1.5 Million (Algerian estimate)

  • French War against Vietnamese Independence: 200 000 dead

  • Portuguese Colonial Wars: 70,000–110,000 civilians killed by Portugal

  • Mau Mau Uprising against the UK: "Officially the number of Mau Mau and other rebels killed was 11,000, including 1,090 convicts hanged by the British administration. The Kenya Human Rights Commission has said 90,000 Kenyans were executed, tortured or maimed during the crackdown, and 160,000 were detained in appalling conditions. "

This is a non-exhaustive list with estimates. The actual brutality is not conveyed. The war crimes are often comparable to the Waffen SS.
You get the idea: the colonial powers were incomparably worse. us-foreign-policy