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Cake day: August 3rd, 2023

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  • aesthelete@lemmy.worldtoPolitical Memes@lemmy.worldOh Joe...
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    1 day ago

    Flawed democracy is still democracy

    Not voting at all for your leadership isn’t democracy.

    It has nothing to do with flaws, of course countries have flaws.

    If Trump manages to turn the country into full on dictatorship I’d acknowledge that as what it is, instead of pretending that it’s a flourishing democracy.

    Besides all of this, China hasn’t even gotten rid of capitalism anyway. So they’re not only a dictatorship but they’re also practically a fascist one with worker aesthetics.

    Half of the shit we buy in America is made in China by wage slaves who cannot advocate for themselves under threat of being carried off to jail or executed.











  • aesthelete@lemmy.worldtoPolitical Memes@lemmy.worldOh Joe...
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    2 days ago

    Why not? Why do you say Socialist countries aren’t democratic?

    What countries are you counting?

    The former USSR, China, Cuba, North Korea, and on and on do not hold elections.

    The northern European (and other socialist-lite countries) that are closer to what I would want for America didn’t abolish capitalism… So…


  • aesthelete@lemmy.worldtoPolitical Memes@lemmy.worldOh Joe...
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    2 days ago

    He does, did, and I linked the sources.

    You’re right, he does have a prescription…it’s just one that doesn’t work in practice despite being tried over and over again for more than a century at this point.

    Capitalism cannot be truly democratic, only Socialism can be.

    Sure seems like this country at least gets a say in voting for who runs it, unlike many, many socialist examples (with great reading scores! yay!) where they are not only not doing that, but it is prohibited structurally (or behind the scenes through radioactive tea administration).

    Also, don’t bend my ear with all the grand achievements of socialist countries that are decidedly not democratic and then pay lip service to democracy.


  • aesthelete@lemmy.worldtoPolitical Memes@lemmy.worldOh Joe...
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    2 days ago

    Socialism being temporary never was meant to mean it was supposed to be a short term sacrifice, but an improvement on Capitalism and with the continual goal of improving production to get to the stage where Communism can be accomplished.

    That doesn’t happen either. You get “Communism with Chinese characteristics”. You get the USSR that falls apart and was never really communist to begin with. You get Cuba with great food and nice looking old cars, but in an otherwise isolated and somewhat dire state and in consistent poverty. You wind up with Russia with sham elections and an international alliance of creeps including North Korea. You get czars and emperors masquerading as “presidents”. It’s all a worthless facade: still authoritarianism but comrade-chic; dictatorship but by che guevara wannabes.

    I don’t like capitalism either, and I think Marx’s critiques of it are well founded. He just doesn’t have a prescription: exactly like many other analysts throughout history and various wanton technocrats today.

    I’ll stick with democracy until the cossacks come knocking at the door thank you very much, and I’ll do it while reading whatever I please instead of useless theory.

    EDIT: I think the actual prescription is labor unions, worker protections, state administered social welfare and safety nets, etc…monopoly busting…all the new deal stuff basically. At least we have a historical example to point to of that shit working.


  • aesthelete@lemmy.worldtoPolitical Memes@lemmy.worldOh Joe...
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    2 days ago

    Why do you believe it is weak ass and half-thought out?

    Because it predictably goes the same way it always goes. You start with your “temporary period of single-party state socialism” after a half decade of bloodshed, and then the party never wants to give up power. So again you’re just following what some stupid asshole / dear leader wants to do and that’s never the real actual communism™.

    You get “SocialismCommunism with Chinese characteristics” (aka fascism with a different name and aesthetic).

    EDIT: It’s communism that supposedly has the chinese characteristics of being actually capitalism with an emperor…my apologies to the CCP.


  • aesthelete@lemmy.worldtoPolitical Memes@lemmy.worldOh Joe...
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    2 days ago

    Calling Marx and Marxist contributions “weak ass half-thought out ideas that never wind up getting implemented in whole or even in part because of their obvious flaws” is just plain silly.

    Thinking that we’ll take down capitalism with some revolution and then go through a temporary period of single-party state socialism and then eventually move to communism is a weak ass half-thought out idea that’ll never wind up getting implemented in whole. So, I stand by my characterization there.


  • aesthelete@lemmy.worldtoPolitical Memes@lemmy.worldOh Joe...
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    2 days ago

    A lot of this writing has the same flaw that many other analytical texts have: great at diagnosing or discussing a problem and absolutely shit at coming up with any solutions to it.

    The “what is the problem” part of the text is like 95% of it, then it’s “what we can do about it” is the remaining 4% before the author thanks his wife.

    The “what is the problem” part is full of cogent analysis, data, and decent hypotheses and is well researched.

    The “what can we do about it” is weak ass half-thought out ideas that never wind up getting implemented in whole or even in part because of their obvious flaws.

    I personally think that’s because actually organizing people to do anything about any problem is infinitely harder than identifying one.