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[–] 13 points 11 months ago (28 children)

The Case for a Third Reconstruction

The scale and depth of the attack on our institutions means that there is no simple way for a pro-democracy coalition to flip the lights back on after Trump. We need transformative thinking.

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  • [+] [S] 19 points 11 months ago (10 children)
  • [–] 10 points 11 months ago

    Folks can't remember Bush Jr at all, much less Clinton, Bush Sr or Reagan. They can barely remember Obama, except through a haze of nostalgia.

    What's notable about Trump isn't his fascism - plenty of presidents have been openly fascist. What's notable is how many middle class white people are getting sucked up into the current dragnet.

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  • [–] 0 points 11 months ago* (8 children)

    I don't really get how that contradicts needing a 3rd reconstruction that dismantles the government agencies that carry out that kind of shit and didn't even exist until WWII rather than dismantling a democracy?

    you guys are just upset it is happening at home now and not Iraq.

    Can't argue with you there, but that's also part of what makes me question who's best interest would be dismantling U.S. democracy instead of dismantling specific agencies within the government, with no plan for where we go next?

    Because it kinda seems like those agencies would carry on doing whatever they want even after a union fully dissolves. They would just have fewer obstacles in their way.

    When you think about how an American agency, for example, the CIA operates this playbook in other countries, what is their intended goal?

    Their goal is to destabilize a country in order to remove any obstacles to taking full control. They usually achieve destabilization by undermining public trust in a system and the leaders of that system, so that the public will either dismantle the government for them or be less resistant once it is dismantled (see the Soviet Union in the late 80s). Once that happens, they already hold all the resources and power, and install somebody they already have lined up.

    Considering that there seems to currently be a global campaign to spread disinformation and install far right leaders across the globe, it makes me question if this is happening everywhere bc global destabilization is the goal.

    Currently, just about anywhere in the world, who holds the majority of the resources? The people or a small group of oligarchs? When destabilization happens and a local government collapses who has the upper hand when it comes to filling the power vacuum?

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  • [+] [S] 7 points 11 months ago (1 child)
  • [–] -1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

    What makes you think oligarchs haven't been continuing to undermine and dismantle the second reconstruction this entire time, and aren't using their established global institutions (like banks, corporations, and conservative think tanks) to do exactly what they've been projecting and accusing progressives of doing?

    Do you honestly think there isn't a good chance a global cabal of far right conservatives might be ready to use their collective wealth and resources they hoard and pass down for generations to take full global control?

    Example: The CIA and the Royal family working together to overthrow a progressive leader in Australia in the 1970s.

    Or Steve Kangas on the Origins of the overclass and the crimes of the CIA

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  • [+] 7 points 11 months ago (7 children)
  • [–] 9 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    No no no. In socialist countries, the Big Government is in control. There's no freedom. Everyone lives in fear. You don't even own your own toothbrush.

    Anyone who supports socialism is a Tankie who just wants to kill rich white people for fun and doesn't understand how awful their lives will be afterwards.

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  • [–] -2 points 11 months ago (3 children)

    Like which countries specifically? Bc I can almost guarantee there is currently a far right disinformation campaign targeted at undermining that country's government.

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  • [–] 7 points 11 months ago* (2 children)

    the disinformation campaign has been running since the mid 1930's and it's been taught in our schools and disseminated via legacy media since the 1940's.

    a key feature of the campaign is to make americans predisposed to outright reject the alternatives that have already been proven to work in irl and all of those alternatives are aligned with what @Cowbee@lemmy.ml already told you.

    anything else is going to be a rinse and repeat of what we already have.

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  • [–] 7 points 11 months ago* (1 child)

    a key feature of the campaign is to make americans predisposed to outright reject the alternatives that have already been proven to work

    Not just with socialism. This was the response to the civil rights movement of the 60s/70s, to the environmentalism of the 80s/90s, and to the anti-war movement of the 00s/10s.

    Every progressive position is pillared as unworkable, overly expensive, and jobs-killing.

    Meanwhile, we sink $1T/year into chat bots that spam your Twitter feed with racist porn and armies of tweaked out sheriffs deputies to crash their cars into anyone they consider illegally brown

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  • [–] 6 points 11 months ago

    those were all socialist aligned movements:

    the civil rights movement -- the black panthers in particular -- was literally socialists and bombed (also literally) because of it. MLK jr.'s cadre took great pains to ensure that their efforts didn't get labeled as socialist because of it. the environmentalists of the 80's/90's -- green peace in particular -- was also heavily socialist influenced and got labeled as such for not making efforts like MLK jr did.

    now-a-days, the campaign misinforms americans that leftists don't reliably vote despite examples like clinton and obama proving otherwise and there being enough green, psl, dsa, cpusa votes to counter republicans easily. this misinformation is done to cover for the fact that the democrats don't want to adopt platforms that left leaning voters want and this is most recently self evident in kamala harris' campaign and its attempt to sway republicans to vote democrat rather than shore up her democratic base.

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  • [+] 25 points 11 months ago (15 children)
  • [+] -6 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (12 children)

    Ok, but how do we get there? How do we keep oligarchs, (like the ones who own Palantir and work with other oligarchs like Netenyahu using remote weapons of mass genocide to fight for them and gain ground in order to control others), from taking advantage of the power vacuum left by destabilization?

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  • [+] 13 points 11 months ago (12 children)
  • [–] -2 points 11 months ago (11 children)

    Which socialist country would be the best example?

    Capitalists only have the power they do because of the state, if we smash and replace it they have no power.

    The state, as well as the public and private military and resources they hoard and control.

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  • [+] 12 points 11 months ago (11 children)
  • [–] 5 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

    USSR

    Uhh....

    History should teach you that the co-founder of the Heritage Foundation was traveling around Moscow and Eastern Europe when the Soviet Union collapsed, but it never really gets talked about for some reason.

    A conservative who essentially birthed Project 2025 and is famously quoted as saying "I don't want everyone to vote," was sneaking in computers and other electronics to Soviet dissidents while teaching soviet politicians all about American "democracy" just prior to the collapse.

    Then he and several other members of Heritage were ready to fill the power vacuum and help establish the first go between for U.S. and Russian capitalist businesses.

    "You capture the Soviet Union --I'm going to capture the states."-Thomas Roe, Heritage Foundation board member and founder of the State Policy Network to fellow Heritage Foundation board member Robert Krieble.

    In 1989, the Krieble Institute was created "to promote democracy and economic freedom in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe."

    1989: A Republican in Moscow (WaPo article about Weyrich holding mock elections)

    1991: RUSSIA HOUSE, TRADING IN ITS NAME WaPo Article about the first ever go between for U.S. and Russian businesses involving Weyrich and Krieble

    PBS Documentary about Weyrich and Krieble involvement in Collapse of USSR Playing For Power (2012)

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  • [+] -13 points 11 months ago (9 children)

    You realize that all of those are a massive failure right? Living in those places was and is a nightmare. You know that right? If not, then you're not smart enough to be replacing any form of government.

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  • [+] 12 points 11 months ago (6 children)
  • [+] -14 points 11 months ago (4 children)

    You clearly have NO idea about how bad the USSR actually was. And you clearly have no idea how many of its citizens were killed by the government or died from starvation or cold. Not do you have any idea as to how much funding it was given from the US and other countries just to stay afloat (especially in WW2) because they couldn't organize their own factories that were useful etc etc and the US has to send OUR tank building teams over to them just to show them how to efficiently build tanks, and we sent them 13,000 tanks, 400,000 jeeps and trucks, and 14,000 aircraft. Aka the USSR couldn't even stand on its own 2 feet against Germany and we had to send them an insane amount of firepower to ensure them not falling. And about the life expectancy thing. It did double life expectancy between 1915 and the 1960s as did most countries around the world including the US due to improved birthrates and better sanitation and vaccines and antibiotics. However from 1960-1980 other countries like the US continued to go up while the USSR actually started declining again. So yes please continue to spread your false lies. And let's talk about how every one of those countries you spoke of couldn't survive without support from other countries. Meanwhile the country that you hate so much (the US) continues to survive and thrive while heavily supporting a dozen of other countries and are contributing some form of assistance to over 175 countries worldwide.

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  • [+] 10 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (4 children)
  • [+] -9 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    Oh I know exactly what I'm talking about. You're just brainwashed. Too far gone for anyone to talk sense into. And if you truly think that the USSR and Cuba didn't get much aid from other countries including the US, you really are just dumb. I do not have the time nor do I care enough to educate you. All I can say is, you really need to learn how to research FACTS not myths and lies. Also I have one more truth for you. COMMUNISM HAS NEVER WORKED. I know I know, maybe just another 20 or 30 genocides and world wars from now and they'll get the kinks worked out. But I doubt it. And maybe just maybe one will be able to survive without the help of a capitalist system and not end up being a 3rd world country with a shit economy. I personally have friends who grew up in Russia (it was still the USSR when they were about 10) and China and south Korea and Mexico and Vietnam. Every one of them will tell you how much better the US is than where they grew up. Communism is perfect on paper, but it will never ever work because it requires people to be perfect in order for it to work properly. And people will never be perfect. That's why capitalism and democracy works better because they at least somewhat keep that in check. My olive branch and honestly my best idea for what the US could become would be a socialist democracy similar to Sweden. That would actually be able to work and would be very beneficial for all the citizens.

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  • [–] 9 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

    You’re just brainwashed.

    You just arrived here on Lemmy, parroting every Redditor talking point, and we’re brainwashed? Sorry to pop the corporate media bubble you’d been living under.

    Also brainwashing isn’t real, in fact it was a CIA cold war psyop. The True Story of Brainwashing and How It Shaped America

    “Here, then, is the brief history of brainwashing,” [Timothy] Melley writes in a 2011 paper for Grey Room. “The concept began as an [O]rientalist propaganda fiction created by the CIA to mobilize domestic support for a massive military build-up. This fiction proved so effective that the CIA’s operations directorate believed it and began a furious search for a real mind control weapon. The search resulted not in a miraculous new weapon but a program of simulated brainwashing designed as a prophylactic against enemy mistreatment. This simulation in turn became the real basis for interrogating detainees in the war on terror.”

    Masses, Elites, and Rebels: The Theory of “Brainwashing”

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  • [–] 10 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

    genocides

    Big fat 0, unless you mean the genocide communists thwarted in 1945

    World wars

    Holy shit lmao, the sheer desperation and illiteracy it takes to try and pin the world wars on communism when ww1 started before there were any communist countries and ww2 was started by genocidal german capitalists. You are flailing, my guy. Red, mad and nude in the extreme.

    Also, format your shit

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  • [–] 12 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

    God, what a nightmare

    But maybe I'm just not smart enough to read this graph correctly. Maybe it's actually upside down.

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  • [+] -9 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    Yeah because they expanded their healthcare system in 1949 as well and actually started heavily using vaccines and antibiotics. Common sense is just a simple Google away lmao

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  • [–] 10 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

    So what you're saying is that the CPC siezed power and then life in China immediately, rapidly improved to the point where their life expectancy is now higher than America's? Excellent, glad we're on the same page.

    and actually started heavily using vaccines and antibiotics

    Oh, did they not have those things before the evil communists took over? How interesting

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  • [+] -10 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    A socialist state will always be recaptured by capital. The state must be smashed, repeatedly and relentlessly, until no state can ever rise again.

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  • [–] 0 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

    Guardrails are only enforceable by the state. Without the state to smash capitalism and enforce guardrails against corruption and the power of greed, capitalism and authoritarianism will always step in to fill the power vacuum.

    This is why communism has always failed within a few months to a few years of initiation: lack of guardrails and laws that are effectively enforced against capitalism or authoritarianism. It’s why every “communist” state in history devolved into an authoritarian, anti-communist political structure very, very quickly. Hell, even in Russia communism was effectively dead by 1918.

    We are so close to having the technology to implement direct participatory democracy (A.K.A., political communism), where things like presidents and premiers and politicians in general just don’t exist, and only minor functionaries and coordinatinative councils remain to carry out the people’s directives.

    What is still needed, however, is a highly educated and literate population that values education, facts, and meritocracy - thereby suffocating conservatism and strangling it to death - and for that population to have an exceedingly tiny level of economic inequality, such that the wealth is returned properly into the hands of the Working Class that created it, and most people can then acquire the mental headspace to focus on more than just daily survival needs (as in, focus on community-level or even nation-level subjects).

    A strong state is not necessarily a dangerous one. What makes ours dangerous is that power is concentrated at the top, with those who have money (capitalists) calling the shots. A distributed, citizen-directed state that is utterly immune from money and power hierarchies can be built that will only ever feel oppressive to those who are inherently abusive, greedy, and malicious.

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  • [–] 5 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    I started to read ultimately skimmed through a lot of flowery language and hot air that seems to toe the center left message of just organize, protest, and vote harder. Did I miss something?

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago

    Yep pretty much it seems that's all we can do, which is why we haven't been able to affect much change. We need revolutionary uprising and revolting, but that requires every oppressed person to be in solidarity on one united front but many of them are so brainwashed by the media which is genius at dividing people against each other. As long as they can keep the plebeians in-fighting and arguing with each other about stupid inconsequential things, the plebeians cannot rise up to revolution and revolt against the true oppressors.

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  • [–] -2 points 11 months ago

    •to move us from our undemocratic present to a more democratic future, we need to institutionalize our commitments to a more inclusive and responsive democracy in more durable forms. These might encompass everything from alternative economic regulatory institutions and new approaches to anti-discrimination to a more universal safety net that secures the essential guarantees of health, housing, and income that individuals and communities need to thrive.

    •A second reconstructionist strategy lies in containing reactionary power and backlash. We should presume that there will always be efforts to roll back egalitarian expansions of democracy. Part of how democracies survive and thrive is through institutions that contain the potential resurgence of anti-democratic policies and forces. The democratic institutions of the future will similarly need to develop ways to contain authoritarian power. This will require laws and institutions that respond to techniques that are emerging in the current moment, such as new forms of state and private surveillance, or the weaponization of presidential control of funding flows.

    •The third institutional transformation strategy is to democratize our governing institutions, making policymaking more directly responsive to and shaped by ordinary constituents. One important area is the balance of power between the branches. Even before Trump, the trend has been to centralize power in an imperial presidency. The legislature, by contrast, has been central to past moments of democratization. Any future reconstructionist agenda will need to be built on congressional majorities and a legislature willing to check and permanently shift away from the overreliance on presidential power.

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