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[–] 47 points 9 months ago (1 child)

Feel like I’m handcuffed to someone deliberately trying to drown themselves.

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  • [–] 11 points 9 months ago*

    this is what republicans do every time they're in power, they're predatory disaster capitalists...create targeted disruption/general chaos to generate "volatility/liquidity" insiders can make a killing on.

    then establishment dems come in and do the same thing, but they atleast want to keep up veneer of stability and (absolute minimal) progress.

    this cycle has repeated itself many times now

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  • [–] 84 points 9 months ago (31 children)

    Nah, I would love if the US was actually a thriving, just, compassionate, and educated nation that used their power for good in the world. That would be much better than a US collapse.

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  • [–] 9 points 9 months ago*

    the issue is americans at large don't want that. they don't vote for it and they tend to hate any candidate that supports those things.

    Americans very much love the struggle bus they create for themselves. it's part of our cultural mythology. so much so that even those at the tippy top will love to tell you about how their life is a struggle of heroic overcoming of the difficult upbringing of only having mere millionaire parents.

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  • [–] 5 points 9 months ago* (1 child)

    I think the point is that OP (rightfully in my opinion) realizes that that is not possible without a collapse that results in a revolution.

    Our entire government and wealthy are wrapped up in defending their pedophilia. Invading US cities and kidnapping people (and foreign leaders). I think if you're not praying for a collapse at this point you are still comfortable enough to believe the lie that this system just needs "fixing" instead of a complete replacement. There is comfort in believing that. I held onto that belief for a long long time. Even knowing history was against that belief in every similar case. But it would only be for my own comfort to believe that at this point.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago

    It's not even only pedophilia, but every other kind of abuse, especially when abusers feel they ameliorate or are guilt free by half-informing the abused, or informing them in a way they know will be understood differently. Right to work, for example.

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  • [–] 9 points 9 months ago (9 children)

    Can't do that without revolution. The US Empire is itself a genocidal settler-colony, it must fundamentally be replaced. Working class orgs like PSL are the best path forward.

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  • [–] 7 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    I'm not even focused on its origins because many things start for one reason and continue for another but the problem with the US is that it never fundamentally changed. Its methods changed, its culture changed, but the result is still fundamentally the same, just slower and more devious.

    You could retain the territory and people but the system itself must fundamentally change, which as you stated can likely only happen through revolution, because the system certainly does not seem capable of overhauling itself.

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  • [+] 1 point 9 months ago (6 children)
  • [–] 4 points 9 months ago (5 children)
  • [+] 1 point 9 months ago (4 children)
  • [–] 6 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    With every crisis, with every bit of imperilism that dies, the Statesian public becomes more aware of their chains. Media is only useful for giving people narratives they want to agree with, not for convincing people outright. The Empire is dying, and with it comes dramatic radicalization. Even looking at younger generations over time, communism is rapidly rising in popularity:

    Quantitative buildup is reaching qualitative leaps, like heating water until it boils. It looks like nothing's happening until suddenly everything is.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago (2 children)

    If you can use this data to forecast estimates, and popularity growth can be assumed to be linear, we'd be at least two generations away from a majority in the latest generation at that time; and another 2-3 generations so that there's an overall majority in the entire country by then.

    So it seems to be half a century, as an optimistic estimate, for there to be an overall majority, not including time needed for political reorganization.

    It seems appropriate to conclude that someone living today shouldn't expect the revolution in their lifetime.

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  • [–] 3 points 9 months ago (9 children)

    I just want them to keep it to themselves. Whatever they produce, just stay in borders, that's all I ask.

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  • [–] 4 points 9 months ago* (8 children)

    You're basically asking capitalism and western imperialism to stay confined to the imperial core. Its literally not possible what you're asking.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago (1 child)

    Oh it is, when we ask with bigger guns. The EU is ramping up, all those delusions about to fall appart.

    Just need to get rid of the Quislings.

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  • [–] 3 points 9 months ago*

    I wish I had your faith in the EU. I just can't see that resistance of empire for such a passively accepting subject of the capitalist empire that it has been historically.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago (5 children)

    No, it just happens that right now it is capitalism and imperialism. I don't know what else they could come up with. Don't care. Let the others do their things, even if the USA magically turn to Communism.

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  • [–] 3 points 9 months ago (4 children)

    I don't know how to make a reply to this that doesn't sound extremely condescending. I'll just assume you don't understand what I'm even talking about.

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  • [–] -3 points 9 months ago (3 children)
  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago

    Me too, but I also believe that collapse is a fundamental part of the natural cycles that govern everything in the universe. It’s hubris to think humans can exempt themselves from this natural system, and the belief that we can is a large driver of why we find ourselves here.

    We can’t just skip collapse, nor can avoid it. Embrace its coming and celebrate what will grow from it.

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  • [–] 15 points 9 months ago (9 children)

    now's the time to get really active in your immediate local community, figuring out a barter system & pooling resources so everyone will be okay during a collapse.

    if you live near fairly conservative people, try starting it off with making a local directory of small businesses & trades, so people can support them. that's a great starting point for getting to know who has what skills in your local area.

    then after a while, you can try expanding that to making a local directory of resources and/or tools, and frame it as a way of sticking it to bigger businesses. "why should everyone buy their own separate lawnmower when people can borrow mine & the few others already in people's garages? we win, walmart loses!"

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  • [–] 4 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    We don't have to assume total collapse, we can organize in working class parties like PSL so that when crisis hits, we can successfully overthrow capitalism and instate socialism.

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  • [–] 7 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    we can do both, imo! working class parties are great at organising folks on a larger scale, and on a smaller scale, sharing skills & resources in our local communities will still be useful under socialism, or even just in the case of bad storms & businesses being temporarily shut down

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  • [–] 4 points 9 months ago

    Completely agreed, then! Just wanted to state that maintaining revolutionary optimism needs to be maintained, if we only look to local organizing we've essentially already given up. If we use each to supplement each other, though, then we plan for the best and prepare for the worst!

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  • [–] -1 points 9 months ago (5 children)

    what if my immediately local community is full of leftists who mostly want to take from other people and give to themselves?

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  • [–] 3 points 9 months ago (4 children)

    then you have misidentified them, those aren't leftists.

    try the same tactics anyway. you don't have to be best friends with your neighbours & agree with them on everything in order to set up a mutually beneficial system, but that system will never get made if everyone just dismisses the possibility before ever making an attempt.

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  • [–] -5 points 9 months ago* (3 children)

    that's weird, they tell me that they are leftists and that if I disagree with them at all them I'm not a leftist.

    Then they lecture me about how privileged I am and I should just shut up and listen to them because my any thoughts or opinions of my own are automatically wrong because they come from a position of privileged rather than oppression. And I point out I grew up working class from a low income family. Then they tell me to go fuck myself how dare I even talk to them since I'm clearly a MAGA supporter if I am working class, and I shouldn't have been allowed to go to college because clearly I'm so stupid for not being a 'real leftist' like them.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago (2 children)

    then i'm sorry that you've had that experience.

    maybe try to organise a directory of local businesses/services/shared resources etc without discussing politics at all, if it's something that gets people in your locality upset.

    if your area has to deal with some extreme weather & gets flooded, for example, ensuring that everyone can stay fed & have access to medical care will be a lot easier if the groundwork has already been done in advance.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago (1 child)

    the people who need those resources are not going to use such a directory.

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago

    fair enough, it's just a suggestion or jumping off point, what works in one area won't necessarily work everywhere.

    best of luck organising some way to make sure people in your community stay fed etc in emergencies, however you do so!

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  • [–] 11 points 9 months ago (5 children)

    Yeah it's kinda hard for the US to collapse. There's redundancy in the government. Even if the feds lose control there's the state government. Seems like economic collapse would have to happen for collapse of anything else

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  • [–] 10 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    Well, they're trying the economic angle too believe me

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  • [–] 3 points 9 months ago

    yeah that's true. I know the government has set up so banks get cheap loans from the reserve so that banks can determine who gets loans and who doesn't. that seemingly has screwing over more and more people... seems like the population has to be more proactive about collapse or reform of America

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  • [–] 3 points 9 months ago

    That's bound to happen anyway.
    It has always lived beyond their means with the help of the reserve currency which won't last for long but mostly with vulgar looting and thieving from the rest of the world.

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  • [–] -2 points 9 months ago

    what people fail to get is that while the USA fucks up, it is pretty good at fixing shit when it does.

    a lot of the biggest economic and reform booms in our history were the product of near collapses.

    people generally resist change until it's forced upon them by circumstances like depressions, wars, and oil shocks, etc.

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    [–] 4 points 9 months ago

    It's like that drop at the edge of the window sill. You know it's gonna eventually fall but for some reason it just keeps hanging on.

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  • [–] 16 points 9 months ago (20 children)

    Hmmm collapse of country with enough nukes to blow up planet several times. What could go wrong?

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  • [+] 18 points 9 months ago (3 children)
  • [+] 6 points 9 months ago* (12 children)
  • [–] 9 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    Tankiepoints™

    Can I redeem my Tankiepoints at a participating retailers whenever I want, or do they expire eventually?

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  • [–] 5 points 9 months ago (4 children)

    I've read more than one economist say there's less than a year left of the dollar being the world reserve currency. Whatever timeframe I am not sure, but it's definitely not a forever thing.

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  • [+] 2 points 9 months ago (2 children)
  • [–] 4 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    The wealthy don't keep much cash. I'm pretty sure Trump has said that he wants a weaker dollar, or at least implied it. I've heard some people speculate that the admin is purposely trying to end the dollar's status as the world's de facto reserve currency. If they're serious about bringing most manufacturing back to the US, the dollar needs devalued, and real wages need to plummet. The admin is also heavily involved in crypto schemes.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago

    People in the US are in for a rude awakening both economically and when their increasingly unhinged government starts desperately lashing out. One of the big motivations for the Nazis to invade Poland when they did was a bunch of loans they had hidden with financial trickery were about to come due and they couldn't pay.

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  • [–] 4 points 9 months ago* (2 children)

    nothing, because people who hope for this also think when it happens they will be the action hero that saves everyone else.

    they tend to lack the understanding of complex institutional systems that safeguard things like nuclear weapons, because they basically hate/blame them for their own unhappiness with their lives.

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  • [–] 13 points 9 months ago (29 children)

    The collapse of US hegemony is good for everyone

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  • [–] -1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (25 children)

    The collapse of US hegemony is good for everyone

    Good luck with a world of Chinese hegemony.

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  • [–] 4 points 9 months ago (24 children)

    As I heard some Africans say China will come and try to buy our stuff if we say no they go to our neighbors, America will come and try to buy our stuff and if we say no they send the military.

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  • [–] -5 points 9 months ago* (23 children)

    Except that's bullshit. What China is actually doing is taking out land and resource leases for flat fees, and then moving their own people into the Africa country to extract the resources for pennies on the yuan.

    USA wasn't doing any of that. They were mostly trying to tell African governments to stop being so corrupt and putting all sorts of limits and terms on aid service. But the leaders in the governments didn't like that. They liked getting big fat checks from China for resources they had no ability to extract themselves. China is more than happy to support corrupt and dictatorial governments, because well, that's what they are. They are also more than happy to sell them weapons systems and technology for lower costs and without the restrictions that come on the US/European ones.

    It's colonialism. it's just the Chinese version of it. If you are support of authoritarian colonialism and exporting dictatorial governments over democratic ones, of course you'd see China as the preferred power.

    The Saudis and other rising middle powers are also trying to get in on this game. Every nation to be a hegemonic power to the extent that they can.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago* (22 children)

    The US Empire (and Europe as well) is the one installing compradors. No, the US Empire isn't trying to tell people to "not be corrupt," they want that so the comoradors sell out their countries and force austerity, privatization of nationalized industries, etc. This is how imperialism works, and is why the US Empire has hundreds of overseas millitary bases while the PRC has ~3. If you nationalize your resources, the US Empire tries to destroy you, because the US Empire depends entirely on this system of super-exploiting for super-profits.

    BRI and the PRC's presence in Africa and the global south in general isn't imperialist. The PRC is expanding trade, but not dominance, nor does its trade deals come at the barrel of a gun. They trade with pretty much everyone, and support their allies, but this is not imperialism. To the contrary, the PRC is acting against imperialism.

    And many, many more sources back this up. It's no secret that imperialists have been trying to smear China into being "no better" than the west, but the reality on the ground is that partnering with China results in mutual development and cooperation, while partnering with the west results in stripped autonomy, underdevelopment, and exploitation.

    As for China's democracy, it's actually better than the US Empire by a wide margin. Public ownership is the principle aspect of the economy, and the CPC, a working class party, dominates the state. At a democratic level, local elections are direct, while higher levels are elected by lower rungs. At the top, constant opinion gathering and polling occurs, gathering public opinion, driving gradual change. This system is better elaborated on in Professor Roland Boer's Socialism in Power: On the History and Theory of Socialist Governance, and we can see the strong perceptions around this democracy:

    This is despite the Three Represents system. Overall, this system has resulted in over 90% of the population approving the government, which is shown to be consistent and accurate.

    Overall, you have a deeply confused notion of what's going on in the global south. The US is the world's largest empire and is colonizing the world, China is focusing on win-win economic development.

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  • [–] -2 points 9 months ago (21 children)

    No , I'm just not a Tankie. 90% of the people approve of the government because if they didn't, they'd be jailed and reeducated.

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  • [–] 3 points 9 months ago (20 children)
  • [–] -1 points 9 months ago (19 children)

    your source is an opinion column.

    opinions aren't facts. polls aren't truth.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago (18 children)

    No, my source is from the pollsters themselves, with a journalist compiling them and explaining why the data is accurate using quotes from the pollsters. You don't have a source, nor stats, you just made up fears of re-education in order to avoid facing the reality of facts and statistics.

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  • [–] -1 points 9 months ago (17 children)

    Putin also won the last election with 88% of the vote. That is a fact.

    If you think that fact is truth, however, you're an idiot. Facts and statistics are often lies. I'm glad you believe in lies and the 'superiority' of the Xi's dictatorship. Go move to China then. See how that goes for you.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago (16 children)

    Putin did recieve 88% of the vote, the nationalists are popular in Russia. This is largely due to the nationalists kicking out western imperialists plundering Russia in the 90s, after the dissolution of the USSR. The CPRF is rising in popularity, though, especially as capitalism proves to be failing Russians.

    You don't have any evidence backing up why you think the CPC is secretly unpopular. I've spoken to Chinese people, both currently living there and ex-pats, and they all have backed up that the Chinese government enjoys legitimate support. It's due to dramatically improving the lives of the working classes. You only have insults and vibes.

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  • [–] 0 points 9 months ago (15 children)

    If I beat the shit out of you until you claim you love me, is that legit love?

    According to you, it is.

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago (14 children)

    No? Again, you have no evidence for any of your claims, just libel. The CPC enjoys immense popularity for dramatically improving the lives of the people of China, and this has been backed up with lots of supporting evidence.

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  • [–] -1 points 9 months ago (13 children)

    I'm sure the Tibetans and the Uyghurs agree with you too. The CPC enjoys their popular support too, even as it genocides their cultures in favor of the Han Chinese.

    All that evidence of violence, oppression, and sterilization is just fake news bro! CPC is clearly just doing them a huge favor!

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (12 children)

    Uyghurs are not being tortured, sterilized, genocided, etc. Neither are Tibetans. Those claims originate entirely from Adrian Zenz, a US State Department-funded Christian Nationalist for the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, itself a propaganda org.

    The best and most comprehensive resource I have seen so far is Qiao Collective's Xinjiang: A Resource and Report Compilation. Qiao Collective is explicitly pro-PRC, but this is an extremely comprehensive write-up of the entire background of the events, the timeline of reports, and real and fake claims.

    I also recommend reading the UN report and China's response to it. These are the most relevant accusations and responses without delving into straight up fantasy like Adrian Zenz, professional propagandist for the Victims of Communism Foundation, does.

    Tourists do go to Xinjiang all the time, as well. You can watch videos like this one on YouTube, though it obviously isn't going to be a comprehensive view of a complex situation like this.

    Tibet was a feudal slave society backed by the CIA. The PLA liberated Tibet.

    Two excerpts from Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth:

    Drepung monastery was one of the biggest landowners in the world, with its 185 manors, 25,000 serfs, 300 great pastures, and 16,000 herdsmen. The wealth of the monasteries rested in the hands of small numbers of high-ranking lamas. Most ordinary monks lived modestly and had no direct access to great wealth. The Dalai Lama himself “lived richly in the 1000-room, 14-story Potala Palace.” [12]

    Secular leaders also did well. A notable example was the commander-in-chief of the Tibetan army, a member of the Dalai Lama’s lay Cabinet, who owned 4,000 square kilometers of land and 3,500 serfs. [13] Old Tibet has been misrepresented by some Western admirers as “a nation that required no police force because its people voluntarily observed the laws of karma.” [14] In fact it had a professional army, albeit a small one, that served mainly as a gendarmerie for the landlords to keep order, protect their property, and hunt down runaway serfs.

    Young Tibetan boys were regularly taken from their peasant families and brought into the monasteries to be trained as monks. Once there, they were bonded for life. Tashì-Tsering, a monk, reports that it was common for peasant children to be sexually mistreated in the monasteries. He himself was a victim of repeatedremoved, beginning at age nine. [15] The monastic estates also conscripted children for lifelong servitude as domestics, dance performers, and soldiers.

    In old Tibet there were small numbers of farmers who subsisted as a kind of free peasantry, and perhaps an additional 10,000 people who composed the “middle-class” families of merchants, shopkeepers, and small traders. Thousands of others were beggars. There also were slaves, usually domestic servants, who owned nothing. Their offspring were born into slavery. [16] The majority of the rural population were serfs. Treated little better than slaves, the serfs went without schooling or medical care. They were under a lifetime bond to work the lord’s land — or the monastery’s land — without pay, to repair the lord’s houses, transport his crops, and collect his firewood. They were also expected to provide carrying animals and transportation on demand. [17] Their masters told them what crops to grow and what animals to raise. They could not get married without the consent of their lord or lama. And they might easily be separated from their families should their owners lease them out to work in a distant location. [18]

    As in a free labor system and unlike slavery, the overlords had no responsibility for the serf’s maintenance and no direct interest in his or her survival as an expensive piece of property. The serfs had to support themselves. Yet as in a slave system, they were bound to their masters, guaranteeing a fixed and permanent workforce that could neither organize nor strike nor freely depart as might laborers in a market context. The overlords had the best of both worlds.

    One 22-year old woman, herself a runaway serf, reports: “Pretty serf girls were usually taken by the owner as house servants and used as he wished”; they “were just slaves without rights.” [19] Serfs needed permission to go anywhere. Landowners had legal authority to capture those who tried to flee. One 24-year old runaway welcomed the Chinese intervention as a “liberation.” He testified that under serfdom he was subjected to incessant toil, hunger, and cold. After his third failed escape, he was merciless beaten by the landlord’s men until blood poured from his nose and mouth. They then poured alcohol and caustic soda on his wounds to increase the pain, he claimed. [20]

    The serfs were taxed upon getting married, taxed for the birth of each child and for every death in the family. They were taxed for planting a tree in their yard and for keeping animals. They were taxed for religious festivals and for public dancing and drumming, for being sent to prison and upon being released. Those who could not find work were taxed for being unemployed, and if they traveled to another village in search of work, they paid a passage tax. When people could not pay, the monasteries lent them money at 20 to 50 percent interest. Some debts were handed down from father to son to grandson. Debtors who could not meet their obligations risked being cast into slavery. [21]

    The theocracy’s religious teachings buttressed its class order. The poor and afflicted were taught that they had brought their troubles upon themselves because of their wicked ways in previous lives. Hence they had to accept the misery of their present existence as a karmic atonement and in anticipation that their lot would improve in their next lifetime. The rich and powerful treated their good fortune as a reward for, and tangible evidence of, virtue in past and present lives.

    Selection two, shorter: (CW sexual violence and mutilation)

    The Tibetan serfs were something more than superstitious victims, blind to their own oppression. As we have seen, some ran away; others openly resisted, sometimes suffering dire consequences. In feudal Tibet, torture and mutilation — including eye gouging, the pulling out of tongues, hamstringing, and amputation — were favored punishments inflicted upon thieves, and runaway or resistant serfs. [22]

    Journeying through Tibet in the 1960s, Stuart and Roma Gelder interviewed a former serf, Tsereh Wang Tuei, who had stolen two sheep belonging to a monastery. For this he had both his eyes gouged out and his hand mutilated beyond use. He explains that he no longer is a Buddhist: “When a holy lama told them to blind me I thought there was no good in religion.” [23] Since it was against Buddhist teachings to take human life, some offenders were severely lashed and then “left to God” in the freezing night to die. “The parallels between Tibet and medieval Europe are striking,” concludes Tom Grunfeld in his book on Tibet. [24]

    In 1959, Anna Louise Strong visited an exhibition of torture equipment that had been used by the Tibetan overlords. There were handcuffs of all sizes, including small ones for children, and instruments for cutting off noses and ears, gouging out eyes, breaking off hands, and hamstringing legs. There were hot brands, whips, and special implements for disemboweling. The exhibition presented photographs and testimonies of victims who had been blinded or crippled or suffered amputations for thievery. There was the shepherd whose master owed him a reimbursement in yuan and wheat but refused to pay. So he took one of the master’s cows; for this he had his hands severed. Another herdsman, who opposed having his wife taken from him by his lord, had his hands broken off. There were pictures of Communist activists with noses and upper lips cut off, and a woman who wasremovedd and then had her nose sliced away. [25]

    Earlier visitors to Tibet commented on the theocratic despotism. In 1895, an Englishman, Dr. A. L. Waddell, wrote that the populace was under the “intolerable tyranny of monks” and the devil superstitions they had fashioned to terrorize the people. In 1904 Perceval Landon described the Dalai Lama’s rule as “an engine of oppression.” At about that time, another English traveler, Captain W. F. T. O’Connor, observed that “the great landowners and the priests… exercise each in their own dominion a despotic power from which there is no appeal,” while the people are “oppressed by the most monstrous growth of monasticism and priest-craft.” Tibetan rulers “invented degrading legends and stimulated a spirit of superstition” among the common people. In 1937, another visitor, Spencer Chapman, wrote, “The Lamaist monk does not spend his time in ministering to the people or educating them. […] The beggar beside the road is nothing to the monk. Knowledge is the jealously guarded prerogative of the monasteries and is used to increase their influence and wealth.” [26] As much as we might wish otherwise, feudal theocratic Tibet was a far cry from the romanticized Shangri-La so enthusiastically nurtured by Buddhism’s western proselytes.

    -Dr. Michael Parenti

    Overall, again, you have no evidence here either. You have blood libel, and don't dare link any of it because you want plausible deniability. You're doing the same thing the west does in saying there's "white genocide" in South Africa, or "christian genocide" in Nigeria, or that Saddam's forces took babies out of incubators and left them on the floor, or that Hamas sexually assaulted babies. You're repeating western atrocity proaganda.

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

    everything is propaganda if it disagrees with your narrative. nobody's reality other than the reality the CPC tells you is real, is real.

    I fully understand. thank you for re-educating me. I will now move to china and be liberated from my evil democratic notions that are oppressing me.

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago (10 children)

    My "narrative" is for truth and the liberation of the working classes. You quite literally gave not a single shred of evidence, repeating claims akin to saying South Africa is committing "white genocide." My source of truth isn't whatever the CPC says, dogmatically, the CPC was incredibly wrong for supporting Cambodia over Vietnam, as an example. Again, all you have is blood libel and a refusal to take accountability.

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  • [–] -1 points 9 months ago (9 children)

    Oh so the CPC is wrong for someone else's genocide, but when they do it, it's cool?

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago (8 children)

    No? The CPC isn't committing genocide. I quite clearly gave you an example of a fundamental error by the CPC to disprove your notion that I accept whatever the CPC does, and now you're saying that that's more evidence of only accepting the CPC?

    During the cold war, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime's atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn't go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them. If communists in the United States played an important role struggling for the rights of workers, the poor, African-Americans, women, and others, this was only their guileful way of gathering support among disfranchised groups and gaining power for themselves. How one gained power by fighting for the rights of powerless groups was never explained. What we are dealing with is a nonfalsifiable orthodoxy, so assiduously marketed by the ruling interests that it affected people across the entire political spectrum.

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  • [–] -1 points 9 months ago (7 children)

    What kind of drugs do you do? I need some of this 'true belief' shit you are smoking.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago (6 children)

    No drugs, other than caffeine and occasionally ibuprofen, and a drink once or twice a month. I do take creatine when I work out, but that's a supplement, not a drug. I don't know what you mean by "true belief," but you've posted precisely 0 sources and ignored mountains of evidence contrary to your own fantasy-level blood libel.

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  • [–] 0 points 9 months ago (5 children)

    according to you any evidence i present is false because i present it. and according to you any evidence you present is true because you present it.

    weird how that works.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago (4 children)

    No? You haven't presented any evidence whatsoever. If you actually posted evidence, or meaningfully contested the evidence I presented without making up conspiracy theories, then we could have a discussion. It isn't true because I link it or false because you do, I'm the only one presenting evidence while you've ignored it.

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  • [–] -1 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    you are just quoting propaganda. repeatedly. and claiming it's evidence.

    then when i claim something as evidence, you claim it's propaganda, not evidence.

    and around and around we go.

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  • [–] 0 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    No? I cited a broad variety of academic scholarship and primary sources, you never linked any sources to begin with.

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago* (1 child)

    No no, see, they did make a bunch of claims as evidence. They may not have provided any sources for those claims and haven't proven those claims true. But they did provide a lot of claims and say that it is evidence of something.

    That we require it to be more rigorous than that is not their problem

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  • [–] 3 points 9 months ago

    Yes! Noe that its collapsing, surely someone will sell me their house for $300! So they can buy someone else's house for $300?

    How's that gonna work?

    It cannot. The housing market needs houses that are affordable without ripping people off. I propose that corporations be given "tokens" in exchange for forcibly removing their ownership from all the houses they own.

    By collapsing the housing market, the price for housing would also collapse.

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