FunkyStuff [he/him]

tldr the kind of repression and state control that @ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de notes in Cuba as disqualifying it from the label of ‘socialism’ and making it ‘communism’ instead are actually the precise things that make Cuba a socialist state, as opposed to a communist post-state society.

It’s an error to just use the words like ‘socialism’ = ‘cool and good’ while ‘communism’ = ‘bad and scary’ because that’s just 2nd grade tier analysis that doesn’t clear anything up at all, and just confuses you further.

One thing that’s worth noting is that Israel and the US are the two countries that voted against making food a human right at the UN and both are actively committing genocide via starvation.

These two processes are actually intrinsically connected and are part of a broader strategy I fear is only going to see more examples as climate collapse plays out. There’s going to be more groups that the imperialist powers will want to wipe out and ecosystem collapse will cause famines that a blockade can escalate into a mass death event.

That’s not how it works. If there’s an organized effort to exterminate a group of people because of their immutable characteristics (in this case nationality) it’s genocide. You can be guilty of the crime of genocide even if you don’t kill a single person. The US embargo absolutely meets the criteria and has already caused thousands of excess deaths (as well as underdevelopment) over the course of decades. It’s like Gaza, blocking off a group of millions of people from being able to get anything from the rest of the world and restricting the flow of basic necessities. They don’t have to kill any specific number of people for that to count as genocide, it just is.

There was also a famine in the 30s in Kazakhstan, not just Ukraine. A similar number of people died.

In the dark times, should the stars also go out?

It’s a protection racket. If they get the kind of left wing government that would even leave NATO in the first place, the US is presently showing off what it does to such governments.

Chavo del Ocho if you want something that’s iconic in Latin America and pretty decent for kids. It’s definitely hella heteronormative and patriarchal though. Maybe someone knows a more modern equivalent?

I think Phineas and Ferb was pretty fun and encouraged me to be creative as a kid. It’s kinda Disney propaganda but I don’t remember it having a ton of Disney stuff in it.

GIMP gets most of my needs covered. I’ve struggled to make good video memes with Kdenlive but it’s possible too.

So it’s cold-ish? I’ve never been to any Mediterranean coast so I don’t know what it’s like, not any time of year nor Winter. Does your family travel elsewhere a lot?

How’s the weather?

Could you be thinking of Source Code with Jake Gyllenhaal?

You’re hastily jumping to the conclusion that the new thing is the same as the old thing just because it has some similarities.

Your example of religious schisms gives the game away, really, because every major religious schism I can think of did bring significant qualitative changes in the social organization of the societies that underwent them. For example, the ideological and philosophical basis of settlement in the United States was founded on the new sects of Protestantism that followed Calvinist influences. Their attitudes toward labor, property, the question of slavery, and many other political matters was distinct from the results you’d expect out of Catholic settlers, or any other religion. And that’s a difference in religion which, from a materialist perspective, is not even the primary thing that makes history move, but part of the ideological superstructure that serves to maintain the economic relations in a given society.

In the case of China: no, the “authoritarian uniparty” is not simply the new owning class. That’s not how the party works and it’s also not how class works. In fact, the statement “functionally you don’t have a say” is probably the most incorrect statement you can make about SWCC, because it’s a very practical system that, while it made a lot of compromises for the sake of reforms and opening up, it has always listened to input from the people. The way the entire CPC is structured is designed for that purpose and it gives its members ample room to have a say over the way things are run.

To think that the “authoritarian uniparty” was truly some kind of new owning class, you’d have to first explain how a political party that has its origins (and present support) in the peasantry and workers, comes to become the opposite thing entirely, a group that controls capital for the sake of producing more capital. That isn’t even a plausible statement to make of the ruling parties in Western imperialist countries: their ruling parties are organs of their respective ruling classes, international imperialist capitalists who use their states to increase their profits.

Is Xi Jinping answering to Chinese billionaires, structuring policy to serve their interests? And if he is, why do the billionaires allow the CPC to make each 5 year plan and the policies chosen to implement them based on the input from millions of party members, instead of receiving a policy plan from a billionaire operated think tank like they do in the West? Is it really all a big conspiracy?

Some resources:

CGTN: Who Runs the CPC

China has Billionaires

Lol @ not identifying with China for their treatment of ethnic minorities and authoritarianism, but identifying with the KMT despite their displacement of indigenous people and the white terror.

100 upvotes, 10 replies might mean I pissed someone off

But if it was 10 upvotes or 100 replies I’m taking the 100 replies, I love drama.

I think the question isn’t “why are Western countries afraid of Israel” or “why does the West fear its citizens criticizing Israel,” but “what are Western countries planning to do in the near future (especially with the climate crisis) that requires them to support Israel and learn from it right now?”

I read comments and posts from Chinese posters who go through VPNs regularly.

Of all creatures I’ve met, you are the kindest.

They’re writing a thesis about treating damage to lungs from smoking. They’re actually really good at this.

Wait, you were raised Catholic and were taught to interpret the Bible literally? That’s weird, and doesn’t match my experience. Did you know one of the scientists who theorized the Big Bang Theory, Georges Lemaitre, was a Catholic priest?

What do you think about non-historical interpretations of the Bible, out of curiosity?