Bluesky users: For a mere $30million USD, we can distribute Bluesky to one other node
Fedi users: I put an instance on my car!
@aspensmonster @vwbusguy @celesteh I hope that one day you will live in an equivalent of soviet union (your country is well on its way). When you do, please report back on how easy or hard will it be to procure insulin! 😂
@aspensmonster I'm with you! But don't have to be a communist to be anti-capitalist!
You may argue that being anti-capitalist automatically makes you an intersectional communist, then sign me up, but marxism-lenibism is like... Demonstrably hateful ideology which converges to authoritarianism isomorphic to fascism.
And the problem is in the communist manifesto itself. If you don't set precise and concrete parameters for distinguishing bourgeois from proletariat and call for violence *not against the property* even, but against human beings, then your criteria degrade and the guy with the rifle becomes the proletarian and everyone without a rifle becomes a bourgeois.
@aspensmonster Preston "Citation Needed" Maness.
Btw, I was responding to your america-centric take! Actually, procuring insulin is trivial in like... Normal countries. 🇪🇺
@jonn >Btw, I was responding to your america-centric take! Actually, procuring insulin is trivial in like... Normal countries. 🇪🇺
As if procuring insulin is only difficult in the United States.
@aspensmonster you will be surprised.
https://www.insulin100.eu/country-profiles-latvia/
Here is what, to quote your silly toot, "the poorest countries have managed to achieve". 😆
@jonn you have a lot of national chauvinism for someone concerned about colonialism :(
@aspensmonster @jonn okay so I'm not really someone who has a dog in the larger fight but you realize societies existed before capitalism was invented, right?
like there's stanning Karl Marx and then there's ignoring the fact that indigenous anarchists even exist or I guess dismissing small-scale societies as relevant and either way that's kind of racist, just, fyi
Being anti-capitalist doesn't automatically give you the tools to effectively oppose or replace capitalism. A good intentioned hatred of USSR/Communism/capitalism etc would only prepare any leader for repeating Soviet mistakes in the face of inevitable capitalist assault.
Where does the Communist Manifesto call for violence against human beings? I can't find any reference. Any document can be willfully mis-read to suit any agenda.
@caoilte I wouldn't dare to read it today, but you're kind of saying the same as I, except I claim that the document is willfully non-specific (probably some sort of extremism rules existed then), and you claim that I'm misreading it.
I distinctly recall that they were referring to French revolution as an example of a revolution, which clearly and irrefutably defines a possible scope of what they had in mind.
The document has many problems and is riddled in non-sequitur and straw-man, but most importantly, it fails to distinguish the classes in any meaningful way.
Also, what I will never forget is them explicitly saying that it's ok for peasants to have a house and a field (their rationale was idiotic, sadly I can't reproduce it because I find it difficult to memorise idiotic things), but apparently it's okay only until the "State" runs out of the collective "money" and needs some kolhozes (see collectivisation in ussr). 😆
I would prefer to end this conversation at that, if it's okay ❤️
(Feel free to respond, but it's very likely that I shan't).
@jonn [1/2] Since you want to end this conversation, I'll skate the details and focus on thoughts for growth.
You're a product of indoctrination, but that's okay - we all are. A challenge in life is to recognise the inconsistencies in our self identity and to understand when it expresses itself as hypocrisy. For example: calling @aspensmonster Preston "Citation Needed" Maness, without ever feeling the need to check whether a book you're trying to summarize says what you think it does.
@jonn @aspensmonster [2/2] You made a statement in error and I corrected it. Rather than engaging responsibly with the subject you re-imagined your position, tried to change the subject and then shutdown the conversation. I think subconsciously you know you are wrong (repeatedly admitting you don't want to re-read a document is a tell).
Self examination is a long road, I suggest avoiding complaining about things like the hammer and sickle until you're ready to engage with the subject.
@caoilte ah, quite provocative! I'll take some time to demonstrate logically (in abstract terms) and historically (in concrete terms) that the manifesto says what I think it says by the end of the year.
Please understand that reading this stuff is kind of like reading English propaganda from the years of the Troubles for you (based on your surname, if I'm wrong, I'm sorry. If I'm right – Erin go Bragh)
@jonn I don't doubt that Marx can be interpreted to say what you intend. And I'm sure that the USSR also interpreted it to suit their policies. Hell, generally every book gets reinterpreted by the next generation. It's good to recognise such biases and to study texts as products of a particular time and place rather than as some eternal totemic shibboleth. Regardless, i hope you enjoy the process of ordering your thoughts.
> a book you're trying to summarise
I am certain that you are confusing communist manifesto with das kapital! In the country where I was born which no longer exists, people had to read both. (I did)
@jonn You can call yourself anti-capitalist if you like. Rejecting the only forms of anti-capitalism that have ever worked as "actually that's just authoritarianism which is the same as fascism" is a choice that you are not alone in making at least. Marxists however will continue to deal with reality as it presents itself and work within it to build socialism.