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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 29th, 2023

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  • Please enlighten me what the substantive difference between ‘industrial scale’ and ‘systematic and widespread’ is.

    Literally the difference between the holocaust and a pogrom.

    Similarly, please point out to me what your exact issue is with the report I linked.

    A lack of institutional credibility and an unwillingness to read a 20 page report that references things that have already been debunked- for example, i took a vertical slice to dig into, looking in detail about their claims of abducted children that do not align with the reality of later western-biased reporting on the issue.

    Also, citation needed that Zenz is a fascist. I found much criticism of him, but no credible allegation that he is a fascist.

    He describes himself as a “Christian Nationalist” and “on a God given mission to destroy China” and his institute used to be a cia front (arguably still is, although it has now been obscured through another front organization) If he isn’t a fascist, he is close enough to the picture that he still isn’t credible.


  • At their heart, both capitalism and marxism are ideologies describing how things “ought to be.” Proponents of either of them seek to influence political decision making around economic decisions, but neither is/was/will be reality.

    No, Marxism does not just describe things as they ought to be. It’s main aspects are:

    Anthropological: a methodology for understanding how capitalism happens and how it changes to suit changing conditions (many of which it brings about)

    Scientific: a process based ideology for developing an understanding of our local conditions and our ability to change them through sociological investigation, mediated through democratic process

    The political program extends from an understanding of those two aspects, and is very variable, because the programs are applied to the local conditions of their environments.

    Capitalism postulates that all capital ought to be privately owned and working in individual interest,

    No, that strain of bourgeois thought died out as a ruling ideology hundreds of years ago, when state intervention in some failed ventures if the west indies trading company demonstrated that it is more profitable for capitalism to maintain a strong state to protect profits.

    Communists dismiss this by pointing out that inequal access to capital causes internal problems in society,

    I mean yeah but that’s not the main thing. The main thing that Marxists believe is that as capitalism moves into its monopoly stage, it ceases to be a historically progressive force (in opposition to feudalism) and it starts to be fettered by its own issues, just like feudalism was.

    Marxists believe that as production becomes socialized and planned, capitalist control makes these socialized production processes inefficient and ultimately leads to a cycle of crises.








  • OurToothbrush@lemmy.mltoMemes@lemmy.mlPaperwork.
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    9 days ago

    One of the most basic economic arguments of Marx’s Capital is that 1) firms compete for higher profit margins 2) it is easiest to reduce wages in order to increase margins 3) you only have to pay workers enough that they’re able to, as a whole, maintain your workforce (the available workforce in general can shrink though, especially as automation shrinks the needed size of the workforce)

    Throw in some accumulation by disposession theory(the need to proletarianize the population, separating them from ownership of their own means of subsistence) in order for capitalism to function, and you have good old social murder, the end result of a system designed for efficient accumulation without consideration for human suffering outside the practical consideration of stability.

    Socialism, which is designed to manage the needs of a population through democratic processes, does not have this issue, except in the context of fighting capitalism where accumulation needs to be prioritized to some extent, in order to defend their social project from covert and overt hostility by existing capitalist powers.

    I’ve cited Capital, you only really need the first dozen or so chapters to understand the primary argument. Marx provides detailed figures to cite his arguments. I would also suggest reading about accumulation by dispossession/primitive accumulation, social murder, and siege socialism.



  • OurToothbrush@lemmy.mltoMemes@lemmy.mlPaperwork.
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    12 days ago

    It is because they care about the population more than they care about profits, both for moral reasons and because the whole mandate of socialism is prioritizing democracy (and therefore the needs of your constituency) over capitalism


  • OurToothbrush@lemmy.mltoMemes@lemmy.mlPaperwork.
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    12 days ago

    Let us take medicine as an example:

    Higher doctor to patient ratio, better life expectancy for countries income level. Doctors in Cuba go door to door for routine checkups.

    Cuba life expectancy is comparable to US life expectancy and has a hard time acquiring sterile needles due to the blockade if that gives you an idea






  • OurToothbrush@lemmy.mltoMemes@lemmy.mlHard to swallow pills
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    1 month ago

    Sure, if you know literally nothing about the military industrial complex and government capture and its role in creating war, and you want to buy into the propaganda that the US only attacks when it feels threatened.

    When countries are threatened and dropping bombs relieves that threat instead of increases it, then they do.

    Settler-brained-as-fuck idea about how conflict works


  • OurToothbrush@lemmy.mltoMemes@lemmy.mlHard to swallow pills
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    1 month ago

    Who decides what speech threatens the government? The government.

    Uhuh. In other words, governments restrict speech that they think threatens them.

    I can say fuck Joe Biden, fuck Donald Trump, and fuck every member of Congress and the Supreme Court. Can you point me towards someone living in China who’s comfortable openly saying “fuck Xi Jinping?”

    First off, how many Chinese people have you actually talked to? You know there are Chinese people on the internet that you can talk to, right? And foreign exchange students? You can even visit the country if you want.

    And yes, you’re free to say things that don’t actually threaten the US, like saying fuck Trump or Fuck Biden. You’re allowed to be as ineffectual as you’d like. Compare your statements to all the black lives matter organizers who’ve been found to commit suicide by bullets to the back of the head or public hanging from trees.


  • OurToothbrush@lemmy.mltoMemes@lemmy.mlHard to swallow pills
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    1 month ago

    The mere suggestion that the state is illegitimate in China would have gotten me disappeared.

    China has a smaller surveillance state than the US, so I doubt it. Also yeah, the US hasn’t faced serious coup attempts in the last 50 years.

    So it makes you wonder if ruling with an iron fist and crushing dissidents has some merit after all.

    Their execution or imprisonment stats must be much higher than the US! Wait. I’m just hearing… oh dear.