don’t be a coward and say what counties are you referring to
Currently, North Korea, China, Russia (which, despite no longer being formally socialist, still widely uses socialist Soviet iconography and has the Russian Communist Party as one of the coalition partners of the regime), Venezuela, Cuba. Until very recently, Syria.
Russia isn’t even socialist, not even in aesthetics, Cuba is communist.
By syria you mean Rojava? not sure if they are socialist, they are more anarchist. But the media has radio silence about them.
Russia isn’t even socialist, not even in aesthetics,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_imagery_during_the_Russo-Ukrainian_War
Cuba is communist.
Cuba is ideologically communist (specifically, Marxist-Leninist) and claims to be a socialist state on the path to endstage communism.
By syria you mean Rojava? not sure if they are socialist, they are more anarchist. But the media has radio silence about them.
As I said until recently, I am referring to the Assadist regime, which was formally a Ba’athist state espousing Arab socialism, and for that reason had many tankies simping for it hardcore despite not being much more than a despotic clientistic economy which oppressed its own working class to a greater degree than even developed bourgeois capitalist democracies.
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Aesthetics is doing some heavy lifting in that statement.
See thats one take but is “US Imperialism” not just codeword for NATO?
Not unless what you wrote is code for “I’m an ignoramus and like to spout the brand of dogma I’ve based my identity on”.
But it’s not, is it?
I’ve just always heard “US Imperialism” in context of things like NATO, Ukraine, Vietnam, formerly Afghanistan, and Israel but TBH Israel is more the UK’s baby, Vietnam had more French soldiers on the ground, and people like to conveniently leave out US cooperation with Saudi Arabia.
It just feels like a term with intentionally blurred context and no real meaning outside of a derogatory term for NATO. What do you think it means?
but TBH Israel is more the UK’s baby,
UK’s baby, but adopted by the US and spoiled rotten since the 1980s.
Vietnam had more French soldiers on the ground,
When people say ‘Vietnam War’ they don’t mean ‘the entire colonial history of Vietnam’, they mean ‘the US involvement in Vietnam’s civil war’, wherein there certainly were not more French than US soldiers on the ground - one of the key issues of that conflict is that the French asked us to help and then scurried off with us holding the bag and too immersed in ‘anti-communist’ rhetoric to leave without losing face.
and people like to conveniently leave out US cooperation with Saudi Arabia.
How’s that in opposition to US imperialism? The US helping one of the worst countries in the region impose their will on surrounding countries in exchange for their support seems rather in-line with imperialist aims.
Imperialism isn’t just about military actions. The US also has great economic impact. Just look at all the BS coming out of Trump’s trade wars… Imperialism is about being bullish in interaction and expanding influence and control. It looks messy … because it is messy.
Note: As the original post points out, just because the US is bad does not magically make enemies of the US good regardless of the color of cloak they hide their own BS behind.
All the Bullshit coming out of Trump’s trade wars impacts the USA first and foremost. It’s not forcing any other nation to sell for less or cut off relationships to other nations.
If making mutually beneficial deals was “imperialism” then it sounds like you just want the USA to suffer in general.
IMO calling out Iraq would be a great argument against US Imperialism. Exxon Mobil was the bigger winner from that invasion.
All the Bullshit coming out of Trump’s trade wars impacts the USA first and foremost.
Failed imperialism is still imperialism. Trump’s trade wars are, quite nakedly by his own statements, meant to force other countries into a position of subservience to the US (and Trump himself). That they’ve failed because Trump doesn’t understand jack about shit doesn’t mean it wasn’t an attempt to use economic coercion as a means of imperialism - it just means Trump et co are incompetent imperialists.
No
If NATO was about countries being subservient to the US, then the MAGA fashy types would be 100% in support of NATO.
NATO is an alliance and fashy types have a hard time grasping the idea of countries having partnerships that aren’t a hierarchical master/servant style relationships. Since it’s not a “do whatever the US tells you to do” imperialist style relationship, guys like Trump assume that it must mean the US is somehow subservient to NATO and therefore hate it. They can’t understand there being any power structure that isn’t hierarchical and therefore is a bad thing.
It’s similar with Putin too. Except he assumes it’s a hierarchical power structure where the US is the master and the other members are subservient. Tankies follow the same line of thinking.
Authoritarian type people simply cannot grasp non-hierarchical relationships so alliances between sovereign nations just don’t make sense to them.
Hamas are terrorists, they killed civilians on 7th October
… okay?
Your meme kind of works for hamas/Isreal too.
Yes hamas is bad
But it doesn’t mean Isreal should murder civilians
Or the other way around
Yes Isreal is bad
But it doesn’t mean hamas should be murdering civilians
oops sorry mistook you for one of those “Israel bad Hamas good”-guys
Never heard of people saying Hamas good.
oh you must be new to lemmy then or maybe have a healthier online life
Option 2 most likely. But lemmy is already a healthier social media choice.
I am more pissed at people who don’t know difference between Hamas and Palestine. “Hamas is bad, lets fight palestine. And Syria too. Go for Uzbekistan while at it. I heard Albania is a muslim country too. Indonesia…”
Issue is Hamas are the government of Gaza, and it’s pretty hard to get past that.
Plus the same people can’t tell the difference between Israel and Jews in general so maybe it’s just a lack of comprehension and reasoning.
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Also, if we want to make progress in the world and not let billionaires play us against each other, maybe the best judgement process is to evaluate how things are working out overall instead of slapping a black hat on anything that isn’t perfect enough for a white hat.
Sure why engage with the actual reasons that leftists express for (varying levels of critical) support for any given country when you can ignore all that and dunk on this vague and convenient strawman.
Would you like me to drag out quotes of the exact kind of fucking insanity I’m talking about, or will you dismiss those as made-up strawmen that I conveniently planted over dozens of accounts with thousands of upvotes over a space of years and across multiple platforms?
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It kinda doesn’t matter what you call China, mixed economies outperform market economies.
Every major fucking country on earth today is a mixed economy.
Fair point, probably not the best term to use. In the video, Clinton uses “command economy” to describe them, and singles them out as member of the WTO that isn’t a market economy.
China hasn’t been a command economy since the 80s, though. And command economies consistently underperform market economies, to a staggering degree.
I mean, they’re everyone’s largest trading partner. You’d expect a planned economy to under perform the evolutionary pressures of a market. The first time. But the second? Or the third? What about command economy that learns from what didn’t work in the past?
If every country is a mixed economy, then they’re just the far end of the spectrum. More command than market, at least compared to most other places.
I mean, they’re everyone’s largest trading partner.
They’re also the largest country, by population, in the world.
You’d expect a planned economy to under perform the evolutionary pressures of a market. The first time. But the second? Or the third? What about command economy that learns from what didn’t work in the past?
Uh, but planned economies do underperform compared to a market. The spike in Chinese prosperity was because of intense market reforms in the 80s and 90s which significantly increased prosperity and turned the country from immensely backwards and impoverished to increasingly developed.
If every country is a mixed economy, then they’re just the far end of the spectrum. More command than market, at least compared to most other places.
Not really. The Chinese public sector of their economy is actually lower, as a proportion of GDP, than Sweden.
I’m curious about the source of this statement
The Chinese public sector of their economy is actually lower, as a proportion of GDP, than Sweden
Can you provide source? Because for State Owned Enterprises I can only find metric ~40% (China) vs 10% in Sweden.
https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/exp@FPP/USA/JPN/GBR/SWE/ITA/ZAF/IND/CHL/FRA/GRC/NLD/ESP/RUS
China’s private sector has become much larger than in years past - from ~2% of the economy in the 1980s, to ~20% in the late 1990s, to a majority now (though there’s some quibbling as to the exact numbers).
What government hasn’t committed an atrocity?
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I’d still rather have a state that pretends to be socialist than one that upholds capitalism - an ideology that seeks to place everything and everyone under the domination of a few elites.
Venmo me $10
“Golly gee, I sure do love this state which pretends to be socialist, but upholds capitalism by placing everything and everyone under the domination of a few elites!”
How is that worse than what we currently have?
Are you… legitimately asking how Western democracies like Canada and Germany are better than the kind of systems that the PRC and USSR ran?
Things can be bad without being equally bad.
Spoiler: It’s waaaay more than three or four.
Whataboutism is awesome for the empire. Incidents that happened 40-90 years ago can be equivocated with current empire abuses, and rulers protecting their nations from Empire’s “democracy” manipulations meant to destroy those nations can be demonized as less perfect than the utopia of western democracy illusions.
Liberalist freedom or constructive anarchy is only a possibility if US empire is not intent on destroying you.
Incidents
Lol
Nuance is hard, yo…
Nah, think I’m going to boil down hundreds of years of history in to 280 characters, that’s the best way to get my point across in the tiktok age.
Hell, the socialist aesthetics aren’t even necessary. Just hating the United States is enough.
Don’t worry - this is tankiejerk. We’re an anti-tankie comm. Bootlickers aren’t tolerated here.
