Don't you DARE bring up eastern Europe as a counter to our arguments! Rule 2 BAN ~dessalines
Source: https://lemmy.world/post/29479317/16990977
Modlog: https://photon.lemmy.world/modlog?user=7919430
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History of eastern Europe is the Achilles heel for the Tankies.
It literally destroys their entire narrative.
The best counter argument they have is some vague 1990s polls that the proles regretted the fall of USSR.
I am sure there is a poll of some boomer whining about it. They sure love that 50 kopek salami...
Tankies will ignore the actual referendum and current opinions and the current behaviour of the Russian Federation who ain't even a commie no more
The best counter argument they have is some vague 1990s polls that the proles regretted the fall of USSR.
A lot of people did end up regretting the fall of the USSR. The way that it fell, with things formerly owned by the state being snapped up by the oligarchs, meant that life got significantly worse for a lot of people, especially people that were older. If they had gotten a western-style liberal democracy--which, to be clear, ain't great--they probably would have felt differently. But the corruption fucked the people over far, far faster than it has in the west.
And are we better of now? Yes... no one except the Russians want the USSR back.
But the corruption fucked the people over far, far faster than it has in the west.
Also, the West assisted in the corruption. The IMF and the State Department were absolutely pivotal in handing over all of the USSR's state assets to like 10 murderous billionaires, and then they peaced out, leaving the people to starve.
Capitalism, like democracy or nuclear energy, is a troublesome servant at the best of times, and all too readily becomes a demon that seeks only to destroy. It must be carefully managed and contained, and the US during the mid-1990s was basically a pretty accurate rendition of the nightmare caricature that tankies like to present of what happens when it is not. Basically just wandering the world fucking things up for people and taking all the money, with all of the voters totally propagandized into thinking it was all a good thing outside of a cranky and disregarded 1% that were reading Noam Chomsky.
with perhaps the exception of south korea and with some good will taiwan, not a single capitalist country reached the so called “developed” status coming from underdeveloped. all of those who did received a downpour of american taxpayer money.
...
I can't even make sense of this, what they're trying to say. It's too many layers.
If the US spent taxpayer money on developing other countries, is that not a good thing? I know they like to say "occupied Korea" so maybe they are pretending that South Korea is a nightmare and all the Koreans would rather it be free of the West or something, and so the influx of money was just a way to ruin everything.
I think the whole argument is so stupid that my brain can't properly absorb it. But I'm having trouble even understanding what they're saying is the problem or argument here. Capitalism cannot survive, so these massively successful capitalist countries have to shower down trillion-dollar-buckets-full of spare money down on other countries, which also then become developed into capitalist economies, which is proof that the whole thing can never work.
Got it. Perfect sense. I mean, there is a fair argument somewhere adjacent to that. Enacting "capitalism" isn't as simple as turning on a switch, it's intertwined with a lot of factors and often either needs help or is a fuckin' bumpy road. Also, the US often betrays smaller nations by visiting "capitalism" upon them which is basically a parasitism version where they get to compete in a free market to sell off their country's resources to wealthy nations, they get nothing, and any leader who doesn't want that gets a bullet in the head. Capitalism! Holding up South Korea as an example of when that happened kind of makes the whole example fall down though.
Also, if no capitalist country can get itself established without US taxpayer money, because it doesn't work anyway, where did the US or EU come from? Sprung from Zeus's forehead?
Conveniently leaves out Singapore which did indeed become a first world country using a capitalist model, albeit with a heavy-state influence.
And China.
I really need to do more reading on the history of Australia. I know there was mistreatment of indigenous people, and it was used as a penal colony of sort by Britain, but would they not also be an example of growth through capitalism. I don't remember much U.S. money flowing there, but maybe there was more than I remember.
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I'm actually not sure this is a good idea. I think you may just be helping the information embargo.
Usually, putting up walls to intercommunication benefits the oppressor. I think not posting new posts is a good thing... but I do think that a series of people making reasonable comments, and letting them freak out and pretend it is hostile Western propaganda and hand out bans, is extremely good for puncturing the narrative. I think it is underappreciated how cunning an illusion the triad instances are able to present to their users that their view is the majority view, and every little event where someone tries to pierce the narrative and then is hurriedly hushed up and hustled away tends to stick in at least a handful of people's minds as a data point to undo that illusion.
I do definitely agree with not giving them money. I actually just went and checked that the regular donation I used to make towards Lemmy development is shut off. If they want to be hostile and oppressive to users of non-censorship instances, do legwork for mass murder of various nations and ethnicities, and then turn around and ask people for free money at the same time, that's hilarious and yes no one should go along with it. If they change their mind and decide they're okay with accepting the social contract not to be cockheads to people, from their end, that'd be a cool day. I honestly do hope it happens someday. I think this week I will probably give some money to Ukraine, instead, in the meantime.
Perhaps calling for a boycott with the exception of countering their BS as desired would be better?
But they definitely are well on their way to that on their own with all their bans, I find it hilarious that the only crosspost of the donation threads that were all praise and positivity in the comments was the original one on .ml. That's a massive red flag if I ever saw one LMAO. All the others were, at best, .... controversial lol
When a bar permits dickheads to stay and harass other people, we boycott the bar. There are plenty of better places to hang out.
Perhaps calling for a boycott with the exception of countering their BS as desired would be better?
Yeah, that makes sense to me. It seems maybe a little bit mean-spirited, but so does killing Ukrainians, so whatever the fuck.
But they definitely are well on their way to that on their own with all their bans, I find it hilarious that the only crosspost of the donation threads that were all praise and positivity in the comments was the original one on .ml. That’s a massive red flag if I ever saw one LMAO. All the others were, at best, … controversial lol
I hadn't looked at them, I just checked them out. Yes they're hilarious lol. It kind of looks like maybe the donations went down since they started asking for donations? I noticed a steady flow of "That's a great idea! I just donated!" some of which came from accounts I had tentatively pegged as bullshit propaganda accounts... which itself suggests a fascinating theory which hadn't occurred to me until now. Regardless of that, Nutomic said it used to be €2,000 a week ago, and now Patreon is saying $1,345. There are other platforms (including Opencollective which apparently takes out 17% as transaction fees? WTF?) but it feels to me like Patreon would be the main one and the others would not add up to enough to equal €2,000. And I thought they had stopped getting anything from NLNet? IDK, maybe I am wrong. It definitely doesn't look like it's spiked back upwards.
I sort of am of two minds about it. On the one hand, what the fuck, I don't want to see anyone who is making "good thing" free software be hurting financially. At the end of the day, whatever their politics, I'm sitting here using Lemmy. But then, on the other hand, I cannot understand how they can't see the causal connection between "muahaha I delete your comments and Russia's the best and there's not a single fucking thing you can do about it, peasant, because you are not an admin and I am so fuck you" and "okey dokey I all of a sudden don't feel like giving you money anymore."
There's a massive difference between just having an unpopular view or one I think is wrong, and using your position of authority to demand and enforce that everyone else needs to also, and making no apology for randomly kicking them out or punishing them if they don't want that. I mean even supporting Russia, I think would give people pause about funding you. Doing that second thing is... I mean it sort of spells out to me that he aspires to be Reddit or Facebook and just fuck his users and do whatever he wants unapologetically, because it's his server, and he's just not in a position to do that yet, and that's the only reason he is not.
Maybe being faced with the clear consequences of how he has chosen to be, being forced to go out and get a job as a result, not having people just take care of him unconditionally no matter what, maturing a little, and reconsidering his strategy of treating users like morons and subjects will be the end result.
Maybe not.