Life and Terror in Stalin’s Russia is a great book that goes into this, a lot of the terror during that period was not Stalin personally going around and shooting every peasant who had more than 5 rubles to his name (during the rare moments he wasn’t personally eating everyone’s grain). Rather it was the people using the new system to settle old scores or for personal advancement.
The book doesn’t cover the period between 1917 and 1923, or the Hundred Flowers Campaign in China, but you can see similar sentiment in transcripts and letters when Lenin, Mao, et al look at how many people had gotten into the party entirely for the purpose of abusing their positions for personal gain.
At a very general level, we can infer any socialist country is more democratic after the revolution based on the fact that the government pursues the interests of the people more than it did before the revolution.
In Cuba for instance, their last constitutional referendum had a 90% approval rating. Do you think that happened by chance, or that you are simply unaware of/trained not to recognize how the people determine the actions of the state?
No, such a system already existed, evidenced by the famines, massacres, etc that happened almost yearly in China and Russia before the revolutions.
What I’m getting at is that while the post-revolution states weren’t utopias, they were far better than what came before. Telling people otherwise only serves to prolong the status quo.
Also they kinda did have a government ready to go in the case of the USSR, the Soviets.
simultaneously shutting down the mechanisms by which workers could have power over their own lives
Except they had and used those mechanisms, as evidenced by the massive improvements to the average person’s lives after the revolution.
the absurd strawman that people think he did anything personally
Apologies, typically when I see people doing anti-communism use the term dictatorial, they mean a single person exercising absolute power. Though I don’t understand why you’d consider a dictatorship of the working class “hell”.
The way they feed you information is patronizingly slow, and while I’m not expecting a widely cited academic paper published in a reputable journal, Youtube essays are one step below shitposts on internet forums in trustworthiness and academic rigor.
The president’s son is currently standing trial on three felony gun charges that could carry a sentence of up to 25 years in jail if he is found guilty....
FDR was at least smart enough to buy guillotine insurance in the form of social democracy in response to unrest, Biden’s response to 2020 was “fund the police”, followed by ending the “pandemic” anti-poverty measures.
Actions such as ending testing, the eviction moratorium, stimulus checks, free vaccinations, the expanded child tax credit, etc?
Trump fucked up covid by promoting ending testing, reducing the quarantine time, and pretending it was over, all of which Biden proceeded to do. Bad things don’t become good when team blue does it.
Well if they can’t convince the billionaire, maybe she can convince whoever inherits the billionaire’s ownership. If not, there’s always the next in line.
There’s also a bigger picture with Tank Man, that shows the mostly empty square the tanks were leaving, with a handful of soldiers and bikes.
And a bunch of other photos showing the battle that took place in the surrounding streets, with cops that had been lynched and burned and protesters gunned down.
The evidence disproves the western narrative of tanks machine-gunning protesters inside the square, then liquefying bodies, that were then burnt and washed down the drain (and getting stopped by Tank Man on the way out).
That’s not to say the Chinese claims should be taken at face value, but nothing I’ve seen contradicts their claim of 300 dead and several thousand wounded.
I know this seems like needless cruelty towards the most marginalized people in our society, but think about it this way:
If Biden accomplishes the republican agenda better than Trump, that means moderate republicans will vote Biden. And everyone on the left has to vote Biden anyway. This is why Biden has the highest approval rating ever.
It’s crazy how the president can get around congress whenever they want to, but only to do bad things.
Edit: In case anyone didn’t get the sarcasm, moderate republicans will never vote for diet-fascism when they can have the real thing, and carrying out the republican agenda just makes your base stay home, since the only argument that can be made is “Well Trump might do the same thing but worse”. This is both cruel and dumb.
So they were choosing between the governor who privatized the power grid and supports statehood vs a “small government, pro-business, pro-statehood conservative”.
Really seems like they’re just gonna continue to get fucked.
Liberal media, the guys who trick you every week into thinking Biden wants to stop doing <unambiguously evil thing>, he’s just unable to, or actually it’s electorally unpopular not to facilitate genocide, build Trump’s wall, continue locking immigrants in camps, send bombs to Ukraine/Taiwan/Saudi Arabia, sanction Cuba, or increase the tariff on EVs and solar panels.
These things didn’t stop being bad when team blue started doing them instead of Trump.
The president of the United States does not have the power to control another country
The US literally gives Israel the bombs they drop on Gaza, the direct military support that stops neighboring countries from helping, and the diplomatic support that prevents Israel from being more economically isolated than North Korea.
And all three of these things are within the purview of the executive.
Over 90 percent of Jewish Israelis believe Operation Protective Edge is justified, with less than 4% saying they think Israeli has used excessive firepower against targets in the Gaza Strip
With regard to the prospect of a ceasefire, about 80% of respondents voiced their opposition to a unilateral Israeli ceasefire lasting 48 hours and continuing for a longer period of time if rocket fire stops. Most — about 65% — also said they would not support an immediate ceasefire in order to discuss terms for a longer-term truce. Most participants, just over 60%, said they would agree to a ceasefire only if an agreement were reached on conditions for sustaining quiet on the Gaza border.
“A quiet gaza border” means they want to return to the pre-Oct 7th siege of Gaza. These people are not left, they just want the eradication of the Palestinian people to happen quietly and politely.
This meme was inspired by the response to a meme I posted on r/worldjerking (slrpnk.net)
cross-posted from: slrpnk.net/post/10351845...
Biden rules out pardon for son Hunter (www.axios.com)
The president’s son is currently standing trial on three felony gun charges that could carry a sentence of up to 25 years in jail if he is found guilty....
Climate crisis with Poison Ivy
Source
Tokyo Govt To Launch Dating App To Boost Birth Rate (www.ibtimes.co.uk)
Users will be required to submit documentation proving they are legally single and sign a letter stating they are willing to get married.
deleted_by_moderator
this won't end well (lemy.lol)
Even worse is when OP on the nine year old thread with the exact same technical problem announces “Solved!” without elaborating
Toyota apologizes for cheating on vehicle testing and halts production of three models (apnews.com)
Electric Cars Are Suddenly Becoming Affordable (www.nytimes.com)
One more day (lemmy.world)
Author.
Biden is said to be finalizing plans for migrant limits as part of a US-Mexico border clampdown (apnews.com)
Archived at web.archive.org/…/biden-immigration-border-crackd…
Puerto Rico Gov. Pedro Pierluisi concedes defeat in surprise primary upset by Jenniffer González (apnews.com)
US has 'every expectation' Israel will accept ceasefire proposal (www.bbc.com)
MAGA then vs now. (sopuli.xyz)