“Communism bad”
“Why?”
200 year old tropes so ancient they were debunked by Marx himself
Of course, you go through the motions of explaining the most basic political concepts that could be grasped by skimming the cliff notes for literally any Marxist works
“Friedrich Engels? Is he like the president of Germany or something?”
It’s like a kindergartener trying to teach you calculus.
Okay first, calculus isn’t that hard (I get what you’re trying to say though). And—communism has never worked. Never. Not one time. Never. And, and, every time it doesn’t work (which again is every time), it’s always the same response: "oh that wasn’t ‘really’ communism.” Communism is the Star Citizen of economies.
“During the years of Stalin’s reign, the Soviet nation made dramatic gains in literacy, industrial wages, health care, and women’s rights. These accomplishments usually go unmentioned when the Stalinist era is discussed. To say that “socialism didn’t work” is to ignore that it did. In Eastern Europe, Russia, China, Mongolia, North Korea, and Cuba, revolutionary communism created a life for the mass of people that was far better than the wretched existence they had endured under feudal lords, military bosses, foreign colonizers, and Western capitalists. The end result was a dramatic improvement in the living conditions for hundreds of millions of people on a scale never before or since witnessed in history.”
Michael Parenti from Blackshirts and Reds, pages 84-85, I have provided a free PDF copy of the book so you can read it (we both know you wont).
and what’s astounding is that all of the aforementioned gains were made in the context of a world completely dominated by warring capitalist nation-states, which were doing everything in their power to strangulate communist movements through shear monopoly on violence.
You can look at any existing socialist country - if you don’t want to call them socialist, call them whatever you want. Post capitalist- whatever, I don’t care. Call them camels or window shades, it doesn’t matter as long as we know the countries we’re talking about. If you look at any one of those countries, you can evaluate them in several ways. One is comparing them to what they had before, and that to me is what’s very compelling. That’s what so compelling about Cuba, for instance. When I was in Cuba I was up in the Escambia, which is like the Appalachia of Cuba, very rugged mountains with people who were poor, or they were. And I said to this campesino, I said, “Do you like Fidel?” and he said “Si si, with all my soul.” I remember this gesture, with all our souls. I said “Why?” and he pointed to this clinic right up on the hill which we had visited. He said, “Look at that.” He said “Before the revolution, we never saw a doctor. If someone was seriously ill, it would take twenty people to carry that person, it’d go day and night. It would take two days to get to the hospital. First because it was far away and second because you couldn’t go straight, you couldn’t cross the latifundia lands, the boss would kill you. So, you had to go like this, and often when we got to the hospital, the person might be dead by the time we got there. Now we have this clinic up here with a full-time doctor. And today in Cuba when you become a doctor you got to spend two years out in the country, that’s your dedication to the people. And a dentist that comes one day a week. And for serious things, we’re not more than 20 minutes away from a larger hospital. That’s in the Escambia. So that’s freedom. We’re freer today, we have more life.” And I talked to a guy in Havana who says to me “All I used to see here in Havana, you call this drab and dull, we see it as a cleaner city. It’s true, the paint is peeling off the walls, but you don’t see kids begging in the streets anymore and you don’t see prostitutes.” Prostitution used to be one of the biggest industries. And today this man is going to night school. He said “I could read! I can read, do you know what it means to be able to read? Do you know what it means to be able not to read?” I remember when I gave my book to my father. I dedicated a book of mine to him, “Power and the Powerless” to my father, I said “To my father with my love,” I gave him a copy of the book, he opened it up and looked at it. He had only gone to the seventh grade, he was the son of an immigrant, a working-class Italian. He opens the book and he starts looking through it, and he gets misty-eyed, very misty-eyed. And I thought it was because he was so touched that his son had dedicated a book to him. That wasn’t the reason. He looks up to me and he says ‘I can’t read this, kid” I said “That’s okay dad, neither can the students, don’t worry about that. I mean I wrote it for you, it’s your book and you don’t have to read it. It’s a very complicated book, an academic book. He says, “I can’t read this book.” And the defeat. The defeat that man felt.
Hey look everybody it’s the guy OP was talking about in the post! You’d think reading the post would cause a flicker of self awareness and this dipshit would pause a second and think about how much they really know, but nope! right into the idiotic talking points lmfao!
Never. Not one time. Never
They even did the hilariously self-assured while being wrong thing!
it’s always the same response: "oh that wasn’t ‘really’ communism.” Communism is the Star Citizen of economies.
i didn’t realize the united states government was deliberately sabotaging star citizen
i didn’t realize the united states government was deliberately sabotaging star citizen
Shit! There goes my cover!
oh that wasn’t ‘really’ communism.
the only time in my life i have ever heard that phrase it was uttered by a liberal
also my 10 minute break is about up, someone else post the parenti quote about communism “not working”
It’s truly a marvel what communism can accomplish in terms of improved life-expectancy, rapid economic growth and industrialization, literacy, public health, housing, and economic equality when it “doesn’t work.”
now imagine if it did
no, but for real though, imagine if a socialist country could just exist without having to waste billions on guns
I mean that’s why a global and total radical reorganization of society is necessary to get beyond this trap. We have to resolve one of the fundamental contradictions of our current organization: that states that can exploit natural resources, other states, and their own populations can use the surplus gathered from that exploitation to impose their will and maintain their existence; while at the same time, this organization also necessarily contributes to its ultimate ruin, but it does mean that they are able to enforce that challengers also maintain a surplus put toward combating that will in order to resist domination - at least so long as the internal contradictions are kept at bay.
Anyway, we’ll either advance to a new organization of human beings with its own, new contradictions, or fall to permanent ruin. I doubt it will be very long now in the grand scheme of things.
Great job walking in here and saying word for word what we all expected you to say champ
The Soviet Union was real communism, the People’s Republic of China is real communism, the DPRK is real communism, Cuba is real communism, Vietnam is real communism
You’re such an expert that this is your first time speaking to actual communists
👏👏👏👏👏
Please come and share your expertise about the Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia
Despite being a hexbarista you went for the classical emoji option. I love you.