I tried to copy it but interestingly the character limit here is less than reddit’s and it is a long post.
Basically most of it is arguing that a Trump win is better for anti-imperialists. A position I agree with. I think they present some compelling arguments.
short, what plagued the working classes of America the last years? Immigration, which lowered the wages in general, and the outsourcing of industry to China, which created unenployment in these regions.
I dunno, seems like a weird thing for a socialist to say.
The idea that imperialism is limited to open warfare would have Lenin spinning in his grave.
Under trump, is there like an executive order by which US capital conglomerates aren’t allowed to invest, source resources, or exploit labor internationally? They use the state to facilitate capital extraction from the “underdeveloped” nations in a variety of ways, not just through military occupations.
US capitalism can’t function without imperialism, and that’s true regardless of which ruling class representative runs the government.
The idea that imperialism is limited to open warfare would have Lenin spinning in his grave.
Fuck I’ve been saying that since forever but some parts of the sub have trouble accepting it sometimes…
But anyways, it’s not even like Trump is significantly less likely to start wars, coups etc. Like, did everyone just forget what almost happened with Iran? Or Venezuela?
Albanian-Bolshevik is a loon and his actual knowledge of European socialist movements could fit on a very, very tiny pamphlet.
That may be (I don’t know them) and I disagree with the idea that it’s permissible to vote for Trump but I’m curious if anyone has any substantive criticism of what they said which is far more interesting than who said it really. It was linked in another sub. Regardless of whether they’re European or not they made points regarding the US not Europe (and as an aside as I understand it the European communist movement has almost totally been overrun by Euro-communist types, I’m sure there are still principled ML parties but they’re not anywhere near the kind of power or numbers the collaborators have as I understand it, that isn’t to say the US is in a better position but still).
Also I must ding you for calling someone a loon without specifying why. Anyone can throw personal attacks. I could go around this website calling you a lunatic without cause. And I imagine many people get into petty fights that cause them to sour on someone and escalate their feud beyond reason. If someone is acting irresponsibly, if someone’s judgement is clouded by clear liberalism and they have a documented history of this or some other backwards tendency (supporting Pol Pot unironically would be one thing I could think of) then at least specifying in brief what their problem is would be helpful. I don’t need a detailed take-down, or even necessarily hard evidence, just stating what the nature of their problem is.
Their definition of fascism includes minority parties having power in a parliamentary system but a eugenics program is just dandy and doesn’t warrant mentioning. Also they spam their weird “here’s how european socialism works” rants everywhere on reddit, and they’re always filled with less information than you could get on 2 seconds on wikipedia and substantially more complete nonsense.
So I’m not going to read another long screed from them, especially one where the conclusion is “Akshually you should hope the fascist wins”.
Hmm. To be honest that sounds like an oversimplification of a real position. Still there are a lot of people with interesting thoughts on matters such as those so I guess I’ll keep a closer eye on any posts of theirs I see in future. That said this post of theirs doesn’t seem to have any glaring issues.
Well you don’t have to read it but I do think you are expressing your opinions from a place of liberalism and ignorance most likely. For example what makes you think Biden isn’t a fascist? Or for that matter that it matters if Trump is a fascist? Fascism is a a result of material conditions. Trump being a fascist has little bearing on whether mask-off, death camps and death squads fascism comes to the US. Fascism is capitalism, liberal capitalism in distress. It is a response to material conditions and Biden will not stop it nor will Trump spark it. Fascism is not stopped by “moderate” right liberals taking power. It wasn’t in Germany, it won’t be here. In fact when the chips are down they’ll collaborate with the fascists to destroy the left.
Let me tell you something about fascism. In many ways the US is fascist, if you’re black, if you’re indigenous, or if you live outside its borders in an area where it conducts imperialism. Yes mask off, 1939 style Nazi fascism with death camps and paramilitary death squads would be an absolute escalation against those marginalized groups but lets not pretend they’re not already subject to state sanctioned violence while liberals look on and yawn. And we have no way of knowing exactly how American fascism would unfold, it wouldn’t be the same as Germany. Another thing, for most Germans life during fascism before the war came to Germany wasn’t that bad. As long as you weren’t a socialist, a LGBTQ person, a Jew, and a few other groups your life went on as normal, as long as you could keep your head down things actually got a bit better for a while for you. It’s the same process in the US, it’s long been fine if you’re white, a liberal, have a moderately well paying job, adhere to certain cultural signifiers. One need look no further than the restrictions and state violence of the anti-communist witch hunts in the 50s to see the limits of so called freedom under liberalism. One need look no further than the modern prison industrial system, the treatment of migrant workers, ICE. One need look no further than the US incitement to murder in Indonesia against the communists there to see fascist terror in action. But as the economic inequality rises, as they can no longer or no longer wish to pay off a certain percent of the populace as labor aristocracy, then problems arise, labor movements, civil rights movements brew, people begin to believe they can afford revolution and then when the threat arrives at the gates of the capitalists, when the machinery they’ve constructed called electoral politics, called liberal democracy can no longer keep it in check with a nice mask on the face while it does so, then the gloves come off, then comes the real violence.
Because your “History lessons” on European socialist movements have less research put into them than the average reddit post, and when corrected you just don’t respond, your conclusions based on your complete lack of research are not congruent with what little facts you have managed to gain, and all the while you basically slander entire movements. And what’s really galling is that they could be improved a hundrethfold by like two seconds on wikipedia.
Yes, with this explanation of yours everything becomes clear! Thank you for showing me with facts and logic how bad i am.
a Trump win is better for anti-imperialists
I don’t buy it. Under Trump we’ve seen pretty much the exact level of Imperialist aggression that I would have expected under anybody else, the only meaningful pushback Trump made against the deep state in that respect was when he backed down on Iran. But there’s no reason to suspect a Democrat would have started a war with Iran instead, they would have pushed the exact same sanctioning regime that we’ve seen from the Trump admin.
Going forward, what do we expect from Biden that we wouldn’t expect from Trump? Would Trump say “no” if the Joint Chiefs or whoever came forward with a plan to coup Venezuela? If Bolivia nationalizes some foreign-owned capital in response to the coup, is there a scenario where Biden sanctions them in response and Trump doesn’t? Let’s not forget that the whole situation with Iran was the result of Trump tearing up a deal worked out under Obama, and that he also threw out the plan to normalize relations with Cuba.
The only arguments people have that Trump might be better on the imperialist front is that a) he’s personally friends with Putin etc, b) he’s too cowardly to start a war, and c) he puts incompetent people in charge and they bungle everything. The first one is bunk - he seemed to like Kim Jong Un at first too but turned on a dime when he sensed that saber rattling at the DPRK would play well to his base. The second one is as true of any Democrat as it is of Trump. and the third one isn’t real in the way you think it is - Trump didn’t appoint the guys who got caught trying to sneak into Venezuela any more than Kennedy appointed the guys who tried to invade the Bay of Pigs. If the deep state is incompetent then that is not a function of the person in the Oval Office.
I’m pulling a Reddit and didn’t read the article, but I do agree that Trump is better for anti-imperialists.
It’s not that Trump is sympathetic or isolationist, he’s just too fucking lazy to do imperialism. I think if Biden were president, we’d be at war with Iran and maybe Venezuela. Don’t know if Bolivia would have gotten the opportunity for an election after the coup.
The war/imperialism machine is mostly still operating on its own, but I think it’s just not able to do quite as much without an assist from the president. Trump simply doesn’t care about it more than he can get a good moment out of it. Like killing the Iranian general was supposed to be his Obama killing Bin Laden moment, but he wasn’t interested in following through to do a whole war.
Trump is worse for people domestically (but not by a huge margin) so this election comes down to do you make things worse for people in the world to make them marginally better for yourself or the other way around.
I think if Biden were president, we’d be at war with Iran
If Trump hadn’t gotten elected the Iran Nuclear Deal would probably still be followed, to protect the Dem legacy if nothing else. This is something that often gets ignored, it is the major reason that tensions are rising with Iran. While it wasn’t ideal, it was a step in the path of deescalation and lifted sanctions and the main players pushing for getting rid of it were Saudi Arabia and Israel, which should tell you all you need to know.
Trump simply doesn’t care about it more than he can get a good moment out of it. Like killing the Iranian general was supposed to be his Obama killing Bin Laden moment, but he wasn’t interested in following through to do a whole war.
Not like Obama invaded Pakistan after killing Bin Laden. Trump has drastically escalated drone warfare, which is something that also gets overlooked on here. Trump conducted more drone strikes in his first two years in office than Obama over his entire presidency.
Don’t know if Bolivia would have gotten the opportunity for an election after the coup.
We just going to ignore that the coup happened in the first place? When it comes to Latin America, there is a lot of hyping of what the dems would be able to do. Not saying that Biden would be markedly better, but there is an awful lot of downplaying of Trump.
I think it’s because a lot of how the Dems frame things is criticizing Trump for not being tough enough on Venezuela, Biden saying he would have bombed Iran after they retaliated to Trumps assassination(I might be pulling a dumb and confusing Iran and Syria), etc. They posture that he is not tough enough, implying that they would do more.
Bad things still happen under Trump, it’s not that he’s good, it’s just a lower priority for him than fucking over blue states and immigrants and enriching himself and his associates. I’m not super informed about this so willing to be wrong here, but I don’t know if we can say for sure that Trump expanded drone warfare more than another politician would have. Obama expanded it an unprecedented amount at the time and I think it’s entirely possible that we’re continuing on the same curve as the technology is “improved”.
The coup in Bolivia is something that would still happen if Hilary won. Maybe it would be someone a little less extremist than Áñez, but I think they’d have more of an interest in keeping the coup regime in power.
