#Socialist States and the Environment

[probablyasocialecologist]

Urban food production in Havana and in Cuba is exceptional. Not only has it been reintroduced and supported by state institutions, but it is also integrated into wider agricultural planning, including peri-urban areas. This level of coordination is possible when the national state retains tenure over most land, private enterprise is restricted and profitability is subordinated to a primary directive of feeding people. Furthermore, the policies of the Cuban government over the previous decades have been crucial to establishing the research and extension structures, educational levels and skilling processes that became important in confronting the sudden economic downturn of the 1990s and promoting the development and implementation of technical innovations and improvements for urban farming. This is mainly through the above-described farmer-to-farmer movement coupled with specialised scientific institutes diffusing agroecological applications through ANAP. State institutions have played key roles in providing the inputs, material incentives and moral inducements (e.g. patriotism rhetoric) to diffuse agroecological and organic farming methods.

Salvatore Engel-Di Mauro, Socialist States and the Environment: Lessons for Eco-Socialist Futures

[harpuiaa]

death to america and to the west bloc if im being honest

[demento]

forgive me for not reading theory (send me a link or don’t complain) but why do so many leftists dislike the idea of tax ??

[tamamita]

why do zionists always assume its antisemitic to think that zionism a settler colonial idea

Modern Zionists aren't actually well-read into their own history. I could invoke the likes of Theodore Herlz, Ze'ev Jabotinsky, David Ben Gurion, and many other political Zionists and how they were ardent supporters of settler colonialism, yet it wouldn't get through their head, because they genuinely believe the land of Palestine is their right to claim, despite the people inhabitating the area. But to claim that the establishment of the Settler state was necessary due to antisemitism is not correct.

The pogrom of the Jewish people in the Pale of Settlement in Imperial Russia resulted in the mass displacement of Jews. But most Jews did not flee to Palestine, but to the US and Western Europe to live relatively better lives, due to the French revolution and so on. They had no desire whatsoever to move to Palestine due to its harsh climate and environment. Although the repression of Jews in the 19th century added to Zionism's appeal, Zionism did not emerge because of it as is often portrayed.

Jewish historian Michael Stanislawiski explains:

The first expression of this new ideology were published well before the spread of the new anti-semitic ideology and before the pogroms of the ealy 1880s. The fundamental cause of the emergence of modern Jewish nationalism was the rise, on the part of Jews themselves, of new ideologies that applied the basic tenets of modern nationalism to the Jews, and not a response to persecution.

-- Zionism, a short introduction (Stanislawski, 2017)

As was the case for that time, the doctrine of nationalism became prevalent across Europe. Many versions of it gained hold of European intellectuals and the upper-classes. One of these were ethnonationalism, which emphasised common ancestry. Such a view was popular among Germans, Hungarians, Russians, Poles and etc, who saw their "tribes" as being distinct, and therefore needed to be preserved from foreign threats. Zionism would mirror some of these aspects, which was prevalent in Eastern Europe. The founding father of Revisionist Zionism (and the precursor to the Likud party), Ze'ev Jabotinsky stated:

"The creation of a Jewish majority, was the fundamental aim of Zionism, the term "Jewish State", means a Jewish majority and Palestine will become a Jewish country at the moment when it has a Jewish majority".

-- Zionism, and the Arabs, 1882-1948 A study of ideology (Yosef Gorny, 1987)

However, there was another ideology emerging which was far more popular among the oppressed Jewish people, which would propell them to emancipate themselves where they lived. Revolutionary Socialism.

According Ilan Pappe, the doctrine of Zionism was vehemently opposed by Jewish leaders all around Europe on the basis of Talmudic violations, the rise of revolutionary socialism and the rise of Jewish assimilationism. Additionally, in a conference in Frankfurt, rabbis decided to omit the mentioning of "the return" from Jewish prayers as a reaction to Zionism. However, Zionism would face intense opposition from Socialist Jews, especially the Bundists, who openly declared Zionism to be anti-Socialist, opportunistic and reactionary. Zionism was an alien idea, and revolutionary socialism emphasised the importance of the liberation of Jews where they lived, resulting in an ideological feud between the Bundists and Political Zionists. Even the likes of the Chaim Weizmann, the first president of the Settler state, and David Ben Gurion, the first PM of the settler state, would condemn the Bundists for their opposition to Political Zionism.

[elbiotipo]

Ocassionally you see articles that are like "scientists are trying to hide how bad things are" and I'm the opposite of that. I've done my work on ecological restoration (actually grabbed a shovel and planted trees) and I'm amazed at how fast nature can restore itself. Ecologists used to think restoring tropical rainforests, to give an example of a complex ecosystem, would take centuries to go back if it was even possible -this is why you see all the dystopian fiction of rainforests going extinct- when in fact, it has been proven that without human pressure, ecological succession takes place and rainforests grow back nearly to its original physionomy in a few years, even if diversity does take a time to bounce back. Reintroducing animals might sound harder and it is, but we must remember that animals have faster cycles than humans. Just letting breeding pairs in protected areas is often enough for populations to grow back, as in the reintroduction of jaguars to Iberá in Corrientes Argentina, and many other cases. What is even more interesting and encouraging is how cheap, both in the monetary and the general effort sense, these works are. If a bunch of underpaid biologists, rural people and park rangers can do it, imagine if they had the full support and backing from states and international institutions.

We are at a stage where, besides climate change, we are facing tremendous biodiversity loss and this mostly comes to our methods of land use and food production. But these can be changed. We must assume the fact that nature is not a pristine untouched thing, but humans, in every continent they have lived in, have long managed its resources. The Amazon Rainforest is full of useful plants that hint at silviculture which is still done by its native peoples, the deserts and tundra that seem uninhabited have been home to pastoral and hunter-gatherer peoples. Humans have shaped all habitats on Earth, even the most 'untouched' ones. Just as they have managed their environments and natural resources, other civilizations have managed or mismanaged them. Now that industrial civilization has spread across the globe, we need to find a way to balance our need for food and other products with the need to preserve and take care of Earth. This can be done, we can ensure both a good quality of life and a protected biosphere. We can stop the dichotomy of humans separate from nature, assume our historical role as managers and stewards of natural resources, and do it with our modern understanding of ecology and science.

This does mean that it will take a lot of popular mobilization and change to uproot current interests and create states that uphold these principles. But I'm a marxist. I don't 'believe' in class struggle, I think it's a fact based on observations about society, and I also think that this current form of capitalism will eventually be replaced by socialism, and I believe the future socialist societies will not do the same mistakes as the past. We not only can create new societies that can take care of nature and the general welfare of people, but I also think that as history proceeds, it will be inevitable.

[girlactionfigure]

Antisemitism, an old saying goes, is the canary in the coal mine. The implication is that, when antisemitism is rising in a society, this is a telltale sign that said society is in decline. In many cases throughout history, this has very much been true. For example, the Nazis rose to power -- and later led their country into a suicidal war -- by mobilizing German society with inflammatory antisemitic rhetoric.

Nevertheless, I’ve always really hated the expression, not because it’s necessarily untrue, but because of the implication that what really makes antisemitism matter is that Jew-hatred eventually poisons everything and everyone else. I think antisemitism matters because Jews are human beings, and that should be enough for us to act decisively against it, not because antisemitism might, in the future, affect other groups of people.

Regardless, I do think that it’s important for people to understand why and how antisemitism eventually might affect them too.

ANTISEMITISM AS A SIGN OF SOCIETAL DECLINE

Which came first: the chicken or the egg? In other words, do societies decline because of antisemitism, or does antisemitism rise because societies are in decline? In my opinion, it’s a little bit of both.

First, it’s important to understand how antisemitism functions. Antisemitism is not only a bigotry, but a worldview that relies on conspiracies, scapegoating, and projection. When things are bad -- for instance, when a society is in disarray -- people need someone to blame. When a child went missing in the Middle Ages, who was at fault? Why, the Jews, of course. When as much as 30 to 60% of the European population died from the Black Death in the 14th century, who was to blame? The Jews. When Weimar Germany suffered from economic hardships, who else could be at fault but the Jews?

I personally noticed this phenomenon in real-time in 2020, following the murder of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter protests. Instead of holding American police to account for their police brutality, very quickly, antisemites swept in with the “Deadly Exchange” conspiracy theory, which absurdly posits that it’s the Jewish state that is at fault for police brutality in the United States (as though American police brutality didn’t exist before 1948!). In this sense, it’s obvious that antisemitism rises when societies are in strife.

On the other hand, pre-existing antisemitism will poison everything in a society. White supremacists and Islamic fundamentalist terrorist groups, for example, often recruit followers with antisemitic rhetoric, but their violence targets more than just Jews. It doesn’t take long for hostile antisemitic environments to become hostile to many other groups of people.

"FIRST THEY CAME FOR THE..."

Surely you’ve heard the famous Martin Niemöller poem: “First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.”

It is, perhaps, the quotation most often associated with the Holocaust and the Nazi persecution of Jews and political dissidents. And while Pastor Niemöller certainly had a point, the question bears repeating: why must others be targeted alongside Jews for antisemitism to matter? Shouldn’t antisemitism matter simply because Jews are human beings deserving of fundamental human rights and dignity?

As it turns out, Niemöller never quite got the memo. In the early 1930s, he not only openly agreed with Nazi ideology, but he voted the Nazis into power. His change of heart came not because he atoned for his antisemitism, but because he disliked how the Nazi Party was meddling with the Lutheran Church, which led to his eventual arrest. Even worse: after the Allied victory, he opposed the de-Nazification of Germany because he thought that it would “do more harm than good.”

In the end, it seems, for Niemöller, antisemitism only mattered when it affected him personally.

"FIRST THE SATURDAY PEOPLE, THEN THE SUNDAY PEOPLE"

The proverb “min sallaf es-sabt lāqā el-ḥadd qiddāmūh” — “after Saturday comes Sunday”— is used in many Middle Eastern countries, including Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon, to describe the treatment of Middle Eastern Jews and Christians. A popular variation is “first the Saturday people [Jews, who observe Shabbat on Saturday], then the Sunday people [Christians, who attend church on Sundays.” The idea is that what has been done to the Jews of the Middle East is now what is being done to Middle Eastern Christians.

The origins of the phrase, with this particular meaning, are contested, but some historians trace it back to the 1936-1939 Arab Revolt in Palestine and claim that it was coined by the followers of the Nazi collaborator Palestinian leader Haj Amin Al-Husseini. The phrase has also been attributed to the pro-Zionist Maronite Christians in Lebanon in the 1930s and 1940s. After the British authorities passed the 1939 White Paper, which virtually banned all Jewish immigration to and land purchases in Palestine, some Palestinian Arab Christians reportedly worried that they would be marginalized next.

In the 1940s and 1950s, virtually 100% of the Jewish population of the Middle East — which once numbered at around a million — was expelled from their homes in a series of systematic expulsions and massacres.  

Unfortunately, much as the proverb predicts, Middle Eastern Christians have suffered a similar fate. In 1900, Christians made up about 13% of the population of the Middle East. Today, Christians form only 4% of the Middle Eastern population.

Assyrian, Maronite, Coptic, and other Native Middle Eastern Christians have been driven out of their homes by Islamic fundamentalist violence, a recent example being the massacres and executions perpetrated by ISIS.

JIHADIST GROUPS

Like white supremacist groups, Islamist jihadist groups such as ISIS have historically used antisemitic rhetoric as a “gateway drug” for recruitment. For example, Damon Joseph, also known as Abdullah Ali Yusuf, was indicted by a federal court in late 2018 for providing material support to ISIS. After an investigation, it seems that Joseph had been radicalized within a matter of months, following his conversion to Islam. Joseph, however, had espoused antisemitic beliefs for years, and it seems that his pre-existing antisemitic worldview influenced his fundamentalist interpretation of Islam.

According to former CIA agent John Kiriakou, after the CIA captured Abu Zubaydah, who at the time was believed to be the number three in Al Qaeda, Abu Zubaydah said that he never hated America and only wanted to kill Jews and attack Israel.  

Similarly, in his 2002 “Letter to the American People,” in which he “explained” the 9/11 attacks, Al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden justified his terrorist acts on the basis that the United States is allied with Israel and Jews allegedly “control” the American government.

Since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas War, Jihadist groups have recruited lone wolf attackers in third countries by inciting against Israel.  

Hezbollah, which was formed to fight Israel’s existence, has now taken the lives of Syrians, Lebanese, Iranians, and much more.  

Antisemitism is closely linked to Islamist terrorism, even terrorism that doesn’t specifically target Jews, and it should be considered an international security threat.

WHITE SUPREMACY

Antisemitism is foundational to white supremacy, but it is not exclusive to white supremacy. White supremacy does not exist without antisemitism, but white supremacists don’t exclusively target Jews, and non-white supremacist ideologies can be antisemitic, too. In other words, all white supremacists are antisemitic, but not all antisemites are white supremacists, and white supremacists are bigoted toward many other groups of people, too.

Antisemitism plays a very specific function within white supremacy. White supremacists rely on antisemitism to (1) scapegoat, and (2) divide and conquer. For example, white supremacists believe that Jews are behind a supposed “white genocide,” aiming to replace white folks with Brown and Black folks. In other words, what starts with Jews doesn’t just end with Jews.

White supremacist groups often recruit online with antisemitic rhetoric, and many violent white supremacists were radicalized by consuming antisemitic content.

In the 1920s, the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan is tied directly to the 1913 lynching of Leo Frank, a Jewish American. The KKK then went on to terrorize Black Americans.

DOMESTIC TERRORISM, MASS SHOOTINGS

Many domestic terrorists and mass shooters have been radicalized through antisemitic rhetoric, even if their violence eventually targeted other people. Some examples include Nikolas Cruz, who murdered 17 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students and employees in 2018, and the perpetrators of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, which killed 168 people.

rootsmetals

you shouldn’t wait until antisemitism affects you personally to care, but antisemitism *will* affect you personally eventually, whether you’re Jewish or not.

For a full bibliography of my sources, please head over to my Instagram and  Patreon. 

[pumpacti0n]

We should always be aware that it isn't some innocent mistake that authoritarian "leftists" have constantly failed to acknowledge systems of power other than a vulgar "anti-capitalism" or "anti-imperialism", like they've carelessly left out an ingredient in a cake recipe.

"Whoops, we've acknowledged one abusive hierarchy, but the other ones slipped through our fingers, silly us!" Nope. The reason this analysis of power isn't included in their ideology and praxis is because they consider these hierarchies useful to their projects.

This is why they'll mock or ignore discourse related to youth liberation, disability justice, gender self-determination or anti-patriarchal struggle, for example, or engage in apologetics for capitalist regimes in other countries -- they want to "have their cake, and eat it too".

A key reason why "the left", as some might call it, is not as powerful as it could be isn't because of some lack of discipline (or "degeneracy"), but rather a lack of intersectionality, a criticism that many of those within the black radical tradition, (black feminists and transfeminists more specifically,) have been highlighting in one way or another for at least 50 years.

Authoritarian "leftists" don't want to sacrifice the power that these hierarchies afford them, which explains why they're largely not opposed to prisons, borders, police, the enforcement of gender roles and even capitalism itself, if it's under the purview of the "socialist" ("workers") state and its bureaucrats.

And this is why I keep putting "leftist" in quotes...We're not free until we're all free, so the implication that we should settle for addressing one or two systems of domination while allowing all the others to flourish until we address them in some vague point in the far future is a distortion of what truly radical liberatory politics should entail.

It's simply a myth that we can address capitalism while leaving racism, ableism and misogyny etc. intact, as if they aren't mutually reinforced by one another, as if fascists and reactionaries will forget that they exist once capital is abolished. This is a fantasy, a delusion.

Authcoms love to pose questions like "without a state to enforce class rule, how will the proletariat defend itself?" but a better question would be: "if we fail to acknowledge the hierarchies that atomize and disempower the masses, how could we ever be a threat to capitalists in the first place? how would abandoning the most vulnerable populations serve the interests of the "working class" and "anti-imperial" struggle?

For example, (cis) women make up approximately 50% of the world's population -- so if women are still subjugated by patriarchal rule and the gendered division of labor, how will we have the numbers to fight?

Similarly, a significant portion of the world's population are currently incarcerated. If we don't abolish prisons, allowing the State to continue extracting labor from prisoners and destabilizing untold millions of social relations in the process, how can we hope to match or exceed their powers?

If we do not challenge the capitalist, productivist logic of endless resource accumulation, with its constant pollution of the environment and the displacement and erasure of indigenous peoples and non-human animals, there will be no habitable planet left for us during this "revolution", because we will have destroyed all of it in the name of profit...so what would be the point?

These aren't minor concerns that we can put off indefinitely, and it isn't some innocent mistake that they are left out of the discourse, but are instead deliberate attempts to co-opt liberation struggle for the sake of advancing counter-revolution and authoritarian projects.

It's no wonder then, that they are eager to dismiss any criticism of their projects the result of "western propaganda", as if these same critiques aren't leveraged by very people belonging to populations they constantly tokenize whenever it suits their agenda.

They'd much rather treat every marginalized community as some monolith or as primitive victims in need of saving and representation by a vanguard. This chauvinist, colonial, assimilationist, antisocial attitude is endemic in (often white,) authoritarian circles, because it forms the basis of their position towards racial and gender hierarchies, that they are a natural and inevitable factor of organization itself. They are wrong.

In this sense, they aren't meaningfully different from the capitalists they pretend to hate so much. In truth, they are just jealous and greedy for more cake.

[drdemonprince]

One thing that pisses me off about the project 2025 discourse is how painfully obvious it is that these people aren’t in any kind of community with southerners because this shit has been happening on the state level for over a decade. I’m from Texas where there aren’t gubernatorial term limits and governor Abbott would 10000% be considered a far right dictator if Texas was its own country. And this is all without the delusion that the DNC gives a single fuck about us. Even when Abbott or one of these governors do something illegal (like take over one of the biggest school districts in the country HISD to basically crystallize the school to prison pipeline or withhold disaster relief funds from cities with dem mayors who don’t suck his dick hard enough) the DOJ will give them a slap on the wrist and nobody intervenes. And when they do it’s to dump millions to keep actual progressives from getting into office.

Southern leftists are some of the best organizers around, even on the fucking electoral level my congressman is a socialist and we have a bunch of mutual friends in the Texas leftist organizing scene. And yeah fuck electoralism but if Texas can elect pro Palestinian socialists what’s everyone else’s excuse to keep pushing this lesser evil bullshit. Making the reality of political tyranny but also razor sharp organizing totally disappear from conversations about project 2025 does everything to obscure the real political reality and potential of this country. We have people on the ground already dealing with the worst case scenario for everything: abortion, trans healthcare, trans panic, censorship, immigration human rights abuses, constant threats of mass deportation, incredibly dangerous prison conditions, climate change, unionizing in the most legally hostile environments in the country. Idk it’s like….i wish people could really grasp this. It’s already been here. And that sucks but it also means……….any person can get involved in the resistance infrastructure that already exists.

fucking YES!! I love you for this anon. Thanks for the message.

[ohnoitstbskyen]

The weirdest thing to me about League is that for some reason in a pool of amazing characters my brain latched into Lux of all people. Why? Who knows but I want her to leave Demacia and hunt down Nocturne and meet people who grew up with magic and accept her as she is and she learns through these experiences that she has to return home and really take a stand.

Why Lux. Why did it have to be Lux and not... idk Veigar or smth

Lux has a compelling story - not an especially original one, but a compelling one, built on compelling tropes.

She's this sheltered girl raised in privilege, who should have every reason in the world to simply embrace her fortune, go with the flow and live as her family wants her to. The Crownguards are more than capable of protecting her from the persecution that Demacia heaps on every other mage and magical creature, and more than happy to, so long as Lux lives up to the family name.

And yet... she can't do it. First of all, as she grows up, she becomes ever more sickly aware in her soul how inhuman the treatment of mages is under Demacian law, the brutality and oppression that is leveraged against them, all to prop up the legitimacy of the government. Second... she doesn't want to repress her magic. She has a light inside of her which is intrinsic to her being, a true and natural extension of who she is, how she exists in the world, and pushing it down and denying it is painful. She is full of curiosity about it, and eager to see what she can do with it, but she cannot be both a free mage and a Crownguard.

Lux is, in other words, a queer trans nonbinary lesbian genderqueer aroace gay gay gay homosexual gay. Or, to be less flippant, in her story magic is an extremely apt metaphor for queerness and how to navigate being queer in a bigoted environment.

It also works for other things, of course, there are other reasons to feel stifled and trapped by the rules and restrictions of society or by the demands of your family. Lux could also be a secret socialist, and the oppression of mages could reflect the way the bodies of the proletariat are abused to build capitalist state power - or you could read it as a theme of neurodivergency in a world that is still run on a lot of eugenicist logic. Although to be perfectly frank with you, if Lux is cishet, then I am a honey badger, her magic power is literally rainbow lasers.

So there are themes there, there are things to relate to, to hold on to, to be carried away by. There's a lot of great characters in League of Legends, all of which deserve better than to be owned by Riot Games, and Lux is one of them.

Also, her best friend is a building-sized himbo dragon statue which comes to life when she uses her magic around him and gives her friendly life advice while musing about how much he wants to punch kaiju in the face, which, like, I don't know how to NOT be charmed by that.

[komsomolka]

After the victory of the Red Army and its occupation of the eastern third of Germany, large landowners, mainly the ‘Junker’ class (the landed aristocracy that had traditionally been a pillar of support for German militarism), were expropriated and the land distributed to landless peasants and small farmers. In September 1947, the Soviet military administration announced the completion of agrarian reform throughout the Soviet zone. The report listed 12,355 estates, which had been seized and redistributed to 119,000 landless farmers, 83,000 refugee families, and some 300,000 agricultural labourers. But many new farmers soon found that the acreage of the individual pieces of land given to them through the land reform was not large enough to provide a decent living; and often the new farmers did not possess the expertise or the machinery to work the land efficiently. The government therefore supported the idea of co-operatives. [...]

One of the big advantages of agricultural co-ops was that individual farmers and labourers had, for the first time, a fixed working day, guaranteed holidays and the possibility of retirement without the worry of what would happen to the farm. The co-ops would organise the cultural life in the village, support its members in building homes and in gaining qualifications. It also provided childcare and holiday places. [...]

During the lifetime of the GDR the percentage of citizens living in the cities with over 100,000 inhabitants barely rose. The increasing use of technology and modern techniques on the farms also made the work more attractive to young people and helped retain them in the countryside. It is significant that the number of members in the co-ops increased over time because young people became members, no longer leaving at the first opportunity for the towns (in the 1980s, membership of co-ops increased by more than 10%).

It was also a fact that the per capita production figures of most co-operatives were better than those of individual farmers in the West. The co-operative principle, particularly in the agricultural sphere, demonstrated that it could offer a third way between the often barely economically viable family farms and industrialised farming, which has been responsible for the destruction of social structures and the rural environment in many countries.

After unification, when the whole economy was privatised at break-neck speed, the co-operatives came under enormous pressure. However, the main reason they could challenge the threatened expropriation was that the farm workers and not the state owned the land. This meant it could not legally be taken away from them and they could make their own decisions as to what to do with it. Because of their positive experience working in the co-operatives, the vast majority of farmers did not want a return to individual farming. However, the co-ops had to battle against discrimination anchored in Federal German law that favoured individual over collective ownership. In addition, they suddenly faced imposed fictitious debts that were near impossible to pay in the changed economic circumstances. As a result, many co-operatives were forced to give up. Today only a few survive and about 80% of the jobs in agriculture have been lost.

Stasi State or Socialist Paradise? The German Democratic Republic and What Became of It by Bruni de la Motte & John Green with Seumas Milne (Contributor), 2015.

[left-reminders]

(Below are broad vibes for each of the numbers. They are not meant to represent every opinion one could have within those parameters. Some aspects of the description may apply to you while others won't. If you picked a number with a description that doesn't match your perspective, let us know what your actual perspective is in a reblog comment! Comments in general are nice too, of course 👍)

(You also might notice a bias in favor of 5; or at least a far deeper description of what it would entail when compared against the other four. This is partly just because I wanted to soapbox, but I hope it doesn't detract. I genuinely want to hear the perspectives of the 1s, 2s, and 3s, if you're out there and don't appreciate my potential oversimplification!)

1 — It does not factor in at all. Much of the discourse around green politics is a liberal distraction and/or a roadblock holding us back from organizing for socialism. Economic development and human concerns will always matter more. Capitalism was a necessary/justifiable component in the march of history towards socialism, even if it did have certain negative impacts on the environment. The ideal society looks like Star Trek or fully-automated luxury communism (FALC) — one where we overcome "the state of nature" and become masters of our own fate.

2 — It doesn't factor in much, even if I may recognize the reality of climate change and/or the need for environmental protections. We can solve the biggest climate problems with advancements in green technology or perhaps expanding resource frontiers into outer space. In general, other social issues take priority when building socialism.

3 — I care about combating climate change and solving ecological problems, but I find other issues to be more important in my life and I will leave most discussion of it to people more knowledgeable on the subject. The world could be doing far better on these issues and changes are needed, but most of the modern civilizational infrastructure should remain unchanged (albeit organized under a socialist mode of production).

4 — It is very important to my politics. We can balance socialistic technological development with the dire needs of a planet in crisis. Certain human activities and production methods will have to be curbed or eliminated entirely if we are to find this balance (fossil fuels, widget production, private jets, etc), while others will have to be uplifted (renewable energy, public transportation, shared living, etc). Modern civilization is ultimately redeemable, but it needs to undergo a radical transformation.

5 — It is among the most important factors in my politics. I take influence from eco-socialism, social ecology, degrowth, post-civ, anti-civ, deep ecology, or any number of other political perspectives which are ecologically-focused. Locally-organized economies; drastic reductions in working hours and energy throughput; rewilding of the land; emphasis on non-consumptive forms of leisure; an end to consumerism, growth-based economic metrics, and imperial conceptions of "development"; agroecology and polyculture as core methods for obtaining food; and a vast deconstruction of much of the civilizational edifice are all pieces to this puzzle and are required if we are going to have a habitable planet for the generations to come. The ideal society looks like a Miyazaki film, that yogurt commercial, or lightly-automated comfortable ecological socialism (LACES) — one where we "don't seek to become larger within socialism, but rather more realized" (Joel Kovel).

[probablyasocialecologist]

During the socialist state period in Hungary, for example, widespread soil acidification problems are traceable to heavy use of agrochemicals, like ammoniacal nitrate, but the problem could have been averted or at least reduced by refraining from producing the likes of sausages, fruits and vegetables for Western markets, especially West Germany and Austria, to fulfil loan repayment schedules imposed by Western financial institutions. In effect, the more an economy is integrated with international capital flows, the higher the ecological footprint. Accordingly, China, as a country embodying the main contradictions of the world capitalist economy, should be expected to have a worsening environmental record. As Peters et al. have shown, the wealthiest countries (largely liberal democracies) can overconsume fossil fuels and spew out the most greenhouse gases by appropriating natural wealth (e.g. fossil fuels) from the rest of the world, where there is chronic underconsumption relative to fossil fuel production.

Salvatore Engel-Di Mauro, Socialist States and the Environment: Lessons for Eco-Socialist Futures

[apas-95]

Are you actually a Stalinist? What the hell

'Stalinism' isn't an ideology.

I'm a Marxist, given the proven correctness of Marx's scientific analysis of society - which is to say dialectical, historical materialism. Further, a Marxist-Leninist, given Lenin's contributions to socialist theory in the age of imperialism - contributions proven valid in practice by the formation of the first socialist state. In analysing said socialist state, it's apparent that it vastly improved the quality of life - the longevity, nutrition, and education - of millions upon millions of people. It was instrumental in the defeat of fascism in Europe, and its eventual destruction brought about mass starvation, impoverishment, and brutal wars between formerly fraternal nations.

It wasn't perfect - because it was a real, historical thing made up of real people in a real environment, not some utopian thought experiment. It had errors in its handling of some issues, and in its entire conception of others. But it was vastly better than the foundation it was building off, and a massive improvement over its surroundings. None of the contenders to 'Stalinism' have done so. Trotskyism and its ilk managed to produce only millions of newspapers, and promptly disappears from relevancy once its job, of establishing 'left' support for the impoverishment and exploitation of post-socialist peoples, is completed. Various anarchisms have failed to maintain themselves for any longer than a couple years, even with outside support, and still managed to commit the very atrocities and banditry they claimed to prevent.

This isn't really a question anywhere else in the world but the imperial core. Being a communist means being a Marxist-Leninist and appreciating the successes of the Soviet Union, which were primary, along with its errors, which were secondary. It's perfectly common to despise that, but I'd implore you just accurately accept yourself as being an anti-communist, rather than couching your opposition around some nonexistent strain of communism you posit as opposed to true leftism.

But, hey, if it separates the wheat from the chaff, then sure, I'm a 'Stalinist', whatever that means.

[reasonsforhope]

"After its first-ever left-wing presidential administration took charge of negotiating permanent peace with the socialist FARC rebels, Colombia’s forests are feeling the effects with a 26% reduction in deforestation in the conflict areas.

These dense, biodiverse rainforests that are a part of the Amazon in places, and independent of it in others, have been one of the many victims of the country’s civil war.

However, President Gustavo Petro is conducting peace negotiations that put the environment first with around 20 splinter factions of the FARC guerillas, who have responded positively.

De-facto leadership in the conflict areas in the forested state of Gauviare has instituted its own deforestation moratorium, and an estimated 50,000 hectares of rainforest have been saved as a result.

“This is really dramatic,” conservationist Rodrigo Botero told The Guardian. “It’s the highest reduction in deforestation and forest fires that there has been in two decades.”

The Guardian recently covered these peace negotiations alongside a delegation from Norway which included that country’s environment minister, Espen Barth Eide.

“What I’m hearing, seeing, and feeling in these meetings is that there is an enhanced understanding that you cannot build a new Colombia on the basis of the further deterioration of nature, so you have to find an economic, social, political, inclusive process that is more respectful towards nature than before,” Barth told the English paper.

Often flying under the radar when compared to its neighbor Brazil, Colombia is the second-most biodiverse country on Earth, and the most biodiverse in terms of bird life.

It’s the 25th-highest country in the world for Forest Integrity Index score (8.26) and boasts twice as many square miles of highly-intact forest than of poorly-intact forest, almost all of which resides in the conflicted states of Amazonia, Caquetá, and Putumayo.

If the Petro government can really put the brakes on the conversion of forests into pastureland for cattle, it would be helping to save one of the most valuable tropical forest ecosystems on Earth."

-via Good News Network, 7/14/23

[lercymoth]

I'm watching the State of the Union and I'm reminded why no matter what, we won't have justice as long as we have representative democracy. Biden just claimed "I will not rest until we rescue all the hostages held by Gaza" and then realized it was bad press to not be against the Palestinian genocide and then immediately started stating he wanted a ceasefire and wanted innocent Palestinians to be protected, and THEN stated he sided with Israel.

Typical politician... Just say the words people want to hear about the issues they care about just to get votes so you can stay in power. Politicians don't, won't, and never will care about what we want except for how it relates to them.

As long as we let them have power over us, we will never have power over what atrocities they will support and enable, both on our own land, and all over the world. The US government won't stop destroying the environment and keeping us in poverty if we ask them politely to stop. They won't dismantle a police system built on favoring police officers and the incarceration and execution of innocent people, they won't give stolen land back, they won't completely outlaw slavery or dismantle the numerous eugenics laws towards disabled people that still exist. They won't be against genocide, even when it's actively happening.

And even if they do, it'll be a means to an end. It'll be a distraction. They'll just be dangling it in front of our faces saying "Look! We did what you wanted! We're on your side! We totally care about social justice!"

Although I dont want to, I'm voting for Biden just so Trump doesn't become president. But mark my words, whats stopping the next democratic president from doing stuff like Joe Biden did? Lying to us about caring about justice, just saying what we want to hear? And even if we vote, say, a socialist president, whats stopping them from doing the same thing?

I dont know what we do about this, but when the time comes, we need to organize on a large scale and do SOMETHING. I dont know what or how, but we need to change something, and not be okay with system where people in power make the big choices for us, and we just hope they do what we want with not a care in the world about injustice.

[morbidology]

The day before the murder of Jeff Hall, his ten-year-old son, Joseph Hall, proudly displayed a leather belt adorned with an SS emblem to a visitor, stating, "Look what my dad got me." Little did anyone know at that moment that Joseph would be responsible for his father's death the following day.

Jeff dedicated his life to the National Socialist Movement, the nation's largest neo-Nazi party, leading a chapter in Riverside, California. Expressing extremist views, he advocated for a white society, secession, and openly blamed Jews and minorities for his employment challenges despite an economic downturn in the construction industry.

Growing up in an environment of hatred and abuse, it's not surprising that 10-year-old Joseph exhibited volatile behavior. He assaulted his elementary school teachers, embraced white supremacist beliefs, and faced expulsions from several schools. Homeschooled by his racist father, Joseph attended monthly gatherings at home that mixed Nazi propaganda with peculiar party games, witnessing his father impart lessons from "Mein Kampf" and boasting about teaching him to handle firearms.

On May 1, 2011, Joseph retrieved a .357 revolver and fatally shot his father as he slept on the couch. When the police arrived, Jeff was already deceased. Joseph claimed he acted in self-defense, alleging his father's threat to remove fire alarms and set the house ablaze while the family slept. He also expressed frustration with enduring beatings from his father. During the trial, Joseph's defense argued that he was a victim of his father's racist beliefs and abusive upbringing, with his stepmother testifying to frequent beatings over minor issues.

Joseph was found responsible for his father's murder and was confined to a juvenile detention center, eligible for parole at 20 years old. The conviction sparked controversy, with advocates questioning whether a 10-year-old could fully comprehend the consequences of his actions, especially during police interrogations. Despite the grim circumstances, reports from the juvenile detention center indicate that Joseph has made substantial progress through attending classes and therapy.

Remarkably, even the prosecutor who secured his conviction expressed an unexpected attachment, acknowledging Joseph's adherence to rules, expectations, and dignified treatment in the detention center.