#state socialism

[probablyasocialecologist]

A system prioritising the overcoming of low levels of material wellbeing and productivity levels, and usually coming out of peasant patriarchal societies and often also colonial oppression (among other major disadvantages), all the while being militarily invaded and/or besieged, creates conditions not exactly conducive to the development of egalitarian social structures and environmentally constructive impacts. In these historical conditions it is a marvel that there were any successes in improving standards of living, raising environmental standards, engaging in reforestation, reducing or preventing waste, pre-empting consumerism, developing recycling programmes and attaining high volumes of recycling, improving access to education, providing free and universal health care, guaranteeing full employment and job security and even setting up lasting conservation areas, among other major feats. Add to this the development of cutting-edge social practices and policies like gender parity efforts in Burkina Faso, reconciliation and pacification methods (even if fraught with violence) in Mozambique, revolutionary applications of agronomy in Guinea Bissau and the Cabo Verde Islands and world-renowned successes in space, biomedical, health, conservation, engineering, ecology and biotechnology research and applications in the USSR, Cuba and the PRC, and the record is even more impressive.

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

[pumpacti0n]

"However, it is not just the U.S. imperialists who are the enemy of the people of the world (even if they are at present the strongest and most vicious enemy); all imperialist countries are the enemy of the people, and all of them must be opposed. The entire imperialist system must be opposed and overthrown! And opposing imperialism should never come to mean supporting local tyrants and local enemies of the people, who, after all, were usually set up as imperialist lackeys and agents in the first place!"

Is China An Imperialist Country? | 3. Is the U.S. the “only” imperialist country or is there an imperialist system? - N.B. Turner

[bluepecanpie]

as a retrospective, occupy wall street was the endpoint of the kind of ‘horizontalist’ politics that was popularized with the anti-globalization movement. the involvement of adbusters in establishing the initial ows is more than enough to show us how direct this influence is. underpinning the anti-globalization movement in the global north was a reliance on the framework consecrated by liberalism, and idealist notions that democracy had been distorted from its optimal function by the presence of trans-national corporations bypassing the power of the state. the idea that in the first instance, the state is an instrument of class power - specifically the power of the bourgeoisie, in the capitalist epoch.

occupy’s failure, is the shared failure of that anti-globalization movement, and in between - that of the arab spring, which had seemingly exhausted imagination for another kind of social modality other than one informed by neoliberalism - islamist or not. even the anti-globalization movement came to fore as a sort of post-cold war rebuke of state socialism and the vanguardist politics used to set it up, only to fumble once confronted with the hard power of the state and especially great power conflicts - in a way that ‘actual existing socialist’ states could not do. the occupy movement also forgoed the kind of deep organising that could actually build class consciousness and galvanise the working class into making demands.

i’m not saying that the occupy movement was bad, or counterproductive: it politicized a generation of people, and broke out of this anhedonic, apathetic morose typical of atomised subjects under neoliberalism. I’m just saying that it was no threat to the ruling class, to any corporations, to anyone wearing the robes of institutional power. pro-ows assessment would rather we think how well ows spread and that was the real victory, like there wasn’t a demand for the neoliberal epoch - whether it was explicity stated or otherwise.

[troythecatfish]

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

Glinda really had an entire musical number expounding on the theme of "success in life is not about being highly qualified or even competent, but manipulating people's superficial perception of you." and then she went into POLITICS. truly the #girlboss representation the world has earned

[fresh-snow]

[muffinlevelchicanery]

[genuinelyshallow]

We will not forget those who supported Palestine. You are in our prayers❤️

[mysharona1987]

The most haunting YouTube comment I have ever seen.

[read-marx-and-lenin]

[Link to tweet]

[totallynotcensorship]

GREAT NEWS

turkey halted trade with israel.

for context: trade between the two was worth 6.8 Billion dollars in 2023

KEEP SPEAKING, KEEP PROTESTING. push for your government to also cut ties with israel. this is what we need

[probablyasocialecologist]

All state-socialist countries faced externally imposed challenges, while tackling internal strife and attempting to bring about major social change towards equality in often oppressive patriarchal peasant or pastoralist systems. The horrific tragedies and, in some cases (especially the USSR under Stalin), mass killings and grinding political repression are unjustifiable, but the larger context must also be understood to see what needs to be done to avoid those horrors in future. Some state-socialist systems emerged through the establishment of political independence after protracted war but were then trapped in neocolonial dependence and interventionist pressures from former colonial powers, such that building self-sufficiency was stymied, and even more any chances for industrialisation (e.g. Burkina Faso, Congo, Ethiopia, Madagascar). Some extricated themselves from a neocolonial or colonial dictatorship and started substantive independence under terrible social conditions (e.g. Cuba, Mongolia), if not absolutely devastated environmental circumstances (e.g. Kampuchea, Laos, North Korea, Vietnam). There were thus intense pressures to parry from capitalist countries. Rapid industrialisation or the promotion of self-sufficiency was eminently reasonable, given the experience of military invasions from liberal democracies and other capitalist powers, along with military encirclement and constant threats after repelling those invasions. In some cases, foreign powers and internal enemies waged all-out war from independence onwards, such that any effective implementation of socialist policies was altogether precluded (e.g. Angola, Mozambique). Briefly put, socialist states existed under a state of siege from their inception.

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

[pumpacti0n]

"(Anarchist) Economic policy, like all policy, is crafted by the entire community in face-to-face relationships working towards the common good. This turns the economy into an aspect of public affairs, which means it cannot become the self-serving enterprise that it is under capitalism and even under communism as state control of the economy inevitably tends toward its working for the State itself rather than for the people."

"Jesus And The Abolitionists", Terry J. Stokes

[technofeudalism]

every single comment on this post has been nuked by reddit.

per what reddit mods have said, they are apparently cracking down on anything glorifying Luigi Mangione or "promoting violence".

so we're absolutely clear on reddit's opinion of "promoting violence":

r/CombatFootage, which regularly shares high definition, extremely graphic war footage, including drones dropping grenades on prone soldiers in Ukraine/Russia and people having limbs being blown off by explosions, has 1,761,375 subscribers. It is one of the top 500 subreddits by subscribers and in the Top 60 NSFW subreddits.

The Columbine Shooters have a subreddit for discussing the Columbine Killers and their families with over 33,000 members. It has been active since May 5th, 2020.

The Sandy Hook shooter has a subreddit dedicated to discussing him with 3,551 members. Here are some of the posts, in addition to pictures of him as a child. It has been active since December 3rd, 2021. he is also described by a mod of the subreddit as "not a pedophile, but an ephebophile."

The Pennsylvania Weis Markets shooter has a subreddit dedicated to discussing him with 500~ members. It has been active since April 15th, 2022.

The Apalachee High School shooter has a subreddit dedicated to discussing him with 260~ users. It was created the day of the shooting, September 4th, 2024.

if you dig through the frequent contributors to these subreddits, you will find that the vast amount of crossover from the users occurs in communities such as r/teenagers, r/highschool, r/roblox and a wide variety of subreddits dedicated to self harm, severe mental health struggles and other mass killers or topics related to them. totally normal stuff that reddit allows.

this is without seeking out all of the alt-right rat nests that have buried themselves underneath somewhat innocuous-looking community names pushing dog whistles and avoiding overt calls for violence.

every last one of these social media platforms, including the one that we are on, overtly allows glorification and deification of the most notorious, mentally unwell, violent, extremist mass killers in modern history. but if you show any kind of approval of what Luigi Mangione is accused of doing, you are censored not in days, but hours.

i sincerely hope this opens the eyes of people who previously didn't see the forest for the trees. this is what is meant by “they got you fighting a culture war to stop you fighting a class war.” not that our cultures aren't significant or that we don't have differences, but that ultimately, the divide among us lies in wealth, not in skin color.

as long as the "poors" are killing each other, there's no reason for alarm or concern. it's only when the roles are reversed that we see action taken or examples made of people like Luigi Mangione.

[troythecatfish]

This measure, if passed in Senate, would make it illegal for the US State Department to cite genocide statistics.

In other words, illegal to do its job.

[enjymemink]

Thank you Yemen 🇾🇪

Despite being one of the poorest countries in the world, they showed more empathy than those so-called civilized developed countries.