this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2024
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Kinda disingenuous to blame the democrats when the system has been flawed for decades and should've been fixed a long time ago. Democrats are to blame, republicans are to blame and Americans in general are to blame for their shitty political system.
Capitalism is to blame, not the American people. The Political Parties ultimately gain influence and power by courting the ruling class to secure funding, thus it is unreasonable to expect either the Democrats or the Republicans to actually represent the will of the people.
Except European countries don't have the exact same problem that the US has, which mean that specific issue isn't caused by capitalism.
They have similar problems, resulting from Capitalism, but of course having a different electoral structure results in different issues. That doesn't mean their issues don't also stem from Capitalism, it's Capitalism with a different structure.
At the end of the day, a wildfire in a forest and a wildfire in a prairie face different issues still caused by wildfire.
So in a socialist country this could never happen?
Socialist countries face different issues that are not the result of Capitalism.
States ultimately serve the class in power, if the class in power is the Proletariat, then the majority is in power. If the class in power is the Bourgeoisie, then the minority is in power.
In any system where a small group of people control the vast majority of wealth, resources, and Capital, the dominant political parties will court these people and represent their interests over the people that do not control the majority of wealth, resources, and Capital.
We have historical example of the USSR where despite being a "socialist" country it was a one party system that did not represent everyone.
You can do socialism and still get the politics wrong. That means capitalism or socialism is not the cause of every political problem. The same problem with the US can still happen even if the US was a socialist country. Similarly you can be a capitalist country and not have the problem US has, because the problem in the US is how the political system is built up not how capitalists use the system to their benefit.
Having one party isn't necessarily worse than having 2, what matters is how accountable the parties you have are. The USSR was corrupt, but still had democratic measures in place.
The same problem the US faces, ie the 2 dominant parties representing the Capitalist class that weilds an incredibly outsized amount of power, would not exist in a Socialist country where Capitalists are suppressed or even nonexistant.
The dominant class will use power to influence the state regardless of form the state takes.
Though it pretty much universally is.
I was unaware that being incarcerated in Siberia for disagreeing with the party was a democratic accountability measure.
The overall view of Soviet Russia is interesting. Socially, economically. Politically however, they're as bad or worse than the capitalists they hate. Power corrupts. And yet people keep repeating their mistakes. Outlawing and squashing dissent, concentrating power and wealth at the top. Throwing a few scraps to the proletariat till the parties mistakes come home to roost. Then the wheels fall off. Those in the party and upper ranks refuse to sacrifice. Instead grinding the proletariat in to dust and disillusionment. It's happened to every time with that style of government everywhere has ever been tried.
I think the only remote exception to that being cuba. But that's largely because of its isolation and rather small size.
When the Kim family or Xi start holding elections. Maybe then we might actually believe there's any democracy. When the party leaders and the upper party echelon start living in the same block houses and paying themselves the same wage as the average citizen. Maybe then we might believe the rhetoric is anything more than empty and meaningless. Only meant to pacify the proletariat as long as possible.
When you have good policy there's no need for crushing social oppression or outlawing other parties. Nor is there any need for armies, guns, or tanks to convince people.
It is not "universally" better. If the 2 parties in question encompass a smaller scope of ideas and democratic participation than a larger single party, then the one party system is more democratic. Party isn't synonymous with ideology.
Overall, I think you have a pretty myopic view of how foreign countries are run or were run, and encourage you to read up some more.
That's a great hypothetically you got there. Sad that it's never actually worked out in real life.
What democratic measures USSR had in place?
And what would've prevented USSR from creating a second party, similarly to the US, to make it seem like the communist party was what people wanted?
You can read up on Soviet Democracy on Wikipedia. I believe counter-revolutionary parties were outlawed, but given that they still liberalized, it can be seen that it wasn't an inflexible, unchanging monolith.
How much do you actually know about how life in the soviet union worked? Have you talked to people who lived there, have you read dissertations about soviet life originating from post-soviet countries? Because I can tell you that what the wiki writes is correct on a theoretical level, but that's not how it worked in practice. I'd like to link you the document but it hasn't been digitized, and it wouldn't be in English, but for instance did you know that in Estonian the soviet election procedure there's stated that vote verification comes from the voting station committee, not from the person casting the vote. That means the committee at the voting station said when you voted. That left the door open to easily cast whatever votes the party wanted into voting box. All the voting slips where soon destroyed after the voting making it impossible to verify who you actually voted for.
While on a superficial level the "democracy" worked from bottom up, the reality is that unless you toed the party line (much like it is right now in the US) you couldn't get into politics. The harsh truth is that at a certain level the party dictated who is a part of the party and who isn't, there was no democratic discourse. I don't even know who our elected officials were during the soviet era because everyone knew it was a farce and nobody cared about those puppets.
And finally, in case you just ignore what I've said let's look at history. If there really was soviet democracy in the soviet union, why was perestroika and more specifically glasnost necessary? Why did Gorbachev run a slogan of democratization? Why is it that when people were given actual democratic elections the previously unopposed communist candidates didn't make the cut? Why did Perestroika lead to the dissolution of the union?
I certainly know much less than I want to! I enjoy learning about history. I do know that there was corruption, especially at the Politburo level. I don't believe every election was a sham though, just like I don't believe every US election is a sham.
As for Perestroika and Gorbachev, the majority of the USSR, 77% I believe, voted to retain the USSR. It was the aforementioned Politburo that dissolved it. Gorbachev in general wanted to cool relations with the US, as the public was growing weary of the Cold War and constant fear, just like Reagan did in America. Additionally, there was a lack of luxury commodities that Soviet citizens were wanting from the western countries, so there was an internal, public push for international trade.
It's a bit of a complicated issue.
Of course it's a bit complicated when you say nonsense like that.
The overall count doesn't matter because part of Perestroika was to give the states more autonomy. The central authority had been weakened and the states decided to leave. It's not about how many people wanted to stay in the union, it's about the states who decided they're better off fending for themselves than to be in the union. The secessions are what put the final nail in the coffin.
At that point that was more of a formality than someone actively trying to kill the union. The union was already dead.
Why it is true that is not the reason for Perestroika. The real reason for Perestroika the era of stagnation and Gorbachev hoped Perestroika would help the USSR out of its economic slump. In that sense Gorbachev didn't want just cool relations with the US, he wanted good relations because he hoped the US would bail out the USSR.
Not just a lack of luxury commodities, a lack of commodities. A lot people during that period resorted to black market deals because the union was unable to provide for the people. My grandfather bartered home-made alcohol for manure so he could fertilize the land to grow food. My father recorded cassette tapes and bartered them for clothes and other electronics. It was the only way to get what you need because the stores were largely empty.
You seem to be versed in historical revisionism, I suggest searching for the actual history of the union. If it starts sounding like the things I've mentioned you're on the right track.
First off, I aprreciate your point of view, anecdotes from your father and grandfather are valuable additions. However, I do have some questions.
Why would 77% of 145 million votes on the 1991 Soviet Union Referendum voting to retain the USSR not matter? If the states decided to leave against the will of the people, is that not an anti-democratic measure? Like, if the supermajority of people wish to maintain the union, why is it justifiable for the states to go against that? I am probably missing something on that matter, which is why I am asking you.
As for the economic slump, I am aware. The "second economy" was huge at the time, as you already stated. I still, however, would need to know more why the majority voted to retain the Union. I understand that clothing choices were especially bad, and interestingly enough I remember reading that US Jeans were especially desired but either there wasn't a Soviet counterpart or the US Jeans were especially desired.
Do you have any suggestions for books or further reading? Statistics and wikipedia pages only paint a partial picture, after all, and if those are historical revisionism then I am curious what we can trust as historical fact. A lot of what you have said backs up what I have read, though, so I am curious what parts were embellished and which parts weren't.
First of all, the referendum wasn't to continue the USSR of the old, it was a referendum for essentially a new union. That new union was supposed to give other states a lot more autonomy. So the vote was actually for something very different to what the union had been up to Perestroika. Also that 77% didn't contain all of the union, The Baltic states, Moldova and few more states refused to participate in the voting. Baltic states in particular had their own referendums where people voted to secede from the union. Some of the states were already in the process of leaving and the rest decided to secede when the new union treaty fell through.
I'm going to use this point to explain how the majority also doesn't represent everyone. There have been talks about Catalonia wanting to secede from Spain for decades now. I'm sure if someone polled Spain as a whole the majority would be against Catalonia seceding. However, the whole of Spain does not represent Catalonia. Catalans represent Catalonia and based on the 2021 vote 51% supported independence. It's likely that in the near-future we will see Catalonia pushing to secede from Spain. Would you consider that secession attempt unjust? I think if a certain culture wants to be independent then their decision to become independent is justified.
It's not that the statistics or wikipedia are inherently revisionist, it's that people often take those things and present them in a revisionist way. Like with the 77% wanting to stay in the union. The number isn't wrong, but it's presented to mean something else than what it was. Revisionist present it like every region in the union wanted the union to continue as it was. Except as I've already explained, that wasn't the case. It was only the parts of the union who agreed to vote and the vote was for a new union not the continuation of the old one.
As for books, I don't really have any books to suggest. Most of the books I've read in the past have been in my native language and as much as I checked they haven't been translated to English. That said I did come across this monograph that piqued my interest: "Soviet Postcolonial Studies: A View from the Western Borderlands". I don't have the capacity to get into it right away, because it seems like a hard read, but it will go into my backlog.
Yeah, it is only worse if you aren't their main demographic
Yep, in the US both parties serve different slices of the same minority that makes up the Capitalists.
Capitalists aren't a minority in the US.
You don't have to be rich to be a capitalist.
"Capitalist" doesn't refer to the wealthy, or supporters of Capitalism. "Capitalist" refers to an individual who recieves the bulk of their income not from their own labor, but from ownership of Capital, ie business owners.
Those who support Capitalism take on various names, but usually "Liberalism" is used to describe the ideology of Capitalism.
"It could've been worse" (a.k.a. the North Korea "defense") isn't a counter-argument to "This is shit and here is why".
It's at best whataboutism.
As for the Soviet Union and similar, it's still an elite in power doing what's best for themselves. In Capitalism the selection to the elite is by Money (and no, it mainly doesn't come about by merit but by being born in the right family and not giving a shit about one's fellow human beings) whilst in the so-called implementations of Communism/Socialism by working your way up within the Ruling Party (ditto in Fascism, by the way) which is a mix of smoozing and knifing others on the back.
Both systems put sociopaths in control, both consist of a elite minority in power and using it to serve themselves, and most people will neither be in it nor me served by it.
Neither option is good so we need something else.
So far, the best we have is a little bit of Capitalism tightly controlled by Social Democracy, IMHO.
yeah but they're bludgeoning us with it and claiming to be the good guys, when there are no good guys here (that would be the yellow line)
so it needs pointing out. abd repetition, because fucking biden cultists are the most annoying shit I fucking swear.
Let me give you a hypothetical. First of all "good guys" is entirely subjective, but since you're unhappy with democrats and republicans let's say any party on the left side of the right-left political spectrum are the "good guys". Now, let's imagine democrats are left/center-left party and republicans are a far-left party. Since all parties on the left are good guys your choices are now all good guys. But in the context of the system one party is still more of a good guy then the other, one is more left than the other.
That means in the context of the system the good guys are designated by the options given within the system. When the options are corporate bootlickers vs batshit insane corporate bootlickers one of them is clearly better than the other. It doesn't matter that in the wider picture both are bad because those are the options the system presents.
okay but genocide is genocide. theres a moral event horizon issue here. and on the other side, everyone needs to die, and arguing how badly they need to die is pointless. the harm is inexcusable, and I will not legitimize it.
me being killed is me being killed-the biden government won't stop it, and if he's in power; his supporters will not step in to help; they'll beg daddy-daddy doesn't care, and if he did all he'd do is send cops, who will already be there hooded and ready if he's not, maybe we'll get resistance libs, and they at least won't snich if they find me in their attic.
and the climate apocalypse; they both stand in the way. I guess biden is less in the way? dead is still dead. trumps a little faster, but I like my gallows humor, so it about breaks even in my book.
and then theres the fact of legitimizing it. I live in California; my vote does not count for decision making. it will bestatistically fucked into oblivion. I don't want to look like I legitimized a system that does that, that enforces abortion bans anf private insurance and illegal plants and all the other shit that upwards of 60% of Americans, a statistically shocking majority would rather it not, then calls it democracy. I don't want things nobody wanted and nobody voted for shoved down my throat and told its my voice, and if you want me to participate in that, you'd better be offering something I fucking want.
Democrats and republicans are the system and the system is working as they intend it. The system will not change while the duopoly exists.
Voters are a part of that system. Who decides who comes into power? The voters. If literally nobody votes for democrats or republicans neither could come into power. The people have kept the system in place as much as the two parties.
If your choices are limited to the two party duopoly then you don't really have a choice. Technically you can vote for another party, but that's just throwing your vote away. If you don't vote then there are millions of others who vote anyway (voting with your wallet when buying products doesn't work for similar reasons).
The people had the system forced on them and are extremely limited in what they can do in it. Let's say by some miracle that another party emerges victorious, that'll just become the new target for ~~bribery~~ lobbyists who will bend the party to their will anyway.
It’s just slower than you want. If you consistently vote for “one side”, every election, the center will move toward that side as the candidates differentiate themselves (but not too much). Isn’t this the entire problem? Too many people have been voting Conservative for too many years, digging themselves a hole that will take a similar number of years to dig out of?
Currently the “middle” is way to the right. Are you voting to move that middle line yet farther right or are you voting to start moving it back toward the left?
I've voted for the democratic party straight down the ballot every election for as long as I can vote. A major part of the problem is that the two party system guarantees that at some point republicans will get power and when they do, they drag the window to the right rapidly. When democrats get power, they're comfortable with leaving the window where it is for the most part, insisting that we "work with republicans" while republicans never do the same. Compare eight years of Obama with four years of Trump.
Your options are limited because the overall system is shit. You won't get more options until the entire political system is reformed and that's why I'm saying everyone is to blame, because the signs have been there for a long time.
Right now blaming the democrats does nothing because you still have to vote democrat, the alternative is a fascist who will try to completely break down the democratic apparatus. After the election Americans should start constantly demanding a reformation of the system because it no longer serves the people.
This is why reforming capitalism is a waste of time. Reforms only delay end stage, not prevent it entirely. The solution (IMO) is to diffuse the wealth and the power that comes with it into the population through worker co-ops.
Maybe that isn't the solution, who the fuck cares if I'm right or not? But we won't ever work towards that better way of life if we let the status quo lord over us all our whole lives?
I'm sure people thought feudalism was going to be forever to back in the day, much like capitalism now. Capitalism isn't thousands of years old like feudalism was. (Still is in select parts of the world)
C'mon guys, let's do this. I believe in us.
Though I agree with you, no one will vote third party, because they are convinced a third party can't win, making it a self fulfilling prophecy. If you don't vote for them, of course they can't win. While I acknowledge that the system is broken here in the US, and that ranked voting is a much better system, I'd like to remind people that its still important to vote for who you like, and not against who you don't like. I don't like either of the main candidates for President, so I'm voting third party. Will my person win? Who knows, probably not, but I won't vote for either of the main candidates because I dislike them both for different reasons, and think they're both awful. Is one worse than the other? Yep, sure is, but I'd still rather vote for someone I like. If people weren't so obsessed with only voting for the major parties, third party candidates could win. It's happened in the past. No one ran for president as a Republican until 1856, and they didn't get their first Republican president until Lincoln in 1860, which means that even though they are a major party now, they were a third party back then. Third parties CAN win, but not with the current mindset of the average American voter today. If people who say they want a change, actually want a change, then they need to do something different to get the change. If you keep doing the same thing, nothing will change. If you're sick of the major parties, and hate the candidates they're putting forth, show them how bad they are by voting third party. Change is hard, but possible. To see change, you need to be change.
And who convinced them?
The Democrats and Republicans. Because they want to keep the power between themselves.
That doesn't change the fact that one candidate is clearly worse than the other.
We've done it before. You don't see the Whig party on the ballot anymore. It may be a two-party system, but that doesn't mean a party or both can't be replaced from time to time.
We just need to have a civil war to do it.
Not really. The Whig party collapsed in the mid 1850s and the Civil War was in the 60s. People just need to vote for who they truly want, even if it's a third party.
What if I don't want anyone to be president?
Voters decide which evil comes into power, usually by selecting the lesser evil out of 2 options. The ruling class picks which options voters can pick between, because parties secure funding and influence by courting the ruling class.
It is in this manner that change is extremely difficult electorally.
Who decides who comes into power? Strictly speaking, the party officials in charge of primaries in the US.
More people didn't vote at all than voted for Trump. It's possible it was also more than voted for Biden as well (both on around 81 million, exact figures for none voters don't seem to be available).
Yet the system continues anyway.
They both like it if you don't vote. It means they have to spend less money influencing people.
I mean I can agree with the idea that if Americans did a Gaddafi on Republicans and Democrats then things would be different, hell, things would change tomorrow if Americans really wanted it, these people have names and addresses. Where I disagree is that calls for violence is bad but only because we're supposed to say violence is the wrong approach. Maybe elections played by their rules will work in our favor someday (lol).
The political establishment has been killing and robbing the people for centuries, it shouldn't be controversial to say we need to fight back more fiercely.
Violence is too neutral a term. According to the graph above, it's valid self-defense.
My problem lies within the fact that she posts that proudly.
Dems might aren't to blame for the system and might aren't to blame for the climate issues... But that they think this is a win??? Crazy! Who is posting the "win"? A dem.
That's just Hillary being unable to read the room, it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone.
Of course that is the issue which should give everyone a pause. This is a impressive level of illiteracy. "If you look at this graph, at the current rate, we murder millions and destroy the chance of the survival of the human race, so we are planning to do it a little slower. Aren't we amazing?"
Dear Hillary, at least use some propaganda skills when you want to sell us the slowing down of the baby grinder as a win. At least, tell us that with the currently planned action this is the projection but you are working hard to find additional ways to improve the situation and that decisive measures need to be well planned and executed which is unfortunately a timely process.
This is just poor politics.