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Shyfer

@ Shyfer @ttrpg.network

Posts
2
Comments
262
Joined
2 yr. ago

  • US House passes bill that expands definition of anti-Semitism to comparing Israel with Nazis

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  • No, this definitely seems different and new from all the recent articles about it I've seen. This vote passed Wednesday, not in December. It's a response to the protests at universities. And it's a bill, so it can be passed into law. I think you're confusing two different things.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/house-passes-bill-to-expand-definition-of-antisemitism-amid-growing-campus-protests-over-gaza-war/ar-AA1nZV5S

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/70-house-democrats-and-21-republicans-voted-against-a-bill-to-crack-down-on-antisemitism-on-college-campuses/ar-AA1o02Rn

    This expands the definition of antisemitism to bring critical of Israel at all or comparing Zionism to Nazism, and would codify it into law if it, passes the Senate and is signed by the President. So there is still time to stop this, and it's a big deal, so people should be angry about it.

  • It’s Not Just Gaza: Student Protesters See Links to a Global Struggle

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  • +1

    Hopefully we can learn from past movements like Occupy, which were unfocused, and apply the lessons learned to future protests, like this Gaza one. It kind of scared me when they said larger struggle, because it brought me immediately back to Occupy, like you said.

  • ‘Indefensible’: UK prisoner jailed for 23 months killed himself after being held for 17 years

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  • I had no idea these were a thing. That's brutal.

  • Jessica Seinfeld and Bill Ackman Fund Pro-Israel Counterprotests at Colleges

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  • Or one of them collected a fund and went out and bought a bunch of the cheapest ones they could find? The pro-Palestine lobby doesn't exist and have billions of dollars behind it like the pro-Israel one. Your conspiracy is barking up the wrong tree. Even homeless people in LA can afford tents, let alone students joining an expensive university.

  • Biden administration plans to reclassify marijuana, easing restrictions nationwide

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  • How? There's no one to vote for that's anti-genocide.

  • Biden administration plans to reclassify marijuana, easing restrictions nationwide

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  • I have a feeling he's waiting until closer to the election because the voters have such a short memory. Thats what I would have recommended if I worked for him lol.

  • Know the difference.

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  • Oh ya, I should have guessed. There are a couple Baltic states that did increase in living standards and make some rapid industrialization improvements, but they also made some definite mistakes with handling some things there and trying to do some Russia centralization. It made some of those places very right leaning, which is unfortunate.

    At least it generally shared technologies improvements and such with those places. It doesn't make the USSR worse than the US, for example, which ruined basically all of South and Central America even worse than the USSR did for its neighbors. I want to emphasize that it made some big mistakes, but for some reason people contribute those mistakes to communism, when the US and other capitalist countries had even worse occupations with even worse exploitation, but for some reason that never leads to people saying capitalism is terrible and awful, etc. The world is just too propagandized by the West. The difference is that imperialism and exploitation is basically required by the capitalist system, while it's a side effect of militarization under a siege mindset for communism. It happened, and will probably continue to happen as long as communism requires capitalism characteristics to jumpstart production, but it's not a constant requirement of the system like capitalism's necessity for the line to go up leading to always finding new markets and resources to take.

  • USC cancels graduation ceremony and dozens are arrested on other campuses as anti-war protests grow

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  • I mean yes, obviously Hamas is bad. I just mean in this very specific case, they've been asking for things like a permanent ceasefire, Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, freedom of movement for Palestinians in Northern Gaza where they lived, and release of Palestinian hostages (who are often held without charge, and they've often asked for captured women and children, too, not just male Hamas fighters). Those things aren't absurd.

  • Know the difference.

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  • The USSR did good things and bad things but reactionaries like to pretend it was all bad. There are hard numbers about life expectancy increasing, better life for women, research achievements, general quality of life and happiness metrics, and more that increased. There was lots of bad parts, but same in the US.

    There were anti gay laws on the books for the US, and towns you couldn't even walk in while black. Hell, there are still some sundown towns in places in the US. If you just point out that stuff, or if you lived in such a horrible area or had family who did spreading their stories, then it will just come off as a hell hole. The US does suck, but it's not just Skid Row, the projects, lynch mobs, coups, wars, etc. Same for the USSR. There were good things we can save and build on, and bad things we need to avoid for future socialist projects.

    It's not like the first attempts for democracy went well, either. But I wouldn't diss it in the Middle Ages and say we can only do monarchies, the pinnacle of political achievements, just because " it never succeeded. It fell in Greece and the Roman Republic and every other time it's been tried, and has never worked ever and thus is always doomed to fail."

  • Know the difference.

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  • And a lot of attempts have also been great at raising the standards of living for the general population, as well as for economic development in a relatively quick amount of time.

  • Know the difference.

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  • Ah, I misinterpreted you. Sorry about that. But it's hard to tell exactly what you're talking about without more details. Afghanistan, maybe? I get if you don't want to dox yourself, as someone privacy minded, but it's hard to know how to respond without more context.

  • Know the difference.

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  • Lol it sounds like someone trying to defend capitalism. "No, it's totally fine, we just didn't implement it right. There are certain laws and regulations that can fix it, we swear!"

    Yet for some reason any flaw with a communist country is endemic to communism itself, instead of the implementation, contexts of their outside conditions, or foreign influence, or general state of economic development.

  • Know the difference.

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  • Even when they don't turn it into a dictatorship, they may just turn it back into capitalism, like Russia did. And when that happens, they just sell all the old estates to the highest bidder, making them richer and turning them into oligarchs. And that becomes functionally equivalent to a dictatorship of the bourgeois.

  • Know the difference.

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  • Are they making actual progress on that path, though? They have tons of billionaires, lots of people go bankrupt there from medical bills or are homeless (unlike some other communist countries). The state owns a lot of businesses, but then so does Norway. All their initiatives seem to be related to hurting gay people or making it harder for kids to play video games. They've arrested some rich people and cracked down on some corruption, but that also sounds like it could come from a capitalist country. I can't really find any sort of long-term plan.

  • Know the difference.

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  • Know the difference.

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  • First of all, communism isn't utopian. Even communists don't think it will be some paradise where all worries disappear. You'll still have to fight racism, sexism, bad weather, famines, etc.

    But it's often better for an average person from a country of a starting equal level of economic development. You've got to give it the "If I was reincarnated in a random person's body, where would I want to be?" test. US is a good answer, but it's got a way higher level of economic development with a big headstart. Even then, you could end up in the hood and die early and stressed. When you give the test comparing countries of equal starting economic development, it becomes a lot more muddled.

    Like, would you rather randomly live in Cuba, or Somalia? The place where you get free education, health care, etc or a place that is also extremely poor but you don't get that stuff? You could reincarnate as some rich, warlord there, but would you want to take that chance when you could reincarnate in Cuba as literally anyone and not be worried about ending up homeless? When giving realistic comparisons like this with proper historical context, and you do it over and over again, they tend to come out on top.

  • Know the difference.

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  • It also keeps being built in third-world countries, usually blockade, sanctioned, or regime changed by Western countries so it's also hard to tell without those variables. Although so far it has a pretty good track record for equal levels of starting development.

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  • Not really. You're talking about what happened after the USSR. Which yes, was horrible for the quality of life of people who lived in numerous countries all over the globe, but that's more of an indictment of capitalism than communism. The looting of the government coffers to privatize everything and create oligarchs was a result of the post-USSR shock therapy.

  • Know the difference.

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  • That's been an issue in constant capitalist countries, too. That's not an issue of communism and is an unrelated complaint.