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Cowbee [he/they]

@ Cowbee @lemmy.ml

Posts
39
Comments
14005
Joined
2 yr. ago

Actually, this town has more than enough room for the two of us

He/him or they/them, doesn't matter too much

Marxist-Leninist ☭

Interested in Marxism-Leninism, but don't know where to start? Check out my Read Theory, Darn it! introductory reading list!

  • Its not looking good..

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  • Yep, just want them to admit to that.

  • Fascism is a consequence of capitalist decay

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  • What? Who are you, and why is this "spamming the meme community?" I posted 2 memes today, and have posted ~10 total. And why announce your blocking of me?

  • Its not looking good..

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  • Why do you think imperialist capitalist countries are closer to socialism than an existing socilaist state?

  • ICE is as American as Apple Pie

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  • There's definitely counter-influence, but it doesn't outweigh the US's influence is my point.

  • ICE is as American as Apple Pie

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  • Israel is a settler-colony. Total colonization of Palestine is its necessary end, which breeds resistance. The US supports it because Israel is a US millitary base at a country scale.

  • ICE is as American as Apple Pie

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  • Israel is not controlling the US, the US controls Israel. Israel has some counter-influence, but the US uses Israel to secure its interests in the region. Stopping it requires hitting imperialist profits directly.

  • ICE is as American as Apple Pie

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  • The majority opinion seems to be that neither would stop the genocide, both would carry it out.

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  • You don't have to take them purely at their word, you can look at tangential topics, such as crime rates, conviction rates, how the police work, etc to see if the claims match up. Even if they did post the totals, you'd still have people claiming they were made up.

  • ICE is as American as Apple Pie

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  • That's generally been my point, I think you actually agree with most people here, but have been reading them less charitably.

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  • Fair point, yes, though I also included sexual assaulters, who are statistically more likely to be workers.

  • Its not looking good..

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  • They are realizing they fell into a trap by doing so, so trying but failing.

  • 'The Chinese government bans all new investment in Israel'

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  • Good lord man. I’m not having a philosophical discussion about idealism and materialism.

    But we are. We are specifically talking about ideology, how it relates to the PRC, and your own thought process.

    I’m not religious and I don’t believe in the supernatural, if you need to know. I’m by training and engineer, physicist and mathematician.

    And yet you use supernatural explanation by treating phenomena as unknowable, ie not a part of the material realm, and appeal to a vague "human spirit."

    I also don’t believe that any ideological system can approach perfection, and I’m pragmatic enough to understand that if you believe that, it is borderline delusional.

    This is what I mean. You are appealing to the idea that no ideology can correctly understand the world and help us understand it better. Your own ideology is idealist.

    I don’t think China has a perfect society and I expect I would not be happy there. I’m perfectly happy here with 3 kids, my pets, my wife (who owns a small business), a modest house and a family cottage, on a decent salaried job, in a country with a reasonable approximation of universal health care (I wish it were better), that makes attempts at regulating the excesses of capitalism with social programs and government oversight, that gives some freedoms in respect of rights, that values individual liberty and doesn’t get in your business on everything, that doesn’t overwhelmingly exert its will outside of its territory, that allows me to build a small consulting business and occasionally rent our cottage, that has a proud military history of which I have taken a small part, that is open to immigrants and ranks very high on multiculturalism and low on racism, that has enormous economic potential with one of the most educated populations in the world, that ranks highly in press freedom, democracy and economic mobility.

    You live in an imperialist settler-colony as a well-off person married to a business owner. Your own class outlook is forcing you to see the world through a specific lense, and is pushing you towards idealism. You're a labor aristocrat married to a petite bourgeois, and an occasional landlord.

    My country has problems, but you’re not going to convince me that I’d be better off under a government like China, or a Marxist ideal, even if I thought it would be possible to change this country without enormous violent upheaval in which, very likely, members of my family or friends would suffer and die.

    You probably wouldn't be better off, personally, but the global south would be better off without Canada imperializing it of its surplus value and resources. Your class interest has made you hostile to working class, internationalist perspectives. This is your own, idealist philosophy.

    And as I’ve tried to say since my very first words on this topic, you’re not going to convince me that a government organized according to Marxist thought will be - unlike every other human organization in history (that is, not ideal, but in practice and based on historical evidence and experience) - somehow a utopia that is incapable of oppressing people or attempting to exert its will on others who do not consent to it.

    I have never said Marxists cannot oppress people, just that Marxism-Leninism is anti-imperialist, and that fighting imperialists is a good thing. Landlords, the bourgeoisie, etc would be oppressed by Marxist governments as their property is collectivized.

    Having said all of that, my claims are clear. What is your objective in this discussion? Of what are you trying to convince me?

    I suppose I am trying to convince you to become a class traitor and side with the working classes, or highlight for other working class folks the flaws in idealist thinking that you display.

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  • Yes, those as well. The PRC is strict about drugs and prostitution in general. I wasn't meaning a full, comprehensive list, but to say that the death penalty is popularly supported there and largely applied for the most serious offences.

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  • It's definitely a contested subject, and I have the "benefit" of falling squarely into undisputed settler territory so there's no ambiguity. This is just the perspective I have heard so far on the subject, I know mestizo aren't indigenous directly but it's not the same as the sheer obliteration of indigenous populations at mass scale as in Canada and the US. I still support indigenous movements throughout south and latin America, of course, as I do in the US/Canada.

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  • I'm pretty sure they were just taking a knee-jerk reaction deliberately. I could have said I think puppies are cute and they would have accused me of animal abuse.

  • ICE is as American as Apple Pie

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  • The "oligarchy" in the US already has control. The dissolution of the current, capitalist system would result in either socialism if we succeed or barbarism if we fail, and said barbarism would be far more localized. Russia dissolved a socialist system, not an oligarchic one of capitalism, and Saudi Arabia is a monarchy.

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  • They publicize lots of the information, even if they keep the total secret, and we know that crime rates in the PRC are very low in general. The police don't even carry guns most of the time. Is it a perfect system? By no means. Is it a regularly improving, functional system? Yes.

  • 'The Chinese government bans all new investment in Israel'

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  • The economic size and success of China means you should probably try to see why they do what they do. As for the book, no, idealism is the belief in supernatural explanations for phenomena, intentionally or not. It is opposed to materialism.

    The 3 major assertions of idealism are as follows:

    1. Idealism asserts that the material world is dependent on the spiritual.
    2. Idealism asserts that spirit, or mind, or idea, can and does exist in separation from matter. (The most extreme form of this assertion is subjective idealism, which asserts that matter does not exist at all but is pure illusion.)
    3. Idealism asserts that there exists a realm of the mysterious and unknowable, "above," or "beyond," or "behind" what can be ascertained and known by perception, experience, and science.

    The 3 basic teachings of materialism as counterposed to idealism are:

    1. Materialism teaches that the world is by its very nature material, that everything which exists comes into being on the basis of material causes, arises and develops in accordance with the laws of motion of matter.
    2. Materialism teaches that matter is objective reality existing outside and independent of the mind; and that far from the mental existing in separation from the material, everything mental or spiritual is a product of material processes.
    3. Materialism teaches that the world and its laws are fully knowable, and that while much may not be known there is nothing which is by nature unknowable.

    When I called your arguments "idealist," I meant it because of your habit of using "human nature," or vibes, as a method of explanation, as well as treating phenomena as unknowable. When I linked Cornforth's book (which I stole the 3 aspects of idealism and materialism from), it's so you can study the reasoning behind the communist perspective and why it is different from past philosophies, and not subject to the same failings.

    Further, I highly disagree with your take on China. It's too vague to directly answer, though.

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  • Any evidence of this?