KurtVonnegut [comrade/them]

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Joined 5 years ago
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Cake day: March 12th, 2021

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  • His position essentially boils down to race being the primary contradiction, not class.

    This can be true or false, but it entirely depends on the specific society you are talking about. For example, in China today, I do not think racism is the “primary contradiction,” although it certainly does exist. The decisions that the Communist Party has to make in regards to going along with global capitalism or pushing to expand socialism internally and externally are the primary contradiction in China now.

    South Africa during Apartheid? Yes, racism had to be addressed first and foremost. But even there, class was so aligned with race that the most popular and successful figure, Nelson Mandela, was a socialist who believed that capitalism and wealth inequality were also harmful to society.


  • Voting solves nothing. If the Republicans are pro-genocide and pro-environmental collapse and he Democrats are also pro-genocide and pro-environmental collapse, voting is not the solution to our problem. You might as well criticize me for which type of shoes I wear, it has the same influence on Politics, which is zero.


  • If you want to learn about Stalin, I would start by reading Stephen Kotkin’s two books which cover his life up to WWII in detail. Kotkin is a liberal, so he is no fan of Stalin, but he does very thorough research.

    Stalin: Passage to Revolution by Ronald Grigor Suny gives a more sympathetic account of Stalin’s early life, his extreme suffering on behalf of the Czarist regime, and his dedication to making the world a better place. This book goes in depth into the Menshevik-Bolshevik split, and why Stalin chose to side with Lenin and internationalist socialism instead of the more nationalist Georgian Mensheviks.

    Domenico Losurdo’s Stalin: History and Critique of a Black Legend does not go in-depth in biographical details, but it is definitely the best “defense” of Stalin’s various actions. The main rhetorical technique is comparing Stalin to other leaders at the time - Hitler, FDR, Churchill, etc… To the point: Stalin never attacked a city with a nuclear bomb (like the USA), Stalin never caused famine and starvation for profit (like Britain), and Stalin never tried to exterminate an entire ethno-religious group (like Hitler). Nobody is saying Stalin was perfect, but compared to other world leaders he was a much more moral leader than them, and ultimately did much more good for the world overall, such as almost single-handedly defeating Nazi Germany.












  • I’m not even sure MLK ever explicitly considered himself a socialist.

    Well then.

    “I am much more socialistic in my economic theory than capitalistic.” - Martin Luther King Jr.

    “Today, capitalism has out-lived its usefulness.” - Martin Luther King Jr.

    “Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country.” - Martin Luther King Jr.

    “We must see now that the evils of racism, economic exploitation and militarism are all tied together.” - Martin Luther King Jr.

    “The evils of capitalism are as real as the evils of militarism and evils of racism.” - Martin Luther King Jr.

    “If America does not use her vast resources of wealth to end poverty and make it possible for all of God’s children to have the basic necessities of life, she too will go to hell.” - Martin Luther King Jr.

    (from https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/01/21/11-most-anti-capitalist-quotes-martin-luther-king-jr)

    It says a lot about the education system wherever you come from that you never learned MLK was a socialist. He HATED capitalism! Hated it! Also, the scientist Albert Einstein was a prominent socialist who wrote a famous article, “Why socialism?” explaining in detail why he was a socialist. Einstein and MLK believed in the same anti-capitalist struggle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_Socialism%3F






  • This is “both sides are bad” bullshit, a destructive force from apathetic people. Don’t listen to this shit. Vote every year, twice a year!

    Biden has been in office for almost four years. Abortion was banned under his watch. He could have prevented it by expanding the supreme court - he chose not to. He chose to let thousands of women suffer and die.

    Student loan forgiveness was promised by Biden - a promise he failed to deliver. Again, expanding the supreme court could have prevented this.

    Biden has done absolutely nothing to stand up to the military-industrial complex. He pulled out of Afghanistan, then almost immediately began sending billions in “lethal aid” to Ukraine.

    Biden has upheld the deportation laws at the Mexican border that Trump put in place. He is actively choosing to do that!

    I don’t understand how any rational person can look at Biden and say he’s doing anything even slightly left-wing. He is not. Objective reality shows is that both sides (Democrats and Republicans) ARE the same because they are DOING the same thing. Ideology says they are different. Reality says they are the same. If you believe they are different, you are valuing ideology over reality.


  • IDK man. You’re basically saying “Why are you stuck on that environmentalist shit? It doesn’t matter to me. Go worry about climate change somewhere else, stop bothering me.”

    My brother in christ. Climate change will affect you whether you want it to or not. Capitalism will affect you whether you want it to or not. You can’t just be “out” of it. You can’t not take a side in whether the earth gets destroyed or not (environmentalism) or whether 90% of the world’s population is plunged into neo-feudal slavery. You’re either with the slave-owners or against them. You gotta pick a side!