Yeah, the US prison system is absolutely abhorrent and counterethical to all the principles it’s supposed to hold.

First, the US is basically the only western country like that:tm:, second, more than one thing can be bad. “‘North Korea is a great country’ is a dumb position”, the only (implied) assertion I made about it in my original comment, is still true, even if they got dealt a shit hand (which, so did most of the east after WW2; South Korea was in a pretty similar state (it was actually worse than NK shortly after the Korean war), yet they’re doing… much better than NK at least).

Being “basically bombed to the stone age” doesn’t mean a dictatorship is inevitable, nor that their government is suddenly blameless; being victimized doesn’t mean you can victimize others.

Genuinely, if you take “the west” as a whole and compare it to North Korea… yeah, I do think they have a high ground. No, I’m not saying the west is perfect, far from it. No, I’m not saying communism is automatically bad, I’m totally cool with communists.

Basically my base position is “a functional democracy is the governance system that works the best”. Most western states are much closer to that than North Korea (yes, I know what the Electoral College is and why it’s bad), so I do think their political system is better.

The country that holds the record for number and percentage of people in prison is the US. In the US the percentage of black people in prison was higher than the percentage of black people in prison in South Africa during apartheid.

No other western/industrialized (at some stage) nation has had so many political exilees and people whose citizenship was revoked based on “anti-american” views than the US. At some point the general secretary of RCP was in exile in France with his citizenship revoked. So, not all states are equal, and their historic development as modern capitalist states should be studied within context.

the US state department dogma must be a much better read😌

lmao

How will you perform a non-authoritarian revolution? How will you quash racism, homophobia, transphobia, etc.? By being polite?

the main idea is dual power structures. spreading awareness, and people will do whats necessary, mobilize, organize, all that fun stuff. if u can teach people about the struggles of marginalized groups, they will be able to recognize it in their own lives and stand up against it.

Or are you going to vote us towards communism🤩

and there wont be a need for political parties to enforce “compliance”, people are naturally empathetic. well not all people, but the vast majority.

And I have plenty more books, but go on🤗

try “Are you an anarchist? the answer might surprise you” by David Graeber, if ur ever looking for something else.

or “Anarchy works” by Peter Gelderloos for a more comprehensive description of these ideas.

thank u for ur service :3

Not sure I disagree, necessarily, but that’s the answer to your question.

it’s also not an either or situation

there’s a trend towards that, which can be combatted & has been by communist parties. Stalin had a pretty incoherent plan to combat rightist tendencies within the communist party, assuming the problem stemmed from external meddling. Mao actually shared your view in that bureaucracy rots socialism, and that it needs to be decreased as the people are helped towards being self reliant, ready to self manage the economy & have suitable industry to run the country with. that’s why the cultural revolution happened, to fight bureaucracy

just to chime in with an anarchist perspective-- majority rule, as lionized by proponents of liberal democracies, is itself a form of heirarchy in which the will of an ostensible ‘majority’ (though usually that of the capital- owning class actually) is inflicted upon society as a whole, alienating the minority position, enforced by the state apparatus’ monopoly of violence.

if one values bodily autonomy, reconciled with the needs of the collective, a system of governance like mutual collective determination must be established which guarantees that all voices are heard and acknowledged.

Lol. To the contrary! I think communist lady has proven to be in interesting person to argue with. 😅😅😅😅

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The Holocaust most definitely happened and was perpetuated by the Nazis. Please don’t accuse me of denial.

Communism, or to be most specific, Marxism, was most definitely aligned against Hitler.

Stalin, was not. He would have watched Hitler kill all of Europe had the Nazis not attacked Russia. Same as the united states if Japan had not attacked them.

I am of the strong opinion that fascism doesn’t care if you call yourself a communist, a capitalist, or a Democrat. If someone promotes a state which strips the power of local and individual labor for it’s own use; cultivates violence as a means of domestic control; supports expansionism; and finally the consolidation of power under a personality; I oppose it, and call it what it is.

And then they killed millions of people to enforce Stalin’s autocracy. How, exactly, is that better than Hitler?

Because they were attacked. Otherwise they would have happily sat out of ww2.

“what if our classless stateless society had the right class controlling the state?”

And also going around making lunatic declaration, indifferent to the human suffering he was causing.

i was just quoting the other commenter. but dont forget about china, nazi germany, north korea, etc.

it may seem that way, but no. pro-freedom actually means keeping people away who wanna take our freedom. i.e. authoritarians like tankies

“Paradox of tolerance”

Aaron Swartz? The dead (by suicide) activist and philanthropist software developer and Reddit co-founder Aaron Swartz?

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Without a state to enforce environmental regulations, how do you intend to defend your community from pollution? By attacking the polluters with guns? They have guns, too. Probably more guns than you do, since pollution is so profitable.

Without a state to defend against invasion, what’s going to stop some other country from marching in and enslaving you? Small arms won’t protect you from a modern military; only a modern military of your own will, and without a state, who will command it?

Without a state to enforce mutual aid, what’s going to stop others from withholding it while taking yours? By the expectation that no one will be so greedy as to withhold needed aid? Then your proposed system will fail almost immediately. By some sort of aid credit that groups of people exchange equally in order to ensure that aid given equals aid received? Congratulations, you have invented capitalism.

The state apparatus exists for a reason. It has of course been abused, but we can’t simply get rid of it and expect everything to be fine, or else we’d have already gotten rid of it a long time ago.