How was I racist? Seems to me that your retort targets some untrue idea in your head about who I am rather than what I actually wrote.
I also do not understand why you made this post if you do not actually make an attempt at trying to understand the replies in return.
The first claim is just straight plain old racism, while the second reeks of confused lib. Either way, calling someone a slave in this context is almost certainly meant as an insult to the political organisation of the state and not to its people. This distinction is important with respect to moderation.
I consider the proletariat of capitalist societies to be slaves by definition. Thus if I were convinced that the PRC was capitalist, I could stand behind this sentiment.
University rankings are stupid because in the best case they try to measure the quality of articles by number of citations and at worst they are just companies taking money for advertising.
Looking at the contents of their graduate courses is usually enough IMO to see whether they are serious or not.
Unity of the left is a double edged sword. Sure it means increased bargaining power for change. Also, it usually deteriorates into a hostage situation where the most centrist “left” party in the coalition says they will cooperate with the fascists, if the other left parties do not reduce their call for change to just symbolic issues.
An age of rising fascism…
I would just like to digress by pointing out that I found your discussion interesting and that .world defederating .ml would kill potential future ones like it. It also seems to me that rejecting ML impulses, say by disassociating the .ml and .world users, would not contribute to organising society in a way that would allow for the revolution you speak of.
MLs do not go away by ignoring them. One of their main tenets, which they are to be admired for, is precisely their obstinancy to making themselves heard. If I understood you correctly as a proponent of a solution that is yet to be evolved, why reject the input of MLs? I am personally curious about learning more about anarchism, that is if the theory is not so weak it would but all be destroyed by the breath of a ML.
I had to do a double take because this sentiment is prevalent throughout lemmy.world and other instances.
Yeah… Still, considering only my self interest I am really glad I am living in a social democracy opposed to many of the other hellscapes forged by capitalism.
Social democracy gets some things right, for all its faults.
The division on whether social democracy is a socialist movement or not pretty much coincides with the division between reform and revolution as means to attain socialism.
Identity politics surely is to blame for the rise of fascism. Just like the last time in the years 1915-1945.
You are almost quoting the fascist playbook line of “look what you made me do”.
Look! We gutted the public system. Clearly the privatized alternative must be the solution. We support privatization btw, so you need to vote for us!
More worried about this triggering an ice age and subsequent global failure of what crops remain.
Halsin is not going to wait around for you to actually want to see him nude!
Everyone in Europe knows really well that there is a reactionary wind blowing through the lands. Historically, this has been conducive to conflict and war. The conditions are different right now than then, but I fear not enough.
I would love a different world order based on international cooperation in lieu of exploitation, but I do not see this as a probable outcome of tensions rising and reactionaries taking power.
It is definitely worth keeping an eye on the protofascist and overtly fascist movements gaining traction, since they pretty much tell us exactly how they are going to fuck things up.
Yes. Germany and many other European countries had little to none political support for investing in their militaries. Now they do, and it is going to be a problem later on. Capitalists want return on their investments, after all.
The EU is very much on the top of the global neocolonial food chain, but they were mostly (looking at you France) not doing like super a lot (looking at you UK and US) of “interventions” to secure their interests all over the world.*
* Most Western powers are part of NATO, which is its own can of worms. Still, Russia invading Ukraine has made support for NATO much more popular (see Sweden and Finland as case studies), and now the bloc is more consolidated than ever. The timing could not be worse with respect to the overtly fascist leaders gaining traction in the very same countries.
The European countries bordering Russia, i.e. the Baltics, Nordics and Eastern Europe, contribute a far bigger percentage of their GDP to aid Ukraine than the others (if you ignore the new policies of Slovakia and Hungary). The US and UK gives/sells the most weapons, but Ukraine is pretty much bankrolled by the EU/EEA.
The point is that the EU has sustained big economic losses from cutting ties with Russia, leading to movement of industry and production away from Europe and over to the other biggest economies.
People forgot quickly how hesitant the European countries were, and still are, to send equipment to Ukraine. Germany didn’t send anything but helmets for a long while. They also cancelled North Stream, leading to increased inflation and lessened economic competitive viability. If anything, the proxy war is exhausting both Russian and European economies, with the US and China ready to scoop up the scraps in preparation for their intensifying trade war.
Should we make a club?
Well, no one is saying cars are worse for all purposes. If you want to take your family and dogs to a cabin in the mountains while also shopping for food along the way, it is probably going to be your best bet. Still, that is not what is pictured in the post. These are commuters that are probably moving from work to home (or vice versa), where cars really are the worst of most options. If the bus takes longer, it is probably an issue of allocation of funds for a shorter route and exclusive lanes for it.
Anyone thinking bourgeoisie extortion is fundamentally different from that of feudal lords need to reexamine the process of appropriation of surplus value.