you think I’m defending the genocidal losers

If the shoe fits

15% of russian GDP has already been seized

Do you know what GDP is?

one side sucks so clearly that means the other side is absolutely perfect

It’s funny to hear liberals defend the genocidal members of the Democratic Party by insisting “we can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good”.

But when you’re a guerrilla resistance fighting of the Japanese at their most bloodthirsty, or a country that’s painstakingly recovering after suffering more bombings in a year than all of Europe suffered in four, the bar gets raised through the roof.

You idealize tyranny and oppression

You are living under a totalitarian regime right now, you big dummy. You don’t seem to mind.

It’s jibberish. Might as well be calling Trump a TERF or complaining that Andrew Cuomo isn’t Italian.

totally-not-zionist “lefty” Mandani

What?

Obviously, the solution is US slavery

US prison workers produce $11bn worth of goods and services a year for pittance

Listen, that’s fine and all. But the best scene in the movie is every scene with General Zhukov.

My brothers, in the process of ratting me out.

You: I consent

Host: I consent

Cloudflare: Isn’t there someone you forgot to ask?

FYI, the debt will be paid by Russian war reparation

The EU equivalent of saying Mexico Will Pay For the Wall.

War and Theft: The Takeover of Ukraine’s Agricultural Land

Western financing to Ukraine in recent years has been tied to a drastic structural adjustment program that has required austerity and privatization measures, including the creation of a land market for the sale of agricultural land. President Zelenskyy put the land reform into law in 2020 against the will of the vast majority of the population who feared it would exacerbate corruption and reinforce control by powerful interests in the agricultural sector. Findings of the report concur with these concerns. While large landholders are securing massive financing from Western financial institutions, Ukrainian farmers — essential for ensuring domestic food supply — receive virtually no support. With the land market in place, amidst high economic stress and war, this difference of treatment will lead to more land consolidation by large agribusinesses.

Ukraine’s been operating under the same Shock Doctrine that came for the rest of Eastern Europe following the collapse of the USSR (and much of Latin America and Oceania before that). The government is perpetually in a state of debt to its EU neighbors and it is constantly hemorrhaging state property at cut-throat prices to lowest-bidder private interests.

The looting of the Soviet sphere isn’t new and it isn’t the result of the Russian invasion. But the sudden acute need for foreign cash, combined with the mass displacement of Ukrainian citizens, has accelerated the process enormously.

I see through your sarcasm. This is a Reddit-tier bannable offense. -100 Credit Score Points. Don’t make me report you to your landlord.

I don’t hate everyone in the middle east

Name one good Arab.

Are you saying everyone in the middle east is part of these organizations

I’m saying you know virtually nothing about the region, you’re just regurgitating the bigotry you’ve been force fed since kindergarten.

I respect Cuba 1000x more than China.

I think the most telling indictment of the Chinese government is its failure to extend aid to its ideological allies abroad, whether that’s Cuba or Kashmir. But when you’re lifting 200M people at home out of poverty with industrial improvements and agricultural modernization, its hard to complain. Beijing has done an amazing job of not-getting-into-wars. More than the Russian Soviets managed by a long shot.

Unfortunately, they’re still a one-party state without free and fair elections.

You could say the same thing about California or Florida. What’s annoying is that “one-party state” is held up as some kind of indictment without regard to how popular the party is. Like, I hate Texas politics, but I’m not naive enough to believe the state lacks a Republican majority. I’m not going to hold Cuba to a higher standard, simply because they’re venerating Che Guevera instead of T. Boone Pickens.

Venezuela’s more brown and lacks the benefit of the Cold War to play both sides against the middle. I don’t think its a matter of principles. Maduro has been more than happy to broker deals to lift sanctions and reopen international exports with capitalist states, he just hasn’t had the same opportunity to make deals that the Nordic States have had with BP, Shell, and Exxon.

Hell, the Chavezmos didn’t even try to nationalize their economy. They built everything socialist out in parallel with the spare oil cash. At least the Nords had the good sense to nationalize health care and education.

if they were socialist then the workers would own the means of production

Google “China Negative List Foreign Investment”. You might learn something about how Chinese federal laws guarantee domestic ownership of property and titles and understand why so much of the wealth generated within China remains within the Chinese working class.

They’re both just capitalist oligarchies with dictators

Is there a country in exist that you believe is Actually Existing Socialism, or are you going to shove your fingers in your ears and insist SEOs aren’t real, state central planning isn’t happening, democratic elections don’t count, and Marx didn’t say anything about the socialist transition in his writings.

I’m not a liberal, I’m a democratic socialist

fuck Israel, fuck Hamas, fuck the Arab league

Okay, but how can I be racist if I hate everyone in the Middle East, huh? Huh?!

When your country is shit, that’s all you can really think about.

The Nordic countries, for example, have private ownership as principle. As a consequence, their safety nets are eroding, and they depend on imperialism to continue.

I would say their mistake was putting so many chips on the future of fossil fuels. Sweden and Norway both derive enormous amounts of their state revenue from their state-run O&G companies. Venezuela tried a similar move under Chavez back in 2002. As the cost of producing gasoline has risen and the barrel rate has stagnated, their ability to self-finance a socialist state decayed.

Though it relies heavily on market mechanics, the difference is stark when it comes to long-term planning and development, and the gradual collectivization of production and distribution in an increasingly planned fashion has produced incredible results.

I would say the most pivotal policy of the Chinese state revolves around the condition that any business must be majority owned by local people. That includes patents. That includes physical capital. That includes intellectual property and commercial redistribution rights. The Chinese people own the Chinese economy. And this insourcing of legal ownership is what has resulted in the Chinese economic miracle.

By contrast, states like India and Indonesia continue to outsource much of the legal ownership of their work products to western banks and oligarchs. Similarly, the post-Soviet Eastern Bloc dissolved all its state institutions of domestic ownership and outsourced the rent-seeking portions of their economy abroad. The result has been a steady flow of wealth out of the country and a spreading poverty at home.

While westerners often debate the finer points of socialism in theory, the socialist movement in practice has always been first and foremost anti-colonial. Commanding your own wealth, whether you’re a North Korean adherent of Juche trying to build a fully self-reliant industrial interior or a Cuban trying to do Caribbean mutualism with your island as a center of medical R&D, is at the beating heart of Actual Existing Socialism.

The Nords did do that in the 1960s/70s with energy nationalization. But they failed to expand public ownership to non-petro sectors.

The Uyghurs, btw.

Its so crazy to see liberals insist that Uyghur Genocide is a big problem that requires US military intervention but the Israeli Very Legal And Good Police Action Against Hamas For October 7th is going great and actually Palestinians should be thanking the IDF for all their hard work.

Like, what even is your definition of genocide anymore? I’ve seen liberals insist that the Uyghurs are being brutalized by a Chinese government building schools that teach Mandarian in the rural corners of Xinjiang. I’ve seen liberals insist a Taiwanese BDSM porn was proof that China’s police state was in violation of a dozen different treaties and conventions. I’ve seen Tibetian life expectancy double over the last 40 years and then received an earful about how the Tibetian ethnic government was doing terrorism by importing modern Chinese TVs, Radios, and Computers with Mandarian language broadcasts into the region.

Meanwhile, you’ve got liberals insisting Greta Thunberg is the antichrist when she tries to deliver baby formula to the Gaza shoreline.

Absolute obliteration of the western understanding of the term. Israelis tortured an orthopedic surgeon to death and there’s absolutely no news coverage of it. Bolsonaro butchers native people in Brazil and the liberals still back him. The Philippines is just an endless string of police actions against union organizers and nobody cares. But Kenya gets a new hospital and that’s Chinese genocide in West Africa.