I eat bugs
Well there probably won’t be anymore welfare at all in capitalist states soon enough so there’s that. The new strategy seems to be cutting proles and everyday consumers out of the economic system entirely via AI/robotics rather then appeasing them with welfare and concessions, while also leaning into further police militarization to deal with the inevitable impoverished masses.
My great great grandfather had his farm collectivized in the early USSR and was salty about it. When I visited a relative and looked at the old family album there was a photo of orthodox priests doing the Nazi salute, what that was doing in there I can only guess. My grandfather at least from what I know was more neutral about the USSR and traveled there to meet relatives.
A large reason for it I’d imagine is how deeply intertwined the porn industry tends to be with triads/gangs and other reactionary groups in the underbelly of society. The PRC spent decades dealing with the massive mess of corruption left behind by the RoC and have only really gotten things to stabilize in recent years, the PRC views anything remotely linked with corruption and internal instability as a huge no-no.
From what I seen China is really not that heavy handed against erotic stuff in practice as they are on paper, if anything lightly erotic stuff is all over the place in China. It’s more of a strategy of making things inconvenient enough to keep the masses away from it rather then any real intent to arrest everyday people for looking at porn.
True, the furthest you could probably go with Jesus is use him to argue in favor of politically neutral pacifism which is what Jehovah’s Witnesses do.
I don’t really know much about how the Catholic church in particular runs. My general view of how religion should be handled under socialism however is that problematic individuals and elements should be surgically removed and excised with care, and the strategy should be to decouple the reactionary elements from the religion as a whole. Antagonizing an entire majority religion and all it’s followers to me sounds like a recipe for disaster and a losing war.
I suppose there are a few theories you could make. One could be that poor countries that nobody immigrates to usually lack the same exposure to diversity that wealthy western countries might have. The more homogeneous a society is, the more people tend to fear the few who don’t fit.
Another is that the dismal conditions oppressed people face might make them lash out and look for scapegoats. Sometimes that’s good and leads to resistance against oppression, however others might take the path of least resistance instead and take their frustrations out on the ostracized. Even among those who are sympathetic, queer rights might simply be viewed as low priority in a place that is subjected to inhuman sweatshop labor and poverty.
Decentralized states are usually more resilient when faced with an external crisis (USSR when Germany attacked, Iran’s resilience against US attacks) while Unitary states are more stable otherwise.
I’m very much on the fence about it myself. There is a fine line between strategic retreat and surrender and I still unsure which I should be feeling. I understand Venezuela’s military capabilities are very poor but I also feel like the US isn’t stupid enough to fall for the whole “bidding your time” thing again like they did with China, they made it clear they don’t care about optics anymore and they have little reason not to continue pushing for the full eradication of socialism.
A part of me feels like they should go scorched earthed and destroy their own oil if they can’t control it, that would provide solidarity to Iran rather then undermining them by giving the US oil while Hormuz is blocked. However, I also know a move like that heavily risks alienating support from their own people who are already under extreme economic hardship so it’s… complicated I guess.
First of all the question is a bit of a strawman because socialism and collectivism are not 1 to 1 the same thing. Some level of collectivism is necessary in a socialism system but only to a certain extent, just as a sustainable capitalist system can’t be 100% individualist either . A socialist country CAN be extremely collectivist, but that just depends on the culture of the country in question. Marxism is against systematic exploitation at the industrial scale, it doesn’t say we have to be spending all our time doing nice things for our neighbors 24/7.
As for why a true individualist society would suck, it would eventually end in a huge mass of undereducated people, infrastructure decay and general neglect if we assume an opportunist doesn’t immediately take over and establish a dictatorship. Some things just aren’t going to happen without collectivist coordination.
Things aren’t always that simple, if Allende was alive today he would strongly disagree. The closest example we have of a socialist government coming to and staying in power through non-revolutionary means is maybe Venezuela and that still had a militaristic component to it, Hugo Chavez had the advantage of being a former military officer and had to deal with some close call coups.
I view freedom of speech as not an ideology, but rather as a privilege/luxury for places with favorable conditions and a lack of existential threats. The West liked to flaunt free market and free speech ideals back when they had a massive soft power advantage over the late USSR and emerging world, now that they are losing the economic/soft power game against China they are placing the shoe on the other foot and doing away with those ideals in favor of protectionist and nationalistic measures.
I am going to jump on the Ukraine bandwagon, pre-dissolution it was an absolute industrial powerhouse that was building nuclear supercarriers and had a world leading aerospace industry. Fast forward and it became a country struggling to have a functioning sewage system.
Naturally Marxist Leninists are going to hold at least an ounce of distain for “welfarism” due to the way the bourgeoisie have historically used welfare to placate the masses into accepting a temporary band aid rather then actually seizing power for themselves. That’s not the same thing as opposing welfare in principle the way conservatives and reactionaries do, unless you’re advocating for an extreme degree of welfare that ignores material reality.
Franco was an antiquated relic of the axis who never received the latest software updates.
A theory I have as to why Marxism was able to take off in Asia is their strong reading and book culture, along of course with them getting the short stick of Imperialism.
There is no longer enough pie left to sustain both the US and Europe, the only way for either to survive is to take everything left that remains on the plate.
Don’t worry, surely it’s just to protect children and not to help build data profiles of people and their ideological views which can then be handed to ICE or whatever Gestapo-like organization.
Provide outlets and media platforms, that is the main area where the right dominates over the left and that the left could greatly use the help of a class traitor in.
Peter Thiel is already the de facto ruler of the US, Vance would probably be even more of a puppet.
Pol Pot was just an ultranationalist using a Marxist coat of paint to garner additional support. He said so himself multiple times.