☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆Two Things Can Be True At Once!
OwOarchistBut also … just because something is used by the US as propaganda doesn’t necessarily mean it’s untrue.
Look into literally every war they supported, it’s always false pretenses. They instigated Kuwait to get in trouble with Iraq, then told Iraq they wouldn’t oppose them invading Kuwait, then after Iraq invaded the US media apparatus lied everywhere that Iraqis disconnected hundreds of babies from incubators, killing them.
Still with Iraq, they told the world that Saddam Hussein had WMDs, that they had to be stopped for the safety of all USAmericans. Even though the weapons inspectors said it was patently false. The US invaded, many European countries supported them. After a very painful invasion where it’s estimated between hundreds of thousands to a million Iraqis were murdered by the US and their allies (and many, many more when you count those who died from other factors caused by the invasion, such as lack of infrastructure, hospitals, food, etc), after all of this did they find WMDs? Take a guess.
The US told us that Gaddafi was using mass rape against his enemies, and people believed it until after they bombed Libyans to rubble. Turns out, they lied.
Amnesty International curiously enough lied as well, they echoed the claims about Kuwait babies killed by the Iraqi army and the mass rape by Gaddafi’s troops until after the US punished them severely. Then they went back on their word, because as it turns out they were lying. So if even organizations that occasionally do decent work can’t be trusted not to amplify imperialism, how can we trust those that are even worse?
Can you trust the same newspapers that have told us for years that no genocide is happening in Gaza? That we should condemn Hamas? That Israel has the most moral army? We saw with our own eyes what they did and still do to children in Gaza. And to this day BBC, NYT and others still frame Israel as victims of aggression, and the real victims as untrustworthy terrorists. We can’t trust a word about anything involving politics because even now they lie through framing, through omission.
True true, and their ‘justifications’ for war are entirely bogus.
But I just caution against over-correcting. Just because someone is an enemy of the US doesn’t mean they’re perfect. Or even good.
AntiOutsideAktionYes it does. Relative to the US they are good.
The primary contradiction in the world right now is US imperialism.
If you are talking about an enemy of the US in the context of anything the US is doing, they are the good guys.
Anything less is apologism.
Nah. Being attacked by evil doesn’t make you good.
You’ve got to stop with this black-and-white thinking.
Cowbee [he/they]There are several socialist countries. What do you mean by “friend to the working classes” if not socialism?
State capitalism is not socialism, and it is not a friend of the working class.
Sure buddy, sure.
Take it this way, then:
Socialism is when the workers are in control of the means of production. Supposedly, socialist countries accomplish this by the state being in control of the means of production and the workers supposedly in control of the state. But in reality, the workers are not in control of the state, so the workers are not in control of the means of production, and it’s not socialism.
But in reality, the workers are not in control of the state
Can you justify this statement?
How much control does the average worker have over the state? Practically none.
QinShiHuangsShlongWho do you think controls the state in China? Do you know how the Chinese state is structured? Do you know how Chinese democracy and political involvement works? What sources did you use to study China, the Chinese government and China’s democratic methods?
The Chinese political system is based on whole-process people’s democracy, a form of consultative democracy. The local government is directly elected, and then these governments elect people to higher rungs, meaning any candidate at the top level must have worked their way up from the bottom and directly proved themselves. Moreover, the economy in the PRC is socialist, with public ownership as the principle aspect of the economy. Combining this consultative, ground-up democracy with top-down economic planning is the key to China’s success.
I highly recommend Roland Boer’s Socialism in Power: On the History and Theory of Socialist Governance. Socialist democracy has been imperfect, but has gone through a number of changes and adaptations over the years as we’ve learned more from testing theory to practice. Boer goes over the history behind socialist democracy in this textbook.
The working classes in socialist countries are the ones dictating the state and its direction.