Also, many of us have lived in countries actually freed thanks to the west’s (mustly us) intervention, and we felt the support during the Russian occupation pre 1989
Many of us have lived or live in countries that are constantly affected and destabilized by past and even modern interventions from the U.S. (the only blame the rest of the "West" bears here is just watching without ever acknowledging the harm done). Just look at Latin America.
edit: Not trying to say "US bad, China good." Just there is perspective to everything.
So, yeah, the US is no "blanca palomita" at all. And those of us suffering from their actions have learned that all powerful nations have good and bad things. Here in Mexico, we've got BYD cars, and they are AMAZING. Also being able to use DeepSeek is so cool.
If your government refuses to stop the flow of drugs into the US by addressing cartels don't be surprised if the US delivers weapons to said cartels so they can have some infighting going on.
If the mexican government would actually make work of dismantling the organized trade, there would be no incentive to deliver them weapons to shoot each other.
supply is never an issue, USA would supply poison to entire planet if the demand was there. blaming Mexico for the sickness of our society is very rich (but often repeated)
And some of us have a sore lower back after playing tennis, while some of us have terminal stage four cancer. Who is to say which is worse?
I think right now there's a kind of global propaganda competition playing out and the thing that does the most damage is false equivalences that encourage loss of perspective.
You cant compare qualia of suffering. At least not with our current technology. Thats the point - they both involve suffering but that doesn’t mean one is inherently worse than the other. The details and experience matter which got glossed over in these stupid debates- hence loss of perspective.
Honestly I had to read the wiki page of false equivalence and you’re not asserting the fallacy correctly.
The US committed massive treaty violations and genocide, on top of huge imperialist destabilization of many sovereign nations. Tianmen square and the Uyghers are bad, but we're straight up evil.
The Chinese government regularly kidnaps its own citizens, who have no due process rights, and is currently engaged in a mass genocide of a racial group they consider “inferior.”
Additionally, they have supported Russia consistently during their occupation of Ukraine, and just install leaders for life.
I’m confused how you think the US is worse. I say this as an Afroindigenous person who is very clear about the harms white supremacy has inflicted upon the cultures I am a part of.
I see young people advocating for socialism a lot in Canada, but rarely communism as in communist Russia and communist China. As others have said, old style communism isn't even around anymore. Russia is a fake democracy and China is a strange blend of one party rule and capitalism.
I don't think it does anyone any good to throw around naive and simple terms like communism. Focus on issues like public healthcare, breaking monopolies, basic incomes, and so on. We'll get along a lot better that way.
Because they'll make you worse off the more you scale them up. It's like pointing out that a drink of alcohol with a friend led to positive results so why not lean heavily into drinking? And the answer is because it is something that people enjoy that can be tolerated in small amounts but isn't much of a strategy if the goal is a happy, healthy outcome.
That's ridiculous. The countries with the highest quality of living all have strong social programs. If you want an analogy for alcoholism look at the US. Capitalism works here, so let's use it everywhere!
I'm tempted to copy what you wrote as a response without the "That's ridiculous" part. It isn't ridiculous, it is just a factual description of reality. The reason the US can afford the strong social programs is because of its heavy commitment to capitalism. If a country is poor and weak then it can't afford to endure the pain that a strong social program causes. Poor countries just can't sustain populations of people who consume resources and don't create anything especially valuable. If you scale up the social programs too far at some point the wealth destruction becomes intolerable; there's some optimal amount of damage that can be accepted and "lean in to socialism" isn't the best strategy to find that balance because by the time the pain becomes intolerable it has already happened.
China hasn't been communist for a really long time. It didn't truly stay communist for a long time either, it was more of an authoritarian autarky run by a nutjob.
What is is today is state sponsored capitalism. You have cronyism, nepotism, lobbying and rent seeking. All of which are also found in the US.
China's social spending is far lower than many other developed nations.
Yeah, there are some Eastern EU countries where populist parties still milk the older voters with Soviet nostalgia. Yet, as usual, the same politicians who suggest how good things were back then are usually very happy to enjoy Western goods, freedom of movement, private property and EU funds.
But generally, people still remember the Soviet concentration camps, censorship, shortages of basic goods and the inborn corruption that came with the Soviet implementation of communism.
Communism ideologies seem to thrive among the young in (pseudo) democratic societies. That’s a paradox for me, as communism seems to exist because of the wealth distribution that capitalism creates.
Now, what the EU is doing right now with all that bureaucratic machine and the leftist social agenda, is another topic.
Go to Shenzhen or Shanghai, if that's what communism looks like, then it has already won. A few weeks ago, when I was in Shanghai, I went for a walk and saw more McLarens and Ferraris in a few hours than I've seen in New York, Berlin, and Paris combined.
They're more capitalist than we (the West) ever were. Communism is basically only something that remains in the name of the party. Their version of capitalism just has a lot more state involvement and capital controls, which lets them plan over longer time horizons more successfully and pivot to new priorities much faster.
Very much. Try to start a union in China and see how communist that country is. China is essentially a right-wing hypercapitalist country run by a dictatorship.
How many not-so-smart and not-so-intelligent people can claim Russia occupied you? Never mind, your liberation by the West will come back to haunt you, mark my words... and very soon! You'll remember how well you lived during the years of the USSR and the Warsaw Pact!
those countries were liberated 35 years ago, GDP and other essential metrics increased significantly. How longer they should wait to start feeling remorse?
I remember constant grocery deficits, no meat, no cheese, etc in groceries. and all other kind of deficits. But there were rotten potatoes, and 2 types of bread! Glory to our leaders! fun times, you say.
