Thinking about that post that was like “i too used to idolize social democracies in europe until i realized their wealth comes from exploited countries in the global south too”
[Descripción de las imágenes: dos fotos de un libro escrito por Eduardo Galeano. Dicen “aguas; en Chile, al sur de Concepción, las plantaciones de pinos proporcionan madera a los japoneses y proporcionan sequía a toda la región. El presidente del Uruguay hincha el pecho de orgullo: los finlandeses están produciendo madera en nuestro país. Vender árboles a Finlandia, país maderero, es una proeza, como vender hielo a los esquimales. Pero ocurre que los finlandeses plantan en Uruguay los bosques artificiales que en Finalndia están prohibidos por las leyes de protección a la naturaleza.” Fin de la descripción de las imágenes]
I had this idea for a looping animation in which a single dot has a pretty long loop, but the animation as a whole is much shorter. Because of the repetition this animation is only 1 second long!
shows an essentialist this and their head goes boom in English, ban-ban in Japanese, cabum in Portuguese [citation needed], cataplum in Spanish, and so on
The Republicans in the late 90’s called Clinton a war monger for his opperations in Kosovo and capitalized on his illegal strikes in Iraq. They then elect W Bush who gets us into the 2 longest wars in our history, one on a completely lie, and violated international law regularly with his torture program and indefinite detention centers.
Obama said Bush’s wars were appalling and misuided, ran as anti-war, and he would end the wars. He was elected and then escelated them then brought the total from 2 wars to 7 and instituted the drone program which has killed civilians and US citizens.
Trump said Obama’s unapproved wars and strikes in Syria were illegal and too costly and ran as a non-interventionist. Since then he’s added nothing but Generals and Warhawks like John Bolton to his cabinet and now he’s increacing bombing of civilians Syria and ramping up rhetoric with North Korea.
They all do this. They always do this. The US has never not been at war. The guy out of power always criticizes and then when they seize power they say We’ve Always Been At War With Eastasia.
Bush’s wars were both based on lies; the IEA (then the Taliban) had offered to extradite ibn Laden to a third party country for trial on the condition of evidence of his involvement. Instead of accepting this, America killed hundreds of thousands of people over decades in an attempt to seize control of central asia, a long-standing western objective.
I think I remember reading that when the archives were opened for study it was proven that it was a systematic attempt by the soviets to destroy the Ukrainian people.
Communism doesn’t leave room for individual or even localized cultural anything.
We are communists, you will be assimilated or you will die.
For proof, search Marx on the Jewish Question.
Even if there wasn’t written reports by the Soviet government saying it was directly their policy, it leaves 2 options; they did it deliberately or central planning and control caused it.
Well some tankies are now pushing the idea that the “kulaks” in Ukraine destroyed their own crops and farming equipment in order to stop their property from being forcibly socialized (i.e. stolen.) Even if that were true, it would mean the Soviet government stood by and did nothing to alleviate the starvation.
i think you made a minor typo, because instead of writing “some tankies” i think what you might have meant to write is “every single historian in existence, including the anti-communist ones.” it is trivially easy to find examples of anti-communist sources acknowledging this as fact, usually framing it as a heroic struggle against the soviets:
this sources is, of course, filled with the usual anti-communist lies and distortions, and yet nonetheless even the most brazenly biased anti-communist sources acknowledge that the destruction of crops and livestock is an indisputable historical fact. but once again acknowledging any indisputable historical facts makes me a tankie lol.
also the funny part about claiming “the Soviet government stood by and did nothing to alleviate the starvation” is that putting the crops and livestock in the hands of regular farm workers instead of wealthy farm owners is, in fact, doing something to alleviate the starvation. literally trying to ensure that a small group of wealthy people don’t hold the food supply for ransom and then when the wealthy farm owners destroy it so the poors can’t get it, anti-communists jump in to frame the people who destroyed food during a famine as brave heroes. what a joke.
beardedmrbean “thinks he remembers” soviet documents showing that the famine was a genocide, but he thinks wrong, because no such documents exist, which is why he didn’t link it. there are, however, documents showing that the USSR sent hundreds of tons of grain, food, and seed to Ukraine for famine relief, as mentioned in this response by Mark Tauger to Applebaum’s shoddy scholarship:
Repeatedly she purports to know what people were thinking, with no evidence. During 1931-1932 she asserts “everyone understood at some level that collectivization was the source of the new shortages” (165). Yet she admits that in 1931 there were “bouts of drought,” which is an understatement; even Stalin publicly stated that drought “considerably” reduced the 1931 harvest.14 Russia and Ukraine had a long history of droughts and famines, which she admits (283); how can she know that no one, even peasants, saw the drought as a cause of shortages? In discussing the regime’s decision in spring 1932 to stop the procurements and provide food and seed for the villages to produce a new harvest, she asserts that officials “knew” that “food aid to Ukraine was a tacit admission of Stalin’s failure,” but also “knew” that “catastrophe would follow” if Ukraine did not get aid (173). Yet her sources include the published decree of 16 February 1932 that allotted 870,000 tons of seed and food to Ukraine and several eastern provinces, which she does not mention.15 The fact that this decree was publicized implies that leaders did not see it as an admission of failure. Applebaum does admit that in April the Politburo allotted Ukraine some aid, but she then asserts that Stalin suddenly “withdrew the food aid he sent to Ukraine” (174). There is no evidence for this action in her footnotes, nor in her other sources, not even a single telegram or letter; this claim appears to be false. Applebaum does not mention the Politburo decree from 15 May 1932, in her sources, that allotted Ukraine 6.5 million puds (106,000 tons) of grain for food relief, and more in the next weeks.16
it’s funny that those who admonish others to read Marx’s “On the Jewish Question” have so clearly never done so themselves, and certainly have never done research into the context in which it was written- namely, that Marx was writing the text in response to Bruno Bauer, an antisemite who had argued that jewish people must abandon their faith before they could be granted political emancipation, while Marx- who, remember, was jewish himself- argued that jewish people must be granted political emancipation immediately without any such precondition. it’s responding to and arguing against antisemitic arguments by turning them on their head, and anyone who has actually researched this at all knows this.
There is no royal road to science, and only those who do not dread the fatiguing climb of its steep paths have a chance of gaining its luminous summits
“Today’s young people and future generations will also witness stronger negative effects of climate change on food production and availability. The warmer it gets, the more difficult it will become to grow or produce, transport, distribute, buy, and store food – a trend that is projected to hit poor populations the hardest. Depending on future policies and climate and adaptation actions taken, the number of people suffering from hunger in 2050 will range from 8 million to up to 80 million people, with most severely affected populations concentrated in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Central America. Under a high vulnerability-high warming scenario, up to 183 million additional people are projected to become undernourished in low-income countries due to climate change by 2050.”
