I guess! Possibly high effort, low reward but it could work I suppose.
Idea being those converts go on to do the work for you elsewhere.
But I still think they’re just people after this stage. Lots of people become communist on their own as well. You don’t need to glaze China to do it but it probably creates a bit of cognitive dissonance to see how awful it is there. So you ignore stuff like the uyghurs and pretend it’s amazing so you can pretend communism will work.
As everyone else has said, there is definitely this issue on Lemmy, when criticising China and Russia especially. Happened to me a few times. It’s weird.
I once did a test to see if the bias was really that bad and commented on a relevant news article on .ml something like “fuck Putin. Russia is committing war crimes in Ukraine” maybe with a couple of extra similar phrases. Comment deleted by mods with no explanation. Insane.
I could just be paranoid but I’m fairly convinced the responses weren’t from patriotic citizens. I think they were paid trolls or bots, and I think their purpose was to quiet negative talking points about the countries that were mentioned.
This is a common suggestion. I can see why people say it, but I just find it hard to believe people are really spending time here to do that. Wouldn’t you just go to reddit? What, do you want to convert the trekkies and Linux evangelists?
I think it’s much scarier than that: some people are just fucking nuts
Removed by mod
“Extending” is the key word here. You aren’t extending any power if it’s your own nation, it would be the other party who did that.
Anyway, thanks for the link, I’ll check it out!
Kicking someone out is not “extending power over foreign nations.” That is “resisting foreign nations trying to extend power over you.”
You’re being ridiculous and clearly not taking the definition as intended. Your definition is the problem here
Ok thanks.
Your definition seems a little cherry picky. Ignoring the obvious role of hard power and over-focusing on capital seems like a mistake. But I don’t know enough anyway. Wiki’s definition makes more sense to me
Would Russia be imperialist if everything was the same except they had more finance capital and less commodities trade?
Hmm OK. I don’t think you really addressed my question but it’s fine. Everyone’s imperialist. Except Russia of course, famously progressive Russia.
Anyway, thanks for explaining what you meant
So Russia with more finance capital and less commodities trade would be imperialist, but the way it is, they aren’t?
I think I get what you’re saying now. But it seems so arbitrary. Why should I give a shit who’s imperialist by this specific definition? It would basically make 0% difference to how much Russia is a problem for the world
I see where you’re coming from now. I think if you define imperialism in that way, it makes sense that you would consider all of those countries imperialist.
When markets are fully saturated domestically, capital expands outward. Once industrial and bank capital grow, they merge and dominate the entire economy, resulting in the dominance of finance capital in the economy …
But this whole description seems weird to me. Are there any powerful capitalist countries that could avoid this?
And I still don’t think Russia could possibly escape this definition. They have BRICS and are a major oil trader. They physically are trying to occupy another country right now. They use Russian language and state media to influence Eastern European countries in particular.
The EU is a coaliton of right-wing imperialist states, this is true.
Not really all right wing but perhaps compared to your politics. Or mine tbh
Russia isn’t imperialist
I’m confused about this. I checked to see if I had the right definition, just in case, and this is wikipedia’s:
imperialism is the maintaining and extending of power over foreign nations, particularly through expansionism, employing both hard power and soft power.
How does this not perfectly describe what Russia is doing in Ukraine?
Do you have an alternative definition you’re working with?
“Many of them”
“Either in power or coming to power”
“Rely on”
The claims have changed so much it seems that you also disagree with the meme at this point.
If you felt the need to add all those qualifiers (not wrong, btw), then it’s clear that you wouldn’t describe the EU as an “imperialist nazi state” either.
And that’s before we ask other things, eg why Ukraine and not Russia?
Because it’s dumb propaganda
“Nazi state”
Looks inside
Contains 27 states, most of which are not nazi-run
Completely and utterly stupid.
Clearly the EU is an imperialist nazi state made up of multiple different independent nations generally not following fascism and being members on a purely voluntary basis. Did you not receive your shipment of tankie crack this week, comrade?
Yeah literally.
Although depending on context it may also be that you did something really bad, lol
Otherwise it means they think you can take a joke and probably like you at least a bit. If you’re out drinking and it’s said with a smile, you’re officially one of the boys for the night
I use the word. I’m also not-so-coincidentally British.
I personally do not see it as being derogatory towards women. As others have pointed out, the same logic would apply to “dick” and yet nobody makes that argument (unless it’s rhetorical). Just because you reference a “characteristic” body part doesn’t mean you’re trashing the whole gender. It just doesn’t make sense to me. It’s not like it’s only said to women either.
Others may disagree. That’s fine. That’s why you control your behaviour and others control theirs. All we have to do is be considerate (eg don’t drop the c bomb when you first meet someone new) and everything is good.
Also: are you American? In Britain, at least 50% of my c word usages are to friends. It’s almost a term of endearment. So why should your cultural view of the word override mine?
Anyway, peace out cunts and cuntesses!
Wait, were both of those sexist or only one? 🤔
One of my favourite newer bands, the Bobby Lees! This album, Bellevue, is my favourite by far.
Worth a listen if you like punk-ish stuff
https://open.spotify.com/album/7Df5lbBpVHDyCGRovo5oQj