So there are child rape concentration camps on the border. They are absolutely horrible, and I am very glad people are now paying attention. But you have to ask, why were people trying to move here in masse from Mexico and Central America in the first place? A big reason was NAFTA. The numbers spiked heavily based on this bourgeois giveaway of resources from the people of those countries to huge international corporations. We have installed right wing dictators, overthrown socialist governments illegally:. Most recently Brazil in 2016. We have waged economic warfare on those people and stolen their resources for decades.

Our politics, if they are to be consistent and ethical,must be internationalist. That means we must reject nationalism in all it's forms and stand with the global working class. We are also only strong enough to defeat the bourgeois masters when we take this stance.

This photograph is only the tip of the iceberg from ONE huge U.S. torture scandal. We happened to get wind of it, apparently in part because the torturers were having so much fun and feeling so unaccountable, they decided to photograph their torture sessions in detail. You can see how casual they are standing around while extreme torture is going on. Google guantanamo bay torture for more--there are FAR worse images than this but I wouldn't post them directly into this thread.

NAFTA did cause much of the immigration from Mexico. Many of the people who came to the US had been farmers and a lot of them farmed corn. After NAFTA, heavily subsidized corn from the US flooded Mexico. Also Mexico had communal land for farmers (Ejidos) which were guaranteed as an important part of the Constitution of Mexico. NAFTA required alteration of that so that much of this land could be privatized. That sparked the Zapatista uprising.

Central America was affected by CAFTA. The most heinous things that comes to mind from CAFTA are the investor trade dispute courts which have largely given US and international corporations free reign over Central American governments who can't afford to dispute corporate claims, let alone pay if they lose.

https://www.thenation.com/article/wh...ntral-america/

Free Trade deals between the US and the EU, Japan, China, South Korea, Canada, Aus etc are one thing, but the trade deals between the developing world and the developed world are about strong arming access to raw materials and domination of markets - same as most of the wars of overt imperialism.

I think you're right about internationalism, but don't forget humanism. Maybe about two billion people count as bourgeois. Some people are radically selfish, but a lot of people are just insecure and more afraid of looking like they have betrayed their class than they are fundamentally selfish. The bourgeois, by and large, need to be liberated from the fear that without pressing for every advantage they will fall into poverty and to develop a humanist, rather than class or nationalistic, consciousness.

Isn't calling them concentration camps a shade hyperbolic? Define nationalism. Some of the global working class are from former colonies & are kinda-sorta "nationalist" in some respects but don't have the same style nationalism as others such as alt right or white nationalism for example, but are merely happy that they as a people nation and nationality have self determination.

Also if you feel that strongly about the global working class, perhaps you should change the symbol in your profile, horrifically oppressive as it was to millions of the global working class which led to more than one actual genocide of said working class. Especially if you're anti torture.

I probably share most or all your complaints about nationalism.

But here's a practical question. Don't we need national governments to confront the corporations?

I mean, if we have a shot at slowing global warming, or throttling big data and big pharma, or addressing myriad desperate problems, won't it be by taking control of the state and using it against the corporations?

Maybe it isn't possible and we are f-kd, but if there is a chance to halt the rush toward the abyss, won't it be through national governments?

This means retaining the national form -- and nationalism. Appealing to the public for the good of the nation. It sounds great to cultivate a loyalty to all humanity, or the international proletariat, but that didn't work and maybe we need to set our sites lower.

And I didn't follow previous thread about Einbert the Red. Is this performance art of some sort or are we to take it at face value?

If you are from a country that is really doing good stuff there is nothing wrong with being proud of that--but that's not the same thing as nationalism. But yes of course you can't blame former colonialized people for being happy to have some self-determination.

How about nope. The USSR lifted more people out of poverty than any other project, and Cuba is currently able to provide better medical care and education to its citizens than countries with massively higher amounts of wealth. They did kill a lot of people, when they killed the Nazis and ended World War 2.

According to French polls in 1945, 1994, and 2004, who contributed the most to the Allied victory in World War II


As you can see, the US propaganda on this has been very effective. But we can see clearly that the fate of the people of Russia has fallen into terrible places since communism fell in 1991, and the huge majority of people there want socialism/communism back in some form. So no I won't be changing my avatar, especially not for you.

Short answer is we will still need some sort of "government." I'm no an anarchist. I want to see a dictatorship of the proletariat. I want to see a government focused on actually building the best world for the people, not maximizing profits for Mark Zuckerberg and a handful of other billionaires. I want to see a government that will hang bankers and CEOs of big pharma and big Military-Industrial Complex right in the street. I want a government that polices its own, where we have practically zero need for prisons and certainly we don't need to brutally murder black citizens in the street daily "to keep order."

But as you can imagine from my short paragraph, the "government" of this socialist future would almost be completely unrecognizable to someone who's thinking of "government" as our government here and now.

It's not a performance art, I've just been radicalized by the events of the last few years. But I can see how liberalism has truly failed us and where we are heading if we continue to chase its promises.

I wanted to address this specifically. No it's not, because the term "concentration camp" was originally used to refer to camps with a high concentration of ethnic minorities, whether Jews or black people or refugees of a different racial or ethnic status. These camps are being used to house people from the global south that are by and large not white, and they are being imprisoned in horrific conditions and without access to proper legal resources. Children are being separated from their parents as well, we all know about the horrors. The truth is it's irresponsible to not call it out as a concentration camp at this point--it's absolutely a concentration camp of "undesired" refugees from the Global South, a region we have been waging war on for decades.

In 1955, the United States went to war with North Vietnam, in an effort to prevent some farmers from joining together and democratically managing their labor and their wealth production. Something that is strictly not allowed under capitalism, but is encouraged and actually a key feature of socialism. The U.S. would go on to bomb, shoot, napalm, and chemically poison thousands of farmers who joined together to defend their homes and their ability to make a decent living. Today, people who participated in this blatant abuse are celebrated as "war heroes" and given strict preferential treatment when it comes time to run for political office, even when they clearly have nothing to offer in terms of intellect or moral virtue.



The war would rage on all the way until 1975. Oh yeah, from 1961-1969 it was overseen by Democratic administrations...hate to break it to you guys but imperialism is very much a bipartisan affair, ever since the beginning.

Power and nationalism suck. The Commies were no different. The USSR, through the communist party, put the bourgeois in power in Spain and guaranteed fascist victory. Cuba was treated as an imperial possession just like under US domination. And minorities were persecuted in the USSR. I've heard first hand accounts of that from Jewish people who weren't allowed to leave until the 70's. And that's not mentioning the mass murder and intentional famines before WW2. The Russian Communists just took over the police state that the Tsar established and the new boss was the same as the old boss.

Pure anything is probably unworkable. Pure anarchy is so because too many people suck, but anarchy (means no rulers) is the direction we should head as far as possible.

And Bill, in practice what organizations have been more environmentalist, nationalistic or internationalist?

Relevant here, since it just happened this morning:

Ignoring the faux pas (I'm feeling generous) you still have to love the sentiment here - "how can you say we're not great, think of all the things we've destroyed!"

Ignoring the fact that it was a huge boondoggle that used public monies and was itself subtly militarist, you still have to love the sentiment that a country whose space program landed humans on the ****ing moon can only recall defeating radical Islam and communist Japan as two great things the US did. It's like jabbering about how great Aretha Franklin was because she got an honorary degree from the New England Conservatory of Music and for her hit single I Will Survive.

Russia and WW2 is a big subject. There's a reason every refugee was desperate to head towards the Americans and away from the Russians when Germany was collapsing. The Russians systematically raped maybe a couple million women in Germany at the end of the war. Egoism sucks in its own ways, but the fervor for the State and the de-emphasis of individuality and individual rights in both Fascism and State Communism is dangerously dehumanizing. Capitalism is dehumanizing as well for sure. I'm not saying it isn't. But patriotism, nationalism, religion, state communism, classism etc don't help things.

I think Fox would have a hard time claiming that spending 5% of US GDP for foreign aid, The Marshall Plan (30 times what we currently spend) or anything along those lines was a good thing.

Well my point is that nationalism isn't as necessarily absolutist as one might initially perceive & can come in different forms, some of it benign, most of it not so much. I'm happy that I have a sense of determination & recognise that some died for this. That could be construed by some as nationalsm although I don't regard myself as such.



Nope how about a big fat yep & I truly can't emphasise that enough.

Okay. First of all let me clarify a couple of things. I'm neither left nor right wing or American. Some issues I have leftist sympathies with other issues I'm conservative on. I'm also working class. And from a colony who was a victim of what you might (arguably) call "imperialism" if you will & I guarantee you Communists & hard lefties everywhere would indeed call it "imperialism". I have no radical political views.
I do appreciate altruism & humanism though & I get the impression that it's from this perspective that you're coming from, so I'm not gonna dismiss you outright. But leave the historical revisionism for the Holocaust Deniers as everyone laughs at that shower anyway. And also leave the flat out lies for the Holocaust deniers also as the Soviet Regime killed far far far more than just Nazis I assure you.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor

Stalin had millions killed & brushed it off by saying the death of one was a tragedy & a million a statistic. Then there was the whole Gulag/oppression/curtailing of freedom of expression/anti Semitism/oppression of gays/waiting hours in the breadline thing in case you missed those rather glaring parts. Castro was also a megalomaniac who called the Soviets a bunch of "maricons" for not starting nuclear Armageddon during the Cuban Missile crisis. He also brutally repressed gays & any dissidents, not just the right wing terrorist types based in Miami. Not one single Communist country worked as it doesn't allow for human nature & sees people in terms of drones- workers who can be expended if need be. Every single communist nation had an abysmal human rights record.

Do not engage in revisionism with me and do not engage in falsehoods otherwise it'll be pointless continuing with you & I mean no offence saying that, I simply believe in being out straight, thanks.

According to French polls in 1945, 1994, and 2004, who contributed the most to the Allied victory in World War II


I always stated readily that the Soviet Union won WWII i the sense that they did the most hard graft, beating back the Nazis inch by bloody inch at absolutely enormous sacrifice which is why they call it the Great Patriotic War. I've seen their speeches when they celebrate it & the emphasis on how they never gave up.(unlike other nations which they never fail to mention btw as all the other countries are run by little girls etc).

So regardless of US propaganda, I've simply analysed & interpreted history. I find it bemusing though how you mention propaganda while engaging in your own with your rose tinted proclamation of the Worker's Utopia.

As any society would under any radical "ism" that went suddenly. Such as Saddamism by way of a pertinent example. You can't go from one extreme to the other & not expect serious problems socially & economically.

Yeah 74 years of it being beaten into you tends to have such an effect.

Whaddya mean "especially" not for "me"? You don't even know me, stranger on the internet, lol.

Bottom line the symbol you use is no different than a swastika & equally odious in terms of the suffering it caused & mostly against the global working class. So if you are gonna use a symbol of horrific oppression, genocide & crimes against humanity in order to speak out against oppression & unfairness & imperialism then don't expect to be taken remotely seriously by people who do analyse & interpret history as your sheer revisionism has you coming across like one of those teens/very young adults who sport a Che Guevara tee shirt without having a clue about him either.

Totalitarian regimes suck regardless of their golden intentions. Sooner you learn that the better & if you're going to condemn oppression & highlight human rights then be egalitarian about it.
Nice talking with you cheers.

corpus,

I'm not expert, but I think Cuba is pretty defensible if held the same standards as any other country - which is pretty low. The war crimes in the revolution were on the order of 15k people. Oppression of gay people? We did that too. The British castrated one of their greatest war heroes for being gay. And this was happening during Jim Crow in the US. I'm sure you can list example after example of human rights violation from Cuba, but again, compare it to other countries if you are going to say it's worse.

And then before saying it didn't work as a society, compare it to the alternative, which wasn't to be the US, but to continue to be subject to US business backed regimes. Compare it to Haiti or the Dominican Republic, not the US or Denmark or something.

Disagree with this strongly. The US flag is in the same league if you just do a body count. The US almost exterminated the indigenous people, held millions in slavery, committed brutal genocide in The Philippines, installed murderous dictators all over especially in Central and South America, bombed millions of people to death in Southeast Asia, and have recently destabilized the middle east leading to about a million dead and millions of people displaced. We continue to participate in the war in Yemen which may yet lead to millions of deaths. Pretty odious if you look at it like that.

But, the principles of America aren't in the same odious league as Nazism and neither are the principles of communism and using their symbols is not the same as using a swastika.

Stalin brushed off the rape spree as lads having a laugh, was all just a bit of fun. (seriously, what a cu... um curmudgeon )

I agree.

Lol at "Communist Japan" btw.

corpus,

I know you said you're not coming from a left or right perspective, but you definitely seem to be coming from the right. That's fine. But, this is interesting and reflects on nationalism vs. internationalism. The right - not Nazis, but just right leaning westerners - seem to focus really on what a government does to its own people. Atrocities committed on others is not nearly the outrage. All is fair in war or something. With the Nazis this was true in their own way as well, they just defined 'other' slightly more racially than most political groups. Che Guevara is a devil, but not Teddy Roosevelt. The problem with the French Revolution was that they killed 40k people in the terror, but the war they conducted which became the Napoleonic Wars and killed maybe 5 million people is just business.

I'm not saying the west hasn't done some appalling crimes & doesn't have some serious blood on its hands. How many thousands did the Iraq sanctions kill? How does an opposition to communism justify Pinochet? Boatload more examples I could give but I reckon we both know more aren't needed.

I also firmly believe that some form of revolution was inevitable in Cuba anyway as it was routinely oppressed in on form or another.

The problem I have is with the airbrushing. Every dictator does some form of something positive for the populace. Saddam instigated a massive literacy policy, Cuba's medical system was mentioned & not without justification.

OTOH Castro was still a megalomaniac, Che Guevara enjoyed killing. Soviet Union was still repressive & killed millions. Such things shouldn't be disregarded.

As I said I pretty much agree with you here.

How so? Again I'm neither. I was ardently against both Iraq & Afghanistan invasions & marched against both in protest. I strongly believe no stigma should be attached to unemployment assisted payments, that there should be a safety net for those who are unlucky enough to lose employment & strongly believe in tenancy rights & that they have protection against landlords who wish to profit at their expense. I'm against hegemony & unilateral military action/aggression.
Re majority of social issues I'm progressive. I voted for same sex marriage & repealing the eight amendment which effectively banned abortion over my way.

Otoh I'm conservative re certain types of crime. . I consider it important to preserve my culture- in my case Irish culture- due to historical reasons & the fact that we're a relatively new Republic as nations go, but don't think my culture is better than anyone else's. So again I'm neither left nor right.

I'm ideally anti war. I don't believe in selective outrage though condeming the atrocities of one while revising the atrocities of others.

I actually regard the nazis as a bunch of nutty occultists more than anything else with a weird hodge podge of ideas. Populist you could say, I guess.

Or Curtis La May? Or Henry Kissinger? As I said I don't agree with airbrushing of any kid.

Problem with most revolutions is that they tend to kill lots of people just as wars do. Ask the people of Cambodia. Or Iraq.

But no again I don't consider myself either left or right wing, even if I'm giving you the impression I'm one one side instead of another.
Cheers.

Why not?

The Commies really are on the wrong side of history here: The Spanish Revolution of 1936 was already mentioned. Another example is the suppression Kronstadt Rebellion.

Comparing the US-with all its very real flaws- to the Soviet Union or indeed China today is laughable.

Yeah it is. Both engaged in genocide both put the state before the people both engaged in anti Semitism (Stalin had plans for Russian & probably Soviet Jews but thankfully died before such plans could come to fruition) & both brutally crushed any form of dissent. Tomayto-tomato both were as bad as each other & using one symbol of oppression & genocide to condemn oppression is still laughable & just ridiculous sorry and not remotely credulous.