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Can you tell me what’s bad about that platform?
Even with the uncharitable wording you used on some items it seems like a huge list of good policies and goals that would help the American people. How come it’s bad?
I'll give you a genuine answer because I assume you're actually being serious.
I'll dissect 3 of their policies at random that I already listed above to demonstrate just how of touch these people are. Just an FYI, they have a few more ridiculous policies that I didn't include because my list was starting to get too long, but I just wanted point this out nonetheless. Anyways, let's get on to the policies:
Abolish NATO
Why exactly? In what way does this move benefit the United States? Do these idiots even understand what country they're running to govern? NATO is an American led organization that has served as the backbone of American-European bilateral cooperation and one of the most fundamental pieces to American foreign policy for decades. Not only does NATO guarantee American security and the security of our most important allies, but it also serves as one of the biggest pillars of American soft and hard power. Rouge regimes like Iran and Russia know better than to mess with our European allies in NATO because they the presence of the US military and it's might acts as a deterrent. NATO is the symbol of Western unity, it is a stabilizing force in Europe, it is what's keeping Europe largely peaceful.
Not to mention that NATO's explicit purpose of defending Europe from Russian aggression is more relevant than ever because Russia has literally invaded Ukraine, the second largest European country, right now in the largest land war in Europe since WWII. It's a blatant act of unprovoked aggression and imperial conquest. Putin along with his cronies have publicly threatened other countries such as Lithuania, Poland, Estonia, Moldova, Latvia, etc with invasion and have threatened other countries such as the UK and Germany with nukes. This is on top of Russia already invading Ukraine in 2014 and annexing Crimea, invading Georgia in 2008 and creating two puppet states in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, illegally turning Belarus into a puppet dictatorship, illegally occupying parts of Moldova in the form of Transnistria, starting the war in Donbass, annexing all of southern Ukraine in their current invasion, spending billions annually on propaganda and misinformation campaigns to destabilize the West, sending in assassins to take out targets in the West, constantly launching cyberattacks on our infrastructure, bolstering our enemies like Iran and North Korea, and the list goes on and on.
Why the fuck should we put ourselves and our allies at risk, appease a ruthless dictator, and destroy all of the alliances and good we've made? How does abolishing NATO serve our national interests? Calling this idiotic is too generous for what it is.
Cancel all debt
No debt? Yay! But what does that mean exactly? See, if the policy here is to cancel specific types of debt, then you could excuse it. If it is promoting a welfare program that provides relief to people, then you could make an arguement for it... but no, on their official platform they just straight up claim that all debt should be cancelled.
Let's think about this from a logical point of view for a second. This country has a lot of debt whether it's public, corporate, or individual... how exactly would cancel it? Is their plan to print money to pay off all of the debt? That's a one way ticket to inflation. Are they planning to ban loans? That's another way to screw over the economy, especially poor people. Are they perhaps planning to just to write a statement saying that all debt is hereby void and expect that to actually work? It's really baffling.
Let's suppose, they manage to actually do it, are new loans going to be allowed? If not, how are they going to prevent the banks from collapsing? Banks literally run on loans, that's how they work. If the banks collapse, so does everything that uses them, which basically means that the US economy will crash and burn. Is this their genius plan? Is the grand socialist idea to collapse the American economy and plunge the world economy into absolute chaos? I shudder at the thought of how many people will fall into poverty or famine because of this.
The thing that pisses me off about this is that they don't even bother to explain their reasoning. If you're going to do something this big and stupid then at least have the decency to explain it to your voters. Explain why debt is bad and how you're going to cancel it. Keeping it this vague and sweet sounding when the consequences are so devastating just reeks of malicious intentions.
Seizing the 100 biggest corporations in the country
Socialists have this completely out of touch view that if a government seizes large swaths of the economy, it'll run exactly the same except the public will reap all the benefits... that's just WRONG! That's not how it works. We've seen time and time again throughout history that planned economies ALWAYS result in failure. The government is way too inefficient, way too slow, way too rigid, and is prone to making poor decisions. This is the actual reason why socialism is a failure as an economic system. All it does is give the government way too much power, which inevitably corrupts it and turns it authoritarian. Unless the government sanctions it's own corporations that run the same way as private corporations, it's just not going to work. Do you know what does work? The free market.
Let's sit here for a second and think about how America became so wealthy and developed. All this wealth didn't teleport here from another dimension, no it was created by the free market. It's been shown time and time again that when you give people agency and freedom to run their own livelihoods, they will do so better than anyone else. Private economies are constantly more productive, more efficient, more resilient, more dynamic, and more wealthy. You clearly see this contrast throughout in history. Take for example the backwards hellhole that was the East Germany and the thriving hub that was West Germany or the closest thing to hell on earth in Maoist China compared the booming China of the 2000s or the starving authoritarian pit known as the Soviet Union and the prosperous United States. There's hundreds of examples like this, you get the idea. Capitalism works, and economic freedom is a proven method to generate wealth and prosperity.
Is our current economy flawed? Yes, it is. It has a lot of problems that range in severity and scale. However, the solution is to vote in principled politicians who will reform the system to add pragmatic regulations, incentives, and policies to more effectively run the economy to keep it sustainable, accountable, and working to the benefit of the people. The last thing we need is for economically illiterate people stuck to a failed ideology trying to use government power to seize a swath of the economy that will inevitably lead to unprecedented authoritarianism, collapse of the global economy, and money to flee the country in droves.
Literally all of their policies are this nonsensical. Every. Single. One. Just the slightest bit of criticism is enough to expose their positions for being nothing more than meaningless drivel.
Here's the thing, politics as a concept is about how best run a government. You can't run a country on fantasies and outlandish ideals. You NEED to have pragmatism or otherwise you're going to risk collapse. The big issue with both Trump, and to a lesser extent, Biden is that they're both out of touch with reality. So much so that they're widely regarded as the two worst candidates in American history. Even though they're old and senile, they still at least try in some half assed way to be realistic with their positions. Claudia De la Cruz, Karina Garcia, and all these other clowns are so batshit crazy, so deranged, and so out of touch with reality that they make Biden and fucking Trump look sane in comparison.
People who support Marxism in 2024 are victims of propaganda from a bygone era. Marxism is no more, it's a failed ideology. It has been tried dozens of times across time, culture, and land and it has collapsed every single time. The only thing it has to show for it is tyrannical regimes, famines, and widespread poverty. The ideology has a track record that's on par, or arguably worse, than fascism. The era of Marxism is gone and it's not coming back. The ideals of the Soviet bloc were never good, but now they're just irrelevant. It's time to move on.
I understand that it's hard to vote for either Trump or Biden, but this? This is even worse. Marxism and this clown party aren't genuine alternative and never will be. There's appetite for a new political, economic, and social system not just in the US, but around the globe. With the impending large scale population collapses and shrinking demographics world wide, we will be forced to either work with we got to stay afloat or come up with an entirely new system. If we do innovate a new system it has to be created in the context of this era. It has to be made by people of this era to address issues of this era with solutions designed for this era. Will that be UBI and AI? Who knows. But what I do know is that Marxism definitely doesn't have a place in the modern world anymore.
A tremendous corpus is no substitute for understanding.
NATO is bad. I hope de la Cruz succeeds in destroying it. It would be a complex process that ends in a new alignment of power. That would be good.
Debt harms Americans institutionally. I will always choose the well being of my countrymen over that of the poor widdle banks.
The entirety of the 20th century is the story of planned economies succeeding where the free market failed. If anything I fear seizing the 100 biggest companies in America would be catastrophic because their size is often a function of market manipulation as opposed to productive capacity on a year over year basis.
I want to warn you now that the claim that communism is worse than fascism is a disproven dogwhistle to fascist sympathizers and antisemites.
I don’t think you’re trying to do that on purpose, though. It’s hard to defend some of the positions you do without accidentally stepping in Nazi doodoo.
A tremendous corpus is no substitute for understanding.
Which is something that you severely lack.
NATO is bad. I hope de la Cruz succeeds in destroying it. It would be a complex process that ends in a new alignment of power. That would be good.
Actually brain dead. It's literally caveman mentality.
Idiot: NATO bad. Must smash.
Anybody with two brain cells: Why?
Idiot: starts screeching and throwing feces
If you can't even explain your positions then you're not even a clown, that's just a sign of an actual mental disability.
Debt harms Americans institutionally. I will always choose the well being of my countrymen over that of the poor widdle banks.
This is the type of r*tarded mindset that lead countries to collapse. It shows so much economic illiteracy that it's no longer infuriating or frustrating, but just sad. It's sad the your educational opportunities growing up were so limited that you can't even grasp a concept as basic how monetary circulation works.
If the banks stop functioning then people, businesses, and governments will lose their money and the economy would collapse. What this means is that, in the context of the US, hundreds of millions of people would be driven into poverty because they have either lost their life's savings, their income, and/or the funding for businesses. Without the market rules to control the flow of goods and services, everything will come to a halt. Farmers will stop growing food, power plants would stop producing electricity, truck drivers would stop driving, and so on. This will lead to mass panic, violence, famine, and unprecedented poverty. The effects would extend far beyond the US, because the rest of the world depends on the US economy... since it is the world's largest economy. The global depression that would hit would be global and it would be worse than anything we've ever seen before. You're saying stuff without understanding what they mean. You're not looking out for your countrymen against the big bad banks, you're going to be screwing over your countrymen with your ignorance.
The entirety of the 20th century is the story of planned economies succeeding where the free market failed.
Start naming them because I know you can't name a single successful example.
If anything I fear seizing the 100 biggest companies in America would be catastrophic because their size is often a function of market manipulation as opposed to productive capacity on a year over year basis.
Wtf does this even mean lmao? Marxist gibberish is truly beyond parody.
I want to warn you now that the claim that communism is worse than fascism is a disproven dogwhistle to fascist sympathizers and antisemites.
Yeah no, this piss poor attempt at the most classical example of Soviet propaganda isn't going to fly here. This idea that any criticism of Marxist theory or how evil, shitty, and oppressive it has been in practice makes you a fascist is quite literally a product of Soviet propaganda after WWII as a way to justify purges, authoritarianism, and censorship. Which is funny because the Marxist Soviet Union was quite literally an offical ally of the Nazi. They even signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact where they agreed to mutual cooperation, non aggression, and to invade and split Poland together. Obviously Hitler broke the pact with operation Barbarossa, but the point remains that Marxism and fascism are not opposite ideologies like Soviet propaganda would like to make you believe, they were sister ideologies that ended up producing very similar results. Not to mention that Stalin was a raging antisemite who's antisemitism was often overlooked and overshadowed by Hitler's.
You can make all the accusations you want, you can deny all of reality if you want, you can makeup any lie you deem fit, and you can cry about whatever will make you feel better. The bottom line remains, there's literally nothing you could do or say that can change the facts, and the facts clearly show that Marxism is one of the four horsemen of shitty ideologies alongside fascism, theocracy, and anarchy. It has objectively been just as tyrannical, it has resulted in just as many, if not more, deaths, it has led to countless genocides and famines, and it has failed and collapsed every time. Whether you like it or not is irrelevant, that's just the reality.
I don’t think you’re trying to do that on purpose, though. It’s hard to defend some of the positions you do without accidentally stepping in Nazi doodoo.
To a Marxist everything is Nazi, even things that are objectively polar opposite to Nazis like liberals or libertarians or greens or anything they don't like. This is because an authoritarian ideology like Marxism cannot survive on it's own merits, it needs to have enemies to demonize so it can justify it's shiftiness and thuggish tactics to shun, silence, censor criticism. Like I said this doesn't mean anything to me because I know you're empty. You can't even explain your own position, let alone come up with anything of substance to counter anything that I said. This is the best that you can do, it's the only thing you can do.
NATO is bad because it functions to defend neoliberal and neocolonial systemic oppression hand in glove with the fascist militants it arms.
Banks would still exist without debt. People would keep doing what they do without debt. I know this because banking existed under legal frameworks which outlawed debt and because people moved goods, produced food, invented things and in general were able to live before debt.
The Soviet unions planned economy beat the United States in the space race at almost every turn except for actually putting human beings on the surface. It turned out there wasnt any reason to put people on the surface, so it doesn’t seem like much of an L. Chiles state of the art cybernetic planned economy was so good at dealing with disruption that large scale American meddling in the logistics sector failed miserably and the us had to send Pinochet in.
The 100 biggest are often measured by market cap, not the actual productive inputs and outputs of their operations. Tesla is a great example of this, although I don’t actually know if it’s in the top 100. Just seizing the top 100 would probably lead to a massive project of restructuring of them on the part of the hypothetical de la Cruz regime in order to turn companies driven mostly by financial instruments and stock valuations into productive entities.
You wrote a lot about how it’s okay for you to say that communism is worse than fascism. It’s not okay to say that. The idea itself stems from soft holocaust denialism in the immediate aftermath of World War Two.
Please don’t fall into the trap of using the rhetoric of fascists to punch left. It would be really easy to just say “most scratched liberal” or something like that, but you don’t deserve to be made fun of.
Speaking of, we’re on the lemmy world server and they tend to be pretty intense about personal attacks and insults. If you’re worried about catching a ban, use fewer insults and attacks.
NATO is bad because it functions to defend neoliberal and neocolonial systemic oppression hand in glove with the fascist militants it arms.
Damn, talk about a salad of buzzwords. Again, this is pretty meaningless without an actual explanation. If you want your position to have merit then you actually have to provide arguments and evidence. I can't even give you a rebuttal because I don't know why you hold the position you do. So far, your position is NATO bad because NATO bad...
Banks would still exist without debt. People would keep doing what they do without debt.
There's literally not a single successful society that operates without debt. There's nothing inherently wrong with debt or loans. This idea that all debt = bad, again, just reeks of economic illiteracy. Loans and debt have their own set of benefits that do play a vital role in the economy. There's a reason why they exist. Debt only becomes bad when it's excessive or poorly managed and loans only become bad when they're predatory in nature.
I know this because banking existed under legal frameworks which outlawed debt and because people moved goods, produced food, invented things and in general were able to live before debt.
Where exactly?
The Soviet unions planned economy beat the United States in the space race at almost every turn except for actually putting human beings on the surface. It turned out there wasnt any reason to put people on the surface, so it doesn’t seem like much of an L.
And where exactly is this hyper successful Soviet Union economy? Oh right, it collapsed.
It's funny that you bring up the space race because the Soviet economy was in absolute shambles for the majority of its existence and this was one of the areas were it saw some success. Even then, this idea that the Soviet Union won the space race in everything except the moon landings is quite literally Soviet propaganda that was made after the moon landings to cope with their shortcomings. In reality, when you look at the achievements made during the space race, you'll see they're about 50/50:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Space_Race
Chiles state of the art cybernetic planned economy was so good at dealing with disruption that large scale American meddling in the logistics sector failed miserably and the us had to send Pinochet in.
Project Cybersyn was not a cybernetic planned economy... not even close. The project had 4 parts to it, it had an economic simulator, custom software to check factory performance, an operations room, and a national network of telex machines that were linked to one mainframe computer. The projects primary purpose was to monitor industrial activity in the economy and use that data to make better decisions on economic policy. That's not a planned economy, that's just being well prepared.
Just seizing the top 100 would probably lead to a massive project of restructuring of them on the part of the hypothetical de la Cruz regime in order to turn companies driven mostly by financial instruments and stock valuations into productive entities.
Lmao what even is this? A company's value is determined largely by how productive it is on a quarterly basis. People put their money into companies that are performing well and pull their money out of companies that are not. That's how investing works. Private companies are some of the most productive entities on earth. The issue with them, especially the big companies, is that they can become too productive, which is why people are pushing for policy focused on sustainability. Profit driven markets are extremely efficient and productive, that's why capitalist economies are as successful as they are. The Soviet Union is an example of the government controlling all aspects of the economy... and look at how that turned out.
This of course ignores ALL the consequences that come with the government seizing that much of the economy. From the insane amounts of authoritarianism that needs to be consolidated for that to happen to the collapse of the economy to the mass exodus of capital from the country, it's just an absolute disaster.
You wrote a lot about how it’s okay for you to say that communism is worse than fascism. It’s not okay to say that.
"I don't like it so it's not okay"
Do you even hear yourself? Not only is it okay, but it's literally objectively true. Like I said, you can lie, deny, and cry all you want but there's literally nothing you can say or do to change the reality. Marxism has been a stain on humanity that's on par, if not worse than fascism.
The idea itself stems from soft holocaust denialism in the immediate aftermath of World War Two.
You've said a lot of dumb things during the course of this discussion, but this definitely takes the cake.
Please don’t fall into the trap of using the rhetoric of fascists to punch left. It would be really easy to just say “most scratched liberal” or something like that, but you don’t deserve to be made fun of.
I said multiple times already, but I guess I'll repeat myself yet again. I genuinely don't give a fuck about your fascism accusations. They're entirely meaningless. You will literally call anything you don't like fascist or nazi. That's how shitty ideologies like Marxism work. Shitty ideologies can't be supported and defended on their own merits so they resort to things like violence, bullying, censorship, intimidation, harassment, fallacies, or in this case baseless accusations. The thing is that I spent this entire discussion calling fascism a shitty murderous ideology in just about every comment that I've made, if you still accuse me of being a fascist after all that then that's your problem. It means you're either being disingenuous or you lack reading comprehension skills.
Speaking of, we’re on the lemmy world server and they tend to be pretty intense about personal attacks and insults. If you’re worried about catching a ban, use fewer insults and attacks.
I appreciate your concern, but I place very little value in Lemmy. I'm just here to kill some spare time. If they ban me then so be it, it'll change nothing in my life. With that being said, I'll try to insult you personally less just because it's the nice thing to do, your statements and arguments are fair game though.
If you have trouble understanding my posts i can recommend some books. some of those ideas seemed like meaningless buzzwords to me too before i knew about them.
i'm not calling you a fascist though. i don't think you are. I think you're a misled liberal who believes a bunch of stuff thats basically double genocide theory with a fresh coat of paint that became popular in the black book of communism.
thats the soft holocaust denial i was referring to, trivialization.
back when the black book of communism came out a bunch of people got up in arms because it's pretty much the same line of thinking as that double genocide theory, that the holocaust wasn't unique. I remember the introduction especially caught a bunch of flak for saying that the people who liberated the concentration camps were worse than the people who ran them, but the whole conceit of the book is kinda suspect.
anyway, don't equate communism and naziism, it's fascist junk and you're not a fascist.
If you have trouble understanding my posts i can recommend some books. some of those ideas seemed like meaningless buzzwords to me too before i knew about them.
You make it very, very hard to not insult you when you're this obtuse and condescending. No, I don't need your already misguided understanding of those words, I know what they mean. I'm simply mocking your nonexistent argument. Buzzwords, just as FYI, are words that are often jargon that are seen as fashionable in particular contexts. In your case you're using a bunch of those words that are trendy among Marxists in place of an actual substantive argument. This is what you said:
"NATO is bad because it functions to defend neoliberal and neocolonial systemic oppression hand in glove with the fascist militants it arms."
This is not an argument. There's no thesis, there's no evidence, there's no points, there's no examples, there's no explanations. Functions how? Defends how? What neoliberal oppression? What neocolonial oppression? What fascist militants? Who exactly is it arming? Do you have evidence that actually ties any of this to the organization? Do you even know what NATO is? Saying NATO bad because NATO bad but with more buzzwords is still a meaningless statement.
i’m not calling you a fascist though. i don’t think you are. I think you’re a misled liberal who believes a bunch of stuff thats basically double genocide theory with a fresh coat of paint that became popular in the black book of communism.
There's so seems to be a misunderstanding here. We're not equals in morality. I don't support a failed murderous ideology, you do. You're trying very hard to try shut down the comparisons and the criticisms that I have of Marxism. Idk if you actually you think this will work, but it won't. No, calling out how shitty Marxism is not fascism, pointing out the atrocities that were caused by Marxism is fascism, noting the similarities between these two shitty ideologies is not fascism, bringing up the horrific history of Marxism is not fascism. You're not going to shut down the criticisms that I have of Marxism like this, nor do these attempts invalidate any of my criticisms. Like I said again and again, what you're doing here is meaningless.
I've said this 4 times now, but the reality is that you won't accept this. Your worldview extends as far this when it comes to criticism. You'll come back in the next reply and make the same accusations about how I should refrain from pointing how evil and failed Marxism is because it's spooky fascism when it's not.
thats the soft holocaust denial i was referring to, trivialization.
No, what you're doing is genocide denialism. I recognize the holocaust and how horrific it was. I also recognize the other atrocities that happened in history. The Armenian genocide was horrific. The Rwandan genocide was horrific. The Japanese rape of Nanking was horrific. Do you know what else is horrific? Marxist caused atrocities like Holodomor, the Great Chinese Famine, the Khmer Rouge genocide, the Red Terror, the Soviet forced deportations, the Mao led Democides, and the list goes on and on. These dark events killed tens of millions in aggregate and they were caused directly by Marxist policies. Recognizing an atrocity doesn't take away from another. Implying that it does is quite literally genocide denialism because you're trying to silence the recognition and criticism of certain atrocities.
back when the black book of communism came out a bunch of people got up in arms because it’s pretty much the same line of thinking as that double genocide theory, that the holocaust wasn’t unique.
Literally nobody uses the black book of communism except Marxists who literally have nothing else. You don't even seem to grasp that the horrors of Marxism don't stem from the book, but from actual history. These events are very well documented historical events that have been academically analyzed and evidenced.
I remember the introduction especially caught a bunch of flak for saying that the people who liberated the concentration camps were worse than the people who ran them, but the whole conceit of the book is kinda suspect.
I literally don't give a shit about this book. It means absolutely nothing to me.
anyway, don’t equate communism and naziism, it’s fascist junk and you’re not a fascist.
You have no moral high ground whatsoever to tell me what I can and can't do. You're literally a Marxist. You're on the same tier as fascists. You can pretend that you're better all you want, but you're ultimately not. You're right, I'm not a fascist, but you're not exactly something that's better than a fascist. Shitty ideologies that are similar in nature will inevitably be compared, and rightfully so.
Like I said, I can point you towards some books that will make these ideas easier to understand. I’m offering to do that because we’re so far apart in understanding that it would take a huge amount of my time to get you to where I’m at and just judging by the length of our responses, it really seems like you’ve got a lot more time than me.
If you just want to call me names for being a communist then that’s fine too.
To bring us way back to the whole point of our conversation, I asked why you were so dismissive of the psls platform and after rereading all your very long responses it seems like you think it would be a hard platform to implement, would significantly change the way the world works and Americas role in it and you take issue with communist ideas because of past failures.
I agree with all those. It’s not an easy task, would result in systemic change and upend old relationships. That’s the point. I see everyday that the institutions we have aren’t functioning for the good of the American people. I want something different.
I’m offering to do that because we’re so far apart in understanding
The idea was for you to explain your own positions.
that it would take a huge amount of my time to get you to where I’m at
Then why engage in discussion with me at all if you're not willing to contribute anything of value?
and just judging by the length of our responses, it really seems like you’ve got a lot more time than me.
I was hoping that we would have some sort of intellectual discussion where we would critique each other's views. However, that proved to be futile because you turned out to be absolutely r*tarded. Not only are you incapable of explaining your own positions, but you're also incapable of comprehending mine. But I don't blame you for this, this was my mistake. I know there was nothing there coming in, but the optimist in me still tried to give you the benefit of the doubt.
If you just want to call me names for being a communist then that’s fine too.
Rightfully so.
To bring us way back to the whole point of our conversation, I asked why you were so dismissive of the psls platform and after rereading all your very long responses it seems like you think it would be a hard platform to implement, would significantly change the way the world works and Americas role in it and you take issue with communist ideas because of past failures.
If this is what you got from what I said then you're a lost cause.
I agree with all those. It’s not an easy task, would result in systemic change and upend old relationships. That’s the point. I see everyday that the institutions we have aren’t functioning for the good of the American people. I want something different.
To bring us way back to the whole point of our conversation, you're a fucking clown, Claudia De La Cruz is a fucking clown, the socialist party is a circus, your ideology is fucking disgusting, evil, and a colossal failure that just as bad as fascism, and I am very happy there is only a few thousand of you across the whole country. If this is the level of intelligence that comes out Marxists, then no wonder it has resulted in failure every single time. It wouldn't so bad if it didn't result in the deaths of tens of millions of people. I will make sure that I do everything I can to keep you idiots as far away from power as possible.
With that being said, this has been a complete waste of time and I have no intention of engaging with you any further. This will be my last reply to you. If you want to have any last words, go ahead, but I'm done.
Damn, well done. I don't really have the energy to argue with idiots who think "cancel all debt" is magic and thinks society would survive it. Glad to see some people still do.