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"The United States is also a one-party state but, with typical American extravagance, they have two of them."
I attribute the quote wrong all the time, but today the internet says it's from Julius Nyerere, who was a prime minister in Africa back in the 1960s.
This is quote from their former member, Huey Long:
"They've got a set of Republican waiters on one side and a set of Democratic waiters on the other side, but no matter which set of waiters brings you the dish, the legislative grub is all prepared in the same Wall Street kitchen"
— Huey Long, campaign speech for the re-election of Senator Hattie Caraway (D-AR), 1932 (Williams p. 589)
It's the most anti-communist country on the planet, so there's not much hope. Talk of raising wages or organizing collectively, or not agreeing with US imperialist foreign policy gets you labelled a commie / tankie by its witch-hunting, McCarthyite majority.
If there's a list of countries to next take the communist road, the US would be dead last.
Nobody gets labeled a tankie get out of here with your projection lol.
Commie tho, all the time.
Realistically, it's an impossibility. This view is mostly propagated via liberal news sources, having the main battle be conservatism vs progressivism or left vs right (as opposed to class struggle, the poor vs rich, working class vs capitalists), and since the democrats are more progressive than republicans, they're the "good guys" who should be supported.
For it to be destroyed, we'd have to catch up to their level of influence and reach or even surpass it, to show people that they're a party of capitalists who sometimes are progressive, and not an actual ally of the working or middle classes but only pretending to be one. Maybe going one step further too and influencing progressive movements democrats support to pay attention to economic aspects too, given how their root causes aren't purely social?
But again, it's impossible for us workers to have such reach, given how well funded media is.
We don't have to do anything other then work on passing electoral reform one state at a time. Democrats can be whatever the hell they want, so long as everyone is free to vote how they want with the ability to transfer their vote.
Electoral Reform Videos
First Past The Post voting (What most states use now)
Videos on alternative electoral systems
Historically, that doesn't actually fix systemic issues, though, like the only parties of relevance electorally being pre-approved and backed by the bourgeoisie. Moreover, electoral reform doesn't have a real path to implementation that would make more sense than revolution to begin with.
it’s a long road with a lot more steps but simply “destroying” the notion that democrats are the good guys simply gets you republicans and that’s gotta be the worst way to shift left ever
The road is revolution, not just against the Democrats or Republicans, but the entire system.
revolution is easy to say on the internet but at the end of the day a lot of people die
People die without revolution, historically revolutionary Socialism has come with dramatic improvements in quality of life for the Working Class. Taking down the US Empire would massively uplift the burden on the Global South as well.
perhaps, or perhaps it could be replaced by something worse. there are no guarantees
Read up on historical revolution, Socialist revolution has a great track record, and if the US Empire didn't interfere it would be even better.
economic systems don't happen on accident
the nordic states seem to be doing pretty well at riding a good line, and whilst australia is far from socialist, what we have is working great too
accident? no of course not… but consistency… a big bang “revolution” is the easy way out… it’s so easy to say you’ll fight for what you believe in when you don’t have to see what it’ll entail or what will come out the other side of it but the reality is far more bloody and is absolutely not what you have in your head afterwards
the nordic countries do well at the cost of the third world. they are rich because of imperialism.
and you believe a revolution in the US will help the third world?
socialist countries are plenty capable of being exploitative too. a revolution doesn’t change the people - it changes the power structures
a socialist state would not spend public money so corporations can profit from waging endless war instead of just having solid healthcare.
all of the above listed counties have very solid healthcare and are not entirely socialist. what’s your point?
socialism is not a requirement for being a place that treats people with respect and dignity; nor is it a silver bullet
As @umbrella@lemmy.ml said, the Nordics can only provide the safety nets they do while paying generally high wages while still maintaining enormous profits for their bourgeoisie because they expropriate vast sums from the Global South via Imperialism, manifested in outsourcing manufacturing for pennies and through large loans. They are Landlords in country form.
They aren't alone in this, of course, the whole of Western Europe generally does it, and the US Empire is the biggest at it.
i don’t disagree, but socialism won’t solve that just by virtue of it being different… global socialism, perhaps but on the country level it’s just not. socialism just aligns local incentives
Socialism allows it to be solved, Imperialism cannot be eliminated while Capitalism remains. Imperialism is the later stage of Capitalism.
theoretically
and now you’re arguing for massive bloodshed and forcing people to live the way you want, in potentially awful living conditions for a lot of people (i certainly, as an LGBT person, would not want to live in any previous or current socialist state) for a long time for theoretical improvement
Theoretically and practically. We have evidence for this throughout the last 130 years.
As for advocating for "bloodshed," revolution remains the sole path to end the bloodshed, especially of the genocidal US Empire.
As for LGBTQ rights, I am pansexual myself, and I can confirm that Socialist countries make faster progress on social issues. Cuba today has much better LGBTQ rights than anywhere else in the world, and countries like the PRC are gradually improving as well. Socialism, if anything, improves the rate of progress. Even the GDR began pushing for LGBTQ rights well before Western European countries and the US did.
it is a requirement if you want to do that without oppessing brown people elsewhere.
the important thing is not socialism: it’s a government that deals with negative externalities
socialism tends to do better at that simply because often it often does better at long-term planning (but that’s not a given either), but capitalism without corporate bullshit, stock markets, etc (ie actual ownership over a business rather than just ownership over a vague thing where you’re only concerned with line goes up not long term business health) has pretty much the same drivers: long term sustainability and this holding others to account for their negative externalities
What you describe as "corporate bullshit" and "stock markets" are just a symptom of later stages of Capitalism. You cannot maintain the small stages forever, eventually they will coalesce into large firms and syndicates. You can't simply bust up monopoly either, manufacturing gets so complex that it needs to be done by large companies to handle the scale.
This process doesn't stop, though, it becomes better and more efficient to publicly own and plan these large firms as they get larger and larger. This is why Socialism is a necessity regardless.
just a symptom of later stages of Capitalism
i don’t disagree of course, and i wasn’t saying capitalism is the only way; i think capitalism like this is absolute trash as well… i’m simply saying that those qualities are neither intrinsic to, nor exclusively found in socialist systems
You cannot maintain the small stages forever
perhaps, but honestly i don’t think we’ve actually even tried. we jumped straight from feudalism to some form of capitalism to some socialism. we’ve never had a system that tried to keep things small - and i’m not saying we should either necessarily
but these arguments are all reasonably theoretical
Socialism is a necessity
socialism is perhaps part of a solution but dealing in absolutes is rarely ever correct
Corporate bullshit and stock markets and whatnot are magnified in impact and scale in Capitalist systems, surely that's relevant?
As for "trying to keep things small," that's been tried. Trust busting was attempted, protectionism has been attempted, but regardless of will, material processes continue.
As for Socialism being a necessity, it's true. It will have various forms, but eventually as production gains in complexity it necessitates public ownership and planning to continue to be efficient.
This has never done anything in countries that use it, like SK, Japan, Australia, etc. It might make the candidate stacking a little more expensive, but that's it.
If capital stands above the political system, the method of voting doesn't matter.
democrats are simply the 'lesser evil', and have been since the 1960s, at least.. and we've needed a viable third party left of the mainstream for longer.
republican administrations drag us down and undo gains made. democrats repair some of the damage--but never quite enough, never push progress enough. they lose. it gets undone again and the cycle repeats.
but now it's all getting destroyed. there may not be a continuation of the cycle. it's hell from here on until 'trumpism' and maga are what is completely destroyed.
Yeah.
There is always that cycle that includes "Democrats didn't do everything they promised so they deserve to suffer", which brings in Republicans that cause far more damage.
And given the number of election cycles, you would think there would be some organization by now for overall leftist causes, but there isn't. There is no party or organization out there that can pose an electoral threat. The right produced the TEA party, which morphed to MAGA. Leftists have nothing.
Democrats don't even promise anything anymore. Not since 2008
2008 is what ultimately radicalized me. I volunteered for Obama, put in so much footwork, and really believed he would seek to make change. Looking back now, what a fool I was.
2006 made me suspicious of the Democrats forever. Pelosi and the party ran on defunding the Iraq War, then promptly dropped it upon taking office.
I DID primary for Obama because he was promising a public healthcare option. We all know how that turned out: he ultimately championed a Republican scheme to entrench private insurers. Democrats failed to support their party's signature policy proposal when it mattered.
While Obama expanded the Bush wars...
That's when I gave up all hope in the party making any progress or acting in good faith. They haven't given me any reason to rethink that stance.
Sorry your efforts and enthusiasm were wasted and abused by the DNC...
I recall the Coffee Party having a moment, a nationwide movement planned meetups all coordinated. In Asheville, I attended. the meetup was crashed by Obama's Organizing for America, and I later learned that they crashed meetups everywhere.
I remember the smooth-talking guy and how he hijacked the meeting as we were making real progress. Fuck Obama and fuck the DNC
The hope and change trick worked twice with Obama 1 and trump 1...
Now it feels like a tired trope to get a "safe" regime whore into the white house
The Deprogram podcast, Hakim, and Second Thought YT channels all exist to address this. It's rather obvious to anybody willing to learn
they're not good guys they are simply more competent at government
Cause they aren't, they are just the "better guys".
They're basically "republicans light": still bad but at least not literal nazis
Believe you me, I've been trying for years. Tribalism runs too deep in the human condition for there to be any obvious fix.
Step 1: Don't generalize. Don't say "Americans" when you mean "some Americans". As you can see from browsing here and on other media sites, there are a great many vocal people who have voted Democrat for years but are entirely disappointed by decades of failed DNC leadership.
Step 2: Remind people that everyone is on their own side. Politicians might vote the way you want, or not, but their interests will never be exactly the same as yours. Don't ever believe that the two-party system is an accurate description of our values.
Step 3: Share memes of Schumer.
Can’t do it . You must just get labelled a Russian bot and banned
I'm ready for my ban I guess.