Happens to me with Venezuela. I lived there before and through/ during the glorious revolución bolivariana and here come the champagne leftists from 8 thousands kilometers away to tell me that it wasn’t real socialism, that apparently I am a CIA agent (where my money at?), that I didn’t got held at gunpoint many times in my life there for attempting to escape the country as many others and that the government didn’t murder my family members haha. Yeah it’s not funny at all
Being the victim of American propaganda does not make you an employee CIA agent. But the fact is that America is fundamentally responsible for most of the problems in Venezuela, both via CIA meddling, and letting our capitalists decimate their economy for their own personal gain. Its the same story across almost all of South America. Sometimes it’s staging coups on their elected leaders, sometimes it’s leveraging the power of a fruit company in order to rewrite their laws to be favorable towards said fruit company.
Listening to Behind the Bastards has taught me all I think I need to know to understand where the blame lies for the economic shit of the last 100 years in South America.
I would assume something along the lines of - autocracy, authoritarianism, and corruption do not describe what socialism portends to be.
That said, I did read something the other day about how Marxist Leninism in reality relies on the concept of an authoritarian that creates the framework, stays in power to enforce the will of the worker, and gradually relinquishes power as it is no longer required. Interesting.
I know enough about socialism to know that it is as homogeneous a concept as a bloody Mary from a gentrified cafe. Someone saying they know more about socialism than another simply because they lived through one of the scant few representations of it has about as much reason as someone saying they’re an expert in capitalism or patriotism because they live the US. So, I can appreciate the perspective that someone from a socialist country can offer, but it in no way defines socialism as an ethos, IMO.
Happens to me with Venezuela. I lived there before and through/ during the glorious revolución bolivariana and here come the champagne leftists from 8 thousands kilometers away to tell me that it wasn’t real socialism, that apparently I am a CIA agent (where my money at?), that I didn’t got held at gunpoint many times in my life there for attempting to escape the country as many others and that the government didn’t murder my family members haha. Yeah it’s not funny at all
Being the victim of American propaganda does not make you an employee CIA agent. But the fact is that America is fundamentally responsible for most of the problems in Venezuela, both via CIA meddling, and letting our capitalists decimate their economy for their own personal gain. Its the same story across almost all of South America. Sometimes it’s staging coups on their elected leaders, sometimes it’s leveraging the power of a fruit company in order to rewrite their laws to be favorable towards said fruit company.
Listening to Behind the Bastards has taught me all I think I need to know to understand where the blame lies for the economic shit of the last 100 years in South America.
What do they say if they’re saying it’s not real socialism?
I would assume something along the lines of - autocracy, authoritarianism, and corruption do not describe what socialism portends to be.
That said, I did read something the other day about how Marxist Leninism in reality relies on the concept of an authoritarian that creates the framework, stays in power to enforce the will of the worker, and gradually relinquishes power as it is no longer required. Interesting.
I know enough about socialism to know that it is as homogeneous a concept as a bloody Mary from a gentrified cafe. Someone saying they know more about socialism than another simply because they lived through one of the scant few representations of it has about as much reason as someone saying they’re an expert in capitalism or patriotism because they live the US. So, I can appreciate the perspective that someone from a socialist country can offer, but it in no way defines socialism as an ethos, IMO.