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thx i will check it out, music against the dictatorship from here there's a lot, but i suspect you know them already:
A few of them yeah. Had the pleasure of watching Caetano live a few years ago, it was great. Was really into Garotos Podres as well, but not so much nowadays.
classic Christmas song lol
lyrics
Santa Claus son of a bitch
Reject the miserables
I want to kill him
That capitalist pig
Give presents to rich people
And spit on the poors
Give presents to rich people
And spit on the poors
(....)
oh yeah, chico made this song in homage to the carnation revolution you might like it
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OP
OP
Thought this was a pretty interesting article from a few weeks back, but I never got around to posting it. I'm also too lazy to quote it! But it's basically about how Russia is likely going to screw over Belarus' state-backed planned economy holdover elements which otherwise seem to be doing well.
Europe's Last Soviet Economy Approaches Its 'Hour of Reckoning'
Belarus' Soviet economy
Europe's Last Soviet Economy Approaches Its 'Hour of Reckoning'
Belarus' Soviet economy
Edit: was still a good read, my post is worded to harshly.
So a guy from the EBRD, which is kinda Europe's IMF, a body whose whole mission statement is to transition the eastern block to capitalist market economies think that Belarus model is unsustainable?
Shocked.
Anyway, I know shit and all about Belarus and it's economy, but the forces that trying to get them to change their form of government are coming from the West, not from Russia.
Maybe it will be the best, as I said, I really don't know shit about it, but the article is framed "oh no, the evil Russians are gonna do the thing we were created to do", and that's really weird.
p.s.
As always, Uzbekistan is like -
Hey all so I decided I would stop just lurking here and post something. IDK really what though, my politics are vaguely left with my excuse being I haven't read enough theory to claim anything and that the US is so skewed far to the right that any step in my mind moving left is a lot. I'm kind of getting tired of trying to make posts when I know people don't care so I figure I should try out a different locale. Usually just lurk until something catches my eye though so maybe don't expect much...either way from what I've seen of this hangout y'all seem nice :D
Welcome! It's totally fine for you not to be up to speed on Socialist theory.
Personally, I lean towards libertarian municipalism, so that's the theory that I'd present for you. I'm a big Murray Bookchin fan, as a consequence. Here are some good starting points, and here's a good brief essay about Bookchin's views on ecology which is stunningly resonant today (and tremendously short, so maybe the best place to start!).
Oh, no. I asure you, we are all very mean and spooky. 😛
It's cool. I myself, wasn't even sure if I was any sort of leftist, but folks here are friendly to curiosity and open good faith discourse
welcome! dont be shy to make questions and talk, thats the first time anyone said i was nice in the forum
it's hard to take any analysis of belorussian economic "liminality" and "pragmatism" without outlining its entaglements with China since the crisis in 2011...
I recommend adding this for company to the linked article: https://www.varsity.co.uk/features/16695
That Blue Labour is as leftist as the National Socialists were.
I think the core disagreement is over whether beliefs are actually shared between these groups in a significant way. The self-attribution of terms like "left" or "socialist" become less useful here because anybody CAN claim them, and it's up to society at large whether those claims are acknowledged. Socialists and leftists themselves bristle at it because funny things happen like liberals pointing to Blue Labour and saying "the true face of socialism revealed, white working class racists!", so that their beliefs are rendered as some sort of dogwhistle or necessary, less developed step down the road to that. People aren't interested in ceding the ground that crude nationalists, proto-fascists or outright Nazis are "the bad socialism" because then you get instances of hand wringing and arguing about whether they have to collectively own those people's crimes.
Personally I wouldn't care about who calls themself a socialist if it weren't for the fact that it is used as a tool of ideological confusion and propaganda by opportunistic liberals and fascists, and people are susceptible to it. So the desire to say "I'm not that, and most socialists are not that" seems understandable.
Edit: BUT this isn't to say that this problem is entirely an attack and imposed from the outside of "proper" socialist thought. I've seen some very radical leftists online who suggest that indulging the ideological confusion of the working class (such as bigotry, chauvinism or even jingoism) is strategically necessary, even if they themselves find it distasteful. I think they are generally a minority depending on the issue, but that is a separate theoretical dispute about left electoral or revolutionary strategy that can be argued in good faith with people that aren't committed crypto-fascists. There is another set of people who are basically something like tradcaths or crypto-fascists that are committed to their own program out of a fervent belief, and are attempting to either co-opt the appeal of socialism to a set of people who are not committed to their same beliefs by making connections to it, or who are attempting to create insurgent movements within popular socialist thought to benefit their own prefigured ethical or moral prescriptions for society. I think a big ideological difference between the two is whether one believes that disagreeable working class beliefs must be indulged out of strategy, or whether those beliefs are true or desirable and can be wedded to socialism as a way to further empower them. The former actually attempts to prioritize a future socialism that negates the reactionary tendencies of the working class, while the latter uses socialism as a side to the main course of whatever reactionary tendencies are at the core. The former may just seem like they're incorrect to other socialists, while the latter are unambiguous enemies.
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For all its faults, China don't export its form of government or their economic system.
Every time a country does business with China (sorry, I meant being entangled with them) you get articles about how China gonna use its soft power to remake them in their image, but it never happens, and honestly, I think this is mostly projecting - it's the EU that wants to force its economic system on Belarus, and it's assuming everyone else wants as well.
Maybe it's a good thing to try to sanction Belarus into a more free market economy, I honest to god don't know shit about Belorussian politics, but I really think this type of cold war framing is just bad. China is not building a hegemony, they're looking for trade partners, and yeah, America uses trade agreements to force countries to change their domestic policies, but China doesn't.
White supremacy is a way of stratifying society and exploiting non-whites. It's not socialism.
It's a self refuting position
It's a self refuting position
My point - or the article I linked (i think) - is not to say anything particular about Chinese interests and expansions - but rather point that Lukashenko's 'pragmatist' (in the original sense,rather than DNC sense) geopolitics has been a juggling and seesawing between EU, Chinese and Russian interests (the bloomberg piece really sets up a focus on Russia) and the market there is a hodgepodge of developmental state, authoritarian neoliberalism, nationalism, oligarchy and socialism. It includes at different points in time both a rejection and embrace of each, trying to keep all at arm's length while consolidating around Lukashenko...
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China generally doesn't give a fuck about countries' domestic policies, as I said, I really know pretty much nothing about Belarus outside that Minsk is the place to go if you want to make some r/fullcommunism selfie memes, but I have not seen any evidence in that article that they're pushing Belarus into changing its domestic policies in any direction. That would be a departure from the way they generally run their foreign policy.
The EU had sanctions against Belarus since it went independent, I really don't know enough to comment on them outside that they don't seem to be working, but I don't think we need to fall into cold war thinking and assume there is an ideological tug of war with China in play, at least not without some evidence. China is not the USSR and they run a very different foreign policy playbook.
Again, I am not making any point about Chinese foreign policy - merely about the way Lukashenko builds the political-economic system by balancing and pivoting between EU, Russia and China, between developmental state, neolib authoritarianism, ultra-slavic nationalism and everything in between. What the article calls "ideological fluidity". The EU sanctions were largely lifted in 2016 and BR receives significant funding through various EU mechanisms. Your mistake is to read my comments from a sino-centric perspective, rather than as a belorussian historical materialist narration.
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The EU still have sanctions on Belarus. Like all sanctions campaigns, the intensity goes up and down, but the EU haven't never fully removed them.
Anyway, I'm sure Belarus is considering all major powers when they make decisions, but I don't think it's accurate to describe it like Belarus is on the bachelor and it's considering now whether to go home with the EU, Russia or China.
Belarus is part of that 2 country East Block union with Russia, they don't have a monetary union (they were talking about it though) but outside that they have a pretty similar setup to the EU, with a customs union and free movement.
The EU don't want them in that union and they don't want them to be communists, this is not some sort of conspiracy theory, this is the EU official public policy.
I really don't see how China is involved with that shit, I don't think they want any part of that cold war crap.
I don't understand your point to be honest... forget EU and how they read BR as 'communist' and what not, forget Russia and China for a minute and simply answer this: How do you read Lukashenko's ideology and how do you understand the political-economy he is maintaining?
edit: then after that you can outline the relations that Lukashenko cultivates to China and why it is insignificant in understanding Belorussian economy and politics.
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Belarus generally kept the soviet system that they have under the USSR. I generally don't think that arguing about what the correct term for that is super useful.
As I said a bunch of times, I don't know a whole lot about Belarus and I don't have really strong opinion about their president, whose name I had to google (I also had to google that his title is "president").
But I'm not even talking about any of that, we should be able to talk about that stuff without jumping into that cold war framing of good countries and bad countries.
I just think that article paints a really inaccurate picture of the situation as I understand it, maybe I'm wrong, I don't know, but how evil Lukashenko is doesn't factor into it.
This is what I said -
China generally doesn't give a fuck about countries' domestic policies, as I said, I really know pretty much nothing about Belarus outside that Minsk is the place to go if you want to make some r/fullcommunism selfie memes, but I have not seen any evidence in that article that they're pushing Belarus into changing its domestic policies in any direction. That would be a departure from the way they generally run their foreign policy.
I never claimed to know shit about the specifics of Chinese dealing with Belarus, and that article provides zero details.
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I think the real reason why boomers dying off will have a melioristic effect on the electorate is that literally no one will be consuming mainstream or cable news media anymore lol.
I fear that a lot of the young people that aren't voting are doing so because they're not paying attention, and when they do start paying attention they'll become reactionaries because they haven't taught themselves to learn new ideas and embrace change.
I hope I'm wrong.
I hope I'm wrong.
IMO the one wonderful excess of boomers is they kind of really pushed the whole 'be yourself' and 'do what you love' thing when parenting their kids which at least prompts more reflective self-thought and expectations for existential fulfillment than what they lived through which was more so the expectation that everyone get social security and a good job with benefits because their parents lived through the great depression or w/e.
So IMO the relative liberalism in parenting along with the proliferation of media made us marginally more savvy, or that's my hope, but I don't know either lol.
I feel like this is the primary driver of electoral politics through a lot of the world. Boomers put their trust completely in corporate news's framing of politics, while millinials do not. Your age and where you get your news from are the two most consistently polarized groups in polls, and I'm sure we've all experienced this to be true even without polls.
It is also divided by class lines, and I've not yet seen an election anywhere where the majority of the working class voted against their class interest, but it's usually not nearly as polarized as age is.
Well, at least she seems to have the right idea.
Not everyone does.
Nice. Just double up on a joint ticket and save us all some head ache. VP Warren to carry the torch when sanders retires.
btw, speaking of China, they just gave $500-Million loan to Belarus.
and some context:
Cool, Joshua Collins, Socialist congressional primary candidate, came out as autistic today. Wants to abolish the CIA on top of the Bernie stuff you'd expect.
Has strong chance of winning as far as I can tell. Lots of media and no strong competition. Wonder how long until DCCC tries to destroy him.
Has strong chance of winning as far as I can tell. Lots of media and no strong competition. Wonder how long until DCCC tries to destroy him.