How can I get you to understand this is all within the framework of American capitalism and American “””democracy?””” There will still be elections in 4 years, and liberals will eat it up and maybe even fail to get a failson dipshit like Newsome elected. By that point the requisite decisions have already been made, without you.

It’s a free market. People can just not buy the product.

Ukraine is the most Reddit country. Folks, some people are saying it’s the Reddit country.

Not sure I even want to know what that said.

Meaningless liberal definition that can be selectively applied or laughed off depending on context. What relationships does this imply economically, culturally? Is colonialism what the U.S. and Israel are doing in Iran right now? Stupid definition.

Average Lemmy.world poster:

No, you’re obsessed with Trump because you can’t square him. Aren’t the systems of civility and institutionalism supposed to stop that kind of guy? Total freak out, he’s mango Mussolini, he’s a Cheeto in the dang White House!!! In reality, he’s there because the business interests in this country like his meaningless word drivel spew which seems to make line go up for some reason.

This isn’t even a meme it’s just repent for your sins

No, let’s contextualize this rather than doing an all sides bad gotcha that ends up feeding those with hegemony.

Imperialism is when a country does something in its interests, which tends to be most things?

If you use out of scientific context psychological terms as a substitute for meaningful political analysis, it’s because you’ve got nothing else. I highly recommend this essay on “psychopolitics”

The USSR quite notably developed from its starting point as the backwater of Europe in 17 to the second place industrial power by the 50s? I guess I would get a bit to charitable for you if I talked about the ways imperial relationships between regions and Russian chauvinism were challenged in the Soviet Union, and I don’t think this is the place for a reasonable discussion of failures like wartime deportations, but I do think relationships changed somewhat.

But the point was the DDR, which was in the context of postwar realpolitik and animosity, simultaneously. I think Japan might be more complex because a cursory examination of the history notes their colonial adventures in Korea and China. Funny how that comes before an industrial base in merchantalist and capitalist regimes.

A lot of labor in slaughterhouses or for that matter construction, landscaping, etc. is done by undocumented immigrants. If they try to unionize the owners and coyotes can just turn them in to ICE. The reason republicans are so obsessed with the border is because controlling these unofficial immigrants/migrant workers is a form of labor discipline that keeps prices of otherwise untenable products like a lot of meat or seasonal fruit low. Dems in turn want an “open border,” because the neoliberal agenda means not letting borders get in the way of cheaper labor.

In the end, there’s homeostasis. Made possible by extreme violence by human traffickers, ranchers, border patrol, and plant owners. Enough get in to keep costs low, but not enough to fight for bargaining power. If we look at the characters in The Jungle, they came from immigrant groups being basically let into the country no problem. They could participate in strikes because they were “legal,” and eventually when the postwar consensus saw the American labor movement fall into a pit of consumerism, become white people rather than Poles, Jews, Slavs, Italians, etc. That’s not going to happen again.

Yeah it probably sucked to live in the occupation zones/East Germany from 45 to the sixties. And then shit started to decline in the 70s so yeah sucked. Point is you can’t just make economic prosperity and the liberal conception of freedom (being able to say anything and get nothing) happen out of the most adverse of circumstances. The U.S.S.R. hadn’t centuries to plunder colonies and accumulate the requisite wealth to fuel a global economic system for instance. It was always against the grain.

I’ll wait until the Xi bucks arrive to give you your affirmations. Until then, keep believing. American empire loves you and will NEVER do wrong to the settlers at home.

You realize the both sides thing comes from the idea that one side is actually different? I hate these internet cliches because smugly incorrect people will grandstand with them. Whataboutism too. You know the democratic party also gets aipac money right? Democratic Party politicians and democrat media are equally (if not more due to their neoliberal globalist stance) compromised by Israel. Get a spine, if you can’t even break the party line to whisper a mild critique about the milquetoast “””opposition””” that’s been complicit in a genocide for 3 years I have nothing to say to you. Politics is only a sport for you, then.

I would reccomend Chapter 8 of Killing Hope by William Blum. It’s all very interesting reading but this ads some complexity to the point you bring up. It’s fair to say the Soviets were harsh on the Germans with their reparations, for good reason and to the detriment of realpolitik. However when we see this as an internal failure brought on by essentially internal fuckups, we miss the external and the fact that there’s no distance between the two when you’ve been under siege since 1917. The other chapters of this book explain what happened to the other underdogs when they couldn’t keep things in perfect order.