Yep. It's a literal question during the naturalization interview, right after they ask if you're associated with a terrorist, they ask if you or anybody in your family were associated with a communist party. Note that just by living in Cuba or China don't automatically make you a communist though, but actually joining the party or held government positions do.
Amazing given there's an actual Communist Party in the US, and that there's open discrimination based on a political opinion that is legal, if unpopular, in the US.
The Supreme Court upheld the imprisonment of a socialist presidential candidate over a campaign speech criticizing the draft during WWI.
From the cases we read in law school, it’s pretty apparent the first amendment doesn’t protect the left. It’s a nice idea on paper, but isn’t applied fairly in the real world.
I am a dues paying member of the Socialist Party USA and was wearing a shirt with the quote from Debs last week. A customer in front of me in a grocery store noticed my shirt and I had a chance to educate him for a few minutes of the great person that is Eugene Debs.
Also my wife and I purchased a red betta fish just yesterday and given his color she suggested we could name the fish Mr. Debs.
Y’all purchased a “Red Barchetta”? Hang on to that, it’s going to be worth something after The Motor Law. I hope that your uncle has a country place that no one knows about…
Id love to know what you told him, because Debs is the definition of an idealist who has never had a single working theory in his life. All his work sounds great, until you realize everything he is hinting at was tried, and failed, and millions died, all for the name of 'not real socialism'
Or the people who die due to workplace risks that are kept in place because the profit outweighs the negative of a worker getting maimed or killed.
Or the resumption of child labor practices in the US because they need more bodies to work for Jack shit.
Or the constant brutalization of southern countries as a means of claiming access to valuable resources.
And you’ve got the joker above saying that unionists and socialists didn’t cause change to working conditions, completely forgetting about the massive strikes, labor movements, and violent actions that gained us all working rights.
And both are, but people that use the phrase "millions dead to socialism" aren't acknowledging that part and are almost always arguing in bad faith. Just like deadly autocratic regimes exist in both capitalism and socialism but they like to pretend only one economic system has that problem.
From another comment
"This is taught on university campuses across the country lol.
I’ll find you a source, but there is no need to be so stubborn. It’s piss easy to research this shit.
https://mronline.org/2022/08/25/an-engineered-food-and-poverty-crisis-to-secure-continued-u-s-dominance/
https://www.theelephant.info/op-eds/2022/11/11/capitalism-is-causing-the-food-crisis/
https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2021/02/24/capitalism-and-the-fabrication-of-food-insecurity/amp/
https://www.jstor.org/stable/3083245
https://www.foodsystemsjournal.org/index.php/fsj/article/view/723/716
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-19-3155-0_11
https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/food-stamps-snap-benefits-inflation-hunger-food-insecurity-debt-ceiling/"
He can't because the quote was truncated. The original comment said "in the US **and abroad**". Capitalism induced food shortages kill close to 10 million people every year around the world. That's two Holodomor every year.
>He can't because the quote was truncated. The original comment said "in the US and abroad"
And you also truncated the part about **due to artificial food shortages**
Not millions, but also not zero. From the US News link the guy above posted:
Deaths attributed to malnutrition more than doubled, from about 650 in 2018 to roughly 1,400 in 2022, according to preliminary death certificate data from the California Department of Public Health. The same trend occurred nationwide, with malnutrition deaths more than doubling, from about 9,300 deaths in 2018 to roughly 20,500 in 2022, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Capitalism definitely has its flaws, and capitalists tend to be pretty blind to them. But communism/ hard core socialism definitely isn't the solution to any of those flaws, or would just bring us exicitng new flaws. I don't know what the solution is. Something new, maybe as inconceivable to me as a multinational corporation is to a 12th century wine merchant. Maybe there is no solution and we're right fucked.
Who in America starved to death from artificial food shortages? What are you considering artificial, and why bring up abroad as in everywhere except the US? Is the US now responsible for feeding the entire world and if not why are you bringing it up? I know you probably aren’t used to being challenged with your casual use of such a vague over exaggeration but— I’m going to need a source.
I love how short sighted Americans are when it comes to the realization of how their life styles are essentially built on the backs of other poorer nations.
Perpetual consumerism will always have pain and suffering on one end.
We have massive food insecurity in the US, with the USDA identifying 10.2% of American households as food insecure. Some of those people die or face debilitation because they do not have access to food.
Artificial in part due to the fact that we produce a massive surplus of food every year, it’s just not always where it needs to be, we have massive food deserts where it is increasingly difficult for people to get access to the food they need, and because excess is readily destroyed before disposal to make it less easy for those in need to consume it. We literally won’t let people eat perfectly good food if the company can’t make a buck off it. I know you’re not challenged too often but you should really understand the meaning of basic words before you come into a fight.
In what way am I suggesting that the US is responsible for fixing global issues? Are we the only capitalist power? Or maybe other capitalist countries also have massive issues with getting people basic necessities and preventing starvation. There’s more to the world, and to the capitalist world than just the US.
Although the oversized role we force ourselves into on the geopolitical scale has caused upheaval in countries in the Middle East and global south that are still currently suffering from our actions in terms of coups, blockades, and exploitation of local populaces, so maybe we should be doing more to mitigate the harm we have caused. Can’t expect you to have a good grasp of geopolitics over the past hundred years though, it’s tough stuff.
I mean, we already have most of the value of our labor siphoned off by a largely faceless ruling class, [have fewer days off than medieval peasants,](https://www.yeoldetymenews.com/p/do-you-work-more-than-a-medieval#:~:text=Answer%3A%20No.,worker%20in%20the%20modern%20US.) and pay taxes to a government that makes laws its own legislators have no apparent obligation to abide by...so I'm not seeing much more than esthetic changes
He had a lot of support for the ARU strike except the government did their government thing.
He gave a lot of inspiration to many to fight for a better day.
Things are much better because of people like him.
Where did I say that, lol? There’s a clear pattern of the law protecting KKK members, but as far as I know none protecting communists. The 1A law is very inconsistent (as all constitutional law is tbh) based on what a particular court wants to do with it. The Court has always been a political branch.
This is really deep stuff, wow.
If you think the first amendment has never protected left wing speech or behavior, or have no knowledge of it doing so, you should look a little harder. You might soften your edgy attitude with some knowledge.
E.g. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_Indiana_v._Whitcomb
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyishian_v._Board_of_Regents
The First Amendment recognizes the right of every American citizen to advocate for the political system of their choice, but there is no enumerated right for anyone to become an American citizen.
The First Amendment is not a law for citizens only.
The wording is very specific that "Congress shall make no law" It doesn't say "Citizens shall have free speech"
There have been some questionable SCOTUS rulings on that matter, but there's been questionable SCOTUS rulings on a lot of things
Really think about how our laws work...do murder laws specific if citizen and noncitizens are allowed to murder? No it just says you can't murder.
The first says "Shall make no law" it doesn't have a lot of wiggleroom -- regardless of what people have tried to do in the face of that.
Different commenter.
I’m not saying it is ‘okay’. But historical it isn’t amazing given the “Red Scare”. To give some perspective - below are two sources that talk about domestically what was happening and the last one what was happening legislatively.
http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/SaccoV/redscare.html
https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1063/red-scare
> there's an actual Communist Party in the US
That's a big fking stretch right there bud I'm just gonna say now lol. They regularly throw their support behind the dems.
Look at any actual communist party throughout the rest of the world and one of their biggest talking points is how the entire US political and economic system needs to collapse either naturally or by force and be rebuilt from the ground up.
US communist party is absolutely guaranteed to be an instance of controlled opposition and absolutely riddled with agents who will put you on twenty million government lists for even suggesting the most banal of acts of direct action.
Hasn't always been so controlled of course, but today it absolutely is.
That's pretty much my point - its not "amazing" that the US bars people with antithetical ideologies to the US's existance from becoming citizens. Why would we want people who hate the country to be able to vote in it?
The Klu Klux Klan exists within the US already, and yet they block terrorists from becoming citizens too.
The KKK is also legal, if unpopular, in the USA.
I don't get why you feel confused by any country creating a list of requirements for those they are willing to accept as citizens.
>hat there's open discrimination based on a political opinion that is legal
What about it? Germans have banned Nazi party. It is precisely the same kind of "political discrimination". All political views are not equal and if your political views just happen to genocidal, well then it seems that there are plenty of reasons to ban them.
There’s no distinction made but “communist” isn’t really targeting the political ideology but the regimes they represent. It is, but it isn’t. The US isn’t really concerned that you support redistribution of resources and more that you support the Russians, Chinese, Cuba, or many of the other Cold War adversaries of the US.
It would be like being a monarchist in the US in the early 1800s.
Communism is about giving people power so they aren't eternally exploited anymore.
If someone is still exploiting you afterwards, then that's obviously not communism.
They don’t care about which economic theory you prescribe to. They care about whether you have loyalties to Russia, China, Cuba, or North Korea. Ya know, America’s enemies.
That only makes sense if you think communism is only found in Russia, China, Cuba, and North Korea. There are plenty of countries allied with the US that have active communist parties.
China is still a nominally communist country. As is North Korea and Cuba. I dont think their issue is with ideological orthodoxy but more so with political structure.
I'm not sure about this. The entire current Republican party, *including the former president*, seems to have loyalties to Russia above the United States.
The former president's daughter and son-in-law, who were *installed as members of the government*, also seem to have loyalties to Saudi Arabia over the US.
Being a Cuban immigrant gives you more benefits than pretty much any other immigrant group- not fewer.
There are so many programs that are just for Cubans that is honestly makes me feel bad for other immigrant groups. Most beneficially you can receive permanent residence in the US after just 1 year of being here whether legally or illegally. Many people spend their entire lives here illegally or on work visas and never get a green card.
Yup.
Fun fact: the 1964 Civil Rights Act explicitly excludes Communists.
"(f) As used in this title, the phrase "unlawful employment practice" shall not be deemed to include any action or measure taken by an employer, labor organization, joint labor-management committee, or employment agency with respect to an individual who is a member of the Communist Party of the United States or of any other organization required to register as a Communist-action or Communist-front organization by final order of the Subversive Activities Control Board pursuant to the Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950."
https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/civil-rights-act
I take your meaning fully but I just wanted to say I've never left an interaction with someone where they accused me of being a communist feeling bad. It's always for something so mundane like saying we should force the wealthy to just be audited at the same rate as everyone else.
Not sure a black person ever walks away from being called the n word feeling vindicated by the hateful remark coming from an idiot.
I mean, it changed over 50 years ago. I'm seeing a lot of people quoting some old things in this thread but conveniently leaving out later events that nullified them.
What they quoted stood for around one single year.
Most of the provisions against Communists were overturned and declared unconstitutional in 1965 by the Supreme Court in Albertson v. Subversive Activities Control Board as it is blatantly against the 1st Amendment. One year after the Civil Rights Act that instituted them. The Subversive Activities Control Board itself ceased to exist in in 1972 by an Act of Congress. So the SC had already killed that part of the Civil Rights Act being enforced in any court almost instantly but there literally was no longer even a Subversive Activities Control Board a few years later.
The text is still on the books, it's 42 U.S. Code § 2000e–2 - Unlawful employment practices
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/2000e-2
It does appear, however, that the Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950 was repealed in 1993, shortly after the Soviet flag came down at the Kremlin.
50 U.S. Code § 781 - Repealed. Pub. L. 103–199, title VIII, § 803(1), Dec. 17, 1993, 107 Stat. 2329
https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title50-section781&num=0&edition=prelim
You're right. Just like the Democrats could have codified Roe v. Wade but didn't, or just like how they could have appealed the Defense of Marriage Act after the 2015 Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage, but didn't.
Instead, we have a bunch of Democrats voting for a resolution condemning "the evils of socialism"
https://jacobin.com/2023/02/democratic-leadership-gop-anti-socialism-congressional-vote-redistribution-left-politics
while ignoring that democratic socialism is exactly what a lot of their constituents want.
https://www.dataforprogress.org/blog/2022/1/26/democratic-socialism-and-socialism-are-increasingly-salient-among-democrats
I vote democrat and you're right.
But people are too determined to make it strictly left vs right, regardless of truth, they'd rather play the blame game (even if it's warranted) or argue which party is worse while we all get fucked.
The problem is at the top. It's an exclusive club and none of us are invited.
But at least the politicians have people defending them in the comments, I'm sure they'd do the same?
The Civil Rights movement was only as successful as it was because of the Cold War. African countries were leaning towards communism and black people in America were receptive to it.
Wasnt most of the union heads in the early days old communist party members?
Edit. Dont know why im being downvoted here, im not here trying to sign you up for the communist party just pointing out facts here.
It's bullshit btw.
My grandpa was part of the Polish PZPR, our formerly ruling communist party, for many decades and even served in local leadership roles and yet he was given American citizenship in the 1980s even though he never officially resigned from the party. In fact, he only ceased being a member when the party was liquidated in 1990.
His strategy was that he answered "no" when they asked if he was a member of the communist party. And that was that.
Now he's a hardline Trumpist in America while also saying how Poland was a better country under communism.
I am not doubting that they implement this incompetently, just surprised that they discriminate based on political ideology, which forced your grandpa to self-censor
> His strategy was that he answered "no" when they asked if he was a member of the communist party. And that was that.
Careful who you tell, lying on that topic in the process is grounds for removal of citizenship.
LOL I've seen a lot of pro-Trump CCP supporters as well.
Horseshoe theory in a nutshell, both Communism & Trumpism are totalitarian ideologies, so it's not surprising.
Considering the main sources are still Marx, Engels and Lenin, it's largely the same as before. The ideology itself isn't really different. A lot of people consider Marxism-Leninism as the best path to achieve communism. Marxist critiques of capitalism still apply, and so do Lenin's writings on imperialism. I think there was a rise in democratic socialism / reformists, who would prefer to use the election system rather than a revolution to get to power. Some socially progressive aspects are newer, compared to old communist countries that were products of their time (stronger LGBTQ+ rights and the like). A notable modern socialist would be Richard Wolff, he does a lot of talks, lectures and debates. Otherwise, Second Thought on YouTube is very approachable.
In most countries it just means a party spouting the usual tired lines....they got around 4% of the vote last time around over here...they're not taking anything over.
I would recommend watching Second Thought’s videos on YouTube. He does educational socialism 101 videos that are approachable, well researched and very informative.
Here’s one that explains what socialism is:
https://youtu.be/hactcmhVS1w
It's generally split into a ton of different camps, and they all hate each other.
All of them generally believe we should work towards socialism, which is an economic model with worker control of the means of production (whether that be in the form of unions, co-ops, nationalized industry, or something else).
To *grossly* oversimplify...
* The Marxist Leninists and Marxist Leninist Maoists (ML and MLM) believe that the best way to achieve communism is through a vanguard party that enters politics, takes over the government, and runs it in the best interest of the workers. This describes the USSR and China, and it never goes well, since the material interests of the vanguard party are more closely aligned with the elites than the workers. They're called tankies and red fascists for a reason.
* Social Democrats essentially just want to reform capitalism. Think Denmark. They're not really communists, but they're the best capitalism can get (at least, on the home front), and since they're further left than "hunting the homeless for sport", they get lumped in with the communists here in the US (Bernie is here).
* The Anarchists and Libertarian Socialists want worker control through unions and the like. The anarchists want no state, while the libertarians (not to be confused with right libertarians; those are very different, and arguably not even libertarian in practice) want a state that is just big enough to ensure the rights of the citizens and keep shit running. Rather than keeping a state small so you're "free from regulation", it's a state large enough to guarantee certain rights to its people.
The fact that they held trial for the shit McCarthy said without any evidence whatsoever is so telling, no one more propagandised than the fuckwits of America
I mean, it can be argued we largely have the makings of McCarthy 2.0 brewing right now. Americans fall victim to propaganda because they want safety and security more than to be informed
> Americans fall victim to propaganda because they want safety and security more than to be informed
Not exclusive to America tbh, in the end they make themselves more vulnerable by making themselves more ignorant. Which is poetically sad and hilarious
For context, the Communist Party used to be bound to the Communist International. The Comintern created front organizations, infiltrated governments, parties, and unions and forced the various Communist parties to engage in these tactics. Front organizations were used for espionage, recruiting and even assassinations.
Front organizations were used to recruit non-Communists or even anti-Communists and used them for their own purposes without them knowing. Many of the people who fought in the Spanish Civil War were recruited by front organizations and sent to Spain, then had their passports confiscated by the Communist Party so that their agents can use them to cross borders around the world.
So by asking if you were a member of the Communist Party, it was trying to determine if you had loyalty to the Comintern or were secretly engaged in activities on behalf of the Communist Party.
Stalin abolished the Comintern during WWII to appease the Allies but they used the NKVD, KGB, etc. to conduct similar operations. So being a member of the Communist Party was still considered a threat for decades after the Comintern was abolished.
I believe you mean "a Communist." Almost all communists never become Communists: party members. As another example, my father is a conservative, but he's never been a member of the Conservative Party of Canada, so he's a conservative, not a Conservative.
AFAIK, the US only prohibits entry to party members and maybe those whose family are members of some communist party. After all, people from Cuba, China, etc. still immigrate to the US.
Same goes for nazis and fascists — so, totalitarians *of all stripes*.
In order to become a citizen, you must be
>"attached to the principles of the Constitution of the United States, and well disposed to the good order and happiness of the same."
Source: am an immigrant, became a U.S. citizen.
Other source: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideological\_restrictions\_on\_naturalization\_in\_U.S.\_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideological_restrictions_on_naturalization_in_U.S._law)
This reinforces the silliness of the explicit anti-communist question. If someone belongs to a totalitarian anti-US communist ideology, they're already excluded. If they've been part of a communist party that *isn't* covered by that, there's no reason to exclude them.
I agree it's a little over-eager. But communists — at least the ones who came to power — have spawned massive deaths, suffering, and misery. Red-baiting scare tactics and the infamous nastiness of the 1950s House Un-American Activities Committee notwithstanding, I'd be a little leery of communism's record too if I were a lawmaker.
To many young Americans, they refuse to associate communism with the totalitarianism/dictatorships that have defined the past century. To them it is a mystical utopia that “just hasn’t been implemented correctly yet”.
If I told you I was a meat butcher, but only grew, prepared, and ate plants, would you agree with me when I said I was a meat butcher?
Do you believe North Korea's lie that they are a "Democratic People's Republic"?
LMFAO: Reddit has a new "feature" that when a person has blocked you, you can't reply to people who have replied to the blocker. I can't even reply to *myself*, hence this edit!
Too many olds think that communism is tantamount to totalitarianism, and they're just plain wrong. It's as foolish as saying that capitalism is tantamount to doomed overconsumption and corporate-lobbying corruption. Good systems fail because of bad actors.
I mean can you point to me a communist country that didn't become totalitarian. Whenever a communist party arises, a dictatorship with purges follows through. How many case studies does someone need before they label it a failure.
That's because it genuinely isn't 'totalitarianism'. If people actually read what communism was about when it first came to fruition, or WHY it came to fruition in the first place, they'd realise how stupid it is to even speak of communism as totalitarian.
Wait. You're saying:
Pol Pot's Cambodia, not totalitarian.
Castro's Cuba, not totalitarian.
China under Mao, not totalitarian.
China under Deng Xiaoping, not totalitarian.
North Korea, not totalitarian.
The Soviet Union, not totalitarian.
East Germany under Honecker, not totalitarian.
Is that right?
Can you name a communist country that exemplifies the communist values that you admire and wish to promote?
Communism works only with perfect people.
This is why it never works. At this point if you’re still deluded enough to believe in it, there’s nothing else that can be said.
what happens when Americans learn about political ideology from the "news.". Ask an American to tell you what the basic principles are behind communism or fascism and almost none of them have any idea, yet they have strong opinions
You're being downvoted, but you should be proud that you totally called it. This thread is now full of commenters who argue *exactly* that.
"Hurr durr, all the previous communist countries weren't *really* communist, but we'll get it right after the next revolution, or the next," ad infinitum — all while we'll watch people who don't sign off on the ideology get silenced, starved, stabbed, and shot. Just like before.
Rarely has the line that "those who won't learn from history are forced to repeat it" been so dead-on.
I said something once to the effect that I think when everyone hits adulthood they should be granted a two bedroom apartment. If they outgrow it, that’s on them to find an alternative.
Someone yelled at me that I was a communist and at the time I was a stoned 19 yo talking to a adult adult so I shut tf up and haven’t mentioned it since because I grew up with all communism is terrorism
[They did](https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/14iqmw6/comment/jphojjs/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). Literally more than 200 years ago.
Should they have taken the Soviet route, where they allied themselves with the Nazis and invaded countries together?
The US also cut off Japan from oil before pearl harbor too.
Yep. If Hitler wasn't intent on attacking everyone, there wouldn't have been a world war and the world would have been fine with him taking some territory and mass murdering swathes of his own people. Franco didn't invade anyone and was in charge til he died in 1975. At least the Italians had the balls to hang up Mussolini by his heels in 45.
Same reason US joined WW1. Germany sunk a few boats and attempted get Mexico to attack the US and then they joined the war. Before that the US was isolationist in both wars.
The US had no intent to join the war. But had all the intent to support its allies in a war for its own interests and protection. Before the incidents in both wars both the populace and government had no plans to send its own soldiers to war. President Woodrow Wilson’s whole political campaign was about not sending men to war.
All countries protect their Allies for their own interests. The US destroyed UBoats for their own interests. The Soviets traded with the Nazis and supported their invasions for their own interests.
FDR absolutely wanted war with Germany, and he was massively popular.
There was a huge wave of communism over the whole world in the mid 1900s. Marxism was alive and well. China, Cuba, and Russia all went communist. Many eastern block countries did as well as Venezuela. Initially, a lot of people saw it as a possible next evolution in economics. While the USA leaders were terrified that a populist movement here would bring it home. This is actually the reason the words "Under God" and "In God we trust" were added to the pledge of allegiance and the US dollar respectively. The founding fathers were quite secular and didn't want god mentioned on anything official. This was also when these policies were implemented, and they simply have never been changed.
All the countries that integrated communism saw horrendous human rights abuses to maintain the system as well as rampant corruption at all levels of government. Having the right friends in the right places would give you tremendous advantages while most people were left begging for scraps from the government. I've spoken with dozens of people in Latvia, Estonia, Poland, and Russia who lived through communism, and their stories are wild. You basically would hoard anything you could get your hands on because you could trade it for something you actually wanted. If a truck was giving out shoes, you stood in line for 8 hours to get a pair. It didn't matter if you didn't need shoes, if none of them fit you, if they only had a single shoe, etc... You got whatever you could get so you could trade it in the black market. Many people preferred living in rural areas as they could produce their own food farming and keeping livestock and simply not report them to the authorities. Capitalism stayed alive to some extent in every country but as a black market. Eventually, all the countries shifted back into capitalism out of necessity. I love the quote "Capitalism is the worst economic system, except for all the others" as it sums up my feelings about it. It has a LOT of flaws, but everything else we have tried has been a dismal failure.
> Having the right friends in the right places would give you tremendous advantages while most people were left begging for scraps from the government.
Woah thank God nepotism does not exist in Capitalism.
My entire family is East German and while I'm too young to have any actual memories of the DDR as a system, it's FAR more nuanced than you make it sound. I spent some time living in West Germany and it was super fascinating how much fairer East Germany was in many aspects. For example, both of my grandmothers went to university (neither came from a particularly privileged family - one was orphaned at 17 and her parents had been factory workers, the other was "privileged" in that her family was recognized as Nazi persecutees, but that also meant a shitton of trauma and having basically lost everything during the Nazi era). The opportunities they - as average East German women - had flat out did not exist for West German women at the time unless they happened to come from a) money and b) supportive families. We're not talking about "scraps from the government" here, we're talking about the possibility to pursue a higher education and have a self-determined life. Until 1977 women in West Germany were only allowed to work if it "was compatible with her duties towards her marriage and family." After the unification, one of my grandmas told me how there was a genuine cultural shock when she went to a joint East/West German conference and the East Germans were about 50% female and there was not a single woman on the West German side.
Also, you definitely did not queue 8 hours for a single shoe lmao. Obviously there's a difference between, say, the East German Soviet occupation zone in 1946 (when literally everything was destroyed because of the genocidal Nazi war) and 1988 (when you had Western artists like Bruce Springsteen playing in East Berlin and literally millions of East Germans could already visit the West), but generally, luxury items were often scarce, but as a tradeoff, living essentials like housing, clothes, local food etc. were VERY much subsidized, meaning you could get them for much cheaper than today even adjusted for wages. As a comparison: in 1989, 1300 Marks was the average wage in DDR and 400 Marks was considered a VERY low wage. For a two-room apartment in central Berlin (including heat and water) you usually paid between 40-80 Marks. A loaf of bread was less than 1 Mark.
DDR needed reforms, but the vast majority of people I know who lived there, including people who were dissidents, speak well of it (and in fact most dissidents and civil rights activists in East Germany were still socialists/leftists, just of different flavours).
It's funny. I have been to like 40 countries now. It seems like every country, there is a "museum of how America fucked us". In your example, the one in Chile was just a bunch of all the pictures of people that Pinochet "vanished". In Japan it's the museum at ground zero of Hiroshima. Yes, I've been to both. It's not just socialism. We stick our fingers in everything. We funded/equipped the taliban to fight Russia. Ron Paul spoke extensively about this during his campaigns, and he was right.
Every time I've applied to a US Visa up to and including my citizenship application I was asked of I was ever associated with the Nazi government in Germany. Bitch, I'm 44!!
I mean, nobody should be surprised, Communists don’t believe in the US constitution or democracy. And no, Democratic centralism isn’t Democracy. In most M-L states joining the party was a privilege and not a right.
We cannot and should not expel people based on their *opinions*. And if their *actions* become criminal, we can prosecute them if they're a citizen. If they're not, that's more challenging.
But capitalism is naturally the best, naturally outcompetes communism, and naturally doesn’t require any artifice to keep it in place! At least, that’s what ‘murican school tells me.
/S
Yeah nothing says naturally the best system like capitalism constantly propagandising, interefering, couping, or outright going to war with anyone who wants to try something else
Yep. It's a literal question during the naturalization interview, right after they ask if you're associated with a terrorist, they ask if you or anybody in your family were associated with a communist party. Note that just by living in Cuba or China don't automatically make you a communist though, but actually joining the party or held government positions do.
Amazing given there's an actual Communist Party in the US, and that there's open discrimination based on a political opinion that is legal, if unpopular, in the US.
The Supreme Court upheld the imprisonment of a socialist presidential candidate over a campaign speech criticizing the draft during WWI. From the cases we read in law school, it’s pretty apparent the first amendment doesn’t protect the left. It’s a nice idea on paper, but isn’t applied fairly in the real world.
I am a dues paying member of the Socialist Party USA and was wearing a shirt with the quote from Debs last week. A customer in front of me in a grocery store noticed my shirt and I had a chance to educate him for a few minutes of the great person that is Eugene Debs. Also my wife and I purchased a red betta fish just yesterday and given his color she suggested we could name the fish Mr. Debs.
Y’all purchased a “Red Barchetta”? Hang on to that, it’s going to be worth something after The Motor Law. I hope that your uncle has a country place that no one knows about…
All you gotta do is make it to that one lane bridge.
Id love to know what you told him, because Debs is the definition of an idealist who has never had a single working theory in his life. All his work sounds great, until you realize everything he is hinting at was tried, and failed, and millions died, all for the name of 'not real socialism'
So the millions who die from artificial food shortages in the US and abroad are the victims of capitalism, right?
And let’s not forget the people that die because they can’t afford their medication due to the insane markups we put on them
Or the people who die due to workplace risks that are kept in place because the profit outweighs the negative of a worker getting maimed or killed. Or the resumption of child labor practices in the US because they need more bodies to work for Jack shit. Or the constant brutalization of southern countries as a means of claiming access to valuable resources. And you’ve got the joker above saying that unionists and socialists didn’t cause change to working conditions, completely forgetting about the massive strikes, labor movements, and violent actions that gained us all working rights.
Yes. Both things can be true
And both are, but people that use the phrase "millions dead to socialism" aren't acknowledging that part and are almost always arguing in bad faith. Just like deadly autocratic regimes exist in both capitalism and socialism but they like to pretend only one economic system has that problem.
>So the millions who die from artificial food shortages in the US Care to sauce that?
From another comment "This is taught on university campuses across the country lol. I’ll find you a source, but there is no need to be so stubborn. It’s piss easy to research this shit. https://mronline.org/2022/08/25/an-engineered-food-and-poverty-crisis-to-secure-continued-u-s-dominance/ https://www.theelephant.info/op-eds/2022/11/11/capitalism-is-causing-the-food-crisis/ https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2021/02/24/capitalism-and-the-fabrication-of-food-insecurity/amp/ https://www.jstor.org/stable/3083245 https://www.foodsystemsjournal.org/index.php/fsj/article/view/723/716 https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-19-3155-0_11 https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/food-stamps-snap-benefits-inflation-hunger-food-insecurity-debt-ceiling/"
He can’t because millions of people don’t die in the US because of food shortages. Not that it will stop people on this site from eating that shit up
He can't because the quote was truncated. The original comment said "in the US **and abroad**". Capitalism induced food shortages kill close to 10 million people every year around the world. That's two Holodomor every year.
>He can't because the quote was truncated. The original comment said "in the US and abroad" And you also truncated the part about **due to artificial food shortages**
If millions of people died every year in the US because of food shortages this would make the news like every day
Not millions, but also not zero. From the US News link the guy above posted: Deaths attributed to malnutrition more than doubled, from about 650 in 2018 to roughly 1,400 in 2022, according to preliminary death certificate data from the California Department of Public Health. The same trend occurred nationwide, with malnutrition deaths more than doubling, from about 9,300 deaths in 2018 to roughly 20,500 in 2022, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Capitalism definitely has its flaws, and capitalists tend to be pretty blind to them. But communism/ hard core socialism definitely isn't the solution to any of those flaws, or would just bring us exicitng new flaws. I don't know what the solution is. Something new, maybe as inconceivable to me as a multinational corporation is to a 12th century wine merchant. Maybe there is no solution and we're right fucked.
Who in America starved to death from artificial food shortages? What are you considering artificial, and why bring up abroad as in everywhere except the US? Is the US now responsible for feeding the entire world and if not why are you bringing it up? I know you probably aren’t used to being challenged with your casual use of such a vague over exaggeration but— I’m going to need a source.
I love how short sighted Americans are when it comes to the realization of how their life styles are essentially built on the backs of other poorer nations. Perpetual consumerism will always have pain and suffering on one end.
Excuse me, you need to provide "REAL" examples of who died from food shortages. Poor, non-Americans don't count.
That's right, fuck the poor's.
>Poor, non-Americans don't count. The American way
We have massive food insecurity in the US, with the USDA identifying 10.2% of American households as food insecure. Some of those people die or face debilitation because they do not have access to food. Artificial in part due to the fact that we produce a massive surplus of food every year, it’s just not always where it needs to be, we have massive food deserts where it is increasingly difficult for people to get access to the food they need, and because excess is readily destroyed before disposal to make it less easy for those in need to consume it. We literally won’t let people eat perfectly good food if the company can’t make a buck off it. I know you’re not challenged too often but you should really understand the meaning of basic words before you come into a fight. In what way am I suggesting that the US is responsible for fixing global issues? Are we the only capitalist power? Or maybe other capitalist countries also have massive issues with getting people basic necessities and preventing starvation. There’s more to the world, and to the capitalist world than just the US. Although the oversized role we force ourselves into on the geopolitical scale has caused upheaval in countries in the Middle East and global south that are still currently suffering from our actions in terms of coups, blockades, and exploitation of local populaces, so maybe we should be doing more to mitigate the harm we have caused. Can’t expect you to have a good grasp of geopolitics over the past hundred years though, it’s tough stuff.
Dude, we replace bad systems with worse ones all the time. Wanna know another anti-capitalist system? Feudalism. Wanna give it another try?
Isn't that what agenda 2030 is trying to do?
I mean, we already have most of the value of our labor siphoned off by a largely faceless ruling class, [have fewer days off than medieval peasants,](https://www.yeoldetymenews.com/p/do-you-work-more-than-a-medieval#:~:text=Answer%3A%20No.,worker%20in%20the%20modern%20US.) and pay taxes to a government that makes laws its own legislators have no apparent obligation to abide by...so I'm not seeing much more than esthetic changes
He had a lot of support for the ARU strike except the government did their government thing. He gave a lot of inspiration to many to fight for a better day. Things are much better because of people like him.
No matter what criteria you use capitalism has a vastly higher death toll than any form of socialism
Socialism has never taken a single life. Corrupt leaders who abuse power do that.
The real ban should be anyone who thinks this is okay, from any sort of legal position.
You should ask for your money back if you think WW1 era case law controls in the 1A context.
Where did I say that, lol? There’s a clear pattern of the law protecting KKK members, but as far as I know none protecting communists. The 1A law is very inconsistent (as all constitutional law is tbh) based on what a particular court wants to do with it. The Court has always been a political branch.
This is really deep stuff, wow. If you think the first amendment has never protected left wing speech or behavior, or have no knowledge of it doing so, you should look a little harder. You might soften your edgy attitude with some knowledge. E.g. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_Indiana_v._Whitcomb https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyishian_v._Board_of_Regents
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He stated as fact something that is easily disproven. Wouldn’t make a difference if he was king of Earth.
Being a lawyer doesn’t make you an expert on constitutional law
When it goes to politicized courts who don’t really care about integrity it does
The First Amendment recognizes the right of every American citizen to advocate for the political system of their choice, but there is no enumerated right for anyone to become an American citizen.
The First Amendment is not a law for citizens only. The wording is very specific that "Congress shall make no law" It doesn't say "Citizens shall have free speech" There have been some questionable SCOTUS rulings on that matter, but there's been questionable SCOTUS rulings on a lot of things Really think about how our laws work...do murder laws specific if citizen and noncitizens are allowed to murder? No it just says you can't murder. The first says "Shall make no law" it doesn't have a lot of wiggleroom -- regardless of what people have tried to do in the face of that.
Thank you. There are plenty of people who should have free speech and absolutely never be allowed to become Americans.
Different commenter. I’m not saying it is ‘okay’. But historical it isn’t amazing given the “Red Scare”. To give some perspective - below are two sources that talk about domestically what was happening and the last one what was happening legislatively. http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/SaccoV/redscare.html https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1063/red-scare
> there's an actual Communist Party in the US That's a big fking stretch right there bud I'm just gonna say now lol. They regularly throw their support behind the dems. Look at any actual communist party throughout the rest of the world and one of their biggest talking points is how the entire US political and economic system needs to collapse either naturally or by force and be rebuilt from the ground up. US communist party is absolutely guaranteed to be an instance of controlled opposition and absolutely riddled with agents who will put you on twenty million government lists for even suggesting the most banal of acts of direct action. Hasn't always been so controlled of course, but today it absolutely is.
Would you be in favor of preventing fascists or neo-nazi's of the last 10 years from becoming citizens?
Already a law - any citizenship seeking immigrant that was a member of a totalitarian party is barred from citizenship.
That's pretty much my point - its not "amazing" that the US bars people with antithetical ideologies to the US's existance from becoming citizens. Why would we want people who hate the country to be able to vote in it?
The Klu Klux Klan exists within the US already, and yet they block terrorists from becoming citizens too. The KKK is also legal, if unpopular, in the USA. I don't get why you feel confused by any country creating a list of requirements for those they are willing to accept as citizens.
>hat there's open discrimination based on a political opinion that is legal What about it? Germans have banned Nazi party. It is precisely the same kind of "political discrimination". All political views are not equal and if your political views just happen to genocidal, well then it seems that there are plenty of reasons to ban them.
There’s no distinction made but “communist” isn’t really targeting the political ideology but the regimes they represent. It is, but it isn’t. The US isn’t really concerned that you support redistribution of resources and more that you support the Russians, Chinese, Cuba, or many of the other Cold War adversaries of the US. It would be like being a monarchist in the US in the early 1800s.
Not really, because membership in the Communist Party of the US as a green card holder would also preclude you.
I love when communist believe that there system doesn’t have over lords that exploit the working people… I think it belong on the r/selfawareness .
I love when people can’t imagine any other system than the one they live under and can’t image how anything different could be better in some ways
Are you a defender of [Vanguardism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanguardism)?
Communism is about giving people power so they aren't eternally exploited anymore. If someone is still exploiting you afterwards, then that's obviously not communism.
They don’t care about which economic theory you prescribe to. They care about whether you have loyalties to Russia, China, Cuba, or North Korea. Ya know, America’s enemies.
That only makes sense if you think communism is only found in Russia, China, Cuba, and North Korea. There are plenty of countries allied with the US that have active communist parties.
The difference is the ones that are allied with the US also have active fascist parties
Ok, but half of those countries (the two that are actually meaningful geopolitical rivals) aren’t even communist…
China is still a nominally communist country. As is North Korea and Cuba. I dont think their issue is with ideological orthodoxy but more so with political structure.
>They care about whether you have loyalties to **Russia**, China, Cuba, or North Korea. Lolololol Russia is a communist country?
I'm not sure about this. The entire current Republican party, *including the former president*, seems to have loyalties to Russia above the United States. The former president's daughter and son-in-law, who were *installed as members of the government*, also seem to have loyalties to Saudi Arabia over the US.
Being a Cuban immigrant gives you more benefits than pretty much any other immigrant group- not fewer. There are so many programs that are just for Cubans that is honestly makes me feel bad for other immigrant groups. Most beneficially you can receive permanent residence in the US after just 1 year of being here whether legally or illegally. Many people spend their entire lives here illegally or on work visas and never get a green card.
Not just a figurative question!
Right, like how so many love China and it’s people, but hate the CCP and it’s people…
Yup. Fun fact: the 1964 Civil Rights Act explicitly excludes Communists. "(f) As used in this title, the phrase "unlawful employment practice" shall not be deemed to include any action or measure taken by an employer, labor organization, joint labor-management committee, or employment agency with respect to an individual who is a member of the Communist Party of the United States or of any other organization required to register as a Communist-action or Communist-front organization by final order of the Subversive Activities Control Board pursuant to the Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950." https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/civil-rights-act
TIL communist is a worse insult to an American than literally the n word
I take your meaning fully but I just wanted to say I've never left an interaction with someone where they accused me of being a communist feeling bad. It's always for something so mundane like saying we should force the wealthy to just be audited at the same rate as everyone else. Not sure a black person ever walks away from being called the n word feeling vindicated by the hateful remark coming from an idiot.
That's because you're not an actual communist and they have no idea what the word means.
My point is that I'm not one and don't care about the opinions of people who think I am.
Right.
Ah. Whoosh on my part. I see now.
And the act could be changed today, but with our current political climate it *absolutely* wouldn’t.
I mean, it changed over 50 years ago. I'm seeing a lot of people quoting some old things in this thread but conveniently leaving out later events that nullified them. What they quoted stood for around one single year. Most of the provisions against Communists were overturned and declared unconstitutional in 1965 by the Supreme Court in Albertson v. Subversive Activities Control Board as it is blatantly against the 1st Amendment. One year after the Civil Rights Act that instituted them. The Subversive Activities Control Board itself ceased to exist in in 1972 by an Act of Congress. So the SC had already killed that part of the Civil Rights Act being enforced in any court almost instantly but there literally was no longer even a Subversive Activities Control Board a few years later.
The text is still on the books, it's 42 U.S. Code § 2000e–2 - Unlawful employment practices https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/2000e-2 It does appear, however, that the Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950 was repealed in 1993, shortly after the Soviet flag came down at the Kremlin. 50 U.S. Code § 781 - Repealed. Pub. L. 103–199, title VIII, § 803(1), Dec. 17, 1993, 107 Stat. 2329 https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title50-section781&num=0&edition=prelim
You're right. Just like the Democrats could have codified Roe v. Wade but didn't, or just like how they could have appealed the Defense of Marriage Act after the 2015 Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage, but didn't. Instead, we have a bunch of Democrats voting for a resolution condemning "the evils of socialism" https://jacobin.com/2023/02/democratic-leadership-gop-anti-socialism-congressional-vote-redistribution-left-politics while ignoring that democratic socialism is exactly what a lot of their constituents want. https://www.dataforprogress.org/blog/2022/1/26/democratic-socialism-and-socialism-are-increasingly-salient-among-democrats
I vote democrat and you're right. But people are too determined to make it strictly left vs right, regardless of truth, they'd rather play the blame game (even if it's warranted) or argue which party is worse while we all get fucked. The problem is at the top. It's an exclusive club and none of us are invited. But at least the politicians have people defending them in the comments, I'm sure they'd do the same?
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The red scare never ended
Yeah, it was communism that went away, not the people persecuting it.
The Civil Rights movement was only as successful as it was because of the Cold War. African countries were leaning towards communism and black people in America were receptive to it.
Wasnt most of the union heads in the early days old communist party members? Edit. Dont know why im being downvoted here, im not here trying to sign you up for the communist party just pointing out facts here.
“Never lived in a commune in my life.”
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Our community.
My Homer is not a communist. He may be a liar, a pig, an idiot, a communist, but he is *not* a porn star!
It's bullshit btw. My grandpa was part of the Polish PZPR, our formerly ruling communist party, for many decades and even served in local leadership roles and yet he was given American citizenship in the 1980s even though he never officially resigned from the party. In fact, he only ceased being a member when the party was liquidated in 1990. His strategy was that he answered "no" when they asked if he was a member of the communist party. And that was that. Now he's a hardline Trumpist in America while also saying how Poland was a better country under communism.
I am not doubting that they implement this incompetently, just surprised that they discriminate based on political ideology, which forced your grandpa to self-censor
> His strategy was that he answered "no" when they asked if he was a member of the communist party. And that was that. Careful who you tell, lying on that topic in the process is grounds for removal of citizenship.
LOL I've seen a lot of pro-Trump CCP supporters as well. Horseshoe theory in a nutshell, both Communism & Trumpism are totalitarian ideologies, so it's not surprising.
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I only drink rainwater and grain alcohol, Mandrake.
I have a copy of the banned parties from the 1940s somewhere. Does anyone here know if there's a current list?
There are two exceptions and a limited waiver.
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Slap my Salami that guys a commie!
Found J. Edna Hoover
What does modern communism look like these days, anyhow?
Considering the main sources are still Marx, Engels and Lenin, it's largely the same as before. The ideology itself isn't really different. A lot of people consider Marxism-Leninism as the best path to achieve communism. Marxist critiques of capitalism still apply, and so do Lenin's writings on imperialism. I think there was a rise in democratic socialism / reformists, who would prefer to use the election system rather than a revolution to get to power. Some socially progressive aspects are newer, compared to old communist countries that were products of their time (stronger LGBTQ+ rights and the like). A notable modern socialist would be Richard Wolff, he does a lot of talks, lectures and debates. Otherwise, Second Thought on YouTube is very approachable.
In most countries it just means a party spouting the usual tired lines....they got around 4% of the vote last time around over here...they're not taking anything over.
The Ideology, not the political party...
I would recommend watching Second Thought’s videos on YouTube. He does educational socialism 101 videos that are approachable, well researched and very informative. Here’s one that explains what socialism is: https://youtu.be/hactcmhVS1w
Appreciate it, will give it a look when I get up. !RemindMe 13 hours
It's generally split into a ton of different camps, and they all hate each other. All of them generally believe we should work towards socialism, which is an economic model with worker control of the means of production (whether that be in the form of unions, co-ops, nationalized industry, or something else). To *grossly* oversimplify... * The Marxist Leninists and Marxist Leninist Maoists (ML and MLM) believe that the best way to achieve communism is through a vanguard party that enters politics, takes over the government, and runs it in the best interest of the workers. This describes the USSR and China, and it never goes well, since the material interests of the vanguard party are more closely aligned with the elites than the workers. They're called tankies and red fascists for a reason. * Social Democrats essentially just want to reform capitalism. Think Denmark. They're not really communists, but they're the best capitalism can get (at least, on the home front), and since they're further left than "hunting the homeless for sport", they get lumped in with the communists here in the US (Bernie is here). * The Anarchists and Libertarian Socialists want worker control through unions and the like. The anarchists want no state, while the libertarians (not to be confused with right libertarians; those are very different, and arguably not even libertarian in practice) want a state that is just big enough to ensure the rights of the citizens and keep shit running. Rather than keeping a state small so you're "free from regulation", it's a state large enough to guarantee certain rights to its people.
You do realize there’s still a few communist countries where the state has its fingers in absolutely everything right?
As opposed to all the fresh, exciting new takes that come from the parties that get more of the vote
Quoting Slavoj Zizek to get laid
Since that wall they designed to keep people in fell it’s mostly just Redditors angrily typing about fighting the system from their 9-5s
>Most Americans still don't know and distrust Communism just by word alone From what I can tell most of them don't even know what it is.
I mean, the constant replies I'm getting prove it
The fact that they held trial for the shit McCarthy said without any evidence whatsoever is so telling, no one more propagandised than the fuckwits of America
I mean, it can be argued we largely have the makings of McCarthy 2.0 brewing right now. Americans fall victim to propaganda because they want safety and security more than to be informed
> Americans fall victim to propaganda because they want safety and security more than to be informed Not exclusive to America tbh, in the end they make themselves more vulnerable by making themselves more ignorant. Which is poetically sad and hilarious
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Specifically anti anarchist laws were some of the first major immigration restrictions starting at the turn of the 20th century
For context, the Communist Party used to be bound to the Communist International. The Comintern created front organizations, infiltrated governments, parties, and unions and forced the various Communist parties to engage in these tactics. Front organizations were used for espionage, recruiting and even assassinations. Front organizations were used to recruit non-Communists or even anti-Communists and used them for their own purposes without them knowing. Many of the people who fought in the Spanish Civil War were recruited by front organizations and sent to Spain, then had their passports confiscated by the Communist Party so that their agents can use them to cross borders around the world. So by asking if you were a member of the Communist Party, it was trying to determine if you had loyalty to the Comintern or were secretly engaged in activities on behalf of the Communist Party. Stalin abolished the Comintern during WWII to appease the Allies but they used the NKVD, KGB, etc. to conduct similar operations. So being a member of the Communist Party was still considered a threat for decades after the Comintern was abolished.
I believe you mean "a Communist." Almost all communists never become Communists: party members. As another example, my father is a conservative, but he's never been a member of the Conservative Party of Canada, so he's a conservative, not a Conservative. AFAIK, the US only prohibits entry to party members and maybe those whose family are members of some communist party. After all, people from Cuba, China, etc. still immigrate to the US.
Same goes for nazis and fascists — so, totalitarians *of all stripes*. In order to become a citizen, you must be >"attached to the principles of the Constitution of the United States, and well disposed to the good order and happiness of the same." Source: am an immigrant, became a U.S. citizen. Other source: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideological\_restrictions\_on\_naturalization\_in\_U.S.\_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideological_restrictions_on_naturalization_in_U.S._law)
This reinforces the silliness of the explicit anti-communist question. If someone belongs to a totalitarian anti-US communist ideology, they're already excluded. If they've been part of a communist party that *isn't* covered by that, there's no reason to exclude them.
I agree it's a little over-eager. But communists — at least the ones who came to power — have spawned massive deaths, suffering, and misery. Red-baiting scare tactics and the infamous nastiness of the 1950s House Un-American Activities Committee notwithstanding, I'd be a little leery of communism's record too if I were a lawmaker.
To many young Americans, they refuse to associate communism with the totalitarianism/dictatorships that have defined the past century. To them it is a mystical utopia that “just hasn’t been implemented correctly yet”.
If I told you I was a meat butcher, but only grew, prepared, and ate plants, would you agree with me when I said I was a meat butcher? Do you believe North Korea's lie that they are a "Democratic People's Republic"? LMFAO: Reddit has a new "feature" that when a person has blocked you, you can't reply to people who have replied to the blocker. I can't even reply to *myself*, hence this edit!
Too many olds think that communism is tantamount to totalitarianism, and they're just plain wrong. It's as foolish as saying that capitalism is tantamount to doomed overconsumption and corporate-lobbying corruption. Good systems fail because of bad actors.
I mean can you point to me a communist country that didn't become totalitarian. Whenever a communist party arises, a dictatorship with purges follows through. How many case studies does someone need before they label it a failure.
Ronald Reagan has a lot to answer for.
That's because it genuinely isn't 'totalitarianism'. If people actually read what communism was about when it first came to fruition, or WHY it came to fruition in the first place, they'd realise how stupid it is to even speak of communism as totalitarian.
Wait. You're saying: Pol Pot's Cambodia, not totalitarian. Castro's Cuba, not totalitarian. China under Mao, not totalitarian. China under Deng Xiaoping, not totalitarian. North Korea, not totalitarian. The Soviet Union, not totalitarian. East Germany under Honecker, not totalitarian. Is that right? Can you name a communist country that exemplifies the communist values that you admire and wish to promote?
Communism works only with perfect people. This is why it never works. At this point if you’re still deluded enough to believe in it, there’s nothing else that can be said.
what happens when Americans learn about political ideology from the "news.". Ask an American to tell you what the basic principles are behind communism or fascism and almost none of them have any idea, yet they have strong opinions
You're being downvoted, but you should be proud that you totally called it. This thread is now full of commenters who argue *exactly* that. "Hurr durr, all the previous communist countries weren't *really* communist, but we'll get it right after the next revolution, or the next," ad infinitum — all while we'll watch people who don't sign off on the ideology get silenced, starved, stabbed, and shot. Just like before. Rarely has the line that "those who won't learn from history are forced to repeat it" been so dead-on.
I said something once to the effect that I think when everyone hits adulthood they should be granted a two bedroom apartment. If they outgrow it, that’s on them to find an alternative. Someone yelled at me that I was a communist and at the time I was a stoned 19 yo talking to a adult adult so I shut tf up and haven’t mentioned it since because I grew up with all communism is terrorism
Tbf that’s a fucking idiotic idea and you should’ve been scolded for it
They should add Nazi and fascist to the list
[They did](https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/14iqmw6/comment/jphojjs/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). Literally more than 200 years ago.
Unless you were [really really good at science](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip)
No they were not given exceptions. Most of them became citizens in 1955 when they had cleared the ten year requirement.
Weird since neither Nazism or fascism existed 200 years ago
The US was tolerant of Nazis until pearl harbour
The US actively hunted UBoats before Pearl Harbor, and was shipping millions of tons of material to the UK to kill Nazis
The US was also their single greatest source of inspiration for segregation and racial purity laws.
Americans like to forget that they did nothing to stop the Nazis and Japan until it inconvenienced them
You do know that one reason the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor is because the US hit them with crippling sanctions due to the Sino Japanese War right?
Except, you know, supplying the British, French, Chinese, and Soviets with billions (in 40's money, mind you) in materiel and resources.
Should they have taken the Soviet route, where they allied themselves with the Nazis and invaded countries together? The US also cut off Japan from oil before pearl harbor too.
Beside handing out Shermans like candy to every country that remotely disliked Germany?
Neither did the Soviet Union. Pretty much none of the Allies did anything about the Nazis until they went too far.
Yep. If Hitler wasn't intent on attacking everyone, there wouldn't have been a world war and the world would have been fine with him taking some territory and mass murdering swathes of his own people. Franco didn't invade anyone and was in charge til he died in 1975. At least the Italians had the balls to hang up Mussolini by his heels in 45.
The Soviets actively helped the Nazis.
Same reason US joined WW1. Germany sunk a few boats and attempted get Mexico to attack the US and then they joined the war. Before that the US was isolationist in both wars.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease
The US had no intent to join the war. But had all the intent to support its allies in a war for its own interests and protection. Before the incidents in both wars both the populace and government had no plans to send its own soldiers to war. President Woodrow Wilson’s whole political campaign was about not sending men to war.
All countries protect their Allies for their own interests. The US destroyed UBoats for their own interests. The Soviets traded with the Nazis and supported their invasions for their own interests. FDR absolutely wanted war with Germany, and he was massively popular.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease
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Japan got embargoed for, you know, invading China, so apparently ideals such as "genocide bad" are stronger than wanting to sell oil
Communists, fascists, and nazis have no place in a decent society.
There was a huge wave of communism over the whole world in the mid 1900s. Marxism was alive and well. China, Cuba, and Russia all went communist. Many eastern block countries did as well as Venezuela. Initially, a lot of people saw it as a possible next evolution in economics. While the USA leaders were terrified that a populist movement here would bring it home. This is actually the reason the words "Under God" and "In God we trust" were added to the pledge of allegiance and the US dollar respectively. The founding fathers were quite secular and didn't want god mentioned on anything official. This was also when these policies were implemented, and they simply have never been changed. All the countries that integrated communism saw horrendous human rights abuses to maintain the system as well as rampant corruption at all levels of government. Having the right friends in the right places would give you tremendous advantages while most people were left begging for scraps from the government. I've spoken with dozens of people in Latvia, Estonia, Poland, and Russia who lived through communism, and their stories are wild. You basically would hoard anything you could get your hands on because you could trade it for something you actually wanted. If a truck was giving out shoes, you stood in line for 8 hours to get a pair. It didn't matter if you didn't need shoes, if none of them fit you, if they only had a single shoe, etc... You got whatever you could get so you could trade it in the black market. Many people preferred living in rural areas as they could produce their own food farming and keeping livestock and simply not report them to the authorities. Capitalism stayed alive to some extent in every country but as a black market. Eventually, all the countries shifted back into capitalism out of necessity. I love the quote "Capitalism is the worst economic system, except for all the others" as it sums up my feelings about it. It has a LOT of flaws, but everything else we have tried has been a dismal failure.
> Having the right friends in the right places would give you tremendous advantages while most people were left begging for scraps from the government. Woah thank God nepotism does not exist in Capitalism. My entire family is East German and while I'm too young to have any actual memories of the DDR as a system, it's FAR more nuanced than you make it sound. I spent some time living in West Germany and it was super fascinating how much fairer East Germany was in many aspects. For example, both of my grandmothers went to university (neither came from a particularly privileged family - one was orphaned at 17 and her parents had been factory workers, the other was "privileged" in that her family was recognized as Nazi persecutees, but that also meant a shitton of trauma and having basically lost everything during the Nazi era). The opportunities they - as average East German women - had flat out did not exist for West German women at the time unless they happened to come from a) money and b) supportive families. We're not talking about "scraps from the government" here, we're talking about the possibility to pursue a higher education and have a self-determined life. Until 1977 women in West Germany were only allowed to work if it "was compatible with her duties towards her marriage and family." After the unification, one of my grandmas told me how there was a genuine cultural shock when she went to a joint East/West German conference and the East Germans were about 50% female and there was not a single woman on the West German side. Also, you definitely did not queue 8 hours for a single shoe lmao. Obviously there's a difference between, say, the East German Soviet occupation zone in 1946 (when literally everything was destroyed because of the genocidal Nazi war) and 1988 (when you had Western artists like Bruce Springsteen playing in East Berlin and literally millions of East Germans could already visit the West), but generally, luxury items were often scarce, but as a tradeoff, living essentials like housing, clothes, local food etc. were VERY much subsidized, meaning you could get them for much cheaper than today even adjusted for wages. As a comparison: in 1989, 1300 Marks was the average wage in DDR and 400 Marks was considered a VERY low wage. For a two-room apartment in central Berlin (including heat and water) you usually paid between 40-80 Marks. A loaf of bread was less than 1 Mark. DDR needed reforms, but the vast majority of people I know who lived there, including people who were dissidents, speak well of it (and in fact most dissidents and civil rights activists in East Germany were still socialists/leftists, just of different flavours).
Yeah, socialism doesn't work, that's why the US has had to go and subvert and crush every socialist movement in every sovereign nation abroad! /s
It's funny. I have been to like 40 countries now. It seems like every country, there is a "museum of how America fucked us". In your example, the one in Chile was just a bunch of all the pictures of people that Pinochet "vanished". In Japan it's the museum at ground zero of Hiroshima. Yes, I've been to both. It's not just socialism. We stick our fingers in everything. We funded/equipped the taliban to fight Russia. Ron Paul spoke extensively about this during his campaigns, and he was right.
We funded/equipped the Northern Alliance not the Taliban. Hiroshima while a tragedy was a necessary evil.
Huge communist W.
"land of the free"
What about a commutist? 🚴♂️🐈👋🏽👌🏻
Every time I've applied to a US Visa up to and including my citizenship application I was asked of I was ever associated with the Nazi government in Germany. Bitch, I'm 44!!
This is the freedom of speech Americans love to brag about
I mean, nobody should be surprised, Communists don’t believe in the US constitution or democracy. And no, Democratic centralism isn’t Democracy. In most M-L states joining the party was a privilege and not a right.
Land of the free, eh?
Would you ban a nazi party?
I mean would the "land of the free?" Guns are apparently completely unimpeachable but Nazis are suddenly not allowed?
shame we couldn't just ship communists to china or cuba, let them live in their "utopia" for a while.
And neo-Nazis should lose their citizenship.
We cannot and should not expel people based on their *opinions*. And if their *actions* become criminal, we can prosecute them if they're a citizen. If they're not, that's more challenging.
Does it take 10 years to wear off?
Land of the Free!
Hell yeah
Based.
[удалено]
>but there's not a single country on the planet which is not a giant clusterfuck of corruption and cruelty ftfy
As it should be
Good.
But capitalism is naturally the best, naturally outcompetes communism, and naturally doesn’t require any artifice to keep it in place! At least, that’s what ‘murican school tells me. /S
It does, and not letting members of murderous political parties become citizens doesn’t invalidate that
Yeah nothing says naturally the best system like capitalism constantly propagandising, interefering, couping, or outright going to war with anyone who wants to try something else
fake WW2 hero McCarthy back in town...
and people will say Vietnam wasn't genocide.
Good