Hats off to the Bolivians. Now we just need to do the same in America, Brazil, Turkey, Israel, Hungary, Poland, India...

 

lol Biden and the Democrats aren't left wing at all.

 

Yeah, unlike here, in Bolivia it seems the left wing had popular support

 

It's partly because the left had over a decade in power and were able to get policies implemented. It may seem crazy to Democrats like Biden, but people like when their leaders do good things for them.

 

In the richest countries socialism struggles to win because the people of those countries are spoiled at the expenses of poor countries that are kept prisoners of the super-powers' imperialist ambitions.
^ Someone smart said something in this spirit. Probably Rosa Luxemburg.

 

I mean yeah pretty much what she identified. Germany is that way now, they bleed Greece dry and exploit the third world with the EU's imperial capitalism that functions more like a racket. They have social democracy there now, because they suppress socialism and workers rights everywhere else. Be wary of something that seems to good to be true

 

Ah, this should be a refreshing change of pace. Hearing you guys beat up the Democrats is getting kinda old. So...what are the Nordic countries doing that's so terrible?

 

"Terrible", "bad" and "good" can be rather fuzzy concepts when it comes to politics and history.
Anyway, what vnc is saying is that every capitalist country, for the intrinsic nature of capitalism, derives part of its wealth from exploitation.
So, even though they have an admirable social system for their citizens, many of the relatively cheap products that the people of those rich countries enjoy comes from the hard and underpaid labor of people in poor countries, and in the worst case scenarios these products can even be closely connected with geopolitical tensions abroad.

 

Norway has a $1 trillion+ sovereign wealth fund that holds stocks, bonds, real estate, etc. around the world.

 

Even if you did have a socialist system (assuming there is a distinct line between socialism and social democracy) in a country, could you really avoid exploiting people poorer countries? This sounds like something that's much easier said than done.

 

Are you asking if it possible or if it's easy? Cause you're kinda going back and forth...

 

Theoretically a socialist country wouldn't need to exploit poorer countries the way capitalist countries do because many goods and services could be produced domestically instead of outsourced in order to increase profits. Also there wouldn't be a need to keep those countries poor by expropriating their wealth. And there wouldn't be a need to produce a bunch of cheap disposable crap. When it comes to things like raw materials that may not necessarily be available domestically, well, that's why socialism should be envisioned as a global project.

It's also worth noting that most countries do not exploit poorer countries because they are the ones being exploited e.g. Bolivia. It's only the Global North that does this mostly due to the legacy of colonialism and China's joining in on the fun.

 

I mean several of the socialist nations still around are socialist. Heck even ones that did exploit natural resources of imperialized nations at least industrialized them, gave them citizenship, and workers rights. A far cry from france owning the national banks of its former colonies which get none of the welfare benefits the French people do.

Vietnam, Laos, Venezuela, and Cuba are not extracting from other nations or relying on the exploited labor of the third world. Morales vastly improved Bolivia without doing that, the Zapatistas have managed to subsist as self-contained zones without exploiting anyone.

Exploitation let alone extracting from poor countries is not inevitable, it is a choice, one only needed under capitalism because capitalism requires constant growth.

well even then trade exists. The only reason for socialism in one country not working on that front would be if one accepted sanctions and embargos. Its the reason why Venezuela suffers, or Cuba which has practically free food but imports almost all of it at a highcost cause the US. groups like NATO know these nations could just trade with capitalist economies for what they need, so they cut them off, make their people suffer as a result.

Wait that high? freaking hell. I mostly just thought it was a reliance on their ability to nationalize their oil more than even Venezuela without ever getting couped, and wealth from their whole raping of the third world
Though yeah they still use sweatshops etc for their wealth.
https://www.telesurenglish.net/anal...ole-in-Western-Imperialism-20170320-0022.html

Plus the Sami people exist in Scandinavia, they are just not super common these days cause....well one can guess why. Suffice is to say, stolen land is not just a thing Nordic nations did abroad, but right at home to. Oh and Sweden literally controlled New York for a time, or was it New Amsterdam?

 

Theoretically yeah, but the temptation is still there isn't it?

 

It really depends on what form of socialism you have in mind. Talking in these abstract terms makes little sense, and we'd have to go into specific examples, but this is not the right thread for that.
Generally speaking, a tradition for a good fraction of the Left is to be anti-patriotic, or at least skeptical about patriotism, and this is precisely because they advocate in favor of all workers rather than just those living in particular countries, but again, it's complicated and we should examine specific cases.

 

Since we don't have a recent SA and central america thread I thought I'd share this here

You are told to hear people's "castro took my grandpa's slaves away" sob stories, but the way more common and real victims in Cuba, are victims of the united states

 

In case anyone wants to know what a real resistance looks like or how to deal with a corrupt "democracy"
They fought 40 years of insurgency campaigns against our puppets, they still have it in them


Hey mods can someone retitle this and make it a South American politics thread since we don't have a current one and that feels wrong that Africa and South America are the only inhabited continents that don't have one. Unless you count Australia though that just raises the fact that a Polynesia and/or an Indochina thread should exist

 

Are you interested to share any of the actual substance of things or did you just get excited about stuff blowing up?

 

OBolivian

 

We just call that Oceania

 

No wocky, none of us are interested in whatever lanyard-wearing defense you've come up for the politician there. I'm on team excited about stuff blowing up.

 

As someone who lived in Guatemala for a while and still works there sometimes, what's been happening the last couple of days is a pretty big deal. People are generally wary of going out in huge masses in the central square like that after what happened with the massacres and rampant "disappearings" a few decades ago. Zona 1's center is absolutely huge, and from the photos of the whole square packed with protesters I'd wager there are a lot more than a "few hundred" people there as the US media has been saying.

I mean honestly the anti-corruption measures have been breaking down steadily there in an almost exponential way over the last several years, which is how it got to where it is now. Dealing with the government there is pretty much a black box now, where stuff happens and you have no idea how it happens. People have been saying there'd be a breaking point eventually.

 

I'm actually just aiming to point out the difference between the original post and Barriss's. One was rooted in the particular history of a place, referenced the triggering events, and weighed the overall significance. The other was a gleefully hormonal post about videos of wreckage. Dare I suggest that someone who daily suggests everyone else is too focused on the optics and doesn't appreciate the substance of issues actually focus on something beyond what looks closest to the combat portion of his favorite video games?

 

Really speaks to how fed up people are then. I think the success of the pink tide to weather attempts to stifle it has led to some of these movements. Chile forcing a new constitution, Ecuador getting an agreement on the terms of indigenous and working people, Bolivia undoing the coup, and now this. Even partial wins like Lula being free and the coup attempts in Venezuela being stopped for now.

Places that had been kept out of the tied due to US intervention and corporations are now demanding change. This could all end really tragically like has happened before, but here's hoping.

"substance" for wocky is debating the amount of fuel used for the helicopters Pinochet used. Indigenous people and working class people in the global south require Wocky's almighty enlightened approval before taking political action. You stan Obama, the guy who did a coup in Honduras. No one cares what defense you have for another capitalist regime or civility nonsense

Hang out with David Pakman or something

Oceania cuts off though.

I meant more Southeast Asia as a distinct thing, Indochina was the wrong area though warrants its own grouping. Asia should spawn off like 5 political region threads imo.