627
My Cuban family fled a dictator. Now I’m scared they’ll elect Trump
(www.independent.co.uk)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2024
627 points (97.0% liked)
politics
19096 readers
2844 users here now
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
You have no idea what are you talking about. I happen to be born in one of those post socialist countries, and had to grow up in the shit left after that failed system.
Do you know how did it fail? After USSR lost it's grip on the eastern Europe, the governments in these countries for the first time organized free, untampered elections, and the socialists system lost by the vote of the people in every single one of them. Everyone hated it, even the governments that were previously tasked by USSR to enforce it.
And you know what happened next? Decades of rebuilding of the broken economy, EU accesion, access to the common EU market, and the greatest wealth creation in the history of these republics.
Your argument is invalid.
Are you joking? Do you know how many lives were ruined or lost before that cursed thing fell apart??? All the poverty all the repression, it's all fucked up, and you want this pathology to be tolerated around the world?
You bought into a toxic cult. Face it.
Yeah man, I didn't defend the USSR. It was pretty shit. It was designed to funnel wealth out of all the other USSR countries into Russia, specifically into the hands of the elite. It was pretty fucked up and exploitative. I don't know what that has to do with the exact same thing happening in capitalist countries though. Socialism wasn't the issue. It was authoritarianism and imperialism.
You're only talking about USSR countries. That is where you're entire breadth of knowledge is coming from seemingly. There's a whole world out there. Just because the USSR fucked over so many people doesn't mean socialism must. Again, capitalist countries fuck over a ton of people too. Is it also evil by requirement?
Imagine this: In my country capitalism didn't fuck people. To the contrary, it provided them with wealth and prosperity previous generations could only envy
Where are you from? I can bet you they're extracting wealth form places like Africa. Just because you, or people near you, aren't being exploited doesn't mean it's not happening. You are just the one benefiting from it now. Those people benefiting from the USSR's exploitation thought it was amazing too. Who would have guessed that people like being the ones at the top?
I'm from Poland. I was born around the time socialist system fell, and was replaced by capitalism.
Mistakes were made, hyperinflation destroyed all the wealth that remained in the early 90s, everyone was impoverished billionaire. Wherever you looked it was neverending gray desolation, broken, disfunctional infrastructure buliding falling apart and so on. But then government employed western economic advisors, budget has been balanced, money printing stopped, necessary reforms were made and over the next three decades Poland grew from a complete africa-like shithole into an european economic powerhouse.
Just to put it into number average monthly salary was like 100-200 USD equivalent in the 90s vs around 2000 USD now.
How can you dismiss achievement like this? You can't. You probably were never told about this in the first place. What you should ask yourself is why nobody talks about it?
I was told about this. In fact, it's about the only thing I was told about former USSR nations prior to becoming an adult.
When did I dismiss it? I acknowledged it in fact. The USSR siphoned wealth out of these countries to benefit the elite. It sucked.
You're dismissing that you're now benefitting from extracting wealth from these "shithole" African nations. How is that a good thing? The people there are making less than what the people in Poland were making under the USSR, yet you ignore it. You get to live the life you live by buying products made by the impoverished in Africa, China, Vietnam, and everywhere else where the poor are being worked and not being paid their fare share. All of this is happening under capitalism (yes, even in China).
It's easy to say "I'm doing better" while ignoring the suffering and exploitation you're told to ignore that you benefit from. Whatever group is at the top tends to exploit some other group. It just so happens that Poland used to be the group exploited and is now the exploiter. The USSR needed to find nations they could siphon wealth from just as Poland needs to (and is).
You can still find many people who benefited from the USSR's control and long for it to return because they ignored people like the people of Poland who suffered, just as you're ignoring the people you benefit from today. You're as bad as those people who wished for the USSR to continue, but you don't realize why they were bad yet. You just see yourself happy and ignore anything else, because you're only worrying about yourself.
First, the notion that somone producing goods I'm paying for the amount they ask is somehow exploitative is ridiculous.
Second, Poland has almost no economic ties neither with africa, nor vietnam. We have a lot of trade with the rest of EU and China
Third: CHINEESE ARE EARNING ON AVERAGE TWICE WHAT WE IN POLAND DO
Forth: European Union has Tarifs on products from OUTSIDE
EU DOESN'T EVEN WANT CHEAP PRODUCTS FROM VIETNAM OR AFRICA
They want the goods to be produced INSIDE the EU!!!
What you just said is all wrong on so many levels that's it makes me cringe.
No, child slaves on cocoa farms or mines aren't being exploited at all! They are choosing freely to barely have enough to survive without anyone withholding basic necessity under the requirement of labor! /s (Your electronics require this.)
On average. What about the minimum?
You don't have electronics without them. Sorry, yes they do. Also, tariffs are only on the products coming in, not the raw resources used in the production. It isn't counting those. Look up where the raw resources in your products come from. They almost certainly aren't from Europe.
So you're blaming capitalism rather than uncivilized governments of these countries that fail to uphold basic human rights? Horrible take is horrible.
I think you mean median - minimum is just arbitrarly set number. I cant find any median figure. Anyway the point is that Chinese aren't exactly poor.
You know what the funny thing is? That if there was no tarifs, there would be more demand for these goods and poduction would create more jobs with better salaries there. But EU has policy of protecting its internal market.
I've said this entire time, authoritarianism is the issue. You say socialism causes this, yet it exists under capitalism too. You don't blame capitalism for this but yet blame socialism when it happens under socialism. Tell me how that makes sense. I'll wait.
No, I meant minimum. The average person may live a fine life, but it's built on the backs of those at the bottom. If they aren't there then the average person doesn't get what they're used to today.
Possibly, though unlikely. There are more people than jobs, and the owner class controls the means of survival, so workers are forced to work for them and can't bargain for anything better. What would help them is union, worker ownership, or a government that protected them. These are socialist things though, and the owner class will prevent them from happening.