Things rarely go "swimmingly" for the left because it fights against existing power structures, and those power structures fight back. And the countries that tend to have socialist revolutions also tend to start out with terrible conditions, bad enough for people to rise up, and then made worse by the devastation of conflict. Then they have to grapple with future threats from invasions, sanctions, and clandestine subversion.

In spite of this, many socialist countries have made major improvements to people's lives, especially in comparison to what the previous regime had been doing.

For example, Cuba was a gangster state under the dictator Batista, who was in league with the American Mafia and plundered the country for his own profits and those of wealthy plantation owners. After the revolution, in spite of sanctions, life expectancy improved greatly surpassed the US, literacy skyrocketed, and the country now has the highest number of doctors per capita in the world, who are regularly sent abroad to provide aid. Cuba recently (2022) passed an amendment to its constitution which greatly strengthened LGBT rights and gender equality.

I'm not "pretending not to understand" anything. I understand your position completely, I just disagree with it, and you don't seem capable of comprehending that.

Is Anarchism when one supports the US government?

Well, I mean, if you're invested in the preservation of US hegemony for some reason, then I guess it's debatable whether keeping up a constant state of war and bloodshed is a good or bad thing. I, however, am not. I don't give a rat's ass about US hegemony and I would love to have a president who's willing to """submit to dictators""" to avoid conflict.

The only people who actually gain anything at all from US hegemony are the people at the top. Nobody else, at home or abroad, benefits from it at all. Rather, we get all our domestic programs cut to fund a war machine that spreads fear and destruction to innocent people around the globe. Unless you're part of the elite, invest heavily in companies like Lockheed Martin, or have confused national interests with your own, then yes, isolationist policies are a good thing.

I don’t believe I can make a noticeable difference.

Not eating meat won't change the systemic problems but it will mean fewer animals will be subject to the industry. Over the course of a lifetime, the number of animals you can save adds up.

Also it's a good habit to transfer thoughts and beliefs into actions.

Please, take this opportunity to clear the air and let us all know that you’re aware of how damaging Chinese and Russian policies are for their people, just like Western capitalism for it’s people.

Russia is a reactionary, capitalist state with policies damaging to their people, especially LGBT people but also generally towards everyone.

I could understand why you might think that I like the USSR based on the context of the image I shared, but the Russian Federation destroyed and replaced the USSR with a capitalist government, so I can't say I follow your reasoning about my supposed beliefs at all.

As for China, how on earth is that even relevant to the conversation? I have a more sympathetic view of China than of Russia, on account of the whole, "Responsible for three quarters of all poverty reduction in the past 40 years" thing, but that doesn't mean that they don't have flaws, like anywhere does. It wasn't that long ago that the majority of Americans held a favorable view of China, before the whole propaganda blitz we're in now started.

I'm sure that by complying with your request (irrelevant as it was), you're going to back off from your false, imagined claims about me and not just use this opportunity to latch onto something I said and jump down my throat again, right? Because you're definitely acting in good faith.

I did not make a joke out of it.

because the point of the joke is not to tell trans people to kill ourselves

That literally does not matter. The point is that it's a delicate topic that should be handled with some basic fucking sensitivity and not used as a punchline to score political points.

Besides that, if you're going to go around baselessly accusing people of telling trans people to kill themselves, then I get to accuse you of the same.

This whole thread is disgusting and inappropriate. You literally pointed someone towards suicide resources as a way of condescending to them. I can't believe you can't see the problem with that.

That's interesting. Why does that standard change so much in the context of presidential candidates compared to every other situation?

Like, if someone was criticizing, say, Fidel Castro, and instead of addressing it I brought up the problems with the Batista regime that he opposed, would that be whataboutism? Just as in a presidential election, there were two realistic possibilities, either Batista stays in power or he's overthrown. So if it's valid to divert from criticism of Biden towards problems with his most realistic alternative, Trump, then why would it not be valid to do the same thing with Castro and Batista, or any number of similar cases?

I'm familiar with psychology. Nothing about psychology suggests that it's possible to collectively reshape the physical world through thought if enough people believe hard enough. I'd love to see some academic work that supports that claim.

Nothing funny about it. USA has a lot more money to spend, and spends a lot of money on overseas defence - basically bases across NATO and beyond - along with maintaining a huge technological advantage against any of its adversaries.

Yes, that is what I'm criticizing, thanks for spelling it out.

If you look at Russia, it spends a much higher percentage of its GDP on its military than the US

Comparing military spending by GDP is such a funny metric. It makes literally no sense whatsoever. Do you think countries should just keep spending more and more on their militaries as they develop, even if there is no practical strategic reason to? Do you think that countries with powerful rivals, whose continued survival depends on meeting certain level of military strength, should ignore genuine threats to security if it would mean spending a higher percentage of GDP than other countries? Complete insanity.

The only reason to compare military spending as percentage of GDP instead of absolute numbers is because the numbers are more convenient to your argument. The country with the biggest military is the most militaristic and the biggest threat to the world. Anything else is nonsense.

Things the US doesn’t need to worry about as much.

Really? Because US infrastructure is falling apart. Medical debt and student loans are soaring out of control. Rents are skyrocketing. I could go on, if you like. There's a lot of really important domestic priorities that are getting ignored so that the US can maintain hegemony in every corner of the globe.

No, but as a voter, it is my choice (to a degree) how the state responds to the situation.

Mental health is socially defined to a very large extent. One of the ways that we evaluate a person's mental health is whether their issues interfere with an ability to live a "normal" life, which includes providing for themselves. Well, a person's ability to provide for themselves can vary drastically based on external circumstances, like how rich they are or what social services they have access to.

It's my belief that it's rare for evolution to screw up. Of course, sometimes it does, but I'd argue that many mental illnesses are the result of one's mind being equipped for a different set of circumstances than the one they're in. In some cases, there's clear evidence that this is the case, but in other cases it's more difficult to prove.

I just don't believe we should give up on a person just because they ask us to. If a friend came up to me and asked me to help them kill themselves because of a mental illness, I would do everything I could to find an alternative solution and talk them down from it. I feel like that's the normal response anyone would have, and people are treating it differently just because a state said that it's ok.