KurtVonnegut [comrade/them]

Voting solves nothing. If the Republicans are pro-genocide and pro-environmental collapse and he Democrats are also pro-genocide and pro-environmental collapse, voting is not the solution to our problem. You might as well criticize me for which type of shoes I wear, it has the same influence on Politics, which is zero.

If you want to learn about Stalin, I would start by reading Stephen Kotkin’s two books which cover his life up to WWII in detail. Kotkin is a liberal, so he is no fan of Stalin, but he does very thorough research.

Stalin: Passage to Revolution by Ronald Grigor Suny gives a more sympathetic account of Stalin’s early life, his extreme suffering caused by the Czarist regime, and his dedication to making the world a better place. This book goes in depth into the Menshevik-Bolshevik split, and why Stalin chose to side with Lenin and internationalist socialism instead of the more nationalist Georgian Mensheviks.

Domenico Losurdo’s Stalin: History and Critique of a Black Legend does not go in-depth in biographical details, but it is definitely the best “defense” of Stalin’s various actions. The main rhetorical technique is comparing Stalin to other leaders at the time - Hitler, FDR, Churchill, etc… To the point: Stalin never attacked a city with a nuclear bomb (like the USA), Stalin never caused famine and starvation for profit (like Britain), and Stalin never tried to exterminate an entire ethno-religious group (like Hitler). Nobody is saying Stalin was perfect, but compared to other world leaders he was a much more moral leader than them, and ultimately did much more good for the world overall, such as almost single-handedly defeating Nazi Germany.

Yes, the real smart people know that Stalin was evil like Darth Vader right?

Please read a book before you post. No investigation, no right to speak.

We need some Firefly emotes on Hexbear. Especially the combination of the USA-Chinese flag.

As a person who was planning on starting a small business in an economically disadvantaged area for 3-5 years in the Mountain time zone which operates only on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I feel like the Kamala Harris campaign had some very good policies. But I can see how other people might disagree.

… Do you think workers in a car factory don’t get paid until someone actually buys the car they helped build? All the devs have already been paid!

I think it is important to take a critical look at past tragedies

Those who care more about past tragedies than current tragedies don’t care at all. They’re just looking for some excuse to feel self-righteous.

Lib - “Markets make everything cheaper, which is good.”

Leftist - “But if there is a labor market, won’t that make labor cheaper?”

Lib - “Yes, and that is good.”

Leftist - “How is that good?”

Lib - “It leads to more profits.”

Leftist - “But why is it good to have more profits?”

Lib - “Because a good country is when corporations make profits, and the more profits the corporations make, the gooder the country is.”

Markets have brought more people out of poverty than anything.

Yes, just like the Irish people who were “helped” by the free market in the 1840s. Or the Indian people who were “helped” by the free market in the late 1800s. You might be interested in this book by the late, great Mike Davis which completely refutes your ideas with hard evidence that the free market can be used (and has been used) as a tool of genocide: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/7859

You should e-mail that to the presidents of Cuba, Venezuela, and China, to show them the error of their communist ways.

Gob, go run to the opioid store and buy mommy one fentanyl.

If you are more angry against some poor people addicted to opioids than you are against the billionaire oligarchs who made their money off of addicting millions of people to opioids… you might have a severe case of myopia.

the genocide against ukranians

Which one? The one in the 1930s caused by capitalists or the one in the 2020s caused by capitalists? I take both seriously, and I want the current one to end.

I noticed a lot of hexbear users being in support of them, which to me, is as much an anathema to the left as the Kremlin is.

To be accurate, I don’t think anyone on Hexbear thinks modern-day Russia is a communist, socialist, or leftist state. Generally, we believe Russia is a capitalist state, led by profit-seeking oligarchs, and that Putin is just the leader of those oligarchs. No one on Hexbear actually thinks Putin is personally a good human being. The reason Hexbear appears “pro-Russia” is because we refute the claim that Putin launched the war against Ukraine because he is ontologically evil, a demon, a crazy man who has lost his mind, literally Hitler, etc. We recognize the complexity of the situation Putin was put in and see his launch of the war as a semi-logical response to decades of past history. Would it be better if the war never happened? Yes. But did the war just come out of nowhere? No. It’s complicated. It’s not a Hollywood movie. There are no action heroes.

Also, I don’t think anyone on Hexbear thinks modern-day China is a fully communist or socialist state right now. We are more hopeful that it will BECOME a fully socialist state in the next generation or two than most are. This is mainly because of the long list of actions that Xi has taken that are in line with orthodox Marxist philosophy. For fuck’s sake, Xi has a PhD in Marxism. That is not a joke - the president of China went back to school in his 30s and got a university degree in Marxist studies. Compare that to any US presidential candidate, who probably has never read a single page of Marx. It’s a stark difference. Hundreds of years of European propaganda about “Oriental Despotism” makes many in the west think that China is, by definition, evil. Heaxbear generally believes the situation to be more complex and nuanced. I mean, Obama literally ordered the extrajudicial killing of an American citizen (along with thousands of foreigners in the middle east) and yet most Americans think of the Chinese government as “more authoritarian” than America. Sure, okay. The numbers don’t add up.

But overall I think the discussion on foreign policy can be respectful and productive. Few will be convinced, but the debate can sharpen both sides. I appreciate any instance that has the patience to deal with Hexbear and our neurotic, overly-detailed diatribes!