Gosplan14_the_Third [none/use name]

Oh hey, my family did this back in early 2010s Italy. The local gold and silver dealership proudly displayed a copy of L. Ron Hubbard’s Dianetics near the counter, that was fun.

New Windows feature… same as a virus?

Compare that with Ukraine’s 90% approval of independence in 1991.

71,5% for staying in the USSR in the March '91 referendum (83,5% turnout) - 92% against in the December 1991 one (84% turnout)

The public opinion turned around very fast in one year. Then the Communist Party and other left wing parties were the strongest in the late 90s. It’s like Lenin’s quote about there being weeks where decades happen. There’s no reason why it could not happen again or elsewhere.

Nah, it’s the New Left -> Neoliberal pipeline, except for some reason they refused to admit it for themselves unlike in most other countries.

Some still can be considered leftists in spite of questionable views on foreign policy, but the majority are r/neoliberal types. Then there’s the sizeable amount of racists and clash of civilization types.

Yeah, it’s a decent site. Their reviews are a good way to find out what seasonals are interesting, which are horny nonsense… and sometimes praise is given to shows that are both.

I thought my name would be on a file by now wtf.

It might. It however needs to be actually accessed. If they don’t think it necessary, then they likely won’t bother.

That reminds me of when I was in Helsinki airport.

I still had some time for my flight, and was walking around to get something to eat. The place itself is very cozy, lots of wooden architecture, places arranged to seem like they’re in the middle of a forest, etc. Then I look the wrong way and see inside the smokers’ lounge. There, a bald middle-aged guy wearing a black hoodie with the coat of arms of Nazi Germany on it, vaping.

I somehow doubt that person got into any trouble for it. One of the rare Germany Ws is that that would be very illegal here.

The seed of fascism is present in every liberal, and even social conservatism and the move to what they’d call conservatism (really, just a slightly different form of liberalism).

When they deem the state/nation to not be doing well, because say birth rates are low, they decide men of wö (Disco Elysium, fascist quest) and the gays are at fault - who cares if they don’t want to have children? They must, or the nation will suffer for it. If there’s international competition, then it must be made uncompetitive by either threats or violence (and their nationalists see it that way too, but from a different perspective). If there’s internal enemies, or too much bickering making the state fall behind, then violence, etc. If the economy is doing badly because of strikes (or I’m convinced it is, by say being inconvenienced by blocked streets, etc.) then the workers must be put down for my… OUR sakes. etc.

Of course, it’s the petty bourgeois that are the driving force of fascism. The haute bourgeois support the status quo for the most part (no matter what it is), as long as they’re allowed to remain influential and use the state to maintain that position.

The moralistic stories of human rights etc. are merely a justification in the superstructure, while the “a place in the sun” competition is still a driving force in liberal society.

Racism

For proletarians, it’s the fear of losing your job to someone who is most likely willing to work for shittier conditions than you out of desperation and an inability to be choosy from say having no family around to help you out.

For the bourgeois, the fear of a lack of control - say from either a rise in crime making the chance of getting murdered in their homes go up from 0,01% to 0,015% or from getting the workers angry and aware of exploitation or any other breakup of the state that acts in their interest.

Boomers grew up in times of rapid technological progress, with wars threatening to destroy humanity and fought with the utmost brutality, while AES countries were in their most prosperous phase and reform was improving quality of life in the west. Truly a groovy time to fight the stale elites for socialism with real freedom to do whatever you want to do.

GenXers grew up in a time where the warmongering of the boomer era seemed to bear fruit, as one of the sides of the conflict basically gave up. Thus, communism was “proven” “not to work”, and that also meant adjacent organizations like unions or the same reforms from the 60s and 70s. Growth was high, so getting kicked in the ass by capital seemed justified, and even necessary because there was no alternative.

Millennials saw the promises of neoliberalism not get fulfilled in the biggest recession since the 1920s, while adventures around the world brought back terrorism, dead soldiers and budget holes in the west. The 1% did what it wanted, and the 99% suffered for it.

Zoomers grew up in a time where climate change was getting progressively worse and the ruling class was completely uninterested in doing anything about it. That was not the only crisis. Everything kept getting worse, so it was time to start searching for old ideas. The few remaining boomer leftists have interesting ideas… I’m sure they will live up to expectations.

Gen Alpha is growing up in a time where there’s a renewed battle between good (we) and evil (they). We must fight to the last Ukrainian to ensure morality wins. The decline our society has two causes, the forces of evil from abroad, and the forces of evil within.

Basically, it’s not a characteristic of something as nebulous as generations, but is caused by material conditions present in the affected times.

In German right wing press.

The budget hole is actually not a big deal.

There was way less national debt before Covid-19 but the actual issue is that in 2011, the neoliberals pushed through a constitutional amendment requiring the country to have a balanced budget.

Then Covid comes and the war in Ukraine. The covid expenses are a given, but then the government pumps a lot of money into the military because the government sees itself as part of the western bloc and wants it to survive.

So they ran a deficit budget for two years as an arbitrary exemption, and now the constitutional court says “you can’t actually” - so the government is gonna do austerity now and throw people under the tank it just bought.

There’s no risk of collapse whatsoever. It’s just the new (old) form of the bourgeois state enforcing bourgeois interests.

It’s just gonna happen, without resistance.

Fascists like it, because of nationalism and the prospect of having a huge army to “defend” ourselves. The liberals will be very easy to convince to toe the line. Leftists are a small group, and half are basically liberals anyway.

Or it could be the result of electing right-wing nationalists that do nothing but saber rattle

The libs are just as good at it

Fascism is the ideology that the status quo is good by nature, but that there is something corrupting it - something preventing the state from being great again. Some form of parasitic force, be it foreigners, women, the jews, bankers, international enemies, communists, even other fascists.

Proletarians on the far-right often share many of the same complaints people who would also be open to having communist beliefs have. Fascism allows these complaints to form incoherent complaints, contradictory ones, etc. It is easy to be a fascist, especially considering class and elements leading to over-exploitation, like not being a cishet man, being foreign, etc. If only the people responsible for this misery would get off their asses and do stuff, everything would be fine. Of course, the policies fascists support are often against the proletarians’ interests. You also have people who know the implications of fascist rule (just as democratic rule) and they want the state to start throwing its military, economic, etc. power around the world to incite conflict and get loot.

The bourgeois on the other hand, use fascism as a weapon when it seems that the current form of capitalist rule (usually some kind of democracy) is not “working” well enough for them - that they are outperformed by foreign capital, that strikes are ongoing, that a reformist government that might or might not be popular is lowering their profits, that the current government policy is making the country unstable and risk their profits, etc. You saw this in Germany of the 1930s with Hitler’s pacts with industrialists, and you see it now in Germany when there was a secret meeting of AfD-fascists, hardline neo-nazis and some wealthy people, discussing donations to the party and how to do “re-migration”.

If reading all the theory doesn’t solidify our principles

Ah, but is the reading done? And what is read? This is not provable and can’t be answered, but for example Capital has the reputation of being this extremely difficult book people get bored of very fast.

if our organizations are still infiltrated heavily, if our message is dilluted by opportunists, and if we have people engaging in real-life praxis still falling victim to cult-like behavior and taking on fascist-adjacent viewpoints, then what do we have?

What do we have? Nothing to lose but our chains. It seems like we are taking L after L after L for the last (many) years, but we also have nothing else to do but keep getting our message across, and fight for a better world, a classless and stateless society. Giving up or watering down what we want for the sake of harm reduction/doing stuff faster is a tactic that leads to nowhere, unfortunately. Taking peasant rebellions as an example, there were many many many throughout history, and the vast majority failed. But not all. There were times where it did get better. And if it can’t? Then I’d keep trying out of spite.

A country like Argentina, beyond its meat industry, isn’t really a country with a significant impact on the environment - but this will hurt the local population.

By design even, considering what the aim of the current government is.

Venezuela’s economic crisis really began after oil prices fell drastically in 2014 and the west used Chavez’s death/Maduro’s election to increase pressure on the country via sanctions which for example made buying parts to maintain oil refineries difficult. Before that, it was doing about as well, or better (of course, failing to become independent from oil exports) compared to the other countries in Latin America.

Argentina was already in a crisis for the last …20 years-ish, but this acceleration of the crisis happened in a week even as Milei backpedaled on some potentially damaging promises like cutting trade with China.

they would have to find someone else who would want accepts meat and is willing to give them what they want.

Indeed, their dream of everyone becoming an entrepreneur on a truly free market. Being forced to grind all life, trade, sell for more than you bought for… swindle, cheat, steal, strongarm people.

There being a situation like in 90s Russia where the boss doesn’t have to pay you is something Milei wants.

The hope is that having an impoverished population will make them willing to work for less and make the line go up.

How will Europe function as they decline from relative prosperity into a hellhole similar to modern America? Will people take it lying down?

Yeah, they will. They’ll blame foreigners and immigration from Africa, the Middle East, Ukraine, etc. Those are things that won’t really stop anytime soon, and thanks to the wonders of climate change, will even increase. The fash will be given an evergreen source of scapegoats for the lack of success of the nation.