Riverside

joined 5 days ago
[–] Riverside@reddthat.com 3 points 46 minutes ago

Medicine is already this better way (in countries with social healthcare systems). A body of highly trained specialists who constantly update their knowledge through research, conferences and reading the last scientific advancements, and don't necessarily earn extremely high salaries but have a comfortable life and a stable employment. We could expand this model to all sciences.

[–] Riverside@reddthat.com 2 points 1 hour ago

Ineffective: "please leave"

Also ineffective: "I call for X"

Effective: "I will be funding and giving media access to local self-defense groups, worker organizing, and mutual aid orgs. The threat comes from the state apparatus and the only way it can be defeated is by grassroots organizing"

[–] Riverside@reddthat.com 2 points 3 hours ago

How many of those now? By all means, tell us how many leftists stayed home and made Trump win the elections.

[–] Riverside@reddthat.com 1 points 4 hours ago

Fascism has only been defeated from the inside through communist organizations in history. Bolsheviks against the Black Hundreds and the Whites, Communist Party of China against Kuomintang, or Cuban Revolutionaries against the Batista regime. The hundred years of anticommunist propaganda in the USA have made it very difficult for communist antifascist organizations to thrive in the US, but it is not too late. Americans can still join local mutual defense orgs, communist organizations like the PSL, and local defense groups

[–] Riverside@reddthat.com 2 points 4 hours ago

BBC is a terrorist organization covering up the genocide in Palestine by the Zionist entity, of course it sides with the press release info by the fascists.

[–] Riverside@reddthat.com 1 points 4 hours ago

American: sees something american happening americanly in America:

"What are we, a bunch of ASIANS???!!!!"

[–] Riverside@reddthat.com 3 points 4 hours ago

You should organize locally, not necessarily in Minneapolis. This is a country-wide problem, and while this particular incident happened 1300 miles away from you, there are undoubtedly people being terrorized by ICE much closer to you. You could join the closest PSL chapter, unionize your workplace, and join mutual aid organizations and mutual defense orgs close to you. Don't feel alienated by the calls to action, feel included, everyone can help

[–] Riverside@reddthat.com 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Emergency powers are also constitutional. The 49.3 is an article from the 1960s when there were many parties in parliament and it was a mess trying to pass any law, this time it was CLEARLY used to skip the democratic will of the people, the vast majority of whom don't want increased retirement age. I don't care how technically constitutional or not it is, it's authoritarian, antidemocratic, regressive and immoral. Ask yourself why you're siding with the people destroying welfare.

[–] Riverside@reddthat.com 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

Great job ignoring the healthy populational growth during socialism in Romania followed by demographic catastrophe since 1990. Let's see what happened to Romanian GDP per capita during socialism and after (Source):

Oh, it turns out that GDP per capita grew sixfold (600%) during communism, and in the ten years following, it fell by 15%. Between 1950 and 1990, this gives an average GDP per capita growth of 4.5% per year. Let's check the data for capitalist Romania:

That's a growth of 250% over 34 years, or a meager 2.7% yearly growth. And that's without taking into account that the number of people has actually dropped since 1990 and it was growing between 1950 and 1990. Damn, not looking so good for the capitalist European model, is it?

You're being dishonest by cherrypicking year 2000, the 1990s in Romania were horrifying due to the debt given by the IMF (western-aligned organization) in order to crush the welfare state in Romania and adopt austerity policy as I discussed. You cherrypicked the year 2000 because that's more or less when the super high inflation of the 1990s started to balance, and you're talking in Euros and not in the local currency because exchange rates were astonishingly low due to currency devaluation. Let's see how well Romania fared in the 1990s during capitalism!

From 5% yearly inflation during communism to 250% during capitalism. This is EXACTLY what I mean by the European betrayal: Romanians were promised wealth comparable to western Europe, and instead were met with deindustrialization, destruction of welfare, horrifying levels of inflation, and sudden unimaginable unemployment after half a century without unemployment. It's literally western-funded loans in the 1980s that started to crash the Romanian economy. You cherrypick two convenient dates, ignore the millions of lives lost and emigrated, and say "look, more Euro is better" ignoring that people literally have to flee the country due to the terrible economy. As of today, Bulgaria and Romania are the two EU countries with highest poverty rates, 30% and 28% respectively. You could also directly ask the population, most of whom support communism and Ceaucescu and claim that life was better during socialism. They also poll saying it was a safer country and less corrupt. Tell me again how Europe hasn't betrayed those countries.

If you also wanna discuss Spain that's wonderful, I happen to be a Spaniard. I have seen nothing in my life but economic downturn, stagnation, reductions of real wages, and housing becoming increasingly unaffordable. Let's go to the Spanish National Institute of Statistics to check the consumption per person:

So, the 20% poorest in Spain used to spend 4612€ per year in 2006. By 2023 it went up to 5443€... but inflation in this period was 38.7%, meaning that to maintain equal consumption capability they should be spending 6396€. Real expenditure, hence, has dropped by 15% for the poorest 20%.

Running the numbers for the following 20% poorest, who spent 7220€ in 2006, they should spend 10014€ to maintain consumer power, but it's only risen to 9009€, so a 10% reduction in purchase power.

For the following 20%, meaning the 20% of people with the earnings closest to the mean (10% below and 10% above) it's gone from 9551 to 12122, it should have gone to 13247€ per year, so an 8% reduction in purchase power for the average Spaniard over the past 20 years.

Now explain me how relevant your "average salary increases in Spain" are if the mean Spaniard has suffered not just stagnation. but a progressive worsening of purchase power. Tell me again how fucking wonderful this European model is.

[–] Riverside@reddthat.com 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

"The CNT-FAI was heavily repressed by the Soviets. Source: CNT". Well, that's not too convincing, I expected some historical research providing numerical data, not the opinions of a CNT member.

Modern estimates of NKVD murders of whom they considered counter-revolutionaries in Republican Spain during the Civil War show 20 proven murders by a total of 10 agents. The book you quoted has no sourcing, it's just the ramblings of a CNT member that we're supposed to take for true. It propagates made-up speculations such as the supposed torture of Andreu Nin at the hands of the Soviets (zero evidence), and makes no effort whatsoever to bring any number to the total of anarchists repressed. It talks of 3500 fascists repressed by the SIM (a Spanish organization, not Soviet), so Anarchists were likely numbered at most in the hundreds, but again, you provide no numerical evidence for your claims.

It's unbearable as a Spaniard hearing these hearsay "if the Soviets hadn't sabotaged the anarchists, they may have won the war", as if the Soviets didn't provide the very weapons the Anarchists were using. No effort in actual data recounting is done, just shameless anti-Soviet propaganda based on literal fabrications like the torturing of Andreu Nin, and the total disregard for the actually logical repression of some anarchists and Trotskyists who, knowingly or not, were collaborating with the Nazis as proven by Harro Shulze-Boysen, a German spy who spied for the soviets and was executed when the Nazis uncovered that he had warned the Soviets about a Nazi plot to have an anarchist revolution in Barcelona to weaken the Republic and make the defeat easier: Link

This was the same insurrection independently reported to the Centre by the Soviet embassy in Berlin after receiving an anonymous tip-off from their agent Harro Schulze- Boysen. From contacts on the Luftwaffe General Staff he revealed that German agents had also infiltrated Trotskyists circles in Barcelona with the intention of encouraging their putsch

Now, bring some numerical historical evidence supporting your claim of massive repressions against anarchists by the Soviets which led to them losing the war

[–] Riverside@reddthat.com 21 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Yeah but I'd shift the phrasing from "nobody wins from war" to "carpet bombing of civilians by an imperialist power is evil"

[–] Riverside@reddthat.com 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (4 children)

Romania and Bulgaria are rich? I'm Spanish, a country by no means rich, and we have tons of Romanian immigrants because the working conditions there are extremely hard, and they suffered similar issues:

This is especially true for Bulgaria, they lost like a freaking third of the population since 1990 (from 9mn to 6.4mn in 2024). By what metric are they rich? GDP per capita? How about access to housing, to healthcare, to quality education, the ability to stay in rural areas with non-decrepit infrastructure...

Regarding Poland, the country may be richer as a whole (again, using GDP per capita as metric), but are the people faring better? Look at the share of national income by the bottom 50% of the people:

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