Can we even calculate the total death toll of captalism? We will never fully understand the unnecessary misery that this economic system has caused.

Ah, I see now what you mean by “enables”. You’re suggesting that people are struggling so much that they can’t afford to be politically active.

Reforms along the way to revolution is good because it enables more people to materially engage

I invite you to expand on your thoughts more here. It seems to me that we tried this shit with Bernie Sanders after Occupy Wallstreet. Bernie took our righteous indignation at corporate bailouts and funneled it back into support for the Democratic Party. I’m glad Mamdani is actually doing his job, but we can not reform the Democratic Party. And while we try to take over the party from within, we are giving fascism, at the behest of the capitalist ruling class that funds both parties, more time to develop and cement itself.

People don’t need to be told a watered down version of socialism and then corrected later: we need to tell people that the worsening conditions they experience is a direct result of the capitalist mode of production. We can’t even vote our way into maternity leave, universal healthcare, and wages that track productivity–there is zero chance we can vote our way out of capitalism.

Counterpoint: trust in American institutions is at an all-time low. This generation does not believe what they big news organizations tell them. Damn sure don’t believe in politicians anymore.

Well the billionaires own the media. Left wing media won’t even let their journalists be activists because this would “conflict with objectivity.” Meanwhile, right-wing media just parrot narratives (favorable to privatization / big business) and call every sensible progressive policy “woke”.

edit: Liberal media.

what?

The richest country in the world has homelessness, poor infrastructure, malnutrition, terrible education, stagnating wages, etc. Meanwhile China was able to go from an agricultural society to an industrial powerhouse. There are a few lessons to be learned here if we’re willing to learn them.

Do people not known about the ACP (American “Communist” Party) branching off from the CPUSA and pushing for “patriotic socialism”? Do people agree with the ACP? Or is this getting downvotes because people don’t care about leftist spaces?

This largely misses the point

The exploitation is baked into the very foundations of capitalsm. Another scam is that the workers, who are the ones actually making all the useful commodities we need (e.g., food, clothing, housing, etc.)–as well as the infrastructure that keeps production operational (e.g., roads, bridges, electricity, etc.)–cannot access those commodities without an exchange of money. We create all the necessities of life, we create more than enough to provide for everyone’s needs, but we cannot access those necessities outside of a fucking paywall.

Even worse, the capitalists that produce commodities in search of profits are independent; but the realization of the value embedded in those physical objects depends on an exchange at the market which is outside the capitalist’s control. So the conjunction of the profit motive and the paywall (i.e., exchange-value standing in the way of the use-vale) leads to much overproduction and waste. Even when labor has gone into agriculture, for example, the capitalist would rather dump tons of fresh food than lose money. It’s an idiotic system and yet people will defend it to the death.

The larger point here is that we uncritically agree with US/Israeli propaganda without understanding the context. For example, it was the United States that toppled the first elected Prime Minister Mosaddegh from power in the 1953 coup, and the US then reinstalled the Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi back in power. All done for BP oil profits, and to reverse the nationalisation of Irans oil industry. Somehow these nuances always get lost in the conversation.

The US will always prefer a pro-US monarchy to a democracy that guards itself from exploitation/imperalism. The U.S. assassination attempts, propaganda, military posturing, and economic/diplomatic sanctions force hard decisions on regimes that refuse to become a puppet state of the West. This is not to agree with every decision by the leadership in Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, etc. but we are often responsible, in large part, for the difficulties these countries face.

Crazy how we can all agree that we’re ruled by a pedophilic jingoistic oligarchy, but when they tell us other countries/regimes/leaders are bad we nod in agreement.

This is what happens in a culture where every success/failure is attributed to the individual and the systems in which individuals live go completely ignored.

Alright kids, time to shrink down and head into enemy territory

he jus like me fr

If you only saw a bear in a circus you would think it’s nature was to ride a unicycle.

Humans have had to live in brutish/nasty conditions; including the present day, where many of us are drowning in debt, two paychecks away from homelessness while a few are trying to make more money than they could ever spend.

The boot of capitalism is on our necks, but I’m not sure my countrymen are worth fighting for. Americans may be too far gone. Maybe I should just leave.