Europe
News and information from Europe 🇪🇺
(Current banner: La Mancha, Spain. Feel free to post submissions for banner images.)
Rules (2024-08-30)
- This is an English-language community. Comments should be in English. Posts can link to non-English news sources when providing a full-text translation in the post description. Automated translations are fine, as long as they don't overly distort the content.
- No links to misinformation or commercial advertising. When you post outdated/historic articles, add the year of publication to the post title. Infographics must include a source and a year of creation; if possible, also provide a link to the source.
- Be kind to each other, and argue in good faith. Don't post direct insults nor disrespectful and condescending comments. Don't troll nor incite hatred. Don't look for novel argumentation strategies at Wikipedia's List of fallacies.
- No bigotry, sexism, racism, antisemitism, islamophobia, dehumanization of minorities, or glorification of National Socialism. We follow German law; don't question the statehood of Israel.
- Be the signal, not the noise: Strive to post insightful comments. Add "/s" when you're being sarcastic (and don't use it to break rule no. 3).
- If you link to paywalled information, please provide also a link to a freely available archived version. Alternatively, try to find a different source.
- Light-hearted content, memes, and posts about your European everyday belong in other communities.
- Don't evade bans. If we notice ban evasion, that will result in a permanent ban for all the accounts we can associate with you.
- No posts linking to speculative reporting about ongoing events with unclear backgrounds. Please wait at least 12 hours. (E.g., do not post breathless reporting on an ongoing terror attack.)
- Always provide context with posts: Don't post uncontextualized images or videos, and don't start discussions without giving some context first.
(This list may get expanded as necessary.)
Posts that link to the following sources will be removed
- on any topic: Al Mayadeen, brusselssignal:eu, citjourno:com, europesays:com, Breitbart, Daily Caller, Fox, GB News, geo-trends:eu, news-pravda:com, OAN, RT, sociable:co, any AI slop sites (when in doubt please look for a credible imprint/about page), change:org (for privacy reasons)
- on Middle-East topics: Al Jazeera
- on Hungary: Euronews
Unless they're the only sources, please also avoid The Sun, Daily Mail, any "thinktank" type organization, and non-Lemmy social media (incl. Substack). Don't link to Twitter directly, instead use xcancel.com. For Reddit, use old:reddit:com
(Lists may get expanded as necessary.)
Ban lengths, etc.
We will use some leeway to decide whether to remove a comment.
If need be, there are also bans: 3 days for lighter offenses, 7 or 14 days for bigger offenses, and permanent bans for people who don't show any willingness to participate productively. If we think the ban reason is obvious, we may not specifically write to you.
If you want to protest a removal or ban, feel free to write privately to the primary mod account @EuroMod@feddit.org
view the rest of the comments
Good argument
The promise of socialism is its own value. The USA needed the lifestyle to make people accept capitalism.
What gave the voters then the opportunity to make better decisions for themselves?
Thanks!
The voting. If it's anything like Canada, there have been socialist fringe candidates all along, it's just that there hasn't been much interest.
You could say people have been railroaded into not supporting socialism, but they don't. No amount of extra democracy will change that.
I don't fully understand your last paragraph. You mean people once improved their conditions but now they don't, despite having all opportunities?
Correct, most voters don't understand enough to demand effective redistribution policies. Speaking from experience, if you get involved in politics this becomes the bane of your existence.
There is some redistribution now, and it's gone up recently in Canada, although I'm not sure off the top of my head what the global trends have been. It's just slower than the natural self-accumulation of wealth.
How the New Deal got so much traction in the US is a big mystery, honestly - it really was a unique event. People weren't smarter or more educated back then, and on the other side of the Atlantic they just elected fascists, who can tell a hell of an emotionally appealing story. (The USSR definitely managed redistribution, although they came straight after a brutal monarchy and a war without a significant liberal democracy phase, and struggled to keep growing over time)
To keep workers happy.
Yeah, but usually there's other ways, right? Blame immigrants or minorities, or let the wealth naturally move away from the poor slowly enough a casual voter won't notice. That's what everyone else did the whole time, and the US itself before and after.
Even today, with all the information you need at your fingertips, a lot of the people in the US who want a shift left on wealth issues are actually in the 9% after the 1% (which ironically is the class that owns the most stuff). The real poor lean pretty pro-Trump.
They couldn't risk having people have the sentiment that Capitalism wasn't the best. They didn't know the limits of communism. So they had to assume that if a strong communist movement had been established, everything would have been lost.
Yeah, maybe. Or maybe that's at least a part of it. There definitely was rivalry, even if an American communist revolution was never remotely close.
Nice talking to you!
Likewise!