balsoft

joined 2 years ago
[–] balsoft@lemmy.ml 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I'm sorry to say this, but your posts are not good agitprop. They are low-effort, not very convincing, sometimes misleading, and sometimes just wrong.

If you want to make good agitprop memes,

  1. shit on ideas and arguments, not your target audience - do not alienate all liberals by portraying them as a soyjack
  2. avoid logical fallacies or incorrect/outdated facts - we can make convincing arguments without lying or manipulation
  3. educate people - give them new information or perspective that might otherwise be downplayed or ignored by media they consume

Hope this is useful.

[–] balsoft@lemmy.ml 2 points 5 months ago

While I agree in general, there's also nuance to be had IMHO.

For example: Russian Empire colonizing Siberia was a bloody affair. Of course it was not anywhere near the atrocities committed in the new world, but still a lot of natives died due to localized warfare and disease. Do you think that when USSR formed, the Siberian peoples should have been given full sovereignty, as separate countries (not even part of USSR), and rule over themselves and the descendants of russian settlers that were left there; or was the actual solution of giving them autonomous republics within the RSFSR the better one? I lean on the latter. I think if a socialist revolution ever happens in the US, this is the way it would happen. Full jurisdiction and sovereignty for indigenous people in certain areas (they need to be much larger than current reservations, though), shared jurisdiction and sovereignty in other limited areas where descendants of settlers live. And, of course, land to the peasants, factories to the workers - I strongly suspect both casual and systemic racism will be much less of an issue once capitalism no longer burdens the working class.

[–] balsoft@lemmy.ml 1 points 5 months ago

First I'd like to say that I've never even been to north america, my skin colour is closer to "not ok" in the Family Guy card, and as such I'm more of a neutral observer than an active participant.

That said, the fault with your "man and woman" argument is assuming that all non-indigenous people are direct aggressors, or are directly culpable for heinous crimes against humanity.

A person cannot be culpable, and doesn't need to atone for, the crimes of their ancestors, people who share their race, or otherwise by unwillful association. The crime of most modern descendants of settlers is that of "illegal" (unjust?) immigration, no more and no less. And I don't believe it is even a crime, more of an infraction that can be rectified by learning the languages and traditions of the local population and becoming part of the community. There certainly are others who are still engaging in direct and active racism, colonization, even genocide. They deserve their own appropriate punishments, not due to their ancestry but due to their actions.

However, what descendants of colonizers definitely owe everyone else in the land is the generational, systemic wealth (land, money, property, social credit, etc) they accumulated because their ancestors robbed and pillaged it from everyone else. Giving it back doesn't necessarily mean moving out; it means giving back jurisdiction, sovereignty, and sharing the wealth in a just manner (this would probably require some form of socialism or communism).

What we shouldn’t do is tell them that they can’t tell us to leave or that we’d refuse to leave because we have a rightful claim to this land

I don't think it's about a "rightful claim" to the land. I agree that the descendants of settlers have an extremely weak claim to the land, if at all. Rather it is about basic humanity and decency. No person should be forced to move out of what they call home through no fault of their own. On the other hand any person living on someone else's land must learn the language and the culture. It is for the same reason I believe immigrants deserve help, accommodation, and local language courses rather than rejection.

[–] balsoft@lemmy.ml -1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

I have no right to say what they should do and neither do you.

Do you think all indigenous people can do whatever the fuck they want, as long as they are on their own land, and noone has any right to judge their actions?

1930s germans were indigenous people on their own land, after all.

I agree that cultural assimilation requirements and dealing harshly with white nationalists are ok; mass expulsion is not.

And I'm also pretty sure that most native Americans don't want mass expulsion, so this whole discussion is moot.

[–] balsoft@lemmy.ml 1 points 5 months ago

USAmericans are also doing this too. The overconsumption done by yankees would require multiple planet earths if everyone were allowed to consume as much as they do and the US government is guilty of exporting a capitalist system that causes climate change, not to mention the imperialism abroad.

I mentioned this as another thing that needs addressing in a timely manner.

[–] balsoft@lemmy.ml 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Yes, this is exactly my point.

[–] balsoft@lemmy.ml 5 points 5 months ago

Very few countries currently are based on native eviction, where settlers have nearly replaced the indigenous peoples.

As a founding point? Yes, I agree. I also agree that colonization scale done by British was greater than anything ever done before.

However, that wasn't my point. My point was: almost everyone on Earth lives where they do because their ancestors killed or evicted the people that lived there previously. This is in particular is not unique to any western country. Hell, reading the history of Russia, my home country, makes it pretty clear that my own deep ancestry did plenty of killing and evicting too, mostly of themselves, to get to where they all ended up (not even talking about Siberia here). It wasn't at the founding point of Russia though, and none of the peoples who lost their wars are culturally alive anymore. Does it matter if all the conquest led to the foundation of a modern country, or just different tribal lands (or later city states)? I don't think it does.

I think what does matter is justice for those descendants of the colonized who are still alive, and if there's noone left, at least understanding and recognition of the horribleness that lead up to the point of your birth.

[–] balsoft@lemmy.ml 40 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (46 children)

and it means you GO BACK too, no one should give a fuck about which gen. you’re currently a part of.

This would mean that like 99.9% of Earth's population has to move somewhere. Almost all land was fought over endlessly and changed metaphorical hands multiple times over. What we call "indigenous people" in a territory is usually just whoever was winning those wars before written history began.

What "landback" actually means is recognizing the systemic racism that was and still is perpetuated against the indigenous people by means of taking away their ancestral lands, slaughtering and enslaving their ancestors, and destroying their way of life; and addressing that racism by giving jurisdiction and sovereignty over their lands back to them. It doesn't mean that everyone but the indigenous people have to move out; descendants of colonizers born there are technically natives of that land too. The difference is that they get systemic advantages from their ancestry whereas indigenous people get systemic discrimination. This is the thing that ought to be addressed. (well, the horrifying economic and governance system that the colonizers brought and festered must be addressed too, but all three are tightly coupled together)

In the case of Israel the difference is that a lot of colonizers are first gen, they are not natives, they do have somewhere to "go back to", and they are actively perpetuating colonization and genocide rather than simply getting an advantage from their ancestors doing so. In such cases it of course makes sense for the decolonization effort to focus on direct expulsion of invaders.

[–] balsoft@lemmy.ml 5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (5 children)

I think it's a bit confusing, but in my view almost all socialists (including democratic socialists) are communists since the end goal they are trying to achieve is communism. Socialism (which can be described as welfare state, majority-publicly owned capital, and planned or market-socialist economy) is almost always seen as a stepping stone towards communism (stateless, classless, moneyless society), even though it is would also be an improvement on its own.

(to confuse matters even further, Lenin's party was initially called Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, even though today's understanding of social-democracy would only apply to the Menshevik wing).

[–] balsoft@lemmy.ml 9 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Don't forget the cop and the brown-children-bomber. Although maybe austerity cuts will make that one job as well.

[–] balsoft@lemmy.ml 0 points 7 months ago

UK libel laws sound way more reasonable to me. They force you to take accountability for your speech. Generally opinions and even hyperbole are fine (e.g. in this case, it's likely OK to say that you think this person is Darth Vader). But if you spout some nonsense factoid about someone, be prepared to have some proof. US could definitely use some of that (it would put a lot of right-wing media companies out of business immediately, and I'm all for it)

[–] balsoft@lemmy.ml 4 points 7 months ago

Least surprising outcome

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