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Is communism in the room right now? What about the Epstein files? (thelemmy.club)
submitted 1 month ago by to c/antitrumpalliance@lemmy.world
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[–] 49 points 1 month ago (7 children)

I'm 40 years old, and when Republicans start yelling about "communism" it just confuses me. I didn't grow up fearing the Soviet Union. It died when I was still watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoons. I figure they're communicating to really old people (which is bizarre since I feel extremely old). It's the equivalent of yelling at cavemen about saber tooth tigers.

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  • [–] 22 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    I'm a similar age and can certainly relate.

    Most of what I was told about communism was from people that didn't know what communism or socialism was. All the bad parts were basically what's wrong with any authoritarian government. "In soviet russia, you could be arrested for speaking out against the party! Isn't that awful!" That sort of a thing.

    Once I realized that communism, socialism, and authoritarianism were all very different things and that many nations have varying degrees of each, it was game over. Someone being a communist or socialist just didn't mean anything to me. Especially since most of the time what they are actually advocating for is simply improving public infrastructure in ways that it used to work before Reagan and Clinton got in office and destroyed our public institutions.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    I'm 56, and I've been confused about the modern accusations of communism because when communism was the big bad in my youth, I figured it was the authoritarianism and lack of freedom that was bad.

    As it turns out, I was wrong. What was bad was apparently having the wrong group of people pillaging the country. If they had billionaires stealing everything instead of party elites, it would have been fine.

    So communism was bad because western billionaires couldn't profit from it.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago

    So communism was bad because western billionaires couldn’t profit from it.

    Yup. When you dig into the history of Cuba, Iran, basically all of central and South America, what you ultimately find is "This nation decided it wanted to be communist, but that hurt the bottom lines of banana, sugar, and oil companies, so the US waged unrelenting covert and overt wars against these nations".

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  • [–] 6 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    46 and same, I don't even know shit about the red scare except from movies like Red Dawn, and I too watch the shit out TMNT! Damn good show and all the toys until my fucking useless mother sold them all to feed her drug habit and keep her boyfriend happy. Really pissed about that.

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