this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2024

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'You can't kill all of us': Kenya protesters vow to march again as authorities kill 22 (www.thecanary.co)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 4 months ago

We can thank the IMF for this bloodshed.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 4 months ago

If anyone wanted more evidence of how IMF loans are not in the best interests of the countries that take them, see here.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Authoritarians: "Bet."

[–] [email protected] -3 points 4 months ago

The entire principle of authoritarianism is either public support or public apathy. An authoritarian regime is only as stable as its populace.

A government that butchers its people against the will of the populace cannot survive even if it is democratic. A government that butchers people with the will of the populace will survive regardless of whether or not it's authoritarian.

See: Israel, America, Canada, Australia, UK

There's no fundamental difference between a democratic and authoritarian government in this regard. The primary difference is (and has always been) whether property is managed as a function of the state (monarchies, socialism) or as a function of the individual (democracies, anarchy).

Well, that and the "people" that get killed in democracies are usually of a different skin colour than you, so maybe you just don't care?

[+] [email protected] -21 points 4 months ago (4 children)

"Authoritarian" is connected to horseshoe theory which has holocaust trivialization history, please avoid using it

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago

I'm taking it back.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

That was a stretch but do you mean that the theory of totalitarianism was used to conflate Nazi Germany and USSR, and to an extent, justify double genocide theory...?

That being said, I don't see how it relates?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

What would you say if I characterized the third reich as authoritarian? Would that make me a Holocaust trivializer?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Why would you call them authoritarian when you can just call them fascist?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

It’s a square-rectangle situation in my view. All fascists are authoritarian bit not all authoritarians are fascist

[–] [email protected] -1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

Okay but bow is authoritarian useful? Can you find a definition that applies to Vietnam, Cuba, China, etc, that doesn't also apply to the governments of NATO countries like the US, France, England, etc?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I think Juan Linz created a decent criteria. It’s useful as a descriptor of how much personal liberty a person residing in a particular state can assert and how easily a person can petition their government without fear of reprisal.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Can you post the definition you're citing?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Limited political pluralism, realized with constraints on the legislature, political parties and interest groups.
Political legitimacy based upon appeals to emotion and identification of the regime as a necessary evil to combat "easily recognizable societal problems, such as underdevelopment or insurgency".
Minimal political mobilization, and suppression of anti-regime activities.
Ill-defined executive powers, often vague and shifting, which extends the power of the executive.

He wrote this in the 1960’s, mainly in reference to Spanish Fascism but not exclusively.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Limited political pluralism, realized with constraints on the legislature, political parties and interest groups.

If you're talking about overton window size, this seems to apply more strongly to bourgeois democracy? The difference between fascist and liberal seems a lot smaller than the range of political opinion you'd find within the CPC or the old CCCP. I would recommend watching some translated videos of normal national assembly meetings in socialist countries

Political legitimacy based upon appeals to emotion and identification of the regime as a necessary evil to combat “easily recognizable societal problems, such as underdevelopment or insurgency”.

Socialist countries base their legitimacy on having more thorough democratic representation than bourgeois democracies. Look up participatory democracy and whole process peoples democracy and compare that to bourgeois theories of democracy. Maybe also look up democratic centralism and the notion of strong vs weak delegates.

Minimal political mobilization, and suppression of anti-regime activities.

There are over 100 million members of the CPC. In Vietnam every couple hundred people have a dedicated party representative that is their designated point of contact with the party. Do you have a designated point of contact for your neighborhood?

Ill-defined executive powers, often vague and shifting, which extends the power of the executive.

Socialist countries, with the exemption of during ww2 when fighting against the nazis, generally have a weaker executive more subject to discipline than capitalist countries.

And when you compare ww2 ussr to ww2 Britain you'll probably see the ussr as more democratic, and that is while 1/6 of their population was being exterminated

[–] [email protected] 21 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Such a badass quote. I salute the ppl of Kenya

[–] [email protected] 17 points 4 months ago

If we can’t find something to live for, we will find something to die for.

This one is a good one too, in the article as well.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

This is where China's "debt trap diplomacy" might actually be beneficial for Kenya...

China's loans serve to improve the top-line (economic growth), and China's loan concessions don't affect that. When Kenya puts Mombasa Port's 50-year operating and port fees up for collateral, that's a hit on the bottom line (Kenya's government revenues) but does not change the fact that the port still exists to drive economic growth. Moreover, often the short-term hit in port revenues is less than the interest that would've been paid on the loan, so these collateralized loans are often cashflow neutral or even cashflow positive to default on.

The IMF and World Bank are more focused on padding the bottom line (tax revenues) by increasing taxes and decreasing subsidies. What an insane policy.

If a country can't grow, how can you expect it to pay off it's loans? The entire principle of government loans in the 21st century is that GDP growth makes loans progressively less expensive. The IMF and World Bank exist only to keep developing countries poor.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

Isn't that what happened to Greece before, too?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago

That's the kind of energy we need over here