Democrats are finding it increasingly difficult to connect with Latino voters — especially Cubans, who associate left-wing politics with the communism that tore their country apart. Jesus Maria Alvarez reports on the deep rifts within his community in the battleground state of Florida
Well I’d at least state that the countries absorbed into the Soviet union where not free to do so. So stating that the Soviet union did not partake in colonialism is only part of the story. They conquered their neighbors and with all the people and resources of these countries managed a lot of that. Also many countries in the world where aligned with the Soviet union so they where also part of the international market.
To be honest I can’t really speak to how these relationships where forged and maintained, but a lot of these USSR aligned countries had ruling classes that where also not the nicest people to put it mildly.
So maybe some aspects where good, there is plenty of bad to be found as well. As this was the world back then.
The western block where by no means holy, but I’d argue better for most of their people overall. How the American system ended up in its current form I don’t know but I tend to see a lot of similarities between the wealthy elite of either system abusing the workers in an unsustainable way.
Edit: I had the privilege to discuss old vs new with my east German grandparents in law. And they had a lot of good to say about their communist days. Especially the labor market, equal rights, and access to goods. It took time but everything was available. But when asked if they preferred then or now they said now… when asked why. The answer got to me. “Because now if someone rings your doorbell unexpectedly you don’t have to worry about dissapearing”. They told me they knew multiple families that where all arrested and never heard from again.
While what you say is partly true (although the reality is more complicated for many countries such as Ukraine or Belarus or Armenia or most of Central Asia), when you say “the countries” were not free to do so, what do you mean exactly? Because I don’t think anyone is really free to belong to a country or to other for the most part. I’m Spanish and I didn’t choose to be so, and there are plenty of people in my country who don’t feel Spanish but are forced to be so, especially in Basque areas and Catalonia. I’ve never been asked what nationality I want to belong to, or what country I wish to be born in.
This is especially true for regimes in the 1920s (countries that annexed during the Russian Civil war) and the 1940s (countries that annexed during and after WW2). Polish citizens themselves, or Ukrainian, or Finnish, when in 1917 the first Bolshevik constitution declared the unilateral right of self-determination and secession for all peoples of the former Russian Empire, didn’t get to choose democratically whether they wanted to become independent. The local powerful authorities simply declared so, and afaik there was never any referendum about the topic in these countries. In some places this was very short-lasting, as for example in Ukraine when they were immediately invaded by Poland because of nationalist expansionism in the Polish-Ukrainian war. So, can you argue that these peoples of Ukraine were incorporated into the USSR against their will after the expulsion of the Polish forces from Ukraine by the Soviets, any more than they became independent against their will since there was no referendum?
I didn’t get to vote the constitution of my country since I was born too late for that. I didn’t get to choose the parliamentary form of it, I didn’t get to choose to have a fucking king, I didn’t get to choose whether I wanted to join the EU and abandon our previous currency. If my decision power is consistently ignored, can you argue that my national identity and my belonging to a state is good just because it’s by default? Second-generation Latvians, Uzbeks, or Georgians, didn’t get to choose what country they were born in and belonged to, any less than I do currently. In fact, most citizens of the USSR got to vote in 1991 in a referendum whether they wanted to maintain the USSR, and the overwhelming majority of citizens voted affirmatively… which was promptly ignored as the state was dissolved from the top-down, and plunged into the worst humanitarian crisis in Eastern Europe since WW2 with the application of Neoliberal shock therapy.
As for this, I’m not familiar with the history of repression in Eastern Germany. I’d dare to say that your grandparents in law were “lucky”, in the sense that they got to have an employment for the most part after the dissolution of the country and the reunification with western Germany (which forced the deindustrialization of Eastern Germany in favour of western one, big part of the reason why there are so many inequality differences between the two afaik). Is the risk of unemployment and misery less serious than the risk of political oppression? We tend to think so, but for many people who don’t enjoy the most basic material rights, the answer isn’t that simple. I agree that oppression to those levels is something inherently negative, but it’s the common response of systems when there are sectors of the population that go against the system itself. In my country, Spain, cases of lawfare manufactured by the state and police apparatus and coordinated with mass media, destroyed the leftist party Podemos which used to be the 3rd biggest force in the parliament after the 2008 crisis. In the USA, the Black Panthers movement was eliminated by the CIA despite committing no real crime.
My point isn’t anything other than “let’s question the metrics that we use to compare one country to another”. To me, as a young person who may never be able to afford a house, who’s only seen the welfare state eroded further and further in his lifetime and maybe won’t have a public pension like my grandparents and parents enjoy/will enjoy, who’s seen the political oppression through lawfare and manufactured consent of progressive politicians, who doesn’t have a right to decide whether to eliminate the literal monarchy from his country, and who has seen Catalonian politicians jailed for wanting to make a referendum on the HUMAN RIGHT of self-determination, it’s hard for me to see the innumerable advantages of the capitalism that ravages the third world and destroys the climate of the planet I inhabit. Young people don’t unionize because they’re afraid that the hidden profiles that companies make of them and share with each other thanks to the internet will brand them as undesirable to be employed. If they’re unionized, they’re liable of getting arrested and getting a sentence to jail as happened to “las seis de la suiza”. How the fuck is this more democratic and less oppressive?
Ill leave arguing history. Smarter people than me can do that.
And just say that your last paragraph I agree to. I’m in my 40s and understand the sentiment all too well. I have the luxury that I own a house… but this was only possible because of the economic crash and subsequent fuckery with the interest rates which opened up a window for me and my wife where we where able to buy at the lowest house prices and with an interest rate equally low. For the rest I see everything you say and agree. I worry for people my age and younger as it seems to be getting worse.
That’s actually a wise position
Ok, that’s nice. My proposal is to have strong worker movements, and by nature worker movements are very leftist. Wanting to lower working hours, higher pay, higher vacation, higher working conditions… all of those are conditions of the left. I also think that a majority of the population wants extended healthcare and education for free, public pensions, and access to affordable, quality housing. From what I see and what I read, the people pushing for that the strongest are the ones on the leftmost side of the political spectrum. Would you agree with that?
Absolutely. I think the billionaire class has been hoarding all the wealth at the expense of everyone else and that needs to be adressed.
Rutger Bergmans said it best at Davos. All these rich people doing philanthropy with a fraction of their wealth, paying big salaries from their charities to the people that run them, helping people they think are worhy. While systems to reach those most in need are already in place. Pay your taxes! Then we can finance social services like healthcare, education, psychological help, addiction treatment, housing, emergency services, social services, childcare and more… much more. We could even invest in poorer countries to help them get over the hump that they are stuck behind… and not in a “white man knows best” way, or let’s transfer a large sum of money to the dictator of the day… actual help (how and what I’ll leave to smarter people yet again).
The market can take case of all things people can choose, but stuff everyone needs or you cannot choose should be handled by the government or at the very least be very very well regulated. Also the free market needs to be regulated to make sure they don’t end up poisoning us or something.
I fully agree with all you’re saying in your second paragraph. My whole point is that, historically, this sort of progress isn’t achieved by voting, but by organized worker action through unionizing and strikes.