Will do.

Please tell me specifically what makes this qualify as news. Will you now publish every anniversary from around the world?

No, but this one is important because there are people on here who want to deny these massacres ever happened. Also, it’s an ongoing controversy.

Or are you just another person trying to antagonize Poles and Ukrainians? Because it clearly looks like the latter.

That’s kind of a strange perspective, isn’t it? If someone made a post about the anniversary of, say, The Trail of Tears for example, then I, as an American, would not be offended in the slightest. If I made a post about the Nazi German invasion of Poland, would you say I was “trying to antagonize Germans and Poles?”

Here’s another suggestion perfect for future anniversaries you could commemorate:

Whataboutism.

This sketch was about Facebook but it’s also relevant to Twitter

There are definitely similarities, but China has its own fascinating history there, with a lot of traditional beliefs resurfacing as weird, sanctioned versions of themselves after the cultural revolution had mostly suppressed them.

I think you’ve got it backwards. One of the lesser known, positive parts of the Cultural Revolution (which was primarily a horrible clusterfuck) was the Barefoot Doctors program, in which medical students were fast-tracked in education and sent out to the rural regions of China, which had never before had access to modern medicine. It was a very basic level of care, but it increased the number of doctors per person tenfold in the span of five years, and access to vaccines had a significant impact, increasing life-expectancy and reducing child mortality. However, because medical supplies in those regions were limited (and the scale of the program), the doctors were instructed to supplement care with traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). This allowed the program to be rolled out more quickly, and the partial reliance on TCM may have helped with public acceptance (since it was what they already believed in), but it had an unfortunate side effect that it legitimized TCM.

This program was phased out in the 80’s with China’s broader economic shift, towards privatization, while also moving away from TCM. The new policies made care less accessible and focused more on curing serious ailments rather than preventative care. China has made some efforts to address these issues, though I’m not well informed enough about their current system to weigh in.

A lot of the modern popularity of TCM likely comes from the time of the Barefoot Doctors program, because people remember their quality of life improving during that time and then declining later when the focus was shifted away from TCM, incorrectly attributing it to TCM’s effectiveness rather than the accessibility of care and focus on prevention. Which is to say, many of the people who believe in TCM may actually be nostalgic for the healthcare system implemented during the Cultural Revolution.

I hate the term. I think what you described is a perfectly valid way to approach conversations, but be prepared to have the term thrown at you and to be accused of bad faith, because a decent part of the internet decided it was because a webcomic said so.

Whenever I’ve tried to do this I get accused of “sealioning”

Usually you don’t go, “You forgot to respond to this” if you don’t actually have anything there you want the other person to respond to. If you do not know how to have a conversation with another person go learn how to do that and get back to me.

What’s there to address? You’re just asserting what you personally like.

The more the capitalists are able to gain power (through making a bunch of money), the more they’ll push the government to cut those social services and to remove regulations. The system you describe is viable only to the extent that the capitalists can be kept in check.

Many existing socialist countries (Vietnam, China, etc) have implemented a market economy, as it’s necessary to participate in the global economy, and it can be useful for economic development, at least to a point.

I’m not really sure what you want me to answer here.

Ignoring the core principle of Capitalism, free markets, makes it impossible to actually talk about Capitalism in theory or in practice.

The confusion comes from the fact that the word capitalism has two meanings. The original meaning, which the other person and myself are using, has nothing to do with free markets:

1854, “condition of having capital;” from capital (n.1) + -ism. The meaning “political/economic system which encourages capitalists” is recorded from 1872 and originally was used disparagingly by socialists. The meaning “concentration of capital in the hands of a few; the power or influence of large capital” is from 1877.

It was only later, in reaction to socialism, that capitalism began to take on this meaning you’re using, where it’s supposedly disconnected from class interests and is just about some abstract economic principle. But using the second definition, it’s impossible to talk about capitalism in practice because, as I said, such a system has never existed and will never exist.

Your argument against can be used for every other economic system as well, so it becomes a matter of pros and cons which will never declare a clear winner and always demonstrate a mixed economy is best for everyone involved.

Huh? Economic systems where the interests of capitalists are prioritized are best for the capitalists, economic systems where the interests of workers are prioritized are the best for workers. Also, aren’t you declaring a clear winner when you say you can, “always demonstrate a mixed economy is best for everyone involved?”

They’re talking about capitalism in practice. In practice, economic policy is shaped less by ideology and more by they relative power of economic classes. When the rich have power, they get policies that favor themselves enacted, and vice versa. It’s only in theory that capitalism is about “free markets,” in practice, the rich support free markets if they alternative is something that’s more harmful to themselves (like taxes and nationalization) and oppose them when the alternative is beneficial to themselves (subsidies).

“Free market capitalism” is a purely theoretical idea that has never existed, and will never exist, because someone’s always going to have enough power to get the government to intervene in the economy to promote their own interests. Generally, left-wing people talking about capitalism mean capitalism in practice, not the theoretical idea.

Yeah, the way we can show all minorities that we’re in this together, that we’ll stand by each other even when it’s unpopular and inconvenient, to stop the state from splitting off groups and trampling them underfoot… is to split off Palestinians and support candidates who want to trample them underfoot because standing up for them is too inconvenient.

Historically, you’re completely wrong.

1. Hitler came to power with the support of capitalists (here meaning “people who own substantial capital” rather than “ideological supporters of capitalism”). They saw him as a way to maintain order against socialism and to break the power of unions. A similar story happened in Italy, and in other fascist countries.

2. Many capitalists did in fact benefit from fascism. There’s some confusion about fascist economic policies, but you should know that the term “privatization” was first coined to describe the economic policy of Nazi Germany. When they nationalized companies, it was because they were minority owned, and often they were redistributed upwards to the capitalists.

3. Labor rights suffered tremendously under fascism, with labor organizations exterminated, allowing capitalists to impose much worse conditions, lower pay, and longer hours on the workers, as well as using prisoners for slave labor. Any attempt to challenge these conditions would be considered treasonous, undermining the war effort.

4. Even when their countries were defeated militarily, many capitalists got off scot-free. For example, the pharmaceutical company Bayer (which merged with Monsanto in 2016) was once a part of IG Farben, which manufactured Zyklon B for the gas chambers. After the war, Bayer rehired Nazis to high level positions, including for example Fritz ter Meer, who had been on IG Farben’s board of directors and became chairman of Bayer, despite being a convicted Nazi war criminal.

Trumps not wrong for once.

He’s definitely wrong morally, constitutionally, and strategically just not legally, per how the courts have (mis)interpreted the constitution.

Sanctions haven’t been working

Well, in order to work, they’d have to have a coherent objective.

They did work at bringing Iran to the negotiating table, which led to Obama’s Iran deal. The only problem being that Obama made it, so Trump had to hate it. The only thing the US actually wants from Iran is for it to be an enemy the president can bomb to look tough.

it should be effective at stopping their program.

The program that we have no evidence actually existed, that is. Certainly, if they weren’t actively persuing one before, they’d be mad not to now. How else could they stop the frequent, random unprovoked aggression from the US?

It’s sad because for most people school is about the only time anybody cares enough about your thoughts to actually read an essay and respond to it intelligently.

Exactly.

See also: Military Operations Other Than War, Low Intensity Conflicts, Police Action (e.g. Vietnam).

What are the democrats gonna do to them? They’ve got nothing to be afraid of, look what happened to Bush.

Well, the War Powers Act is unconstitutional - but in the other direction. Deploying military force requires a declaration of war, which requires congressional approval, but the War Powers Act circumvents that by pretending that using euphemisms to describe military actions instead of calling it war makes it different, somehow.

I specifically disabled my watch history to get this. If I want to watch something, I’ll go to my subscriptions. Why would I want to interact with YouTube’s algorithm?

Troll.

I’d just like to remind you that I started out trying to have an intelligent, civil conversation. Sorry you were too dumb to keep up. Sad that this is all you’ve got, I genuinely pity you.

That’s not how logic works, dumbass. That’s not a thing. If you want to apply my standard, you have to apply it consistently.

What you’re probably trying to do, very badly, is a reductio ad absurdum, where you show that accepting my position would lead to an absurd or self-contradictory conclusion. The problem is that my position doesn’t lead to any absurd conclusions, so what you’ve done is assume my position, and then assume the opposite of my position in the same line of logic. Naturally, if you assume self-contradictory positions, then the result will be absurd, but that doesn’t prove anything except that you don’t understand how logic works. It’s not self-contradiction if you have to flip back and forth between your standard and mine to get there.

But then, of course you don’t understand logic because you operate on blind faith.