KurtVonnegut [comrade/them]

I think you just discovered the plot for The Fast and the Furious 10.

BRB, hiring a coyote to smuggle a cool Chinese EV over the border to avoid tariffs.

I’m not even sure MLK ever explicitly considered himself a socialist.

Well then.

“I am much more socialistic in my economic theory than capitalistic.” - Martin Luther King Jr.

“Today, capitalism has out-lived its usefulness.” - Martin Luther King Jr.

“Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country.” - Martin Luther King Jr.

“We must see now that the evils of racism, economic exploitation and militarism are all tied together.” - Martin Luther King Jr.

“The evils of capitalism are as real as the evils of militarism and evils of racism.” - Martin Luther King Jr.

“If America does not use her vast resources of wealth to end poverty and make it possible for all of God’s children to have the basic necessities of life, she too will go to hell.” - Martin Luther King Jr.

(from https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/01/21/11-most-anti-capitalist-quotes-martin-luther-king-jr)

It says a lot about the education system wherever you come from that you never learned MLK was a socialist. He HATED capitalism! Hated it! Also, the scientist Albert Einstein was a prominent socialist who wrote a famous article, “Why socialism?” explaining in detail why he was a socialist. Einstein and MLK believed in the same anti-capitalist struggle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_Socialism%3F

… Do you think workers in a car factory don’t get paid until someone actually buys the car they helped build? All the devs have already been paid!

The constant revamping of the production process, the uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, and the everlasting uncertainty and agitation of society distinguish the bourgeois era from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relationships, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away. All new-formed relationships become outdated before they can solidify. All that is fixed melts into air, all that is sacred is profaned, and people are at last compelled to face with sober senses their real conditions of life, and thier relations with each other.

-Some guy, in some manifesto, in 1848

I think it is important to take a critical look at past tragedies

Those who care more about past tragedies than current tragedies don’t care at all. They’re just looking for some excuse to feel self-righteous.

Lib - “Markets make everything cheaper, which is good.”

Leftist - “But if there is a labor market, won’t that make labor cheaper?”

Lib - “Yes, and that is good.”

Leftist - “How is that good?”

Lib - “It leads to more profits.”

Leftist - “But why is it good to have more profits?”

Lib - “Because a good country is when corporations make profits, and the more profits the corporations make, the gooder the country is.”

Markets have brought more people out of poverty than anything.

Yes, just like the Irish people who were “helped” by the free market in the 1840s. Or the Indian people who were “helped” by the free market in the late 1800s. You might be interested in this book by the late, great Mike Davis which completely refutes your ideas with hard evidence that the free market can be used (and has been used) as a tool of genocide: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/7859

IDK man. You’re basically saying “Why are you stuck on that environmentalist shit? It doesn’t matter to me. Go worry about climate change somewhere else, stop bothering me.”

My brother in christ. Climate change will affect you whether you want it to or not. Capitalism will affect you whether you want it to or not. You can’t just be “out” of it. You can’t not take a side in whether the earth gets destroyed or not (environmentalism) or whether 90% of the world’s population is plunged into neo-feudal slavery. You’re either with the slave-owners or against them. You gotta pick a side!

“Tankies are bad.”

Do you believe that that because you genuinely believe that capitalist nations like the United States and Russia are doing good things for the world, while “tankie” countries like Cuba and China are doing bad things for the world? Or do you believe that because you have been tricked by 100 years of racist propaganda that says socialists like Fidel Castro, Albert Einstein, and Martin Luther King were subhuman scum?