Rest of the World! Please understand that the Government of The United States of America, in theory, was designed to be led by representatives elected by its citizens. They all (from the President on down) are Public Servants - there to SERVE the public, as sworn by oath. This is not always the case.
Our education system and Schoolhouse Rock! (specifically America Rock) pulled a fast one on us.
The US government was never not captured by the bourgeoisie, because the US was born of a bourgeois revolution[1]. The wealthy, white, male, land-owning, largely slave-owning Founding Fathers constructed a bourgeois state with “checks and balances” against the “tyranny of the majority”. It was never meant to represent the majority—the working class—and it never has, despite eventually allowing women and non-whites (at least those not disenfranchised by the carceral system) to vote. BBC: [Princeton & Northwestern] Study: US is an oligarchy, not a democracy
The US was designed to be a democracy for the ruling capital ruling class from day one. Entire books have been written on the subject. https://archive.org/details/democracyforfew0000pare
Ask why Australians can’t say the phrase “from the river to the sea” in Queensland without going to jail? How free are you when you’re under a dictatorship of capital? Why is homelessness growing in Australia? Why are the working-class increasingly turning to charities for food? What freedom is there in the systematically enforced poverty of capitalism. Australia signed an agreement with the UN and other nations: housing is a human right. Why is our homeless population increasing year after year? Why are workers spending the majority of their wages on rent?
Capitalists will press the point of freedom of speech under capitalism precisely because capitalism is a complete, systemic dictatorship of labour by capital. You can say what you like, but you still have to purchase food and housing with capital. Words won’t feed you. Words won’t house you. Words won’t warm you. Words are worthless because they’re free and the capitalist will give you all the words you want. For the most part. In Queensland, Australia some words will provide you with state-housing and -food.
The state of Israel is committing genocide and Australia is a country that provides material support. The governing bodies are complicit.
Deeply curious as to what makes Mongolia “free”. Why does the US like them so much?
Huh, I wonder why it’s just a map of all US allied countries or countries the US has couped and replaced with fascist governments.
Also, they forgot to include Ukraine as a free country.
They had to mark it as “partly free” to avoid lying too obviously.
Why is israel partly free https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_by_country
Came to say the same thing, Israel should be red.
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As a Canadian I’m honoured to be lumped in with Scandinavia. I hope my commonwealth breather will forgive me.
Ahh, the cracker index
Woof
Lordamercy! 🤦♀️
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Japan is completely subservient to the US, it’s the country with the most US overseas military bases.
And that’s before we start talking about nationalism and racism
translation: should glorification be covered by freedom of speech
Excerpt from the statement on why the US votes no:
While we share concerns over the troubling rise in antisemitic and other vile expression around the globe in recent years, this resolution inappropriately focuses on criminalizing speech. This resolution’s recommendations to limit freedom of expression, freedom of association, and the right to peaceful assembly contravene the principles enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and must be opposed. Rather than bans, censorship, or criminal punishments, the United States has established robust legal mechanisms that protect individual liberties and defend against discrimination and violence.
Lol @ the last bit especially, but reading the text it is quite authoritarian; and how often do we see henious legislation titled something like the “officially declaring bad things are bad and puppies are good” bill as a tool to lambast those that vote against it. But all that said, there’s not much question about the reason ultimately being “because it’s a russian initiative” – especially for the 2018 mid-trump-term vote.
Y’all will believe anything.
First, a version of this resolution was first introduced in 2005 (A/RES/60/143 ) when the US was one of only four countries to vote against it, which it has done consistently every time it’s been reintroduced. Acting like it’s opportunistic regarding the war in Ukraine, or that that’s the reason the US voted against it, is completely false.
Second, the best way to avoid it being used to advance the narrative that the US and Ukraine are pro-Nazi would be to just vote for the resolution! Voting for it, and they have nothing, vote against it, and they have this perfect map they can point to where the US and Ukraine are completely alone in refusing to condemn Nazism. This logic is completely and utterly backwards.
Third, if the US was willing to condemn Nazism, and only objects to it being a Russian initiative (or the supposedly “authoritarian language”), then, why have never put out their own resolution condemning Nazism?
(edit: note that the referenced vote was about A/RES/72/156, not A/RES/60/143)
This vote was four years before the war in ukraine kicked off in earnest, what does it have to do with this?
Related further excerpt:
[…] Every year since this resolution was first introduced in 2005, the United States has expressed our concerns about the resolution’s politicized roots as well as its restrictions on fundamental freedoms.
Like idk, the motivation for voting no seems pretty clearly to be because Russia put the resolution forward. It’s creepy and authoritarian, but the us (and the us under trump especially) love that shit so IDK why else they would have voted no.
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You say that it was a political move by Russia to make the US and Ukraine look like Nazis. Even if this is true, then it makes no sense for the US and Ukraine to vote against it, because that plays directly into that narrative.
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Even if there was some kind of bizarre political calculus of voting not to condemn Nazis to prove you’re not Nazis, because the US has voted the same way since 2005, it can’t be the case that the US vote is a response to the war in Ukraine. The US had no particular reason to be contrary to every resolution Russia put forward at that time.
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Even if the US could see into the future and knew that Russia was going to invade, and even if they followed this insane political calculus just because Russia put the motion forward, why wouldn’t the US make it’s own resolution?
Nothing you said seems to answer any part of the many, many broken links in your explanation.
You say that it was a political move by Russia to make the US and Ukraine look like Nazis.
What? No, I didn’t. I said that it’s common to see that kind of bombastic title for a bill used as a political tool - voting against something that says “puppies are good” is not the same thing as saying “puppies bad”, but it’s easy to interpret it that way. As in this thread, the decision to vote no is being implied to be US (and to a lesser extent by abstention, european) support for nazism. As you yourself point out, it plays directly into that narrative to vote against the resolution.
it can’t be the case that the US vote is a response to the war in Ukraine
Even if the US could see into the future and knew that Russia was going to invade
I have never said anything about this being linked to the war in Ukraine. I do not know why you keep bringing up the war in Ukraine. I agree with you that this has nothing to do with the war in Ukraine which, apart from the annexation of Crimea
sixfour* years before (and that even at the time the US barely cared about), had not happened yet. Are you replying to the correct person?
The US had no particular reason to be contrary to every resolution Russia put forward at that time.
You’re absolutely right, the US had always been very level headed towards the Russian Republic and it’s precursor states, right up until 2022. Prior to that there has never been any major ideological disagreement between the two power blocs, and certainly never any attempts to do something absurd like “portray Russia as the ‘specter of communism’” in popular US media. No indeed, the US has a long and robust history of rational behavior towards the russophone world.
many, many broken links in your explanation
I’m so confused. My explanation is “The US hates Russia so much it would willingly lend itself to the implication of being a nazi state just to spite them”. I truly don’t see how that’s a controversial explanation.
You’re absolutely right, the US had always been very level headed towards the Russian Republic and it’s precursor states, right up until 2022. Prior to that there has never been any major ideological disagreement between the two power blocs, and certainly never any attempts to do something absurd like “portray Russia as the ‘specter of communism’” in popular US media. No indeed, the US has a long and robust history of rational behavior towards the russophone world.
In 2005?? Who was saying any of that? That’s complete nonsense.
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there’s not much question about the reason ultimately being “because it’s a russian initiative”
Oh… That explains the red Ukraine vote too. No doubt the resolution was going to be weaponized on that front
Well, it was certainly weaponized after they made the insane decision to vote against it. I’m not sure how on earth it would’ve been weaponized if they’d just voted for it.
Lol. This is not the only time Ukraine has voted with the US. Of course it’s going to vote the way the US tells it to when the US is literally its main weapons supplier. Also, Ukraine has tons of monuments and streets named after literal nazis and have folded nazi paramilitary organizations into their own military. So there’s a lot more reasons for them to vote no on this than just it being a russian introduced measure.
I like how America always includes Australia in the same goodness category as themselves, but if Australia made the same map we would put America towards the bottom with Russia and China.
they dont need you to like them they just need you to do as your told and you very much do. Australia is a military outpost for the US in the south pacific. Its helping the US take aggressive actions against China which could eventually spark WW3. etc. The US don’t give a fuck what you think of them.
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No it doesn’t. What drugs are you on?
Are you high right now? China has one overseas military base: an anti-piracy port in Djibouti. Meanwhile the US have well over 700 overseas bases.
no they don’t
i feel like they said mongolia was free to avoid racism allegations with writing off essentially an entire continent
now overlay the map with countries supporting the genocide of palestine.
yeah whatever “freedom” the US is promising probably fuckin sucks
„The United States appear to be destined by Providence to plague America with misery in the name of liberty.”
Simon Bolivar, 1829
This is a map of the freedom of capital to dominate societies and crush human beings en masse
Some of the least encouraging words you can hear are “The US is here to liberate you.”
People in a society shouldnt be free to do whatever the fuck they want to. They shouldnt be free to form gigantic groups that coerce other people. Freedom of religion is fucking absurd. Why not freedom of lettuce? Freedom of benches? What a profoundly stupid country, where anyone can justify anything in any way.
Whelp at least they are honest about Venezuela. Certainly not free at the moment.
also love that bolsonaro was thrown off a cliff here
he was a great daddy
Tf does “partially free” even mean? Oh you can do these things but not… Idk about y’all but to me that just sounds like not free with extra steps.
It’s written for US oligarchs, not you
You have a choice between Dictator X or their Brother.
more like
But democrats are also openly Zionists too!
Zion was pretty cool in the matrix
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theyre-the-same-picture.jpg
Lenin correctly called The Economist “a journal that speaks for the British millionaires.”
There’s nothing accurate about this map either because democracy has a class character. All the blue countries are dictatorships of capital. And there’s no decline of democracy happening in the US, it’s always been an oligarchy. Empirical research of decades of US policy shows this clearly:
What’s declining the period of liberal pretenses as the US transitions into open fascism.
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It’s not flawed, it’s working exactly as designed. A meaningful democracy can only exist for the class that holds power, and under capitalism it’s the capital owning class. That’s what the study I linked clearly shows.
Chinese oligarchy, lmfao?
The country is ruled by a powerful inner clique of roughly 95 million co-conspirators
Sounds like a totalitarian dictatorship.
-Libs
Nothing more accurate…? Just because it is not prefect does not make it as shitty.
I’m explaining that it’s qualitatively a democracy for the capital owning class. It’s not a one dimensional gradient from shitty to great. We live in a class society where different classes have different interests. People who own substantial amounts of capital make money from their wealth. These are the people who own factories, shops, media, and so on. These people want to drive down the cost of labor to increase their profits. Meanwhile, the workers own their labor, and they make a living by selling it to the owners. Their class interest is directly opposed to those people who own capital. They want higher wages, shorter working hours, and higher benefit all of which run contrary to business owners desire for profit. Hence, it’s a categorical error to talk about democracy without first identifying which class holds power in society.
