this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2024
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All countries have always been governed by the property owning class. With all its faults, capitalism has resulted in "peons" having the most say they've ever had. It's not a lot, but it's sure better than under classical democracy, feudalism, monarchy, theocracy, and "communism" at least as practiced in the USSR, Cuba, North Korea and China.
What are you talking about? Research how many rights women and lgbt people lost when the GDR fell for an example of how wrong-headed this line of thinking is.
For those who want light reading, I highly recommend "Why women had better sex under socialism, and other arguments for economic independence"
I remember an anecdote from an East German woman after the Berlin Wall fell saying West German women were just now beginning to advocate for what the East German women already had.
I'm not arguing for the BRD and how not fucked LGBTQ rights were. I'm arguing against a picture that the GDR had better rights in general when in fact most people who didn't strictly follow the party line were heavily suppressed and observed.
That's nice, but the issue was whether they were part of the governing class. The rights the women were given in the GDR didn't include the right to pass new laws. As for choosing new representatives, look up the term "Wir gehen falten".
You're claiming that capitalism is better on having elected women officials? First off, no. GDR and west Germany had similar rates of women in leadership, and women had political organization through the democratic women's front.
Second off the framing is bad: I care less about smashing the glass ceiling than I care about not being hatecrimed in a rampantly misogynistic culture. I care about having the economic independence to leave abusive relationships, and to date for love and pleasure and not financial security.
No, I'm saying western democracies are better because you got to vote.
You get to vote in socialist democracies like China, Cuba, USSR, etc. You've been told you can't. Who told you this?
If you don't believe me, look up the process for how the Cuban 2019 constitution and 2022 family code were drafted. Socialist democracy is more advanced and democratic than liberal democracies.
Sure you do, as long as you vote for the candidate that the state prefers. Again, look up "Wir gehen falten".
That isn't how soviet style democracies work. For example, the municipal assemblies of Cuba have multiple candidates for each seat, which are not chosen by the party. Those councils then choose a national representative for their municipality, which is confirmed by a popular vote.
Link to what you're referring to please, I didn't find anything interesting in the search.
Yes these rights rights were lost, but this paints the GDR in a positive light regarding regarding civil rights when in reality people who showed a smidge of dissent were persecuted.
Because they were, especially compared to West Germany.
I’m not arguing for the BRD and how not fucked LGBTQ and women's rights were. I’m arguing against a picture that the GDR had better rights in general when in fact most people who didn’t strictly follow the party line were heavily suppressed and observed.
Edit: forgot women's rights
Look up how the stasi dealt with lgbt dissidents after being told to solve the issue and then come back here and say that with a straight face.
Dissidents for "hey we need to fix the problems of socialism" or dissidents for "we have to dissolve socialist democracy and let the capitalists pillage us" were treated very differently.
And the ones arguing for dissolving socialism got what they wanted, and the result is justification enough for their oppression tbh. Better to suppress right wing dissidents than let them oppress vast swathes of the population.
Do you seriously tell yourself the GDR was a democratic socialist country? The GDR not being democratic was exactly it's problem and why it couldn't reform its problems. And yeah, the people only wanted to get oppressed by capitalists when they protested in Leipzig and Berlin. If you really believe that I don't know what to tell you. Are you some Wessi who doesn't know shit about life in the GDR?
Man, they wanted something better than the shit show that their life had become. They had many ideas about how they could reform their country. A new socialist constitution, a emancipated reunion with the West etc. All they knew was that it couldn't go on with the current SED clique.
How did the SED respond? Fucking off with the last money. They left their population with no help when they negotiated with Kohl. But hey, to you that's just capitalist propaganda probably. Now it's the people's fault that they got screwed by the capitalists pfffff
Holy shit bro. Do you think Hohenschönhausen was filled with right wingers and capitalists and that your beloved party didn't oppress the population? First of right wing networks were left alone all over the country. What we see now in Thüringen and Sachsen didn't just hop over from the BRD after the wall fell. It merely got reinforced. Second, do you really think only right wing dissidents got suppressed? My father got in trouble because he stepped into the voting booth, NOT casting his vote openly for the SED. Democratic my ass bro, righteous suppression of right wingers lol. 100k Stasi agents 200k informants just for right wing dissidents, yeah right
They didn't get something better though. They got capitalism, worse living conditions, and a bourgeois democracy that didn't represent them either
The SED literally lost influence and that let reunification happen. You're blaming an organization that was trying to prevent something disastrous from happening for the thing happening disastrously.
Pretty sure it was the fault of the power dynamics at play, as reunifiers had taken control of the government and led to a massive looting of the GDR. And as for the SED "fucking off with the money" you get that the big impoverishment of east germany was that all the nationalized industries were given to private individuals, mostly people in West Germany who used to own(or whos parents owned) the industries prior to nationalization, right?
Also, I ask again: how did the Stasi respond to the lgbt movement in the 80s? Because that shit runs entirely contrary to the propaganda you're trying to spew.