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One annoying tendency in modern political discourse is right wingers and centrists calling people communist.
They don’t know what the word means.
A communist believes that the means of production should be owned and controlled by the proletariat: the workers.
If you don’t believe this, you aren’t a communist. Wanting universal healthcare doesn’t mean you’re a communist unless you think the health workers themselves (or, just perhaps, the party or government) should control the healthcare providers.
Wanting universal healthcare, in the modern context, makes you a socialist.
Now there’s a lot of argument around what it means for the proletariat to control the means of production. If the “Party” controls it, like in the USSR or pre-Deng China, is that communism, or is it just old fashioned government authoritarianism?
Hello, I’m currently searching for a chastity belt. Not for purity or protection but for one purpose only: locking up my optimism so it never sees the light of day again. Ever. As a thirty-three-year-old Black woman, my optimism has the nerve to keep hanging around, “trying to find the good in ALL people,” defying every harsh truth that should have killed it off long ago. In fact, it’s still here, rearing its head with messages of “justice prevailing” and “light at the end of the tunnel.” The thing won’t die, so I need it restrained.
Required Specifications
Impenetrable, Ideally with the Force of History
Give me your tungsten, your steel. Your titanium forged to suppress and control. The kind that can survive one or several terms of a Trump presidency and come out the other end with an unwavering grip. Optimism in this world can grow like weeds, and mine goes rampant at the slightest whiff of change in the air. I want a belt that’s so locked down that not even sweet nothings about “the arc of justice” can penetrate.
“The life of an amphibious sailor was estimated at three minutes in combat.”
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