Straw Man : Annihilated
You picked one of the best parts about the USSR that 90% of liberals would agree was a good thing.
The liberals being banned here is proof of otherwise
Liberals that bother to engage with lemmy.ml are a pretty small subsection of them, but fair enough:
What are they getting banned for? I haven’t been banned (yet).
What are they getting banned for?
For being reactionary bigots who spout western propaganda while justifying voting for genocide and so forth.
I haven’t been banned (yet).
You won’t be banned if you don’t start acting reactionary and start blurting out racist and xenophobic shit.
I can’t tell if you’re pulling my leg or just confused.
Your assertion is that people being bigots and/or pro-genocide is proof they don’t like Khrushchevkas?
Can you walk me through your logic there? Because it makes zero sense to me.
These apartments had working plumbing, something most of the people moving into them at the time had never had before. It was a huge step up to most people, regardless of how ugly the buildings look.
The hardest part about getting anything done in America is that every decision has to be approved by people who aren’t going to use the solution anyway.
School funding is decided by people who either don’t have school-aged children or who send their kids to private schools. Social Security laws – which only change to affect future generations of retirees, not current and soon-to retirees – are decided by retirees.
And so, the ability to put up large apartment complexes (and let’s make them nicer and include proper green space and all that) is decided by people who won’t live there and who aren’t going to walk, bike, or drive to the place where we would build the goddamn housing in the first place.
That’s the part that riles me up the most: the number of people who will vote to stop someone else from getting something they need, because the voter doesn’t agree with the choice or the outcome. Like, if we could affordably build houses for everyone, Karen P Asshat would vote yes. But ugly apartments? With all the apartment people living there? She votes no.
I’ve been in politics 35 years now and i have no answer for how to fix that. America is a nation of cockblockers, fundamentally.
Unless it’s a data center, those seem to he pretty streamlined at getting approved and built.
The government of the PRC is planning to build 200,000 new public housing appartments in hongkong, tyranny i tells ya
Time for the CIA to activate the student riots one more time
But at what cost???
why won’t something think of the
childreninvestors!!!???
Why does it suggest liberals are scared of this? Aren’t they okay with Projects for affordable housing? So liberals aren’t communists? Then, why are the red hat clowns so grumpy?
Why does it suggest liberals are scared of this?
Because OP wants to straw-man for clout.
Aren’t they okay with Projects for affordable housing?
Yes, an overwhelming majority of liberals are in favor of that.
So liberals aren’t communists?
No. Also I’m not sure why you’re asking this question.
Then, why are the red hat clowns so grumpy?
I’m also not sure why you’re asking this, but:
Red hats will get grumpy about virtually anything because it helps motivate their perpetually angry and afraid base; one of the defining segments of the deeply conservative mindset is that potent mix of fear and anger.
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We have a very simple purity test, don’t support genocide or wars on the global south and we have no issue with you. If you can’t agree on that much then there’s no reason why we should accommodate you.
I don’t either but I’m not going to aid fascists by out casting moderates. You can do that and reap what you sow.
“Moderate” genocide.
The fascists and the ‘moderates’ will bridge the gap. Think of the German SDP working with the Freikorps. They come from the same money.
Okay, so a person says
We have a very simple purity test, don’t support genocide or wars on the global south and we have no issue with you.
and then, in the course of responding to them, you write,
I’m not going to aid fascists by out casting moderates. You can do that and reap what you sow.
What moderates are being outcast by the proposed purity test? Is supporting half of the genocide moderate enough to be included? Is supporting half of the proxy wars moderate enough to be included? Which people, holding pro-genocide attitudes, do you think we should be trying to include, to beat the fascists?
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In order; Palestine(genocide commited by your countries), Ukraine(Not a genocide, false myth by Banderite fascists), Uyghurs(Not a genocide, false myth by Zenz, a German who has never put one foot in Xinjiang), Darfur(Genocide backed by NATO and friends)
You do support the right of liberals to be moderate over my right to be alive and my country to not be invaded, based on your own words. You also don’t even know how to spell Uyghur, nor anything else on the matter.
This makes no sense from anything I wrote. Absolutely no sense. And I don’t proof read my spelling, that I apologize on.
Nothing moderate about the democrats. They’re fascists buddy.
That’s a bit extreme of a statement don’t you think.
To call genocidal police-state xenophobes fascists? No, not really.
I vote Democrat and I’m none of those things. I’d argue most are vehemently opposed to fascism and prefer democracy.
If people are okay with, say, me and my family being genocided just because of where we were born, why should I care whether they identify as moderate or whatever else? Again, don’t agree with genocide and wars on our countries and you’re welcome. It’s not that much to ask lmao.
Liberals are conservatives, they are capitalist authoritarians, you understand that right?
Liberals are center right to center left depending on the degree. Liberals are not conservatives. You are confusing left and right, which is more defined. Liberals are not routinely labeled as authoritarian. Authoritarianism can happen in any political direction but routinely not associated which current western liberalism.
Wrong, liberalism is fundamentally a right wing ideology. Full stop. https://dialecticaldispatches.substack.com/p/the-dialectics-of-domination
It is not. Not is the US https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism_in_the_United_States
The term varies by location. Left and right is usually more standardized. Also liberals by any definition are usually not regarded as authoritarian. Full stop.
This keeps coming up in different threads - I hope you’ll receive the following as useful, and not combative. I occasionally get to feeling grumpy and dunky but this isn’t a long subtle road toward that.
You have a somewhat unique and actually beautiful opportunity here (“here” meaning Lemmy in general, and this specific thread) - one that is hard to find elsewhere, at any rate.
There are well-educated people (obvs not everyone) with very different learned and lived POVs from yours, here. And there is an asymmetry that you’re either missing or denying. These folks who you think you might need to educate about western / US flavored liberalism? They have heard what you’re saying, considered those ideas in a broader context than you have, and rejected those interpretations. It isn’t some missed knowledge you’re sharing like you imagine, or some correction you’re making to someone else’s limited understanding.
You’re missing this, and I really want you to not, for your benefit first, but for all of us - it truly is you, in this case, who has much to learn and little to teach.
Don’t shut that personal growth out by being defensive, it doesn’t lead anywhere. It leads to intellectual death, the ending of internal development, a death sadder than the final one. There’s much to learn and you have a truly golden opportunity to do so, here.
Start with just asking yourself “what if I’m wrong? I’m probably not, that’s the most likely outcome, but what if? What brain doors open when I try to find out?”
[Edit: to put a finer point on this attempt, I can remember enough of how I used to be “you”, hence the unremarked assumptions about you I made throughout. If being “correct” matters, it simply can’t be done with only the info you’re allowing in at the moment. Best wishes.]
are usually not regarded as authoritarian
Despite two of the primary liberal countries, the US and UK, genociding entire continents.
The liberal political system of bourgeios “democracy” is a much more effective system at genocide than even fascist governments.
Biden deported more than Trump 1, beat the shit out of protesters, committed a genocide and massively expanded the police state. Somehow this is not “authoritarian”.
He also expanded the ICE concentration camps that Obama first put up that Trump has been using.
keep malding fash
Honestly, the “commie blocks” are really good idea and should be built more often in areas with high homelessness and housing issues. Why should US taxes go to blowing up elementary schools/other people’s homes when it can go towards building homes and helping others in need?
why
The capitalist military industrial complex
We have those, they’re called projects.
You mean those criminally underfunded, means-tested and over-policed apartment blocks in red-lined cities?
Crazy that those weren’t as effective as rhe communist housing initiatives
The ones built on polluted land no one else wants, that have zero amenities nearby, leading to food deserts and lack of healthcare, and that have zero green spaces nearby? Yeah those resemble Soviet block housing in the same way a fart smells like a rose.
Yeah the ones chosen for their similarity to the Moscow cityscape to be sprayed with radioactive cadmium to test the effects of nuclear fallout!
https://proteanmag.com/2022/11/28/pruitt-igoe-a-black-community-under-the-atomic-cloud/
identical apartments
Under Communism, we were forced by the government to live in Poor People Houses. It was illegal to tip your landlords. If you updated your wallpaper, the local Commissar would murder your first-born child and eat your dog.
Incredible.
Careful, If the communists are asian, white liberals will fully believe they’re open dog/cat eaters because they already believe that. Joe himself prob believes that asian people eat babies until they come on down to Californ-i-a and get nice big ol fake titties
They don’t even have to be communists, per say. Just being Asian and unaligned is enough. Or Haitian, for that matter.
Ever heard of those folks they found in the wild parts of Russia in the late 70s who never even realized the Second World War happened?
Fucking life goals there
IDK
They wore clothes woven from homegrown hemp, used birch bark for shoes, and routinely faced near-starvation (the mother, Akulina, starved to death during a crop failure in 1961).
I’ll take my chances. Plus those clothes and shoes sound durable and cheap.
Nobody’s stopping you, or Darwin
Flip side to the dudes in the Pacific who were still hunkered down
I’m just here for the comments…
Remember when Jane Byrne tried to vacation at Cabrini? Good times.
To be fair, being good enough isn’t the only reason for something to be in current use.
Thats not really the ussrs fault tho, thats current capitalists government fault that they dont give a shit about making new public housing or taking care of the old ones
For real. It’s like living in a very old NYC apartment building and being like “It’s still standing, truly a testament to the politics of the robber barrons who built it!”
What do you actually know about soviet housing? I’ve done significant academic research on the topic. It’s not just a simple “they built a certain type of building”. The reason they all look so similar is that their construction method was pre-fab concrete panels. It was a revolutionary technology at the time, and allowed them to solve their housing crisis. They were called “Khrushchyovka” after whom you can guess. He made it his mission to solve the Soviet Housing crisis when he took over and was largely successful.
You have to keep in mind the historical context. The people moving into these buildings were coming from a pre-industrial society where they commonly had so electricity, dirt floors, and no insulation. These were a significant upgrade from the pre-USSR constructions. They started construction in the 1940s, and really took off in the 50s.
I think the main takeaways from them shouldn’t be “We should build these exact things”. and I don’t think that’s what people who support them are advocating for. I think what they are trying to point out is that if you standardize production, and use economies of scale, it is entirely possible to build tons of housing quickly and cheaply. And considering the way housing prices look these days I’d expect that to be an idea anyone can get behind.
If you are interested here is an article about how modern China is using similar practices: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/17/10695
wouldn’t liberals approve of this?
No, homelessness is for them a low, low price for having capitalism.
homelessness is not a price to pay. It is a tool because it incentivises people to subject themselves to wage labour
Yes it is, but liberals don’t think of it like that. For them the homelessness is the outcome of personal choices meaning that even those that genuinly pity the homeless people will still consider them as victims of their own vices instead of the system that engineered the entire problem as part of the class war they probably hear about but refuse to consider.
They also probably heard and maybe even believe that the socialist states got rid of the problem, but again, never think it’s because under socialism homelessness is not a class domination enforcement tool but a logistic problem. For them it’s because the homeless were forced (again, libs think a lot of the homelessness is voluntary) to live in barrack, psychiatric hospital, prison, gulag etc. etc. A price for having freedoms especially that a lib will never think they will have to pay that price someday, right? They are not gamblers/drunks/junkies etc, right?
Housing people is also a taboo topic because of how libs approach to concept of welfare in general, if the lib struggle to pay the rent and has no hope of ever buying their own home, how in the hell can anyone from “undeserving self-inflicted” pariah group just recive one?
Famously Communist Vancouver, Canada: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver_special
Yeah, I figuredy sarcasm was obvious here given what this thread is about, but I forgot about the terminally online Lemmy users who always choose the interpretation they can get the most mad about.
I think you forgot lemmy is full of people who would write what you write in full seriousness.
It’s so incredibly clear when someone talks about soviet housing without setting a foor in one. You can say a lot about those, but saying the word quality about them will be actually a crime. For example, mine had a hole between the panels big enough, you could put your hand out and grab loose concrete from the wall. It was 4th floor. My mom had to work 15 years without changing jobs to be able to get one.
OP is a russian citizen
I think they’re Canadian, or live there at least.
I remember yougthos sending a reply with an image russian passport (I think russian but not sure as I dont read any language tgat uses the cyrrillic script, it could have some other place that also uses the cyrillic script) at one point
The exact context in which the word “quality” was used, since you seem to have glossed over it was:
they were made with enough quality that they are still used today
No one said that these are high quality homes. They said that the caliber of build was strong enough to still be inhabitable 80ish years later.
Believe you me, they are used today not by choice. You need to stretch the definition of inhabitable significantly to include 80 years old mass construction buildings in it. Unless those Theseus shipped over the decades, but even then. Buildings from ancient Rome still standing today, it’s really not that big of a bragging rights to have some of the homes be technically upright after 80 years.
Ironically, the only buildings from post-war era that survived in my hometown are only those that were built by Germans as part of the reparations. Make of that what you will.No one said they were being used by choice. The very reason behind their original purpose was precisely because people didn’t have anywhere else to live, not because they thought people would genuinely choose to live there over a normal home.
The whole premise of the meme is that we should be in awe how amazing commyblocks are, and how greatly they survive even to this days.
The reality, that nobody disagrees with, is that post-war USSR very quickly built a bunch of cheap housing that was planned to be gradually replaced by a more nicely built ones, and a lot of them weren’t. This isn’t controversial, and not worth the meme. So the meme stretches this to mean something else.The premise of the meme is that the problem of affordable housing could be very easily solved if the western world was willing to acknowledge that sometimes socialists have good ideas.
This would not necessarily solve the problem of affordable quality housing, but it would be a very effective step in the right direction.
First of all, no, it isn’t. Like, textually isn’t.
Second, situation in post-war USSR is vastly different from the modern western countries. The problem isn’t lack of housing, it’s using housing as commodities. If you can create a system that can build millions of shitty crumbling concrete gravestones, you’d better use fraction of this system’s power to make laws that prevent commodification of housing, so it becomes affordable, and this will be the better outcome. And that’s also one of those good socialist ideas actually.
But again, we’re not talking about the original point anymore.First of all, no, it isn’t. Like, textually isn’t.
Then explain the “Liberals” part of the meme.
The problem isn’t lack of housing, it’s using housing as commodities. If you can create a system that can build millions of shitty crumbling concrete gravestones, you’d better use fraction of this system’s power to make laws that prevent commodification of housing, so it becomes affordable, and this will be the better outcome.
I agree
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The whole >90% of territory never saw a foot of German soldier was not where most of the destroyed urban housing stock stood. The war destroyed over 1,700 towns and 70,000 villages, which was roughly half the urban housing stock in the most populated and industrial regions, and left about 25 million people homeless.
Many houses were built by workers in their spare time after work, on a land granted by the state and using construction materials provided by the factory or plant they worked at, but that was a supplement to state reconstruction, not proof that war ruin was secondary.
The barracks aging is precisely what created the need for khrushchevkas in late 50s and early 60s onwards. Then brezhnevki with some improvements over bare minimal comfort of previous gen, and eventually from 70s onwards to the end of soviets the massive prefab took hold. There were countless experimental projects at different times and in different configurations, from 3 storey alpha builds of Khrushchevkas to Kyiv’s Podil 4 blocks project of late 80s, but all of it was a response to the war-created housing deficit, not a response to industrialization alone as you falsely claim.
Aggressive industrialization wasn’t the fundamental explanation for the scale and duration of the postwar housing construction program. Wartime destruction was the main driver.
It really helps to actually learn about the subjects before you start braying about them.
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This is completely incorrect.
Even if it’s a meme, and it rips the piss out of liberals or whatever, such mistakes make them easy target and work only in echo chambers
That would require liberals to read so they know what you just said. Quite rare.
If those kids could read.jpg?
They can, they just dont. certainly not something that might make them understand the conditions inside the Soviet Union.
Oh and on the other hand, British mass social housing for working class emerged because of King George’s WW1 realization that better fed and kept humans give more durable cannon fodder, after comparing British and German soldiers. At crown’s command, no socialism required.
