Man your historical revisionism is almost endless at hexbear.
I grew up in a navy/embassy family, so moved around every 3-5 years onto new postings. At an embassy posting in Stockholm, it was common for the attaché-community to pair newly arrived families with someone who had been there for a while. My mum thus got paired with a newly arrived Soviet wife-of-an-attaché to show her the ropes of diplomat life. This lady was on her first posting (it was quite common for Soviet embassy staff to have a LOT of newcomers for fear that they would get to used to western life style and seek asylum) and she was showing this lady where to do shopping in Stockholm. I was joining as I was too small to be left at home on my own.
So we walk into this supermarket and the Soviet lady sort of walks in, stops for a second, then walks through the one-way gates and stops again. And then she bursts into tears.
Diplomat life is hard on partners - so tears in the opening days aren’t that uncommon. My mum pulls her to the side and starts saying the usual (“I remember when we started”, “it’ll get better” bla bla) and the Soviet lady says basically “you don’t understand! I’ve never, ever seen so much choice and food and my life”.
She wasn’t crying because she had left home. She was crying because she was realising how fucked up home was - and remember this is someone who was sent out as a diplomat so reasonably well connected at home.
The West had a reason for its exceptionalism back then. Compared to many places it still does. In others, of course, we need to wake the fuck up - China is a great example, where there is definitely no cause for a feeling of exceptionalism. Russia, oh boy, yes we can still feel exceptional.
Go on then, dismiss me with your hexbear memes and be gone.
Link to this comment, made by a chauvinstic lemmy.one dork: https://lemm.ee/comment/4290117
when I’ve never seen so much choice
Choice is so much more important than not having homelessness you stupid emote loving tankie!!!
How I sleep paying 80% of my income on shelter but at least I have the PRIVILEGE of choosing between 12 different types of mayonnaise
If you tell this “diplomat” that the reason the West had any of these privileges, that their system seemed “superior” was because of A) Centuries of colonisation, slavery and exploitation that the communist states, usually, didn’t engage in. B) That gave the West a massive head start DESPITE WHICH the commies came pretty damn close C) The only reason the middle/working classes in the West got any concessions at all in the 20th century was BECAUSE of commie and socialist and trade union organising domestically and socialist countries actually becoming a thing internationally, which scared the crap out of the capitalists and their government stooges. D) And when they figured out McCarthyism (Domestically) + Cold War (Internationally), followed by Neoliberalism (Reagan + Thatcher) globally would demolish any chance of this repeating in the future, our overlords latched on to this and implemented this to perfection leading to the dissolution of the USSR and subsequently the collapse of almost all socialist states, the complete evisceration of any unionism domestically, followed by the absolute decimation of any and all illusions of equality and fairness and “American dream” BS you believed over the last 50 years. Cuz now they could take it away! And there’s nothing you can do! No unions and no commies!
Do these absolutely fucking morons think these events are unrelated? They occur in isolation? That the system that 30 years ago gave you supermarkets just magically doesn’t work now? No, dipshit. That’s how the US, and all the rest of the capitalist West operated for centuries BEFORE the commie and with them gone, that’s how they wanna operate AGAIN.
Why am I even bothering.
As I mentioned in another comment, no they really dont think about any of this shit, I was arguing with a czech zoomer about the czech socialist republic on , I’d link him sources about the strength of the socialist czech economy and the lack of homelessness and his best response to them was “those have to be wrong cuz they had food shortages (the example given was ketchup lmao) and my parents couldnt get blue jeans!!!”
lmao I gotta see the source of this.
And then everybody clapped.
How cruel you evil tankie, denying this totally real soviet diplomat’s lived experience!!! What? No there’s not hundreds of stories of people wanting the ussr back, someone’s lying to you!!!
Forreal though, the “person from communist country cries from joy at western supermarkets” is on par with those stories about a Christian burger veteran punching a weirdly pushy atheist professor in front of class to prove that god is real. It reads like something a boomer on facebook would post.
It really does read like that lol. Reminds me of the time I argued with some zoomer czech guy about the czech socialist republic. I was like your country went from being one of the wealthiest per capita in europe with no homelessness to split in two and having homelessness and women having to resort to prostitution to survive, and one of his responses for why it was so much better is that one time there was a shortage of food and it was a shortage of… drum roll please… fucking ketchup lmao it was one of the dumbest fucking things I’ve ever read in my life.
blackshirts and reds is an invaluable resource. the section talking about people in socialist countries who initially wanted capitalist reforms while taking the socialist policies for granted, and them regretting it when it happened, is always gonna stick with me when i see stuff like this
