[Note: twchnically was a social democrat, but i dont really care seperating soc-dems from dem-socs] I was really, really bad for a while. Like “no country should be trading with China or Russia” bad. Like “supports israel” bad.
For me it was A. The disparity between the socialist response to covid to the rest of the capitalist world and B.Radicalization from learning about the Iraq War.
I lost a family member to covid, and when that million death toll rolled around, i was incensed. I was even more incensed because I warned everyone in my life and online about the disease, and i got the ever so often “don’t worry about it, it’s just the cold.” I essentially watched in reverance as China managed to do a full response while being a much more densely populated country and being where the outbreak originated from.
The Iraq War was another one. For me, Vietnam was bad, but that was just “bad strategy.” I still saw it as legitimate (obviously I don’t believe that now). Iraq was always “the war.” It wasn’t taught in schools, I didn’t even know any vets from the war. I knew we invaded Iraq, but I didn’t get why it was so controversial. I was looking at it and wondering, since the intial engagement didn’t actually last that long [unlike Vietnam, kind of. Obviously there were the Iraqi insurgents]. One day i finally looked into it and it essentially shattered me. So much death and destruction for what is basically money for people who already had money. And no one got punished for it. At that moment I basically vowed that I wouldn’t believe anything the media or western stooges put in front of me. Of course this led to some embarrassment [a la, Sadam Huissein and Pol Pot support], but after some ideological ironing it helped smooth out those wrinkles.
Note: I had an inkling of a sense of political economy. At one point i even remember grumbling to myself like “why do the corporations get to have all this power and get rid of jobs and dwvelop/impoverish places based on tax policies, but the workers have to put up with it?” That was way before the events mentioned above, i just find it funny looking back on it
[Note: twchnically was a social democrat, but i dont really care seperating soc-dems from dem-socs] I was really, really bad for a while. Like “no country should be trading with China or Russia” bad. Like “supports israel” bad.
For me it was A. The disparity between the socialist response to covid to the rest of the capitalist world and B.Radicalization from learning about the Iraq War.
I lost a family member to covid, and when that million death toll rolled around, i was incensed. I was even more incensed because I warned everyone in my life and online about the disease, and i got the ever so often “don’t worry about it, it’s just the cold.” I essentially watched in reverance as China managed to do a full response while being a much more densely populated country and being where the outbreak originated from.
The Iraq War was another one. For me, Vietnam was bad, but that was just “bad strategy.” I still saw it as legitimate (obviously I don’t believe that now). Iraq was always “the war.” It wasn’t taught in schools, I didn’t even know any vets from the war. I knew we invaded Iraq, but I didn’t get why it was so controversial. I was looking at it and wondering, since the intial engagement didn’t actually last that long [unlike Vietnam, kind of. Obviously there were the Iraqi insurgents]. One day i finally looked into it and it essentially shattered me. So much death and destruction for what is basically money for people who already had money. And no one got punished for it. At that moment I basically vowed that I wouldn’t believe anything the media or western stooges put in front of me. Of course this led to some embarrassment [a la, Sadam Huissein and Pol Pot support], but after some ideological ironing it helped smooth out those wrinkles.
Note: I had an inkling of a sense of political economy. At one point i even remember grumbling to myself like “why do the corporations get to have all this power and get rid of jobs and dwvelop/impoverish places based on tax policies, but the workers have to put up with it?” That was way before the events mentioned above, i just find it funny looking back on it