There have been daily posts about energy prices on r/Belgium. Most people will probably bankrupt themselves paying these prices.
The comments are filled with ‘I’m not a commie, but’ and ‘I’m not the socialist type, but’ type of comments.
Motherfucker, if only you were. If only you had an ounce of class awareness, if only you’d care enough to join a party and take action.
I swear to Allah these people will die of shortages, poverty or freeze to death or something before they might consider themselves to be lukewarm socialist. As if it is a disease you can catch.
End of rant. I understand these people are misinformed and need guidance. The party and I will do our best to educate them on the matters. But fucking hell do I get tired of their stupidity.
Thanks for listening.
It’s exactly the same in Poland, but worse. It is enough to throw the word “socialism” to suddenly cut off entire discussion. Millions of people, even though most of them will agree with a lot of socialist points, will literally die before even think of turning red.
It’s like reverse Pandora’s Box
Reminds me of a quote by Yellow Parenti:
‘It’s time ladies and gentlemen, it’s time we ask: ‘What’s a communist? What does a communist do, that it’s so dangerous?’ They would have us believe that communists are merely hungry for power rather than willing the power to end hunger. The NY Times, let me refer to an editorial, they describe the undesirable and offensive regimes, by the way, these countries don’t have governments they have regimes, we have governments. And I ask myself: what is undesirable? Was it the land reform program? When they took all that privately owned land owned by a few rich people and gave it all to the poor? Is it the farm co-ops that they are setting up? Is it the community industries and the public work programs that create jobs for people who have been chronically unemployed? Is it the food program or the rations of beans and rice for every kid in Nicaragua so that everybody, no matter how poor that country is, they’re all getting fed? Is it having the lowest infant mortality rate in Central America despite earthquakes and civil war and foreign invasion and attack and embargo? [paraphrasing] It’s about exploited people claiming back their land and saying: ‘This is not for you anymore!’’
deleted by creator
In Western Europe patriotism is not that prevalent.
Rather, nothingness seems to be the key factor in this problem. Nobody can do anything. Our hands are tied, blah blah blah.
The Belgian government is coming up with ways to protect their people. They are lowering the taxes on the electricity bill. Which sounds good, right? Less taxes means less paying, right? Until shortages in the budget pop up and there needs to be cutting done in other public sectors to compensate the loss of income.
Municipalities will shut off street lights in the evening to compensate the costs. Heating will stop at 19 degrees celsius. Airconditioning gets capped to 27 degrees celsius. The government will compensate small companies for their costs.
All these things are solutions. But who’s paying for it? Us, the common people. These energy companies can make record profits, and our measures to combat this will be paid out of our own pockets. No one asks why these companies can be allowed to financially wreck entire nations. Because don’t question the system, just accept these compensations and move on. Shell and Exxon need to make billions and if our underfunded school or health care system suffers from it, so be it.
The EU has a directive to tax the “excess” profits of energy and fuel corporations in these trying times. The obvious problem is nobody bothered to define what “excess” profits mean.
This is one thing I always found so bizarre, in America at least, regarding the whole “energy independence” narrative. Solar, wind, hydro, geo, and to a degree nuclear, energy are all relatively self-sufficient nationally (especially if they were nationalized). Oil though? We’re basically letting these companies extract national resources and sell it to the highest bidder on the global marketplace. How is that energy independence? Capitalists aren’t patriotic, they don’t care about the health of a nation. The only way energy independence through oil could be found is if the entire industry was nationalized, no?
All these things are solutions. But who’s paying for it? Us, the common people. These energy companies can make record profits, and our measures to combat this will be paid out of our own pockets. No one asks why these companies can be allowed to financially wreck entire nations. Because don’t question the system, just accept these compensations and move on. Shell and Exxon need to make billions and if our underfunded school or health care system suffers from it, so be it.
Powerful rhetoric, especially the bits in bold. These would make good quotes for propaganda posters, etc.
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
I’m interested in your analysis of Brexit can you please elaborate a little bit ?
deleted by creator
I totally agree!
Also the EU is a neoliberal leviathan and it’s funny to see it crumble because of the decay of its model
deleted by creator
Doesn’t Belgium have a Walloon socialist party that the Flemish nationalists hate?
Flemish nationalists hate everyone (fun fact: Only a small part of Flanders is Flemish, so people from provinces like Flemish-Brabant, Antwerpen, Limburg are not even Flemish themselves, making the whole Flemish movement even more of a joke).
They hate Walloons but also us marxists in Flanders. Their whole ideology is hate for everything left of Nazism and for everyone that has ever been in the sun for 2 seconds.
