Look, I kind of agree with your sentiment, but the historical event in question did involve what the commenter you're replying to insists happened. I that instance, all the cops involved were assholes. In that era, law enforcement was tied to power by necessity, since only the powerful (read: rich) could start townships and such and afford to pay for law enforcers.

But now? Things are a little complex. This is on purpose, as the powerful class has continually meddled in police affairs through lobbying and unions (ironically the police union is hilariously well funded due to rich interests wanting am army to keep the poors in line), and we're (in the US) trending back towards police basically being an official branch of Pinkertons.

Still, I've met good cops. Genuinely good people. Last year, I had a flat (entirely my fault. In CA) tire and a passing motorcycle cop stopped to help. He not only helped me replace it with a spare, he offered to call and pay for a tow truck for me. Truly a kind man, and believed in his social position perhaps more than the average.

But yeah, that's not how it is in most places. Even in CA you have sheriff gangs, prison guard gangs, corruption, you name it. Like I said, the US as a whole is generally trending backwards as of late.

Anyways we need nuance. But we're increasingly approaching a world where nuance is shunned or laughed at as missing the point, or being needlessly picky. Not only that, people seem even more desperate to feed into tribal groupings. Even on lemmy, you're either pro US or pro China/Russia. It's like people think they need to pick a side.

Sorry, just needed to rant I guess. I just hope we manage to keep the planet alive while we figure our bullshit out.

The web is currently a communal well. We all drink from it because people before us paid the foundations.

Google aims to be the owner of that well. Like the land and oil barons before them, they wish to monetize every last second of web access.

That same corporation, to spew such vile, ignorant nonsense is...well, I guess it shouldn't be much of a surprise, should it?

Hey, I'm open to trying anything. The current biggest problem is oligarchs and power centralization though, which capitalism sort of encourages.

Without much heavier regulation, sticking with capitalism will essentially doom us all. We need more localized, equal resource management. We need logical transportation logistics, and we need more nationalized (federal) goods and services.

But I do agree with the spirit of your message. We do need to all be working together towards a shared goal, instead of...this.

I do hope we see more of this bridging the gap with socialism, but you're right. To current capital owners, a new system will mean the end of being capital owners. Since they're defined entirely by their money/capital, to them it's a legitimate existential threat. Or so it feels like, it seems, given how they've been acting.

But fingers crossed for a more sane future. Hopefully.

I like to think there's a distinct difference, summed up like so:

Communism attempts to put the control and distribution of resources (capital) on the collective, ie everyone. Since everyone effectively owns it, it feels like nobody does.

Capitalism puts it on individuals. Nowadays, almost all of these individuals acquired their resource(s) by inheritance. If not, by dubious (morally questionable) means.

This is a simplification that may upset people on both sides, but it's about as clean as I can think to make it.

Note: the following is from the perspective of a somewhat average person living in the US.

My personal thought is that the democratic republic political system would ideally be coupled with the communistic (I'd prefer federated unions, ie federations, but speaking broadly) economic one. They seem to be natural matches.

However, it seems the coupling of said republic with capitalism causes significant and repeated backslides on social issues and education. Capital owners, after all, are most interested in maximizing gains while minimizing losses; this has led to a fairly high number of people being convinced to think that education is bad, especially university level education. Which, in turn, makes them compliant voters and eager workers, often severely underpaid. Which they, of course, have no idea of knowing since they likely have never left their birth town.

That's not to say that such things won't happen with communism. They should happen a lot less, but only if we put controls in place to combat abuse and overreach. In other words, regulations. Capitalism...might be beyond hope at this point, given how capital owners have been acting lately.

I don't know what will actually end up working, but I hope we try something new soon. Because this ain't it. Preferably before we extinct more species. Hopefully before we extinct ourselves.

I keep ranting, sorry for the wall of text.

The reason fascism continues to exists is because of people like you giving everything to charismatic conmen. Stalin is dead and you continue to defend him as if he didn't do what he did. He's directly responsible for the state of Russia today, and you think that's somehow a good thing.

A power vaccum, like the one Stalin created as a result of his own death, ALWAYS gets filled by a greedy, power hungry asshole. It may take a few iterations, but the outcome is inevitable.

I find your (and the literal) definition of fascism to be lacking if it doesnt include Stalin. The charlatan dictator.

Yeah, I didn't mention them because they're literal set dressing used by a dictator to convince people he wasn't one. It's worse if the man truly thought creating a centralized power structure would be beneficial to Marxist principles, because he himself proved that it can't work.

Here's why: once you establish a centralized power structure, it doesn't matter how kind or charismatic the person (or small group) in charge is, it is the literal definition of fascism.

I don't know how to more clearly put this. Even if I give you the benefit of the doubt, he created a centralized power structure that was immediately corrupted and abused. You're saying "but look at all this other stuff" like it takes away from the fact that this is fascism.

What I don't get how you reconcile communism with totalitarianism (literally fascism with extra steps).

Sta·lin·ism /ˈstäləˌniz(ə)m/ noun the ideology and policies adopted by Stalin, based on centralization, totalitarianism, and the pursuit of communism.

Sorry, but it's true, Stalin was a fascist. Democratic centralization is still power centralization, and runs counter to all of communism's economic ideologies.

On the one hand, yes, absolutely.

On the other, tankies are fascists. They just happen to prefer their slaves to be communal, rather than spread out amongst corpos.

Stalin was a fascist. Being a Stalinist means you're a fascist. Ergo, tankies are fascists.

Centralization of power is always bad. Because fascism is always bad. We need to stop looking at bygone eras of centralized power structures and move towards a more federational (federated) power/governance structure.

Then we need to get rid of the power balance for good. Until then, be weary of communists masquerading under the same flag but pushing for power centralization.

Communism isn't a form of governance, our first step should be to mold our democratic republic around it instead of capitalism. Then change it as our needs demand.

Easier said than done, I realize, but change is possible. Fingers crossed it happens soon. Sorry about the rant.