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The controversial monument, already $6 million over its original cost estimate of $1.5 million and years behind schedule, gained national attention in 2021 when CBC News reported that commemorative “virtual bricks” were purchased to pay tribute to an assortment of suspected war criminals, fascists and Nazi collaborators.
Something really ironic about Harper's Conservative government giving $4.3 million in public funds to erect a monument to former fascists calling them "victims of communism".
They should also construct a Victims of Fascism and Victims of Capitalism right next to it.
The victims of capitalism monument is already right next to it... housing costs compared to wages in Vancouver is insane.
The victims of capitalism will be sleeping under it.
Well, wouldn't those technically be the same monument?
There's an argument that it's not capitalism if the state does it, and proper ideological fascism ultimately aims to absorb the role of capital into itself.
"Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state" is quite literally the goal, per Mussolini.
Of course, when you combine this with their obsession with heirarchy it becomes very apparent they're just making the owners of capital have ruling class roles, like a particularly shitty absolute monarchy.
This, btw, is why whenever some doofus starts talking about the "third way," as an alternative to capitalism/liberalism and socialism/communism you can fairly safely just assume he's dogwhistling for fascism.
Thang god under capitalism nobody suffers any hardship.
The "victims of capitalism" monument can never be unveiled because the death toll rises too fast.
Problem is, communism has never been successfully employed, anywhere.
In places like current Venezuela, you have cronyism. In places like the old USSR, it was an autocratic variant of plutocracy, where a tiny cadre of political elites ruled over a powerless underclass. Modern China is pretty much the same system.
All so-called “implementations” have been a thin veneer of “communism” covering up something toxic and horrible that most definitely was never anything even close to communism. Much like how Easy Germany or North Korea were/are “Democratic” simply because that word was/is in their name.
About the closest we got was with Cuba, which could have seriously shaken up the world had it been given half a chance.
But Cuba is also what you get when the world’s largest economy bullies the rest of the planet into making a country a trade pariah simply because of ideological differences. Had Cuba been allowed to trade, it would have been an economic powerhouse, and would have likely exported worker’s collectives worldwide and seriously threatened the hegemony of the Parasite Class that rules capitalistic economies.
But of course, the Parasite Class couldn’t allow this to happen, so Cuba’s experiment was strangled and starved nearly to death. And yet, despite the deprivations and Western malice, it has achieved more per unit of resources available to it than any other capitalist economy out there. It’s doctors are world-renowned, and it’s medical research - especially with cancer - is groundbreaking. Imagine what it could do if it wasn’t brutally suppressed by western trade blockades.
If Chinese people were powerless, their protests wouldn't have gotten the CPC to roll back the Zero COVID policy.
Because communism only works on paper. In practice, it always has and always will end in what you described: an autocratic variant of plutocracy, where a tiny cadre of political elites ruled over a powerless underclass.
So a lot like capitalism then.
Similar but not the same, communist countries always end up in tyranny and its citizens always end up escaping to capitalist countries. In capitalist countries you can see some that have better quality of life than others. It depends a lot on legislation, how competent is the government to keep a healthy economy and social investments.
That's a strong statement with little to back it.
Just the whole history of communism...
Modern China is in no way communist. It’s more of an autocratic socialism. I mean come on, people own businesses, buy and sell things their businesses make, even their healthcare has significant private components!
Also, while Cuba’s medical system is good for what it is, the rest of the country is not very functional. If communism were so great everything in the country would be at least as functional as their healthcare despite trade.
Communism was a nice idea that doesn’t work in practice.
This is the most brain-dead monument I have ever heard of. On so, so many levels. Wtf I going on? What committee made this decision?