• BeamBrain [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    It’s always funny to me how western media tries to frame this as a bad thing.

    “Not even their elites are safe from their government!” Oh no, how terrible that they face consequences for their actions like the rest of us

    • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      “Not even their elites are safe from their government!”

      sicko-wistful

      Some lanyard brains do freak out about how scary it would be to have a government that no one could have immunity to, as if to imply that they are, or will be, in that choice select group of oligarch fucks.

    • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      That was one of the weirdest parts of a really awful interview Zizek did, “The most dangerous place to be was on top” under Stalin and that this was worse than what the Nazis did.

      • VILenin [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        lmao the higher ups have more power, therefore more responsibility and culpability for wrongdoing, therefore they are more severely punished. What a fucking mystery that the people who did the most wrong had the most power?

        What a fucking astute observation by brain genius Zizek

      • ZapataCadabra [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        I struggle to even say Zizek is a misguided socialist. He’s a cranky without useful analysis. The only two things he’s done well are his ramblings on consuming anticapitalist media and making Jordan Peterson look dumb.

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          He has had some interesting and even insightful things to say, but most of that is well in the past now. Now he’s just the court jester of neoliberalism.

    • Posadas [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.netOP
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      1 year ago

      Not a fan of the death penalty, but this is one way to do it.

      You get two years to not fuck up, and if you manage that it gets reduces to a life sentence or some other fixed sentence

        • CascadeOfLight [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          I was thinking about this in regards to the death penalty in revolutionary societies, I feel like there’s a distinction to be made between ‘circumstantial’ crimes like theft or murder, where someone has to be in a particular place and time etc., they could be motivated by economic hardship, they could even just be innocent - versus ‘structural’ crimes where their guilt is a result of their position in an organization that cannot be deflected.

      • Feinsteins_Ghost [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        Is that how it works in cases where theyre given a reprieve? Within whatever time frame they set, if ine doesnt fuck off, they just commute it to a life of breaking rocks or whatever? Or in two years they still give him the business anyway, and this time is to reflect on the enormity of his fuckup?

          • SoyViking [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            1 year ago

            I think part of the reprieve is that they have to confess everything they’ve done. If it turns out within that time period that they hid something they don’t get their sentence commuted.

  • axont [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    When westerners try to bring up social credit scores, this is what they’re fearmongering about. They’re afraid of wealthy parasites facing even an ounce of consequences.

  • wombat [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    the maoist uprising against the landlords was the largest and most comprehensive proletarian revolution in history, and led to almost totally-equal redistribution of land among the peasantry

      • The_Walkening [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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        This reminds me a lot of that Naomi Wolf “Death Recorded” thing from a few years back

        EDIT: For context, Naomi Wolf wrote a book that contained a passage about Br*tan executing queer men in the 18th, 19th century but when she discussed it with a radio show the host pointed out that most of the instances she noted were people whose sentences were “Death Recorded” meaning they were sentenced to death in accordance of the law, but it was commuted/reprieved. Naomi Wolf was entirely unaware of this fact.

  • Feinsteins_Ghost [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    Two year reprieve meaning in two years they still stretch his neck or give him the Ol Yeller treatment or whatever?

    Thats a long time to think about whats coming, frankly. If theyre going to end his life just fucking do it already. My dislike of the death penalty is tempered a hair by the fact that this jackwagon is of the bourgeois class but two years just seems like a needless holiday. Either do it or dont.

    • ProfessorOwl_PhD [any]@hexbear.net
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      More like a suspended sentence, where he gets two years to prove he’s not doing any more crimes or he gets the chop. Still comes with a life sentence at the end of the suspension instead of it being considered served though.

    • Seasoned_Greetings@lemm.ee
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      In addition to what the other guys said, it’s a common practice for death row inmates in the US to sit in prison for years, and sometimes decades, before they get put down. The reasoning to my understanding is that you can’t exonerate a dead man. They give plenty of time for appeals and additional evidence as a due course of justice for a fair trail as preserved by the 6th ammendment.

      • They give plenty of time for appeals and additional evidence as a due course of justice for a fair trail as preserved by the 6th ammendment.

        michael-laugh

        that’s the lie we tell children but if you figure out the false conviction rate and do the math, the amerikkka executes innocent people and doesn’t give a shit.

          • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.net
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            The part you’re being criticised for is the part where you gargle the boot over the concept that people get a fair trial and “due course of justice” when at least 4% of people are falsely convicted and sentenced to death.

            You’re absolutely out of your mind if you think the system is fair when nearly a minimum of 1 in 20 people sentence to death by it shouldn’t be there.

            You are an extremely propagandised person living in the most propagandised nation on earth, you should do something about this. You have completely and totally internalised the national propaganda to the point of regurgitating it uncritically like you’re a fucking school text book. It is exactly what we mean when we say americans have a civil religion.

            amerikkka nato-cool

              • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.net
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                1 year ago

                You keep messaging me and I keep not seeing anything you have to say because either you delete it yourself or mods remove it lmao.

                Either stop wasting both our times or take it to PM if you’re actually interested in engaging in good faith. I suspect you’re not though.

              • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                showing that an average of all death row inmates spend years waiting does more than enough to dispel the notion that “That’s what we tell the children” as if the concept of waiting long periods for execution doesn’t exist.

                Reading comprehension helps. The part “we tell children” (i.e. that is false) is not that death row inmates typically spend many years in prison, but why they do or, more specifically, that the justice system is particularly concerned with safeguarding the rights of convicts.

                • Seasoned_Greetings@lemm.ee
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                  Ok, and you don’t think that if they weren’t explicitly concerned with the appeals process or the questionable mental health of the prisoner, that they wouldn’t just execute them immediately?

                  Again, I’m not here saying that unjust deaths don’t happen. I’m saying that the reason they wait so long in the first place is due process.

                  So you tell me in your own words: if not for at least the illusion of due process, what do you think is the reason that the grand majority of inmates spend years waiting?

              • KarlBarqs [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
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                1 year ago

                If a country has institutionalized and legal slavery (13th amendment), by its very nature it cannot have free and fair trials (6th amendment). These are contradictory statements.

                We know that a significant portion of many state-run labour forces in many states are made up of enslaved people, whether they’re chain-gang road workers in Louisiana or conscripted to fight wildfires in California. Life sentences or long, harsh penalties are incentivized because it provides a state with free labour. Even when their labour is not being literally exploited as legal slavery, the US runs prison as a strictly punishment focused system, not a reform based system - the cruelty is the point.

                In that environment, you fundamentally cannot have fair trials.

              • BountifulEggnog [she/her]@hexbear.net
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                I only claimed that waiting so long is the rule, not the exception.

                At least 1 in 20 doesn’t seem like an exception to me. It seems like they don’t care. If they cared, they’d ban the death penalty.

              • TreadOnMe [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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                I think there is also an element of the whole private prison complex coming to bear here, but that is another issue entirely. The interesting thing in this article wasn’t really that the majority spend a decade or more on death row, but that the time has been getting longer and longer even as convictions have become harder and longer to exonerate. Basically, even as we become more ‘sure’ in our convictions, the longer they have to sit.

                interestingly enough, a big reason for some of them waiting so long these days has alot to do with the fact that they can’t get the chemicals in to actually do the execution, as several legislatures where the death penalty was legal, but is now not but still has convicted death row inmates still kicking around, have banned the manufacture of those chemicals from being in state (in part because they just don"t work very well at the whole ‘humane execution without pain’ deal that the courts are trying to do, a common problem with most forms of execution).

                My point is, some of it is 6th amendment stuff, but a lot of it seems to just be material considerations, either financial or literally physical.

                Edit: I would be interested in seeing a more state-by-state breakdown of the numbers. The U.S. is pretty large and federalized, so talking about de jure legal practices in any generalized sense is pretty factually hazardous.

                • Seasoned_Greetings@lemm.ee
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                  Ok, supply vs demand is a valid point. I’ll give you that.

                  But the act of requiring the chemicals in the first place, as opposed to just hanging or shooting, echos the protection of the 8th (separate, relevant ammendment) anyway, what with cruel and unusual punishment not being allowed.

                  I kind of don’t get how the people here can be shown evidence of a system working in accordance with the constitution and then whole sale espouse the notion that the US doesn’t afford any kind of protection whatsoever.

                  Again, I believe that there is no just murder by the state. An dead man cannot be exonerated. But it’s a little dishonest to imply that it’s all a racket and that we’re just lining these guys up to kill willy nilly.

              • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.net
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                1 year ago

                Do you think you’re being fucking clever with this game playing? A single apology completely insincere apology only after being chastised and called out as full of shit multiple messages in a row, followed by lying in the thread about it?

                Like holy shit why are liberals this fucking dumb? Do you think you’re the first person to come here and think that you’re being clever and can play games? It’s fucking transparent. Fuck off.

                • Seasoned_Greetings@lemm.ee
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                  👆 This is kind of why I won’t engage you.

                  I am genuinely sorry I misgendered you. If you won’t take my apology, I’m sorry. It’s all I can offer you.

          • TreadOnMe [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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            What are you talking about? The piece you linked doesn’t include the percentage of post-mortem exonerations at all. It doesn’t even deal with them. It just says that most prisoners have been there for long periods of time and any exonerations that do occur happen well after a decade has passed, which has led to longer and longer death-row sentences, a sign that the death-row system in the U.S., to the degree that it is used at all, is fundamentally broken, as it has essentially become life in prison, not the actual punishment handed down by the court.

            The U.S. has undoubtedly executed innocent people, particularly before DNA evidence was prevelant, there was a case in 2009 where the Innocence Project of Texas proved using DNA evidence that a man who was falsely convicted of rape was innocent post-mortem.

            However, how many, and exactly what percentage is will probably never be known, as the bar for an appeal and exoneration, particularly post-mortem, is high (requiring new evidence to be presented). This is also compounded by the general lack of interest and funding for pursuing these cases. With the limited resources of innocence projects and the fact that you can’t put the cat back in the bag, most projects focus the majority of their efforts on the living.

    • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.net
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      2008 was caused by bankers doing extremely illegal shit. How many people were imprisoned for it?

      They could do it. But they don’t want to. The difference here is that in the west the financial elite are the ruling class and the proletariat are under the boot. In China the proletariat are the ruling class and the bourgeoisie are under the boot.

      • pillow [she/her]@hexbear.net
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        2008 was caused by bankers doing extremely illegal shit. How many people were imprisoned for it?

        I’d say the point is more that the behavior that led to 2008 was substantially legal under a system designed to grease the wheels of financial capital at all costs

        • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.net
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          Sure. That too. But jack shit happens when what they’re doing is actually illegal too. All over the west there are different financial laws where they definitely crossed the line, not a single country did shit to them for it. They are the ruling class and the system will not pursue them unless there is a threat to the system itself if they’re not pursued.

          • SoyViking [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            A few years back it was discovered that several of Denmark’s largest banks had a practice of systematically defrauding delinquent debtors by making them believe they still owed debts that had been paid back already or had passed the statute of limitation. The practice had gone on for at least four decades. Senior management of the banks knew about the “error” as it was euphemismically called for years. At the end the banks had to go through their books and pay some of the stolen money back but nobody ever mentioned the possibility of jail time, fines or any other kind of penalty for anyone.

      • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        2008 was caused by bankers doing extremely illegal shit.

        NOOOO IT WAS BECAUSE THE POORS AND FANNIE MAE AND FREDDIE MAC grill-broke

        • zed_proclaimer [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          proletarian dictatorships tend to have long-ruling leaders who are symbols of proletarian power that the masses can concentrate around and trust, because they have proven their allegiance in the revolution. Every proletarian state has had long-serving heads of state.

          Democracy isn’t “when leader changes a bunch”. That just means a volatile system, or a system where the leader doesn’t matter anyway and is just a rotating door.

        • KarlBarqs [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
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          The President of China hasn’t changed in ten years

          Germany had the same president for 16 years. Canada had the same one for 9.

          Maximum term limits in the US is eight years

          What the fuck are you talking about? Free democracy is when your leader changes every two years?

        • hopelessbyanxiety [he/him, she/her]@hexbear.net
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          Im pretty sure the number of parties that can run for election and actually get elected, doesnt say much about democracy. Just look at the eu and their austerity policies, through the decades if you wish. Also i think the multiparty system was tried in Chile in the 70s, they didnt oppress opposition. They got couped. The multiparty system is a western thing, and the chinese dont need to pretend they’re white. I’d say a more accurate way of measuring democracy is to ask: is the government following the interest of the people? In that sense ok theyre not perfect, but give me a multiparty system thats better than china.

          • usernamesaredifficul [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            the Chinese party system is more complicated than there just being one party. There are multiple political parties but the chinese constitution specifies how powerful each of them are.

            the other parties exist as a source of political ideas

            • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
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              There are multiple political parties but the chinese constitution specifies how powerful each of them are.

              Generally, it specifies how powerful they can be, i.e. it puts a cap on their power rather than giving them power. It is still up to them to survive among their constituency.

        • usernamesaredifficul [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          Term limits are actually undemocratic and only exist in America because the American president can do whatever the fuck they want (unless they want to enact policy it’s a very silly system)

          • CrushKillDestroySwag@hexbear.net
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            Notably term limits were only implemented after FDR, who was obscenely popular not just because he was a wartime president but because of the New Deal.

        • CloutAtlas [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          Xi’s father was actually purged from the party, and the family was exiled to the countryside to live among the working class. He never finished high school until he was an adult.

          Within that context, he went from living in a cave (This is not an exaggeration, he was in a village in Shaanxi, northern China where people live in rooms carved into the side of cliffs and mountains for housing that’s cool in summer and easy to insulate in winter. He literally lived in a man made cave) doing manual labour to the president of a global superpower. He’s had more experience among the working class than most previous Chinese leadership.

    • CrushKillDestroySwag@hexbear.net
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      We only do it to bankers who touch the money of other wealthy people, ie Sam Bankman Fried. Madoff was screwing working class people over for decades without consequence before he crossed that line and got got.

        • Egon [they/them]@hexbear.net
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          where I can be free to stand up against it.

          Or you can get disappeared in an unmarked van by feds 1 2 3
          The us has loads of political prisoners by the way, you really cannot speak your mind - unless of course you only do it in such a way that does not inconvenience the ruling class. Do anything that matters and you’ll get dragged off to your local City PD black site
          Getting arrested might be lucky, you’ll probably just get killed or maybe tortured

          Glad to know I don’t live in China though, where billionaires get the death penalty, millions are uplifted from poverty, the state invests in infrastructure and climate mitigation. Wouldn’t want to do that.

        • oregoncom [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          Yea you’ve clearly haven’t lived in China

          I don’t know why you neoliberal drones always bring this up as if this negates the fact that you’re just a dipshit NPC who just regurgitates whatever anti-China circlejerk you see on reddit. You don’t know shit about China and you should stop talking out of your ass.

          Corruption was bad in the early 2000s, there was a push to fight corruption both because it’s inherently bad and because it was posing a national security risk (I know you liberal removed only read sources directly from the three letter agencies so you can look up their efforts to use bribes to get their informants moving up the ranks).

          where I can be free to stand up against it.

          lmao typical brainwashed liberal. You dipshits think standing around on street corners and waiting for the cops to run you over is “standing up against it”. The ruling elite in America will never listen to dumbasses like you and they will continue openly taking bribes lobbyist donations no matter how much you lick their boots.

        • meth_dragon [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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          They only get executed for it they are risking stability of the party

          the point of politics is to achieve a stable consensus. that the chinese are able to do this kind of stuff publicly without political deadlock or fear of reprisal from one guy or another’s patronage network is proof that their consensus at least is strong. all elite politicking is bulldogs fighting under a rug, you should only start worrying after the bones stop flying out from underneath.

        • AK47 [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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          I’m so happy you can live in a place where you can stand alone in a field protesting the demons while they harvest your soul. Such an amazing right!

          Thank God you aren’t in a lawless hellhole like China.

        • Do you feel that bank managers in your country do not take bribes? In the event that they do have any been executed? If the answer to both questions is no how are you executing your freedoms to stand up against corruption?

        • axont [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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          Why do you think western countries would allow movements who oppose them to overthrow them? That’s never been the case anywhere at any time. If communists started winning elections in a western country we’d immediately have soldiers turned on us, as has been the case every single time that’s happened. There has never been a single case of socialists democratically winning power and then the liberal state simply bows to the whims of the masses, except maybe Czechoslovakia.

          Venezuela, Bolivia, Chile, Greece, Germany, Italy. It keeps happening. Socialists who seek power through the accepted western channels of liberal elections quickly find themselves on the receiving ends of coups, spies, secret police, assassinations, or coordinated capitalists who organize fascist goons to recapture the state.

          What exactly are you free to stand against? You’re allowed to say words or post online and then do nothing else? Is that freedom to you?

        • IzyaKatzmann [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          Hi, I wanted to ask in good faith to get a better idea of your position. You can look at my comment history to see how I respond, I do my best to be considerate I think.

          When you wrote that you didn’t know why the person who responded to you brought up the west, was that because it didn’t seem relevant or because it seemed that they were trying to muddy waters in a sense? Like you made your point, they kinda didn’t engage with it and brought up some ancillary issue when you wanted to focus on what you believed to be relevant? I hope I got some of it right, I’d appreciate any corrections.

          • Mataresian@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            I’ve heard about hexbear’s reputation, and it is kinda confirmed. I’ll probably block it entirely but not until I answer you because at least you seem in good faith. Responding to the others ain’t going achieve much it seems.

            Yea I mean I know there is plenty of corruption in the west. How and to what extend, that is not what I was arguing. By mentioning that it diverts what is going on in China. Corruption is corruption no matter where it is happening. And of course there are different forms of corruption. Did I answer your question this way?

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              Cringe shit.

              The reputation is dunking on bad takes sourced through an MSNBC interview with a former CIA operative who is an “expert” on China or something.

              It’s shit like saying that you can freely protest against corruption in the West that is entirely laughable. The US government censured Tlaib this week you booger. Did you miss the mass arrests of Jewish voices for peace.

    • LiberalSoCalist@lemm.ee
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      It’s true that since the market reforms, the party has willingly looked the other way when it comes to corruption (black cat, white cat). It’s pretty cynical to say that Xi’s anti-corruption campaign is only about staying in power though, but it was certainly a strategy that won him a lot of support among intra-party factions because it allowed them to oust blatant offenders of rival cliques.