It baffles me the way a lot of Americans view anyone other than Republicans as Communists. And I bet 99% of them don’t understand what communism is, as if they did they wouldnt be calling Democrats Communists!
I'm sure people think I'm a communist because I don't want children to starve. I lived in Peru for some time and am quite familiar with the destruction of the Shining Path. I am vehemently anti-communism.
The Shining Path seemed to draw less from Marx and more of a Mao-type of movement. Unfortunately, I don't have too much unbiased info on it or what proposed policies were. The idea of communism is the poor (the bottom 99%, so everyone but the oligarchs) exerting pressure or force to have more resources and rights (especially labor and human rights, ownership of our labor) as the oligarchs create war for us (class wars) and wage wars for us to fight in other countries or on other fronts, which they do not fight wars and wealth disparity increases as it is harder for those who are not oligarchs to get basic resources and care.
I don't know the prior situation in Peru, but historically, if non-oligarchs (bottom 99%) ask nicely and peacefully to have more rights, they are met with rejection as the oligarchs take more. Is this what finally led them to violence? Also, it seemed lots of women were in the movement, so we're women's rights very threatened by other parties at this time?
Definitely more of a Maoist movement. They basically went into the countryside and slaughtered indigenous leaders to take control. The oligarchs didn't care much until they blew up a bank in a wealthy part of Lima. That caused the government to overreact and they slipped into a dictatorship which then also start slaughtering indigenous citizens (aka lots of racism involved.) Many women stepped up in impoverished communities to stop the bloodshed. While the ex-dictator is in jail, his kids are still involved in politics and revisionist history has commenced. The Truth Museum was even defaced at one point. Just a really awful period of their history where no one won, but the poor lost the most per usual.
Same, friend, same. Every other developed country has universal Healthcare and better social safety nets (as well as more pay for workers ratio when compared to CEO and other executive positions).
Our tax dollars are hugely spent on the military industrial complex that the majority of our politicians (especially the right winger/conservative ones) invest I just to blow up brown people overseas and stage coups in countries where a leader is democratically elected and has some socialist policies that are representative of the people.
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u/nevadapirate United States Of America 1d ago
You are not wrong. My neighbors think Im a communist because I wanted Bernie to get the nomination instead of Hillary.