some people on this platform

Words mean what they're used to mean. Even the word "government" is wildly different between Europe and the US. We flip out over headlines like the government of Belgium has collapsed! and it's only as much of a kerfuffle as the House trying to elect a Speaker.

See also:

A new book by Kristen Ghodsee, an anthropologist at the University of Pennsylvania, argues that women have better sex under socialism.

If that sounds strange to you, consider this: A survey of East and West Germans after reunification in 1990 found that Eastern women (the socialist side of Germany during the Cold War) had twice as many orgasms as Western women.

What in the world accounts for such a wide gap?

According to Ghodsee, it’s about social safety nets. If, she argues, you build a society that supports women and doesn’t punish them for having children or devalue their labor, it turns out they’ll be happier and have better sex.

But it doesn't matter how many studies or surveys or policy differences you point to -- some guy always has an old relative whose story outweighs everything.

What exactly are these quotes supposed to prove? This was what, a few months or a few years after reunification? Any social change that large is going to cause some turbulence. And of course Parenti has an agenda, so he wouldn't include someone lauding their new experience.

Ah yes the oh so good DDR with exciting features such as

• no freedom of movement
• constant shortage of any goods
• being a dictatorship
• (contrary to your first point) a housing shortage
• a culture so dictated by work that people had little to no free time
• political pressure
• control over the media
• the fucking stasi

And what i mean by pretty socialist is: everyone gets equal opportunities no matter what race, religion, gender, political views, etc. I want that chad - who just lost all his belongings - has the same chance to live a fulfilled live as elon musk has. I abhorr the fact that there are billionaire's or even just millionaire's while other people have to choose between paying rent or eating, and those people not even being in the worst situation compared to others.

I want almost, but not completely, communism

My family escaped to West Germany shortly after the war. They escaped starvation and joblessness. You are wrong.

... would you be happy in prison, on the basis that there's food and housing and you can take correspondence courses?

• and most importantly no fascists in government

Like it matters what color the Secret Police's armbands are. But hey, your kids will be taken care of! Even if... something happens to you.

The US is included in my list too with the Native American genocide for what its worth lol. But people tend to forget that Soviet Russia and Communist China killed millions of their own people. They should not be praised or imitated. We should learn from the horrible mistakes of the past.

It's not very enlightened to call entire movements like libertarian socialism (AKA anarchism) just idealist, ineffectual, and to imply they're essentially brainwashed by the US government.

Anti-state movements have a history as long and storied as socialism, and theoretical frameworks for their beliefs far more complex than you give them credit for.

Anarchist Spain and the Makhnovhscina as short lived as they were were closer to even Marxist communism than any of those authoritarian shitholes

I said nothing about socialism

I said "political propaganda messaging", of which i find annoying even if they support my political views