I’m more exposed to American conservatism. And even here I barely understand it. I used to be Christian, but I left the religion before I realized I was bi, and before I knew genderfluidity and trans people existed.

I guess I’d have to know why individual religious groups, countries, cities,(etc…) have anti-LGBTQ beliefs. Maybe there are no blanket statements that properly address it for the entire world.

  • HexaSnoot [none/use name]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
    4·
    9 months ago

    “For example, let’s say the new government wants to nationalize a certain natural resources, what happens? You get sanctioned, the exchange rate falls, the debt multiplied, and you end up with an even more unpopular government than the previous right-wing government”

    I don’t get why it works this way.

    “This represented a new and perhaps even more effective means of spreading neoliberal ideology across the world, not by employing right wing paramilitary death squads to coup left wing governments (though it still happens), but through an ideological indoctrination of the overseas students who came to study in Western institutions, who would then bring the seeds back to their home countries and allow it to germinate there.”

    Someone tried telling me about the harm of when the US pretends to be #1 in supporting certain good things. Like LGBTQ rights, despite actually having been extremely against it for all of US history until recent years. They described it as a Trojan horse to sneak in imperialist propaganda into other countries. And then people of those countries see what the Trojan horse is filled with, and deem the the Trojan horse evil that must be banned. So then they’re against things like LGBTQ rights because they’ve seen it used as a vehicle filled with pieces of imperial agenda.

    I didn’t get it, but you describing those pieces as seeds self-spreading and germinating helps it makes much more sense to me.

    • Kaplya [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
      5·
      9 months ago

      I don’t get why it works this way.

      This is just one example, but Michael Hudson said it best with the case of Argentina:

      Among the BRICS+ countries, Argentina is a case in point. Its foreign dollar debt has grown largely by IMF sponsorship. The IMF’s main political function in US foreign policy has been to enable pro-American client oligarchies to move their money out of countries whenever there is a chance of a left-wing or simply democratic reformer being elected. Convert their Argentinean currency into dollars lowers the peso’s exchange rate. Without IMF intervention, that would mean that as the exchange rate falls, the wealthy classes engaging in capital flight receive fewer and fewer dollars. To support the currency – and hence, the hard-currency dollars that capital-flight actors receive – the IMF lends the right-wing government dollars to buy up the excess pesos that the client oligarchy is selling off. That enables Argentineans to move their money out of the country to obtain a much higher amount of US dollars than they would if the IMF were not lending money to the right-wing puppet government.

      When the new reform government comes in, it finds itself loaded down with a huge foreign debt owed to the IMF. This debt has not been taken on in a way that helped Argentina develop its economy and earn dollars to pay back the loan. It is simply a result of IMF support of right-wing governments. And the IMF then tells the new government (whether Argentina or any other debtor) to pay off its foreign loans by lowering the wages of labor. That is the only way that the IMF recognizes for countries to “stabilize” their balance of payments. So the reform government is obliged to behave just like a right-wing government, intensifying the class war of capital against labor. The “cure” for their balance-of-payments deficits thus becomes even worse than the original disease, that is, its rentier oligarchy moving their money out of the country.

      ——-

      I didn’t get it, but you describing those pieces as seeds self-spreading and germinating helps it makes much more sense to me.

      To be clear, I wasn’t talking about LGBTQ specifically. I was talking about the whole Western liberal ideology chief among which was their economics and the whole package of Western liberal values that emphasize liberty, democracy and the free market.

      The basic idea is that developing countries should open up their domestic markets for foreign corporations to come in, and to attract these foreign investments, you have to give up protecting your domestic industries, your labor rights and promoting various socio-cultural values like “human rights, being against authoritarianism, and endorsing democracy and free elections” etc. Western NGOs often enter the country to promote these “values” as part of preparing these countries to open up for foreign capitalist exploitation.

      All of these coincided with America exporting its culture which became exponentially accessible with the rise of internet in the 2000s, and the imminent intrusion and erosion of the cultural and national identities of the local people.

      So, while there are actual progressive values like LGBTQ rights being transmitted to those countries inclusive within this whole package of “Western liberal democratic values”, the eventual reaction against the failure of such liberal reforms necessary means that there is a natural tendency to reject the Western/foreign culture in its entirety.

      This is why progressive movements need to be cultivated organically from within the local society. One example is Cuba, who has spent more than half a century resisting American imperialism and its cultural influence, was able to eventually develop its own progressive culture more or less independent from the ones promoted by Western imperialist countries.