Question, even if what you’re saying was true, what does it serve in the context of discussing the US military intervention in a sovereign country? Besides legitimating the US and its actions, that is.

What you’re saying is different from what they implied. They instead want to shift the narrative to other countries, because should I speak of a “good thing” of another country, they would instantly retort about it and thus lead the original discussion astray, that is, that the United States is an imperialist war machine that serves the interests of its upper class. You don’t need comparison to evaluate US war crimes and crimes against humanity, unless you want to delve into whataboutism.

What IS an example of something good?

The US not intervening militarily politically and economically in other countries.

I understand that you’re trying to push the goal posts, so I am disengaging.

Why should you bring up other countries when we’re discussing the US? Especially when the US is not like any other country but the center of global imperialism?

USAID had always been a soft power tool to further US imperialist interests.

As a global south citizen, we never received any “good things” from the USA. Only war and destruction, a century before Trump.

Of course building them would still have a cost, but they wouldn’t be sold as a commodity to create surplus value for a few pockets.

This tells me quite enough that you don’t know what fascism actually means.

If you’ve come to look at a given architectural style (or any object for that matter) in its abstracted, ahistorical form, then you may not find much value nor truth to what it actually signifies. You must instead look at the material conditions that led to its creation.

First of all brutalist architecture emerged in the USSR after the end of WW2 after the economy and the entire infrastructure of the country were entirely wiped out. Simplified construction techniques using concrete were revolutionary in the sense that they were efficient and easy to streamline on a national scale for millions of people on the one hand, while being cost effective on the other hand. Whilst the rate of homelessness was not decreasing (if not increasing) in capitalist economies, socialist countries were at the vanguard of providing free housing for everyone.

In short, brutalist architecture was shaped by the material conditions of the post-war era and developed further as the economy progressed in later decades. This is simply because policies and social and cultural phenomena are not the mere product of ideas and thoights as much as the material conditions which are the basis for every human movement.

Secondly, the term “brutalist” does not give credit to what the Soviets and other socialist countries have achieved in the architectural fields. Most pictures that are publicized on the Internet picture either abandoned and unmaintained buildings or pictures that are taken in the gloomiest period of winter, since this id what is believed to fit the narrative or the “aesthetics” of socialist architecture.

Lastly, in reality there isn’t really an artistic style that dictates what leftist architecture should look like. If you search through pictures of Soviet architecture or even DPRK or PRC architecture for something recent, you will find that they vary so much in colors and shapes, because it all depends on the architect’s individual and distinct taste. Rather, what distinguishes leftist (or your so-called “authoritarian”) architecture is that it serves the needs of the proletariat, contrary to capitalist societies that boast about their individualism.

That moment when ensuring housing for everyone and eradicating homelessness is considered “authoritarian architecture”.

And let’s pretend like we know what makes architecture “authoritarian.”

The PRC is fascist now? The same country that endured brutal massacres fighting fascist japanese soldiers? This is how crucial terms lose all meaning and risk getting bannalized by right-wing reactionaries.

The legacy of colonialism still lives on for the simple fact that the colonial institutions are yet mostly in place: European missionary schools, banana “republics”, colonial banks, unfair agreements between the Western powers and their ex colonies, and so forth. The local elites of the Global South play an intermediary role between the West and the Global South. They are first taught Western values and ideologies by prestigious Western institutes then sponsored and brought to power by either “international” financial institutes like the IMF and the World Bank or foreign political bureaus, in order to act in the service and interest of the West. Their entire pedagigical and political formation is brewed outside their respective nation and tailored in way that is suitable for the West to continue its hegemonic role in a more discrete manner.

And the cold war leaders you mentioned (Amin and Suharto) further prove my point, both being dictators that were propped up by the British colonial army and the United States, respectively, and both having led crackdowns against (leftist) native uprisings. (And please do not conflate historical personalities from different historical periods with their own specificities that cannot be liberally contrasted with the modern era.)

I say all of this not because of some ancient, historical hatred to the West, nor as an apologia for our corrupt, western-backed governments. This is just the reality we third world citizens are still experiencing to this day. To quote Michel-Rolph Trouillot:

Injustices made to previous generations should be redressed: they affect the descendants of the victims. But the focus on The Past often diverts us from the present injustices for which previous generations only set the foundations.

And yet you’re adamant on ignoring the demands of the Herero and Nama communities. As if your utilitarian nonsense can measure what good compensation for ethnic cleansing is.

The article clearly states that the Herero and Nama people, the ones who were victims of the genocide refused this settlement because it adds insult to injury (1 billion euros aid over a thirty year period).

Furthermore, from Wikipedia:

Negotiations between the German and Namibian governments led to a deal in 2021 in which the German government agreed to contribute 1.1 billion euros (USD$1.3 billion) in the form of ex gratia development aid, while rejecting any legal responsibility for the genocide.[129]

The deal was vocally rejected by most of the organizations representing Herero and Nama people, who had demanded their own right to negotiate directly with Germany over any settlement.[130] In 2023, the Landless People’s Movement and traditional leaders from the Herero and Nama communities sued in Namibian court to nullify the National Assembly’s resolution of approval for the settlement.[131] Although favorably contrasting the deal with more limited British and Dutch efforts at confronting past colonial crimes, German sociologist Henning Melber refers to the joint German–Namibian statement as “a soft version of denialism” that “offers no true reconciliation”.[130] International law expert Matthias Goldmann suggested that the deal may not have been as selfless as it initially appears, while it “seemingly confirms [Germany’s] civilizational superiority”.[132]

Edit: I should’ve clarified in my original comment what I meant with reluctance in acknowledged and compensation is failure to take actual accountability and pay out fair reparations, not merely bribing an African government and calling it a day. This is the same government that has sent billions in aid to Israel over the years.

That’s similar to what Sweden has been doing with the children of refugees.

Yes, and Canada and South America as well. They are simultaneously an extension and exacerbation of European imperialism.

The point is, there is rarely any acknowledgment to the colonial legacy nor to the continued subjugation of the third world by the West. Germany remains reluctant to formally acknowledge and compensate for the Herero genocide in its former African colony; Western museums still hold the many artefacts colonizers stole from other cultures; Canada and the USA commited many massacres against indeginous populations even throughout the 20th century through the residential school system, deplacement and expropriation; Romani populations deal with abhorrent discrimination in Europe, and so forth. Despite all that, your governments and people still have the nerve to claim virtue against the rest of the world, boasting about human rights when they’re the number one perpetrator of violations in the global south.

Old ways? France was removed by force from West Africa only a few years ago. European corporations still largely control the economies of their former colonies and some even outsource their labor to third world countries in order to avoid labor regulations in their respective countries.

They don’t see it “wrong” as much as rather a “mistake.” Had they been able to subdue Vietnam, there wouldn’t have been need for any introspection.

I believe so. From my experience, using it with TOR proxy made it somewhat unreliable.

I think TOR would be more suitable than a VPN