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14 Killed in anti-government protests in Nepal

(www.tribuneindia.com)
560 points whatsupdog | 5 comments | 08 Sep 25 11:24 UTC | HN request time: 0.803s | source
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lionturtle ◴[08 Sep 25 11:52 UTC] No.45167176[source]▶
It was absolutely not just social media ban, it was mostly youth protesting against the corrupt government and unfairness, social media ban was one element that was against the freedom of speech, but it was right around the time where everyone was documenting the rich politicians, their business connections and their families that have been living lavishly and just inheriting the election seats from generation to generation and spinning beurocracy to their sides.

I was there a few hours ago. It was a class struggle, but it was bound to be spun up as "kids don't get facebook and throw tantrum".

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bhickey ◴[08 Sep 25 12:14 UTC] No.45167350[source]▶
The corruption is simply incredible. About fifteen years ago I found myself in Kathmandu after getting altitude sickness. The team's fixer brought me to lunch with some government officials. The topic of discussion? How to steal from a hydroelectric project. One of his guests outright asked, "should we be talking about this in front of this guy?" The fixer shrugged it off saying "he's a Westerner, what is he going to do about it?" And, well, he was right. It wasn't like I could go report it to the police.

Years later the fixer was finally jailed for gold smuggling. https://english.khabarhub.com/2022/16/232667/

Edit: add link

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Quarrelsome ◴[08 Sep 25 13:57 UTC] No.45168337[source]▶
I think its quite something that we all waste our time over divisions like left/right, capitalism/socialism, woke/not-woke when in practice; this is the only division that matters. Those who are trying to follow the rules and make the nation better, and those that are only active for their self-interest.
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FollowingTheDao ◴[08 Sep 25 13:59 UTC] No.45168368[source]▶
Rich vs Poor is the only division, and that happens when you allow for concentrations of wealth. So I would say capitalism vs socialism is the rich vs poor division as well.
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1. miohtama ◴[08 Sep 25 14:10 UTC] No.45168529[source]▶
> Capitalism has done more to overcome hunger and poverty than any other system in world history. The most devastating man-made famines over the past 100 years all occurred under socialism – in the 1930s alone, according to a range of estimates, between five and nine million people died in the Soviet Union from famines caused by the socialist collectivisation of agriculture.

> The end of communism in China and the Soviet Union was a major factor in the 42 percent reduction of hunger between 1990 and 2017.

https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/is-capitalism-to-blame-for-hu...

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2. ToucanLoucan ◴[08 Sep 25 15:59 UTC] No.45169913[source]▶
It's impossible to say with any certainty that was down to an economic system change and not the myriad of other issues plaguing the Soviet states.

And maybe on balance hunger went down, but in particular for a whole lot of those Soviet states, the transitions from the failing "communist" state and the market-based alternatives was incredibly harsh and involved a whole lot of starving as the prices of food and other critical goods soared out of reach of Soviet citizens, not even going into the psychological effects.

Also also, insofar as "communism" "failed" (the USSR was incredibly authoritarian and corrupt, many communists and socialists take big issues with them or China for that matter being called communist but I digress), it "failed" alongside a host of economic sanctions brought upon it by it's Capitalist neighbors, utterly terrified at it's very existence. I mean Christ calling someone communist is still an insult in the United States, and an attack on a politician here too, decades after the Red Scare supposedly ended.

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3. storus ◴[08 Sep 25 16:05 UTC] No.45169992[source]▶
> The end of communism in China and the Soviet Union was a major factor in the 42 percent reduction of hunger between 1990 and 2017.

This sounds like a complete BS. There were no starving people in the Soviet Union and its satellites after a brief post-war period. They had no luxuries all year round like exotic fruits, but the basics were covered. They had also vastly more educated population than the US. Just their governance and understanding of economics didn't consider the innate selfishness of humans and the need to dominate and outdo others so supply-demand laws didn't work well. China fixed that part later by allowing private corporate ownership and throwing its population into a Darwinian environment while keeping minimal social standards for the unlucky ones. North Korea, Cambodia and Laos would be the only "communist" countries where famines were still present.

4. nradov ◴[08 Sep 25 20:01 UTC] No.45173202[source]▶
What sanctions? The USA and Canada literally sold huge quantities of grain to the USSR even during the height of the Cold War. Without those food sales even more Soviet citizens would have gone hungry.
5. mrguyorama ◴[08 Sep 25 22:33 UTC] No.45174965[source]▶
adamsmith.org/blog

Is that really what passes for a "You can't blame capitalism" source on this damn site?