Is Communism Dead?

[rikzilla]

There are many here who seem to believe that communism is dead. While it's true that the USSR fell apart, and the wall came down, it's also true that all the old communists did not suddenly evaporate into thin air.

Although communism is an utterly bankrupt philosophy, there are still many true believers who keep it alive. Not just in NK or Cuba either.

Every time I attempt to talk about it,...or JK posts about it we are shouted down by people who shout "McCarthyism" as if that term is a magic spell that will make our arguments go away...or be laughed off. However, it remains that these arguments about communism have never been met by reasoned debate.

What I am attempting to do with this poll is foster a debate of the facts concerning the geopolitical health of communism in general...and communism's influence on the western peace movement in particular.

Thanks in advance for your participation.
-zilla

[DanishDynamite]

No, it is unfortunately still alive. (http://www.uv.es/~pla/PCPV/internat.html)

[Jedi Knight]

Originally posted by rikzilla
There are many here who seem to believe that communism is dead. While it's true that the USSR fell apart, and the wall came down, it's also true that all the old communists did not suddenly evaporate into thin air.

Although communism is an utterly bankrupt philosophy, there are still many true believers who keep it alive. Not just in NK or Cuba either.

Every time I attempt to talk about it,...or JK posts about it we are shouted down by people who shout "McCarthyism" as if that term is a magic spell that will make our arguments go away...or be laughed off. However, it remains that these arguments about communism have never been met by reasoned debate.

What I am attempting to do with this poll is foster a debate of the facts concerning the geopolitical health of communism in general...and communism's influence on the western peace movement in particular.

Thanks in advance for your participation.
-zilla

Communism is an even nastier ideology than Nazism--the difference being that Communism is still portrayed to be "cool and fashionable", while Nazism is portrayed to be the evil of all evils.

Communism should be handled the same way that Nazism is by all institutions--shunned, mocked and disparaged. That won't happen however, because most colleges around the western world are infatuated with the ideas of Marx and Lenin, and shamefully forget and dismiss the outrageous crimes of humanity that Communism is to blame.

The laughable thing about modern university leftism is that they do not preach Soviet Communism anymore. Soviet Communism failed, so they form their little Bolshevik groups on American universities and preach that that was not the "real" Communism, while at the same time pushing Marx and lenin lol.

No, they push Communism, but not "Soviet" Communism, as if they seek to wash their hands of the 150,000,000 dead last century caused by Communism and make it "cool and fashionable" again.

Whenever you think of a Communist, think of a Nazi. While on opposite sides of the political spectrum, they both are a perversion of history and a perversion of ideology and deserve no intellectual respect whatsoever.

JK

[Kodiak]

Communism is all but dead (NK, Cuba. etc...).

Socialism, OTOH, is alive and well in the modern environmentalist movement...

Is communism dead?

--------------------
Dead as a doornail.
Alive, but only in NK, and Cuba.
Alive in most countries...attempting to expand it's influence.
Alive and well...co-opting pacifists worldwide!
---------------------

Alive, but having evolved into a new form. There is a new breed of political animal who has got beyond the left/right dichotomy and is striding ahead into a future where the best parts of both idealogies can be taken.

[rikzilla]

Originally posted by Kodiak
Communism is all but dead (NK, Cuba. etc...).

Socialism, OTOH, is alive and well in the modern environmentalist movement...

Interesting....so how does socialism equate to communism? Are they merely the same philosophy dressed in different clothes? I believe in many enviro causes....but have not been exposed to any political philosophy from enviromentalists. :confused:

-zilla

[rikzilla]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
Is communism dead?

--------------------
Dead as a doornail.
Alive, but only in NK, and Cuba.
Alive in most countries...attempting to expand it's influence.
Alive and well...co-opting pacifists worldwide!
---------------------

Alive, but having evolved into a new form. There is a new breed of political animal who has got beyond the left/right dichotomy and is striding ahead into a future where the best parts of both idealogies can be taken.

Can you elaborate on this Geoff?
-zilla

BTW: You do know that the elephant is the symbol of the American Republican party right?? :D

Originally posted by rikzilla


Interesting....so how does socialism equate to communism? Are they merely the same philosophy dressed in different clothes? I believe in many enviro causes....but have not been exposed to any political philosophy from enviromentalists. :confused:

-zilla

If you want to protect the environment, ultimately you must accept that it must be SHARED and BELONG TO NO-ONE.

That isn't communism. It is basic common sense. However, it would appear to be the same idea as communism. Materialistic capitalism will ALWAYS lead to environmental destuction. You can compete, and compete, and eventually there will be no resources left to compete for and everyone will die.

Or you can share.

Oops...I'm a red.....

[Victor Danilchenko]

How about a 5th option:

I have no clue about what communism is.

When you speak of communism, you obviously associate it with USSR and somesuch. This is of course utterly wrong -- even USSR itself never claimed to be a communist country.

[rikzilla]

Originally posted by Victor Danilchenko
How about a 5th option:

I have no clue about what communism is.

When you speak of communism, you obviously associate it with USSR and somesuch. This is of course utterly wrong -- even USSR itself never claimed to be a communist country.

The land of Marx and Lenin was not a "communist" country??? :confused:

I have the same question then for you as I do for those people who make "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter" Listen, if it's not butter then what the f&ck is it??

-z

[Jedi Knight]

Originally posted by Victor Danilchenko
How about a 5th option:

I have no clue about what communism is.

When you speak of communism, you obviously associate it with USSR and somesuch. This is of course utterly wrong -- even USSR itself never claimed to be a communist country.

LOL. This is exactly the point I was making about the new leftist communist approach and the nonsense being pushed in leftist universities now. No, the Soviet Union wasn't communist, gosh no.

HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAHHAHAAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAH AHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

That is hilarious! But Gosh, the leftists think they will get away with saying that so they can dismiss the 150,000,000 dead last century as the result of Communist perversionist ideology.

JK

[Jedi Knight]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant
Is communism dead?

--------------------
Dead as a doornail.
Alive, but only in NK, and Cuba.
Alive in most countries...attempting to expand it's influence.
Alive and well...co-opting pacifists worldwide!
---------------------

Alive, but having evolved into a new form. There is a new breed of political animal who has got beyond the left/right dichotomy and is striding ahead into a future where the best parts of both idealogies can be taken.

You are a woo woo. I can't believe you are using the "let's blend those ideologies together" leftist drivel.

Tell me woo woo, what are the good parts of Communism? The atheist part? The slavery for the state part? The gulag part? The genocide part? The block commander part? The elimination of private property part?

What parts of communism are good?!?

JK

[Jedi Knight]

I am going to write a new Manifesto, a Capitalist form of Manifesto.

JK

[rikzilla]

Originally posted by Jedi Knight
I am going to write a new Manifesto, a Capitalist form of Manifesto.

JK

Take a lesson from the Unabomber and keep it short man!
:D :rolleyes:

-z

BTW: Keep it coming guys....this is all interesting stuff. I think the consensus seems to be that communism is re-inventing itself. But what is it re-inventing itself into?? And is it REALLY re-inventing it's philosophy, or just putting lipstick on the same old marxist pig??

[tedly]

I think you need to make the distinction between communism and Kom-oo-nism which is a largely unreal indigenous threat in the US.

Here in the Canadian prairies communism is alive and well in the form of Hutterian colonies, where the means of production are communally owned, increase of wealth is held in the colony, and tasks and jobs are assigned by a vaguely democratic process.
One of my neighbours on the James Valley colony went to Europe to visit a colony there. As a carpenter he found their renovation of an old house fascinating. The stone walls were centuries (4?) old, and the interior that was gutted and replaced was over 100 yrs old. They were building the new interior to last as long.
James Valley colony, where family farms are roughly 1000 acres, supported 15 families on 7000 acres, and saved enough to start a new colony.

By the bye, the Canadian prairies are the birth place of socialism, due to the sport of curling, and the wearing of toe rubbers. I should explain toe rubbers. These are coverings for shoes that slip over a dress shoe and provide a minimal protection from mud and snow for the shoe. They are mostly one size fits all. So every one wore rubbers to the curling rink, and home from the curling rink, but not necessarily the same ones. From each according to necessity, to each according to speed.
I cannot explain curling.

[Kodiak]

Originally posted by tedly
I cannot explain curling.

As a metro-Detroiter. let me say that thanks to CBC 9 from Windsor, I'm able to enjoy not only Hockey Night in Canada, buy the Briar, and Scott's Tournament of Hearts...

[corplinx]

I think the biggest problem is defining what communism is. Most people associate communism with military regimes that involuntarily make all citizens work for the government (like the Soviet Union). To me, these totalitarian states do not reflect the true spirit of communism. In modern "communist" countries, the means of production is controlled by an unelected military regime.

Do these regimes still exist? Ask Tibet if they think China is one.

[Victor Danilchenko]

rikzilla

The land of Marx and Lenin was not a "communist" country??? :confused: And confused you are.

The Communist party was called communist because it was supposedly striving towards communism. The country was actually socialist (not even really that, but that's a different topic) -- hence USSR, "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics". Not even the communist parties of different 2nd-world countries ever claimed to have attained communism, although they kept promising it in the near future.

Communism is supposed to be an economic state where all means of production are owned by the workers (= socialism) and scarcity as an economic factor has been overcome. The slogan of communism is "from each by his ability, to each by his need" (vs. socialism, which is "from each by his ability, to each by his work"). Obviously no communist state has ever existed, and it's not clear that it can exist.

One thing that is clear is that communism inherently has nothing to with USSR-style dictatorship, nor does socialism for that matter.

I have the same question then for you as I do for those people who make "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter" Listen, if it's not butter then what the f&ck is it??USSR was an oligarchy (gerontocracy, as some jokingly called it) with a mixture of socialist and state-capitalist features.

Note that it's americans who called USSR "communist". Originally this surely was caused by the name of the party ("communist party"), but it ended up confusing folks like you into making totally wrong assumptions about communism as actually being that which USSR practiced.

Is communism dead? perhaps; but if it is, it's for reasons having nothing to do with what you posted. Initiating the discussion with such fundamental ignorance of what communism actually is, is certainly a non-starter.

[gnome]

Originally posted by rikzilla

Every time I attempt to talk about it,...or JK posts about it we are shouted down by people who shout "McCarthyism" as if that term is a magic spell that will make our arguments go away...or be laughed off. However, it remains that these arguments about communism have never been met by reasoned debate.

I expect the reason people are reminded of McCarthysim by JK is because he's as quick to label someone who disagrees as a communist, as Franko is to label someone an "A-Theist". In such cases it is more an ad-hominem than a true attempt to discuss the problems of communism -- which, by the way, I expect 99% of the board would agree on.

[JAR]

Communism isn't dead. My younger brother knows a person at school who is a communist. I remember several times where my brother and his friends got in huge arguments with him. One time the communist said to them, "Come on guys, wouldn't our lives be so much easier if we let the government run everything."

[rikzilla]

Originally posted by Victor Danilchenko
rikzilla

And confused you are.

(snip)

Is communism dead? perhaps; but if it is, it's for reasons having nothing to do with what you posted. Initiating the discussion with such fundamental ignorance of what communism actually is, is certainly a non-starter.

Well Victor,

I did not begin this poll with a statement that I knew everything there was to know about communism. JK has clearly stated that leftists are busy obfuscating and or distancing themselves from the communism of the USSR. (and sorry, but I do not believe for one second that the USSR was not communist. You can call a cat a horse all you want but you won't be riding in the trees anytime soon.) The USSR had a succession of dictators...all chairmen of the communist party. The dictator ruled thru the Politburo....even a guy as admittedly ignorant as I can see that this is a communist hierarchy.

Seems to me that the truth is that communism is a fine and moral political philosophy. Utopian. Also, that capitalism is less moral as it only rewards the productive and on the face of it does nothing to address the plight of our fellow man. That to me is the bright shinning lie. Communism appears moral and yet is not. Communism says it will level the playing field and make a classless society...a "worker's paradise" but it never delivers. Human nature gets in the way. Truly the road to hell for the communists was paved with all the very best intentions.

OTOH, capitalist philosophy says "build the better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door" ...it may be a bit mercenary, but it delivers. There is no safety net...and quite a few end up poor or on the streets....but basically it works for the vast majority because by working harder it promises a better standard of living....and it always delivers.

Perhaps Vic, you'd like to tell us that Pol Pot, Mao, and Kim Jung Il are also just socialists. Sorry Vic, but changing the name of communism will not help and is intellectually dishonest. Most folks know what I'm talking about here. You are being purposefully pedantic IMHO.

-zilla

[Jedi Knight]

Originally posted by rikzilla
Take a lesson from the Unabomber and keep it short man!
:D :rolleyes:

I don't know about keeping it "short", but there won't be any bombs involved lol.

Seriously, I think Capitalism needs a voice, a filtering of its ideology for all those leftist college students to consume. Maybe I can change some of their brainwashed, 1/2 an education minds.

JK

[Jedi Knight]

Originally posted by gnome


I expect the reason people are reminded of McCarthysim by JK is because he's as quick to label someone who disagrees as a communist, as Franko is to label someone an "A-Theist". In such cases it is more an ad-hominem than a true attempt to discuss the problems of communism -- which, by the way, I expect 99% of the board would agree on.

I guess it is time for me to take out some thought trash--you put me up to it Gnome.

First, the only people I label as communists are those that advance communism, are communists or even perhaps are not communists but speak highly of its perversion (can also be included in the advancing communism category).

That said, if a person walks and talks like a commie, are they a Capitalist? No way in hell.

Feminists are communists. I talk about them a lot. The recent peace marchers are all communists. People that march in those "movements" may claim not to be communists, but if the folks who organized them are, guess what! It is helping communists and their subversive activities.

You are also correct that I favor a certain level of Mcarthyism. You are damned right. I live in a Capitalist free-society, not a gothic communist perversionist state. Communism is not welcome here and if people are communists, they have no business in government or teaching our children. The US didn't spend $15 trillion in the last 50 years fighting and defeating communism around the world, only to become a commie perversionist state itself.

JK

[Jedi Knight]

Originally posted by Victor Danilchenko
rikzilla

And confused you are.

The Communist party was called communist because it was supposedly striving towards communism. The country was actually socialist (not even really that, but that's a different topic) -- hence USSR, "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics". Not even the communist parties of different 2nd-world countries ever claimed to have attained communism, although they kept promising it in the near future.

Communism is supposed to be an economic state where all means of production are owned by the workers (= socialism) and scarcity as an economic factor has been overcome. The slogan of communism is "from each by his ability, to each by his need" (vs. socialism, which is "from each by his ability, to each by his work"). Obviously no communist state has ever existed, and it's not clear that it can exist.

One thing that is clear is that communism inherently has nothing to with USSR-style dictatorship, nor does socialism for that matter.

USSR was an oligarchy (gerontocracy, as some jokingly called it) with a mixture of socialist and state-capitalist features.

Note that it's americans who called USSR "communist". Originally this surely was caused by the name of the party ("communist party"), but it ended up confusing folks like you into making totally wrong assumptions about communism as actually being that which USSR practiced.

Is communism dead? perhaps; but if it is, it's for reasons having nothing to do with what you posted. Initiating the discussion with such fundamental ignorance of what communism actually is, is certainly a non-starter.

You know Vic, I respect you insofar as you are a very educated person, but this is just garbage you are spewing here.

You mean to tell me that when Lenin crawled out of Siberia that he didn't carry Marx's work with him and devise the restructuring of the country along communist lines?

You have got to be kidding me!

Why did Lenin go Communist, Vic? Because he was pissed off about what was done to his father. His father was a school superintendent and one day he was hammered--lost his job. So Vladimir decided to get busy with some revolutionary activity to deal with those evil aristocrats and he got sent to Siberia.

Now, what did Lenin and his cohorts do to Russia when they overthrew the royalty? They took pages right from the Communist Manifesto--you know, the ones where Marx talks about taking "everyone" down to the lowest common denomenator together--to hell--and then building the new Communist society. That is what happened in the 1920's, 1930's, 1940's, 1950's, 1960's, 1970's and 1980's. It happened using the Communist Manifesto blueprint.

But what you said here was simply brilliant spin to try and keep communism salvageable intellectually (an impossibility): The Communist party was called communist because it was supposedly striving towards communism.

So the former Soviet Union wasn't a commie state because it was in "transition"? You mean to tell me that since Russia never completed the manifesto transition that it wasn't a commie nation-state?!?!?! So everyone inside Russia and the other communist countries weren't really "communists"?!?!? Uh, what the hell were they, Vic?

I hope that you are not preaching that drivel to college students.

JK

[a_unique_person]

Originally posted by rikzilla


The land of Marx and Lenin was not a "communist" country??? :confused:

I have the same question then for you as I do for those people who make "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter" Listen, if it's not butter then what the f&ck is it??

-z

If you looked at the formal structures put in place, then USSR was a communist country. In practice, it was anything but. It didn't take long for an elite to rise and run the place. Nothing at all to do with communism. Everything to do with power and the control of it. The structures were manipulated to be the tools of the elite.

NK, likewise, has nothing to do with communism. It is a very weird country dedicated to the cult of the leader. Kind of like a throwback to ancient egypt and the pharohs.

And Russia was not the land of Marx. He spent most of his life in England.

[Victor Danilchenko]

rikzilla

Well Victor,

I did not begin this poll with a statement that I knew everything there was to know about communism.Well,it's clear that the "not everything' is much more like 'nearly nothing".

JK has clearly stated that leftists are busy obfuscating and or distancing themselves from the communism of the USSR. (and sorry, but I do not believe for one second that the USSR was not communist. You can call a cat a horse all you want but you won't be riding in the trees anytime soon.)Why don't you ask anyone who knows anything about political theory? Why don't you try to find any references where the communists (as in members of the communist party, people trying to bring about communism, rather than people living under communism) claim to have actually attained communism?

JK is a moron. We all know that. Don't be like him. Do a little learning. USSR did not implement communism, nor ever claimed to have implemented communism. They did claim to have implemented socialism, and whether they were really socialist is a much more reasonable question; but to claim that communism is what USSr had, is simply in-your-face ignorant.

The USSR had a succession of dictators...all chairmen of the communist party. The dictator ruled thru the Politburo....even a guy as admittedly ignorant as I can see that this is a communist hierarchy.Yes. The hierarchy of the communist party -- but the party was called "communist' because they were ostensibly working towards communism, not because they had brought communism into existence.

Seems to me that the truth is that communism is a fine and moral political philosophy. Utopian.partially true (it's not a moral philosophy) and arguably true (it's nor clear that it's impossible -- StarTrek-style society is basically de-facto communist).

Communism says it will level the playing field and make a classless society...a "worker's paradise" but it never delivers. Human nature gets in the way. Truly the road to hell for the communists was paved with all the very best intentions.All of this is true; so far, any forcible ostensible attempt to implement a socialist society (which is a stepping stone to implementing communism) turned into dictatorship. However, anyone who read even a little bit on political theory can tell you that USSR and ilk actually being 'socialist" is a very arguable proposition -- and they most certainly weren't communist, nor ever claimed to be such.

It wasn't called "Union of Soviet Communist republics" for a very good reason, dude.

Furthermore, many European countries are at least half-way to socialism -- but they are not dictatorships; that is probably because, as many socialist theoreticians like Trotsky posited, socialism is something that should grow from below rather than be imposed from above. All socialist dictatorships became so by forcible from-the-top imposition of socialism.

Perhaps Vic, you'd like to tell us that Pol Pot, Mao, and Kim Jung Il are also just socialists.they may be "communist" in the sense that communism is what they ostensibly (but not really) worked towards; that doesn't mean that the dictatorships they ran were communist countries.

Most folks know what I'm talking about here. You are being purposefully pedantic IMHO.Dude, you are so clueless on the subject, it's scary. the amazing thing is, you really don't know the first thing about communism beyond what is floating in the american pop-culture (USSR was communist, USSr was a dictatorship, communism is dictatorship).

Understand this most important point: 2nd-world countries were never communist. They themselves never claimed to be communist. Nobody who knows anything about them ever claimed them to be communist. Ascribing the label "communist" to them is an artifact of american pop-culture, kinda like pronouncing "celtics" with an "s" as the first phoneme.

Communism is defined as the system where workers control the means of production; thus any dictatorship by definition can never be communist. The same is true for socialism in fact, but because 2nd-world countries at least claimed to be socialist, i am willing to leave this point open to further debate. However, to claim that they were communist is simply a flat-out ignorant falsehood.

[Victor Danilchenko]

Jedi Knight

You mean to tell me that when Lenin crawled out of Siberia that he didn't carry Marx's work with him and devise the restructuring of the country along communist lines?

You have got to be kidding me!Flat-out truth. Read Lenin -- while communism was his ultimate goal, marxist theory teaches that socialism is a necessary stage on that path. lenin was building a socialist country. He ********** it up, but he never claimed to have structured the country "along communist lines".

But what you said here was simply brilliant spin to try and keep communism salvageable intellectually (an impossibility): The Communist party was called communist because it was supposedly striving towards communism.It's a simple fact of history. they never claimed to have built communism, they only claimed it as their ultimate goal.

So the former Soviet Union wasn't a commie state because it was in "transition"? You mean to tell me that since Russia never completed the manifesto transition that it wasn't a commie nation-state?!?!?!that's right. it was never communist, and not even KPCC members themselves claimed it to be communist.

So everyone inside Russia and the other communist countries weren't really "communists"?!?!? Uh, what the hell were they, Vic?they were ostensibly working towards communism, which is distinct from living under communism. What you had in USSR was not communism, plain and simple.

I hope that you are not preaching that drivel to college students.I hope that you read more than Rush Limbaugh transcripts.

[The Fool]

Jedi.
As the pope does not support attacking Iraq and he supports the peace marchers who are "all communists" does this make the pope a communist? As you are a Catholic fundamentalist, does this make you a member of a communist organisation and a communist yourself....
Communist, communist, communist...sorry about that, I just like typing the word communist. I can understand how it gets Jedi so excited.

[Roadtoad]

Originally posted by The Fool
Jedi.
As the pope does not support attacking Iraq and he supports the peace marchers who are "all communists" does this make the pope a communist? As you are a Catholic fundamentalist, does this make you a member of a communist organisation and a communist yourself....
Communist, communist, communist...sorry about that, I just like typing the word communist. I can understand how it gets Jedi so excited.

Communist, Communist, Communist, Communist, Communist, Communist, Communist, Communist, Communist, Communist, Communist, Communist, Communist, Communist, Communist, Communist, Communist, Communist, Communist, Communist, Communist, Communist, Communist, Communist, Communist, Communist, Communist, Communist, Communist, Communist, Communist, Communist, Communist, Communist, Communist, Communist, (Hey, this get's easier as I go...) Communist, Communist, Communist, Communist, Communist, Communist, Communist, Communist, Communist, Communist, Communist, Communist, Communist, Communist, Communist, Communist, Communist, Communist, Communist, Communist...

[subgenius]

I use the term "McCarthy" because anyone who thinks the Commies are a threat in this country is wrong. Search the FBI website and find out who poses the greatest danger domestically. Guess what? It isn't Commies. They don't even exist as a real threat.
Why not worry about real problems?

[Plutarck]

Originally posted by UndercoverElephant


If you want to protect the environment, ultimately you must accept that it must be SHARED and BELONG TO NO-ONE.

That isn't communism. It is basic common sense. However, it would appear to be the same idea as communism. Materialistic capitalism will ALWAYS lead to environmental destuction. You can compete, and compete, and eventually there will be no resources left to compete for and everyone will die.

Or you can share.

Oops...I'm a red.....

That's a fine example why common sense isn't reliable - reality proves it to be quite wrong.

First of all, "sharing" isn't required - I can own something and you can still benefit from it. Sharing and owning are questions of control, NOT benfit - they are quite distinct. For instance, I can own my money, and you can own your labor, and you can benefit from my money and I can benefit from your labor, even though we don't directly trade.

That is another key point - ownership is not eternal. Private ownership of things, even parts - or the entirety - of the environment does not in any way say that it cannot be traded both in ownership and in various rights of use. I can Own a house, for instance, and Lease it to you (that is, I grant you the time-limited right of use of my house) - I can own, and you can use, and we both can benefit, and this is at least not what I think you mean by "sharing". Mutually beneficial exchange, the transfer of ownership amongst various parties, is common sense only to people who have actually studied and considered such things. One is not merely born with "common sense".

Furthermore, "materialistic capitalism" (MC) need not at all leed to environmental destruction. It comes down to a question of externalities - you do not have the right to destroy or decrease the productive value of my, or anyone else's, assets involuntarily. I cannot pollute your air, and you cannot pollute my water, rightfully or freely, no more than I can steal your property rightfully or freely; theft - the involuntary transfer of ownership of assets one has no claim on - is not a tenet of "materialistic capitalism", and nor is vandalism or sabotage.

MC does however require that the value of all things be weighted - traded-off against - all other things, such that it may be desirable to decrease the productive capacity or usefulness of some portion of the environment in exchange for something else.

If by "environment destruction" you merely meant that the productive capacity or usefulness or pristineness of the environment is not infinately valuable such that no amount or form or placement of 'pollution' or 'destruction' is ever, ever permitted, no matter what the benefits may be...well, in that case you'd be right. The environment is preserved only to the extent that it serves human interests.

I should also note that competition and cooperation (sharing, if you will) are not entirely mutually exclusive - you need not neccessarily suffer for me to be happy, for instance. As there are many goals in every human, and many humans, to certain extents and in certain activities people can cooperate, and in others they must neccessarily compete - two people cannot eat the same bit of food, or drive the same car, or occupy the same space. So long as demand exceeds supply, there will inevitably be some form of competition. If the Insatiability Principle in Economics is correct in that humans will never be fully satiated in all ways such that they never desire anything else, then competition will always neccessarily be a part of live; life just needn't be entirely competition, for in many things and ways all humans can have their fill (that is, that thing is not scarce).

That just to happens to be the thesis of the paper I have to have finished by tommarrow, so I'm going to have to get to finishing that now.

And in closing, I will note that what is "common sense" is often dead wrong.

[Jedi Knight]

Originally posted by Victor Danilchenko
JK is a moron. We all know that. Don't be like him. Do a little learning.

Rik isn't naive about the world, Vic.

So you resort to name-calling now, Vic. Ask yourself, am I a moron for pointing out that the perversionist commie state of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics died?

Am I moron for pointing out that Lenin, the brainchild of the communist Soviet state, used the doctrine of the Communist Manifesto to develop that failed perversionist state?

Calling me names doesn't change the truth that I speak. Look, I don't hold it against you that you want to protect the image of your birthland. It isn't your fault you were born there. That was God's choice, not yours. Nor was it mine.

However, when you say that the former Soviet Union was not a communist nation-state, I must add that to my list of the "stupidest quotes" ever made.

JK

[DialecticMaterialist]

Marxism is dead as is the idea of communist utopia. Now at days China and other Marxist nations are comprimising their socialist government...far from becoming communist. Communism is as dead as laissez-faire capitalism.

[Jedi Knight]

Originally posted by subgenius
I use the term "McCarthy" because anyone who thinks the Commies are a threat in this country is wrong. Search the FBI website and find out who poses the greatest danger domestically. Guess what? It isn't Commies. They don't even exist as a real threat.
Why not worry about real problems?

Well subby, how about you let me be in charge of a new Truth Commission, and if there is no "commie threat", I will be the first to admit it after my national investigation using thousands of personnel is completed.

JK

[DanishDynamite]

Jedi Knight: ...am I a moron for pointing out that the perversionist commie state of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics died? By no means. There are many, many other reasons you are a moron.

[Jedi Knight]

Originally posted by DanishDynamite
Jedi Knight: By no means. There are many, many other reasons you are a moron.

Sure lefty, like your name-calling is going to stop the United States from taking out Iraq. That is all leftists like you are good for.

JK

[a_unique_person]

Originally posted by Jedi Knight


Sure lefty, like your name-calling is going to stop the United States from taking out Iraq. That is all leftists like you are good for.

JK

wipe that drool off your keyboard, jedi

[Nie Trink Wasser]

is Jedi for real or just a Troll ?


I'm not for war on Iraq, I'm for war on Saddam.

[gnome]

Originally posted by Jedi Knight
Well subby, how about you let me be in charge of a new Truth Commission, and if there is no "commie threat", I will be the first to admit it after my national investigation using thousands of personnel is completed.

JK

And take out a few of your own political enemies for your own personal gain, no doubt?

Or, will you be an idealist tool of someone doing that?

All feminists are communists? All peace protestors are communists?

These statements are absurd.

Look, trying to impose communism on a nation is stupid. Even a lefty like me knows that it causes starvation and suffering... at least, that has come along with most attempts so far.

Is it incomprehensible to you that I support reasonable feminism, oppose the war, but am also a strong supporter of capitalism?

Not no-holds-barred, screw-the-poor, destroy-the-competition capitalism, but the healthy kind that drives a good economy.

(/rant) (deep breath) (/deep breath)

For rikzilla... I have been paying attention to the communist influence on organizing peace marches, and have vowed that they won't get a dime of my money. I really think that some of the people trying to attract my kind of people to these events are not nonviolent, civil-rights minded people. What do you think someone like me should do, in order to help clean house?

[Bjorn]

Danish,

On the list you provided of existing communistic parties is also the Norwegian one.

In the last election, they got 0.1% of the votes (or rather a bit less, but my source was only giving one decimal), while the younger and former (nineteen seventy-ish) student-oriented AKP got 1.1%.

If communism is not dead in Norway, it is at least on its death-bed (I guess the same is true in Denmark).

Leftists, on the other hand:

Based on American measures, I guess Europe is chock-a-block full of them, as most right-leaning people I know from Norway would be considered quite radical here in the US (even in what JK would define as pinky commie California).

Jedi,

how about you let me be in charge of a new Truth Commission .... and this just days after being proven wrong for calling the commission the 'Truth Commission' in the first place. :p

I'll give you a point for stamina, even after the case is lost! :)

[Jedi Knight]

Originally posted by a_unique_person


wipe that drool off your keyboard, jedi

What, we have started to attack Iraq?

JK

[Jedi Knight]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by gnome
And take out a few of your own political enemies for your own personal gain, no doubt?

Or, will you be an idealist tool of someone doing that?

All feminists are communists? All peace protestors are communists?

These statements are absurd.

No they are real. They are not absurd. They are real. Everyone that stepped foot in one of those peace marches was helping communists. If you attend a KKK rally and march with them, are you not helping the KKK? Even if the KKK does not tell you personally that they are behind it, does that change the fact the KKK organized it?

Look, trying to impose communism on a nation is stupid. Even a lefty like me knows that it causes starvation and suffering... at least, that has come along with most attempts so far.

Well why do Americans do it? Why do universities shove that garbage down student's throats?!?

Is it incomprehensible to you that I support reasonable feminism, oppose the war, but am also a strong supporter of capitalism?

Reasonable feminism is a myth. There is no reasonable feminism. Matriarchal totalitarianism is never reasonable.

Not no-holds-barred, screw-the-poor, destroy-the-competition capitalism, but the healthy kind that drives a good economy.

Screw the poor? Who, by chance, is screwing the poor?

JK

[The Fool]

Deleted By the fool due to off topic flame content.

[Jedi Knight]

Communism is evil.

JK

[aerocontrols]

Originally posted by Victor Danilchenko
When you speak of communism, you obviously associate it with USSR and somesuch. This is of course utterly wrong -- even USSR itself never claimed to be a communist country.

That you say the USSR never claimed to have achieved communism does not make the association utterly wrong. As you say, the Party running the country claimed to be communist.


Originally posted by Victor Danilchenko
Note that it's americans who called USSR "communist". Originally this surely was caused by the name of the party ("communist party"), but it ended up confusing folks like you into making totally wrong assumptions about communism as actually being that which USSR practiced.

Not just Americans (http://www.expres.ro/english/?news_id=112477), by the way. Crazy people raised behind the Iron Curtain can't figure out what Communism is and what it isn't.

Here's another (http://www.slovakspectator.sk/clanok.asp?vyd=2003007&rub=spect_cult&cl=11978). And another (http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=19596)

As you have said (http://host.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10697):

social constructs, like languages and religions, can exist in prescriptive and descriptive forms, and it's inconsistent to accept only prescriptive forms of some constructs while allowing descriptive forms of others.

At what point does a political philosophy become what those who profess it actually practice?

MattJ

[a_unique_person]

Originally posted by Jedi Knight


Apologies. Same crap repeated here

Ed

Jedi, you are beyond hope. Even if there was a god, he would disown you.

[The Fool]

Deleted By the fool due to off topic flame content.

[Jedi Knight]

JK

[Jedi Knight]

Originally posted by The Fool

Fog and mirrors , fog and mirrors......
I don't have a problem with your opinion of communism, I largely share it....I have a problem with your grasp on reality.... Now back to the issue you are running from.
Its just a simple question......The Pope supports the Anti-war marchers....Is he a communist?
Back to the Crickets chirping....

The Pope supports peace, not communism.

JK

[Jedi Knight]

JK

[Ed]

No threat.

[The Fool]

Deleted By the fool due to off topic flame content.

[Jedi Knight]

JK

[Jedi Knight]

JK

[Jedi Knight]

JK

[Jedi Knight]

JK

[Bjorn]

Originally posted by Jedi Knight
All I did was say my life was not "f#cked up" and merely pointed out that Fool should perhaps look at his own before he talks about anyone else. Did that deserve censorship?

JK JK, I also immediately sent you a PM asking you to think twice about your post.

Don't you see that some matters could be too touchy to be used for personal attacks? :(

[The Fool]

Deleted By the fool due to off topic flame content.

[Jedi Knight]

JK

[The Fool]

Deleted By the fool due to off topic flame content.

[a_unique_person]

Originally posted by Bjorn
JK, I also immediately sent you a PM asking you to think twice about your post.

Don't you see that some matters could be too touchy to be used for personal attacks? :(

I reported the post to the moderators.

[Jedi Knight]

JK

[Jedi Knight]

JK

[The Fool]

Deleted By the fool due to off topic flame content.

[The Fool]

Deleted By the fool due to off topic flame content.

[Bjorn]

Originally posted by Jedi Knight


So? Like it matters? What was wrong with the post? Seriously? What was wrong with it?

Nothing.

JK Honestly, Jedi. :(

You could apologize.

Or just shut up and never mention it again.

Following up on it can only harm you. :(

[Jedi Knight]

JK

[Jedi Knight]

JK

[corplinx]

Originally posted by Jedi Knight


Are you threatening me Bjorn? I will call the FBI if you threaten me in any way on the internet.

JK


You sound like a yankee. Always wanting to call a lawyer or the law when they get threatened. I thought military men were made of tougher stuff.

[Jedi Knight]

JK

[Bjorn]

Originally posted by Jedi Knight


Are you threatening me Bjorn? I will call the FBI if you threaten me in any way on the internet. No one is going to "harm me" or my family.

JK Well, well.

I'm not sure if this is paranoia or a bad joke - I am only pointing out that if you follow up on the bad comment you made (the one that was deleted) you can only harm yourself.

You know - like in 'making a fool of yourself'.

And you're proving me right already, I'm afraid. :(

[Jedi Knight]

JK

[The Fool]

Deleted By the fool due to off topic flame content.

[Jedi Knight]

JK

[The Fool]

Deleted By the fool due to off topic flame content.

[corplinx]

Nice flame war guys. I wish I had read JK's post before it got edited. The fact that it was edited makes me want to know what it said whereas if it hadn't been I probably wouldnt have paid attention. ;)

[The Fool]

Deleted By the fool due to off topic flame content.

[Jedi Knight]

JK

[The Fool]

Deleted By the fool due to off topic flame content.

[Jedi Knight]

JK

[Jedi Knight]

JK

[Bjorn]

Originally posted by corplinx
Nice flame war guys. I wish I had read JK's post before it got edited. The fact that it was edited makes me want to know what it said whereas if it hadn't been I probably wouldnt have paid attention. ;) Hmmm - the problem with a post being deleted, even if I agree (with much doubt, I admit) that the one in question should have been, is that I can't quote it later to explain why. :mad:

And if one can't even PM the ones who are asking .... :(

[corplinx]

Originally posted by Bjorn
And if one can't even PM the ones who are asking .... :(

I usually turn off private messages on most forums I join. I get enough email and spend enough time reading forums as it is. I guess I'll gave and enable PMs on this board though.

[Jedi Knight]

JK

[corplinx]

Originally posted by Jedi Knight


First my post gets deleted and now it is going to make rounds to everyone via PM's? How very lame. Jesus that is lame.

JK

I'm not everyone. Cool down man, life is too short to get miffed by messages on internet message boards.

[Jedi Knight]

I am deleting all those posts I made because it was below me to get into that argument with the others.

JK

[Bjorn]

Originally posted by Jedi Knight


That is serious trolling. First my post gets deleted and now it is going to make rounds to everyone via PM's? How very lame. Jesus that is lame.

JK Hehe.

1. I didn't copy your post in the little time it was available.

2. One should be able to explain what was wrong with it to people who ask.

3. You, yourself is 'explaining' what was in the post just here, 7 posts ago:

All that was in the post was what Fool said to me. Fool told me "your life sucks Jedi." I told Fool, "No, my life does not suck. I like my life." Then I told him that he should look in the mirror and examine his life, because he mentioned on the forum that his life does suck. :p

So, Jedi, you started this by 'telling' about 'all you said' - and now others can't correct you because that would be 'lame'? :rolleyes:

Not very clever tonight? :p

[The Fool]

Originally posted by Jedi Knight
I am deleting all those posts I made because it was below me to get into that argument with the others.

JK

I am also deleting all my posts on this thread. Jedi and the fool have worked things out by PM..... It was also below me to get involved in a slagging session.
Apologies to rik for hijacking the thread......

[LW]

Originally posted by Victor Danilchenko
USSR was an oligarchy (gerontocracy, as some jokingly called it) with a mixture of socialist and state-capitalist features.
There's the old joke from late Breshnev times, I think:

What has four legs and 40 teeth?
- A crocodile.
What has 40 legs and four teeth?
- Politburo.


And nowadays it seems that Russia has moved into a kleptocracy.

And I even know one SSSR-era joke that is on topic for this discussion (and yes, this is really originally a Russian joke):

Why haven't we reached communism, yet?
- It turned out that Marx was wrong and the next step from socialism was not communism but alcoholism.


On more serious note, I agree with Victor on this subject: USSR was not communist by the definition of the word.

[rikzilla]

Originally posted by gnome



For rikzilla... I have been paying attention to the communist influence on organizing peace marches, and have vowed that they won't get a dime of my money. I really think that some of the people trying to attract my kind of people to these events are not nonviolent, civil-rights minded people. What do you think someone like me should do, in order to help clean house?

Gnome,

I wish I knew what to tell you. If I was of the opinion that this war was wrong I would contact my congressman and senator and let them know how I feel. If I decided to attend a rally I'd keep my eyes open and research the groups represented in the march. I wouldn't put my signature on any type of paperwork circulating at such an event as it would be very difficult to determine how and who would be making use of it.

That's my advice to you. Work within the system to make your voice heard, but be careful not to become a pawn of any group who's overall guiding philosophy is at odds with your own.

-zilla

[rikzilla]

Originally posted by The Fool


I am also deleting all my posts on this thread. Jedi and the fool have worked things out by PM..... It was also below me to get involved in a slagging session.
Apologies to rik for hijacking the thread......

No problemo....I'm just curious...since this all happened when I was away. (Hey...yesterday was my anniversary...17 years...my wife sang to me in a jazz club...she's a peach) :)

So...what was all this about....someone PM me a clue.

-zilla

[Drooper]

Originally posted by LW
On more serious note, I agree with Victor on this subject: USSR was not communist by the definition of the word.

I have yet to see a single definition of Communism. Look in a different dictionary and you get a different one. Hardly surprising because this is a political-philisophical area.

However, this lack of pecision does tend to make claims that this was or wasn't communism a bit difficult to support.

From all the dictionaries I have looked at, it seems to me that:
[list=1]
socialism allows private ownership while communism doesn't.
socialism alows some measure of freedom in labour market supply (meaning you have some choice about where you work), while under communism you go and do what you are told.
under socialism there is a greater measure of freedom in consumption (meaning you can decide what you want to consume), while under communism output is distributed according to a central directive.[/list=1]

One interesting definition of socialism places it as simply the transitional state between "capitalism" and "communism". In which case socialism cover a wide range of states, while communism is a singularity, a nirvana, an ideal that could never exist in practice.

Under those types of conditions and given what I said in the previous para. the USSR was probably socialist, but just about as close to communism as you would be likely to get.

[rikzilla]

Originally posted by LW




On more serious note, I agree with Victor on this subject: USSR was not communist by the definition of the word.

So,

The deal is that communism is not communism because it never attained it's potential?? So how will we define "communism"?? As a utopian philosophy that cannot be adopted by any society without years of corruption, purges, etc. Also it seems to me that communism...(or more properly the socialistic pre-cursor to communism) is not compatible with democracy. I say this because only one example: Chile, has been put forward as having had democratically elected communist leader, but the US backed coup placing Pinochet in power took care of that. I do not disagree that US involvement in Chile was wrong,..nor do I think Pinochet was benevolent....but it is indeed possible that a budding communist dictatorship was nipped in the bud.

I say that because everywhere else I've looked for examples of pre-communist socialism I have found dictatorships. Perhaps if Chile had been given a chance it would have been the sole exception....but I'm not really that naive. :rolleyes:

Vic, I understand that what I don't know about communism, or as you seem to prefer "pre-communist socialism" (PCS) would fill several books. I'm not a scholar. I've never been to university. I have a high-normal IQ, and an inquisitive nature...that is all. You seem to want to talk about what I don't know about PCS. Let me tell you what I do know.

What I know I've learned from experience. I was a US soldier in West Germany and made a few trips on the duty train from Frankfurt to Berlin. I've seen the Berlin wall...and witnessed the drab blankness of East Berlin. I've seen the old film clips of people braving barbed wire, mines, guards, and machine guns in order to escape the "paradise" of PCS East Germany. I remember the exodus thru Czechoslovakia in the late 80's as the Czechs abandoned the first section of the iron curtain. People from various eastern bloc nations abandoning cars and belongings to trek across the unguarded frontier border there. I met people in the early 80's who escaped communism...people who gave up everything to come west to freedom. Why do you suppose that was?

After Germany I went home to Florida. There I took a job in Ft. Lauderdale and began taking flight training. There at the North Perry Airport in Hollywood, FL I had occaision to train with and meet many of the pilots who formed the Cuban group "Brothers to the Rescue". They fly missions into the Florida Straits to pinpoint boat people escaping Cuba for the US Coast Guard. They have saved countless lives.

When I had occasion to talk with many of these pilots, they told stories of repression...much the same as those I'd met in Europe. Again I was confronted by the realization that these people risked jail, injury, and death to escape from a "worker's paradise". (And in the case of Cuba they are still coming) Some paradise. :rolleyes:

My wife had to get her green card in Miami...and we were forced to stand in a very long line. She and I spent one warm summer night in such a line....all around us were Cubans who had been plucked out of the Straits. All night long they regaled us with tales of survival in rafts on the open ocean. Their shared hatred of Castro...and despair at ever getting their country back from the "communistas" driving them to risk death for freedom in Miami.
"Communistas" Vic,...their words not mine.

This is all I know of (PCS) communism Vic. All I know is two of the guys I trained with were shot out of the sky by a MIG. Let me tell you...a Cessna is no match for a MIG. A Cessna is no danger to a MIG either...or anyone else for that matter. I don't care if you want to call it communism or PCS...JK's right. It's evil. When you have to put up a wall to keep your people in...when you consider a Cessna with 2 guys dropping leaflets a risk to national security... when you lock people up because they don't toe the "correct" political line....it's evil.

At the risk of becoming a pariah for associating with JK...I have to tell you, in my opinion he's as right as rain about this subject. The only thing you have offered Vic, is semantics. If someone were attempting to defend Nazism based on the supposd fact that they hadn't attained "real" Nazism they'd be assailed on this forum....and yet it is ok to defend communism in this manner???

You're right man...I don't get it. Hell, I don't want to get it. :(

-zilla

[Victor Danilchenko]

aerocontrols

That you say the USSR never claimed to have achieved communism does not make the association utterly wrong. As you say, the Party running the country claimed to be communist.True. However, this does not change the fact that communism did not exist in USSR.

Not just Americans (http://www.expres.ro/english/?news_id=112477), by the way.yeah. In an article titled "We go with the Americans and the British". Furthermore, these articles were written in English, and thus largely for americans.

As you have said (http://host.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10697):Yup. I did say that, and I stand by it. Meaning is determined by usage of the speaking population. The thing is that for specialized terminology, the 'speaking population' consists of specialists first, and everyone else second. "Communism" is a specialized term, having been given a specific and explicit meaning by its creator, which meaning is widely recognized in political science, and perhaps in economics.

At what point does a political philosophy become what those who profess it actually practice?Well, their professing to practice it would probably be a good start. if even communists themselves never claimed to have built communism, then Rik has a problem, doesn't he?

[Kodiak]

Originally posted by Victor Danilchenko
Meaning is determined by usage of the speaking population. The thing is that for specialized terminology, the 'speaking population' consists of specialists first, and everyone else second. "Communism" is a specialized term, having been given a specific and explicit meaning by its creator, which meaning is widely recognized in political science, and perhaps in economics.

Vic, I would have better understood your position on the word "democracy" if you had posted this in our discussion a few months back...

[Victor Danilchenko]

LW

Why haven't we reached communism, yet?
- It turned out that Marx was wrong and the next step from socialism was not communism but alcoholism.hey, that's a new one for me! I heard many 'socialism' jokes, but never this one.

How about an oldy-but-goody?

Communism is already on the horizon.
What is a horizon? Horizon is a line that can never be reached.

Or another:

Brezhnev: Under communism, we will have an abundance of everything!
voice from the audience: But will we?

[Victor Danilchenko]

Drooper

I have yet to see a single definition of Communism.Try Marx. From the horse's mouth and all that.

socialism allows private ownership while communism doesn't.neither socialism nor communism allow private ownership of means of production. Depending on who you ask, communism may or may not restrict private ownership of other types possessions as well (Marx for example saw marriage as an economic arrangement related to property, andd thought that marriage, and in fact, one-to-one pairing, would be abolished under communism).

socialism alows some measure of freedom in labour market supply (meaning you have some choice about where you work), while under communism you go and do what you are told.Emphatically not so. The difference you describe is possible under certain specific cases of communism, but it's not necessary. This difference harks to the fact that socialism still permits a wide range of economic relationships (you could even have a form of free market under socialism), while communism, by separating reward from effort, is supposed to effectively obsolesce economics as we know it. Some took this to mean that comunism necessarily exists under planned economy, and some took that further to mean that it must be a dictatorship; but neither supposition is entailed by communism, they are optional (and quite distasteful IMO).

under socialism there is a greater measure of freedom in consumption (meaning you can decide what you want to consume), while under communism output is distributed according to a central directive.Actually it's the other way around. I mentioned this before:

Socialism; from each by his ability, to each by his work
Communism: from each by his ability, to each by his need.

One interesting definition of socialism places it as simply the transitional state between "capitalism" and "communism".Well, no. Socialism is indeed supposed to be such a transition, but being this transition is not its main, much less sole, defining characteristic.

In which case socialism cover a wide range of states, while communism is a singularity, a nirvana, an ideal that could never exist in practice.Socialism does cover a wide range of possible political states, from anarcho-socialism to centralized planned state; but those possibilities have more in common than merely being stepping stones to communism. In fact, many socialists don't think communism is possible at all, and view some form of socialism as the end in itself.

[Victor Danilchenko]

rikzilla

The deal is that communism is not communism because it never attained it's potential??No, the deal is that socialism is not communism, and that it's arguable whether USSR was even truly socialist.

So how will we define "communism"?? As a utopian philosophy that cannot be adopted by any society without years of corruption, purges, etc. Also it seems to me that communism...(or more properly the socialistic pre-cursor to communism) is not compatible with democracy.That is not true. What might be true is that socialism and communism are not possible in a large, powerful state.

We can argue about the problems inherent in implementing socialism on a large scale; but before we can do that, you ahve to understand what socialism is and isn't, and what communism is and isn't.

I say that because everywhere else I've looked for examples of pre-communist socialism I have found dictatorships.there is a very simple alternative explanations to that: socialism was first implemented in USSR (if socialism it was), and all further implementations of socialism were under Soviet influence.

There is in fact one other indisputable counter-example that I know of: Czechoslovakia. They built a humane, democratic version of socialism (and guess what? it ended up incorporating capitalist features), only to be brutally suppressed by USSR in 1968.

Vic, I understand that what I don't know about communism, or as you seem to prefer "pre-communist socialism" (PCS) would fill several books. I'm not a scholar. I've never been to university. I have a high-normal IQ, and an inquisitive nature...that is all.Then take an opportunity to learn -- I, having lived both under socialism and under capitalism, and having studied both, can tell you more. But you have to start by tossing out your commonsensical errors about communism, just as you would have to start learning about relativity by dumping the commonsensical assumption that mass and space and time are absolute.

What I know I've learned from experience.yes. You have seen what USSR-style distatorship leads to. that does not mean that yu have seen all there is to socialism, much less communism. You might as well say that you've been to the bad parts of NYC, and now know what capitalism is like.

Now mind you, i am not saying that socialism is necessarily good, or even possibly good. What I am saying, is that your specific experiences have no relationship to socialism in general, much less to communism.

I don't care if you want to call it communism or PCS...JK's right. It's evil.Tyranny is evil, dude. That certainly implies that tyrannical socialism, or tyrannical communism, would be evil -- but not that socialism or communism are evil.

Do you know what many american socialists pursue? Anarcho-socialism. Do you know what that is? it's a state where the economy is free market, but all market partitipants are workers' cooperatives or individuals -- no central planning, no tyrannical state, no "we all own everything and therefore each one owns nothing" ********, just people directly owning their fields and tractors and industrial machinery, etc. very similar to certain visions of libertarianism, in fact.

So when the question is asked, "is communism dead?", it greatly helps to understand what communism is, what socialism is, and how 2nd-world related to socialism in general.

When you have to put up a wall to keep your people in...when you consider a Cessna with 2 guys dropping leaflets a risk to national security... when you lock people up because they don't toe the "correct" political line....it's evil.Indeed. And all of that has next to no relationship to the question of communism's death.

You're right man...I don't get it. Hell, I don't want to get it. :(the former is normal; the latter is as great an intellectual sin as they come. Your choice.

[Kodiak]

:(

...I thought we were an autonomous collective!...

[Victor Danilchenko]

Kodiak

Vic, I would have better understood your position on the word "democracy" if you had posted this in our discussion a few months back...What, and spoil the fun I was having dismembering you after your "thus endeth the lesson" proclamation?

[Roadtoad]

Originally posted by Bjorn
Based on American measures, I guess Europe is chock-a-block full of them, as most right-leaning people I know from Norway would be considered quite radical here in the US (even in what JK would define as pinky commie California).

Jedi,

.... and this just days after being proven wrong for calling the commission the 'Truth Commission' in the first place. :p

I'll give you a point for stamina, even after the case is lost! :)

Sorry Bjorn, but what you're defining as "Commie-Pinky" is actually "Voting Stupid," in California.

My suspicion is that the European political environment being what it is, (given that you started out with divine right kings and moved towards limited democratic institutions which remain relatively new in the scheme of things), even someone who would be "Far right" in Europe would wind up being at the very least to the left of center in even Massachussets. A socialist environment is simply one step in a much longer timeline than exists in the U.S. While America had divine right kings, they ruled from Europe for the most part, (except among the indigenous people, and even then, the leaders of those nations tended to be more democratic than their European counterparts), which meant they had little, if any, influence on their North American colonies.

So you'll give JK a point? You're more generous than I am.

[Barkhorn1x]

_____________________________
- Alive and well...co-opting pacifists worldwide!
______________________________

I don't think co-opting is the correct term here - I would substitute "using" - in the sense that all of those "people of conscience" who leave a rally organized by Marxists are of course not going home and spouting Marx.

However, the fact that Marxist groups - fringe tho' they may be -are so heavily involved in the organization and execution of these rallies has got to give one pause. If one is concerned about groups that espouse a 1 party state and support guys like Kim Jong Il, Castro and SH that is.

If you are not then please return to your regularly scheduled Peace Rally...next up;

- Why MUMIA ABU-JAMAL is Really a Political Prisoner
- Susan Sarandon
- It's ALL About the OIL Stuuuupid
;)

Barkhorn.

[gnome]

Wow, I feel like I've been to the Brockian Ultra-Cricket Finals!

I'm glad that both participants ultimately removed their own posts. Score one for civility here.

Originally posted by Jedi Knight
No they are real. They are not absurd. They are real. Everyone that stepped foot in one of those peace marches was helping communists. If you attend a KKK rally and march with them, are you not helping the KKK? Even if the KKK does not tell you personally that they are behind it, does that change the fact the KKK organized it?

A couple of different scenarios. If the KKK organizes a protest against library censorship, and I attend without knowing the organizers, does that make me a racist?

Another scenario, less politically charged to make a point: If the East Memphis Clockwise Rubber Band Twisters organize a protest in favor of rubber recycling, and I attend due to my pro-recycling beliefs, can you draw a conclusion about my opinions of rubber band twisting in Tennessee?

You are drawing the wrong conclusion. If you want to say I am unwisely supporting communists by attending a rally like that, say so and I'll argue it with you. But you can't fairly draw the conclusion that I actually prefer communism myself.

Well why do Americans do it? Why do universities shove that garbage down student's throats?!?

False generalization. Do you have statistics for this, or just anecdotes? I am a product of my state's university system and emerged without any communism shoved down my throat. In fact I graduated from a business school where conservativism was the norm.

Reasonable feminism is a myth. There is no reasonable feminism. Matriarchal totalitarianism is never reasonable.

False dichotomy. You're saying I cannot support any women's issues without being unreasonable and totalitarian?

How is your statement different from (or more valid than): "Reasonable religious devotion is a myth. There is no reasonable religious devotion. Rabid Fundamentalism is never reasonable."

I don't consider that statement valid, nor do I consider yours, for the same reason.

Screw the poor? Who, by chance, is screwing the poor?

I'm not accusing anyone of screwing the poor (right now :D )... I am just saying that I believe in capitalism AS LONG AS the poor don't get screwed.

[gnome]

Originally posted by rikzilla

I wish I knew what to tell you. If I was of the opinion that this war was wrong I would contact my congressman and senator and let them know how I feel. If I decided to attend a rally I'd keep my eyes open and research the groups represented in the march. I wouldn't put my signature on any type of paperwork circulating at such an event as it would be very difficult to determine how and who would be making use of it.

That's my advice to you. Work within the system to make your voice heard, but be careful not to become a pawn of any group who's overall guiding philosophy is at odds with your own.

-zilla

That's all reasonable. I can say I agree here. Funny, I can't even talk about this without thinking of that Beatles song.

But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao
You ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow.

[Kodiak]

Originally posted by Victor Danilchenko
Kodiak

What, and spoil the fun I was having dismembering you after your "thus endeth the lesson" proclamation?

Whatever... :rolleyes:

[Shane Costello]

Communism/Socialism/Marxism is a chimera. This has been scientifically established. ;)

Why Marxism doesn't work (www.theonion.com/onion3842/marxists_apartment.html)

[Jedi Knight]

Originally posted by gnome
Wow, I feel like I've been to the Brockian Ultra-Cricket Finals!

I'm glad that both participants ultimately removed their own posts. Score one for civility here.



A couple of different scenarios. If the KKK organizes a protest against library censorship, and I attend without knowing the organizers, does that make me a racist?

Another scenario, less politically charged to make a point: If the East Memphis Clockwise Rubber Band Twisters organize a protest in favor of rubber recycling, and I attend due to my pro-recycling beliefs, can you draw a conclusion about my opinions of rubber band twisting in Tennessee?

You are drawing the wrong conclusion. If you want to say I am unwisely supporting communists by attending a rally like that, say so and I'll argue it with you. But you can't fairly draw the conclusion that I actually prefer communism myself.



False generalization. Do you have statistics for this, or just anecdotes? I am a product of my state's university system and emerged without any communism shoved down my throat. In fact I graduated from a business school where conservativism was the norm.



False dichotomy. You're saying I cannot support any women's issues without being unreasonable and totalitarian?

How is your statement different from (or more valid than): "Reasonable religious devotion is a myth. There is no reasonable religious devotion. Rabid Fundamentalism is never reasonable."

I don't consider that statement valid, nor do I consider yours, for the same reason.



I'm not accusing anyone of screwing the poor (right now :D )... I am just saying that I believe in capitalism AS LONG AS the poor don't get screwed.

Well at least you admitted why I am right in you post, even though you probably didn't see it and said I was not right at the same time lol.

If the Nazi party in Germany had a food drive because they wanted to feed hungry people, is it still a bad idea to help them with that food drive?

You bet!

The reason is that when you help groups with political agendas, it doesn't matter if those groups "claim" to espouse your beliefs temporarily--they do not! Sure, if I want to be your pal, I am going to try and win you over by fighting for something you believe in emotionally on a given day, and then once my group gets big and strong that is when the screaming starts.

It is the same thing with the communist groups that organized the rallies. They don't care in least about the welfare of the United States because they simply exist to subvert the United States and create divisions in the country between people and groups, specifically.

Remember Stalin's comments about protesting groups in other countries that favored communism?

Stalin called those groups: "useful idiots". As with the snowflake, no two Leopards have the same spots, so just saying a group "did a nice thing" doesn't change their character, nor does it remove their wicked intentions.

JK

[rikzilla]

Originally posted by Victor Danilchenko
rikzilla


the former is normal; the latter is as great an intellectual sin as they come. Your choice.

Continuing to entertain the idea that communist/pre-communist, socialist philosophy is a way to a better world would be the biggest sin...and not just an intellectual one at that. The great communist experiment has been an abject failure. Not only does it steal individual freedoms...it can't compete economically with capitalism. So tell me Vic,...why should we tolerate the involvement of people (in the peace movement) who espouse this corrupt and discredited ideology? No one would waste any time denouncing avowed Nazis attempting to inject their hateful ideas into the peace movement. One would not say "well we all know Nazism is dead so it's okay to have these Nazis organizing our protests"...would they? I wonder why there are so many folks running around trying to salvage socialist/communist theology...er sorry I mean philosophy?? ;) I mean... weren't the Nazis themselves even known as "National Socialists"??

-zilla

[Victor Danilchenko]

Shane Costello


Why Marxism doesn't work (www.theonion.com/onion3842/marxists_apartment.html)Funny thing is, Amherst MA is the town where my university (UMass) is... of course, Amherst College is for rich weenies. All the real feminist totalitarian pinko commies around these parts attend one of the two women's colleges in the area, Smith college or Holyoke college.

[Victor Danilchenko]

rikzilla

Continuing to entertain the idea that communist/pre-communist, socialistSay it with me -- 'socialism'. it's a well-known term in the PoliSci circles. it may sound bizarre to you, but there it is, and different from communism at that.

philosophy is a way to a better world would be the biggest sin...and not just an intellectual one at that.that may very well be the case. I certainly agree that socialism and communism are impractical on any sort of large scale, at least at our current technology level.

However, "communism is dead" does not follow from that, nor from the fall of USSR. What you are doing is playing into JK camp -- 'communism is evil totalitarianism, anarcho-socialists are commies, therefore anarcho-socialists are evil totalitarianists' kind of stuff. You know, the typical USAian knee-jerk reaction to anything remotely approaching pinko-commie-ism.

So tell me Vic,...why should we tolerate the involvement of people (in the peace movement) who espouse this corrupt and discredited ideology?because they very possibly don't! :mad: That's my whole *********** point -- understand what communism is, understand what socialism is, understand how those two relate to that which was practiced by USSR, and you will have a real, meaningful answer to your question, instead of the knee-jerk pink-tarring of the opposition.

No one would waste any time denouncing avowed Nazis attempting to inject their hateful ideas into the peace movement. One would not say "well we all know Nazism is dead so it's okay to have these Nazis organizing our protests"...would they?Well then, it's a good thing that there are plenty of socialists who are as horrified by what USSR did as you are...

I wonder why there are so many folks running around trying to salvage socialist/communist theology...er sorry I mean philosophy??You could understand why if you could actually be bothered to figure out what socialism and communism are. As it is, you are talking out of your ass without having the slightest clue on the subject -- and you persist in doing so! Kinda like JK in the gravity thread...

[Solitaire]

Originally posted by rikzilla
There are many here who seem to believe that communism is dead.

It's not dead. There are many functional communes around the world.
It just doesn't work for groups greater than 200 people, so there could
never really be a communist state.

While it's true that the USSR fell apart, and the wall came down,
it's also true that all the old communists did not suddenly evaporate
into thin air. Although communism is an utterly bankrupt philosophy,
there are still many true believers who keep it alive. Not just in NK
or Cuba either.

What fell apart in the sovet union was a form of oligarchy capitalism.
A group of elites gets ahold of power and it goes downhill from there.
I wonder if the united states hasn't fallen into this trap.

Originally posted by Victor Danilchenko
rikzilla
You could understand why if you could actually be bothered to figure out what socialism and communism are. As it is, you are talking out of your ass without having the slightest clue on the subject -- and you persist in doing so! Kinda like JK in the gravity thread...

Victor, you don't understand. As Americans WE get to define these things. Sure, you people in the rest of the world may have education and read books and know history and stuff, and may have actually MET communists, but what you don't understand is that it doesn't matter. Communists are what WE say they are. Socialists are what WE say they are. We cannot be wrong. Are you getting it yet? Please adapt whatever you think you know to fit our preconceptions. We're bigger than you.

We will tell all of you exactly what you need to know, and what is correct to think, like a worldwide OReilly Factor. If you agree, you're our friend. If not, you are the enemy, part of the Axis of Evil, and you're on our list.

Unfortunately Rik is a rather MILD example of a know-it-all American.

[Plutarck]

Originally posted by sundog

We will tell all of you exactly what you need to know, and what is correct to think, like a worldwide OReilly Factor.

Now THAT is funny! :cool:

[dsm]

Originally posted by John Lockard

It's not dead. There are many functional communes around the world. It just doesn't work for groups greater than 200 people, so there could never really be a communist state.


Even with Victor's very good explanations of communism and socialism, I'm still not quite catching the reason why this is so. Can anyone explain further on why the limitation in size of the group practicing communism?

[Plutarck]

Originally posted by dsm


Even with Victor's very good explanations of communism and socialism, I'm still not quite catching the reason why this is so. Can anyone explain further on why the limitation in size of the group practicing communism?

Uh, so far as I know it's not so much size that is the real limiting factor, but Time. Recalling from memory, communes founding due to political motivations last something like an apparent maximum of 15 years, and religious ones (like the Israeli kibbutz) last up to 30...or something like that, can't exactly recall.

In short, the free-rider problem gets them eventually. Everyone individual has the insentive to not cooperate and let everyone else do all the work; productive workers are unwilling to cover for a bunch of leaches, and so the system becomes impoverished and hostile, and soon breaks down completely.

[Brooklyn Dodger]

And now for a little more fun, my own input on Hitler the socialist. And Mussolini the socialist. And Stalin the socialist. Call them communist, call them fascist, call them bolshevik, call them menshevik, call them what you want, they are all well out there on the socialist left.


http://constitutionalistnc.tripod.com/hitler-leftist/

[Plutarck]

Expounding on the above, it ultimately goes down to a question of shared benefits - and this is where size comes in.

In a group of 2 people, for instance, not only can both parties rather easily ensure that their partner is contributing, but one can still effectively keep 50% of whatever one earns. So if you make $2, your partner gets $1 and you get $1.

Now, jumping out to the full extent, consider a population of 6,000,000,000 people. Not only would free riders be exceedingly difficult to identify or force to become productive among such a mass of people, but if all things are shared equally then you would, for instance, have to earn $6,000,000,000 to be able to keep...$1.

Thus the incentive to be productive is dilluted, eventually to the point of being effectively nonexistant. To the extent that people do not wish to do certain useful things without special incentives, people will simply end up not doing them.

Further, the logistical considerations of best allocating resources in any sizable complex economy can easily be understood to be so incredibly daunting as to be functionally impossible; no central authority could do such work effectively using any presently possessed technology (nor any in the forseeable future). Compelling people to do certain undesirable jobs with various incentives is an equally horrendous task.

The USSR rather quickly discovered both. Thus, even though not permitting the use of such market mechanisms and tools as currency, soon enough various factories and organizations and individuals had created a barter economy. Rediculously inefficient and unwieldly, and thus effectively their entire economic system was just a very complicated, ineffecient, out-dated way of doing what the free market has evolved to do on its own.

As to compelling people to actually work and not merely free ride, that naturally requires a collection of power into a, or several, centralized authorities - authorities controlled by corruptible, self-interested humans, no less. And thus the system, in seeking to survive, will seemingly inevitably end up going the way of tyranny by dictatorial-esk control.

All of this has even been considered in various still-Communist thinkers, and largely they came to the same conclusion - Communism requires the reinventing of man himself; a unique and new picture must be drawn upon a blank slate for Communism to be attained.

Of course, then came the inconvenient matters of genetics and biology, and how they prove that humans are not blank slates, and do have a distinct and similar nature, and part of that is what Communism would have to overcome to exist for any non-trivial amount of time.

[a_unique_person]

Originally posted by John Lockard

It's not dead. There are many functional communes around the world.
It just doesn't work for groups greater than 200 people, so there could
never really be a communist state.

What fell apart in the sovet union was a form of oligarchy capitalism.
A group of elites gets ahold of power and it goes downhill from there.
I wonder if the united states hasn't fallen into this trap.

According to this http://host.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=14617&highlight=north+carolina , that is a process in train. Small parties are being prevented from standing for election. A similar tactic was used in the USSR to control access to power.

No one can now aspire to being the US president unless they have a personal wealth or backing of many millions of dollars.

[aerocontrols]

Originally posted by Victor Danilchenko
True. However, this does not change the fact that communism did not exist in USSR.

Yes, I know. And Osama bin Laden isn't a true Muslim. And there are no true Scotsmen, either.

Originally posted by Victor Danilchenko
yeah. In an article titled "We go with the Americans and the British". Furthermore, these articles were written in English, and thus largely for americans.

*shrug* I went to google news, searched for 'communism' and 'communist' and picked out the first few news items from eastern Europe that I found. If you think those english-language (or translated into English) media are writing 'communist' when they mean 'capitalist oligarchy' or 'totalitarian socialism' to humor their 4 American readers then I guess that's your choice.

Originally posted by Victor Danilchenko
Yup. I did say that, and I stand by it. Meaning is determined by usage of the speaking population. The thing is that for specialized terminology, the 'speaking population' consists of specialists first, and everyone else second. "Communism" is a specialized term, having been given a specific and explicit meaning by its creator, which meaning is widely recognized in political science, and perhaps in economics.

Great. "Islam" is also a specialized term, having been given explicit meaning by its creator, which meaning is widely recognized among various Sunnah Imams. Everyone else's opinion of what "Islam" means is secondary.

Originally posted by Victor Danilchenko
Well, their professing to practice it would probably be a good start. if even communists themselves never claimed to have built communism, then Rik has a problem, doesn't he?

I'm not defending Rik. I'm questioning how you seem to apply a prescriptive claim to the concept of Communism. It appears to me that by your criteria, we cannot.

MattJ

[gnome]

Originally posted by Jedi Knight
Well at least you admitted why I am right in you post, even though you probably didn't see it and said I was not right at the same time lol.

If the Nazi party in Germany had a food drive because they wanted to feed hungry people, is it still a bad idea to help them with that food drive?

You bet!

The reason is that when you help groups with political agendas, it doesn't matter if those groups "claim" to espouse your beliefs temporarily--they do not! Sure, if I want to be your pal, I am going to try and win you over by fighting for something you believe in emotionally on a given day, and then once my group gets big and strong that is when the screaming starts.

It is the same thing with the communist groups that organized the rallies. They don't care in least about the welfare of the United States because they simply exist to subvert the United States and create divisions in the country between people and groups, specifically.

Remember Stalin's comments about protesting groups in other countries that favored communism?

Stalin called those groups: "useful idiots". As with the snowflake, no two Leopards have the same spots, so just saying a group "did a nice thing" doesn't change their character, nor does it remove their wicked intentions.

JK

At least now we're on topic, instead of trying to figure out if I am a communist.

I agree that once I know the intent of the organizers, I should not help them with their agenda. So what do I do? Stay home and keep my beliefs to myself? Or do I show up, speak up for what i believe in, and pre-empt THEIR asses?

It requires vigilance. As Rikzilla says, I gotta be careful what I sign and who I give money to. There's lots of people of all political stripes at these protests, I don't have to agree with all of them.

[Kodiak]

Originally posted by dsm

Can anyone explain further on why the limitation in size of the group practicing communism?

Human Nature, specifically competition, greed, status, power, domination...

[Kodiak]

Originally posted by aerocontrols
Great. "Islam" is also a specialized term, having been given explicit meaning by its creator, which meaning is widely recognized among various Sunnah Imams. Everyone else's opinion of what "Islam" means is secondary.

Unfortunately, Vic doesn't think "democracy" is a specialized term...

[Victor Danilchenko]

And now a little bit about the history of modern communism. None of what follows should be construed as me advocating communism, since I don't think it's practical with humans as we are (as plutarck pointed out).

Marx proposed that socialism, being the next step to communism, could be achieved by the revolution effecting the dictatorship of the proletariat -- the proletariat class would get to control the bourgeois, the intelligentsia, and the peasantry. Democracy would exist within the proletariat, and this situation would be only a short temporary step to socialism. An important feature of marxist theory is that socialist revolution could only occur in a highly industrialized states, where proletariat constitutes majority of population.

In comes Lenin. He introduced two major changes to marxism.

First of all, he posited that the pre-existing prevalence of proletariat is unnecessary, that a socialist revolution could occur in a largely agricultural country (which Russia was, at the time). This is of course at odds with Marx on a fundamental level, because the very feature that defined proletariat and gave it its power -- the separation from the means of production -- was not a factor for the peasants and farmers. In retrospect, this amendment of lenin's seem like an ad-hoc BS to say that revolution is possible in Russia, a largely pre-industrial country.

The second change was more insiduous, and was IMO what led to the horrors of Soviet tyranny. Lenin posited that the socialist revolution should be led and controlled by an elite cadre of professional revolutionaries, the Communist Party -- he didn't think that the revolution could be more-or-less spontaneous, as Marx predicted, nor did he think that a revolutionary state should be truly democratic; he saw the people as sheep who needed to be guided by the said elite. Of course, in making such a claim, Lenin set the groundwork for the oligarchy that followed.

Now historically, the second claim was very interesting. In Russia in 1917, there were two revolutions -- the February and the October revolution. the former led to emplacement of a transitional democratic government under Kerensky that had an agenda that we would call social-democract today -- the same as it practiced in many European democracies; among other things, that government explicitly called itself transitional, and their main goal was to stage a country-wide democratic elections. that revolution was supported by the majority of the Communist party, the so-called "mensheviks". That word actually means "minority" -- in a very orwellian case of re-writing the history, Soviet historians claimed that the majority of the communists, the ones who were for social-democrat agenda, were actually the minority.

The rest of the communist party, the so-called "bolsheviks" (which means "majority", even though they weren't), led by Lenin, weren't happy with that state of affairs -- they knew that the mensheviks and Social-Revolutionaries (SR, another important radical party at the time) and other social-democrat types would win the election, they knew that bolsheviks lacked the popular support. Since they were led by Lenin, they were also guided by his ideology -- and due to that, due to Lenin's explicit programme of elite cadre controlling the sheeple, they were able to seize control of the key military units stationed in Saint-Petersburg, and then stage what amounted to a military coup.

Bolsheviks were easily able to suppress the mensheviks, since the latter were much less organized, and weren't really interested in controlling the people, not even "for their own good", as bolsheviks were. It's this very organization and ideology of bolsheviks that still allows their descendants to exercise such disproportionate control over the leftist rallies and gatherings.

At the time, there were other communist theorists, most prominent of them being Trotsky, who opposed Lenin in a variety of ways. Trotsky, exiled in USSR, became very influential among the western socialists and communists. He advocated what was very similar to modern anarcho-socialism -- that is, a socialism combined with minimum of tyranny and maximum of self-governance, the "socialism from below".


OK, let's get back. So now you see that there's a significant difference between Marx and Lenin, and between Lenin and Trotsky and other communist theorists. However, most western communists are Trotskists and not Leninsts!

So, when you make statements about how communism is evil and dead and everything, the first question you have to ask is -- who will be identified as "communist" for the purpose of applying the above opinions? And the answer is clear -- pretty much anyone with the name "socialist" or "communist" attached to them, as well as various other leftist radicals, feminists, pinko commies, and other frequent visitors in JK's wet nightmares. It's easy to forget, especially for those who willingly blind themselves, that most of those thusly classified would reject Leninism outright, and be as horrified as you are by the perversion that USSR was.

Now one can argue that Leninism was the only practical way to implement socialism. However, even if true, such an argument would at most amount to saying that various "pinko commies" are impractical and irrational, rather than that they are evil for supporting what USSR stood for (because they don't).

aerocontrols,

The problem with your 'popular definition' is that, first of all, it's not that popular; and more importantly, that it's exclusive -- that it reduced socialism and communist to Soviet ideology. What i am saying is that while you can argue that USSR practiced a version of socialism, you cannot argue that any socialist or communist is necessarily endorses Soviet ideology. My point is that there are plenty of socialists and communists who didn't, and to say "they are neither socialists nor communists" would be simply stupid.

[Victor Danilchenko]

Kodiak

Unfortunately, Vic doesn't think "democracy" is a specialized term...'Democracy' is regarded to include 'republic' both by majority of population, and by political scientists. It's only a small stupid minority who screech "republic is not a democracy" these days -- minority like you, who jump at the chance to feel smug about knowing something, without actually bothering to know it.

[Kodiak]

Originally posted by Victor Danilchenko

'Democracy' is regarded to include 'republic' both by majority of population, and by political scientists. It's only a small stupid minority who screech "republic is not a democracy" these days -- minority like you, who jump at the chance to feel smug about knowing something, without actually bothering to know it.

Well, it seems we still disagree...at least I have the advantage of ethical discourse.

Originally posted by Victor Danilchenko

The thing is that for specialized terminology, the 'speaking population' consists of specialists first, and everyone else second. "Communism" is a specialized term, having been given a specific and explicit meaning by its creator, which meaning is widely recognized in political science, and perhaps in economics.


Then why are "Islam" and "Communist" specialized terms, but not "Democracy", which is to mean the term created (your own requirement, as evidenced above) by the city-states of ancient Greece to mean direct governmental representation?

[aerocontrols]

Originally posted by Victor Danilchenko
My point is that there are plenty of socialists and communists who didn't, and to say "they are neither socialists nor communists" would be simply stupid.

You are the one who is arguing what socialists and communists are not, not I.

aerocontrols

[Victor Danilchenko]

Kodiak

Well, it seems we still disagree...at least I have the advantage of ethical discourse.A veneer of tact makes up for ignorance, I suppose.

Then why are "Islam" and "Communist" specialized terms, but not "Democracy", which is to mean the term created (your own requirement, as evidenced above) by the city-states of ancient Greece to mean direct governmental representation?because since then, the people who use the term the most -- political scientists -- changed its meaning to include representative democracy. "Communism", however, still means to political scientists what it meant to Marx a century and a half ago. For that matter, there are plenty of people (non-PoliSci) around the world who recognize "communism' to be distinct from socialism and from USSR totalitarianism.

In short, Kodiak, nobody who matters (neither general population nor political scientists) use "democracy" the way you used it. And it was your stupid ignorant smugness that ticked me off, not the fact that you didn't know what you were talking about.

There is no authoritative definition for "islam", and thus the popular definition is the only one that matters. There is authoritative definition of communism, as set forth by Marx and accepted by political scientists, and -- guess what? -- known and recognized as being distinct from socialism by many, many non-specialist people, especially outside USA, and including the communists themsevles.

[Kodiak]

Originally posted by Victor Danilchenko
Kodiak

A veneer of tact makes up for ignorance, I suppose.

because since then, the people who use the term the most -- political scientists -- changed its meaning to include representative democracy. "Communism", however, still means to political scientists what it meant to Marx a century and a half ago. For that matter, there are plenty of people (non-PoliSci) around the world who recognize "communism' to be distinct from socialism and from USSR totalitarianism.

In short, Kodiak, nobody who matters (neither general population nor political scientists) use "democracy" the way you used it. And it was your stupid ignorant smugness that ticked me off, not the fact that you didn't know what you were talking about.

There is no authoritative definition for "islam", and thus the popular definition is the only one that matters. There is authoritative definition of communism, as set forth by Marx and accepted by political scientists, and -- guess what? -- known and recognized as being distinct from socialism by many, many non-specialist people, especially outside USA, and including the communists themsevles.

Does anyone know where I can buy 'The Victor Danilchenko Lexicon' ? :confused:

[Frank Newgent]

Originally posted by Kodiak


Does anyone know where I can buy 'The Victor Danilchenko Lexicon' ? :confused:

Send me $50 right away. I promise to talk very slowly to you upon receipt.

[Kodiak]

Originally posted by Frank Newgent


Send me $50 right away. I promise to talk very slowly to you upon receipt.

Hmmm...should I?

Naaaa....

Can you explain how your rate of speech will have any effect in this forum?

[Frank Newgent]

Originally posted by Kodiak
Can you explain how your rate of speech will have any effect in this forum?

Yes. With respect to your ability to comprehend English, the measured quantity of speech sounds ought be slowed.

[Kodiak]

Originally posted by Frank Newgent


Yes. With respect to your ability to comprehend English, the measured quantity of speech sounds ought be slowed.

Really? Changes in the "measured quantity of speech sounds" can really make a difference in this forum, where all communication is of the type-written variety??

Remarkable...

[Frank Newgent]

Originally posted by Kodiak

Really? Changes in the "measured quantity of speech sounds" can really make a difference in this forum, where all communication is of the type-written variety??


What did you expect? You have to pay me the $50 first.

[tedly]

An interesting take on the maximum size of communes is discussed in "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell. He talks to an Amish leader, and a US business leader who agree that dividing the operation when it reaches 150 people increases "corporate" health. Below that size you can know everyone, much above that you are a victim of the exponential growth of lines of communication. You can 'know of' your fellows but not know them.
As well the limit on age of religious communes is much longer than 70 years, some of the Hutterite colonies in Europe, e.g.

While I am citing, my favourite authour, His Excellency (the consort of our Governor General) John Ralston Saul in his "The Doubter's Companion: A Dictionary of Agressive Common Sense" gives this for
CAPITALISM A concept which has moved beyond the stage of sensible discussion.
Capitalism can be a useful social tool or a weapon of unabashed human exploitation. Which it will be depends entirely on the way it is regulated. ...Capitalism is happiest in a non-democratic society. Not that any old dictatorship will do.... Capitalism was reasonably content under Hitler, happy under Mussolini, very happy under Franco and delirious under Pinochet.

Moving back to the topic Saul gives this for
MARXIST The only serious functioning Marxists left in the West are the senior management of large, usually transnational corporations. The only serious Marxist thinkers are NEO-CONSERVATIVES (q.v).
Marxism is primarily an analysis of how society works - or rather, how it must work. This dialectic is based on the struggle of the classes and the battle of the unregulated marketplace in which the strongest wins. It is a market-place which cannot be tempered, according to Marx. It must and will run free and so function as a battleground between those who have power and those who don't. The market-place will seek to maximize profits even if this is to the disadvantage of most. Profits and power are the truth of the economic struggle and economic determinism will decide the social structure.
Most functioning Marxists had stopped believing this sort of stuff by the end of the Second World War. They had come around to the ideology of stable bureaucratic management. In that they resembled the technocrats of Western governmental and corporate bureaucracies.
But these Western corporate managers and their academic acolytes were in fact thrown into a state of confusion by the colllapse of 1929. It seemed as if the pure capitalist analysis, of which they were the official inheritors, had failed. An unrestricted market-place had led not to ongoing growth and prosperity, but to total economic collapse. The ideology of a natural and general equiliibrium produced by competition had been given its chance and had self-destructed for all to see and suffer the consequences.
A good thirty-five years passed before the corporate leaders were able to erase from their own memory and from that of the pulic this failure. They then rediscovered with a virginal ideologic enthusiasm the virtues of the unregulated market.
This time they were supported by an intellectually sophisticated explanation for the dialectic provided by a group of economists at the CHICAGO SCHOOL (q.v.). They were able to dispense with the idea that public institutions could achieve social stability, protect the weak or encourage a wider distribution of wealth. Their new argument would have made Marx proud. It was not that they did not wish to help the weak or promote fairness. It was the natural rules of the market-place - the dialectic - which made the class struggle inevitable.
The only disagreement between the Neo-conservatives and Marx is over who wins the battle in the end. This is a small detail. Far more important is their agreement that society must function as a wide-open struggle.
Some people are suprised that Marxism should have re-emerged on the Right. However, ideas, once launched, become public property. And they often reappear in several disguises before discovering their true form.

My apologies for quoting at such length, but he gets me laughing and I can't stop. Is there some kind of 12-step for this?

[Kodiak]

Originally posted by Frank Newgent


What did you expect? You have to pay me the $50 first.


Naaaa......

I'll just put some weak batteries in my cassette player instead... ;)

[rikzilla]

Well Vic,..et al

I guess I asked for it and am now getting it with both barrels. Because of my ignorance of the political philosophies of Lenin, Marx, Trotsky and Engels and the differences thereof I (as well as others here) am being derided as a "mild example of the know-it-all American" amongst other attempts to paint me as a moron.

Well guys,..I'm not the swiftest horse to ever trot around the intellectual race track,...but I'm no moron. I may be unschooled in political theory, but I do know how to tell if something is working or not. Communism/Socialism in all it's permutations and varieties has been found inferior to capitalism everywhere in the world it has been tried.

Vic has done a wonderful job of informing us what communism is not. At least he appears to not be trying to defend it. But I must say Vic,...your tone of condescension when speaking to me and others here who do not share your extensive knowledge of the subject is troubling. If an idiot wanders outside, looks up, and proclaims that the sun is up...that doesn't necessarily mean it's dark out. I think you need to work on your people skills a little man. :p

-zilla

BTW: Thanks for the info Vic...I will continue to lurk and learn. You've taught me some good stuff Vic...but it's not really helping me to understand the current state of communist/socialist involvement in the worldwide peace movement. I know that's not what I asked for in this thread...but if you've read some threads I've participated in earlier you'd know that that debate is what prompted the creation of this thread. Thanks.

[Victor Danilchenko]

rikzilla

I guess I asked for it and am now getting it with both barrels. Because of my ignorance of the political philosophies of Lenin, Marx, Trotsky and Engels and the differences thereof I (as well as others here) am being derided as a "mild example of the know-it-all American" amongst other attempts to paint me as a moron.No, that's not why. it's not your ignorance, it's the fact that you came across as being both ignorant and arrogant -- not only did you have no clue, but you were proud about it and staunchly refusing the said clues when they were offered. You stuck by "I know what I see, and I don't need none of dat dere fancy school learnin'" line, come hell or high water, and this is why you got it with both barrels. The same BTW holds for Kodiak, except that he seems to be far more obstinate than you.

Well guys,..I'm not the swiftest horse to ever trot around the intellectual race track,...but I'm no moron. I may be unschooled in political theory, but I do know how to tell if something is working or not. Communism/Socialism in all it's permutations and varieties has been found inferior to capitalism everywhere in the world it has been tried.That is true, in a limited sense (socialism is alive and well as a "mix-in" in many modern democracies). However, that's not the point. The point is that you came and made a statement that could be true, in a limited sense (communism is dead) -- but you didn't make it in such a limited sense, because you simply didn't know enough to do so. When you went on to insist that communism is evil, you started getting it twice as hard.

As I said, what yu said is, in a certain sense, true; but because you know next to nothing abut the subject, you are asking wrong questions and making fundamentally wrong presumptions. Hopefully you know better after this thread.

Vic has done a wonderful job of informing us what communism is not. At least he appears to not be trying to defend it. But I must say Vic,...your tone of condescension when speaking to me and others here who do not share your extensive knowledge of the subject is troubling.Oh please, spare me the "wounded innocence" act. My tone of condescension was not because you were ignorant (everyone is ignorant of many things, it's not a sin) but because you were ignorant and arrogant about it. That arrogance became much more clear as the thread wore on.

If an idiot wanders outside, looks up, and proclaims that the sun is up...that doesn't necessarily mean it's dark out. I think you need to work on your people skills a little man.I have a super-genuis IQ, I don't need no steenkin' people skills! ;)

[Kodiak]

Originally posted by Victor Danilchenko
rikzilla

No, that's not why. it's not your ignorance, it's the fact that you came across as being both ignorant and arrogant -- not only did you have no clue, but you were proud about it and staunchly refusing the said clues when they were offered. You stuck by "I know what I see, and I don't need none of dat dere fancy school learnin'" line, come hell or high water, and this is why you got it with both barrels. The same BTW holds for Kodiak, except that he seems to be far more obstinate than you.

That is true, in a limited sense (socialism is alive and well as a "mix-in" in many modern democracies). However, that's not the point. The point is that you came and made a statement that could be true, in a limited sense (communism is dead) -- but you didn't make it in such a limited sense, because you simply didn't know enough to do so. When you went on to insist that communism is evil, you started getting it twice as hard.

As I said, what yu said is, in a certain sense, true; but because you know next to nothing abut the subject, you are asking wrong questions and making fundamentally wrong presumptions. Hopefully you know better after this thread.

Oh please, spare me the "wounded innocence" act. My tone of condescension was not because you were ignorant (everyone is ignorant of many things, it's not a sin) but because you were ignorant and arrogant about it. That arrogance became much more clear as the thread wore on.

I have a super-genuis IQ, I don't need no steenkin' people skills! ;)

A super-genius who can't spell "genius" and hasn't learned how to avoid double posting... :rolleyes:

5-minute irony break.

[Victor Danilchenko]

Kodiak

A super-genius who can't spell "genius"Can't type when not concentrating. I am slightly dyslexic, I can't keep letter order straight. I thought everyone'd picked it up by now.

and hasn't learned how to avoid double posting... :rolleyes:the irony is positively overwhelming. :D

Originally posted by Victor Danilchenko

the irony is positively overwhelming. :D

I've changed my mind. There IS a God.

[Q-Source]

Was communism ever alive?

I don't think so.

Marx should have listened to Adam Smith's words "men are intrinsically selfish".

:rolleyes:

Q-S

[Kodiak]

Originally posted by Victor Danilchenko
Kodiak

Can't type when not concentrating. I am slightly dyslexic, I can't keep letter order straight. I thought everyone'd picked it up by now.

the irony is positively overwhelming. :D

I thought you might like that... :D