Communism is Everywhere

This stuff is hilarious, thanks for the laugh, Blackrook, you're quite a gifted comedian. lol

 

Just checking in are the Communist still here I have my paint ball gun ready !

 

It's good as it removes the biggest example of Communism not working. It's the same reason that Fascism is more popular now than in 1933 -- most of the people have forgotten what Fascist ideology looks like, and they are quickly forgetting what Communism looks like. When the people forget such things, it's not long before their kids or grandkids pretend that they just discovered some new ideology that is not that much different from the ideologies that their parents fought against a generation before. it's not a conspiracy, which is where I disagree with the OP. It's simply that it's easy to forget the mistakes of the past when you can no longer see them.

I don't think a covert communist would admit to being a communist openly. I can't say for sure that he's communist or not -- and my own beliefs would prevent me from saying for a fact that he's a closet communist. He does however have some very strange tendencies that would support the idea of an "imperial presidency" -- such as him warning the Supreme Court against overturning Obamacare. Or the whole Birth Certificate thing -- No matter what happens, there are still gaping holes in the man's past. I don't know. No answers just questions on that score.

I don't think we really know the extent of any group's influence on the seats of power -- that goes for Fascists, Communists anybody. I will tell you that for the most part, elections are irrelevant, bacause you cannot get on the ballot for a federal office without having kissed a lot of butt and said things the the oligarchs in both parties want to hear. Try to get nominated for a republican or democrat on some truely libertarian platform -- it won't happen. You can't get nominated if you are heterodox on certain issues. It's hard if you don't come from upper middle class stock plumber's kids don't get elected to senate, and for the most part, those who do get elected come from the ranks of Lawyers and Business owners or perhaps the occasional MD. Not plumbers, mechanics, or the like. So if you ask me if Communists are in -- dunno, but it would be easier given that most communists would come from upper middle class to upper class backgrounds, and most likely to be politically connected.

And to what extent do beareucrats decide things -- it's a lot when you really think about it. The FDA, USDA, the EPA, OSHA and similar groups probably have more say on the day to day rules that run our lives than even Congress does. The FDA requires so much testing that researchers complain that it would be hard to get asperin approved today. The USDA gets to decide whether GM crops are premissible in human food, or what types of pesticides may be used in our fields. The EPA is pretty close to being able to control carbon emissions, and OSHA has all kinds of rules that add to the cost of doing business. It's not necessary for Congress or the President to take over anything -- all that needs to be done is to make it so hard to profitably run a business in a given industry and you could easily end up dependant on either a forgein power for that product or the government. You could make cigarettes illegal without making them illegal -- just limit the places that are allowed to sell them -- regulate the growing of tobacco to the point that it's impossible to grow legally, and so on. It's not a ban -- but the product may as well be banned because there's no way to legally buy the product.

I'm not afraid of Communists. I am worried about a government that claims the power to force citizens to buy stuff, or that tells a company what it must offer. They've already run afoul of most Christians by requiring Christians to provide contraceptive insurance without cost. I'm worried about a beareucracy run by people with obvious agendas using "regulations" to ban activities that Congress has not banned. I'm worried about an oligarchy that acts as idea gatekeepers and only allows certain types of people anywhere near a federal office (and in some states, statewide office as well). We're barely a republic because the people have very little voice in what type of government we'll have. We get Liberal and I-can't-believe-it's-not-liberal, no one else may run. We can't have Nationalists, Libertarians, Labor Party, Communists, or Greens. Just Liberal and not quite so Liberal. It not really a choice when you choose between Romney and Obama. But no other candidates have a chance. Is that a Republic, or is it an Empire that holds mock elections?

The issues go far beyond electoral politics -- the Republic is barely a free republic as the real levers of power are in the beareucracy, not the elected government. There's no need for a take-over. Just appoint the "right people" to the EPA, FDA, USDA, OSHA, and HHS and you don't need to run a stealth communist to enact socialism -- just regulate the private sector to death. It's already working in healthcare -- most employers are planning to drop coverage after Obamacare. You don't have a choice, as the private sector will be gone.

 

find out what communism is first.

its not the democrats. and its not stalinism.

anymore than the neoconservatism is capitalism.

 

That's asking a lot of the average rightwing forum member. lol

 

Communism is an economic state wherein there is no ownership and property is shared collectively. According to the writings of Marx, Engels, and Lenin it is also "anarcho".

Lets get real. NONE of these people are communist. They want: power, money, power, and did I mention money. What you are talking and where we are obviously moving is an economic oligarchy with some aspects of socialism. The extreme rich and powerful will stay that way and the rest of us will all be poor and "cared for" in a meager scrap of existence. We have lost pretty much all rights guaranteed us in the Constitution the past 10 years--I DEFY anyone to name ONE that's wholly left and the economies of the world were purposefully toppled.

Now...like a bunch of greedy crabs in a boiling pot all of you are crying over the fact that the rich aren't allowed to get richer without saying: what about my Leave it to Beaver main street dreams? Why won't my kids have that? You're talking economics when one good crash can fix that without, I repeat, without asking yourselves where your rights have gone.

You will be forced into this state of existence...not just because of Obamas policies, but because of the people before him, as well. As the ancients would say Cui Bono? To whose benefit are all of these policies serving?

Not you.
Not the poor.
The same people they've always served. You're just too angry and too plugged in to care.

They won already. You just don't know it yet.

 

.... it is good advice though, doncha think?

I mean if someone wants to talk about something isn't it best to learn about it before they open their mouth and spew out a collection of nonsensical disjointed sentences?

 

Ladies and Gentlemen ... is is what the Conservative Republican Party has been reduced to ... A Lite-Night Punch-Line!

 

Some punch line, looks like it hit you square between the eyes. Hope it din't hurt you too much.

 

We do need a definition of Communism in American political discourse (the historical article rather than the theoretical paradisical one described by Zosiasmum). People, particularily on the Right side of the political spectrum, seem to have a great deal of difficulty differentiating Social Democrats from Democratic Socialists from Socialists from Communists. These are the same people who can parse political differences on the Right to the minutest detail (RINOs from Republicans from Tea Partyists from Libertarians from Militiamen).

 

It never ceases to bring a smile to my face when I read people who are convinced that so-and-so is a "communist", when it is abundantly clear that they have absolutely no idea what the word means. To most folks on the right, "communist" is nothing more than a dirty epithet... like a**hole, or sh*thead. I would highly recommend "Das Kapital" and "The Communist Manifesto", by Marx, and "What Is To Be Done" and "The State and the Revolution", both by V.I. Lenin. Not exactly light reading, but it would give those who feel compelled to throw out the word "communism" some understanding of what the word actually means - a level of understanding that they certainly are lacking at this point.

 

Wow, what a state our education system is in if the Communist Manifesto is considered "heavy reading!"

 

There is a romanticized allure about the leftist radical, the young Lenin, or Castro. The so-called people's champion. Or to go further back the intellectual prowess and esotericism of Marx and Engels. 'Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have the world to gain.' A powerful statement by any standards.

I find it somewhat ironic that an experiment carried out by Welshman, Robert Owen, in the early 19th century in Indiana was a complete failure, and not only that but Owen was in fierce denial that the experiment failed due to flaws in what was budding socialist theory, but had more to do with the "wrong headed enthusiasts" he had to work with.

Under Lenin, Stalin and Mao the regimes were terrible, that's a given. What happened to the working man's dream? For those slaving in the Gulag it must have felt as if they were induced into a nightmare. Does communism ever work in practice? There are five countries that still call themselves communist, Laos, Vietnam, China, North Korea and Cuba.

It is said that NK is the only real communist country left. In that regard does that give "democratizing" west leverage when moralising its brutality towards the extreme left?

And to me all this fearful "Obama's a communist talk" is laughable. In the UK our conservative right is more left than Obama... it's all in your heads, calm down... the boogie-man commies are not coming to get you

P.S The communist manifesto is on my list but my dad said it's just a very long way of saying "the bourgeois are a bunch of bastards."

 

actually...that is probably the lightest of the four I mentioned. I found Das Kapital very difficult to slog my way through. Marx is not what I would call a scintillating author. Both of Lenin's works that I mentioned are fairly dense in their composition, imo.

 

Yeah, that's pretty much my point. Communist literature is usually written for public consumption, not ivory tower elites. Capital (that is its name in English, no point in calling it Das Kapital unless you're reading it in German) is the only notable one that wasn't. Socialists in general write for consumption by people who didn't necessarily have tons of formal education, but a lot of education in the school of hard knocks.

It is unusual for socialist literature, quite probably because it was basically pure Marx, rather than Marx and Engels (who would edit and publish the latter volumes of Capital from Marx's manuscripts after Marx's death); the communist manifesto was the other way around. Engels was, without a doubt, the more readable author between the two.

Not in the least.

That's probably a product of translation as much as anything else. What Is To Be Done was intended as a political pamphlet, for example.

 

You can bastardize the word communist and the US has been a communist country for at least 80 years.

But the reason people really feared "communists" in the cold war was because Russia was one.

 

I am really not sure that anyone else would have the correct perspective on the reasons for failure. Were you there? If not, why would you presume you knew more about the reasons for the experiment's failure than Owen? Others who were there also seemed to suggest that personal conflict was at the root of the failure of New Harmony as well. I somewhat question the wisdom of inferring too much from the failure of such artificial communities to the broader question of socialism in organically originated communities. Planned communities in general have problems; be they socialist or capitalist. I don't think that such a society would really reflect an actual cross-section of society with its many perspectives and interests. Having a bunch of high-minded rich folks get together to start a commune might sound great on paper, but I don't think it would teach much about the applicability of that model (one way or another) to a mixed cross-section of society. In many ways, wealthy idealists are not the people are not the people most motivated to accept socialist practice.

I don't think it would make much sense to call them communist if we go by the communism defined by Marx, Engels, etc. There is a distinct lack of democratic organization in such countries.

I don't think anyone with half a brain cell left could realistically see North Korea as a meaningfully leftist state. I mean, the extreme left is anarchism, and a totalitarian state like North Korea is practically the polar opposite of that. They claim to be socialist... but they also claim to be a democracy too. You can't really take a country at its word about things like that.

That's... a wholly inadequate summary of the communist manifesto.

 

I guess one of the things I am finding increasingly frustrating on this forum is the preponderance of people who talk about "communism" without having the first clue about what it is.

the poster you responded to wants to present himself as having a worthwhile opinion about communism, but hasn't nothered to even read the communist manifesto, basically because his dad told him it was a load of rubbish. Come on! how can anyone take a person's opinion on a subject seriously when they say such a thing.

lols.

its nice to see there are people such as yourself on this forum however. people who take a genuine interest in knowing the subject matter that they are discussing.

 

I agree. Someone's posts in this thread have been a breath of fresh air.

 

just checking back I see you have also contributed to raising the level of the discussion.

Like you I found Capital heavier going, and I agree with what Someone has said as well re the purpose of the texts. from memory, I found Capital vol 3 much easier, and suspect it was because it was edited by Engels. His writing is much more reader friendly.

that said, I do think Capital is well worth a read, and I believe that many of the american righties would be very very surprised to see what marx actually said.

Here's a little snippet the more brave of them might like to think about:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch33.htm

I would be curious to know what they think of what he says in this excerpt.

 

We recently had a 30+ page thread about supposed communists in congress.

In that thread I repeatedly invited conservatives to explain communism, and identify how the members of Congress were communist.

Not one was able to do it.

 

This stuff reflects less a desire to explain and debate, but to vent and get a reaction - also known as 'trolling'.

 

Laos is very interesting and has an interesting political structure. Laos was never hardcore Communist like China, Russia or even Vietnam. It has also always been a free market economy, where what you grow or make you can sell. But quite strict government regulations have been in place for pricing structure. For example, ten eggs must fall between a certain price range depending on size and quality. The same goes for staples and essentials like fruit, vege, meat, clothing etc. This is to stop wild profiteering on essentials.

Communal farming has existed for centuries where the village and villagers own the major rice paddy and each villager contributes his/her labour and the harvest is divided amounst the villagers.

Since about 1986 the Lao govenment has encouraged private land ownership and business ownership. Most property and businesses are owned by women, and women mostly control the household purse. This is due to a very powerful women's lobby group, the Lao Women's Union. When they talk, the government listens.

Laos still has a one party form of government, in three tiers. Free elections are held every four to five years with more independents who aren't party members being elected, especialy to the lower house. I can see in times to come, Laos will be mutiparty. Today it's a socialist democracy, which really is an oxymoron. There are no social safety nets, no universal healthcare and it's a user pay system. Education is relatively cheap and compulsory, and there is a school children (under 12 I think) feeding programme. Hospital and medical care is also relatively cheap.

Laos also has religious freedom to an extent. Theravada Buddhism is the main religion (about 70% and growing), but quite a few Lao are turning to Christianity, especialy those with contacts in the West. The government is trying to limit this by not allowing any extraordinary "sects" to enter the country.You are either Buddhist, Catholic or Evangelical. A small amount of Muslims do exist but are usually Pakistani merchants or Southern Thais. I drove past the main Catholic church in Vientiane over Easter,, it was packed with both locals and foreigners.

Also, when the Pathet Lao took over in 1975, they didn't "go after" the clergy like the Khmer Rouge did in Cambodia, but encouraged the Buddhist clergy to keep serving their communities as long as no political dogma was preached. Some monks were detained because they "broke the rules" and preached anti Communism.

Laos is developing at an alarming rate. More foreign investment and foreign aid pours into the country, but the disparity between the rich and poor is widening.

 

I would just like to note that it's 2012 and the right-wingers are still starting threads titled "Communism is everywhere."

 

I can't figure out why they do it. Do they actually believe it? Or do they do it becuase they think they can get others to believe it?

One thin is for sure, any sane person of average intellect will question the motives of these posters.