|
Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. |
On December 27 2014 07:50 Doublemint wrote:Show nested quote +On December 27 2014 06:58 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 27 2014 05:06 Doublemint wrote:On December 27 2014 02:34 IgnE wrote:On December 27 2014 02:14 Danglars wrote:On December 26 2014 23:55 WhiteDog wrote:On December 26 2014 12:16 coverpunch wrote:On December 26 2014 09:02 WhiteDog wrote:On December 26 2014 08:06 coverpunch wrote:On December 26 2014 06:57 Sub40APM wrote:
[quote]
...You do realize that the New Deal and FDR were viewed as radical extremists and there were some talks of an armed coup to prevent it right? Other people calling you an extremist doesn't make you so. And the simple fact is there WASN'T an armed coup. That's the whole point of having a Congress that holds hearings and debates, drawing out the issues and chilling emotional reactions. I think the original statement "Experts and thinkers barely ever had any role in big political change in our societies. Extremists and political activists did." is a bait because it is such a red herring. Obviously, you need politics to pass legislation, not thinking, and it is legislative maneuvering that builds coalitions and whips votes, not expertise on an issue. This was especially true in the turbulent times of the 30s, 40s, and 50s, as Congress modernized itself and the country transitioned from a fairly strict North-South divide and more along budding party identities. But extremists in politics have rarely been given the gavel or allowed to thrive for long in Congress. Congress is too jealous to allow anyone to grow too powerful for too long, and emotional outbursts are an easy pull for political judo. Put it back in perspective ; i never said all change are thanks to extremism, I said they played a part in many change. oneofthem's point was that riot were counter productive. It's untrue, extremism can have, and have had a very good influence on political debate. Meanwhile, I've never seen a group of expert changing a society for the best, they oftentime mistake political matters for technical problem (or mix the two), and don't see (or refuse to see) the conflictual interests behind the technical aspects. Sometime politics also needs caricature to move forward. This idea that only consensual move and rationnal discussion lead to change is perfectly wrong. In fact, consensus and negotiation usually only leads to the status quo and the place we give to expert in our society also explain our inability to change anything (regarding climate for exemple). Also, not all extremism are violent. Most extremism in history were, at first, completly pacifist : the first big communist manifestation in France were pacifists, against colonisation. Yet they were extreme because they were considered to be far outside the mainstream political field. The part I quoted was from your post ("Experts and thinkers barely ever had any role in big political change in our societies. Extremists and political activists did.") That reads like you think nearly all changes are thanks to extremism. I find that to be very contrary to American history, where Congress serves a moderating purpose for the sake of compromise and getting the votes necessary to pass legislation. I could accept that Congress isn't full of thinkers and experts and they often rely on their opinions only to the cynical extent that it helps garner support and votes, but I think it's very inaccurate to suggest extremists have been the prime movers of change by shifting the debate. US political history is very different from Europe and especially France, and it's notable the US has often used the French government as a counterpoint for why America should avoid the temptations of big and sudden changes. It's also laughable to say communists were ever pacifist. They WANT a class war. They were against imperialism to the extent that they wanted soldiers to help them kill captains of industry and the rich, not that they wanted no army and no war at all. By definition, extremists want solutions that are unpalatable and unacceptable to the rest of society, which nearly always means killing their enemies in righteous justice. Communists want a class war ? Ho really ? Communists historically were pacifists, I'm sorry if your all USA history book don't teach you that, but the soviet are not the debut of the communist ideology (more like the tomb). It's Lenin that theorized communism as an armed revolution, in the specific context of Russia. Class struggle is not a war that communist "wish" to fight for with weapon and all, it's a concept that describe the reality of exploitation in a society that permit accumulation of capital : the interests of the worker class are at war with the interests of the capitalists, the end goal being the end of this class struggle through a reform of property right. I don't think you can spread solace by allowing that Communists acknowledge the reality of exploitation and war, while not wanting a class war. I can only think of how much breath they wasted talking of inevitability, when of course they never meant class war was desirable to their ends. I am much persuaded that the class war and all the misery that resulted from Russia's experimentation with it (sophistry, of course, says they were misguided fools--nobody's ever tried communism to the purity and extent of intellectual's satisfaction) is responsible for much of the current misery of the poor, the real pawns of today's class warriors. Their message echoes, The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. The class war is raging harder than ever, it's not up to the communists whether it continues or not. In the soviet block, at least, everyone but the convicts were comrades. yes to your first sentence. but your second one is just messed up. there was hardly anything - if anything at all - "better" under communism... There was certainly less envy and coveting under communism. Hard to know for sure, but outside of politically related stuff like bribery, corruption, and dissonance it seems the consensus among western scholars is that the USSR had a lower crime rate also. As bad as Communism and the USSR might have been, it wasn't all bad. People putting class warfare on poor people is the height of stupidity IMO. Millions of people, women and children included, die from a lack of basic necessities like food and water every year while others waste more than those people ever see. It's not because they don't work harder than the All-American 'bootstrappers' that think they deserve all they have, but because by the time everyone else is finished extracting their wealth, there just isn't enough left to feed and shelter the people who produced the goods that earned it. The "class war" has been raging for long before any modern political forces embraced it. Although one side has been getting it's ass kicked pretty much the whole time. well... knowing or at least not being naive about what is being done to people in a totalitarian society and under such a regime should help with things like crime rate.
I don't have to embrace anything from the USSR to say that there is a class war going on. what marx - rightfully - described and had a vague idea about is worlds apart from what happened in the USSR.
Well, the book is called Capital, not Communism.
It was a joke comrades. I was trying to emphasize that the class war is an inherent feature of capitalism, not communism.
|
Well they have Rosa Luxemburg rallies here from time to time and they only get about two dozen people on the street if they offer free beer, so I don't know how alive the fight is : (
|
MOSS LANDING, Calif. — It has just rained, welcome respite from California’s ongoing drought, and puddles have turned a fallow farm field to squelchy mud. Artichokes will be planted here in January, to be harvested in the summer, and broccoli or cauliflower will follow.
The Salinas Valley, with its superlative moniker “the salad bowl of America,” is where some 60 percent of the nation’s lettuce is grown, and close to half of its strawberries. It’s some of the most productive agricultural land in the world, on rich silt accumulated over centuries of flooding on wetlands. The conditions enable two to three harvests per year, like the artichoke-cauliflower rotation planned for this damp field next year. Cool air blows in off the bay, keeping greens and strawberries at their most flavorful and fueling a $4.4 billion agriculture industry. Farming is the number-one use of land in the Salinas River watershed.
The land is fertile, but to keep producing the salad greens and vegetables that make their way to supermarkets and restaurants all over the country, farmers here apply fertilizers and pesticides to their crops. That is a widespread and not necessarily unsafe practice. All lettuce — in fact, all commercial produce — is grown with fertilizer, which is also a friend to organic farmers. But here in the Salinas Valley, where ideal climatic conditions allow for two or even three crop rotations in a single year, the amount of fertilizer that’s used goes up. When there is more fertilizer in the soil than can be absorbed by the roots of plants, that excess, high in nitrates, runs off into ditches and penetrates deep into the land. From there, it flows to the bay and seeps into aquifers, where excess nutrients such as nitrates and phosphates can regularly reach toxic levels. New regulations and lawsuits are aiming to slow pollution upstream by changing farming practices, but a group of scientists is promoting a pilot program that has the potential to improve water quality and be replicated across the country.
The nitrification in the Salinas Valley is a smaller version of the same problem that’s responsible for a dead zone larger than 5,000 square miles — about the size of Connecticut — in the Gulf of Mexico. A 2012 report by faculty members at the University of California at Davis of intensively farmed areas attributed 96 percent of nitrate sources in groundwater to agriculture.
Two years prior, scientists had found the first conclusive evidence that toxic fertilizer-fueled algae were flowing into Monterey Bay, killing dozens of sea otters. And where nitrates get into groundwater, they can make the water undrinkable: In small farmworker communities near Moss Landing, public health officials have warned residents not to drink the water because the proportion of nitrates exceeds allowable state and federal levels. Even boiling water — which in most cases kills pathogens — does not remove nitrates, which in large quantities can diminish the ability of blood to carry oxygen. This is most acutely observed in babies, where the effect is called “blue baby syndrome.” Boiling, in fact, only further concentrates nitrates in the water.
Source
|
On December 27 2014 08:50 Nyxisto wrote:
Well they have Rosa Luxemburg rallies here from time to time and they only get about two dozen people on the street if they offer free beer, so I don't know how alive the fight is : (
Once I hear of a Anton Pannekoek or Otto Rühle rally, I will have seen it all.
But regarding the fight, I guess the left has yet to get over themselves, especially with theory. Whenever I go to any college campus these days, the leftists I see are either see post-structuralism, Chomsky anarchism (not exactly a bad thing but it has its massive problems), or dogmatic Marxists.
|
On December 27 2014 07:58 Falling wrote:Show nested quote +On December 27 2014 06:58 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 27 2014 05:06 Doublemint wrote:On December 27 2014 02:34 IgnE wrote:On December 27 2014 02:14 Danglars wrote:On December 26 2014 23:55 WhiteDog wrote:On December 26 2014 12:16 coverpunch wrote:On December 26 2014 09:02 WhiteDog wrote:On December 26 2014 08:06 coverpunch wrote:On December 26 2014 06:57 Sub40APM wrote:
[quote]
...You do realize that the New Deal and FDR were viewed as radical extremists and there were some talks of an armed coup to prevent it right? Other people calling you an extremist doesn't make you so. And the simple fact is there WASN'T an armed coup. That's the whole point of having a Congress that holds hearings and debates, drawing out the issues and chilling emotional reactions. I think the original statement "Experts and thinkers barely ever had any role in big political change in our societies. Extremists and political activists did." is a bait because it is such a red herring. Obviously, you need politics to pass legislation, not thinking, and it is legislative maneuvering that builds coalitions and whips votes, not expertise on an issue. This was especially true in the turbulent times of the 30s, 40s, and 50s, as Congress modernized itself and the country transitioned from a fairly strict North-South divide and more along budding party identities. But extremists in politics have rarely been given the gavel or allowed to thrive for long in Congress. Congress is too jealous to allow anyone to grow too powerful for too long, and emotional outbursts are an easy pull for political judo. Put it back in perspective ; i never said all change are thanks to extremism, I said they played a part in many change. oneofthem's point was that riot were counter productive. It's untrue, extremism can have, and have had a very good influence on political debate. Meanwhile, I've never seen a group of expert changing a society for the best, they oftentime mistake political matters for technical problem (or mix the two), and don't see (or refuse to see) the conflictual interests behind the technical aspects. Sometime politics also needs caricature to move forward. This idea that only consensual move and rationnal discussion lead to change is perfectly wrong. In fact, consensus and negotiation usually only leads to the status quo and the place we give to expert in our society also explain our inability to change anything (regarding climate for exemple). Also, not all extremism are violent. Most extremism in history were, at first, completly pacifist : the first big communist manifestation in France were pacifists, against colonisation. Yet they were extreme because they were considered to be far outside the mainstream political field. The part I quoted was from your post ("Experts and thinkers barely ever had any role in big political change in our societies. Extremists and political activists did.") That reads like you think nearly all changes are thanks to extremism. I find that to be very contrary to American history, where Congress serves a moderating purpose for the sake of compromise and getting the votes necessary to pass legislation. I could accept that Congress isn't full of thinkers and experts and they often rely on their opinions only to the cynical extent that it helps garner support and votes, but I think it's very inaccurate to suggest extremists have been the prime movers of change by shifting the debate. US political history is very different from Europe and especially France, and it's notable the US has often used the French government as a counterpoint for why America should avoid the temptations of big and sudden changes. It's also laughable to say communists were ever pacifist. They WANT a class war. They were against imperialism to the extent that they wanted soldiers to help them kill captains of industry and the rich, not that they wanted no army and no war at all. By definition, extremists want solutions that are unpalatable and unacceptable to the rest of society, which nearly always means killing their enemies in righteous justice. Communists want a class war ? Ho really ? Communists historically were pacifists, I'm sorry if your all USA history book don't teach you that, but the soviet are not the debut of the communist ideology (more like the tomb). It's Lenin that theorized communism as an armed revolution, in the specific context of Russia. Class struggle is not a war that communist "wish" to fight for with weapon and all, it's a concept that describe the reality of exploitation in a society that permit accumulation of capital : the interests of the worker class are at war with the interests of the capitalists, the end goal being the end of this class struggle through a reform of property right. I don't think you can spread solace by allowing that Communists acknowledge the reality of exploitation and war, while not wanting a class war. I can only think of how much breath they wasted talking of inevitability, when of course they never meant class war was desirable to their ends. I am much persuaded that the class war and all the misery that resulted from Russia's experimentation with it (sophistry, of course, says they were misguided fools--nobody's ever tried communism to the purity and extent of intellectual's satisfaction) is responsible for much of the current misery of the poor, the real pawns of today's class warriors. Their message echoes, The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. The class war is raging harder than ever, it's not up to the communists whether it continues or not. In the soviet block, at least, everyone but the convicts were comrades. yes to your first sentence. but your second one is just messed up. there was hardly anything - if anything at all - "better" under communism... There was certainly less envy and coveting under communism. Hard to know for sure, but outside of politically related stuff like bribery, corruption, and dissonance it seems the consensus among western scholars is that the USSR had a lower crime rate also. As bad as Communism and the USSR might have been, it wasn't all bad. Maybe it wasn't all bad, but from the perspective of my ancestors, it was really quite bad. Collectivization tended to hamstring a good portion of the farmers, demote the managers that actually knew what they were doing and promote incompetent peasants into positions of power. And much of it began without government intervention- the word was out and collectivization began with the people. Not to mention the emptying of prisons that resulted in groups of bandits targetting Mennonite villages. The fortunate ones got out in the 20's (my great-grandparents). Of those left behind, the next wave thought it was worth following the retreating German army in the 40's rather than stay behind. Farther east, entire villages up and left in the middle of the night (so they wouldn't be stopped) and fled for China and later the Americas- North or South. All in all, I think it was quite bad.
So your ancestors were enjoying Tzarist Russia? Perhaps they aren't the best source for the competence or lack thereof of the peasants that were ruthlessly exploited in a rural economy that was about a hundred years behind the rest of Europe. It absolutely was terribly bad, horrifically bad, but to pretend that's the fault of the communists is to ignore the brutal, incompetent, absolute monarchy that immediately preceded the revolution and the almost immediate civil war -with the red army fighting an anti-communist white army backed by Japan, the United Kingdom, France, Italy and the United States- that followed it. People were running, sure, but they were running from starvation and war, not communism.
|
Canada11355 Posts
Many were economically well off as farmers in the Ukraine- the petite-bourgesois if you will. Well, except for the younger families because the colonies ran out of land- one of the reason for the 20's immigration before the borders closed and trapped the rest in. In retrospect, many acknowledged they ought to have had a greater concern for the Russian peasants rather than remain as internally focused outsiders.
However, much of the starvation came first from war, but then communism that stripped farmers of equipment, animals, and seed. And as the communists were generally opposed to the Mennonites, they certainly did flee from communism... as well as war, and starvation. I'm not at all saying Tzarist Russia was particularly a great place to live. I'm just not sure that communist Russia created less envy and coveting.
|
On December 27 2014 11:49 Dapper_Cad wrote:Show nested quote +On December 27 2014 07:58 Falling wrote:On December 27 2014 06:58 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 27 2014 05:06 Doublemint wrote:On December 27 2014 02:34 IgnE wrote:On December 27 2014 02:14 Danglars wrote:On December 26 2014 23:55 WhiteDog wrote:On December 26 2014 12:16 coverpunch wrote:On December 26 2014 09:02 WhiteDog wrote:On December 26 2014 08:06 coverpunch wrote:
[quote]
Other people calling you an extremist doesn't make you so. And the simple fact is there WASN'T an armed coup. That's the whole point of having a Congress that holds hearings and debates, drawing out the issues and chilling emotional reactions.
I think the original statement "Experts and thinkers barely ever had any role in big political change in our societies. Extremists and political activists did." is a bait because it is such a red herring. Obviously, you need politics to pass legislation, not thinking, and it is legislative maneuvering that builds coalitions and whips votes, not expertise on an issue. This was especially true in the turbulent times of the 30s, 40s, and 50s, as Congress modernized itself and the country transitioned from a fairly strict North-South divide and more along budding party identities. But extremists in politics have rarely been given the gavel or allowed to thrive for long in Congress. Congress is too jealous to allow anyone to grow too powerful for too long, and emotional outbursts are an easy pull for political judo. Put it back in perspective ; i never said all change are thanks to extremism, I said they played a part in many change. oneofthem's point was that riot were counter productive. It's untrue, extremism can have, and have had a very good influence on political debate. Meanwhile, I've never seen a group of expert changing a society for the best, they oftentime mistake political matters for technical problem (or mix the two), and don't see (or refuse to see) the conflictual interests behind the technical aspects. Sometime politics also needs caricature to move forward. This idea that only consensual move and rationnal discussion lead to change is perfectly wrong. In fact, consensus and negotiation usually only leads to the status quo and the place we give to expert in our society also explain our inability to change anything (regarding climate for exemple). Also, not all extremism are violent. Most extremism in history were, at first, completly pacifist : the first big communist manifestation in France were pacifists, against colonisation. Yet they were extreme because they were considered to be far outside the mainstream political field. The part I quoted was from your post ("Experts and thinkers barely ever had any role in big political change in our societies. Extremists and political activists did.") That reads like you think nearly all changes are thanks to extremism. I find that to be very contrary to American history, where Congress serves a moderating purpose for the sake of compromise and getting the votes necessary to pass legislation. I could accept that Congress isn't full of thinkers and experts and they often rely on their opinions only to the cynical extent that it helps garner support and votes, but I think it's very inaccurate to suggest extremists have been the prime movers of change by shifting the debate. US political history is very different from Europe and especially France, and it's notable the US has often used the French government as a counterpoint for why America should avoid the temptations of big and sudden changes. It's also laughable to say communists were ever pacifist. They WANT a class war. They were against imperialism to the extent that they wanted soldiers to help them kill captains of industry and the rich, not that they wanted no army and no war at all. By definition, extremists want solutions that are unpalatable and unacceptable to the rest of society, which nearly always means killing their enemies in righteous justice. Communists want a class war ? Ho really ? Communists historically were pacifists, I'm sorry if your all USA history book don't teach you that, but the soviet are not the debut of the communist ideology (more like the tomb). It's Lenin that theorized communism as an armed revolution, in the specific context of Russia. Class struggle is not a war that communist "wish" to fight for with weapon and all, it's a concept that describe the reality of exploitation in a society that permit accumulation of capital : the interests of the worker class are at war with the interests of the capitalists, the end goal being the end of this class struggle through a reform of property right. I don't think you can spread solace by allowing that Communists acknowledge the reality of exploitation and war, while not wanting a class war. I can only think of how much breath they wasted talking of inevitability, when of course they never meant class war was desirable to their ends. I am much persuaded that the class war and all the misery that resulted from Russia's experimentation with it (sophistry, of course, says they were misguided fools--nobody's ever tried communism to the purity and extent of intellectual's satisfaction) is responsible for much of the current misery of the poor, the real pawns of today's class warriors. Their message echoes, The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. The class war is raging harder than ever, it's not up to the communists whether it continues or not. In the soviet block, at least, everyone but the convicts were comrades. yes to your first sentence. but your second one is just messed up. there was hardly anything - if anything at all - "better" under communism... There was certainly less envy and coveting under communism. Hard to know for sure, but outside of politically related stuff like bribery, corruption, and dissonance it seems the consensus among western scholars is that the USSR had a lower crime rate also. As bad as Communism and the USSR might have been, it wasn't all bad. Maybe it wasn't all bad, but from the perspective of my ancestors, it was really quite bad. Collectivization tended to hamstring a good portion of the farmers, demote the managers that actually knew what they were doing and promote incompetent peasants into positions of power. And much of it began without government intervention- the word was out and collectivization began with the people. Not to mention the emptying of prisons that resulted in groups of bandits targetting Mennonite villages. The fortunate ones got out in the 20's (my great-grandparents). Of those left behind, the next wave thought it was worth following the retreating German army in the 40's rather than stay behind. Farther east, entire villages up and left in the middle of the night (so they wouldn't be stopped) and fled for China and later the Americas- North or South. All in all, I think it was quite bad. So your ancestors were enjoying Tzarist Russia? Perhaps they aren't the best source for the competence or lack thereof of the peasants that were ruthlessly exploited in a rural economy that was about a hundred years behind the rest of Europe. It absolutely was terribly bad, horrifically bad, but to pretend that's the fault of the communists is to ignore the brutal, incompetent, absolute monarchy that immediately preceded the revolution and the almost immediate civil war -with the red army fighting an anti-communist white army backed by Japan, the United Kingdom, France, Italy and the United States- that followed it. People were running, sure, but they were running from starvation and war, not communism. They werent running away from Communism because there was nowhere to run in the 30s, borders were closed and internal passports re-introduced. However brutal Tsarist regime was, its total death quota probably matched a 'good' year under Stalin. It wasnt just the war, the territory of the Second Polish Republic witnessed same levels of war for the same period of time but you didnt see mass starvation occur there because the Poles policies didnt include the mass starvation.
|
On December 27 2014 06:58 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On December 27 2014 05:06 Doublemint wrote:On December 27 2014 02:34 IgnE wrote:On December 27 2014 02:14 Danglars wrote:On December 26 2014 23:55 WhiteDog wrote:On December 26 2014 12:16 coverpunch wrote:On December 26 2014 09:02 WhiteDog wrote:On December 26 2014 08:06 coverpunch wrote:On December 26 2014 06:57 Sub40APM wrote:On December 26 2014 04:48 DeepElemBlues wrote:
[quote]
As to American society, the protectionism that built American industry, the end of American isolationism, the New Deal, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Ronald Reagan's immigration reform, and the Cold War itself say hello. None of those things were brought about by extremists or grassroots political pressure. There are plenty of other examples.
...You do realize that the New Deal and FDR were viewed as radical extremists and there were some talks of an armed coup to prevent it right? Other people calling you an extremist doesn't make you so. And the simple fact is there WASN'T an armed coup. That's the whole point of having a Congress that holds hearings and debates, drawing out the issues and chilling emotional reactions. I think the original statement "Experts and thinkers barely ever had any role in big political change in our societies. Extremists and political activists did." is a bait because it is such a red herring. Obviously, you need politics to pass legislation, not thinking, and it is legislative maneuvering that builds coalitions and whips votes, not expertise on an issue. This was especially true in the turbulent times of the 30s, 40s, and 50s, as Congress modernized itself and the country transitioned from a fairly strict North-South divide and more along budding party identities. But extremists in politics have rarely been given the gavel or allowed to thrive for long in Congress. Congress is too jealous to allow anyone to grow too powerful for too long, and emotional outbursts are an easy pull for political judo. Put it back in perspective ; i never said all change are thanks to extremism, I said they played a part in many change. oneofthem's point was that riot were counter productive. It's untrue, extremism can have, and have had a very good influence on political debate. Meanwhile, I've never seen a group of expert changing a society for the best, they oftentime mistake political matters for technical problem (or mix the two), and don't see (or refuse to see) the conflictual interests behind the technical aspects. Sometime politics also needs caricature to move forward. This idea that only consensual move and rationnal discussion lead to change is perfectly wrong. In fact, consensus and negotiation usually only leads to the status quo and the place we give to expert in our society also explain our inability to change anything (regarding climate for exemple). Also, not all extremism are violent. Most extremism in history were, at first, completly pacifist : the first big communist manifestation in France were pacifists, against colonisation. Yet they were extreme because they were considered to be far outside the mainstream political field. The part I quoted was from your post ("Experts and thinkers barely ever had any role in big political change in our societies. Extremists and political activists did.") That reads like you think nearly all changes are thanks to extremism. I find that to be very contrary to American history, where Congress serves a moderating purpose for the sake of compromise and getting the votes necessary to pass legislation. I could accept that Congress isn't full of thinkers and experts and they often rely on their opinions only to the cynical extent that it helps garner support and votes, but I think it's very inaccurate to suggest extremists have been the prime movers of change by shifting the debate. US political history is very different from Europe and especially France, and it's notable the US has often used the French government as a counterpoint for why America should avoid the temptations of big and sudden changes. It's also laughable to say communists were ever pacifist. They WANT a class war. They were against imperialism to the extent that they wanted soldiers to help them kill captains of industry and the rich, not that they wanted no army and no war at all. By definition, extremists want solutions that are unpalatable and unacceptable to the rest of society, which nearly always means killing their enemies in righteous justice. Communists want a class war ? Ho really ? Communists historically were pacifists, I'm sorry if your all USA history book don't teach you that, but the soviet are not the debut of the communist ideology (more like the tomb). It's Lenin that theorized communism as an armed revolution, in the specific context of Russia. Class struggle is not a war that communist "wish" to fight for with weapon and all, it's a concept that describe the reality of exploitation in a society that permit accumulation of capital : the interests of the worker class are at war with the interests of the capitalists, the end goal being the end of this class struggle through a reform of property right. I don't think you can spread solace by allowing that Communists acknowledge the reality of exploitation and war, while not wanting a class war. I can only think of how much breath they wasted talking of inevitability, when of course they never meant class war was desirable to their ends. I am much persuaded that the class war and all the misery that resulted from Russia's experimentation with it (sophistry, of course, says they were misguided fools--nobody's ever tried communism to the purity and extent of intellectual's satisfaction) is responsible for much of the current misery of the poor, the real pawns of today's class warriors. Their message echoes, The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. The class war is raging harder than ever, it's not up to the communists whether it continues or not. In the soviet block, at least, everyone but the convicts were comrades. yes to your first sentence. but your second one is just messed up. there was hardly anything - if anything at all - "better" under communism... There was certainly less envy and coveting under communism. Hard to know for sure, but outside of politically related stuff like bribery, corruption, and dissonance it seems the consensus among western scholars is that the USSR had a lower crime rate also. As bad as Communism and the USSR might have been, it wasn't all bad.
...what are you talking about? Can you name specific eras so I can give you specific era counter examples? For example, in the period during which I 'enjoyed' Communist USSR class structures were pretty clear and quite entrenched. Inner Party --> KGB --> provincial Communist elites --> Communist Party functionaries and their descendant --> technical staff in closed cities ---> technical staff in other cities/doctors --> managers --> peasants with luxuries like 'food' ---> factory workers.
And its quite easy to lower official crime rate statistics when you simply give both the police and local militas the right to brutalize petty criminals. The equivalent in the West would be if all corporate and political jobs became for life, family descent from people who had their jobs in the 1950s would be fixed for everyone forever and every poor persons' welfare was converted to an imaginary job. Oh and the police didnt have to bother with evidence. We'd have super low crime rates too.
|
On December 27 2014 16:23 Sub40APM wrote:Show nested quote +On December 27 2014 06:58 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 27 2014 05:06 Doublemint wrote:On December 27 2014 02:34 IgnE wrote:On December 27 2014 02:14 Danglars wrote:On December 26 2014 23:55 WhiteDog wrote:On December 26 2014 12:16 coverpunch wrote:On December 26 2014 09:02 WhiteDog wrote:On December 26 2014 08:06 coverpunch wrote:On December 26 2014 06:57 Sub40APM wrote:
[quote]
...You do realize that the New Deal and FDR were viewed as radical extremists and there were some talks of an armed coup to prevent it right? Other people calling you an extremist doesn't make you so. And the simple fact is there WASN'T an armed coup. That's the whole point of having a Congress that holds hearings and debates, drawing out the issues and chilling emotional reactions. I think the original statement "Experts and thinkers barely ever had any role in big political change in our societies. Extremists and political activists did." is a bait because it is such a red herring. Obviously, you need politics to pass legislation, not thinking, and it is legislative maneuvering that builds coalitions and whips votes, not expertise on an issue. This was especially true in the turbulent times of the 30s, 40s, and 50s, as Congress modernized itself and the country transitioned from a fairly strict North-South divide and more along budding party identities. But extremists in politics have rarely been given the gavel or allowed to thrive for long in Congress. Congress is too jealous to allow anyone to grow too powerful for too long, and emotional outbursts are an easy pull for political judo. Put it back in perspective ; i never said all change are thanks to extremism, I said they played a part in many change. oneofthem's point was that riot were counter productive. It's untrue, extremism can have, and have had a very good influence on political debate. Meanwhile, I've never seen a group of expert changing a society for the best, they oftentime mistake political matters for technical problem (or mix the two), and don't see (or refuse to see) the conflictual interests behind the technical aspects. Sometime politics also needs caricature to move forward. This idea that only consensual move and rationnal discussion lead to change is perfectly wrong. In fact, consensus and negotiation usually only leads to the status quo and the place we give to expert in our society also explain our inability to change anything (regarding climate for exemple). Also, not all extremism are violent. Most extremism in history were, at first, completly pacifist : the first big communist manifestation in France were pacifists, against colonisation. Yet they were extreme because they were considered to be far outside the mainstream political field. The part I quoted was from your post ("Experts and thinkers barely ever had any role in big political change in our societies. Extremists and political activists did.") That reads like you think nearly all changes are thanks to extremism. I find that to be very contrary to American history, where Congress serves a moderating purpose for the sake of compromise and getting the votes necessary to pass legislation. I could accept that Congress isn't full of thinkers and experts and they often rely on their opinions only to the cynical extent that it helps garner support and votes, but I think it's very inaccurate to suggest extremists have been the prime movers of change by shifting the debate. US political history is very different from Europe and especially France, and it's notable the US has often used the French government as a counterpoint for why America should avoid the temptations of big and sudden changes. It's also laughable to say communists were ever pacifist. They WANT a class war. They were against imperialism to the extent that they wanted soldiers to help them kill captains of industry and the rich, not that they wanted no army and no war at all. By definition, extremists want solutions that are unpalatable and unacceptable to the rest of society, which nearly always means killing their enemies in righteous justice. Communists want a class war ? Ho really ? Communists historically were pacifists, I'm sorry if your all USA history book don't teach you that, but the soviet are not the debut of the communist ideology (more like the tomb). It's Lenin that theorized communism as an armed revolution, in the specific context of Russia. Class struggle is not a war that communist "wish" to fight for with weapon and all, it's a concept that describe the reality of exploitation in a society that permit accumulation of capital : the interests of the worker class are at war with the interests of the capitalists, the end goal being the end of this class struggle through a reform of property right. I don't think you can spread solace by allowing that Communists acknowledge the reality of exploitation and war, while not wanting a class war. I can only think of how much breath they wasted talking of inevitability, when of course they never meant class war was desirable to their ends. I am much persuaded that the class war and all the misery that resulted from Russia's experimentation with it (sophistry, of course, says they were misguided fools--nobody's ever tried communism to the purity and extent of intellectual's satisfaction) is responsible for much of the current misery of the poor, the real pawns of today's class warriors. Their message echoes, The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. The class war is raging harder than ever, it's not up to the communists whether it continues or not. In the soviet block, at least, everyone but the convicts were comrades. yes to your first sentence. but your second one is just messed up. there was hardly anything - if anything at all - "better" under communism... There was certainly less envy and coveting under communism. Hard to know for sure, but outside of politically related stuff like bribery, corruption, and dissonance it seems the consensus among western scholars is that the USSR had a lower crime rate also. As bad as Communism and the USSR might have been, it wasn't all bad. ...what are you talking about? Can you name specific eras so I can give you specific era counter examples? For example, in the period during which I 'enjoyed' Communist USSR class structures were pretty clear and quite entrenched. Inner Party --> KGB --> provincial Communist elites --> Communist Party functionaries and their descendant --> technical staff in closed cities ---> technical staff in other cities/doctors --> managers --> peasants with luxuries like 'food' ---> factory workers. And its quite easy to lower official crime rate statistics when you simply give both the police and local militas the right to brutalize petty criminals. The equivalent in the West would be if all corporate and political jobs became for life, family descent from people who had their jobs in the 1950s would be fixed for everyone forever and every poor persons' welfare was converted to an imaginary job. Oh and the police didnt have to bother with evidence. We'd have super low crime rates too.
I guess I was thinking of 50's-60's USSR? I too was joking though. It was a glib comment about how generic statements that are loosely factual describing conditions resulting from a system can be misleading. The low Soviet crime rate is kind of like the capitalism improves 'quality of life' line. It pretty much ignores how it may be achieved and/or the collateral damage.
|
The USSR was a mess, far from the communist utopia. The only thing it had for it is a good educationnal system and medical system, like in Cuba for exemple, which is already a lot considering the state of those countries prior to the revolution.
Tho I'm not sure it's really relevant, the soviet period is not necessarily communist, it was first and foremost a war machine, after the 1917 revolution, 17 countries engaged directly and indirectly in a war against the new communist Russia. Under those circonstances, where the entirety of the system is structured around war necessities, how can you build a stable society.
|
Cayman Islands24199 Posts
theres a lot of divergence in reality and perception of communism. the salient part of this is the difference between ideal politics and actual politics. ideal politics is aspirational, which doesn't have the burden of accuracy per se. to someone who values certain ideals like equality and a certain labor denominated fairness, communism is essentially a very elaborate exhortation of 'let us live like that.' this linguistic stance is not a descriptive one and it is valuable despite its mismatch with how people will behave, in every sense of that phrase.
also average guy or gal nostalgia for communism is not all that hard to understand. old security and certainty destroyed, replaced by a robbery run mafia state in which the average worker is socially the same low station, but without the guarantees of the old system.
|
Right now, you can look at the MSNBC file, which also includes NBC, and see how that network’s pundits and on-air talent stand. For instance, currently 45 percent of the claims we’ve checked from NBC and MSNBC pundits and on-air personalities have been rated Mostly False, False or Pants on Fire. At Fox and Fox News Channel, that same number is now 58 percent. At CNN, it’s 22 percent. The comparisons are interesting, but be cautious about using them to draw broad conclusions. We use our news judgment to pick the facts we’re going to check, so we certainly don’t fact-check everything. + Show Spoiler +
Source
The report card doesn't distinguish if it was Conservatives lying on MSNBC or Liberal lies on Fox etc... Although you can go through the comments they rated and see who did what. The pattern isn't surprising.
|
You need to quote the part where they admit a selection bias much stronger than the one you implied:
The comparisons are interesting, but be cautious about using them to draw broad conclusions. We use our news judgment to pick the facts we’re going to check, so we certainly don’t fact-check everything.
So they study is really a reflection of the kinds of facts that Politifact chooses to fact-check and from which networks, not the accuracy of the networks as a comparative study.
|
On December 28 2014 10:41 coverpunch wrote:You need to quote the part where they admit a selection bias much stronger than the one you implied: Show nested quote +The comparisons are interesting, but be cautious about using them to draw broad conclusions. We use our news judgment to pick the facts we’re going to check, so we certainly don’t fact-check everything. So they study is really a reflection of the kinds of facts that Politifact chooses to fact-check and from which networks, not the accuracy of the networks as a comparative study.
The quote was in my post? Strictly speaking it doesn't statistically show a comparison across networks, but it does confirm what many people have been saying for years, which is a lot of what is called "News" is actually propaganda/lies. I'd love to see a deeper more comprehensive study, I doubt it would reveal much that was different though. The majority of contentious statements from Fox would probably be 'half-true' or worse, MSNBC closer to 50-50 and CNN would probably have the lowest amount of lies.
On a different note:
Why has Fox still not said it would distribute it's New Regency production of a N. Korean set film? Their news station beat Sony up over backing down, but gave themselves a free pass for making a far more cowardly decision and not even correcting it?
It seems everyone here has given them a pass too?
|
Fox news != 21st Century Fox any more than MSNBC is GE.
|
On December 27 2014 08:10 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On December 27 2014 07:50 Doublemint wrote:On December 27 2014 06:58 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 27 2014 05:06 Doublemint wrote:On December 27 2014 02:34 IgnE wrote:On December 27 2014 02:14 Danglars wrote:On December 26 2014 23:55 WhiteDog wrote:On December 26 2014 12:16 coverpunch wrote:On December 26 2014 09:02 WhiteDog wrote:On December 26 2014 08:06 coverpunch wrote:
[quote]
Other people calling you an extremist doesn't make you so. And the simple fact is there WASN'T an armed coup. That's the whole point of having a Congress that holds hearings and debates, drawing out the issues and chilling emotional reactions.
I think the original statement "Experts and thinkers barely ever had any role in big political change in our societies. Extremists and political activists did." is a bait because it is such a red herring. Obviously, you need politics to pass legislation, not thinking, and it is legislative maneuvering that builds coalitions and whips votes, not expertise on an issue. This was especially true in the turbulent times of the 30s, 40s, and 50s, as Congress modernized itself and the country transitioned from a fairly strict North-South divide and more along budding party identities. But extremists in politics have rarely been given the gavel or allowed to thrive for long in Congress. Congress is too jealous to allow anyone to grow too powerful for too long, and emotional outbursts are an easy pull for political judo. Put it back in perspective ; i never said all change are thanks to extremism, I said they played a part in many change. oneofthem's point was that riot were counter productive. It's untrue, extremism can have, and have had a very good influence on political debate. Meanwhile, I've never seen a group of expert changing a society for the best, they oftentime mistake political matters for technical problem (or mix the two), and don't see (or refuse to see) the conflictual interests behind the technical aspects. Sometime politics also needs caricature to move forward. This idea that only consensual move and rationnal discussion lead to change is perfectly wrong. In fact, consensus and negotiation usually only leads to the status quo and the place we give to expert in our society also explain our inability to change anything (regarding climate for exemple). Also, not all extremism are violent. Most extremism in history were, at first, completly pacifist : the first big communist manifestation in France were pacifists, against colonisation. Yet they were extreme because they were considered to be far outside the mainstream political field. The part I quoted was from your post ("Experts and thinkers barely ever had any role in big political change in our societies. Extremists and political activists did.") That reads like you think nearly all changes are thanks to extremism. I find that to be very contrary to American history, where Congress serves a moderating purpose for the sake of compromise and getting the votes necessary to pass legislation. I could accept that Congress isn't full of thinkers and experts and they often rely on their opinions only to the cynical extent that it helps garner support and votes, but I think it's very inaccurate to suggest extremists have been the prime movers of change by shifting the debate. US political history is very different from Europe and especially France, and it's notable the US has often used the French government as a counterpoint for why America should avoid the temptations of big and sudden changes. It's also laughable to say communists were ever pacifist. They WANT a class war. They were against imperialism to the extent that they wanted soldiers to help them kill captains of industry and the rich, not that they wanted no army and no war at all. By definition, extremists want solutions that are unpalatable and unacceptable to the rest of society, which nearly always means killing their enemies in righteous justice. Communists want a class war ? Ho really ? Communists historically were pacifists, I'm sorry if your all USA history book don't teach you that, but the soviet are not the debut of the communist ideology (more like the tomb). It's Lenin that theorized communism as an armed revolution, in the specific context of Russia. Class struggle is not a war that communist "wish" to fight for with weapon and all, it's a concept that describe the reality of exploitation in a society that permit accumulation of capital : the interests of the worker class are at war with the interests of the capitalists, the end goal being the end of this class struggle through a reform of property right. I don't think you can spread solace by allowing that Communists acknowledge the reality of exploitation and war, while not wanting a class war. I can only think of how much breath they wasted talking of inevitability, when of course they never meant class war was desirable to their ends. I am much persuaded that the class war and all the misery that resulted from Russia's experimentation with it (sophistry, of course, says they were misguided fools--nobody's ever tried communism to the purity and extent of intellectual's satisfaction) is responsible for much of the current misery of the poor, the real pawns of today's class warriors. Their message echoes, The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. The class war is raging harder than ever, it's not up to the communists whether it continues or not. In the soviet block, at least, everyone but the convicts were comrades. yes to your first sentence. but your second one is just messed up. there was hardly anything - if anything at all - "better" under communism... There was certainly less envy and coveting under communism. Hard to know for sure, but outside of politically related stuff like bribery, corruption, and dissonance it seems the consensus among western scholars is that the USSR had a lower crime rate also. As bad as Communism and the USSR might have been, it wasn't all bad. People putting class warfare on poor people is the height of stupidity IMO. Millions of people, women and children included, die from a lack of basic necessities like food and water every year while others waste more than those people ever see. It's not because they don't work harder than the All-American 'bootstrappers' that think they deserve all they have, but because by the time everyone else is finished extracting their wealth, there just isn't enough left to feed and shelter the people who produced the goods that earned it. The "class war" has been raging for long before any modern political forces embraced it. Although one side has been getting it's ass kicked pretty much the whole time. well... knowing or at least not being naive about what is being done to people in a totalitarian society and under such a regime should help with things like crime rate.
I don't have to embrace anything from the USSR to say that there is a class war going on. what marx - rightfully - described and had a vague idea about is worlds apart from what happened in the USSR. Well, the book is called Capital, not Communism. It was a joke comrades. I was trying to emphasize that the class war is an inherent feature of capitalism, not communism.
Marxist Class Theory is mostly wrong. Classical Liberal Class Theory (which predates Marx by the way...see: Dunoyer, Comte, et. al. and then later Oppenheimer, etc.) is much more salient and accurate. The competing classes aren't the 'bourgeois' and the 'proleteriate' or capital vs. labor, but the State (tax-recipients) vs You (tax-payers), and the theory goes back to pre-Statism, and actually describes how States formed, and their effects on the populace, who benefits, etc. Marx completely and totally ignores this crucial distinction and instead attempts to pigeon-hole his preferential ideas of life during the Industrial Revolution and his Class Theory was this way of doing so. Communism and Socialism failed throughout the 16th to 19th Century so his ideas weren't anything new.
http://fee.org/freeman/detail/class-struggle-rightly-conceived
Then again, I'm one of those gross folks who proclaim adherence to the ideas espoused by great thinkers like Benjamin Constant, Augustin Thierry, Frederic Bastiat, Lysander Spooner, and the rest of the radical classical liberals (of which most are French..so sad how the French have fallen - they would be so ashamed of modern day France...I digress).
|
On December 28 2014 13:17 Yoav wrote:
Fox news != 21st Century Fox any more than MSNBC is GE.
Is the CEO for GE also the CEO for NBC Universal? Either way MSNBC is known to do similar things (They were light on covering GE as one of the companies that didn't pay taxes).
During its Friday broadcast, “NBC Nightly News With Brian Williams” had no time to mention that America’s largest corporation had essentially avoided paying federal taxes in 2010. Or its Saturday, Sunday or Monday broadcasts, either.
Source
But still, no one has been sharing the same feelings of disappointment and ire about them taking the cowards road and not releasing a movie just because it was set in N. Korea? The fact that the companies are at least in part (or majority) owned by Rupert Murdoch just makes it more odd for his news station to give Sony such a hard time for their choice when the choice from his companies was even more cowardly (and yet to be corrected).
21st Century Fox was formed by the splitting of entertainment and media properties from News Corporation. Rupert Murdoch remains chairman, CEO and largest shareholder of the new company,
Source
|
The cost of US war-making in the 13 years since the September 11 terrorist attacks reached a whopping $1.6 trillion in 2014, according to a recent report by the Congressional Research Service (CRS).
The key factor determining the cost of war during a given period over the last 13 years has been the number of US troops deployed, according to the report. The number of troops in Afghanistan peaked in 2011, when 100,000 Americans were stationed there. The number of US armed forces in Iraq reached a high of about 170,000 in 2007.
Although Congress enacted across-the-board spending cuts in March 2013, the Pentagon's war-making money was left untouched. The minimal cuts, known as sequestration, came from the Defense Department's regular peacetime budget. The Pentagon gets a separate budget for fighting wars.
In the spending bill that Congress approved earlier this month, lawmakers doled out $73.7 billion for war-related activities in 2015—$2.3 billion more than President Barack Obama had requested. As Mother Jones' Dave Gilson reported last year, US military spending is on pace to taper far less dramatically in the wake of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars than it did after the end of the Vietnam War or the Cold War.
Other reports have estimated the cost of US wars since 9/11 to be far higher than $1.6 trillion. A report by Neta Crawford, a political science professor at Boston University, estimated the total cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—as well as post-2001 assistance to Pakistan—to be roughly $4.4 trillion. The CRS estimate is lower because it does not include additional costs including the lifetime price of health care for disabled veterans and interest on the national debt.
Source
|
On December 28 2014 13:28 Wegandi wrote:Show nested quote +On December 27 2014 08:10 IgnE wrote:On December 27 2014 07:50 Doublemint wrote:On December 27 2014 06:58 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 27 2014 05:06 Doublemint wrote:On December 27 2014 02:34 IgnE wrote:On December 27 2014 02:14 Danglars wrote:On December 26 2014 23:55 WhiteDog wrote:On December 26 2014 12:16 coverpunch wrote:On December 26 2014 09:02 WhiteDog wrote:
[quote]
Put it back in perspective ; i never said all change are thanks to extremism, I said they played a part in many change. oneofthem's point was that riot were counter productive. It's untrue, extremism can have, and have had a very good influence on political debate. Meanwhile, I've never seen a group of expert changing a society for the best, they oftentime mistake political matters for technical problem (or mix the two), and don't see (or refuse to see) the conflictual interests behind the technical aspects.
Sometime politics also needs caricature to move forward. This idea that only consensual move and rationnal discussion lead to change is perfectly wrong. In fact, consensus and negotiation usually only leads to the status quo and the place we give to expert in our society also explain our inability to change anything (regarding climate for exemple).
Also, not all extremism are violent. Most extremism in history were, at first, completly pacifist : the first big communist manifestation in France were pacifists, against colonisation. Yet they were extreme because they were considered to be far outside the mainstream political field. The part I quoted was from your post ("Experts and thinkers barely ever had any role in big political change in our societies. Extremists and political activists did.") That reads like you think nearly all changes are thanks to extremism. I find that to be very contrary to American history, where Congress serves a moderating purpose for the sake of compromise and getting the votes necessary to pass legislation. I could accept that Congress isn't full of thinkers and experts and they often rely on their opinions only to the cynical extent that it helps garner support and votes, but I think it's very inaccurate to suggest extremists have been the prime movers of change by shifting the debate. US political history is very different from Europe and especially France, and it's notable the US has often used the French government as a counterpoint for why America should avoid the temptations of big and sudden changes. It's also laughable to say communists were ever pacifist. They WANT a class war. They were against imperialism to the extent that they wanted soldiers to help them kill captains of industry and the rich, not that they wanted no army and no war at all. By definition, extremists want solutions that are unpalatable and unacceptable to the rest of society, which nearly always means killing their enemies in righteous justice. Communists want a class war ? Ho really ? Communists historically were pacifists, I'm sorry if your all USA history book don't teach you that, but the soviet are not the debut of the communist ideology (more like the tomb). It's Lenin that theorized communism as an armed revolution, in the specific context of Russia. Class struggle is not a war that communist "wish" to fight for with weapon and all, it's a concept that describe the reality of exploitation in a society that permit accumulation of capital : the interests of the worker class are at war with the interests of the capitalists, the end goal being the end of this class struggle through a reform of property right. I don't think you can spread solace by allowing that Communists acknowledge the reality of exploitation and war, while not wanting a class war. I can only think of how much breath they wasted talking of inevitability, when of course they never meant class war was desirable to their ends. I am much persuaded that the class war and all the misery that resulted from Russia's experimentation with it (sophistry, of course, says they were misguided fools--nobody's ever tried communism to the purity and extent of intellectual's satisfaction) is responsible for much of the current misery of the poor, the real pawns of today's class warriors. Their message echoes, The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. The class war is raging harder than ever, it's not up to the communists whether it continues or not. In the soviet block, at least, everyone but the convicts were comrades. yes to your first sentence. but your second one is just messed up. there was hardly anything - if anything at all - "better" under communism... There was certainly less envy and coveting under communism. Hard to know for sure, but outside of politically related stuff like bribery, corruption, and dissonance it seems the consensus among western scholars is that the USSR had a lower crime rate also. As bad as Communism and the USSR might have been, it wasn't all bad. People putting class warfare on poor people is the height of stupidity IMO. Millions of people, women and children included, die from a lack of basic necessities like food and water every year while others waste more than those people ever see. It's not because they don't work harder than the All-American 'bootstrappers' that think they deserve all they have, but because by the time everyone else is finished extracting their wealth, there just isn't enough left to feed and shelter the people who produced the goods that earned it. The "class war" has been raging for long before any modern political forces embraced it. Although one side has been getting it's ass kicked pretty much the whole time. well... knowing or at least not being naive about what is being done to people in a totalitarian society and under such a regime should help with things like crime rate.
I don't have to embrace anything from the USSR to say that there is a class war going on. what marx - rightfully - described and had a vague idea about is worlds apart from what happened in the USSR. Well, the book is called Capital, not Communism. It was a joke comrades. I was trying to emphasize that the class war is an inherent feature of capitalism, not communism. Marxist Class Theory is mostly wrong. Classical Liberal Class Theory (which predates Marx by the way...see: Dunoyer, Comte, et. al. and then later Oppenheimer, etc.) is much more salient and accurate. The competing classes aren't the 'bourgeois' and the 'proleteriate' or capital vs. labor, but the State (tax-recipients) vs You (tax-payers), and the theory goes back to pre-Statism, and actually describes how States formed, and their effects on the populace, who benefits, etc. Marx completely and totally ignores this crucial distinction and instead attempts to pigeon-hole his preferential ideas of life during the Industrial Revolution and his Class Theory was this way of doing so. Communism and Socialism failed throughout the 16th to 19th Century so his ideas weren't anything new. http://fee.org/freeman/detail/class-struggle-rightly-conceivedThen again, I'm one of those gross folks who proclaim adherence to the ideas espoused by great thinkers like Benjamin Constant, Augustin Thierry, Frederic Bastiat, Lysander Spooner, and the rest of the radical classical liberals (of which most are French..so sad how the French have fallen - they would be so ashamed of modern day France...I digress).
I can see you being a big fan of Constant and Basiat, but Thierry, a utopia socialist and Spooner an anarchist of the First International as radical classical liberals? I guess Bakunin and Kropotkin were liberals too since they were against the state.
Then again, the Rothbard libertarians are basically people who replace Proudhon's "Property is theft" with "Taxation is theft"
|
On December 28 2014 14:14 Shiragaku wrote:Show nested quote +On December 28 2014 13:28 Wegandi wrote:On December 27 2014 08:10 IgnE wrote:On December 27 2014 07:50 Doublemint wrote:On December 27 2014 06:58 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 27 2014 05:06 Doublemint wrote:On December 27 2014 02:34 IgnE wrote:On December 27 2014 02:14 Danglars wrote:On December 26 2014 23:55 WhiteDog wrote:On December 26 2014 12:16 coverpunch wrote:
[quote]
The part I quoted was from your post ("Experts and thinkers barely ever had any role in big political change in our societies. Extremists and political activists did.") That reads like you think nearly all changes are thanks to extremism.
I find that to be very contrary to American history, where Congress serves a moderating purpose for the sake of compromise and getting the votes necessary to pass legislation. I could accept that Congress isn't full of thinkers and experts and they often rely on their opinions only to the cynical extent that it helps garner support and votes, but I think it's very inaccurate to suggest extremists have been the prime movers of change by shifting the debate. US political history is very different from Europe and especially France, and it's notable the US has often used the French government as a counterpoint for why America should avoid the temptations of big and sudden changes.
It's also laughable to say communists were ever pacifist. They WANT a class war. They were against imperialism to the extent that they wanted soldiers to help them kill captains of industry and the rich, not that they wanted no army and no war at all. By definition, extremists want solutions that are unpalatable and unacceptable to the rest of society, which nearly always means killing their enemies in righteous justice. Communists want a class war ? Ho really ? Communists historically were pacifists, I'm sorry if your all USA history book don't teach you that, but the soviet are not the debut of the communist ideology (more like the tomb). It's Lenin that theorized communism as an armed revolution, in the specific context of Russia. Class struggle is not a war that communist "wish" to fight for with weapon and all, it's a concept that describe the reality of exploitation in a society that permit accumulation of capital : the interests of the worker class are at war with the interests of the capitalists, the end goal being the end of this class struggle through a reform of property right. I don't think you can spread solace by allowing that Communists acknowledge the reality of exploitation and war, while not wanting a class war. I can only think of how much breath they wasted talking of inevitability, when of course they never meant class war was desirable to their ends. I am much persuaded that the class war and all the misery that resulted from Russia's experimentation with it (sophistry, of course, says they were misguided fools--nobody's ever tried communism to the purity and extent of intellectual's satisfaction) is responsible for much of the current misery of the poor, the real pawns of today's class warriors. Their message echoes, The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. The class war is raging harder than ever, it's not up to the communists whether it continues or not. In the soviet block, at least, everyone but the convicts were comrades. yes to your first sentence. but your second one is just messed up. there was hardly anything - if anything at all - "better" under communism... There was certainly less envy and coveting under communism. Hard to know for sure, but outside of politically related stuff like bribery, corruption, and dissonance it seems the consensus among western scholars is that the USSR had a lower crime rate also. As bad as Communism and the USSR might have been, it wasn't all bad. People putting class warfare on poor people is the height of stupidity IMO. Millions of people, women and children included, die from a lack of basic necessities like food and water every year while others waste more than those people ever see. It's not because they don't work harder than the All-American 'bootstrappers' that think they deserve all they have, but because by the time everyone else is finished extracting their wealth, there just isn't enough left to feed and shelter the people who produced the goods that earned it. The "class war" has been raging for long before any modern political forces embraced it. Although one side has been getting it's ass kicked pretty much the whole time. well... knowing or at least not being naive about what is being done to people in a totalitarian society and under such a regime should help with things like crime rate.
I don't have to embrace anything from the USSR to say that there is a class war going on. what marx - rightfully - described and had a vague idea about is worlds apart from what happened in the USSR. Well, the book is called Capital, not Communism. It was a joke comrades. I was trying to emphasize that the class war is an inherent feature of capitalism, not communism. Marxist Class Theory is mostly wrong. Classical Liberal Class Theory (which predates Marx by the way...see: Dunoyer, Comte, et. al. and then later Oppenheimer, etc.) is much more salient and accurate. The competing classes aren't the 'bourgeois' and the 'proleteriate' or capital vs. labor, but the State (tax-recipients) vs You (tax-payers), and the theory goes back to pre-Statism, and actually describes how States formed, and their effects on the populace, who benefits, etc. Marx completely and totally ignores this crucial distinction and instead attempts to pigeon-hole his preferential ideas of life during the Industrial Revolution and his Class Theory was this way of doing so. Communism and Socialism failed throughout the 16th to 19th Century so his ideas weren't anything new. http://fee.org/freeman/detail/class-struggle-rightly-conceivedThen again, I'm one of those gross folks who proclaim adherence to the ideas espoused by great thinkers like Benjamin Constant, Augustin Thierry, Frederic Bastiat, Lysander Spooner, and the rest of the radical classical liberals (of which most are French..so sad how the French have fallen - they would be so ashamed of modern day France...I digress). I can see you being a big fan of Constant and Basiat, but Thierry, a utopia socialist and Spooner an anarchist of the First International as radical classical liberals? I guess Bakunin and Kropotkin were liberals too since they were against the state. Then again, the Rothbard libertarians are basically people who replace Proudhon's "Property is theft" with "Taxation is theft"
I must assume you have the wrong Thierry...No utopian socialist would have been a staunch proponent of the July Revolution for instance. Anyways, most of the radical classical liberals were proto-market anarchists anyways. They did most of the lifting. Tucker and Spooner are most decidedly in the classical liberal / libertarian market anarchist camp which is in no way close to socialism/communism/et. al. I'd imagine Spooner and Bastiat being best buds.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/wNuZ8x9.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/vGPF2Ci.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Uw6HmGd.jpg)
