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On November 03 2010 06:40 HadronCollid wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2010 06:36 Savio wrote:On November 03 2010 06:07 HadronCollid wrote:
You're defending Marxism and Socialism now? Awesome. I'd love you to cite the successes, and what you find endearing in those political philosophies.
Cuba. Have you ever been? I have and it's incredible. I would say they have done fairly well as a communist/socialist society considering they were blockaded by the US for a *few* years. Edit: Thank goodness Obama still has his veto power. I hope he uses it as frequently as Bush did to pass whatever needs to get past the horde of fat republican elephants. Regarding Cuba, I have never been there but I see this comparison about Cuba: "Grinding poverty where half the population survive on less than $1 a day." Good gardeners in Miami can make $20 an hour. Wow. So money is everything?? O...k. Cuba has one of the highest literacy rates in the world, but i guess that's irrelevant because an illiterate innumerate gardener can make more money, and then spend that money on OVERPRICED services and OVERPRICED goods. Oh, and lets not forget that ALL cubans have health-care and subsidised education (university) as well, WUT?!
Trust me we're on the same team,but even without using GDP,which is pretty bad,and using HDI(Sen's index),Cuba's quite far away:/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index
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Cubans, especially outside of Havana, are poor.
If Cuba is the best example of Communism, Communism's poor reputation is well-deserved.
A lot of people are poor in the U.S. as well. And generally when you live in a communist country you don't have a lot of money, it kind-of goes with the territory, and to argue otherwise is asinine.
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On November 03 2010 06:44 domovoi wrote:
What do you do with the bourgeois?
Divest them of all the surplus value they've plundered from the people that actually work.
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On November 03 2010 06:42 w_Ender_w wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2010 05:34 Gahlo wrote:
While I despise the two party system, I'm going straight dem. I'd rather see a government in synergy doing things, good or bad, than stuck doing NOTHING. Mistakes can be fixed, good things can be kept, wasted time is irreplaceable.
That and the republican candidates for me are crummy this election. =\ I've never really understood this. Why vote completely for one party, as opposed to on principles? The whole bipartisan "lesser of two evils" thing is why we always get such crummy candidates.
The two parties have become very polarized and it is hard to find common ground on anything right now. The right is going further right and the left, I think they are staying where they have been but because the right is going further to the right it makes the left look like they are moving further to the left. I live in Florida, so let's take Marco Rubio for example. In the primary, he was extremely to the right with his ideas on immigration and taxes. Since he knocked Crist out in the primary he has gone more towards the middle. As a voter, which Rubio do I believe?
I'm a progressive and I can say without a doubt that I have not found one republican candidate that I have agreed with.
As for Socialism and Communism, in order for it to work it would have to be a selfless act on behalf of the state. Well, unless Jesus comes back to setup a communist state, it will never be done right because human beings are not wired that way. We are capitalist by nature. 'How can I cut this corner?' 'How can I make money off of this?'
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On November 03 2010 06:52 clementdudu wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2010 06:40 HadronCollid wrote:On November 03 2010 06:36 Savio wrote:On November 03 2010 06:07 HadronCollid wrote:
You're defending Marxism and Socialism now? Awesome. I'd love you to cite the successes, and what you find endearing in those political philosophies.
Cuba. Have you ever been? I have and it's incredible. I would say they have done fairly well as a communist/socialist society considering they were blockaded by the US for a *few* years. Edit: Thank goodness Obama still has his veto power. I hope he uses it as frequently as Bush did to pass whatever needs to get past the horde of fat republican elephants. Regarding Cuba, I have never been there but I see this comparison about Cuba: "Grinding poverty where half the population survive on less than $1 a day." Good gardeners in Miami can make $20 an hour. Wow. So money is everything?? O...k. Cuba has one of the highest literacy rates in the world, but i guess that's irrelevant because an illiterate innumerate gardener can make more money, and then spend that money on OVERPRICED services and OVERPRICED goods. Oh, and lets not forget that ALL cubans have health-care and subsidised education (university) as well, WUT?! Trust me we're on the same team,but even without using GDP,which is pretty bad,and using HDI(Sen's index),Cuba's quite far away:/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index
one of the few that actually goes to college.
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On November 03 2010 06:48 trainRiderJ wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2010 06:47 HadronCollid wrote:On November 03 2010 06:46 trainRiderJ wrote:Cubans can read, but can they express themselves freely? The Cuban government has been accused of numerous human rights abuses including torture, arbitrary imprisonment, unfair trials, and extrajudicial executions (also known as "El Paredón").[87] The Human Rights Watch alleges that the government "represses nearly all forms of political dissent" and that "Cubans are systematically denied basic rights to free expression, association, assembly, privacy, movement, and due process of law".[88]
Cuba was the second biggest prison in the world for journalists in 2008, second only to the People's Republic of China, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), an international NGO.[89] As a result of ownership bans, computer ownership rates are among the world's lowest.[90] The right to use the Internet is granted only to selected people and they are monitored.[90][91] Connecting to the Internet illegally can lead to a five-year prison sentence.
Cuban dissidents face arrest and imprisonment. In the 1990s, Human Rights Watch reported that Cuba's extensive prison system, one of the largest in Latin America, consists of some 40 maximum-security prisons, 30 minimum-security prisons, and over 200 work camps.[92] According to Human Rights Watch, political prisoners, along with the rest of Cuba's prison population, are confined to jails with substandard and unhealthy conditions.[92]
Citizens cannot leave or return to Cuba without first obtaining official permission.[88] Let me know when the citizens of the United States are fleeing by boat to other countries to escape oppression. Acutally those Americans just drive to Canada. And it's been happening since the Vietnam war. I know several. You missed the point. They drove there freely. It was their choice.
I missed the point? If those Americans went back to the US they would be persecuted. The only difference is that the Cubans go by boat, and while I admit Cuba is not a nicer place to live than the states, I was simply defending Socialism/giving an example (cuba) of a semi-stable social-communist state in my Original Post. No system is perfect not even Democracy, but Socialism is not the worst thing in the free world, that would be Sarah Palin.
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I just voted for the first time.
And now I'm gonna sit at home and pray that Christine O'Donnell and the other Tea Party candidates lose.
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On November 03 2010 06:51 Mindcrime wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2010 06:44 domovoi wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On November 03 2010 06:40 Mindcrime wrote:
Marx envisioned socialism as the stage preceding communism, but establishing a totalitarian government is, in no way, an attempt at creating a classless, stateless society. "If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organise itself as a class, if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class." "1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax. 3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance. 4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.5. Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state. 7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan. 8. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country. 10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc." How do you get all this without a strong central government? How do you enforce the "obligation of all to work"? How do you confiscate property? How do you ensure "equable distribution" of the populace? What do you do with the bourgeois?[ You may as well be arguing that the entire western world was attempting communism in the 1800s because industrial capitalism, like socialism, precedes communism in Marx's view.
...
Let me repeat my point. Marx/Engels envisioned a strong state in order to "sweep away" the bourgeois and all forms of class. They envisioned 10 policies that the Socialist state was to implement in order to get to Communism. Plenty of Communist Parties have tried to implement such policies, but with disastrous results. If that's not trying Marx's ideas, I don't know what is.
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On November 03 2010 06:52 HadronCollid wrote:Show nested quote +
Cubans, especially outside of Havana, are poor.
If Cuba is the best example of Communism, Communism's poor reputation is well-deserved.
A lot of people are poor in the U.S. as well. And generally when you live in a communist country you don't have a lot of money, it kind-of goes with the territory, and to argue otherwise is asinine.
The poverty level of the US is still higher than the GDP/capita of China, Russia, India and Brazil. I'm not talking about money, I'm talking about wealth. Cubans don't have it.
I mean, the largest counterpoint is the fact that so many Cubans want to leave Cuba for the US.
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On November 03 2010 06:29 domovoi wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2010 06:24 Romantic wrote:On November 03 2010 06:21 domovoi wrote:On November 03 2010 06:16 Romantic wrote:I manage to do it whenever I go to work  . We're creative people. It becomes an issue when you claim to "collectively-own" every single business in the name of all workers. This is a large problem and it should be eliminated at every turn!  We have found agreement Let's talk practicalities. How would you implement "collective ownership"? You can't simply give all workers a share of the business, because that's just private ownership en masse, and workers will be inclined to trade their shares.
I believe we operate under consumer co-op laws with non-capital stock since Federal law on the subject is terrible.
Amount paid is democratically decided as opposed to market value of the stock.
You can own it indirectly with a trust too, if you want (WINCO is a regional business that does this through the worker's retirement fund).
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Marx never wrote anything about how communism should be. He died before he finished das kapital.
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On November 03 2010 06:58 HadronCollid wrote:
I missed the point? If those Americans went back to the US they would be persecuted.
Maybe for dodging the draft (which is a terrible policy and doesn't exist anymore). Americans are not persecuted for trying to move to Canada. The Canadians might not like it, but America isn't going to do anything about it except cooperate when Canada attempts to deport them.
The only difference is that the Cubans go by boat,
And are jailed if they return. And are shot at when attempting to escape.
and while I admit Cuba is not a nicer place to live than the states, I was simply defending Socialism/giving an example (cuba) of a semi-stable social-communist state in my Original Post. No system is perfect not even Democracy, but Socialism is not the worst thing in the free world, that would be Sarah Palin.
Cuba is basically the best example of socialism, and it's still a shitty example. Socialism is definitely one of the worst things in the world today, and thank God most people realize this and only a handful have to suffer under such a ludicrous system.
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Cuba is basically the best example of socialism, and it's still a shitty example. Socialism is definitely one of the worst things in the world today, and thank God most people realize this and only a handful have to suffer under such a ludicrous system.
Imma commy bastard and the worst thing that has ever happened to Communism were the Soviet Regimes. I don't mind capitalism as long as people remain free and are also well taken care off by the state.
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The socialist welfare state of Sweden and other European countries have stomped all over our freedom. We live in misery and labour camps. Wish we were a bit more like the US.
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On November 03 2010 07:10 MacWorld wrote:
The socialist welfare state of Sweden and other European countries have stomped all over our freedom. We live in misery and labour camps. Wish we were a bit more like the US.
I <3! sweden. Been there myself @ malmö. Great Country, hard language though.
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On November 03 2010 07:10 MacWorld wrote:
The socialist welfare state of Sweden and other European countries have stomped all over our freedom. We live in misery and labour camps. Wish we were a bit more like the US.
And the United States is headed for the same path.
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On November 03 2010 07:10 MacWorld wrote:
The socialist welfare state of Sweden and other European countries have stomped all over our freedom. We live in misery and labour camps. Wish we were a bit more like the US.
Marx is rolling in his grave for calling Sweden, home of such bourgeois companies like Volvo and Sony Ericsson, socialist.
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Better to be poor in Sweden than in the US of A.
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On November 03 2010 06:53 Tuneful wrote:Divest them of all the surplus value they've plundered from the people that actually work.
That goes without saying. What do you do with them after that is the key question.
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Send their kids to a commie college.
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EPT
