nonwithstanding views on this board. The 2 concepts are not mutually exclusive; Truman & JFK were the supreme examples of anti-communist liberals.

My views on Communism ? It is an aberrant , unworkable political sysytem that had a very welcome demise in the U.S.S.R in '91. 20th
century's two greatest mass murderers ( Stalin & Mao ) were communists. ( I think "Uncle Adolph" ranks # 3 in terms of genocide-----I may be wrong about this------anyone wanna google this, feel free----too lazy at the moment ) If Communism is so great why are N Korea & Cuba such hellholes ?

There IS a form of anti-communism I'm against---------the paranoid, demagogic hysteria that Senator Joseph Mccarthy preached in the 50's that tore the U.S. apart. ( Rush Limbaugh & Glenn Beck seems to be modern disciples of Mccarthyistic tactics )

On the board we seem to have a couple of diletantes who are defenders of N. Korea. I suggest they try to seek asylum in that communist hellhole. Of course, my prediction is that the two of them will soon spoon tunnel their way to S. Korea &  then try to seek asylum there.

Here is your homework assignment. Start reading about the features of a communist system and get back us when you reach the part that says “step 3 –mass murder the population.”

      In case we never  hear from you again, I ‘ll point out that you will not find that listed in any discussion about a communist system.

     Kim Il Yong, Castro, Stalin, and Mao are/were all dictators who used facets of the communist system to perpetuate their power. The failure of these regimes no more implicates communism than the legalization of slavery in the United States prior to the 1860s meant that democracy is a bad system. In both cases, bad actors perverted the system and used it for their own advantage.

     To my knowledge, a pure communist system has never been instituted and allowed to grow long enough to determine if it is a superior system for certain countries. In poor countries with an uneducated population, a pure communist system would most likely be superior to a capitalist system if the government could avoid being hijacked by dictators. Capitalism is good only for the haves – not so good for the have nots.

Wow----you're a "Communist apologist"----this is the same sort of "Chamberlin appeasement" sentiment you've illustrated with a certain unnamed Central Asian ( NOT middle eastern ) country that supports terrorists.

In your "Utopian, cloud 9" thinking you say that
"a pure communist system has never been instituted". Why is this ? Is it because a system that kills initiative would be not able to do this & somehow is conducive to dictatorships ?

Here's your homework assignment---give me a modern example of a mass murdering dictator who was also a capitalist ( Hitler doesn't apply ). The only modern example that comes to mind would be Chile's unlamented Pinochet---but, compared to Stalin & Mao, a piker in terms of how many people his regime killed.

You'll hear from me again, btw-----but, will we hear from you after you have some "ethereal baklava" with your "dark suited friends" ?------------If I were you, I'd hire a taste tester----;

-- Modified on 10/12/2010 9:31:56 AM

Omar al-Bashir, president of the Sudan, which has had a booming economy in recent years following IMF reforms but who has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for genocide.

       As usual, you confuse cause and effect - the capitalist Sudan economy and the english common law sharia mix legal system did not cause this guy to commit crimes against humanity any more than communism caused Stalin and friends to do so.

      And btw it is spelled "ethereal baklava" and you are just jealous because the Bellagio Buffet doesn't serve the good stuff.

Mari's quite right on this. There's nothing in the Communist Manisfesto or Das Kapital that forbids free elections. Stalin, Mao, and Castro were all dictators, which is precisely what Mikhail Bakunin predicted.

John's quite right that real communism and free market capitalism has never existed at the nation-state level. The closest thing that I know of with real communism would be the indigeous Sng'ois of Indonesia. I suppose some could make the case about this with some Native American societies too.

With regards to free market capitalism, I've gone around and around debating this with some anarcho-capitalist friends of mine, and the only conclusion I've ever reached is that it would literally be impossible to have a free market capitalist society without also embracing primitivism. It might even be more unworkable than a real communist state. The best example I can think of is Somalia.

Where I think John is wrong is on progressive income taxes. Wealth disparities were far lower than they are today when we had a more progressive income tax. Those wealth disparities were far greater then even today when we didn't have an income tax at all. It's true that income taxes don't address wealth per se, but that's the purpose of inheritance taxes.

-- Modified on 10/12/2010 9:42:55 AM

which I seriously doubt.

"Capitalism produced a better life style for the poor in NYC and Watts than communism did for the middle class in Moscow and Peking. I had been to apartments in Leningrad and Moscow and homes in Watts and Harlem. "


     Now before I sic Charlie on you, give me a link that supports this statement. I say you can't do it. The real comparison would be the poor in both countries but I doubt you can even make that case with your poor v middle class comparison.


      And, of course, in defending the capitalist produced life style of the poor in Watts and NYC, you cannot count government supplied benefits- that is a communist feature, not a capitalist one. In fact, the capitalist system gives the poor nothing.

There's quite a long list of fascist capitalist dictators who's killed quite a few people. I don't know if it stacks up to what Stalin and Mao did in pure numbers, but that's a question of population density, isn't it?

If you look instead at what percentage of people were killed, then you have a more grim reality. Suharto killed one third of the entire Timorese population. Our own very capitalist government killed I'm guessing something on the order of 95% of the Natives. 200,000 Guatemalans died after we overthrew their democracy in '54. The reason why there's so many young people in Iran is because most of the people who would today be middle aged were killed off by the US-funded and trained SAVAK. There's a metric shit ton of blood on the hands of people who called themselves fascists and communists.

Hitler wasn't a real fascist. He embraced some elements of Mussolini's fascism, and some elements of Marxian style socialism. Hell, Volkswagen litterly means "the people's automobile". But Nazi Germany was a fairly business friendly society. IBM and Ford both made quite a lot of money off the regime.

I only couldn't come up with them because my brain doesn't fully function until 11 am---unlike some on this board--whose brains NEVER function-----------

I thought the Latin American CIA engineered "coups" that toppled Allende & Arbenz were despicable & black marks against the U.S.

Now, Iran is another matter------granted, the Shah was no angel for sure------but how many people were killed by the current "government" in power since 2/79,
vs. the Shah ? Be interesting if one could find stats re that. Btw, when I used to live in L.A( as you know, home to many thousands of Iranian expatriates ) the many Persians I talked to said they found life preferable under the Shah than to the current "government". Hardly a scientific survery, I know, but leads me to wonder : how many older people in Iran feel the same way ? No way to gauge that, since accurate polling in Iran on a question like that would be damned near impossible.

Never clear consensus whether Hitler was a capitalist or not, but I could see how Ford made $ off his regime. Henry Ford was one of the most vile anti-semites the U.S. has ever produced & a well known Hitler sympathizer.


-- Modified on 10/12/2010 10:51:02 AM

communes like Twin Oaks and the fictional Walden Two are valid analogies to a communist system?

       The key difference is voluntary vs. involuntary. If a country chooses a communist system, all must exist in the system or leave the country. A commune is voluntary.

    And separating children from parents is not a feature of a communist system. So to the extent that the spectacular failure was due to this, the analogy is flawed.

I'm not very familiar with kibbutzim, so I won't comment much on it, but there certainly is an aspect of Marxian thought that wishes to remove all class structures, and the heirarchy that exists between parent and child is one of them.

Anarcho-syndicalists like myself often see heirarchical structures as not being legitimate, and thus should be fought against, but in some cases they are legitimate. In this case, it's needed for survival. I think separating children from their parents is a fairly dumb idea for this reason, unless there is some underlying reason to do so, like abuse or something like that.

It is called a "kibbutz." A member of my family grew up in one and left as soon as humanly possible.

If you look carefully at the kibbutzim, you will notice that in aggregate they have manifested spectacular failures as social and economic systems for a variety of reasons; and ultimately can only exist because of their ability to interact with the surrounding semi-capitalist system.

Many kibbutzim, especially early on, implemented many features idealized in communist theory and bolstered by social sciences with a leftist agenda. Specifically, a radical belief in nurture over nature that sought to separate children from their biological parents and raise them as far from any gender-specific stereotypes as possible. Again, a spectacular failure.

Granted, because kibbutzim combine socialism with a brand of nationalism known as Zionism; they are more national socialist (like WWII Germany) than international socialist (like cold war USSR) in mindset; but they have successfully avoided dictators. Of course, within their context as falling under the jurisdiction of another sovereign state, dictators would have little possibility or power there anyway.

But even in such an idealized environment, members of kibbutzim routinely seek status and power outside the commune.

Demonstrating that communism can only work when the entire world is communist so its participants cannot escape.

But just as Communism in its pure form has never existed on the scale of a nation-state; neither has Capitalism.

People look around and think the system under which we live is a manifestation of Free Market economics. It is not.

When you combine a free market with politics, especially electoral politics, in which the government has the power to regulate; you ultimately end up with an economic oligarchy in which a handful of people control the government to fundamentally inhibit free competition in order to secure their own positions of power and influence.

What we have is not capitalism -- it is pull politics of a market that is only free for some people; and regulated to the point of unavailability for everyone else.

Even so-called progressive income taxes cannot fix this because those income taxes tax income rather than wealth and effectively prevent even high earners from accumulating the wealth necessary to level the playing field with those who are already wealthy. Thus progressive income taxes perpetuate extreme wealth divisions rather than solve them.

When billionaires advocate high income taxes, it is not because they are selfish altruists -- it is because high income taxes help to secure their existing positions of oligarchic dominance.

You won't find many pro-Castro Cubans in Florida. But I'm betting you'd find far more in Cuba itself. I'm betting that would explain the Iranian sentiment in LA.

I'm no apologist for the Mullahs, that's for damn sure, but I gotta think life is remotely better today then it was under the Shah. by 1975, Iran was the world's leading human rights violator, according to Amnesty International.

I can't help but wonder what the Middle East would look like today had we not overthrown Mossedegh in '53. It's strange to think today that the country was once a functioning and very westernized democracy.

I am not sure, but I think it was C.K. Chesterton who said, "Capitalism is the unequal sharing of the riches.  Socialism is the equal sharing of the misery."

Capitalism produced good for the people in West Germany who were have nots after the war. Communism, or the closest thing to it, produced misery for all.  Ditto England, France, Greence, Italy, and other Western European countries that fell under its spell when the people had nothing after WW II.  

Capitalism produced a better life style for the poor in NYC and Watts than communism did for the middle class in Moscow and Peking. I had been to apartments in Leningrad and Moscow and homes in Watts and Harlem.  

Funny story about communism and the poor. In the late 1970's there was a youth convention in NYC of all the radical groups from around the world.  The US delegation wanted to embarass the US by showing how bad it was here.  They arranged for people to be housed in Harlem and similar areas.

After the convention, all the international groups accused their US hosts of being US agents.  They could not believe that the poor in NY lived so well and thought it had to be a "Potemkin" type plot to hide real poverty.

This is a story that is repeated a dozen times.  When Krushchev came to the US he got mad at his hosts becuase hey took him to a Ford plant.  He thought they were trying to fool him.  There was a huge parking lot in front, and they told him it was for the workers to park their cars. It was not believable that factory workers would have cars. Such a stupid trick to pull.

(Think Kitchen Debate. Krushchev could not believe that US kitchens looked like the one at the world's Fare.  His kitchen wasn't that nice. How could average people have that type of luxury.

what you personally observed on your trips but are you seriously suggesting that your tour of a few middle class flats in Moscow gives the perspective needed to compare the standard of living there with Watts?

     For that matter, how often have you have gotten off 103 streets to take a look at the residential neighborhoods of Watts? Invited into their homes? Right.

      If you are going to make a flat out assertion like you made, you should not be offended when someone asks you to provide facts that support your view. I suspect that if you actually researched the issue for any given 10 year period, you would find that the standard of living for the poor in the United States is inferior to the USSR middle class, if we subtract the government supplied benefits from the US poor.

His system was called "National Socialism."

If you look through the 25 points of the NSDAP, you'll find such socialist programs as state-funded old-age pensions included; and if you look at his banking policies, you'll see them as distinctly unfriendly to the capitalist class.

we debate factual issues on this Board. And the statement I challenged was not uttered by you as a "personal observation" but as a fact.

      I certainly have no problem with you saying that, based on your personal observation and anecdotal information, you believe that the SOL is better in the US for the poor than the is the SOL for the middle class in Moscow. But you did not say that, did you? You presented your statement as an objective fact and I simply asked if you could support it with objective facts, which you cannot.

      I'd say that closes our discussion.

Is your only source of facts a web site?

First, what I saw in Moscow and Harlem are facts.  When other people express their views based on what they have seen in life, do you ask for a web site?  If someone says "The US is racist because I have been discriminated against." Do you ask for a web site?

When you recount your experiences, do you link?  

The amazing this is everything I said is pretty much common knowledge about the USSR and China.

Do you know anyone who went to the Soviet Union?  Ask them what type of goods they had in GUM, the "world's largest store."  Ask them what the grocery stores were like. Ask them about the record stores.

Do you know anyone who went to China when they first opened it up?  Ask them how many cars there were in Peking.

Do you know anyone in the US who works in a factory, bookstore, or grocery store. Do they have a car? Do you know any teachers? Do they have a car? How many teachers go to Europe every year?  (My SO was a teacher and in April teachers by the score start pulling out Fodors and Lonely Planet.)

Now, go to the Russian or Chinese section of town and ask someone over 40 years old how many teachers in Peking or Moscow had a car.



Common man. Be honest for 2 minutes.  Why do so many people want to come to the US from Poland, Russia, the Ukraine, Latvia?  Name your communinist country.

Some came to be free, but some came for material life.

Go to the section of town where they live. Ask. Get off the web site and live.

One of the falacies of the left is they want studies and facts. Do you not know the economics of the US from your own experience?  Did you never ask a Russian who came here in 1980? Have you never met anyone from Russia, China, Lithuania, East Germany, N. Korea.  

Go ask people.

Those are your facts.

Finally, the fact that the state may provide benifits to someone in Watts doesn't make it communist. Welfare in Watts isn't communism.  

Even not counting welfare in Watts, there are thousands of people living their who work for the post office, the superior court, factories, etc. who are not on welfare. All those people are better off than the counterparts.


Go ahead. Sic Charlie on me. He will talk about how good they have it in N. Korea. Like you will side with him on that issue?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributism

It doesn't matter how he is classified. It is his observations that are pertinent.

Also, I like Chesterton because he is good with words.  One of those guys always tossing out mots that are most bon

Years ago, when I was a confirmed liberal, I like Safire, even though I hated his politics

I think the analogies are valid in that kibbutzim conscientiously attempted to implement communist principles.

The separation of children from parents is an outgrowth of fundamental premises underlying acceptance of communist ideology; namely that all people are equal and that the only differences that manifest are a result of environmental influences.

You see many aspects of this same philosophy in modern incarnations of feminism with strong influences in Marxist theory.
This belief likewise resulted in a variety of social and other institutions in the USSR that weren't particularly successful.

Kibbutzim could only exist due to subsidies.

as fact are over Phil. Soon you will be known as "Phil the assfact troll". How many times do I have to tell you not to compare apples with oranges? You are beating a dead horse here Phil. Why do you have such an axe to grind with communism? Was it that piping hot ass kicking that they laid on us in SEA Phil?
But you wouldn't know first hand about war would you Phil? We killed damn near 1.5 million+ people in SEA and still lost to the communists! At the end of the day Phil desperate people take desperate measures to rid themselves of foreign oppressors.

First, it is a fact that people from the US could go to the USSR and trade ball point pens, blue jeans, and t-shirts.  That is not an opinion, but a fact that I saw and is common knowledge.
Opinion would be the judgment reached based on that fact.
It is a fact that there were very few cars in Peking and lots of cars in Deerborne.  It is an opinion as to whether that was good or bad.

Second, you tell me not to compare apples and oranges. And who died and made you the God (there is not god) of the board. If I want to compare the quality of life in the USSR and NYC, I will do so.

Third, talk about predictable and rote - ass fact.

Fourth, the thing I have against communism is 100,000,000 dead.  

Finally, I don't have to know first hand about war.  They have these things called history books. People who read books can get information from otheer sources other than first hand.

Bark, Yelp, Bark

No. It isn't just my word. This is the experience of everyone who ever went to the USSR.

I asked you don't you know anyone who had been to Peking in the early years?  Don't you know anyone who had been to the USSR in the old days? Don't you know anyone who emigrated from China, Russian, Ukraine?  Don't you know anyone who lived in Eastern Europe, Cuba, China, or any other place?  How isolated are you? Or if you know them, did you never talk to them about it?

Here. Go to the Russian Orthodox churh in Hollywood. Say you are interested in the icons and people will talk your ears off. Once you get them talking, ask about life in the old country.  

No. Don't distort what I said. It is not a few days in flats in Moscow. It is 6 years of drinking with the Russian professors at school and other students who had been there before.  It is 15 years of friendship with more Russians than I can begin to count. It is hanging around ballet studios and talking to the emigres.  It isn't just my experience in a few flats.  

Why is a site on the Web the exclusive proof of facts?  Of course, they are not allowed to put anything on the web that isn't true.

No. I know how the middle class lived in the USSR.  NO ONE IN THE MIDDLE CLASS HAD A CAR.  That isn't my observation.  Many, many, many poor in the US have a car and did 40 years ago.  

As for homes in Watts, I used to drive for my father, who was a doctor in the old days when they made house calls.  I would guess I had been in a fair number of homes, if you count 5 a day for the better part of 3 years.  I also drive around when I go to outlying courts. I know what the houses look like around Compton, Inglewood, Pomona in the poor sections.

They are much better than the middle class ever dreamed of in Moscow.  And Peking?
(Why subtract govt benefits? the poor are getting them)

Finally, do you always ask someone to back up their personal observations witha  web site?  

The fact that I am not going to find a source on the web does not mean it is not a fact.
The fact that it is my personal observation does not make it less of a fact.  I was downtown and saw the city hall is a tall building.  That is a fact. It is no less a fact because I reported it.

The frustrating thing is that the facts I cite, and yes, they are personal observations, are really as close to common knowledge at you can get.

Can you really say you never  met anyone how has been to China?  Or the whole litany.

There are some facts that are generally common knowledge.  The quality of life in China or the USSR is one such fact.

If you want to be blind to what the world knows, that's fine. If you want to ignore decades of newspaper articles. if you want to ignore the millions who left.

It is so easy to find.
Willful blindness.

that ends the discussion.

that the statement that I called you out on -

"Capitalism produced a better life style for the poor in NYC and Watts than communism did for the middle class in Moscow and Peking. I had been to apartments in Leningrad and Moscow and homes in Watts and Harlem. "

is a matter of common knowledge. It would take a study by a team of PHD's trained in the social sciences to determine what is the standard of living for these two groups at any time.


     And no one is fooled by your attempt to redefine the issue generally as "are you better off over here than over there"
so as to make your "common knowledge" rationale valid.

    I gave you a way out - just say that is your opinion, and you are home free. But it is not a fact.

Proper context? BTW Phil were you able to trade some tee shirts and ink pens for some of that good
Russian pussy while you were there? Probably not Phil.

There's Phil's common knowledge and then there's everyone else's common knowledge. Face it Phil, your common knowledge ain't worth jack shit around here. All your common knowledge comes from the propaganda organs of the running dogs of capitalism. There is no god!

Charlie can't believe people have it better here than in commie countries, and thinks I am making up stuff, calling it commonknowledge..

As part of my common knowledge that no one knows about, please no one tell Charlie that there is a large emigre Russian community in Los Angeles.  There have been "recent" emigres coming in every year for 50 years, as there are always fresh arrivals.

There is also a Russian community in New York, Chicago, San Fransisco, Boston, and a dozen other cities.

Don't tell Charlie that there are hundreds of thousand of Chinese who have come here from the Mainland, and have been coming here in droves for decades.

No one mention the hundreds of thousands that have fled Cuba.  DidI mentione Orange County in L.A., AKA Little Hanoi.

Please, if he starts to see a pattern of people fleeing communist countries to come to Running Dog Land,he may have to think.

Keep it mum.  

I just want to know what you think is the reason.  For 80 years, they have been coming in droves. They risk death to jump electrified wires and swim past sharks.  The were hidden underneath cars. They came without a suitcase to their name. The left as doctors, teachers, actors, dancers, scientists, generals, writers, and 100 other top professions.

Okay, I am full of doo doo, and mind dead, and I make up stuff. I didn't study for years, and haven't spoken to emigres for decades. Skip all that. And I can't find a site on the internet.

The fact remains that probably millions have come here.  People who were stars in their own country and had it as good as it gets.  All the stars of the Kirov.  Composers, etc.

Millions from Russia. China, Cuba, Vietnam.

Okay, why do you think they came?  

It doesn't take a team of PHD's.  It takes one person named "Maridod" to look at one huge, undisputed facts and give his explanation.  We are waiting

Then do the same thing for the miniscule number that went the other way. Why is that?

Rather your response is "Gosh and Golly, I can't think for myself. I have no idea why such a thing exists.  Got to look it up on the internet."

Come on. What is your explanation?

Oh. I know. I didn't cite to a web site saying people emigrate to the United States so you don't think they do.  

WTF you know about liberals other than some tells you? Have you read anything on either subject?

If you can't figure out what I was saying, here it is:

People move to places for a better life.  In the 30's, people from NY moved to CA.  That pattern continued.

When you look at interantional, that means the U.S.

People move here from the entire world. They spend  a few years here and the write to their family and friends.  The bottom line of the letters translates into, "Hey, it's better here. You should come."

More people come and experience life in the US after having lived in other places - including communist countries.  They write to more friends and family.  

And guess what.   When the people back home hear about the US, what do they do?

Now, in the 1920's a few US commies moved to Russia.  What happened?

Now, can you extrapolate anything from that?

Here in the US. US capitalists go to great lengths to promote the American Dream. There is also a an immigration industry in most places that thrives on exporting people to the US. People in the US have a relatively soft life by most accounts Phil. There have always been lots of immigrants in the US Phil, even before there was communism. What is your rant really about?

As my daughter would say. I would say that the believe the propaganda about the US and once they find that it is only slightly better here than where they stay. Although, many have been leaving lately because of economic conditions here.

Ball point pen/tee shirt and jean shortage. You had me fooled Phil.