Socialism

Jesus is dead now so it's not anything. If you think he'd be anything but a radical leftist if he was alive today you're insane.


What? Like Hitler? :eek:

"Socialism itself can hope to exist only for brief periods here and there, and then only through the exercise of the extremest terrorism. It is preparing itself for rule through fear and is driving the word "justice" into the heads of the half-educated masses like a nail, so as to rob them of their reason and to create in them a good conscience for the evil game they are to play. Socialism can serve to teach - in a truly brutal and impressive fashion - what danger there lies in all accumulations of state power."

---Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human
 
well, we can all agree that socialism might have worked in a primitive world, and that in a modern world socialism has no place (other than in history books)



Yep!

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lgihmv8SoG1qzr2th.gif



So you think I and others here are socialists because we're pointing out how people (right wingers looking for a nut) are using and exploiting the term disingenuously as this season's monster in the closet?

Even Williamsburg hipsters can't touch this level of irony. :D

Guy, I appreciate your appreciation of my craft, but please just STFU about everything else you're woefully off the mark over and sit back and enjoy being a right wing bisexual male and the liberal freedoms you exploit that allow you to indulge in the lingam-lustatopia of choice as your fellow right-wingers will never ever stand by you and your swing-both-ways sexual orientation openly — when you're about the cock rather than the pussy, that is. And if you think this is me being subtly homophobic towards you, it ain't. Just giving you a return-to-sender letter on your misunderestimated strategerie about artists and shit.



Whatever it was that you tried to sound like here — and I know what you tried to sound like — just stop.

It's working for you about as much as your cooked-noodle dick did when you tried to have sex with a special somebody from this board.
 
Other people's description, not mine:
In this video entitled "Marxism in America" General Jerry Boykin discusses his background and training in understanding Marxist insurgencies and how current government actions parallel Marxist tactics.​

http://www.morningstartv.com/oak-initiative/marxism-america

What an utter load of bullshit that video is.

Hello, I'm a retired general nobody has ever heard of before and I'm an expert on Marxist insurgents (Of which there have been how many?).

For fuck's sake.. :rolleyes:
 

Another great cartoon. Displays a couple of the foundational misconceptions of the Left.

1. The economics is a zero-sum game. If my business prospers then that wealth has to be subtracted from someone's else's money. The rich get richer at the expense of the poor. In fact wealth is created by the creative. You'd think an artist would grasp the source of all creativity is invention. Apple Computer is a huge business not because they stole money from the poor but because they invented great ideas and devices which never existed before, as if out of thin air. Actually, being creative is hard work, but the rewards can be tremendous.

2. The free market it isn't fair. Everyone engaged in trade does so because they believe the deals they make are good for them. If I trade you my bicycle for your watch the only reason why it's a deal is because we both believe it's good for us. It's not a zero-sum game. It's a win/win game. Socialist hate free markets because they work magically with no central controlling authority. No one sells or buys things by force, but out of perceived self-interest.

3. But the rich don't sacrifice. Class warfare, hatred and envy. As the cartoon says this is the definition of a socialist. Free trade between willing individuals and the creation of wealth through the freedom to innovation must be FORCED to be fairer by someone who is morally superior. Socialists believe that if only they could force everyone to buy, sell or work on command for "justice," then we could all be equal. Unfortunately, that requires that they suspend civil liberties and confiscate property and, of course, the party comrades become the new rich, but not because they freely traded or created any wealth, but because they stole other people's money.

Naturally, through out history where ever "morally superior" socialists have seized power to redistribute the wealth of other people they must do so through force of arms and oppression.
 
Other people's description, not mine:
In this video entitled "Marxism in America" General Jerry Boykin discusses his background and training in understanding Marxist insurgencies and how current government actions parallel Marxist tactics.​

http://www.morningstartv.com/oak-initiative/marxism-america

Awesome. He was Carter's go-to guy:

wikipedia said:
By 1980 he was the Delta Force operations officer on the April 24–25 Iranian hostage rescue attempt. Boykin called it "the greatest disappointment of my professional career because we didn't bring home 53 Americans."[3] Despite this, his "faith was stengthened" believing he had witnessed "a miracle": "Not one man who stood with us in the desert and pleaded for God to go with us was killed or even injured that night."[1]
 
Another great cartoon. Displays a couple of the foundational misconceptions of the Left.

1. The economics is a zero-sum game. If my business prospers then that wealth has to be subtracted from someone's else's money. The rich get richer at the expense of the poor. In fact wealth is created by the creative. You'd think an artist would grasp the source of all creativity is invention. Apple Computer is a huge business not because they stole money from the poor but because they invented great ideas and devices which never existed before, as if out of thin air. Actually, being creative is hard work, but the rewards can be tremendous.

2. The free market it isn't fair. Everyone engaged in trade does so because they believe the deals they make are good for them. If I trade you my bicycle for your watch the only reason why it's a deal is because we both believe it's good for us. It's not a zero-sum game. It's a win/win game. Socialist hate free markets because they work magically with no central controlling authority. No one sells or buys things by force, but out of perceived self-interest.

3. But the rich don't sacrifice. Class warfare, hatred and envy. As the cartoon says this is the definition of a socialist. Free trade between willing individuals and the creation of wealth through the freedom to innovation must be FORCED to be fairer by someone who is morally superior. Socialists believe that if only they could force everyone to buy, sell or work on command for "justice," then we could all be equal. Unfortunately, that requires that they suspend civil liberties and confiscate property and, of course, the party comrades become the new rich, but not because they freely traded or created any wealth, but because they stole other people's money.

Naturally, through out history where ever "morally superior" socialists have seized power to redistribute the wealth of other people they must do so through force of arms and oppression.
Many government benefits are used by everybody equally, like law enforcement, fire protection and national defense. Everybody should pay the same amount to support these services.

However, money has value because the government backs it and works hard to preserve its value. This government benefit is used more by rich people than poor people, so they should be paying more for it.
 
And your point is...

Well, a couple things. One is that the video is about "marxism in America," at least if its title is to be believed, so nothing about socialism there. Two is that if someone who disagrees with you had cited a person who was in charge of the most famous fucked up raid in all of American history, I suspect you'd have something to say about his credibility. I wouldn't, necessarily, but I do question the credibility of anyone who's as professed a fundamentalist of any religion as your guy is. To be a fundamentalist of any religion means you have taken at least one leap of faith and refuse to see logic regarding it. This makes you suspect in my assessment automatically.
 
Sure they are. It's an accounting formula, you know it CJ. And if, or when, the folks in Africa ever reach the level of the 'intelligent' worker, then they too will become the "go to" place for cheap, mass manufactured, mostly unnecessary cheap shit sucked up by people who shop at Walmart for what they can buy, not what they can save. We're lifting the third world up, one dollar at a time.

Ishmael
i

. . . You obviously feel strongly about this, yet it's hard to tell whether you're for it or against it.
 
You speak of "capitalism" from a socialist point of view...

...just as the "American" and "British" individuals you cite practice(d).

And just as Communist China excels at today.

What you're truly speaking of is simply "business", not capitalism.

I hate to pop the socialist bubble you obviously have such a dire and insecure need for...

...but capitalism is a philosophy of economics that naturally twins with the political philosophy of individual liberty. As those two philosophical branches meld, a nation's culture is naturally formed.

An individual who reverences individual liberty as her/his political philosophy is an individualist.

An individual who reverences capitalism as his/her economic philosophy is a capitalist.

[shrug] You made it sound in the first place as if you were talking about "true capitalist" businessmen, not "true capitalist" ideologues. There is little place for ideologues of any kind in the corporate boardrooms.

BTW crack:

I intentionally post Communist China...

...do you intentionally omit communist?

Do you believe that communist government would be insulted?

They would not be insulted, but they might insist on your using the country's official name, which was never "Communist China" or "Red China" but the "People's Republic of China." (Shut up, it's no monarchy and it's got . . . people in the government, all right?)

Do you not agree that their government is communist?

Communist China proclaims its communism...

...why do you don't?

Debatable. The Chinese government actually proclaims a lot more Communism than it practices, nowadays . . . and it proclaims hardly any at all, any more.
 
King Orefo is right. The National Socialists hated Communists.




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

The Nazi were just one of Irezumi's "57 varieties of socialism." Of course, that's not what they are best remembered for it.

Also from Wikipedia:

Early in his political career, Adolf Hitler regarded economic issues as relatively unimportant. In 1922, Hitler proclaimed that "world history teaches us that no people has become great through its economy but that a people can very well perish thereby", and later concluded that "the economy is something of secondary importance".[1] Hitler and the Nazis held a very strong idealist conception of history, which held that human events are guided by small numbers of exceptional individuals following a higher ideal. They believed that all economic concerns, being purely material, were unworthy of their consideration. Hitler went as far as to blame all previous German governments since Bismarck of having "subjugated the nation to materialism" by relying more on peaceful economic development instead of expansion through war.[2]

For these reasons, the Nazis never had a clearly defined economic programme. The original "Twenty-Five Point Programme" of the party, adopted in 1920, listed several economic demands (including "the abolition of all incomes unearned by work," "the ruthless confiscation of all war profits," "the nationalization of all businesses which have been formed into corporations," "profit-sharing in large enterprises," "extensive development of insurance for old-age," and "land reform suitable to our national requirements"),[3] but the degree to which the Nazis supported this programme in later years has been questioned. Several attempts were made in the 1920s to change some of the program or replace it entirely. For instance, in 1924, Gottfried Feder proposed a new 39-point program that kept some of the old planks, replaced others and added many completely new ones.[4] Hitler refused to allow any discussion of the party programme after 1925, ostensibly on the grounds that no discussion was necessary because the programme was "inviolable" and did not need any changes. At the same time, however, Hitler never voiced public support for the programme and many historians argue that he was in fact privately opposed to it. Hitler did not mention any of the planks of the programme in his book, Mein Kampf, and only talked about it in passing as "the so-called programme of the movement".[5]

Hitler's views on economics, beyond his early belief that the economy was of secondary importance, are a matter of debate. On the one hand, he proclaimed in one of his speeches that "we are socialists, we are enemies of today's capitalistic economic system",[6] but he was clear to point out that his interpretation of socialism "has nothing to do with Marxian Socialism," saying that "Marxism is anti-property; true Socialism is not."[7] At a later time, Hitler said: "Socialism! That is an unfortunate word altogether... What does socialism really mean? If people have something to eat and their pleasures, then they have their socialism."[8] In private, Hitler also said that "I absolutely insist on protecting private property... we must encourage private initiative".[9] On yet another occasion he qualified that statement by saying that the government should have the power to regulate the use of private property for the good of the nation.[10] Hitler clearly believed that the lack of a precise economic programme was one of the Nazi Party's strengths, saying: "The basic feature of our economic theory is that we have no theory at all."[11] While not espousing a specific economic philosophy, Hitler employed anti-semitic themes to attack economic systems in other countries, associating ethnic Jews with both communism ("Jewish Bolsheviks") and capitalism, both of which he opposed.[12][13] Hitler also believed that individuals within a nation battled with each other for survival, and that such ruthless competition was good for the health of the nation, because it promoted "superior individuals" to higher positions in society.[14]

And, since you admire George Orwell:

I began this book to the tune of German bombs, and I begin this second chapter in the added racket of the barrage. The yellow gun flashes are lighting the sky, the splinters are rattling on the housetops, and London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down. Anyone able to read a map knows that we are in deadly danger. I do not mean that we are beaten or need be beaten. Almost certainly the outcome depends on our own will. But at this moment we are in the soup, full fathom five, and we have been brought there by follies which we are still committing and which will drown us altogether if we do not mend our ways quickly.

What this war has demonstrated is that private capitalism that is, an economic system in which land, factories, mines and transport are owned privately and operated solely for profit–DOES NOT WORK. It cannot deliver the goods. This fact had been known to millions of people for years past, but nothing ever came of it, because there was no real urge from below to alter the system, and those at the top had trained themselves to be impenetrably stupid on just this point. Argument and propaganda got one nowhere. The lords of property simply sat on their bottoms and proclaimed that all was for the best. Hitler's conquest of Europe, however, was a PHYSICAL debunking of capitalism. War, for all its evil, is at any rate an unanswerable test of strength, like a try-your-grip machine. Great strength returns the penny, and there is no way of faking the result.

When the nautical screw was first invented, there was a controversy that lasted for years as to whether screw-steamers or paddle-steamers were better. The paddle-steamers, like all obsolete things, had their champions, who supported them by ingenious arguments. Finally, however, a distinguished admiral tied a screw-steamer and a paddle steamer of equal horse-power stern to stern and set their engines running. That settled the question once and for all. And it was something similar that happened on the fields of Norway and of Flanders. Once and for all it was proved that a planned economy is stronger than a planless one. But it is necessary here to give some kind of definition to those much-abused words, Socialism and Fascism.

Socialism is usually defined as "common ownership of the means of production". Crudely: the State, representing the whole nation, owns everything, and everyone is a State employee. This does NOT mean that people are stripped of private possessions such as clothes and furniture, but it DOES mean that all productive goods, such as land, mines, ships and machinery, are the property of the State. The State is the sole large-scale producer. It is not certain that Socialism is in all ways superior to capitalism, but it is certain that, unlike capitalism, it can solve the problems of production and consumption. At normal times a capitalist economy can never consume all that it produces, so that there is always a wasted surplus (wheat burned in furnaces, herrings dumped back into the sea etc etc) and always unemployment. In time of war, on the other hand, it has difficulty in producing all that it needs, because nothing is produced unless someone sees his way to making a profit out of it. In a Socialist economy these problems do not exist. The State simply calculates what goods will be needed and does its best to produce them. Production is only limited by the amount of labour and raw materials. Money, for internal purposes, ceases to be a mysterious all-powerful thing and becomes a sort of coupon or ration-ticket, issued in sufficient quantities to buy up such consumption goods as may be available at the moment.

However, it has become clear in the last few years that "common ownership of the means of production" is not in itself a sufficient definition of Socialism. One must also add the following: approximate equality of incomes (it need be no more than approximate), political democracy, and abolition of all hereditary privilege, especially in education. These are simply the necessary safeguards against the reappearance of a class system. Centralised ownership has very little meaning unless the mass of the people are living roughly upon an equal level, and have some kind of control over the government. "The State" may come to mean no more than a self-elected political party, and oligarchy and privilege can return, based on power rather than on money.

But what then is Fascism?

Fascism, at any rate the German version, is a form of capitalism that borrows from Socialism just such features as will make it efficient for war purposes. Internally, Germany has a good deal in common with a Socialist state. Ownership has never been abolished, there are still capitalists and workers, and–this is the important point, and the real reason why rich men all over the world tend to sympathise with Fascism–generally speaking the same people are capitalists and the same people workers as before the Nazi revolution. But at the same time the State, which is simply the Nazi Party, is in control of everything. It controls investment, raw materials, rates of interest, working hours, wages. The factory owner still owns his factory, but he is for practical purposes reduced to the status of a manager. Everyone is in effect a State employee, though the salaries vary very greatly. The mere EFFICIENCY of such a system, the elimination of waste and obstruction, is obvious. In seven years it has built up the most powerful war machine the world has ever seen.

But the idea underlying Fascism is irreconcilably different from that which underlies Socialism. Socialism aims, ultimately, at a world-state of free and equal human beings. It takes the equality of human rights for granted. Nazism assumes just the opposite. The driving force behind the Nazi movement is the belief in human INEQUALITY, the superiority of Germans to all other races, the right of Germany to rule the world. Outside the German Reich it does not recognise any obligations. Eminent Nazi professors have "proved" over and over again that only Nordic man is fully human, have even mooted the idea that non Nordic peoples (such as ourselves) can interbreed with gorillas! Therefore, while a species of war-Socialism exists within the German state, its attitude towards conquered nations is frankly that of an exploiter. The function of the Czechs, Poles, French, etc is simply to produce such goods as Germany may need, and get in return just as little as will keep them from open rebellion. If we are conquered, our job will probably be to manufacture weapons for Hitler's forthcoming wars with Russia and America. The Nazis aim, in effect, at setting up a kind of caste system, with four main castes corresponding rather closely to those of the Hindu religion. At the top comes the Nazi party, second come the mass of the German people, third come the conquered European populations. Fourth and last are to come the coloured peoples, the "semi-apes" as Hitler calls them, who are to be reduced quite openly to slavery.

However horrible this system may seem to us, IT WORKS. It works because it is a planned system geared to a definite purpose, world conquest, and not allowing any private interest, either of capitalist or worker, to stand in its way. British capitalism does not work, because it is a competitive system in which private profit is and must be the main objective. It is a system in which all the forces are pulling in opposite directions and the interests of the individual are as often as not totally opposed to those of the State.
 
Jesus was a socialist. Orwell was a socialist. So was I. I guess we all have to grow up sooner or later.

Or then maybe not...can anyone tell us the difference between these two comments? You know, other than the fact, the German guy apparently has a better command of English than the fellow below...

"We are socialists, we are enemies of todays capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are determined to destroy this system under all conditions."

--Adolf Hitler, Leader of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, Speech on May 1 1927

A socialist is simply someone who wants to -- and might or might not (probably not, nowadays) be actually working to -- replace the existing socioeconomic system with one the socialist hopes would be more just and egalitarian.

--KingOrfeo post #233
 
Jesus was a socialist.

Jesus was no socialist. That's a thing-of-this-world. Jesus expected the world to end soon. He was not teaching people how to live, he was teaching people how to prepare their souls for the next life.

As Jesus passed on and the world persisted in existing, Christians had to somehow try to apply the spirit of Jesus' teachings in this world, hence the congregational communism of the early Christians, which might make Jesus look commie in retrospect.
 
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