Communism

Why do people in the U.S. think communism is so horrible?

>>35
>>39
>>40
same person (me)

I never consider Stalin as a communist, I thought him more as a National Socialist.

>>42
how convenient… maybe if you had received any education, you would know that the soviet union never was a communist state, just  socialist and totalitarian, and that nazis were socialists too. imagine that.

>>40
pretty fucking sad, considering that Lech Walesa was Polish :-(

>>26

I'm not going to transform this debate into a flame war, nor was that my original intention.

"Read a book. Or at least read about the COINTELPRO. Then come back. You are obviously delusional about US internal policies."

As I recall this thread was about communism. I never said the US hasn't used totalitarian methods in the past, just that such methods weren't used to to eliminate communism. However, after reading this: http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/churchfinalreportIIIa.htm I can see you were correct, because of that incident. And, in my opinion, the ends did not justify the means.

"This idea is to my experience put forward by people who knows nothing about communistic ideology but who instead uses a couple of countries as proof."

Not just a few countries - The former USSR, Cuba, China, North Korea, Vietnam... nearly everywhere a communistic state is implemented.

Your "example" is flawed because Nazi Germany was only one in many, and even then was not a democracy.

"The rest is just rantings and flamebait, and i guess you fail for needing to resort to it."

No, the rest was not. I suppose some of it could be reguarded as such, but that's no reason to disreguard the arguments outright.

>>43
This discussion is old. But for the last time, the nazis called themself socialist so they could win more votes. Nazi is an abbreviation of nationalist in german (its pronounced NaZionalist, socialists were and are called sozis). This is just one of the many strawmen idiots who have weak arguments use, when somebody says Nazis=Commies, that is an automatic fail.

>>45
Well, one who reads, ill be darned. Ok, COINTELPRO is not a onetime occasion or a deviation from the mean, it was the practice of all western democracies (even sweden had a secret organ blacklisting communist so they couldnt get work). Many of those shadowy orgs have not been dismantled but are instead used to hunt terrorists (=undesirables like political oponents) today. If the countries you listed are indicative of how communism works in practice then why are not these KGB-wannabes that? The outnumber the commies by far!
Nazi Germany was a democracy when Hitler got power, its stopped being a democracy shortly thereafter. But Hitler was spawned in a western enlightened capitalist democracy, theres no way around that.
But my argument stands. If the Soviet union and the rest of the commie states are to be examples of communism in action then the bombing of 100000 civilians in Hiroshima and the genocide on indians are examples of the liberty of capitalism! 

But for the last time, the nazis called themself socialist so they could win more votes.
no, no, no, and no. you have absolutely no grasp of the German history, of the German thinkers in the early 20th century, of the German conjecture at that time, and what you're saying is patently idiotic.

>>46
Germany practically invented Socialism

then the bombing of 100000 civilians in Hiroshima and the genocide on indians are examples of the liberty of capitalism!
thanks for your brilliant contribution in Troll Logic. I hereby welcome you to submit to lower standards of life and forfeit your economic freedom.

Compare North Korea to South Korea, and get back to us.

Of special interest are nighttime pictures of the Korean peninsula from space.  There are bright lights from cities and towns all the way up to the DMZ, and there they stop, all the way up to the Yalu River.

lol yes

This is how the conversation is going. Bear in mind everyone here is anonymous and don't know who writes different messages.

Point A.
Capitalist: Communism is oppressive. People want economic freedom.
Communist: With economic freedom comes power, but rich people have too much power.
Point B.
CapiTROLList: NIGGERS!!!!!11
Communist: Aha! You see capitalists are stupid, stupid capitalists.
Capitalist: I fail to see the merit of your argument sir, why should these liberties be restricted?
CommuTARD: SUCK MY COCK FAG
Capitalist: Indeed. Your lack of intelligence denotes the merits of your argument.
Communism: What are you talking about, stop putting words in my mouth.
Conversation returns to point B and repeats until the thread gets old and someone starts a new thread.

>>47
>>48
Ok, so you twos believe that everything that inspired the National Socialist German Workers' Party is to be considered nazism? Shopenhauer, Wagner and Aesir mythology too? Because agianst such a position i cant argue. I can only say that the NSDAP did not call themselves socialist from the beginning, it was a simple nationalistic fascist sect. I cant find a specific source at the moment but you can stard reading this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_German_Workers_Party
But it is true that a lot of germans were and are socialist, and that it is in this corner of the world where Marx was active. So?

>>49
>>50
Ok, so when you use the Reductio ad Hitlerum fallacy thats sound logic argumentation but when i try to prove the fallacy of that claim im a troll? Or is it just hiroshima and indians that are trolling? Ok, fuck them then. If the Soviet union are to be seen as an example of communism in action then the US coup in chile, the crushing of the democracy in Guatemala, the medical experimenting whitout consent on  afroamericans, the drugrunning and armrunning operation with iran etc ad nauseam are capitalism in action. Either or. And specific comparisons between N and S Korea wont fly, especially since S Korea was a brutal (capitalist) dictatorship up till 1988. I say this, all countries that is capitalist has used clandestine political oppression. Is this indicative for capitalism? 

>>52 is made of pure win and gold and kitty farts

Ok, so you twos believe that everything that inspired the National Socialist German Workers' Party is to be considered nazism? Shopenhauer, Wagner and Aesir mythology too?
wtf is this faggot straw-man!
If the Soviet union are to be seen as an example of communism in action
hello, it was just pointed out to you that soviet union was not and did not claim to be a communist state, but instead they were in the transitional stage called socialism. your repetitive trolling with already rebuked arguments will prove nothing.

>>53
you are a commendable troll if you are indeed trolling. on the other hand, if you're being serious, it's actually fatiguing just to think about your mental condition (utter confusion)

>>55
>>56
My point is that its hard to discuss the merits and flaws of communism when people troll with the soviet sux or hitler was a commie too argument. What i have tried to point out is that if these indeed are flaws of communism then whatever malicious act ever done under the flag of capitalism must be flaws of same mode of production. I believe that is absurd and therefore do i believe that the soviet union and nazi germany are weak arguments against communism and socialism. If you have anything to add please do, otherwise gtfo dumbass. 

>>57
how about you yourself gtfo and get an education, and stop making idiotic analogies. the western democracies have made mistakes, but generally they've succeeded to provide liberty and support high standards of living, whereas every planned economy has failed to do that. even the frigging "communist" china has embraced globalisation and capitalism. you are an idiot parroting stupid delusional propaganda.

>>57
hi, before being galvanized by >>58 into ranting about your "points", please familiarize yourself with sophisticated western political thought, and then think about why you are a fucking peon

>>57 My point is that its hard to discuss the merits and flaws of communism

Merits?  oh lol.  What merits, unless you are Stalin or one of his henchmen?

How 'bout discussing the merits of Naziism too?  It was a great system to live under, if you were one of the people with the Party cards and the badges and the guns, AMIRITE?

liberal democracy is the american system, therefore liberal democracy is the only system with any merits

also, soviet communism is the only possible implementation of communism

>>61
>>62
same person

>>63
captain obvious

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CIOSkrfRC4&mode=related&search=

>>58
Planned economies succeded in industrilizing agricultural societies faster than thought possible. Both Russia and China is better of than shitpoor african countries that embraced western democratic loans and reforms. Planned economies has also succeded in erasing homelesness, starvation, analfabetism etc. Has any western democracy succeded in this? And why are you debating in thread called communism if you are not prepared to discuss communism? That seems retarded to me.
So, when western democracies fail that is labeled as mistakes while communist countries are failures by nature. Western democracies have been a LOT more imperialistic (intervention, couping, seling arms to insurgents etc) than communist countries which has tended so far to be quite isolationistic (and yes i know about afghanistan and tibet, thats two and to that i say algeria, vietnam, chile and ... afghanistan. and im couting post ww2 for brevity). It is or have been shitty to live in the US if you are a commie, a member of the socialist workers union, any black activist group (yeah, martin luther king included), christian organisations with a to radical antipoverty rethoric,   antiwar student organisation etc. This is called political opression and its staple not mistake. 

>>65
um yeah  except with communism its shitty because marx explicity stated the need to stamp out all opposition to the glorious revolution so any organization that isnt "communist" enough get sent to ze gulag, just ask the anarchist or the menshiviks they sure weren't left enough

>>66

kind of like how america tried to stamp out all communist movements within the united states?

and kind of like how america declaired war on countries that elected communist governments?

edit: declared

Maybe it wasn't so bad in Russia, but even without the starvation, it still wouldn't be worth it to live in China

Tortured to death for practicing a certain religion

Death penalty for fraud

No freedom of speech

No freedom of press

Controlled travel (almost impossible to get out if you're a writer)

Forced abortions

The list goes on

>>67
and kind of like how america declaired war on countries that elected communist governments?

um when was this? and dont say south vietnam cause i dont think the US ever declared war on NV

>>65
When western democracies fail it is because they are democracies, but when communism fails it is because they are not communist enough?

Don't accuse us of double standards, we've never denied that democracy is flawed and doesn't eliminate all corruption and crime everywhere all the time. What it does do is ensure you don't get executed or brutalised for speaking out against the government, which is more than can be said for any communism.

>>70
you're right.  "declared war" was a poor choice of words

>>71
Failure is given by the fact that its a human controlled system. All systems have a probability of failure. I dont think you can claim with statistic certainty that communism fails more than democracy, if you have an objective scale and not something that gives either system an edge.
And people have been brutalised and executed for not agreeing with the government in democracies, it has happen a lot of times.
And one last bit about the nazi=socialism discussion, almost all countries claim that they are democratic and have words like democratic or republic in their names. Since nazism is socialist since it has socialism in its name, does this mean that almost all people in the world are free?

>>72
May I suggest "fucked with"?

>>73
"Failure is given by the fact that its a human controlled system. All systems have a probability of failure."
No ship sherlock, that's what people in this thread have been discussing since it started. If you are going to re-define the obvious, I will redefine my arguments in the same language.

Contrary to your fantasy world, democracy and communism are both human controlled systems and therefore are under the effects of both the evil and stupidity of humans. Niether are perfect (how many times do I have to say this?) yet evil and stupidity decrease in correlation to how democratic a country is, not how communist a country is. This is why...

The humans in charge of democracy are the people and the representatives they vote in all are held together by human rights which give people an easy guide to see how to prevent tyrants from getting into power. The representatives are sometimes corrupt, but regardless democracy reduces corruption considerably by putting it in law and propoganda that citizens are permitted to criticise their representatives.

According to marx a "dictatorship of the proletariat" must first be formed to begin the transit to communism who are supposed to represent the proletariat's communist interests. This never happens. The dictatorship of the proletariat is permitted to ignore or kill critics and it isn't long before the proletariats themselves are labelled spies and ignored/killed. The only way to implement communism would be to form a democracy and then prove to the people that communism is an efficient government through rational debate. This way the right to criticise people in positions of power is never affected during the transition, preventing tyranny which would make the transition go backwards through marx's stages from the capitalist stage back to the despotic stage.

>>74
"Contrary to your fantasy world, democracy and communism are both human controlled systems and therefore are under the effects of both the evil and stupidity of humans. Niether are perfect (how many times do I have to say this?) yet evil and stupidity decrease in correlation to how democratic a country is, not how communist a country is."
So how do you you define how democratic a country is? The scale is subjective, eg i for one would say that a country like Sweden is more democratic than the US since it has an higher election participation level while a market liberal would say vice versa because of the tax levels of sweden. Evil and stupidity seems to be more abound in the US though. I have no idea how a country can be more or less communist, maybe you mean socialist? I have no way od deducing the validity of your claim that stupidity and evil does not decrease with increased levels of communism or socialism.

"The humans in charge of democracy are the people and the representatives they vote in all are held together by human rights which give people an easy guide to see how to prevent tyrants from getting into power. The representatives are sometimes corrupt, but regardless democracy reduces corruption considerably by putting it in law and propoganda that citizens are permitted to criticise their representatives."
I know this is the theory and i feel that totalitarian countries often have high levels of corruption (there are exceptions i believe). Rights and democracy does nothing to curb imperialism, which is the greatest evil this globe has seen. Domestic harmony means nothing if your countrys bombs are being dropped on children. With that i mean that i accept that democracy is a good tool to curb tyranny, but that it does not solve more basic problems. But i never meant to mean that communist societies cant be democratic, i actually believe it is a prerequisite.
Marx wrote i bit more than about the dictatorship of the proletariat. I suggest you read it. 

>>75
IS that your answer to everything? "WAAH THAT'S JUST YOUR OPINION, YOU'RE BEING SUBJECTIVE".

If differences are too small to judge objectively, then you can call it subjective. But there is a pretty big difference between a country with institutional total control over the media and a country with an extensive and free press. The dictatorship of the proletariat is supposed to have complete control over everything to suppress evil capitalists, but this just places too much power in the hands of a few humans. No matter how righteous you think a person is, they always suprise you when given power without criticism and personal consequence.

Democracy doesn't prevent imperialism from happenning everywhere all the time, but it does allow people in a country to criticise their leader's foreign policy, which is more than can be said for tyranny. If you are so eager to stop imperialism why do you support a dictatorship? Communism's version of imperialism is naziesque occupation, which is one standard deviation more evil than allying with a tyrant or selling weapons to guerillas.


As for Marx I have a little rule... There are 10000s of books out there and only one life time to put my attention to them, learn something and put that knowledge to good use. Thus whenever I am reading something and come across something profoundly stupid without even a single hint that I should stay with the author and read further to understand the point in it's entirety, I just stop reading. There is no point in wasting my time. If the author cannot recognise legitimate doubts in his reader's mind then he must be an extremist.

Maybe one day I will come across a book by a social democrat which has some rational practical means to make the world a better place who is not afraid of self-criticism unlike every other socialist/communist/anarchist ranting paranoid extremist.

>>76
"But there is a pretty big difference between a country with institutional total control over the media and a country with an extensive and free press."
No, even that is a problem, eg i would say that Sweden has a more free media since it HAS a stateowned television and radio station. Media whitout profit interests are more unbiased media than those with profit interests. I dont mean to say that the soviet union was a democracy and that it is all about how you judge things, im a staunch anti stalinist. What i am saying is that you over simplify if you judge democracy or rather capitalism against soviet style totalitarianism.
As concerning the dictatorship of the proletariat, lets say i agree, that is a stupid idea and post revolution there shall be council communism instead (direct democracy). It is still communism. Does direct democracy place to much power in the hands of to few humans?

"Communism's version of imperialism is naziesque occupation, which is one standard deviation more evil than allying with a tyrant or selling weapons to guerillas."
Have you been to abu ghraib? If that is not naziesque then i dont know what is. And the anti war demonstrations and the critique of the foreign policy did not stop the iraq war from happening, it was the largest and loudest protest this world has ever seen yet it didnt stop anything. There are ignored protestors in communist china also, the point of a democracy is not that one has the freedom to demonstrate but that policy can actually be changed through popular opinion. And a lot of democracies fail hard in this regard.

"As for Marx I have a little rule..."
The well documented difference between the leftist and the rightist intellectual. Leftist intellectuals actually reads the opponents canon, while rightist intellectuals are so few that they hardly exist.

>>77
When you offer such obvious stupidities it negates your entire arguement. (Abu Ghraib, largest demonstration).

>>77
I don't believe that council communism has anything to do with direct democracy. Council communism is organised into exclusive divisions whilst direct democracy is universal and national.

There are Abu Ghraibs all over China and yet they all get less than 1% of the same press the incidents in Abu Ghraib did. Like I've said 50 times already democracy doesn't prevent all crime and corruption.

I'm not an intellectual, I'm a scientist. Reading the communist manifesto to learn more about socio-economics is like reading the bible to learn more about plate tectonics.

>>79
"I don't believe that council communism has anything to do with direct democracy. Council communism is organised into exclusive divisions whilst direct democracy is universal and national."
Huh? I dont get what you mean, that council communism has NOTHING to do with direct democracy. Universal AND national? Seems oxymoronic to me. All democracy is divisional, i cant vote in american elections and you cant vote in us elections. I cant vote in the parliament or in a board of directors, are these not democratic because they are not universal?

"There are Abu Ghraibs all over China..."
We were talking about imperialism and naziesque occupation. China is a totalitarian state, i dont deny this. But what you seem to say that if the US only had one Auschwitz that would be ok since Nazi Germany had many, and that this Auschwitz would just be a mistake than a systematic procedure. Well, i think this line of reasoning is absurd by obvious reasons.

"I'm not an intellectual, I'm a scientist."
Im a scientist too (physical geography and environmental science). I find communisms materialism sound, its rationality comforting and its humanity strengthening. You should not read the communist manifesto if you want to learn Marxian theory since its just a political pamphlet for a specific time and place (eg it demands the invention of cheap public transportation). Capital or his earlier writings are better if you want to penetrate his theories, which can be quite complex. As an empirical scientist Marx is comparable to Darwin in the sense that it is based on a data collecting period of 12 years, and that should be reason alone for a person interested in the history of ideas and the development of modern science, and he has influenced a lot of different disciplines. Scientists biased by their political ideology is always a sad sight though...