Bolsheviks check in!

[leftofthedial]

Should we save these capitalist dogs from themselves, or should we wait for them to destroy themselves (and most of everything else)?

What do you think?

[Taxloss]

1. Do you really consider yourself a Bolshevik? n/t

[leftofthedial]

6. I don't use labels

except for "repuke," "fascist" and DINO.

[Taxloss]

8. What do you mean by Bolshevism, then? n/t

[leftofthedial]

12. radical socialist

pre-centralized Communist (which was actually radical state capitalism)

[Taxloss]

15. State Capitalism is not socialism.

Since the USA doesn't need crash industrialisation, Bolshevism is utterly irrelevant to it.

But I can see how a declared policy of State Terror would be handy. Maybe the odd terror famine in the Midwest, hmm? :sarcasm:

[leftofthedial]

16. we need crash UNindustrialization

and crash UNcapitalism

utterly UNirrelevant to the USA

[Taxloss]

18. More a Khmer Rouge sort of approach, then? (edited)

Sorry, not trying to be funny, I really would like to know.

[leftofthedial]

20. no

the capitalist status quo is destroying itself. It needs no help from the people.

(Texas-sized loss of polar ice in a matter of months, polar sea lane open, global temps rising, global sea temps changing, mass extinctions underway, rise of murderous fundies world-wide being exploited by ubercapitalists to siphon ever-increasing amounts of the world's wealth into a few private accounts, genocide--ho hum, massive proliferation of nuclear weapons, now near complete destruction from within of the world's greatest democracy--ho hum, etc.)

I'm just asking if others of us should try to solve these problems or if we should let them run their putrid, degenerate and inevitably disastrous course.

[AntiFascist]

55. I agree with most of the above (specifically in post 20)...

but if you are advocating some sort of Marxist revolution then I guarantee you will be playing right into right-wing (anti-Communist) hands. I feel it might be better to establish a coalition of businesses, and individuals, who are strongly AGAINST any form of fascism and, of course, who care about what is happening to the environment. (I know, I've heard the argument before: all capitalism leads to selfish greed and ultimately corporatism...)

[MrPrax]

30. They had the right idea...

Outlaw money and turn banks into cattle stalls!! Idi Amin was kewl too -- he used to have his troops publicly flog merchants that overcharged the people!!

Come on -- a little part of you would really like to see the entire BFEE and then some (looking at you DINOs) being worked to death in a lettuce field somewhere...the revolution could utilize the internet and have live streaming...you set up your RSS and then get bulletins like,

'Citizen Wolfowitz has fallen again, observers doubt he will get up again, what with dragging the extra weight of Citizen Perle, who died earlier this week, still chained to him...This has been a Peoples' Fox news update'

WooHoo! Hard Left 'snuff' porn!!!

:woohoo:

[Taxloss]

32. !

Yes, I suppose that deep down we all have a sadistic side that wants to destroy our enemies utterly ... that's what makes absolute power so corrupt. Oh, for a few good show-trials of the junta ... I daresay there's not a politically minded person on the left or right who doesn't keep a "first up against the wall" list. (Accidentally typed "lust" there - Freud-trocious.) Of course, firing squads could be considered wasteful against intensive re-education ...

I am, of course, kidding. Almost totally.

[leftofthedial]

37. whatever justice the people collectively determine is appropriate

will do just fine. No need to be inhuman about it.

Although the image of "Citizen" Perle's corpse chained to "Citizen" Wolfowitz is humorously appealing.

[MrPrax]

48. Well that would be the right thing to do...

BUT -- the Ironic Greek Punishment brigade has come up with a interesting proposal, comrade...

They like to play golf -- what if they had to play golf in a mine field covered in cluster bombs?

Perle could be Wolfie's caddy? He could give him advice like 'you really want to stay clear of the bunkers, Paul...please for God sake, chip it clear of the bunkers'.

I understand the 10th hole is modeled after St. Andrew's, suitably nicknamed, Old Moab. (We'll tell them it's named after a really expensive scotch)

No mulligans for these guys...and if they make it through all 18 holes, they get to go to the CLUBhouse, where the menu today is beans, rice and rat meat (seasonal)

But yeah your right -- I suppose if we were to replace these creatures we should show a level of moral superiority that presumeably motiviated us to get rid of them in the first place...Pfft! Damn that irony ;-)

(MrPrax is engaging black humour and has never advocated bloody revenge for the sake of bloody revenge -- never works and just makes The People afraid which defeats the whole purpose of revolution ultimately)

[leftofthedial]

51. would you like to be a judge on the people's court of appeals?

you just might have a future in the justice field.

[otherlander]

49. Yes....let them beg for mercy...

and let the judge say, "Mercy? How...quaint."

[cool user name]

54. The Bolsheviks *were* centralized ...

and stressed the party as the vanguard of the workers. We all know how that turned out.

[Der Blaue Engel]

10. Then why did you post "Bolsheviks"?

It's a label, you said it. What did you mean?

[leftofthedial]

13. see above

It has a definition, you know.

[bryant69]

2. Hmmmmm

What was the Soviet Unions record on Civil Rights, Civil Liberties, the Environment and so on and so forth?

But speaking as a capitalist dog (I'm a capitalist dauschaund actually), I'd like to be saved.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[leftofthedial]

4. you heard about the cowboy who bought a dachshund?

someone said get along little dogie



And the Soviet Union's state capitalism was NOT socialist and certainly not communist. State terror, torture, elimination of civil rights . . . are you talking about the USSR or the USA?

You confuse politics and economics.

[geek tragedy]

3. I think that authoritarian socialists have no business

calling themselves Democrats.

[leftofthedial]

5. and vice versa

To the center! Or maybe a little right of center!

[Tyler Durden]

7. It could be said that....

All REAL Democrats are just a little Socialist.

I personally consider that a complement. But that's just me.

[Taxloss]

11. Most Bolsheviks, however, are even less socialist. n/t

[Tyler Durden]

17. No argument there.

Bolsheviks were an extreme reaction to the conditions of Imperial Russia at the time; poverty, National Debt, a meaningless and endless war, Autocracy...

Wait a minute...

[leftofthedial]

25. don't confuse all this delicious capitalst rhetoric with history

what are you . . . a socialist?

[Tyler Durden]

26. Guilty as charged.

Joined the Socialist Workers' Party even before I registered as a Democratic Party member.

Proud of it, too. Got "The Internationale" on my desktop to listen to whenever I feel low.

[leftofthedial]

28. ...

:thumbsup:


I thought I was alone here.

[Tyler Durden]

29. Na. You're not alone.

We may be LONELY, but we're not alone. Sweden is still doing well, thank you, and NOBODY in Canada, Britain, or France is suggesting Socialized Medicine is a "bad thing."

Have faith. We might win eventually, and the Internationale will unite the Human Race.

[Taxloss]

33. It's insane, but some Brits are dead set against the NHS.

A tiny number, but it sparks really quite spectacular ire in some of the loonier arch-capitalists.

[Tyler Durden]

34. So are some Canadians...

But even my personal physician, the Resident Alien Conservative Party Supporter Canadian is looking forward to his retirement, BACK IN CANADA, under NHS.

A quote from my good friend, the doc: "What kind of IDIOT thinks Single Payer Healthcare is intrinsically a 'bad idea'?"

[MrPrax]

36. Stalinist charnelhouses all!!!

What does it gain a man to get a single payer medical system and lose his soul?

In Canada, there are provinces that -- get this -- simply because you PAY income taxes in that province means you get a health card -- FREE!! GRATIS!! OMG!!

In such depraved atheistical communist hellholes, the living truly envy the dead.

[leftofthedial]

38. the horizon draws nearer by the hour

"eventually" had better hurry.

[leftofthedial]

22. But "bolshevik" is such a great word!

and taken in historical context, without the generations of capitalist disinformation, is so currently apropos. It is a legitimate and perhaps necessary radical response to out of control robber baron capitalism and its inexorable push toward a return to monarchical, oligarchical feudalism. It can be argued that it was Bolshevism that brought about the rise of the relatively enlightened socialist-lite governments of modern Europe.

[Taxloss]

24. It certainly CAN be argued! It's a fascinating area to argue.

(By "it", I mean this: "It can be argued that it was Bolshevism that brought about the rise of the relatively enlightened socialist-lite governments of modern Europe."

I don't totally disagree. It's a fascinating area to argue. As a Fabian, I would be pleased to make a counter-case. :)

"Menshevik" is also a good word and might be considered "Bolsh Lite", without so many bad associations ... ;)

Old joke:

Q: "How many Trotskyites does it take to change a lightbulb?"

A: "You can't CHANGE a lightbulb! The lightbulb's got to be SMASHED!"

[leftofthedial]

27. we have little time

and no plan to effect gradual change.

Indeed, from an American perspective we may have less than two months. If ever circumstances called for radical change, it is now.

Q: "How many Fabians does it take to change a lightbulb?"

A: "You can't CHANGE a lightbulb! The lightbulb must first want to CHANGE ITSELF!"


:) Sounds like perhaps we violently agree about some very important things.

[Tyler Durden]

35. Oh I LOVE that.

You know, sometimes humans have to have what's good for them put in a SYRINGE and STUCK in the GLUTES.

It makes it safe for the rest of us.

[Dutch]

40. heh heh...i heard a different version

Q: "How many Trotskyites does it take to change a lightbulb?"
A: "Only one, but you can be sure it'll shine ten times brighter than if a Stalinist had changed it!"

[leftofthedial]

23. without socialism

there would have been no labor movement, no victory over fascism in WWII (as temporary as that turned out to be), no rise of democracy in Western civilization . . .

Gaze upon the sneering faces of king george and dick cheney. Ponder a world and a world population owned by the oil companies, military profiteers, predatory banks and the multinational pharaceuticals. This is the inevitable result of capitalism.

Any Democrat who is not at least a little Socialist is a liar.

[trotsky]

9. Not a Bolshevik!

Despite my screen name.

[leftofthedial]

14. stay away from the barricades!

words worth not dying for!

[zonkers]

19. It's because of the freedoms chickehawks have avoided fighting and dying

for that you can make politically whacked out remarks like this. Don't forget that.

[leftofthedial]

21. ah, yes. the mighty Murkan chickenhawk

Perpetually gazing lustfully at the bundle of thunderbolts clutched in its right talons.

Hoping we won't notice the other talon picking our pockets.

[Selatius]

31. I'm a libertarian socialist

You can even call me a form of anarchist, since the terms are used interchangeably, but as far as capitalism goes, it will die the day the workers no longer pay attention to the capitalists and live life as if they never existed. It is then their power is broken. The path, for me is clear, at this point we should work to spread the idea of socialism, what it is, and what it is not. The book and the pen are the primary weapons at this point in time.

I wouldn't call myself a Bolshevik because I generally don't sit too comfortably with Marxist/Leninist methodology. Ideally, the socialist economy would operate without the central state bureaucracy having control over everything.

[leftofthedial]

41. so capitalism is a myth?

and their control over society is ephemeral?

How does one ignore hunger and cold as though the power company and the agricutlrure-foodprocessing-grocery conglomerate do not exist?

[Selatius]

43. The notion of private ownership for private profit is a myth.

Resources are real. What stops people from expropriating land, equipment, and buildings to serve the common good is the idea that capitalists "own" it. The people have always had the power of choice all the time. The problem comes in exercising that choice between recognizing that ownership or ignoring it. People have been conditioned to recognize that ownership, and we should deprogram that through literature, pamphleteering, and activism.

The goal, in short, is to sow the ideals of socialism in the population, to raise its prominence in the minds of the people such that when the time comes when a baron or a state bureaucrat working for the interests of the baron oversteps his boundaries and abuses people one too many times, the people will take the opportunity to rise up from beneath the power structure like the May-June student-worker uprisings in France, 1968.

[leftofthedial]

45. so I should just go take whatever I want?

I'm sorry to be dense, but short of chaotic violence, survival of the most ruthlessly violent, I don't understand how that works.

[Selatius]

47. No, you take what you need, not what you want.

A good working example of what you need vs. what you want are the Zapatistas in Chiapas, Mexico, or the APPO movement in Oaxaca, Mexico, who have expropriated government buildings, equipment, and radio stations and have formed citizen assemblies in an attempt to end the crushing poverty, propaganda, and corrupt rule by federal and state authorities with their wealthy benefactors. These assemblies are mass gatherings of citizens coalescing of their own free will despite the state's orders to disband.

There would be chaos in a power vacuum if people are not aware of socialist ideals. In Spain, there was not as much chaos as one would expect during their Civil War. In fact, huge swaths of the countryside voluntarily collectivized land, equipment, and buildings. The anarchist communes were born. This was done in the middle of a war zone, but this was only possible due to very high prominence of socialist ideology present in the population. Much credit should be given to anarchist/socialist agitators working for the previous 50 years and longer to raise awareness of the notion of socialism in the Spanish countryside.

That does not exist in the US population.

[leftofthedial]

50. I'm all for collectivism

and Spain was a terrific example before bush's grandfathers friends put a stop to it.

But right here, right now, I need two eggs for my rellenos this evening. I have no eggs and won't have money until Monday. Should I just walk over to the grocery store and take eggs? Should I form a collective to seize eggs for everybody? I guess at some point that's what has to happen for there to be a shift from capitalism to collectivism. It sure won't come from the top down.

[drmom]

39. You make a good point...

...capitalism certainly rewards greed and 'bending the rules'. Look at what people will do to our country, and others, just to make a buck. Clearly profit is more important for many, many people than the welfare of humanity (their own family, excepted).

[leftofthedial]

42. capitalism is psychosis

writ collectively

[cigsandcoffee]

44. Jesus...

Creepy. Big time.

[RB TexLa]

46. Yep

[leftofthedial]

52. creepier than fascism?

:shrug:

to each his own.

[cigsandcoffee]

56. Those are my only two choices?

That's like having to pick betrween death by fire or death by dismemberment.

[leftofthedial]

57. what is your solution to the current fascist junta

that rules the US and uses that power to try to rule the world?

[cigsandcoffee]

58. I vote Democratic, and encourage others to do so.

What are you going to do - storm Washington with Kalashnikov rifles there, Vladmir?

Honestly, I don't think you'd know a fascist junta if it poked you in the nose. Or a Bolshevik, for that matter.

[Tyler Durden]

59. oooooOOOO, BURN!

Social awarness of necessary political change comes or revolution comes. Revolutions can be relatively gentle but radical changes in paridigm, or they can be 1917/1789/1776 style uprisings; it's actually not up to the people at ground level as to how it ends up happening, but to the brokers in the halls of power: but happen it will.

There is no such thing as a 1000 Year USA, any more than there was an Eternal Communist Soviet Union, a 1000 year Reich, a permanent Athenian City-State, a Roman Empire everlasting, the "sun never sets" forever British Empire...

There is no "forever" anything, from the trilobites to the coming genetically engineered ubermensch. EVERYHING will pass, and anyone who believes differently can have faith in "Magic" if they want...but they're wrong. What we have are choices as to how we can behave for the common (read "collective") good. Unless you're a "mountain man" living like Jerimiah Johnson in the Rockies, you depend on everyone else. The modern "Self Made Man (or Woman)" is the highes form of lying, deceptive bullshit. If "he/she" so much as drove to work today, from the road to the gas to the car to the electricity that ran their laptop, the infrastructure that supported them for one day would have run Ancient Rome for a month.

I wouldn't poo poo the "Bolsheviks" if I were you...if a "ruling class" behaves like Imperial Romanovs for long enough, then some bright person INVENTS "Bolsheviks," creates a "Lenin" who then rounds up everyone who they believe even THINKS like a Romanov along with their FAMILY, FRIENDS, EMPLOYEES and anyone else in their way, SHOOTS them and throws their bodies down whatever is nearby that passes for a well.

The most dangerous time in the lifespan of an empire is when they believe they are at their strongest and they spout "Gott Mit Uns" or any current equivalent with every other breath. The Greeks called that "HUBRIS," and they wrote extensively about how the worst falls were ahead of the excessively prideful.

[cigsandcoffee]

61. So you're banking on a revolution in the United States, then?

What role do you intend to play in such an eventuality? A Che Guevara character, perhaps? A romantic freedom fighter loosening the bonds that chain our hapless proletariat by force of arms? Or are you just going to be somewhere holding a pitchfork and a torch, waiting to prod the elitist pigs in to the prison cells where they will await judgement by revolutionary tribunal?

Fill me in.

[leftofthedial]

60. yo, cigs

glad to see your gifts for constructive dialog and mind reading are undiminished.

[cool user name]

53. I'm a socialist but would never endeavor to call myself a Bolshevik

Never.

Not in a million years.