True communists are not dictators but in favor of a truer democracy than you've ever experienced with the flaccid, pale puppet SHOW that is American bourgeois "democracy". You don't seem to understand that I'm not talking about a bureaucratic government ownership of the means of production but rather a system in which there is direct worker ownership of the means of production, i.e. businesses being owned jointly by all of its workers (except for those that are small enough to be worked entirely by its owner like hot dog stands or newsstands) which would itself be worker ownership because he or she would be doing all the work on their own. If you think you can reform a system that is built around greed and screwing over everyone else in order to enrich a tiny clique and somehow transform it into something that really represents what's best for everyone who isn't rich then you're tilting at windmills. Capitalism is doing what it's designed to do and the whole American system including its constitution written by the elite slaveowning planter class in the interests of the elite would be laughable for its irony were it not for the immense HUMAN suffering it overlooks being obviously no laughing matter. It mouths nice and high-minded principles but they have never been lived up to and since the 9/11 false flag operation the mainstreaming of police state measures and descent into overt fascism have been plain for anyone to see.
What you don't seem to grasp is that myself and people like me don't advocate some kind of tyrannical police state with a nightmare of a bureaucracy but the opposite, a transparent, widely decentralized (council communist) government which can be recalled at a moment's notice if it strays from representing the interests of the proletariat. Debate should be encouraged, not curtailed. And the underlying laws governing society would be based upon advancing and bettering society as a whole and transitioning to a classless society; part of this includes being able to do what one wants to do as long as it's not violating anybody else's civil liberties, in other words an adult could choose to smoke herb or choose not to without fear of legal punishment but someone couldn't kidnap a person and force them to smoke it. Likewise someone could work where he or she pleases but the old ideas of (bourgeois) property relations would be discarded , meaning it would be impossible for a citizen to be in a position to economically oppress others in an employer-employee relationship.
Instead it would be a beautiful paradox: Nobody in the bourgeois sense of the word would be a BUSINESS OWNER but at the same time everyone would be a BUSINESS OWNER by being a worker and part-owner of whatever business in which they work. The betterment of the proletariat is what true communists work towards and that is why we always bring forward the property question. We want a world in which the worker owns his or her own home but not a world in which a person can personally own his own homebuilding business unless he can do all the work himself. Otherwise it would be owned by its workers and whatever would be its profit margin rolled back into payroll. FREE HEALTH CARE, free education through college, a good opportunity from birth for everybody. These are the things that true communists want. To answer your question, if they differ from these things that I mentioned then they are not true communists.
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Submitted by Brutal Truth on Wed, 09/22/2010 - 00:48.
Anyone can claim to be working in the interests of something but the proof is in the pudding. As I stated, when Lenin dissolved the workers soviets (councils) from that point onward it couldn't be considered a truly communist state so any comparison isn't valid any more than someone could consider crusaders claiming to be operating in the name of Jesus then beheading villagers in the Middle East to be genuine Christians. It's only a problem for small minded people who can't understand that someone claiming to be something doesn't necessarily mean they are what they claim. Read what I just posted if you want to know what true communists are in favor of and what we aren't then get back to me. You're repeating points like about bureaucracies I already explained to C.N. Regarding religion however I think that while national and international church hierarchies have no place in a socialist SOCIETY because they have always been used as a mouthpiece for the elite in whichever country one finds them there should be no problem with churches at the local level and attendance should neither be encouraged nor discouraged. Some communists definitely need to be less dogmatic regarding religion and realize that it isn't religion that is evil but the abuse and manipulation of people by using religion by the establishment that is evil. Again, read what I posted above and you'll see what I am saying about non-violation of others' civil liberties underlying the new SOCIETY'S laws. As long as someone isn't violating anybody's civil rights or oppressing others, including economically oppressing them in an employer-employee relationship, then they aren't breaking the law. Debate should be encouraged, I noted that already. "disregarding culture and viewing HUMAN societies to be merely a series of class relationships is universal? "
What's universal is that proletarian socialism is UNIVERSALLY APPLICABLE to any people's situation because in the capitalist economic model the problem is always the same everywhere, the workers are everywhere enslaved, just in varying degrees of wage slavery. In other words a worker in a maquiladora in Los Angeles has infinitely more in common with a worker in a sweatshop in Cambodia than either of them has in common with the bourgeoisie in their own country. To answer your question about why systems such as the Soviet Union or P.R. of China have betrayed their originally-stated or at least purported intentions is that by their own weakness the ones originally leading the SOCIAL revolution become corrupted through an over-centralized format of government in which they are the center of it, they lose sight of working in the people's interest and (this is key) the people didn't ensure that they were installing a transparent government that can be recalled if it starts to go off the rails. I already addressed how transparency is absolutely critical and this is why. The Soviet Union became what it hated, a SOCIETY with classes only in their case the ruling class was the pseudo-communist bureaucracy enjoying privileges and wealth unobtainable by the average citizen. It goes without saying that such a system doesn't adhere to communist principles any more than a Muslim theocracy would be a genuine Muslim theocracy if it encouraged everyone to eat pork and get drunk.
Though it would be patently obvious that the latter situation was false it somehow eludes many people that a system that entrenches a new class division in place of the old one and doesn't allow the workers to remove the government if it becomes counter to their interests is (gasp!) not what genuine communism is about at all but 180 degrees away from it. Basically you're arguing the same exact argument that certainly Leonardo da Vinci had to endure if ever he showed his plans for the flying machine with flapping wings to anybody. "That thing will never fly and it SHOWS that people were never, ever under any circumstances meant to fly through the air. People being able to fly is an unnatural concept and will simply never happen!" But lo and behold in 1903 people were able to take off in a heavier-than-air fixed-wing aircraft and humanity didn't look back. Humanity's advancement will eventually catch up with its visionaries.
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Communism is both economic and political in that politics cannot ever really be DIVORCED from economics. "...in favor of a bureacracy which was supposedly focussing only on the class relationships(as if this was the most important thing). " The class relationships/class struggle is most certainly the most important thing. You need to understand the historical nature of the struggle and how history MOVES in a certain pattern. All of it comes back to one central issue, that a thread running through all of recorded history is class oppression. It was true when feudalism was the in thing and all the bourgeois epoch has done is substituted a simplified and more overt version of class oppression for the multitude of sub-class gradations of the past like feudal lords, guildmasters, journeymen, serfs, slaves; all that has been simplified into two great opposing classes: the bourgeoisie (the wealthy, ownership class) and the proletariat (which should be considered everyone else who isn't rich.) Until you realize this universal truth that applies to every capitalist society from the U.S. to Poland to Nigeria to Syria, then you won't be able to grasp where communists are coming from when we talk about the universality of capitalism's oppression. Do you honestly think that a guy flipping hamburgers in the hot ass kitchen of a fast food restaurant has more in common with some bourgeois pig in his own country living in a gated community sipping mint juleps and bitching about how inefficient his servants are, than he has in common with someone spinning yarn in a sweatshop in some other country? If so there's not much for us to talk about.
I'm not in favor of eliminating cultures. Someone's culture should be embraced as it's a part of them and part of what makes them who they are. Great, no problem. But that doesn't mean that we should allow the world's (and each individual society's) cultural differences to balkanize us into acting like HUMANITY is more than one species. When we do that we are just doing the work of the bourgeoisie. They want us to remain artificially divided with this ethnic group distrusting that ethnic group because it keeps us from coming together and kicking the shit out of them. Who benefits from white workers living in trailer homes fearing and loathing African American workers living in apartments who make the same starvation wages? The working class whites and AAs? Or the PARASITICfilth that keeps both of them living from hand to mouth? We have to remember who the real enemy is.
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Submitted by Brutal Truth on Wed, 09/22/2010 - 19:05. Russell Means is way too caught up in narrowminded cultural-nationalist thinking to be able to see the forest for the trees so to speak. The answer isn't to distrust everything that doesn't originate within one's own community. Again, that's just lending a helping hand to the ruling elite by ensuring that no one group gains a critical mass of PEOPLE and that everyone remains divided into tiny ethnic enclaves. He fails to comprehend the big picture and seems too hooked on cultural exclusivity. What's the difference between a white bigot claiming that white-oriented culture is superior to all others and a Lakota Indian claiming that indigenous native culture is superior to all others? The solution isn't to try to revert to some prehistoric Luddite wet dream of a social order where we all worship "mother Earth" and shun advances in TECHNOLOGY and new ideas if they originate with someone who grew up speaking a different language or having a different culture. Likewise Means falls into the same philosophical trap that you seem to be falling into regarding condemning all Marxist thinking by the examples of societies like the Soviet Union that blatantly deviated sharply from genuine Marxist teachings. For example, in Means's railing against Soviet destruction of the environment he overlooks that they were doing so explicitly counter to Marxism. Consider that it states in chapter 2 of the Communist Manifesto that one of the goals of a truly socialist society is "the bringing into cultivation of wastelands and the improvement of the soil GENERALLY IN accordance with a common plan." Nowhere does it say to rape the environment. It would be like me criticizing Christianity for advocating the beheading of people that refuse to convert to Christianity when the crusaders were obviously acting completely 180 degrees against what Christ's teachings were. The actions of the crusaders no more condemn Christ's actual teachings than societies claiming to be acting in the name of Marx but pervert and ignore his precepts could be used to condemn Marxism. If I claim to be a radical environmentalist and in the name of the planet decide to go to an oil refinery and EXECUTE everyone then cause a giant explosion that destroys the surrounding town then does that mean that environmentalism is ipso facto evil because of what I did?
Of course not. This point doesn't need to be belabored, it's self-evident if you think about it. There are certain universal truths in life. One of them is that if someone who owns a business is allowed to then he or she will inevitably pay his or her workers no more than he thinks he can get away with paying them. Honestly, and this may sting a little but it needs to be said: An African American BUSINESS OWNER with a shop in Harlem employing black workers is no more likely to treat them any better than a white business owner in Bel Air would treat his white workers. It is a class issue, a difference of haves and have nots. Moreover, regardless of ingrained prejudices that affect so many of our white brothers and sisters, a black businessman in the conditions of his economic existence has infinitely more in common with white businessmen than he does with his own black workers. The solution: the abolishing of bourgeois property in the interest of the betterment of everyone who isn't of the propertied class. This is the solution whether one is talking about the economically oppressed here or wherever capitalism is the dominant economic system.
True HUMANprogress can only really be defined in terms of economic equality, of advancing to the stage where nobody is born into poverty and nobody is born into wealth. A society's development has to be measured against how close or how far away it is from that end goal. Maybe I'm ahead of my time, in fact I'm pretty sure I am but that's OK. The world will eventually grow the hell up and the vast majority of its people will eventually decide that what is in their own best interests is also in the best interests of their brothers and sisters of the oppressed proletariat much in the same way that nobody in the developed world sends their kids to work in a coal tipple anymore. It's progress and it can be delayed, it can even be reversed temporarily but it can never and will never be permanently derailed. Progress is inevitable. The bourgeoisie is on borrowed time.
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Submitted by Brutal Truth on Wed, 09/22/2010 - 20:47. Yes, the proof is in the pudding as it is very easy to tell if any person or SOCIETY that claims to be Marxist is actually Marxist in the same way that any person that claims to be Christian is actually Christian. It involves nothing more than actually reading their respective literature then comparing and contrasting the actions of the person or society in question with the literature they claim to embrace. Pretty effing simple. Jimmy Swaggart was a con artist. Does that mean Christ and everyone who is a genuine Christian is a con artist? "my disagreements with marxist theory is that it posits that HUMAN societies most important elements are merely economic relationships(thus reducing the HUMAN experience to merely economic relationships(without considering and to the detriment and neglect of the countless other things that make a HUMAN SOCIETY whole) " Well human societies' most important elements that determine its current condition are in fact economic relationships, namely the state of its class struggle. Regardless of national differences, cultural differences, differences in cuisine and religion and its own shared group experiences there is something that is unavoidably present in every capitalist SOCIETY and looming over it: The oppression of about 95% of its population by the other 5%, give or take a percentage point or two one way or the other. In essence it is unavoidable that with capitalism one has two distinct and extremely unequal sets of people, the haves and have nots. We can massage it and try to reform it and make it into something that has some compassion for the have nots but trying to reform it offers no changes beyond the cosmetic. If it wasn't about the "sanctity" of an individual being able to economically oppress others for his own personal enrichment then it wouldn't be capitalism. As an economic model it works great for the comparatively tiny clique that owns the wealth but for the rest of the people? Not so much. That's why the BEST BET for the bourgeoisie is to keep us as ignorant of our plight as possible and keep us as divided against one another as possible. Having a narrow focus or disregarding ideas simply because they were put on paper by a white man/European/whatever is closeminded to the Nth degree and playing right into the enemy's hands.
Ultimately what I'm saying is this: Underlying every capitalist society is the same oppression by the haves against the have nots. Yes there are a multitude of different cultures and religions and nationalities and that's a good thing as it would be a pretty damned boring world otherwise. But those differences in no way whatsoever change the fundamental class struggle that itself is the underlying problem within every single capitalist SOCIETY in the world, just in somewhat varying degrees. That much we all as HUMANS have in common if we live in capitalist countries, that this phenomenon is present. With this economic model it has to be present because capitalism is the polar opposite of anything that places human dignity and worth and the advancement of the average person over the narrow class interests of a tiny well-to-do minority. Anything that says the profit margin is more important than people's lives and well-being is inherently evil to its core and is beyond reforming. Tear it down and start over.
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Submitted by Brutal Truth on Thu, 09/23/2010 - 21:48. In Christian literature one doesn't need to go beyond the four gospels and doesn't need to consider anything beyond Christ's actual teachings. Those are pretty straightforward and don't contradict each other. Regarding Marxism, I agree with the vast majority of its tenets but in its application I personally tend to favor a more decentralized approach perhaps somewhat like the anarcho-syndicalist radical leftists in the Spanish Civil War carried out in the territories under their control from 1936-'39. This may just be a problem of interpretation or where the emphasis is placed more than a problem of substance. It isn't the power itself that corrupts a person or a group but the ability to exercise power unchecked with citizens unable to have any recourse or avenue for redress of grievances. This is why I've emphasized transparency in any workers state government. Once the class structure has been smashed it has to be the overriding goal to prevent another class structure from emerging in its place, e.g. a bureaucratic class unto itself that enjoys privileges that the regular citizens do not. This helped sink the Soviet experiment. When Marx speaks of centralizing this or that in the hands of "the State" he's speaking of the ideal, 100% democratic workers state which would represent the will of the proletariat but even so I like yourself would rather place more power in the hands of local elected councils with the central government being nothing much more than a "meeting place" for representatives of these local councils to decide the few POLICIES that need to be decided at the national level.
All of them certainly subject to recall if they stray from the path of what's best for the proletariat. This is true council communism and the Soviet Union would have been a beautiful thing had it maintained this form of government rather than quickly discarding it in favor of their circular logic of "the Bolsheviks always know best and we're the Bolsheviks so we automatically represent the will of the proletariat so there's no need for elections." No way José, that route can't be taken. Obviously there would have to be some kind of equivalent to a federal government if for no other reason than to organize the common defense of the workers state; in that vein I favor instead of a large standing army like seems to be popular among pseudo-communist countries/deformed workers states rather having a military that is sort of like a high-tech militia that can be called out when needed. Sort of borrowing from the Hezbollah model. It would be nothing that could be used to mount a real invasion and occupation of another country but something that is intended for deterrence against foreign counterrevolutionary incursions. Regardless I think the key to the whole thing is transparency and ensuring that any central government that would necessarily need to exist would be 100% subject to the workers councils. The best way to accomplish that would be a national-level "parliament" made up entirely of elected workers who also serve in their local councils. That's how I've always envisioned it as it dovetails nicely with worker ownership of the means of production and exchange.
Decisions affecting a locality, e.g. whether or not to build a broom factory there or convert acres of pastureland into cropland would have to be approved locally with a referendum, with the federal government in a position to advise but not insist. No permanent bureaucracy and no unelected officials. No CAREER politicians. As long as it is transparent and accountable to the will of the people at every moment then I see no problem in a central government being formed. My difference with Karl Marx is in the emphasis, in that I would want the default to be the decision being made at the local level and anything that could not be decided locally would then have to be decided by the "federal" government which in my opinion should be just an extension of all the local governments. Above all else we would have to remain careful to not allow any government to become a class unto itself or else we've defeated the whole purpose. I think you and I agree on most of this anyway. We're definitely on the same side.
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Submitted by Enlightened Cynic on Wed, 09/22/2010 - 10:40. You can't conflate Chavez with Castro. Whether you like it or not, Chavez is DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED. Usually in overwhelming majorities. Your criticisms of "socalism" aside, don't buy the Pentagon, CFR, and Mass Media hysteria about Chavez being a dictator. No more "dictator" than GWB who stole 2 elections. (Where was the UN on that one?) You might aver that Chavez manipulated the Constitution to engineer additional term(s) blah, blah, blah. But didn't the UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT manipulate the Constitution to engineer a Bush win in Florida? Didn't Diebold and the GOP steal Ohio in the subsequent election? How many Black (or other) felons are still denied the right to vote, or work for wages cheaper than those in Barundi under the prison system that incarcerates more PEOPLE than anyone in the world? Try to start a new political party and watch how much money or how many legal obstacles are placed in your path. Americans like to believe we are a democracy, we have freedom of speech, we can own "property," blah blah blah. Bull___. We have manufactured consensus and election results engineered by the Elites.
Freedom of speech? Don't make me laugh. How many times do we need to see peaceful protesters arrested whether on sidewalks or the Halls of Congress for speaking truth to power? If most, if not all of us said what we write here at BAR at work, in our local papers, in our churches, we'd be fired and ostracized to high heaven. The "consensus BUILDING SYSTEM" would punish us economically and marginalize us socially for not adopting American Exceptionalism, the root and branch of global racism. Think 9/11 Truthers.. tell your co-workers you believe 9/11 was an inside job and watch what happens to your PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL. All of a sudden C.N. becomes a "poor fit," "he's not a 'team player' anymore," and soon his ass is unemployed and blackballed. Say what you will in America but pay dearly. Just because we can go to WalMart every other weekend and get on-demand porn don't mean we're "free."
Cuba would be faring much better were it not for the criminal US embargo, Venezuela is doing better than us despite repeated US covert actions to subvert the will of the PEOPLE. Despite decades of the US foot on it's throat Cuba has the finest medical system in Latin America. Both Castro and Chavez have raised standards of living of the general populace because they don't interpret "property rights" through the Western lense. Many of these so-called "socialist countries" would do fine if the US just left them the fuck alone. But you know as I do that anyone that doesn't toe the line is a "threat" which typically means anyone who speaks truth to power is a threat. Or anyone who experiments with a different political economy is a "threat." Start kicking up the dust around the lunch/breakroom about the real deal behind 9/11 if you doubt me, and you'll see how fast you on the outside looking in, on the sidewalk eating twinkies standing in the unemployment line. Hey I'm all for self-help and sufficiency, which Blacks engaged in for millenia in the global sphere and hundreds of year in the American sphere. I mean, exactly WHEN were Blacks fully integrated into the "Capitalist System?" or are we even fully integrated NOW? Somebody please pencil in the date for me. Give the Euro-centric worldview a rest, it's bullshit. Read the article on Hudson's address to BRIC. "Not so fast my friend."
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Submitted by Brutal Truth on Mon, 09/20/2010 - 18:43. "As flawed as USA capitalism is, I still think it is the best system in the world." It's not even the best system compared to other capitalist SOCIETIES like those found in western Europe where at least the workers have a little bit of clout, the government isn't unabashedly union busters and the people are educated enough to realize that socialism isn't a dirty word but the opposite. Capitalism is a heartless and evil system that works great for the wealthiest 1% or 2% or sometimes even 5% of the population but hands a giant shit sandwich to the remaining 95%+ percent and expects them to like it. Capitalism is very good at doing what it's designed to do: Make the rich richer with the consequence of making the poor poorer. It should not be applauded or apologized for but torn down and replaced with a system designed around what's best for the average non-wealthy person, not the average Rockefeller.
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Submitted by Enlightened Cynic on Thu, 09/16/2010 - 23:20. Part of the difficulties in establishing new paradigns is because of the uncritical acceptance of "received wisdom" about what particular, iconic terms mean. Below is a definition of capitalism and it's one that's clearly slanted towards the "system." As evident by arguing that MOST importantly is a "moralistic system." Get that, a moralisitic system. LOL Now anyone with half a brain knows better. http://www.importanceofphilosophy.com/Politics_Capitalism.html Here's another ANALYSIS that get's at my point:
http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Capitalism#Capitalism_in_political_ideo... "Many Greens, Marxists and anti-Globalists agree that the governments of the major industrial economies are not serving in the role of protecting "the FREE MARKET", but would go on to say that these governments are, in fact, acting to protect the owners of capital and corporations as their first priority, sometimes expressed as "socialism for the rich, capitalism (cut throat competition) for the poor." These critics, therefore, would assert that the correct term for the core industrial nations is neither capitalism, nor mixed economy, but corporatist. Libertarians and other free-market advocates may also share this opinion regarding some or all of the major economies. Nevertheless, mainstream economists, for their part, admit that the present economic systems have diverged from earlier forms labeled "capitalism", and many believe that some of the modern economies are still best described as being "capitalism" rather than "mixed economy" or "corporatist."" There you have it folks. Capitalism is a loaded term. It is also distinctively Euro-centric and thus ethnocentric. It comes encrusted with American (and Western) Exceptionalism and other potent toxins. (Which is why it underlines the rhetoric of the Tea Party) Why are we describing the exchange of goods and services, whether through trade or batering or other forms of mutual economic exchange as "capitalism?" We need to be mindful that "trade" existed long before capitalism, long before the system of indebtedness that followed capitalism, long before excess production/consumption or concepts of private property, long before the Euro-centric political economy. Capitalism makes us "slaves" although we think we're free. The system squashes free thought and speech, punishes us economically if we speak or write or otherwise step outside the box. The system will blackball us into extreme poverty. F___ the western definition of capitalism which is racist, ethnocentric, and narrow minded. Africans, Asians and other cultures were engaged in trade when Whites were still in caves or warring for 100 years. That's not intended as an expression of who's superior, just a simple expression of FACTS. And most importantly a reminder that the "West" didn't invent FREE TRADE. We don't need no stinkin capitalism, we can create fairer instruments of trade. Islamic culture for instance frowns on usury to this very day. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_Africa "HUMANITY originated in Africa, and as soon as HUMAN societies existed so did economic activity.
Earliest humans were hunter gatherers living in small, family groupings. Even then there was considerable trade that could cover LONG DISTANCES. Archaeologists have found that evidence of trade in luxury items like precious metals and shells across the entirety of the continent." Thanks to you all for the many insightful suggestions. But let's keep in mind that usage of the term "capitalism" is full of unnecessary baggage. It confuses and stunts the dialogue between "Left" and "Right." The Left wants to categorically assume capitalism is unfair but yet want to be fairly REWARDED for their talents and labors, the Right assumes socialism is bad, yet negates the fact that capitalism institutionalizes inequalities. The language is nothing but an intellectual straight jacket. Until we begin to think outside the box in terms of what is or isn't "capitalism," until we acknowlege the true origins and facts of world COMMERCE and trade we'll continue to hamstring our efforts to create a new and workable paradignm. Everybody engages in trade, but not all trade is "capitalistic." Well, it certainly doesn't have to be so, does it??
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Submitted by Brutal Truth on Thu, 09/23/2010 - 21:11. Considering the country's infrastructure is literally falling down around our ears I think there is a hell of a lot of opportunity out there for PEOPLE to be employed in rebuilding it if we had a government that put a priority on employment rather than toadying to the oil barons. Who really benefits from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq? Those who 1.want to force a different way for natural gas to be transported out of Turkmenistan without having to go through Russia or Iran; 2.those who want to take advantage of Iraq as the soon-to-be center of gravity of the 21st Century world's oil production and get their hooks in it to privatize its resources into being subsidiaries of Exxon Mobil, Chevron Texaco and Conoco Phillips; 3.the armaments manufacturers; 4. the mercenary "contractors" like Blackwater/Exe, Triple Canopy etc. In other words a pretty small slice of the American population. The enormous amount of CORPORATE GIVEAWAYS to this tiny sliver could be infinitely better spent on programs of social uplift and employment projects like a second New Deal. Maybe call it the Real Deal? The late great Dr. King once said that "Any society that spends more on military defense than it spends on programs of social uplift is headed for spiritual death." From where I sit its spiritual EKG is looking pretty damn shaky. ____________
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