This is an incredibly ignorant post.

Very generous of you, hank. And, in return for this difficult admission, I will confess to having some admiration for the skating ability of Sergei Federov.

Is this true: Ann Coulter claims.....
 

I have studied communism pretty extensively. I have rad Das Kapital and the Communist Manifesto many times. I have read many communists authors including John Reed (I even studied for a while in Moscow while it was still the Soviet Union - ask Less for confirmation if you don't believe me).

In any event, you clearly don't understand the difference between communism and socialism. The communist idea was that capitalist democracies were not true democracies and the only true way to get to democracy was through a temporary dictatorship of the propletariate. That is at the heart of communist ideology. In order to get to true communism (a complete withering away of the state) you had to move through the one party dicatorship part. In addition, one got to communism in any way necessary. If it could not be done by democracy then it would be done by force.

When Lenin took over the Karensky government it was a coup. The communists were not elected. They overthrew a democratically elected government that had replaced the Czar. But according to John Reed and other American communists this was necessary because the masses were always dupes of the capitalist. In other words, the workers did not know what was good for them. The communist party of America supported the coup in Russia. ]Every communist in America in the 1930s knew how the bolsheviks came to power and supported the coup.

Yes the communist party fractured during the 30s because of the Trotskyte Stalin divide, but no faction ever questioned the violent take over of the democratically elected government of Russia. If you were a communist party member in the 1930s with a half a brain you supported the implementation of the dictatorship of the proletariate by whatever means necessary. If you didn't, youdidn't really understand the ideals of the party you belonged to.

Communists critisized socialists and anarchists etc. because they did not understand the basic tenet of the dictatorship of the proletariate. Communists scoffed at the idea that you could have a true workers revolution in a liberal democracy. LIke the Nazis, the communists wanted to rip up the "liberal constitutions" that kept the workers subjugated.

That is why so many socialists and labor unions distanced themselves from the communists. Socialists believed that you could have a democracy, a multi party state, and nationalized industry. The communists believe that in a multiparty state the Capitalists would always dupe the working classes and retain control.

This ideology is evidenced by the fact of wherever the communist party took over all other partys were made illegal. Can you name a country where a communist party took over where it did not turn into a dictatorship of the proletariate?

These peole that flirted with communisim (many famous writers and artists etc) all believed in the dictatorship of the proletariate. Otherwise they were flirting with something else.

Is this true: Ann Coulter claims.....
 

This is an incredibly ignorant post.

You got it wrong. The quote I gave from Ann Coulter was that no one has come up a with a person that was falsly accused by McCarthy. I never used the term McCarthysm and would never use that term.


Why would I care what McCarthy said about Nazi's? How is that relevent? I never said McCarthy was a perfect man or that he was even a hero - that was stuff other people on the board attributed to me.

I just said that if he didn't falsly accuse anyone of anything, then his communist searches were not all that much of a problem. At least not the terrible transgrssion of justice that Hollywood has portrayed it to be.

Of course your focus on McCarthy and the Nazis allowed you to avoid answering my questions about racists and free speech which just convinces me that you are only concerned about free speech and association when it comes to communists but not to racists. Which in the end means you are not really concerned about free speech.

Is this true: Ann Coulter claims.....
 

Sounds like you were flirting with communism like it was a Serb at a hostess stand. Good thing you weren't called before McCarthy.

Is this true: Ann Coulter claims.....
 

I do not think this means what you think it means.*

I can't think of a single communist country that did turn into a dictatorship of the proletariate

Yes. And each believed that the society in the Soviet Union (and later, in other communist states) had not yet evolved and developed to a point where the proletariate could actually take over.

Sure, there was a violent overthrow of the former (corrupt) government of Russia. People died. But I don't think there was widespread knowledge in the US in the 20s and 30s of the Stalin purges killing millions, if only because they hadn't completely happened yet.

* Dictatorship of the Proletariate

Nope. I think the Nazis should be able to march in Skokie. And I'm anti-death penalty, so I also would have been opposed to shooting or hanging the SS murderers. I think that Lyndon LaRouche, George Lincoln Rockwell, David Duke, and Gus Hall all should be able to espouse whatever they want to espouse.

Charles Lindbergh wasn't arrested for his Nazi sympathies, as I recall.

When Julius Rosenberg passes along secrets to the Soviets, his political motivations are irrelevant to me. Nor are Jonathan Pollard's.

As for your argument that US troops were fighting and dying in Korea in 1950-53, and therefore any communist was committing treason because the Soviets were aiding the North Koreans and Chinese, should we have arrested Armand Hammer and Occidental Petroleum for trading with the enemy?

But I can't call nonon a guy?

Well, you can, but I'm also able espouse the belief that doing so makes you a big meanie.

Is this true: Ann Coulter claims.....
 

If I (or someone like me - who had studies communism in the Soviet Union and dated someone from a communist country )went before McCarthy and said Communsim is a terrible ideology, anti democratic and evil, but still a fascinating subject, what would have happened to me?

Is this true: Ann Coulter claims.....
 

Depends, I guess, on whether you had a chance to respond. What if you were not presents and you were labeled a communist based on those facts? What if AWARE found this out and you were fired from your job?

Is this true: Ann Coulter claims.....
 

Actually they were all in the phase of the dictatorship of the proletariate, they just never got out of that phase and into communism. As I undestand it, the dictatorship of the proletariate was actually an elite group that would "represent" the proletariate (also known as the vanguard of the proletariate) and change the state so it could become a communist state.

The elite group representing the proletariates interest took over in all these countrys. They just were never successful in implementing communism.



I think you have this wrong. It is not a literal term. Obviously not every worker could be a dictator. You needed an educated group that represented the interests of the proletariate. So we got the dictatorship of the proletariate, but never moved beyond it.

Why do people always throw in corrupt when they talk about communist takeover of a democratically elected government. LIke that somehow justifies it. All governments are corrupt to some degree. But corruption in a democracy does not justify the implementatino of a totalitarian state.


I don't think people knew about the purges but they were well aware that the Boshevicks took over by force. John Reeds book detailed the whole thing and it was a bestseller at the time. In his book he justifies the Bolshevik coup of a democratically elected government. Like all communists John Reed thought that even though the Karensky government was popularly elected, it did not really represent the will of the people. Lenin, although not elected by the people, really was what was best for the people. In other words the communists knew what was better for the people than the people did.

That is not what I asked. Those questions are easy. Of course they can say whatever they want. No one has ever questioned the communist's right to march or speak. It was the other stuff done to the communists that are the tough questions and really focus on what happened to the communists in the fifties.

This is what I asked?

Post #686


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Spanky
Would anyone on this board care if the US Congresss did an investigation into Neo-Nazis and other racist parties in the United States?

What about an investigation as to whether members of Neo-Nazi groups were working in the United States government?

What if they held hearings and interviewed the leaders about their activities?

If a lawyer defending ones of these Neo - Nazis was shown to be member of a Neo-Nazi party would people consider digging up such information as "smear tactics"?

And what if it turned out that some Hollywood writers, directors and producers may have been members of or were currently members of Neo-Nazi parties?

Would anyone have a problem with Congress investigating that?

If there was a suspicion considering whether a Hollywood writer producer or director was either a current or former member of a neo-nazi party and they refused to answer whether they were a current or former member of a Neo Nazi organization would anyone care if the studios decided not to hire them?

Would it be out of line for a studio to ask before they hire someone that they state that they are not, nor have ever been a member of a Neo Nazi group, and if they had been to disavow that membership?

Really. Who would have a problem with that?

No - but I would have had no problem with him being questioned by a congressional committee. And I would have no problem with, someone, especially a jewish person, firing him for his political beliefs (which were in sympathy with a group that promoted the violent overthrow of US government).

I agree.

I specifically pointed out that I was not saying something like this. I said being a member of the communist party did not make you guilty, just like talking about murdering someone did not make you are murderer. But if you took affirmative steps to assist a hoaril foreign power or to implement a violent takeover of the US government then that could be treason.

Depends on what Armand Hammer and Occidental Petroleum were doing.

Is this true: Ann Coulter claims.....
 

This would not be a dictatorship of the proletariate under Marxism. Perhaps under Leninism.



I don't think we really disagree here, in the sense that you recognize that no country ever came close to the Marxist ideal of communism, which means that, given the expected timelines set out by Marx, 20-30 years out people could still be idealistic.

Why not? My point was just that the prior government wasn't really better for the common man. Not saying it was worse.

Exactly. It is temporal chauvanism of the worst sort, however, to judge based on our current conceptions of proper political structures. In the first 40 years of the 20th century, whether a dictatorship was better than a democracy for representing the people was still a matter of open debate amoung intellectuals. I have a hard time understanding it, but both communism and facism (not necessarily with the racist overtones) were popular topics of debate at the time.

Is this true: Ann Coulter claims.....
 

I think you are wrong here. Not sure but pretty sure. In Das Kapital I think Marx pointed out that an intellectual elite would have to represent the workers interest. How else woud a dictatorship of the proletariate work?



Yes true communism was never achived, because true communism mean not government. But where I think we might disagree is I am pretty sure every communist believed that you need to move through a dicatorship of the proletariate (and had to discard liberal democracy) to get there.



I had heard the corruption refrain about other precommunist government but never Karensky's government. The only thing Lenin improved was he got out of the war (of course giving up the entire Ukraine to do it) but besides that everything got worse for the Russians after the Bolshevik takeover. Massive famines, outbreak of disease, massive executions, labour camps etc.


I like that: Temporal Chavinism. But these people were promoting the idea of ending democracy. Throwing away the Bill of Rights. Destroying the American system of government. I don't care when it occurred, it was wrong and dangerous. I don't give Washington and Jefferson a walk on Slavery and I don't give these people a walk because there were plenty of people who did not fall for this B.S. If you flirt with throwing away the US constitution and ending civil liberties, don't expect society to welcom you with open arms.

Me. Yup, I'd have a problem. Heck, I'm a huge Bobby Kennedy fan, and I think that he was unfair to Jimmy Hoffa when he was a senate staffer.

Ok that is fair.

What about somone firing Lindberg for having Nazi sympathys?

BTW: I think both Lindberg, Joseph Kennedy et. al. were fascist anti-semetic pigs, and I wish they were brought before a congressional committee. Hitler clearly laid out his plans for the world and even America in Mein Kempf, so it is not like they could claim they didn't really know what the Nazi's stood for.

Murtha
 

I had a hard run, runnin' from my campaign promises.
I had a hard warring, warring, Lord I wonder if you care,
I had a run in, run around, and run down.
Run around the corner, corner, Lord run smack into Saddam.

I had to delude, really had to de-lude,
That's why if you please, find me some WMDs,
Murtha don't you come around here anymore.

Dressed myself in a flak suit, I went down unto the sea.
Didn't try to see what's goin' down, didn't try to read between the lines.
I had a feelin' I was god's messenger messenger messenger,
I turned around to see,
Heard a voice al callin', Lord you was speaking right to me.

I had to delude, really had to de-lude,
That's why if you please, kill Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,
Murtha don't you come around here anymore.

Murtha
 

Please. We have to finish with the battles of 50 years ago before we can turn to today's.

Absent without permission.
 

Where the hell is Penske? I was going to give him a pass but it has been too long.

I think because Ty was gone so long he thinks he can take a break also. Ty you set a bad example and now look at what has happaned. People think they can get away with anything.

From now on Hank, Penske and Bilmore are not allowed to leave unless I give them permission.

Someone else needs to worry about the left. Ty?

Exhuming McCarthy
 

My comment was referred to McCarthy's grabbing of the reins. I didn't mean to imply McCarthy was the beginning of the Red Scare. And Spanky's ride on this pony apparently proves that McCarthy's downfall didn't end it, either.

Is this true: Ann Coulter claims.....
 

For the most part, the American intelligentsia's flrtation with communism ended in the 30's as they began to realize the violence and totalitarian aspect of communism in practice.

Depends. I would have a problem with him being canned by Pan Am (or whichever airline he was a consultant for) 20 years after the fact, based upon a threat to Pan Am of an economic boycott made by a group of anti-Nazis in charge of vetting airline executives. I would not have a problem with them canning him at the time because of his pro-Hitler comments.

eta: The distinction, I think, is that a blacklist takes the decision away from the employer. It isn't CBS firing Faulk because they don't like his politics, it's CBS doing it because they feared the loss of sponsors, who in turn feared the boycotts of AWARE's backers and of being accused of "funding communist propaganda."

I have no problem with this. In fact I wished it had happened. I have no problem with economic boycotts.

These Nazi sympathysers were just same as the communists. They knew exactly what the Nazi's stood for. All this stuff about them just respecting the economic recovery and law and order was and is B.S. They knew exactly the Nazis were antidemocratic and racist. Every reference to Lindburg in any history book should also reference the fact that he was in favor of throwing away the constitution by taking away the civil liberties of people he thought were subhuman (I don't care how many oceans he flew over).

BTW: Fascists and Communists are miles apart from Socialists. There is a huge massive step between wanting to implement a political ideology while still retaining individual liberties and wanting to scrap individual liberties.

You are now directly contradicting Not Bob, so I will leave the two of you to sort this out.

ETA: STP.

I admitted that I wore their armband. I didn't "work for them."

You are truly evil.

This is the quote I posted:

"since Mr. Welch has such terror and such a great desire to know where anyone is located who may be serving the Communist cause....we should just call to your attention that your Mr. Fischer, who is still in your law firm today, whom you asked to have down here looking over the secret and classified material, is a member of an organization, not named by me but named by the Attorney General, I quote this verbatim, "as the legal bulwark of the Communist Party.' He belonged to that for a sizable number of years, according to his own admission, and he belonged to it long after it had been exposed as the legal arm of the Communist Party."


In this quote I believe McCarthy just states facts. Do I have the quote wrong? If this quote is correct are their factual errors in it?
Bob?

You lent to them your moral imprimatur, your reputation, your support, your standing in the community . . . Worth far more than a few hours stuffing envelopes, I would imagine. There are no innocents in this.

He would have been 80 years old yesterday.

Absent without permission.
 

OK, I'm on it. I'm worried about the left.

What y'all said before. I am well and truly sorry that I didn't STP.

Can I boycott a (hypothetical) Susan Sarandon movie because I know she'll use her money for propaganda I feel is harmful? Boycott are okay- I just don't know that congress should be leading them.

Absent without permission.
 

Took me a second, but I got that.

You have my permission to do so. Heck, I've been boycotting the Plaza on my visits to TCOTU because I disapprove of "The Apprentice."

Fitzgerald's Deep Throat?
 

I haven't been following the story very carefully, but Steve Clemons has some interesting speculation that a high-ranking administration official may be helping Fitzgerald's investigation.

Fitzgerald's Deep Throat?
 

""Clearly, it was meant purely and simply for revenge," the senior official said of the alleged leak."

It's been my experience that someone who starts such a sentence with the word "clearly" is, at least, suspect, especially when (1) no other evidence seems to support this, and (2) Woodward now seems to directly contradict it.

Then you add this:

""On September 28, 2003, Washington Post writers Dana Priest and Mike Allen clearly note the existence of a source with knowledge about the outing campaign conducted as "a vendetta" against Joe Wilson by senior officials in the Bush White House.

This source clearly had concerns about the behavior of these officials, and to some degree, this Washington Post source appears to be a key "counter-leaker" in the Valerie Plame investigation, i.e. someone attempting to make sure that the real story about the Plame leak and reasons for it were told."

and it makes me think we've got a whole new set of agendas being voiced here. Sounds more like a Kos-inspired set of Christmas wishes than news. Or fact.

I would take it with a large grain of salt.

Deserving of a read . . . (Or; Why I like Lileks, part 851)
 

"I never “got into” Vonnegut, or “dug” his work like my “buds,” several of whom pronounced his work as “intense,” so I am not particularly bothered to find he applauds suicide bombers, and thinks they experience “an amazing high.” In the literal sense, perhaps; it’s possible that skull fragments may reach the third floor before they carom off a balcony and patter back to earth.

I should note that Mr. Vonnegut’s comments, reported in the Australian, were made while touring to promote a collection of anti-Bush essays, and as such all attempts to refute them is intended to suppress his freedom of speech. It goes without saying he will be spending his senior years naked in a cell, fighting rats for a scrap of bread, writing brave quatrains on the wall with a shoelace-tip dipped in rat’s blood, awakened daily at 4 AM with bright lights and the national anthem. Such is life in Chimpsuit McHallihitler’s America. But I press on; this dissent isn’t going to suppress itself. "

. . . .

"They are dying for their own self-respect," he said. "It's a terrible thing to deprive someone of their self-respect. It's like your culture is nothing, your race is nothing, you're nothing."

Personally, I think it’s a worse thing to deprive someone of their own self-life. While I grant that people who go to a wedding party in a Jordon hotel are just asking for it (Insert obligatory come-back about the US mistakenly bombing a northern Iraqi wedding party here) you have to admit that it’s better to be alive, even if you have to deal with VOA satellite transmissions telling you your race is nothing – so worthless, in fact, that it deserves a democracy like Iowans and Britons and Japanese. Oh, we could just nuke your cities and take your oil, but we hate you so much we’re going to stay here and bleed and force your warring factions to hold subcommittee meetings on the constitutional process. It's bored our people to tears; now it's your turn."

. . . .

Vonnegut suggested suicide bombers must feel an "amazing high". He said: "You would know death is going to be painless, so the anticipation - it must be an amazing high."

Mr. Vonnegut – again, a patriot whose dissent is being cruelly ground into the nurturing earth before your eyes – seems to think that suicide bombings literally happen in a vacuum, an unpopulated space where the bombers just pop like soap bubbles. It may be painless for them – alas – but it is not painless for the victims. You’d think such an obvious observation would go without saying, but we are dealing with an intellectual. What Vonnegut calls brave – blowing yourself up so you can fly up to the great Bunny Ranch in the sky and rut with fragrant houris blessed with self-regenerating hymens – does not exactly compare to the bravery required of the survivors.

Anticipating murder for the glory of God must be an amazing high. Most people understand the emotional motivation that animates these people, but don’t spend much time on it, anymore than they wonder about the joy a child rapist feels when he has the kid in the woods. It’s one thing to consider it; it’s another to luxuriate in your considerations. An amazing high. "





More . . .

Fitzgerald's Deep Throat?
 

(1) What I thought was interesting was not the possible veracity of that which was posted in the Washington Post years ago, but the notion that Fitzgerald is getting inside help.

(2) Yes, the inside help may have some other agenda.

(3) We know from Mark Felt's role in Watergate that sometime the pursuit of such agendas serves the public interest.



eta: I've never been able to read Vonnegut.

Fitzgerald's Deep Throat?
 

That would be kind of fascinating in its own right, but I would think that being the traitor within the Bush admin isn't the best way to fund your long-term retirement.