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:
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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.