Does Julian Assange play Cantr?

[Piscator]

It might be worth distinguishing between communism and Stalin/Mao's interpretation of it.

[Surly]

It might be worth distinguishing between communism and Stalin/Mao's interpretation of it.

It's also worth distinguishing between capitalism and America's twist on it.

Best not to throw absolute terms like "communist" & "capitalist" as black & white terms, seeing as there is a large scale between.

[DylPickle]

Speaking of large scale, it's practically impossible for pure communism or pure capitalism to realistically exist systematically in large societies. Sure you can implement it, but it will probably never function in the manners they are intended to: by allowing everyone to benefit in their own ways. Effective functionality is probably limited to small scale communities, etc. What communism and capitalism have in common is that they both rely on trust and honesty, qualities that become more rare as communities grow larger (as if they aren't rare enough in our species as is).

[Eleiris]

Mmm... Not getting the response I was hoping.
Aside of the attempts of implementation of communism as a political regime, which failed (for many reasons, some I ignore, but some I don't), the stigma of communism is what calls my attention. It almost seems like fear. It reminds me of what happened in the beginning of the XX century in my country; there was a political inquisition, and the instruction was to terminate independent thought.
And the fear of communism is the reason why powerful nations let Hitler run loose for so long. Everyone knew what was going on...
Anyway, my point is: I don't see how speaking of proletariat, abolishment of private propriety, etc, is so frowned upon these days, even if disagreed.


Disclaimer: I don't mean to offend anyone with what I write, and I don't assume it's the absolute truth. I just have an honest doubt, and I need to explain where I come from and who I am to begin with, to obtain a more accurate answer.

[KVZ]

It might be worth distinguishing between communism and Stalin/Mao's interpretation of it.

Then where was/is this other form of communism working in practice? Just plain theory that it can work. And do not count their satellite nations, where regime was bit weaker, but their still was on service to Soviet Union.

[Missy]

I'm comfortable voicing my opinion now.

This is why you should care about their lives:

"Florida National Guard special forces were leaving Tuesday to perform search and rescue missions in Mississippi in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. They are a part of the nearly 124,000 Guardsmen across 17 states available to help out Katrina’s victims, officials of the National Guard said Tuesday. "

"Mississippi has 1,945 Guardsmen on active duty to provide debris removal, security and “citizen support,” which amounts to water and food distribution, officials said. Another 1,000 Guardsmen, many who had been deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, are on duty in Alabama. "

"More than 5,000 National Guard troops across four states have already been activated; 3,500 of those in Louisiana alone, Lt. Col. Mike Milord said Monday as the hurricane was lashing parts of Louisiana and Mississippi. “The troops are available, they’re responding as we speak.”

I don't give a fuck about what you think about the war, I don't and never have condoned it--not since the very beginning, but my husband doesn't have a choice where he goes or what he does, when the government wants him to do it. Be it cleaning up a hurricane or fighting the "illegal war" He'll end up in both places, whether he truly wants to be in either of them or not, doesn't matter.
He was military before towers fell, deployed to afghanistan on a stop loss. You know that's where the government says: You're staying in for x amount longer regardless of what your initial sign on contract says, because we need you to and that's that. And my brother who now has 18 years in the airforce, had already selected to make a career out of his remaining time in the airforce before the war in Iraq, and his wife makes more than he does being a Mary Kay Consultant--No Joking. He constantly says he wishes he hadn't signed on for as long as he chose to, because he could retire and live well on HER income alone. (Nevermind the way they've screwed him around now that they know he's on for 20 years. (Why? They don'twant to pay him his pension that's why) Deploying him every damn six months. No sooner does he get home and they send him out again.) A *Bleeping* Mary Kay Consultant???????? And don't tell me it's just about the "money" or the "college" because it's like any public service job to a lot. They join thinking they'll get to make a difference. Some join being told by their recruiters "Oh we'll do everything we can to see that you get put in a position and a place where a deployment's not going to occur" but they get out of basic and the minute they do, amendments are filed to their orders and there's nothing you can do to stop it. No doubt- some join solely for the purpose and support of this "illegal war" and some join solely for the purpose of generating an income or getting to go to school.

But I never heard of a "very very well paid" "volunteer" before.

And for as far as Im concerned, there's no amount of money worth my husbands life.

"Compensated well"---I have yet to see a fellow military spouse running around with a gucci bag or driving a jag. I've been to a food-bank while my husband was ACTIVE DUTY, and I also held a job at that time and we had no kids. We weren't being financially irresponsible and we were barely making ends meet. Don't tell me, how well compensated we are because the situation is not the same for everybody. I had better health care before I married my husband and I lived with my mother, who worked in a glass bottle plant. I still lived at home a few months before I joined my husband (because even at that time they were amending peoples orders and screwing them all around) which meant here I was in central PA with Tri-Care as my health care provider, and no military hospital in sight. Ask me how much tri-care covered a stay in the hospital and how big my bills were. I dare ya. We have better health care NOW while he's in the guard and working a regular Job with Bank of Mellon NY--That includes my eye-care and dental where as the military DID NOT and in his 5 years of active duty I never seen a dentist once nor got new eye-glasses because we could not afford the extra money it would cost to be PUT on the military dental and eye care plan for spouses/children.
I ain't saying it doesn't have it's benefits--It's better than working at McDonalds for 7.an hour. But lets also understand you don't truly have "sick-days", you move far away from family and the military doesn't care if it's your anniversary or your son's birthday, you work 5 days a week and sometimes more if you have to pull guard duty for your unit or for the base itself at one of it's entrance gates. But if you're called to go in, you go in. If you're told to stay late, you stay late, period. Lets factor in (and although I don't find that requiring someone to be fit is a bad t hing at all) what other jobs do you stand a chance of being demoted which includes loss of pay if you're a few points over your BMI? (That's Body Mass Index for those unfamiliar.) I know very well what it's like to get a sign on bonus and what it's like to have the income from a deployment (which is entirely tax free, I might add) but in both my husbands deployments, that money was never seen. It went to paying off debts from bills that we could barely manage before the deployments. His most recent deployment, to Iraq, it was his civilian job that was our hero--Choosing to pay him his salary even though he wouldn't be at work the entire year. His pay during the deployment was 300 dollars less, each pay, compared to his regular job with Bank of Mellon NY. If his regular job hadn't continued to pay him his salary during the deployment, tell me what the hell we would have done?
I spent 3 anniversaries with my husband out of 10 total. Three! I wonder if the people saying "I don't care about their lives" could do that. I doubt it. So while my husband's "illegal war fighting" "volunteer" ass is down in Louisiana saving your ass from drowning and missing our anniversary, don't sweat it, he cares about your life even if you don't care about his.

I don't think there is a single soldier out there who asks you to bow down to them in respect for what it is they do. (Okay I'm sure there are some.) It is mostly the media, and the family/friends/so called "patriots" who are the ones who demand spotlights on the service-men/women. Most of them will bow their heads and say that they were just doing their job and their life isn't any more important than someone elses.

I feel like when you say "Who cares about soldiers fighting an illegal war" you paint them in a light as if they somehow think they are better than anybody else.

[dryn]

Sure you can implement it, but it will probably never function in the manners they are intended to

This is true beyond capitalism and communism. It goes for pretty much everything that you try when you are dealing with large bodies of people no matter if you are implementing a public initiative or a corporate policy.

[Piscator]

Then where was/is this other form of communism working in practice? Just plain theory that it can work. And do not count their satellite nations, where regime was bit weaker, but their still was on service to Soviet Union.

There is no other form of communism working in practice and "other" might not even be a 100% accurate as today's so-called communist states are in fact rather dictatorships in the name of communism than examples of working communism in the original sense.

What I was trying to say earlier is, that I find it problematic that people infer from the various problems associated with so-called communist states, that the idea of communism itself, all aspects of it and generally anything associated with it are bad per se.

[KVZ]

What I wanted to say, that is in theory even fascist can be perfect government form, but because of it bad practice people will never want to give it a chance. While communism even because of it's bad practice still find more people who want to defend it as theory. Point is that in theory everything can be so perfect, but facts should be based on how things can work in practice. Maybe communism would be workable in small community, but in larger nation there always would be people who will corrupt it's ideals.

[Piscator]

I really don't know any definition of fashism by which a perfect fashist state would be desirable, unless you are a bee. All what makes today's "communist" states so unpleasant (suppression of individualism, personal freedom etc.) is in fact the very goal of a fashist state, who focusses on the creation of a "strong" or "fit" (in a Pseudo-Darwinistic sense) society. This has basically nothing to do with communism though, whose aim is to establish a society that's more or less like that of Star Trek. Having said this, the idea of communism is indeed utopic, but this doesn't mean that aspects of it couldn't be realized today, provided that a majority wants this.

[Gran]

Speaking of large scale, it's practically impossible for pure communism or pure capitalism to realistically exist systematically in large societies.

Please define whatever would be pure communism or capitalism.

This has basically nothing to do with communism

It has everything to do with communism, because unless you're a pre-marxist, communism will only come after the implementation of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which will the further the revolution by estabilishing the collectiveness, exterminating the bourgeoisie and putting an end to private ownership using any means necessary, which includes totalitarianism.

It has also everything to do with communism because it's the collective ideology that mantains it's own communist ideological system. Mussolini only took the ideas of collectiveness and dictatorship of the people and used it to purposes other than those desired by the internationalist bolshevik revolutionaries by applying it to a collective group based on blood and culture called nation.

If you want to play "whose fault", you could aswell blame the Prussians for their realpolitik and authoritarianism or even the Romans, for their millitarism and caesaropapism. But don't deny that communism is a collectivist ideology, it is in it's principles.

If you want to argue back, I'll touch then your argument on the inexistance of a current "communist" society. I just don't want to mix it all here.

[KVZ]

I really don't know any definition of fashism by which a perfect fashist state would be desirable, unless you are a bee.

Hm... I have read something about it and they called "ideal fascism" as "true socialism", and also described it as society where is very high order and law (low on crime, very high crime prevention). And I still not understand what is difference between this "true socialism" from your definition of "communism". They both are very similar but based on different ideology. And both can match to bee society.

[Gran]

And I still not understand what is difference between this "true socialism" from your definition of "communism".

Piscator seems to understand communist as a post-scarcity society, not a necessarily "orderly" society. That's why he mentioned Star Trek: in the series they are shown to have technology to create matter out of thin air, therefore the price of goods is virtually null. In such society accumulation doesn't make sense anymore and everyone has their needs fullfilled. There's not so much of control of state to impose it through violence. Most of violence comes from the Enterprise crew, who in one minute is all like "we come in peace" and the next second they're gunning down aliens and banging their chicks.

[dryn]

gunning down aliens and banging their chicks.

I think we can all agree that this sums up the problem with communism.

[Piscator]

It has everything to do with communism, because unless you're a pre-marxist, communism will only come after the implementation of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which will the further the revolution by estabilishing the collectiveness, exterminating the bourgeoisie and putting an end to private ownership using any means necessary, which includes totalitarianism.

I never read Marx, nor do I intend to do it in the forseeable future, so I guess that makes me pre-Marxist. Anyway, I don't really see how you infer the necessity of Fashist means from what you just said. Since the proletariat comprises of the vast majority of any country's population, I see no reason why you couldn't establish its "dictatorship" by democratic means. Even if "any means necessary" includes totalitarianism, I don't see why it should be a necessary mean.

But don't deny that communism is a collectivist ideology, it is in it's principles.

You are certainly right when it comes to the ideology promoted by "Communist" states, but I don't think it's in the essence of the idea. Removing the privileges of a small economical elite is not much different from removing the privileges of a small political elite, as done e.g. during the French revolution. The motivation behind this is not the creation of a strong state (which seems to be the idea behind collectivism), but to improve the living conditions of the average individual (for entirely egoistic reasons). I don't think a communist state is intrinsically more collectivist than any other state. According to Wikipedia's header definition it might be even less so (in its final stage).