are you left,right or centre?

[bozo]

Where do you live?
At least you concede that capitalism isn't perfect.....quite an understatement I'd say. You don't criticise people for seeking something better do you?
You assume that what is happening in south america will fail....why do you not rejoice that countries are seeking to build the socialist alternative to capitalism?
I hope your last point is realised. I hope something better replaces capitalism eventually. I know of no other viable system than socialism at this moment in time.

I live in Israel.
Does this help you in the debate over the ideal social system?
I think -not a bit.
Now ,I would say as a paraphrase that utopia dreamer never die they only change.
The modern democratic capitalism has without any doubt good things
as well as bad things.
Do you know any thing except God the allmighty which is only good and not a bit bad? I don't.
The history of mankind has it's way and so if we look at the dreamers of the 19-th century we see that they succeeded finaly in giving birth to the communist system which begun with the Soviet Union and then spread to a great deal of other countries.
Their basic doctrine was laid out by Marx and put in practice by the leaders of the Soviet Union,by Maotzetung in China and by others.
Living for many years in a communist country before I immigrated to Israel made me know this system from inside with all it's advantages and disadvantages.
There were a lot of advantages as for instance free of charge education,free of charge healthcare,practical inexistence of unemployment ,low prices for cultural elements (books,cinema ,theatre ,et cetera) as for sports.
But all these advantages were reduced by the existence of a dictatorial
political system based on a secret police which watched over every citizen.One mass media led by the communist party had the role to praise daily the achievements of the system, to denigrate the "imperialistic american " social system and to menace people who would dare to criticize communism.
The terror which brought to the death of millions in the Soviet Union and in China was in the late 50-th of the 20-th century replaced by an economic terror which held the system together till it collapsed all of a sudden.
People who were born in a free country will never be able to understand what it means to live in a dictatorial country.
True that in the States afro-americans have suffered much from racism
but as we see now there is a historical process of gradual disparition of
racism.
Now,does anybody dream to revive the communist system? May be some, but very few and not people who have lived there.
One could say O.K.we would like a socialist system, not a dictatorial one but a democratic one.The problem is that the idea is not such new as it seems but was tried in the 20-th century by some utopic politicians and they all failed totally.
You can be enthusiastic about Chavez but he is already on the path of
considering himself as a kind of a social genius,a new Fidel, who begun in the same way and ended up in making miserable his people for so many years.
As I said ,may be that in the near future we will have a new Marx who will be able to find a better way between the two sysems of capitalism and communism,but what we see up to day is far from being just that.

I asked about your homeland because you said you had lived under communism, so it was relevant.
Is your question a serious one about " God the almighty " ? This is an atheist forum!
I am not advocating communism as it was in the USSR or China, I am saying we learn from the mistakes that were made and continue to campaign for pure socialism. What I will say is that gangster capitalism which replaced communism in the USSR is hardly a model for the future and very many Russians would have the soviet back tomorrow if it were possible.
Similarly, many former east-germans would have the wall back tomorrow following their experience of being " auslander " in unified Germany.
We have to continue building socialism because capitalism will end one day and what follows it is the big question for a better world for us all, especially the underclass.

[LukeMC]

This may possibly be off topic, but my mum just came back from her parents' house and had been doing some clearout and found an old badge. Something to represent getting rid of nuclear weapons, and it led her to talking of her old socialist ways. All of a sudden she's like "did you know I have the communist manifesto on the bookshelf downstairs?"

Took me by suprise.

Bozo, have you ever watched Mark Kelly on youtube?

[bozo]

This may possibly be off topic, but my mum just came back from her parents' house and had been doing some clearout and found an old badge. Something to represent getting rid of nuclear weapons, and it led her to talking of her old socialist ways. All of a sudden she's like "did you know I have the communist manifesto on the bookshelf downstairs?"

Took me by suprise.

Bozo, have you ever watched Mark Kelly on youtube?

Your mum sounds mighty fine to me, Luke...give her my comradely regards!
Mark Kelly, no....but I take it I should?

[LukeMC]

Your mum sounds mighty fine to me, Luke...give her my comradely regards!
Mark Kelly, no....but I take it I should?

Yeah, you might not like him. He has a really friendly charm about him and seems to agree with the sort of message you put across.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiU6zSpYQ...re=channel

Here's a decent video to start with

[bozo]

Your mum sounds mighty fine to me, Luke...give her my comradely regards!
Mark Kelly, no....but I take it I should?

Yeah, you might not like him. He has a really friendly charm about him and seems to agree with the sort of message you put across.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiU6zSpYQ...re=channel

Here's a decent video to start with

Sorry Luke, I didn't make myself clear...I haven't actually seen him so I may well like him if his message is a socialistic one. I'll tune in and find out.

---

Your mum sounds mighty fine to me, Luke...give her my comradely regards!
Mark Kelly, no....but I take it I should?

Yeah, you might not like him. He has a really friendly charm about him and seems to agree with the sort of message you put across.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiU6zSpYQ...re=channel

Here's a decent video to start with

Thanks,Luke! Just watched the first one about the rich laughing at us....loved it!
Bet he's read The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, because one of the highlights is when the hero explains " the money trick " to his hapless workmates. Ask your mum, she might know!
I'll watch him again thanks to you.

[bozo]

Luke,just watched more Mark Kelly...about the lunacy of monarchy and the illusion of choice.....the man's sussed it! Briliant stuff.

[Tiberius]

Might have to watch that. I'm all in agreement with the lunacy of monarchy

[LukeMC]

"God save the queen?! What an insult to our intelligence! God who doesn't exist, save the queen who shouldn't exist?"

One of his finer vidoes


And "No faith in faith schools" is something which would possibly relate to us.

[josef rosenkranz]

bozo wrote (quote)
Is your question a serious one about " God the almighty " ? This is an atheist forum!
I am not advocating communism as it was in the USSR or China, I am saying we learn from the mistakes that were made and continue to campaign for pure socialism. What I will say is that gangster capitalism which replaced communism in the USSR is hardly a model for the future and very many Russians would have the soviet back tomorrow if it were possible.
Similarly, many former east-germans would have the wall back tomorrow following their experience of being " auslander " in unified Germany.
We have to continue building socialism because capitalism will end one day and what follows it is the big question for a better world for us all, especially the underclass.

[/quote]

Hi
You sure this is an atheist forum and the mention of God the almighty is strictly forbidden? I'll have to be more carefully the next time and not reveal my hidden thoughts.

So you dream of a pure socialism devoid of the mistakes of the former communist/socialist system.
It may be look strange but there is a link between atheism and such a "pure" socialism .We atheists are supposed to look at the world from a rational way of thinking,from a scientific analysis of things ,leaving the dreams to the believers in Destiny e.g. God.
I have already explained in a former reply that communism had a lot of real good things.
So why did it collapse ? Because of the bad things? Because of mistakes as you put it? Partly yes but mainly not.
Let me explain.
The first sentence of the constitution of the Soviet Union as well as of the other East-european socialist countries was :The state does guarrantee places of work(jobs) for all it's citizens without any difference of gender,age,nationality,or religious believe.
A noble purpose without any doubt.
Now in order to transform a slogan into reality ,the state , as the sole owner of the country's material assets had to build factories ,to exploit mines,to develop services,and so on where the people could be employed.
That means that the state had to run a planified economy where every member of the society will be properly placed,in order to give the state "all his means and to get retributed according to his contribution".

It means practically that every member is a pion on a checkboard being pushed for the benefit of the state in every direction it pleases him.

Now, who was practically the state?
The state was. at different levels. a restrained number of people who are bosses of the communist party ,who struggled always between themselves so as to please the other bosses who were placed on a higher level of the bureaucracy.

Here you have the contradiction between the individual who has his own dreams and interests and way of expressing his personality and proving himself in his own eyes and in the eyes of others ,all that on one side and the state on the other side.

The state had no means to solve this contradiction but by coercive measures e.g. by force.
The force deployed by the state lead forcible to corruption of the highest leaders,not only a material corruption but one more important, the corruption of having the power to decide about the destiny of your own people.

Here you have in a nut shell the principle of how Stalin or Mao or Kim Il Sung or Walter Ulbricht or Ceausescu or Tito came to power and finally brought misery to their own people.
As long as the leaders had the secret police and the army strongly concentrated in their hands and coud brutally repress any oppisition ,all went well.
Till one day came to power in the Soviet Union a liberal named Gorbachov who was a dreamer who thought that there is any possibility to implement oppenes ,"glasnost" in russian,or a multiparty system with the communist system ,the rest is history.

So you se ,as they say that "the way to heaven is paved with good intentions" the way to socialism had also it's good intentions but it had in the same time deep contradictions between the individual,the repression of his own will, vis a vis the state,which brought finally to the collapse of communism.

I don't know where from you have the information that a lot of people from former communist countries dream to have the system back.
May be that elderly people or unemployed ones really dream of that ,but the remnants of communist parties in now democratic countries seem to be utterly week which means the the majority would by no means want to come back to this film from which they freed themselves for about two decades.

As I said I do not deny a new social system ,better than capitalism, but in order to achieve that we must wait for a new Karl Marx who will know to outline the principles of such a society bridgeing over basic contradiction as explained above.
Any tendency to make unbased social experiences as it is tried ,for instance by this clown Chavez,who by his last referendum has ,so typically, ensured a lifelong rule of his, are doomed to fail.

[bozo]

bozo wrote (quote)
Is your question a serious one about " God the almighty " ? This is an atheist forum!
I am not advocating communism as it was in the USSR or China, I am saying we learn from the mistakes that were made and continue to campaign for pure socialism. What I will say is that gangster capitalism which replaced communism in the USSR is hardly a model for the future and very many Russians would have the soviet back tomorrow if it were possible.
Similarly, many former east-germans would have the wall back tomorrow following their experience of being " auslander " in unified Germany.
We have to continue building socialism because capitalism will end one day and what follows it is the big question for a better world for us all, especially the underclass.

Hi
You sure this is an atheist forum and the mention of God the almighty is strictly forbidden? I'll have to be more carefully the next time and not reveal my hidden thoughts.

So you dream of a pure socialism devoid of the mistakes of the former communist/socialist system.
It may be look strange but there is a link between atheism and such a "pure" socialism .We atheists are supposed to look at the world from a rational way of thinking,from a scientific analysis of things ,leaving the dreams to the believers in Destiny e.g. God.
I have already explained in a former reply that communism had a lot of real good things.
So why did it collapse ? Because of the bad things? Because of mistakes as you put it? Partly yes but mainly not.
Let me explain.
The first sentence of the constitution of the Soviet Union as well as of the other East-european socialist countries was :The state does guarrantee places of work(jobs) for all it's citizens without any difference of gender,age,nationality,or religious believe.
A noble purpose without any doubt.
Now in order to transform a slogan into reality ,the state , as the sole owner of the country's material assets had to build factories ,to exploit mines,to develop services,and so on where the people could be employed.
That means that the state had to run a planified economy where every member of the society will be properly placed,in order to give the state "all his means and to get retributed according to his contribution".

It means practically that every member is a pion on a checkboard being pushed for the benefit of the state in every direction it pleases him.

Now, who was practically the state?
The state was. at different levels. a restrained number of people who are bosses of the communist party ,who struggled always between themselves so as to please the other bosses who were placed on a higher level of the bureaucracy.

Here you have the contradiction between the individual who has his own dreams and interests and way of expressing his personality and proving himself in his own eyes and in the eyes of others ,all that on one side and the state on the other side.

The state had no means to solve this contradiction but by coercive measures e.g. by force.
The force deployed by the state lead forcible to corruption of the highest leaders,not only a material corruption but one more important, the corruption of having the power to decide about the destiny of your own people.

Here you have in a nut shell the principle of how Stalin or Mao or Kim Il Sung or Walter Ulbricht or Ceausescu or Tito came to power and finally brought misery to their own people.
As long as the leaders had the secret police and the army strongly concentrated in their hands and coud brutally repress any oppisition ,all went well.
Till one day came to power in the Soviet Union a liberal named Gorbachov who was a dreamer who thought that there is any possibility to implement oppenes ,"glasnost" in russian,or a multiparty system with the communist system ,the rest is history.

So you se ,as they say that "the way to heaven is paved with good intentions" the way to socialism had also it's good intentions but it had in the same time deep contradictions between the individual,the repression of his own will, vis a vis the state,which brought finally to the collapse of communism.

I don't know where from you have the information that a lot of people from former communist countries dream to have the system back.
May be that elderly people or unemployed ones really dream of that ,but the remnants of communist parties in now democratic countries seem to be utterly week which means the the majority would by no means want to come back to this film from which they freed themselves for about two decades.

As I said I do not deny a new social system ,better than capitalism, but in order to achieve that we must wait for a new Karl Marx who will know to outline the principles of such a society bridgeing over basic contradiction as explained above.
Any tendency to make unbased social experiences as it is tried ,for instance by this clown Chavez,who by his last referendum has ,so typically, ensured a lifelong rule of his, are doomed to fail.
[/quote]

So you were being ironic about Almighty God were you?
You are right in pointing out that the big mistake down the years has not been the overthrow of rotten and unjust capitalist systems but that the high ideals became themselves corrupted subsequently. Orwell captured this in Animal Farm quite brilliantly.
The starting point must be that capitalism is a corrupt system , where there are few winners and very many losers. It will not last forever and it will get even more corrupt and even more evil as its demise approaches.
Some of us look to that moment with both apprehension and hope.
If something even more evil , barbarism for example, replaces it, then the world will indeed be an ugly place to be.
On the other hand, if socialism, or something approaching it, prevails ,then there is hope.
I don't accept we need another Marx. What may happen is a change in the political zeitgeist, where instead of right-wing and reactionary opinion holding sway, we will see a shift leftwards, across the globe, and a rebirth of socialist ideology.
Bring it on.