Communism. Good or bad. What do you really know about Communism?

[Arturo2nd]

Originally Posted by xyzde69

That's a great opportunity that you give me here.
I'm surely naiv, but wouldn't it be the fact?
I'm sure that if southern and northern negotiators would have been two guys like Jacquard at the table of the negociations, they would have been no Civil War.

And that's a point that we have, as citizen, to be very careful. We only have to vote for caring people, not people that want to divide through biased argumentations.

My point is that you didn't and wouldn't have two ivory tower academic intellectuals like Jacquard at the table. You have folks like Benjamin Franklin Butler and Nathan Bedford Forrest.

Ho Chi Minh, Mao Zedong, and Fidel Castro all sought rapprochement with the United States. All were rejected. Great and violent efforts were made to dislodge them. Given the dynamics of political power (wealth) in the United States, no other course was possible.

Making real political and social changes in the world requires having a clear view of the dynamics of power, the social and cultural forces at work, economics, sociology, etc. In all likelihood it will require some very dirty work and ugly choices. Fantasy and good intentions will not get the job done.

[Old Jud]

Originally Posted by Brian249x

I, for one, believe that Kennedy was assassinated by an agent of Cuba and Moscow in retaliation for Kennedy's repeated efforts to have Castro assassinated.

A theory shared by others too, but highly unlikely.
When Kennedy was assassinated it caused panic in the politburo, the Soviets were convinced that the Americans would blame them for it, so several of their intelligence agencies investigated the possibility.

There was clearly no state sponsored assassination bid by either Cuba or the USSR, both countries knowing that such an outrage would lead to a nuclear war, with world public opinion favouring the USA.

It has been suggested that a small maverick group working inside of Cuban or Russian intelligence might have been involved, but the same has been said about CIA involvement behind the murder.
And with literally thousands of documents still classified it's a case of 'your guess is as good as mine' as to the real culprit or culprits behind the killing.

So for now we will go along with the discredited Warren commission report eh?

Now of course this begs the question, if a lone social misfit like Oswald pulled the trigger, and we have an 'open and shut case' why all the secrecy? Just move on 18 years or so after Kennedy's murder and another President is shot by a non-entity, this time the President survives, are there ten's of thousands of secret files relating to this shooting I wonder?

[Arturo2nd]

Originally Posted by Old Jud

A theory shared by others too, but highly unlikely.
When Kennedy was assassinated it caused panic in the politburo, the Soviets were convinced that the Americans would blame them for it, so several of their intelligence agencies investigated the possibility.

There was clearly no state sponsored assassination bid by either Cuba or the USSR, both countries knowing that such an outrage would lead to a nuclear war, with world public opinion favouring the USA.

It has been suggested that a small maverick group working inside of Cuban or Russian intelligence might have been involved, but the same has been said about CIA involvement behind the murder.
And with literally thousands of documents still classified it's a case of 'your guess is as good as mine' as to the real culprit or culprits behind the killing.

So for now we will go along with the discredited Warren commission report eh?

Now of course this begs the question, if a lone social misfit like Oswald pulled the trigger, and we have an 'open and shut case' why all the secrecy? Just move on 18 years or so after Kennedy's murder and another President is shot by a non-entity, this time the President survives, are there ten's of thousands of secret files relating to this shooting I wonder?

My opinion was formed by reading "A Legacy of Ashes" by Tim Weiner

[AmateurEmale]

@Everyone: What do you think about the [UK socialist] libertarians and the [US capitalist] libertarians, not the respective political parties with "Libertarian" in the name?

Bob Black, author of The Abolition Of Work, calls himself anarcho-socialist and libertarian.

Murray Rothbard, author of The Libertarian Manifesto, said he was anarcho-capitalist instead.

In a stateless society, anyone could form small businesses (anarcho-capitalism) or worker cooperatives and collective enterprises (anarcho-socialism).

All of these people are anti-state, anti-war, and pro-Golden Rule, but differ as to how the workplace should be organized.

In a stateless society, communal housing and cooperatives are no more a threat than a for-profit print shop or a self-employed seller at eBay.

The only Left anarchists who I find strange are Antifa and RATM.

[Old Jud]

Originally Posted by AmateurEmale

@Everyone: What do you think about the [UK socialist] libertarians and the [US capitalist] libertarians, not the respective political parties with "Libertarian" in the name?

Bob Black, author of The Abolition Of Work, calls himself anarcho-socialist and libertarian.

Murray Rothbard, author of The Libertarian Manifesto, said he was anarcho-capitalist instead.

In a stateless society, anyone could form small businesses (anarcho-capitalism) or worker cooperatives and collective enterprises (anarcho-socialism).

All of these people are anti-state, anti-war, and pro-Golden Rule, but differ as to how the workplace should be organized.

In a stateless society, communal housing and cooperatives are no more a threat than a for-profit print shop or a self-employed seller at eBay.

The only Left anarchists who I find strange are Antifa and RATM.

One of the sensible and factual statements Bob Black has made is, '
I think my basic viewpoint is that everything the left and right say about each other is true. And the reason it's true is because they have so much in common.'

[Arturo2nd]

Originally Posted by AmateurEmale

@Everyone: What do you think about the [UK socialist] libertarians and the [US capitalist] libertarians, not the respective political parties with "Libertarian" in the name?

I think that the libertarian theories are lovely and totally unworkable based on my experience with gangsters and corporate executives.

[sobaka]

Originally Posted by xyzde69

Cuba is the country that get the most doctors per people in latin America.
He made a deal with Hugo Chavez: "Give us some petrol and we send you doctors."

I don't say that Castro was Jesus Christ, but how was the previous President?
And how good is the social life for the poorest American or European people today? Without suffering a blocus!
Did you read the text of Jacquard?

Unfortunately quantity is not quality
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...=.8861624c8650

For the cuban elite, doctors are a profit center, the state earns b/w USD2.5-8.0 billion by providing doctors to foreign countries while paying the doctors at most $64/month.

[haroldeye]

Originally Posted by Brian249x

I think that the libertarian theories are lovely and totally unworkable based on my experience with gangsters and corporate executives.

Not sure about your meaning of Libertarian, it differs from what a Brit would expect but certainly whilst your experience of gangsters and corporate executives is disappointing I can assure you that my experience of the Civil Service and Politicians is not too likely to bring on a feeling of unashamed optimism.

[Roubignol]

Originally Posted by sobaka

Unfortunately quantity is not quality
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...=.8861624c8650

For the cuban elite, doctors are a profit center, the state earns b/w USD2.5-8.0 billion by providing doctors to foreign countries while paying the doctors at most $64/month.

An article provided by an American newspaper, sorry, I do not trust it.
I do not believe anymore reports and news in American (and Occidental in general) capitalist medias about Marxism, that spread lies to protect the economical system that provides billions to their owners. They often offer weak and biaised analysis. I've seen their propaganda to maintain animal slavery. They do not properly make their jobs.
When you cross a fair Occidental journalist, his mouth is kept closed by the editor in chief, lackey of the owner of the media.

Then, 64$ a month is a correct wage in Cuba for people who took the Hippocratic Oath.

Today in Switzerland, we are totally at the opposite, we get hundred of thousands of families who can't afford to pay their health insurances, because the medical mafia became far too expensive.
Here we get generalist doctors that earn more than a million of dollars per year thanks to health insurances. They charge at least 200$ per case even when they don't cure their patients. The last time I was at a doctor, I've calculated, he charged me 700$/hour to give me a prescription to buy a medicine. He was not a specialist, who are even more expensive.

We are far from doctors who spend their life in the Third World countries totally dedicated to save the human misery.

Originally Posted by AmateurEmale

@Everyone: What do you think about the [UK socialist] libertarians and the [US capitalist] libertarians, not the respective political parties with "Libertarian" in the name?

Bob Black, author of The Abolition Of Work, calls himself anarcho-socialist and libertarian.

Murray Rothbard, author of The Libertarian Manifesto, said he was anarcho-capitalist instead.

Anarcho-capitalist (called Libertarian in the USA) are dependant of money.
In Anarcho-capitalism, you get a lot of money, you are the king, you don't get money, you are nothing.

The anarcho-libertarians reject money as a tool of domination.

Money has to be demystified: money is a debt recognition that is transmitted between people.
More you get money, more you can request services and material properties.

If money had a correct value (that never was the fact in human history), that could be a system of regulation against human abuses against environment and society.
But today, some people thanks to unfair laws that protect them, can abuse in wasting energy and primary ressources on the back of the environment.
They sadly are promoted as "examples" to follow in our Occidental medias.

[Brecht]

We had this topic a couple of times before. Originally the term libertarian was used for (and by) socialist anarchists/anarcho-syndicalists, especially in France. The usage of this term in the contemporary American sense goes back to the 1940s when a group of powerful entrepreneurs began to lobby against Roosevelt's New Deal plans. They bought a couple of academics to articulate a philosophy suitable for their business interests. Even though so-called libertarians invoke classical liberalism and the "Austrian School of Economics" as their origins, their ideology has no intellectual tradition to claim. Libertarianism started out as a public relations (or propaganda) campaign to fight New Deal and every attempt to create a stable social system, introduce universal healthcare and extend workers rights.

It's no coincidence they chose the name "libertarians" because it sounds fresh and fashionable. Whether or not this libertarian ideology will succeed in winning the minds of wide layers of the population, particularly the young, is a question of an effective marketing strategy, not its intellectual appeal or "persuasive scientific arguments". It's perfectly sufficient to make it appear as science. That's the kind of world we live in today, especially in this digital age.

What the ideologues of this American version of libertarianism advocate is economic fascism. The kind of liberty they preach is the liberty of the oligarchs from any social and public responsibility. A world in which they're no longer accountable and in which they can do everything they want, free from legal and regulatory restraints of the state and society. For the majority of the population, that kind of liberty means the liberty from basic rights like paid vacation, affordable health insurance, unemployment protection, affordable housing and education etc. Let's leave it all to the "market". But the oligarchs who sponsor this ideology (like the Koch brothers) don't like to depend on the market forces. They prefer certainty and security and that's why they love the nanny state. It's just that they refuse to share it with the majority of the population but expect that population to pay for it, naturally.

One of the messiahs of the libertarian propaganda machine, Ludwig von Mises, served as an economic adviser of Engelbert Dollfuss, the Austrian fascist dictator who was in power from 1932 to 1934. The first thing he told Dollfuss is to smash the unions and all the other labor organizations. Mises was disappointed because Dollfuss wasn't harsh enough.

Libertarian ideologues (bought and paid by their corporate masters) never made a secret of their rejection of democracy. If you want to understand how an honest libertarian really thinks, take a look at some of the views expressed by Hans-Hermann Hoppe, professor of economics at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas (no sarcasm involved). He was greatly influenced by Murray Rothbard and Ludwig von Mises. Even Mussolini would be shocked by some of his views.