Iris wrote:
Niner, thanks for sharing about that movie; sounds like it was good. I would have loved to have heard the music. I take it back; I did hear Cuban music -- but only if "I Love Lucy" counts.
Opression of homosexuality is an extreme right-wing value.
Musollini was that way, too, another extreme rightie.
Interesting. I hate to see our own beloved America going in that direction.
This is not true, my friend. True communism (extreme left) means everyone owns everything; all resources are shared. Think of tribes, and clans all over the world where social communism works perfectly. Think of the communes of the 60s, where everything was shared, from the work load to the goodies. One documentary I saw on PBS years ago stands out in my mind. It was an African tribe, and everything ran perfectly. There was no murder, no thievery, no abortion, no unwanted children, no crime. There was no marriage and no divorce, and the children were regarded as belonging to everyone, so every child was always under loving watchful eye. There was no isolation, no loneliness. Everyone was valued. Everyone had free health care, and the helpless and elderly had total care. Everyone shared the load and the wealth.
The important point about this is it is *voluntary* communism, not state-induced communism.
BINGO! It is authoritarianism that has caused the extreme suffering, be it on the left like under Stalin, or be it on the right like under Musollini.
Think of the Political Compass chart (I was hoping you'd let me put you on the chart, btw). The lower left quadrant is voluntary sharing, like communes. The upper left quadrant is state-dictated sharing, where Stalin and Lenin are to be found.
You're quite right to identify that as authoritarianism. It's always one complete lunatic at the top, and everyone under him living in fear and suffering. And I did note that this description sounded a lot better than what Linda is telling us. The pictures she showed us testified that people are not fed, clothed, etc.
Now you're reminding me of some of the groups where I worked at Boeing. Plus, you're sounding a great deal like what my friend describes of working for Homeland Security; it's not what you know or how you perform your job -- it's who you know that determines your promotions.
Anyway, what you're describing sounds just dreadful, as did Linda's descriptions and what she shared with us. But that's not the fault of communism; it's the fault of authoritarianism.
Don't get me wrong; I'm not a communist. It has been my observation that the best governments are those which retain a balance between liberalism (think public beaches, parks, libraries, police, school, protected wildlife and wildlands, public roads, and courts; economic safety nets; controls to keep all the wealth from drifting to the top creating extreme poverty and anhialating the middle class; balanced trade policies; protected liberties and civil rights), and conservatism (think protected Constitution, rule of law, the right of private ownership, fiscal responsibility, the conservation and protection of all that is of value to us). Now keep in mind that is what conservatism is *supposed to be.* Today's "conservative" administration is *not* conservative, nor are their followers.
Indeed it is. That is precisely why our Founding Fathers set us up in a *liberal* democracy (not an illiberal democracy, which is arguably not even a democracy, and which is the direction Iraq is headed) with checks and balances. It was never the intention to have only two parties in power, and it was even less the intention to have one party predominantly own the power.
Dear readers, this is the outline we must follow if America is to become a great country once again. We must take the best of both liberalism and conservatism and keep them in balance, while being very careful to resist an authoritarian state.
Iris, I appreciate your taking the time to reflect upon my posting above.
On one thing I have to differ, and that is what I called 'social-communism', which was to differentiate between the imposed communism, say of Cuba, or Russia.
My conflicts, from what I have seen and witnessed, is that very few communes, ie. social-communists, actually thrive. There have been many experimental communes in the United States, going back into the 1800's, as you know. Most of those simply die a hard death, eventually, or quickly.
It occurs to me, after seeing people being given things, that they begin to have an attitude of righteous expectation's, so they begin to slack, put less effort into their own work. Others simply are gold-bricks, laying one so slowly upon the next, you can hardly see them moving at all, and that is when they are working! HA HA HA
I just have seen so much, what could be called outright laziness, that I just don't believe that most people will put in a full day's effort to produce labor, if they believe they can be clothed and fed by performing less than a half-day's work. Others who may work very hard, doing double the work of the slackers, only are providing a way for the slacker's to "justify" their own non-productivity.
If you can point to me any social-communes which have survived for more than one-hundred years, i would probably think that they had some other way of having support outside their group, that is through giftings and such. Cuba was always a failure as a communist imposed regime; but that differs from social-communism. Cuba received so much assistance from the USSR, from what I have read. It does manage to feed and clothe and provide good hospital/health care, so i've read, but true individual freedom does not exist.
If we look to Israel as promoting social-communism via kibbutz, well, still, Israel does not economically thrive by itself alone as a nation, and has only existed by the outpouring of generosity by the United States government. Also, most people, israelis residing in a kibbutz are of a common ethnic identification, and a common religion. (other readers, no, Zionism is NOT a religion!) To show that Israel's kibbutz, or social-communism is a failure, look to all the young people fleeing Israel to reside in Europe (not just because of war-torn strife, either). Even many older Israeli's have grown tired of the economic plight of that tiny nation.
If we look to Scandihoovian nations, oh, yes, some will say that they have successfully amalgamated a social-communism/socialism with a state-owned derived economic platform, eg, off-shore oil wealth. In other words, something larger than individual enterprise and labor sustains even those Scandihoovian nations which provide social networks such as national health care, national education, good vacation benefits, and other socialistic endeavors, though at a great price, usually via very high taxes.
In any case, personally, I would have to reject social-communes, if only because I have personally witnessed an astounding reality: People who use/rent other people's property, rarely take care of it! They act as if others are obligated to provide them property, somehow. If they rent others property, many rarely respect the property itself, rarely keep it up, rarely keep it in good condition. They act as if the owner of the property is the person who is responsible for every problem which they themselves might create.
There are many reasons that social-communism cannot promote the best welfare for most people, I do believe. However, in that regard, I would support your last paragraph, ideas and ideals which to me are very important! Seeing to it that a careful balance exists between so-called conservatism and liberalism. The so-called conservatism is quite a joke given that fiscal responsibility and ethics seems gone with this Republican Party, such that there is truly the CORPORATE-SOCIALISM that is undermining the Middle Class, providing far too much money to the corporate heads, and stealing monies from the American people by hook and by crook and graft and greed and incredible political corruptions.
If we just addressed the incredible thievery now occurring within doctrines promoting the sanctity of corporatism, at the expense of the common good.
Oilgarchs are growing filthy rich, while the Middle Class is being destroyed; and the largest working group of workers are subjected to the economic tyranny of imposed very low-wage minimum wages, which minimum wages have not changed much since the mid-1960's, and keep people living at the edge of poverty.
This is not the sort of laissez faire capitalism that promotes the common welfare, when many families can barely afford to heat and cool their homes, and cannot afford to purchase gasoline to drive to and from work these days.
It's a form of laziest fair capitalism that is consuming so much of our nation's wealth and going into the pockets of a very low percentage of American citizens. It's a form of capitalism that is driving corporatism/fascism, and reducing our nation to a Third World status of imported or illegally derived illegal immigration status providing cheap labor. It's become a vicious capitalism that is destroying our entire protective labor unions! It's a heartless capitalism that imports starving labor of WalMartizations which few can afford not to buy, given that labor unions are mostly a thing of the past, and minimum wage reigns supreme. It's a driven hidden taxation whereby all commodities and products and services costs are driven ever higher by the soaring costs of gasoline and utilities.
Balance desired. Yes! Balance achieved? Hell no!
I think it is time that we must collectively advocate for the abolition of corporate owned oilfields owned and controlled solely by corporate oilgarchs.
Oil ought to be considered largely a national commodity, and if national security issues are involved, we all ought to be fully apprised of the bidness deals, too, and who is making all the money.
I think that something igniting the SHERMAN ANTI-TRUST ACT ought to investigate, and then recommend how oil companies can be owned and controlled by government agencies, since the high-costs and obscene oil profits via spoils of war-making are driving too many oilgarch's support of hidden agendas.
If we can provide for productive cheaper fuel via corn, or hemp etc, then our government ought to begin active productions and distributions so that all Americans can afford a "Sundae" and Sunday drive.
Ninerism