The body count is just in the same league with the US, USSR, China, and Nazi Germany. Imperial UK and Spain as well. It's millions and tens of millions.

There's a difference between Stalin and Mao and communism though. The hammer and sickle doesn't necessarily mean you are a Stalinist any more or less than an American flag means you support dropping more bombs on Cambodia than were dropped in WW2 total. There is no non-genocidal part of Nazism. There's no, "we did a lot of good things and many bad things as well that I believe and hope we will avoid in the future". A Nazi flag means you want more of the genocide, period.

It's the reason why, say, a Nazi avatar is an insta-ban and neither an American Flag or Soviet flag is. Since you are Irish, maybe I should add the Union Jack in there. The English certainly bear a lot of responsibility for death in Ireland.

I don't mean to argue about things we are agreeing on. I hear what you're saying about the deaths caused by capitalist countries.

But, the Nazi flag is different. Very different. imo. It's not just about body count. Confederate flag is no good either.

Are you seriously engaging in actual whataboutism in an exchange re the repression of the Soviet regime?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

Imperial UK? England invaded Ireland in 1169. A completely different era when plundering, pillaging slavery & public execution for stealing a loaf of bread were the norm. As was the norm in the 15th century during imperial Spain to go with the witch burning. The USSR engaged in repression & brutality pretty much right up to its demise & by that I mean up until the late 20th century when there was a far different outlook on things in general. You're engaging in false equivalency to go with the whataboutism.

You're ignoring a more fundamental question as to why communism morphed into Stalinism & Maoism & disregarding that all were horribly oppressive & irrational which crushed individuality & ruled by terror.

No. US flag represents the nation. Hammer & Sickle represents idealogy, just like the swastika flag does & by your rationale sporting a swastika doesn't mean you're a nazi, maybe you're just big into ancient good luck symbols & if people wish to associate your swastika with genocide & general bats***t nuttery then that's hardly your fault...right?

And speaking of bats*** nuttery Communist ideology doesn't allow for human nature & people suffered horribly under every communist regime ever. Ergo waving a hammer & sickle flag is the same as waving a swastika lag. If you can't see this then so be it.

Again an American flag is a representation of nationality. Its ideals are in its constitution. A soviet flag doesn't get a ban for the same reason that one can sport a Che Guevara tee shirt without getting funny looks. There's a romanticism attached to Communism & Che Guevara, just watch the Motorcycle Diaries. Romanticism doesn't equate to actual reality though.

.
Union Jack is a symbol of the union of Great Britain & Northern Ireland each nation has the flag of their respective nation such as Scotland Wales & England, with the exception of Norn Iron (I'm saying it in Orange Ulster nordy phonetics for fun ) which is a tribalist dump stuck in a time warp whose populace are a shade dour & insist on flying either a tricolour or a Union Jack depending on which stuck in a time warp tribe they belong to.

Indeed they do but I've had time to move on & get over it. The only ones who haven't moved on are Nordies of either stripe, a few down south, hard lefties who never fail to remind everyone about what a bunch of rotters the English were back in the day & alt right EDL types to go with outright white supremacists who are yearning for the former glory of empire, kinda like our ex communist friends in Russia actually.


Capitalism has done some seriously repugnant things no question & to a degree I agree with you about it being de-humanizing.

However when one compares its ideology vs practice to communism's, then capitalism, for all its very real flaws & very real room for improvement is the better option. Best out of a current bad lot you might say. Reason being it allows for human nature. It allows people to vote even if the actual system can do with reforms in terms of viable political options. It allows for more choice & freedom of expression. Unlike either communism or nazism or any extremism which brutality suppresses such things as it puts the ideology/Glorious Revolution above all else meaning its people are expendable, counter revolutionaries, petty bourgeois elites, troublemakers or as Uncle Joe said "Rootless Cosmopolitans" *COUGHJewsCOUGH* (odd how in the Glorious Worker's Utopia where everyone was equal, such products of decadent western capitalism like good old fashioned bigotry & anti Semitism still flourished innit?).

And that's the bottom line because we're all just trying to get by. It's better to get by in a flawed system which nonetheless allows for freedom than to get by in a brutal totalitarian regime whose brutality & totalitarianism has been utterly consistent in every single country which adopted its ideology. You have more chance to enjoy life for which you only get one of anyway. I'm glad I had the freedom to march in protest against the invasion of Afghanistan & Iraq & highlight my disgust. I wouldn't have had that freedom in Soviet Russia. Had I expressed dissent about Russia's occupation of Afghanistan I'd be probably thrown into some state asylum or sent off to a gulag. There's is no viable comparison between Communism & western democracy & it's dishonest to claim there is.

No it really really isn't for the reasons I stated. We're gonna have to agree to disagree mate, cheers.

Honest question: Do you think the majority of people who read "concentration camp" will take that on board and make such distinctions?

So I ask again you don't think you're being just a teensy weensy bit hyperbolic?

So it's a race thing? How do you know the majority of them aren't white Mexicans & what diff does it make anyway in terms of what the current administration terms an illegal migrant?

I'm not saying it's not despicable.

Right. So it's responsible to call it a concentration camp not irresponsible. (or hyperbolic).

Okay. Again guess I'll have to disagree with you on that one to go with the other things I disagree with you on.

This ****ing moron is basically advocating mass murders among his idiotic diatribes and somehow remains unbanned.

Well, since the environment crosses borders, it is a natural for promoting a broader awareness. Green Peace is international and consistently militant. I'm all for the global perspective.

But what do you do with militarism? It's the US government choosing to fight unnecessary wars. We seem pretty locked into a national appeal -- that it's not in our interests to send our kids to stupid wars, so it's the US govt. that needs to be changed. Promoting a broader identity will help. But if you are for peaceful change, that means voting for national offices, and therefore addressing national interests.

International change is also an additional level of abstraction and distance from citizens. They will turn out to the city council over a zoning change, but as you move from county up people feel increasingly detached.. There's a reason the second half of the bumper sticker says Act Locally.

I mean, we are facing some ugly choices. What do we do when coastal flooding sends the global south north, and no politician will last a day if they favor open borders? Do we concede the electoral arena? We can point out that the global crisis needs global solutions, yes. But what do you do when people say, "yes, as a planet we shoulda stopped global warming when we could. But it's today and I don't want 100 million refugees."

Nationalism is a trap, but I don't know how to avoid it and remain relevant. I don't think there is much of a downside to promoting global identity, but we'll still have to compete for national influence.

He will go away for a while again once he realizes people don’t agree with him, radicalize himself even more come back, rinse and repeat.

I was all like, I hope nobody mentions 'whataboutism' because it will most likely be misused and it was going great for a second there but, sigh, here we are.

What you think is 'whataboutism' is actually just controlling for variables.


corpus vile: Pooping is gross. Communists poop. Ew, communists are gross.

somebody: Well, what about capitalists? They poop too. So do nihilists. Most everybody does.

corpus vile: Whataboutism!

somebody: Ok, you know just saying the words 'what about' doesn't mean tha-

corpus vile: LA LA LA COMMIES ARE GROSS

Microbet even tried be polite by pointing out the homosexuality fallacy but corpus vile was like fuhhhhk that.

Honestly I think the western world is just still hellllla salty over the most biting whataboutism thrown down:



AND YOU ARE LYNCHING NEGROES LOL STFU



Ok, the 'lol stfu' wasn't actually a part of it but was so heavily implied.

It's in no way being misused. My initial point was that both the Hammer & sickle & Swastika flags are equally odious in terms of human suffering. Microbet disagreed & then started engaging in actual whataboutism to highlight his disagreement. I then duly pointed this out You then erroneously claimed it was being misused. I'm now correcting you. Here we are.

I never said anything about individual communists or "commies" either, stop misrepresenting what I said otherwise you'll be taken even less seriously than you're currently being taken now & will be outright dismissed as I've no time for dishonesty anymore than I've time for revisionism.

People advocating for Communism in 2018 strikes me as a bit odd.

If it was the 1920s, you can come out and say "ok, we haven't tried this before, lets give it a try".

If it was the 50s or 60s, maybe you can even say "well, maybe they didn't get it implemented right the first time, but the idea is still good"

But its 2018. There are too many examples of Communism being the inferior choice, all other things equal " North vs South Korea, East vs West Germany, pre 1990 China vs Post". Even if you look at a Communist country in isolation, you'll find examples that the cities with loosened central government control and capital markets enjoy higher standards of living. I am also not sure where the idea that Communism isn't expansionist comes from. It simply isn't the case historically.

Does Capitalism need fixing? Of course it does. But we have enough sample size to say the solution isnt Communism.

I agree with Microbet's example of Cuba doing arguably better than its neighbors. However, the aggregate EV of the range of outcomes under capitalism is higher than the aggregate EV of the range of outcomes under Communism. You can see this from human migration patterns in history. There has never been any demand for immigration to Communist countries. There is across the board demand for immigration away from Communist countries.

Agree. Einbert is the only state communist here and even he hasn't said much about economics.

And I think you can make arguments for standard of living improvements in the USSR as well. Russia was a very backward poor country in 1917. Were it not for the revolution it's hard to imagine the rapid industrialization that put it in a position to do that heavy lifting in WW2. And then it was devastated in WW2 with about 20% of the population dying. And then a generation later it was the first country in space, able to produce crappy cars, and good universities. And then the introduction of market reforms was a huge disaster in the early 90s.

Just devil's advocating here though. Overall capitalism has done better for the people in capitalist countries. It's hard to tell how much of that is through exploiting other countries, though the "communist" USSR did much the same with its satellites, at least Cuba.

And what is the most efficient economic system? All of the greatest economic booms (US New Deal-WW2, China 1980s+, Japan 1970s/early 80s, S. Korea) have had a pretty large component of state management of the economy. Not pure communism, but definitely not laissez-faire capitalism either. There are some very rich fairly laissez-faire places like Hong Kong, but historically I would think that's due to it being a small magnet for money in a region with few options.

Personally the ability of a totalitarian government to rapidly spur growth doesn't make me want to sign up though. Like you said, perhaps if we were sufficiently underdeveloped it would be attractive. As it is, we're plenty rich and productive and economic freedom is really an important part of quality of life and human dignity.

"We've stolen plenty of resources and enslaved most of the third world, we have a pretty good head start now, no need to share the pillages with the rest of the quote unquote DEVELOPING world."

It must be nice to sit in the lap of luxury and never wonder how or why you got there. Oh yeah your country still has slavery, to this day, within its borders. But sure "things are fine" under capitalism.

To explain my point another way:


But it's not even like that. We are STILL ravaging and stealing resources from the Global South to feed our lifestyle. It's not something that just happened a long time ago. It's ongoing right now and having people like Rex Tillerson in charge of the highest levels of American foreign policy should make it incredibly obvious. You know, the Exxon Mobil global empire that has stolen so much from indigenous people around the world, and caused so many deaths and so much pollution?

Addressed to the anti-communists

I know this post here sounds cray cray and like he's not really paying attention and just jerking his knees, but it's on the same level as just the standard western supporter of "capitalism"/opponent of "communism". Like almost every single "respectable" figure in politics or the media is this blindly tribal.

Anyway einbert, "capitalism is fine" is not a good interpretation of anything I posted.

Rex Tillerson in is out. We now have a tea party scumbag instead of fossil fuel crony.

(My auto correct tried to turn "Rex Tillerson" into "Sex Topless in".)

Derail, but where is your interpretation of Cuban Soviet relations coming from? You've made several digs at Cuba. I was under the impression that economically, the USSR was generous towards Cuba. It's objective was balance of power, not material. When the subsidies halted after 1990, Cuba screamed. I recall Fidel saying something like "now we can tell the truth, Bulgarian buses suck."

In the Eighties, I was one of the people who thought Cuba was a Soviet mercenary army in Angola and Ethiopia, but that was wrong. Cuba had its own, very understandable reasons for intervening. I see Cuban policies as mostly voluntary, not coerced. They rushed to the only power that could protect them from the U.S. They were politically and militarily dependent on Moscow, but the suggestion of economic exploitation is new to me.

BTW, at least into the 1960s Washington was worried at how quickly the Soviet economy grew. The fear was that communism worked. It took awhile to realize that immense steal and concrete industries did not translate into a responsive consumer economy. Travelers to Russia always had people trying to buy their bluejeans off their butts.

Weird to say that I'm taking shots at Cuba when I pretty much listed it as the country where communism has worked for the people.

As far as the military goes, I was under the impression that Castro wanted troops in Africa to support the people he wanted to and not because the USSR wanted them there, but there were 10000 Cubans in Afghanistan in the 80s which I think was pretty mercenary of Cuba.

I was thinking though of more typical imperialism. Now that I'm searching I'm not sure where I got it. I assume Chomsky, but I can't find it. I would have thought it was sugar and when the US stopped buying Cuban sugar the Soviets signed an agreement to buy it from 1965-1970. It was a bad deal for Russia though because world prices dropped during that period and they were stuck (sorta) with a high price. It could have just been for their position as a threat to the US. I really don't think the Soviets were ideological in their foreign policy - Cuba probably was, they had nothing to gain in Angola - but not Russia. They were either looking for military or economic advantages.

Capitalism is essentially about kicking people off the land and forcing them into factories in the cities. The initial conditions in the slums, workhouses, factories and mines were much worse than those on the land. The natural dynamic of capitalism is to limit wage costs, slavery was/is the preferred mode as wage costs are reduced to zero. However it is the conditions created by capitalism that allows for progress, specifically new technology that can eliminate toil and crucially the organising of workers into collective labour. Collective bargaining and forms of action ie strikes and riots are the underpinning of the welfare state. The profits of the empire don't automatically go to the people as a whole in the oppressor nation in other words.

Who says everyone living under capitalism is living in the lap of luxury? Who says all capitalist countries exploit others in the manner that the US could be argued to be doing?

Who says its tribal? Again, personally I have leftist sympathies also. Again when all is said & done, we're all just trying to get by in life. From that perspective, which would you rather live under? I'm against any extremism & Communism falls under that category & has caused untold suffering, even if some or many individual communists have altruistic intentions.

You make comparisons but I don't know of any man made famines under capitalism, such as Holdomor. I never saw the US send its political dissidents (such as Chomsky, who you mentioned earlier) off en masse to gulags. For all its flaws I see fair due process in democratic capitalist nations even if the due process isn't infallible or perfect. I don't see show trials. I've never seen the equivalent of the insanity that was Mao's Cultural Revolution under capitalism. I never saw a brisk trade in harvested organs or practitioners of meditation techniques persecuted, imprisoned & tortured, purely over what was ultimately a power struggle between bigwigs within the upper echelons of the Chinese Communist Party, probably.
I'm anti death penalty but have never seen the US execute 3000 people a year or their courts having a conviction rate of 99.9% (literally not figuratively, just wish to empahsise that) like the People's Courts in China seem to have. Maybe their judicial system is better?

And again I wish to very much make clear that I do think any system, very much including capitalism can do with some serious reforms. I don't think the current brand of capitalism is ultimately tenable in the grand scheme of things & feel there will be very serious social unrest in years to come if it continues the way it is currently. I think it'll get a lot worse before it starts to get better. I don't think we learn from history, as such disproportionate distribution of wealth led to the likes of communism to begin with.

But I still think it's far preferable to Communism even if it needs severe reforms & improvement. I don't think that's being tribal, I think it's simply assessing both systems & deciding which one better suits society & people in general. I'm somewhat bemused this is even up for debate. The internet, the very means that you & I are communicating through is severely curtailed in Communist countries. One should always go with the option that allows more freedom & choice imo.

http://content.time.com/time/magazin...031992,00.html

One of many famines in India, China, Ireland and all over at least partially due to an imperial power.

I've said multiple times that communist countries have a bad record. But it's hard not to argue when you say stuff that's wrong. You're all over the place and it's basically impossible to respond to that and I know from the Making a Murderer thread that you literally can argue the same thing over and over for years so, if I stop relying at all, no offense, but I don't want to be doing this here the rest of my life.