Castro's Dead

rick_chasey

ukiboy wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

Either that or you'll buy me a drink and claim i'm sponging off hard working brits.

Go read a book or two by Marx and come back to me will ya?

Given it's translated in your own mother tongue and he wrote most of it in London.

Edit: is that why you don't like him? Dirty immigrant?

I presume you champion Franscisco Franco too seeing as he presided over the Spanish Miracle, the amazing economic miracle in the '60s?
Or perhaps Mussolini? He was great with making the trains run on time. Or Hitler perhaps. He eliminated unemployment and was responsible for the producing the Autobahns as well as other fantastic infrastructure projects. Or is it just left wing dictators (knobs) that you champion and eulogise?

OK, let's do this.

Which left wing dictator have I championed or eulogised?

Me saying Marx isn't equally as bad as Stalin does not make me a champion of the left.

finchy

ukiboy wrote:

Finchy - extremism of any persuasion is wrong and immoral. My beef is with the left wing arty farty trendy lefty folk who excuse/big up leftism and make out that it's cool or right on.
Left wing dictatorship is every bit as bad as right wing fascism/dictatorship.
Communism has killed lots more people than fascism has..

People are arguing with you because you equate Karl Marx with the likes of Stalin. If you haven't read any of his works, which you clearly haven't, then I can understand why you are blaming him for the crimes committed by in the USSR, China, Cambodia etc., but Marx would have been absolutely disgusted by what went on there.

ukiboy

Cool Ben, I'll happily go for an ale with you as referee as I sup an ale or two with Rick.
And thanks Rick, in your opinion I'm an idiot.
In others opinion I'm not an idiot.
I respect your opinion even though I don't agree with it but that's life..
Let's arrange a hostelry, a date and a time and I'll buy the first beer and then we can put this f*ed up country to rights..

ukiboy

finchy wrote:

ukiboy wrote:

Finchy - extremism of any persuasion is wrong and immoral. My beef is with the left wing arty farty trendy lefty folk who excuse/big up leftism and make out that it's cool or right on.
Left wing dictatorship is every bit as bad as right wing fascism/dictatorship.
Communism has killed lots more people than fascism has..

People are arguing with you because you equate Karl Marx with the likes of Stalin. If you haven't read any of his works, which you clearly haven't, then I can understand why you are blaming him for the crimes committed by in the USSR, China, Cambodia etc., but Marx would have been absolutely disgusted by what went on there.

Ok, I admit that I haven't read any of his works but I equate communism with the same butchery and inhumanity that the Nazi's inflicted on the world. Lenin & Stalin inflicted the same butchery on the world that Hitler did. And their doctrine came from Marx surely?

ukiboy

My family and descendants suffered every bit as much from the actions of the communists as they did from the fascists.

finchy

ukiboy wrote:

finchy wrote:

ukiboy wrote:

Finchy - extremism of any persuasion is wrong and immoral. My beef is with the left wing arty farty trendy lefty folk who excuse/big up leftism and make out that it's cool or right on.
Left wing dictatorship is every bit as bad as right wing fascism/dictatorship.
Communism has killed lots more people than fascism has..

People are arguing with you because you equate Karl Marx with the likes of Stalin. If you haven't read any of his works, which you clearly haven't, then I can understand why you are blaming him for the crimes committed by in the USSR, China, Cambodia etc., but Marx would have been absolutely disgusted by what went on there.

Ok, I admit that I haven't read any of his works but I equate communism with the same butchery and inhumanity that the Nazi's inflicted on the world. Lenin & Stalin inflicted the same butchery on the world that Hitler did. And their doctrine came from Marx surely?

Marx's main idea was that history is best understood as a series of class-based antagonisms, and that the main conflict under capitalism is between capitalists (owners) and the proletariat (workers). He believed that crises of capitalism would occur more and more regularly until a point arrives at which capitalism is in permanent crisis, and the workers, unless able to effect change through voting, would have no choice but to revolt. His doctrine was for the workers to take over the means of production, so that a classless society would develop, as there would no longer be a distinction between workers and owners. Basically, what he wanted was an economy built on cooperative workplaces.

Marx was certainly not the person you believe him to be. A couple of quotes from his writings for you on the subject of personal freedom:

Marx and Engels wrote:

In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.

Marx and Engels wrote:

We are not among those communists who are out to destroy personal liberty, who wish to turn the world into one huge barrack or into a gigantic workhouse. There certainly are some communists who, with an easy conscience, refuse to countenance personal liberty and would like to shuffle it out of the world because they consider that it is a hindrance to complete harmony. But we have no desire to exchange freedom for equality. We are convinced that in no social order will freedom be assured as in a society based upon communal ownership.

Lenin took Marx's ideas, but because Russia had not at that point developed a sizeable working class (remaining instead a predominantly agricultural society), a communist revolution was not possible. He therefore developed his own doctrine, called Marxism-Leninism (also known as vanguard socialism). This was based on the idea that following a revolution, the state could act as if it were the capitalist class, and develop the conditions necessary for a communist revolution to occur. The problem being that when a vanguard government takes power, they don't want to cede power. So whereas Marx wanted the state to eventually wither away and for power to be dispersed among the workers, the Stalinists, Maoists, etc. simply concentrated as much power into their own hands as possible, and claimed to rule on behalf of the workers (and any worker who objected would be shot).

Incidentally, my wife is from Slovakia and her grandfathers were both sent to the gulags for several years, so you don't need to tell me about the horrors of Stalinism.

pinno

Ballysmate wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92vV3QGagck

Confucius say: "Name go in book". Priceless.

DeVlaeminck

finchy wrote:

The problem being that when a vanguard government takes power, they don't want to cede power. So whereas Marx wanted the state to eventually wither away and for power to be dispersed among the workers, the Stalinists, Maoists, etc. simply concentrated as much power into their own hands as possible, and claimed to rule on behalf of the workers (and any worker who objected would be shot).

Very similar to some cycling club committees.

Stevo_666

DeVlaeminck wrote:

finchy wrote:

The problem being that when a vanguard government takes power, they don't want to cede power. So whereas Marx wanted the state to eventually wither away and for power to be dispersed among the workers, the Stalinists, Maoists, etc. simply concentrated as much power into their own hands as possible, and claimed to rule on behalf of the workers (and any worker who objected would be shot).

Very similar to some cycling club committees.

And some internet forums.

rjsterry

finchy wrote:

ukiboy wrote:

finchy wrote:

ukiboy wrote:

Finchy - extremism of any persuasion is wrong and immoral. My beef is with the left wing arty farty trendy lefty folk who excuse/big up leftism and make out that it's cool or right on.
Left wing dictatorship is every bit as bad as right wing fascism/dictatorship.
Communism has killed lots more people than fascism has..

People are arguing with you because you equate Karl Marx with the likes of Stalin. If you haven't read any of his works, which you clearly haven't, then I can understand why you are blaming him for the crimes committed by in the USSR, China, Cambodia etc., but Marx would have been absolutely disgusted by what went on there.

Ok, I admit that I haven't read any of his works but I equate communism with the same butchery and inhumanity that the Nazi's inflicted on the world. Lenin & Stalin inflicted the same butchery on the world that Hitler did. And their doctrine came from Marx surely?

Marx's main idea was that history is best understood as a series of class-based antagonisms, and that the main conflict under capitalism is between capitalists (owners) and the proletariat (workers). He believed that crises of capitalism would occur more and more regularly until a point arrives at which capitalism is in permanent crisis, and the workers, unless able to effect change through voting, would have no choice but to revolt. His doctrine was for the workers to take over the means of production, so that a classless society would develop, as there would no longer be a distinction between workers and owners. Basically, what he wanted was an economy built on cooperative workplaces.

Marx was certainly not the person you believe him to be. A couple of quotes from his writings for you on the subject of personal freedom:

Marx and Engels wrote:

In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.

Marx and Engels wrote:

We are not among those communists who are out to destroy personal liberty, who wish to turn the world into one huge barrack or into a gigantic workhouse. There certainly are some communists who, with an easy conscience, refuse to countenance personal liberty and would like to shuffle it out of the world because they consider that it is a hindrance to complete harmony. But we have no desire to exchange freedom for equality. We are convinced that in no social order will freedom be assured as in a society based upon communal ownership.

Lenin took Marx's ideas, but because Russia had not at that point developed a sizeable working class (remaining instead a predominantly agricultural society), a communist revolution was not possible. He therefore developed his own doctrine, called Marxism-Leninism (also known as vanguard socialism). This was based on the idea that following a revolution, the state could act as if it were the capitalist class, and develop the conditions necessary for a communist revolution to occur. The problem being that when a vanguard government takes power, they don't want to cede power. So whereas Marx wanted the state to eventually wither away and for power to be dispersed among the workers, the Stalinists, Maoists, etc. simply concentrated as much power into their own hands as possible, and claimed to rule on behalf of the workers (and any worker who objected would be shot).

Incidentally, my wife is from Slovakia and her grandfathers were both sent to the gulags for several years, so you don't need to tell me about the horrors of Stalinism.

And yet for all the negative aspects of the Soviet state, there appears to be quite a widespread nostalgia for it in Russia.

finchy

^^^ Not many people alive today would have lived through its worst times. The Soviet Union of the 1970s and 1980s was a very different beast to the Soviet Union of the 1930s.

bompington

finchy wrote:

^^^ Not many people alive today would have lived through its worst times.

Quite a lot of people alive then didn't manage to live through its worst times

finchy

bompington wrote:

finchy wrote:

^^^ Not many people alive today would have lived through its worst times.

Quite a lot of people alive then didn't manage to live through its worst times

Indeed, and a lesson in why we should avoid concentrating power into the hands of a tiny elite. Wars being another reminder.

rjsterry

bompington wrote:

finchy wrote:

^^^ Not many people alive today would have lived through its worst times.

Quite a lot of people alive then didn't manage to live through its worst times

Undoubtedly. But a degree of authoritarianism still seems to be popular, in Russia and elsewhere. Granted that enthusiasm is always for a crackdown that affects someone other than the enthusiast.

tangled_metal

The title of the thread makes me think of wizard of oz where IIRC they sing something like "hey ho the witch is dead ". Swap witch for Castro and you've got the sentiments of Cuban exiles and others.

finchy

rjsterry wrote:

bompington wrote:

finchy wrote:

^^^ Not many people alive today would have lived through its worst times.

Quite a lot of people alive then didn't manage to live through its worst times

Undoubtedly. But a degree of authoritarianism still seems to be popular, in Russia and elsewhere. Granted that enthusiasm is always for a crackdown that affects someone other than the enthusiast.

I don't know if it's the authoritarianism which is popular, or the sense of protection. There is a lot of economic insecurity in these places, and when I lived in Hungary and Slovakia, people did often mention that they felt as if they could be plunged into poverty at any minute. The more authoritarian leaders who have come to the fore in the past few years have at least tried to address these problems.

bompington

Tangled Metal wrote:

The title of the thread makes me think of wizard of oz where IIRC they sing something like "hey ho the witch is dead ". Swap witch for Castro and you've got the sentiments of Cuban exiles and others.

Yeah, you can't imagine anything like that happening on the death of a famous British leader, can you? I mean, that would be so ridiculous, wouldn't it?

finchy

Lots of fuss made over Castro's death, let's see what happens next time some human rights loving Middle Eastern sheikh dies and our political leaders decide that they couldn't possibly miss his funeral.

rjsterry

finchy wrote:

rjsterry wrote:

bompington wrote:

finchy wrote:

^^^ Not many people alive today would have lived through its worst times.

Quite a lot of people alive then didn't manage to live through its worst times

Undoubtedly. But a degree of authoritarianism still seems to be popular, in Russia and elsewhere. Granted that enthusiasm is always for a crackdown that affects someone other than the enthusiast.

I don't know if it's the authoritarianism which is popular, or the sense of protection. There is a lot of economic insecurity in these places, and when I lived in Hungary and Slovakia, people did often mention that they felt as if they could be plunged into poverty at any minute. The more authoritarian leaders who have come to the fore in the past few years have at least tried to address these problems.

I think there's definitely something in that. Uncertainty makes people afraid and authoritarianism does provide certainty.

tangled_metal

bompington wrote:

Tangled Metal wrote:

The title of the thread makes me think of wizard of oz where IIRC they sing something like "hey ho the witch is dead ". Swap witch for Castro and you've got the sentiments of Cuban exiles and others.

Yeah, you can't imagine anything like that happening on the death of a famous British leader, can you? I mean, that would be so ridiculous, wouldn't it?

They didn't even change the words for Thatcher.

ballysmate

A sure sign of how magnificent she was. Tormenting lefties from beyond the grave.

tangled_metal

Ballysmate wrote:

A sure sign of how magnificent she was. Tormenting lefties from beyond the grave.

Never thought of it that way. She was great wasn't she! I'd be curious as to how well Corbyn would have stood if they'd both been leaders in their prime at the same time stood across the dispatch during PMQs? I'm certain I'd end up feeling sorry for Corbyn!

The lefties great tormentor from beyond the grave. Thanks for that idea. It makes me feel better when read the all the vitriolic comments about her. It's a sign they lost big time against her. Their weakness not hers.

bompington

Maggie wrote:

I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.