[What Drealoth forgot to mention is that he's a supporter of the Canadian Green Party. G'bye. – NS]
[Skanderbeg adds: Well, I came late to the party.
But I dare the meathead who created this diary to go to Albania and give his schpiel.
What would be left of him would be so atomized that the worms wouldn't even have to chew.
This is the usual claptrap - that "Marxism" was never really tried, was bastardized by Lenin, Stalin, and Mao, and that Marx was really a social genius who explained everything.
The reality is that Marx was a fringe idiot who wrote about things he knew nothing about. He never set foot inside a factory or a real workplace (hmm, sound familiar?), and clearly had a troubled relationship with reality.
Marx imbibed the 19th century foolishness that got in everywhere - of "borrowing" Carnot's description of steam engines and the basic principles of near-equilibrium thermodynamics. This gave fools the veneer of "science" in their own inferior minds.
"A communist is someone who reads Marx and Lenin. An anti-communist is someone who understands Marx and Lenin." – Ronald Reagan]
Barack Obama has been frequently called a Marxist, and although perhaps not entirely undeserved, I think that many people view Stalinism (and by extension Maoism) and Marxism as interchangeable, a misconception which bothers me greatly. My great grandparents fled starvation from Stalinist USSR, and so I feel uneasy when I hear someone call Obama a communist – not because I agree with him in any way, I must add (read my profile to start to understand this strange grey matter of mine) – but because I feel I have some roots in “true” communism.
So my goal here is to clear up what Marxism is, and perhaps later I will post about my understanding of Stalinism and Maoism. Of course, this is my understanding of it, so correct me as needed.
Marxism 101:
In spite of my history, I have to admit that Karl Marx (1818-1883) was a smart man. He was, in many ways, a psychologist. His theory was thus:
Marx saw that wealth was being shifted upward. He saw the wealthy, generally educated and with strong family connections, as hiring the uneducated proletariat to create value (through manufacturing consumer goods), and the wealthy as taking a disproportionate amount of the goods and generally taking advantage of these people. He saw that people created more value than was necessary for them to survive, with most of the excess being taken by the upper class. Eventually, he said, the people would get fed up and form unions as a way of taking back the power. The catch was that these people had no choice but to work, with the alternative to work being a slow death in abject poverty, and so these unions were a way for the proletariat to take back control. This, he argued, was a response to the workers feeling of alienation from the upper class, the feeling that the wealthy were overwhelmingly born into their wealth and that there was no way for them to obtain it.
Thank you for reading my post. I know that this is a touchy subject, and I hope to be as non-partisan as possible (and hopefully to inform rather than enrage), and so please do not interpret this as trolling or the like. I must also emphasize that this is how Karl Marx interpreted communism, not how it was implemented by Stalin or Mao or the scores of other villains of history.
Some thoughts:
1. Is Marx wrong in his interpretation of the causes? That is, is the upward shift in wealth real, and a problem for a capitalist society? How can we deal with this?
2. Where does the middle class fit into Marx’s theory?
3. There is an undeniable shift toward socialism in today’s society. What is the cause of this section of society’s malcontent?
4. Stalin – Great Leader, or GREATEST Leader?
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Your diary is filled with so much crap one doesn't even know where to begin...
JadedByPolitics (Diary) Friday, September 4th at 9:25PM EST (link)so I will just address these “smart” men you speak of. In my opinion and again its just mine those “smart” men WANTED what the rich had and they didn’t WANT to work for it. They USED class warfare to exact their own wealth. They created “buzzwords” and “hypothesizes” to MANIPULATE those who worked for their living.
The so called rich in your diary had to have MADE that money at sometime in their history with which to give to their offspring. The FACTS that define America is that the streets are paved with gold for ANYONE who gets up goes to work and puts in a hard days work and ANYONE can be RICH when they come up with something that everyone else wants. The fact that you think DICTATORS who were THIEVES were smart shows your lack of intellectual comprehension.
We Conservatives recognize that those failed experiments at class warfare which made those leaders RICH and FAT and DISGUSTING and MURDEROUS to achieve their goals will NEVER work in our country. This country will not survive if we allow the political class to continue to STEAL the money from our wallets and Obama is a MIX of all your “smart” DICTATORS. It is unfortunate for him that he was born to lead in the 21st century because he won’t get his opportunity to become a DICTATOR.
You see I did not nor would I have to address the “intelligence” or the ideology of your beloved leaders because when all of the emperors clothes are removed each and everyone of them to a man was nothing more than a THIEF!
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This is exactly what I wanted to clear up
drealoth (Diary) Sunday, September 6th at 1:19AM EST (link)Marx was not a dictator. He was an academic. He wrote about his political theories, and what he saw as flaws in capitalism. And while I do not agree with him, he was quite intelligent – he spoke several languages, he predicted labour unions 100 years before they started to form, and many of his attacks on capitalism are still political issues today (which says that as a psychologist, he was quite apt).
Stalin, on the other hand, was a dictator. He was also born five years before Marx died, and Marx never even knew of his existence. Yes, Stalin was a terrible person. He caused the deaths of millions of people. My whole point was to get people to stop confusing the two.
I am a supporter of the Canadian Green Party, but forgot to mention that when I came here to troll around.
Our founders had good table manners, spoke many languages,
blooch Sunday, September 6th at 2:44AM EST (link)and accurately predicted many of the things people would do in the future. They even made special provision for these eventualities in our Constitution. Leaders who never even knew our founding fathers, yet choose to emulate our Constitution, generally find themselves running peaceful, prosperous, free societies.
Leaders who emulate Marx and ascribe to his philosophy always end up killing enslaving and impoverishing their people and other people.
Nobody here is confusing Stalin with Marx. They both suck. The only confused person here is the one who thinks that somebody will come along to get it right and vindicate Marx.
“Lieutenant Dike wasn’t a bad leader because he made bad decisions. He was a bad leader because he made no decisions.”
which is fine
drealoth (Diary) Sunday, September 6th at 9:30AM EST (link)They were without a doubt an incredibly smart people too. One can be intelligent and wrong. Take Isaac Newton, for example – brilliant individual, yet in light of Einstein, his theories on gravitation turned out to be completely incorrect. He was not a nice person, either, apparently incredibly vain and quite a jerk. Yet he was completely brilliant.
I’m only vindicating Marx in so far as trying to clear up who he actually was. Between Mao and Stalin alone, communism has caused the deaths of well over 100 million people. World War II, in contrast, resulted in approximately 50 million deaths (counting Allied, Axis and civilian deaths). I bet that 95% of the people out there could not describe the differences between Marx, Lenin and Stalin, nor any of their major arguments for communism or against capitalism. And these people are the enemy, and they are unfortunately lumped together as one and labeled “Communists” and “Evil” and then ignored.
I firmly believe that you must know your enemy to fight them and win, and that you must recognize that while you may be right, attributing their wrongness to inferior intelligence is nothing but hubris.
I am a supporter of the Canadian Green Party, but forgot to mention that when I came here to troll around.
Why are you here?
blooch Sunday, September 6th at 10:25AM EST (link)I mean, other than to give me sig lines?
We don’t like Communists or Communism–lite or with heavy whipping cream; big moustache or little moustache; bearded or clean-shaven; Mikhail Gorbachev-brilliant or Cynthia McKinney-stupid; Ortega-stylish or Hoxha-drab.
99.9% of the people *here* can tell you the difference between Marx, Lenin and Stalin. The other .01% are trolls. Some of us have been in Communist countries, stayed in their hovels, gagged on their food and choked on their air.
If 95% of the people *out there* cannot describe the differences between Marx, Lenin and Stalin, then whose fault is that?
You need to be out there, not here.
“Lieutenant Dike wasn’t a bad leader because he made bad decisions. He was a bad leader because he made no decisions.”
That is not true
drealoth (Diary) Sunday, September 6th at 10:45AM EST (link)Time and time again, people get it wrong – on Red State, the numbers seem to be the same. JadedByPolitics thought that Marx was a dictator; are you are calling him a troll?
I am not trying to offend you, I am not making an argument in favor of communism, I am just trying to clear up what communism is so that we can better address it. I do not understand why you take offense to this.
And why am I here? For one, this site is quite good at bringing up names and issues of more local Republicans (and others) than the mainstream media covers, so I can have a better grasp of what’s really going on. And people here generally have pretty good thoughts on politics, but more importantly are passionate about the issues that they care about, so there are some pretty good (and intense!) discussions.
And well, we all need signature lines.
I am a supporter of the Canadian Green Party, but forgot to mention that when I came here to troll around.
Jeeze, are you ever on the wrong site.
Vegas_Rick (Diary) Friday, September 4th at 9:44PM EST (link)1. Yes. No. We don’t “deal with it”.
2. Who gives a crap?
3. Ignorant laziness and an entitlement mentality.
4. POS!
Go away lefty.
“God is great, beer is good and people are crazy.”- Billy Currington
“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘press on’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.” Calvin Coolidge.
lefty
drealoth (Diary) Sunday, September 6th at 1:26AM EST (link)This was not an opinion piece. This is what the basis of Marxism is. Whether you agree or disagree with Marx is unimportant, you cannot argue that this is not what Marxism is.
And I am right handed, thank you very much.
I am a supporter of the Canadian Green Party, but forgot to mention that when I came here to troll around.
Thanks, drealoth
blooch Friday, September 4th at 10:04PM EST (link)for my new sig line.
And the ham thing. I missed that one the first time around.
“Lieutenant Dike wasn’t a bad leader because he made bad decisions. He was a bad leader because he made no decisions.”
"Stalin - Great Leader, or GREATEST Leader?"
TNJim (Diary) Friday, September 4th at 10:10PM EST (link)And you want us to then not interpret this as trolling or the like?
Too late.
It was a joke
drealoth (Diary) Sunday, September 6th at 1:21AM EST (link)In the USSR, these were your two choices. Political dissent was greeted with a bullet.
I am a supporter of the Canadian Green Party, but forgot to mention that when I came here to troll around.
Bone up people; if you can't argue with Marx, don't argue.
Achance (Diary) Sunday, September 6th at 2:56AM EST (link)These people are not stupid, they’re no ignorant; the just have a very different view from yours. I’ve dealt with lots of very smart and well trained communists. You really, really want to understand how they think; they’re not stupid.
In Vino Veritas
Marxism is about placing people into classes.
Brian Hibbert (Diary) Sunday, September 6th at 9:50AM EST (link)With the assumption that people are forever part of the class that they were born into. It’s a condition that doesn’t exist in this country and doesn’t exist in most countries today.
In this country, a person can move up and down the wealth ladder depending on the talent they have, the resources they have available and how they choose to use the same.
Marxism is evil because it assumes that the state can be altruistic even though it requires oppressive means to function. It assumes that people will continue to work hard even though they get no reward for that work. It assumes that people will take care of property that they don’t own. It assumes that government officials can correctly decide what needs produced and how it should be produced. It assumes that people are perfect.
Capitalism and freedom work because they don’t require perfect people to function. People acting in their own interest will contribute to the good of all even though that may not be their intent.
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Socialism doesn’t work. It looks nice on paper, but it’s been tried and it’s failed miserably every time (usually accompanied by widespread death and suffering).
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Neil Stevens (Diary) Sunday, September 6th at 10:55AM EST (link)Weird.
The embattled President must be losing so much American support that foreigners are all he’s got.
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