I joined the Communist Party

Originally posted by ElectricUniverse
reply to post by nenothtu

 

The leaders who are trying to "revive" and interest in socialism and communism are using the same old tactics of lying, and sugar coating everything about socialism and communism to lure, and trap the unsuspecting.

The fact about socialism/communism is this. YOUR LIFE HAS NO VALUE WHATSOEVER. The state/the revolution come first, and the individuals should be more than willing to give their lives to the state/the revolution.

That's exactly right. The "sugar coating" is the theory they are being fed through their reading, and as theory goes, there isn't anything unpalateable about it. It's all sweet and sugary. Then, when it's actually put into practice, the centralization and authoritarianism needed to make it function at all is how it really shakes out in the real world.

It's a switcheroo - they sell the theory, and deliver the practice. They do that by inserting the magic word "democracy". "Democracy" allows them to woo all the theoreticians into a false sense of security, and deliver everything up to the State. "Democracy" allows them to promote the fiction that the power of the people is actually vested in the state. After all, the people all get a vote, they all have a say, they are directly determining their own course! it's a Democracy!

Then, once they get the people to deliver their political power to the state via the democratic vote, and their means of production to the state via "worker ownership" - after all, the people have a democracy and own the state, and therefore anything the state owns is actually a trust on behalf of the workers, right? - the workers suddenly discover that THEY are state-owned, too, because the state is controlling everything that insures their freedom, survival, and well being.

THEN the accusations set in that "it's not real communism - it doesn't follow the theory!"

No, it's real all right - it's where the theory leads when people allow themselves to be duped like that, and allow that "democracy" switcheroo to be pulled over them.

Always remember -when you vote on anything, you are voting to give your own power to someone else, because it is the someone else you vote for who will actually be exercising it. It doesn't matter whether you are voting on a government or a board of directors or just the supervisor of the week - you are STILL voting to give your own power to someone else who will then exercise it. The only power you wield for yourself in that scenario is the power to cast a vote to give your own power away.

====================================================

When you were speaking of shortages, it reminded me. In Nicaragua, I think it was in 1982, about 3 years after the revolution, there was a toilet paper shortage. They had a bunch of US college students fly in, sponsored by the government, to tour the country and see what great things were wrought by the revolution. The government had a hard time round up enough toilet paper to supply the students with enough that they wouldn't find out about the shortage. All of the people they were allowed to interact with and question as to quality of life were hand-picked, in specific hand picked areas.

meanwhile, in Departmento Zelaya, renamed "Regio Autonoma Altlantico del Norte", they were destroying Miskito Indian villages and "relocating" the Miskitos to place where the state thought they would be more useful as labor for the revolution. Some would escape and hide out in the jungle, because they didn't want to leave their homes,and then come back out after the troops were gone and re-inhabit the villages, so the government took to the expedient of razing the villages to the ground so that there was nothing to come back to.

The Miskitos fled en masse to Honduras across the Rio Wanks (Rio Coco to Americans) and set up refugee camps. Those displaced Miskito, Sumo, and Rama Indians, together with a few dispossessed former Guardia Nacionale troopers, formed the core of the villified Contras. I have to wonder what some of the "good socialists" in support of the revolution and against the very idea of Contras would have done if it was THEIR houses and towns razed to the ground, if it was THEIR crops destroyed.

That, sir, is the grim reality versus the pretty theory of the Glorious Workers' Revolution. It was all done via revolution and a promised "democracy".

Originally posted by ANOK

The US started the communist BS after Cuba ousted Batista and the American corruption going on there. The US called them communist because when the US refused to do business with them they turned to Russia, and did business with them instead. The US responded by placing embargoes, which is the reason they are poor not communism lol.

It was never a communist revolution, it was once again a nationalist revolution.

You are right in saying that it was not supposed to be a communist revolution, but wrong in saying that it was the US who "started the communist BS" It was CASTRO who started tie communist BS. He sought US aid for his fledgeling government, and the US said "NO!", so he declared for communism in 1961 or 1962, and sought aid from Russia instead.

Read "Guerrilla Warfare" by Che Guevara, along with the 1961 additions and the explanations of the aftermath of the revolution. I can e-mail you a copy if you've not got one handy.

Originally posted by ThirdEyeofHorus
reply to post by nenothtu

 

The same centralization is currently ongoing in the US right now, at this very moment

Yes exactly! And that's why it is completely outrageous that the Left and the Democrats are trying to pretend that Obama is a right winger, but it's almost funny in a way.

But that centralization is not a "right wing" or a "left wing" thing - it can be, and frequently is, seized from either end, whichever is closest to the one doing the seizing. This is why the left claims Obama is "right wing", and the right claims that their people are lurching to the left. ALL of them are in reality scrambling towards greater centralization. We already have a centralized bank, and the federal government is seizing more power and centralizing it in DC daily.

BOTH sides are doing it, and each side is trying to blame the other.

meanwhile, while the left and the right are trying to levy blame on each other, the politicians are laughing all the way to the centralized bank.

This thread is getting so repetitive, seems some people can't even understand the most basic of facts about communism.

I don't know how many times its been shown that russia, cuba etc. were NOT communist countries.

Still people come on here and make the same old quips with the same smug conviction and just make themselves look foolish.

reply to post by polarwarrior


Claimed, not shown, claimed. Claiming a frog is really an amphibian doesn't make it not a frog, and claiming that national communism is really "nationalism" doesn't make it not communism.

The specific mechanism by which communist theory is put into "nationalist" reality via "democracy" has been expounded upon, and can most certainly be verified through examination, It has gone that same route every single time it has been implemented, yet I'm sure there are those who will still stand on their textbooks to appear taller, and shout at the people living in the muck that they are not really at the end of where the theory, once started, has always and every time led to.

Originally posted by ElectricUniverse

Originally posted by INDOMITABLE
...
The reason is because I stumbled upon a verse in the Bible that spoke about when you are in heaven you will receive everything you sow. It basically said when you sow, you will sow only for yourself. There are verses that speak very badly about someone who reaps where he doesn't sow.
...

in communism you don't sow what you reap... What you reap is CLAIMED to be for the community, but in fact it is mostly used to keep the Communist Party in power, or by spreading communism by force to other nations. You see, "spreading the revolution worldwide" is more important than the individual, and more important that feeding the people properly...

At the age of 11 or 12 years old every child in Cuba has to work for free for the STATE "for the good of the revolution" and for about 45 days, children work on what are labor camps. They get diseases from the conditions of where they live and how they must harvest. The water in those areas is no treated which alongside the lack of food causes for these children to have all sorts of stomach conditions.

My sisters always came back thin as sticks, my lice in their hair, in Cuba you use vinegar to kill lice and ticks and such, and vinegar is expensive.

Cuba IS a communist state... Remember what EVERY communist/socialists, including Marx said about "owning private property... Under socialism/communism NO ONE OWNS ANYTHING... Hence when a communist tells you that "the workers will own the means of production" it actually means that the STATE will own the emans of production "in the name of the workers"...

You have to read the small print you can find in socialist/communist writtings to understand what it really is...

edit on 15-6-2012 by ElectricUniverse because: (no reason given)

You fail to grasp the concept of the workers owning the means of production and being paid based on what they produce. You truly either need to try harder, or just quit.

This is a strange thing. There are some ideas that I could understand family members objecting to if the ideas were hateful or evil enough. Communism while it certainly has it's limitations in success and practicality does not appear hateful or evil. The idea is a solid and moral one despite it's practical failure in the real world. What planet do you have to be on to disown your children or divorce your spouse over a difference in political ideals? Joining the communist party isn't going to change the way you live on a day to day basis or change the way you treat the people you love. You'd need to be either a: a rabid political extremest or b: a mindless sheep to allow this kind of thing affect your personal relationships.

Originally posted by ElectricUniverse

Originally posted by krossfyter


sorry im not a communist. im here trying to learn. i realize from all this dialogue going on back and forth is that ANOK and the OP have behaved very civil towards everyone but most of the rest havent returned in kind. speaks volumes.
...

ANOK hasn't been so kind as you claim... And btw, if you had actually lived and experienced life under socialism/communism perhaps then you will understand why people like me fight so hard against people who keep lying through their teeths like ANOK about socialism/communism...

Please tell us of your experience owning the means of production and being paid based on what you produce. I am all ears.

reply to post by brukernavn


When people can't accept your political perspective to the point of attacking you it's because they're really not sure of what they proclaim to believe in.

If someone is secure in their beliefs, then they shouldn't care what you believe in. And I say this as someone who rejects Communism and finds its historical record to be abhorrent.

But if you believe in it and don't espouse violence in support of it, then I say to hell with your family and friends.

Originally posted by nenothtu

Originally posted by brukernavn

There has never been a country which practices communism (workers owning the means of production), hence I cannot have experienced such. Try harder next time.

The party line is always that the workers DO own the means of production, because the government owns them, and being generally described as a "democracy", the people own the government and run it, therefore owning everything the government owns.

That has always been the explanation for "worker ownership of the means of production" in every actual communist theoretical democracy that has so far ever existed. going by their logic, there's not a flaw in the theory of it, the flaw is in the implementation.

I agree with you entirely. Things need to be reworked. The people cannot own the means of production through the state. The state is always bad, no matter what. I believe that the people should own the means of production themselves, not through the state.

Originally posted by ElectricUniverse
reply to post by nenothtu

 

A majority of people, including Americans, who join socialist/communist groups really have no idea of what they are doing.

The leaders who are trying to "revive" and interest in socialism and communism are using the same old tactics of lying, and sugar coating everything about socialism and communism to lure, and trap the unsuspecting.

The fact about socialism/communism is this. YOUR LIFE HAS NO VALUE WHATSOEVER. The state/the revolution come first, and the individuals should be more than willing to give their lives to the state/the revolution.

The people, and that is NO ONE, owns anything. If the state/the Communist Party gets a petition of a Communist Party member official who is higher ranking that he likes your house, you must surrender your house, and you will be sold a small house. Even if you parent, and grand-parents built the house by hand it doens't belong to you anymore. It belongs to the state/to the party/to the revolution... If the state/the Communist Party decides that another family should live in your house they can take it away and put you to live in a smaller house that you have to pay...

The people do not decide what is done with the infraestructure, and the goods, the state does, and it decides how much food people can eat, and what food you can eat, and of course you have to pay for all of it.

"the claim that Everyone is equal" means that you as a "good socialist/communist" will accept the hard changes that come unders socialist dictatorships. You will be forced to live CONSTANTLY under rationing of food and products. Most products and food produced in the land are sent, or sold to other nations where "the revolution is spread" which is why most people under socialist/communist regime don't get enough to eat.

You see, under socialism/communism, the "revolution and the party" are more important than ANY individual, and as such there is no such thing as individual rights.

You see, since under socialism/communism EVERYONE IS EQUALLY POOR, the state doesn't make enough money from the people, hence most harvests are used to sell abroad to countries like Canada where Cuban cigars can be bought in Canada for i don't know $50 -$70 U.S. dollars?... while they are sold for maybe $5 -$10 dollars, and THE STATE gets to keep that money.

Free education under socialist/communist regimes means that the students are indoctrinated/brainwashed into believing that socialism/communism is the greatest thing in the world, and that capitalists are everywhere trying to kill them all at any time...

In fact in Cuba there is no free education, and no free healthcare, simply because every children starting from 11 - 12 years old must work in hard labor camps for the state, and for free, EVERY SUMMER FOR THE REST OF HIS/HER LIFE until that person graduates and that "supposedly pays for education and healthcare"...

In Cuba there are two kinds of hospitals. There are the regular hospital for regular Cubans which lack pretty much everything, including medical gloves, you must bring your blankets, sheets, and pillow, because there are none in any hospital, or the ones you find you don't want to use.

Because "the revolution" must be spread around the world EVERYONE must accept the rations, which means you only get to eat the abre minimum, IF you have the money to pay for it, and even thn you won't be able to buy many things because they are very expensive.

I still have family in Cuba, two sisters, a grand-mother, cousins, aunts, and uncles, and my parents and I have to send them medicine, and clothing, as well as money whenever we are able so they can find ways to buy food. There are stores in Cuba where ONLY U.S. dollars allow you to buy things. In many of these stores most Cubans are not allowed, unless a family member visiting the island but who reside in another country takes them there.

Here are some videos about the condicions of hospitals in Cuba. The same things happens in EVERY socialist/communist nation...

WARNING SOME OF THESE IMAGES ARE OF REAL PEOPLE WITH WOUNDS AND THE CONDITIONS OF HOW THEY LIVE IN HOSPITALS IN CUBA FOR REGULAR CUBANS.

These videos for the most part are in Spanish, but you can see the REAL conditions of Cubans under a REAL socialist/communist regime.

This video shows the bad conditions on the outside of the Miguel Enriquez Hospital, in Havana. Another Cuban hospital for regular Cubans.

edit on 16-6-2012 by ElectricUniverse because: (no reason given)

I feel so horrible when I see some of the things that come out of Cuba. If only they practiced communism...

Originally posted by ElectricUniverse

Originally posted by krossfyter
...
there is a flaw in the implementation of everything correct?

Yeah...what a COINCIDENCE that EVERY TIME socialism/communism is implemented it ENDS ON THE SAME THING... Another cocialist dictatorship...

edit on 16-6-2012 by ElectricUniverse because: (no reason given)

Which is why I would never vote for a communist. Communism is the most appealing system, when you see what it truly is. Therefore, these horrible dictators use the premise of it to get elected and screw the people once elected.

Originally posted by ElectricUniverse

Originally posted by brukernavn

In the USSR, China, North Korea, and Cuba the workers own/owned the means of production? Link please.

Like always, you seem to forget that the ROAD to the final goal of communism "supposedly is long"... There are many stages, even within communism, which makes many countries COMMUNIST/socialist despite them not reaching some of the claims made by Marx...

If you ask the Cuban elite, and even someCubans off the street, they will tell you the means of production is owned by the people, but the state, "for the good of the people", decides what to do with the means of production...

Yes, the U.S.S.R. China, North Korea and Cuba are/were communist... Now the Soviet union is becoming something else...

BTW, no matter how many times you, and other socialist/communists, who really know nothing about socialism/communism, want to claim that these countries were/are not "socialist/communist" doesn't make it true...

It is EXTREMELY telling and funny how socialists/communists love to claim the U.S. is completely capitalist, even thou a FREE MARKET HASN"T EXISTED IN THE UNITED STATES FOR A LONG TIME... Yet despite this they keep calling the U.S. as "capitalist" and "imperialist"...

But isn't it ironic that because they want to "play semantics" with socialism/communism they WANT TO CLAIM socialism/communism has not been tried when this is not true?...

IF socialism/communism has never been tried, then capitalism has never existed...

Oh and btw, corporations don't own everything either... The United States, nor other western countries are not being governned for the benefit of corporations either... You want to "play" semantics right?...

edit on 16-6-2012 by ElectricUniverse because: (no reason given)

If the state decides what is best, then does not the state own the means of production and not the people? The Soviet Union is becoming something else? It still exists? Link please. I have said that the US is "completely capitalist"? Link me to where I or ANOK has said that. By the way, when you edit, please explain why, otherwise it makes you look like an ass.

Originally posted by ElectricUniverse

Originally posted by brukernavn

No, it is not funny. In fact, it is extremely sad. These dictators run under the guise of communism, but in fact they are against it. If they truly were in favour of communism, they would be favour o f worker ownership, not state ownership. Again, your logic fails.

My logic doesn't fail... It is yours that does... AGAIN, tell me, how can the workers own the means of production when NO ONE IS ALLOWED TO OWN ANYTHING?...

If the workers owned the means of production, then it means it is their PROPERTY..., but PROPERTY is abolished under socialism/communism...

You see, you get LURED by lies, but you have to read the fine line to TRY to understand what socialism/communism is...

And btw what is extremely sad is that to this day there are people, who like you, fall for the SAME lies and deception used by socialists/communists of old...

Oh, and BTW there is a BIG difference between IRONIC, and funny...

edit on 16-6-2012 by ElectricUniverse because: (no reason given)

You still have not shown me where in the works it says that a person cannot own a single thing. So, again, your logic fails. If you can show me that it says that, I may have a change of heart. I am open-minded.

Originally posted by ElectricUniverse

Originally posted by brukernavn

In the USSR, China, North Korea, and Cuba the workers own/owned the means of production? Link please.

It is EXTREMELY telling and funny how socialists/communists love to claim the U.S. is completely capitalist, even thou a FREE MARKET HASN"T EXISTED IN THE UNITED STATES FOR A LONG TIME...

You said funny, not ironic. Try again. Please come back with something intelligent. I am getting extremely tired of dealing with your ignorance. I refuse to respond to you from this point onward, until you can link me the things that I have asked to be linked to. Good day.

don't take all of these replies to seriously. most of these people don't have a clear idea of what communism is.

Originally posted by thetruthisoutthere155
don't take all of these replies to seriously. most of these people don't have a clear idea of what communism is.

i never take these replies too seriously. that is baaad form.

do you have a clear idea of what communism is?

reply to post by ElectricUniverse


You can claim all day that the US is not capitalist, but you'd be wrong.

The predominate economic system in the US is capitalism. The majority of industry is privately owned. Capitalism is private ownership of the means of production, not your political system.

It doesn't matter what the political party in power calls itself, if the means of production are privately owned it's a capitalist economy. If the government owns the means of production it's nationalism. If it's the workers it's socialism. What the political party in power calls itself has nothing to do with their economy. Politics and economy are two different things, but TPTB politicize the economy in order to control it on behalf of the capitalist class. The government is mostly made up of people from the capitalist class. They are often the only ones who can afford to go into politics.

There are around 300 worker owned companies in the US, some nationalized services, and millions of privately owned companies.

It is the capitalists at the top of the economic pyramid who have the economic power to control the state. This is why the whole system is set up for you to make profit for someone else.

Capitalists have the economic power in the world right now, most opposition has been eliminated in one way or another. Your political system is liberal, you have a social safety net, your economic system is predominately capitalist.

Originally posted by brukernavn
For those of you whom assumed. I am not american. I am Norwegian. Communism appeals to me because of the belief of the worker having ownership. Communism has never been seen in modern history. I disagree with the works of Marx, Lenin and Mao. I have read them all. The transition phase that they say is necessary has always failed. Once a human has absolute power (dictator), they will never "step down". It is human nature to keep whatever power one holds. I only believe in worker ownership. So much is misconceived, from anti-communist bigotry... I have heard so much of "if you do not want to work, you get the same as those that work." Where the hell does that thinking come from? In a true communist society, you only get what you put in. If you CHOOSE to not work, you get NOTHING. The workers only get what they produce. Is that not common sense? My favourite source of info is Johnny Cash. He grew up under communism in Dyess Arkansas. Read up on how he grew up and the way that they shared in their labor. The most successful places in America are that way because they practiced communism.

edit on 6/12/2012 by brukernavn because: I shall admit it... I misspelt Arkansas

edit on 6/12/2012 by brukernavn because: Damnit, I dit it again

There is a form of communism called stateless communism, which has also been reffered to as a Resource based economy! I was wondering if this is the form of communism you have been refferencing to? Though
there are alot of problems with a society such as this! though I think we can say there are alot of problems with any of our societies especially the Crony capitalism we have running our state today! I think it's no accident the way people condem communism today! ! This is just more propaganda done to maintain the status quo! I
believe that we may need to combine these two ideals to have something akin to both! Where we are not looking for infinite growth or suppression of freedom but something in between!
If we refuse to accept the need for change we will not only use up all the resources but we will also destroy our environment! This may not look so bad for those who only care about themselves, who have no descendants or
don't accept the accessment of the many energy, ecological and social experts who believe we are on a fast track to both use and abuse this world! the same world that gave us the lives we have today!
If this is the case then goodluck to you and whatever future is left! For the rest of us, perception is key to maintaining an open mind! Change is inevitable and the time for that is upon us all but the choice to bring about one that is positive rest with each of us!
God help us to choose wisely!

well said nosacrificenofreedom.