Political Discrimination on ATS

reply to post by seabag

Sorry! I guess I should have read slower.

No problem, seabag. You and I have come to a mutual understanding, and that, as far as I can tell, is what this site is about. Thanks for your efforts to do so.

reply to post by wildtimes

And that is all you needed to say, along with posting your newly discovered 'link'. If you're here only to educate yourself, why are you focusing on critical analysis of me and other members and refuting what I and they have to say?

I am a moderate, not affiliated with either side. Lame post and, for a new member, really audacious.

You just plagiarized my post in a mocking and troll fashion, and that is against the rules, as far as I know. Kindly stop with your assault on me. I acknowledged your earlier posts and thanked you for the feedback. Find someone else to attack.

I'm not focusing on critical analysis of you. I'm focusing on critical analysis of everything I read, regardless of the source. The alternative, to accept someone else's position as fact without applying critical analysis, is unacceptable to me. You replied to my earlier post. Am I not entitled to a rebuttal? I am refuting what you had to say because I disagree. When you disagree with someone during a discussion you can either:

A) Attempt to refute the premise
B) Do nothing

I chose A, becaue B is no fun at all.

As far as lameness goes I think mocking my sign-up date is a bit lame and, for an experienced member, really audacious.

Attacking you? WOW. I shudder to think what your reaction would be if someone actually attacked you.

reply to post by Slugworth

You replied to my earlier post. Am I not entitled to a rebuttal? I am refuting what you had to say because I disagree.

Yes, you are entitled to a rebuttal; simply disagree. Do not 'copy and paste' someone else's post as your own material!
That is not "a satirical echo" - that is mocking. I'm done exchanging with you.

reply to post by wildtimes

Yes, you are entitled to a rebuttal; simply disagree.

I did disagree. I illustrated my disagreement satirically.

That is not "a satirical echo" - that is mocking.

Satirize and mock are synonyms.

I'm done exchanging with you.

Prove it.

Knock off the off-topic personal stuff.

Only warning.

Originally posted by goldentorch
reply to post by TrueBrit
I would claim that the Nazis were a left wing party because many of their early policies were indeed Socialist but would just contend that point as it's a whole new discussion.

The Nazi Party never had any socialist aims. Socialism is not a form of government, it is an economic system.

They allowed capitalism, and everything else the state controlled. They did not allow worker ownership.

The ONLY association with socialism is the use of the term, but they did not see socialism as the same as real left wing socialists did. They appropriated the term so that the party would appear to be for the working person, the majority of the voting public, it was done to gain support. Do you think the Nazi's would have been voted into power if they told the voting public they were going to intern Jews, socialists, anarchists, unionists, gays etc?

Most prisoners in the early concentration camps were German Communists, Socialists, Social Democrats, Roma (Gypsies), Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals...

www.ushmm.org...

Don't be so naive, because that is how authoritarian systems get into power in the first place, people being naive and not really understanding what the reality is.

I find it odd that most people will agree government lies, yet when it comes to this they're suddenly as honest as abe.

reply to post by ANOK


Should have been a little clearer as I totally agree about the totalitarian minded using any means to gain power. I was thinking of Socialism being about an economic system and bringing to mind some of the heavy statist interventionist economic and social policies at the beginning of the regime.

Nor am I defending Hitler or any of those policies by trying to shift the blame from a right wing point of view. He was an odious little muppet and I view the extremes on either side of the spectrum as regrettable.

reply to post by goldentorch


Thing is socialism was a working class labour movement for worker ownership. The left were the people, the majority working class, the right was the establishment capitalist class. The middle class (management, small business owners, professionals) tended to be liberals, as in they supported a social-safety net for the poor, but they were right of center politically. It was far more black and white pre-WWII, things had not been as muddied by misinformation and propaganda yet. That didn't really kick in until the 50's, and the advent of the TV.

The so-called socialism of state governments was not the socialism of the working class labour movement. It was state systems appropriating the term socialism in order to gain support of the working class, who were in those times the overwhelming majority, as manufacturing was still the major form of industry. The middle class was relativity small until after WWII.

Political parties needed the working class vote to get into office, some politicians did that by calling their party socialist, or communist, or other forms of those terms. The were not actually socialist, none of those so called socialist governments implemented a socialist economy, and socialism is an economic system, not a political system.

Take the USSR for example, and the Bolsheviks. They were the Bolshevik Party until they saw an opportunity to hi-jack the revolution for their own gains. They changed their name to the Communist Party and gained the support of the workers (who were not paying enough attention to what was really going on, much like today), but once in power they did not implement a socialist/communist economy. They took control of the economy themselves, state-capitalism not socialism.

The real left wing, who were not fooled by the Bolsheviks and new exactly what they were doing, forcibly opposed the Bolsheviks, refused to join them, and rose up against them.

All people in positions of authority are charlatans, and will say anything if it will get them votes. We see this now with our own government, imagine what it was like in the confusion of a Europe divided by war, and revolution, and the uprising of new political systems that threatened the working class even more. It was a very volatile time, and if WWII had not happened revolution would have spread across Europe, from Spain, and the outcome would have been a whole different world.

The left-wing uprisings against the Bolsheviks were a series of rebellions and uprisings against the Bolsheviks in the aftermath of the 1917 Russian Revolution that were led or supported by left-wing groups such as Socialist Revolutionaries, Left Socialist Revolutionaries, Mensheviks and anarchists. Some were in support of the White Movement, while some tried to be an independent force. The uprisings started in 1918 and continued during and after the Russian Civil War until around 1924. The Bolsheviks increasingly abandoned attempts to invite these groups to join the government and instead suppressed them with force.

Left-wing uprisings against the Bolsheviks

Left-Wing, Anti-Bolshevik and Council Communism

You don't have to believe anything I say, but I am completely convinced if you do some research, correctly, you will find what I say is correct. By 'correctly' I mean go back to the original writings of the time period we are discussing, and read it from the horses mouths so to speak, not the opinions of what happened by other people on teh net. Almost 90% of what is on the net about socialism is wrong, nothing but peoples misunderstandings, because they learn from other peoples opinions instead of looking at it for themselves. Why read a book about Marx written by someone else, when you could read Marx yourself and make up your own mind?

reply to post by ANOK


You seem to be sticking to hide bound political definitions. I would call the banning of all trade unions but the official one, a prices and income policy as well as things like the huge resort built in northern Germany for worker holidays, cruise holidays for workers ( all paid out of the workers contributions but put forward as a gift from the state ), suggest a more centralised economic policy than the purely capitalist model.

The prices and income policy I would perhaps point out as the more telling as to the level of State control. These can be ascribed to any totalitarian regime but would propose central planning like this is redolent of what is viewed as socialist economic policy whilst understanding that it in no way represents the full model, I've only put forward that some of the regime's policies could be viewed as such. Perhaps now it would be viewed as a mixed economic model? After all private enterprise had to get permission to lay off any workers.

Originally posted by wildtimes

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Thanks for the site - I'd not heard of it before - again thanx.

reply to post by Slugworth


Did I say to oblish all off topic forums? No Sir I did not!
What I said was to get rid of the politics! I fail to see how your post is relevant.

reply to post by FyreByrd

You're quite and very welcome.

Originally posted by goldentorch
You seem to be sticking to hide bound political definitions. I would call the banning of all trade unions but the official one, a prices and income policy as well as things like the huge resort built in northern Germany for worker holidays, cruise holidays for workers ( all paid out of the workers contributions but put forward as a gift from the state ), suggest a more centralised economic policy than the purely capitalist model.

Who's hiding? Just trying to get you to understand we have been lied to for decades about political, and especially economic systems. Capitalists want you to believe capitalism has always been the economic system, and that it's natural, the truth is it is only just over 200 years old, and came about from land owners denying people the use of land, to live on and grow crops.

Hmmm the trade union is the only representation workers have. Without unions we would have never have got weekends, overtime pay, worker safety, and many other things I could list.

You should really stop believing the right wing anti labour nonsense.

The prices and income policy I would perhaps point out as the more telling as to the level of State control. These can be ascribed to any totalitarian regime but would propose central planning like this is redolent of what is viewed as socialist economic policy whilst understanding that it in no way represents the full model, I've only put forward that some of the regime's policies could be viewed as such. Perhaps now it would be viewed as a mixed economic model? After all private enterprise had to get permission to lay off any workers.

A little confused about what you're trying to say, but of you're saying centralised planning is a policy of socialism you would be wrong. If all people had a plot of land, and worked it to grow their own food etc., that would also be socialism.

Socialism has no policies, it is an economic system whereby the workers own the means of production. That is all it means. Socialist organisations have policies, and not all of them agree. Not all socialists agree on how socialism should be implemented and organised. So you can't put dogmatic labels on socialism, because there are none.

If we had a totalitarian state system, but had a worker owned economy, that would be a socialist economy.
If we had no state system at all, but had a worker owned economy, that would also be a socialist economy.

Do you see?

Having said that though it would be hard for a state to be totalitarian if the workers owned the means of production, because it takes economic power to do that, and the only way to gain that sort of economic power is with capitalism.

reply to post by ANOK


The last part of your reply sums up the more fluid nature of politics today. In some senses the absence of politics as it would appear we are all up for sale to the highest bidder.

You are absolutely wrong in thinking I am suspect to Right wing anti-union bashing. Though here in the UK we had manipulation of the unions in concert with a Right Wing government, here I am thinking of Scargill bringing the Miners Union out on strike at a time coal stocks were at a 10 year high helping to eradicate much of the ability of unions to protest which broke the working class in this country and led to the abomination that was Blair's New Labour. My only take on the unions, outside of the sterling work they do for healthy and as safe as possible working practices, is that they are not above criticism or reproach. I forwarded the conjecture that Germany did indeed use what can be termed Socialist policies. 'Can be termed', we are on a general discussion forum and such generalised terms move the discussion on and I feel are acceptable as it is in these sorts of terms that most of us create a world view and pedantic squabbles over political terms that have so many interpretations do not.

Yes Centralised planning such as wages AND price controls are considered part of a socialist economics, this was not part of any Union bashing but accepted usage. Hitler later went on to a Laissez-Faire system in the countries conquered making them virtual satraps and the head virtual tyrants in both the ancient and modern meanings of the word. This and a form of unbridled Capitalism, in the lack of industry standards across a wide range of industries but particularly the armaments industry, became a weak point.

Which takes us back to the point that totalitarian intent will use any system or any form of economics to achieve it's goals. Germany had just come out of a civil war between the Militarists/Royalists and the Nazi party against what they perceived the threat of organised labour/Socialists/Communists, so to give what may be seen as Socialist leanings in the policies is no surprise. This is the point I took up with the poster that saw none of this just the usual left/right paradigm which is all I was taking issue with. Personally I'm a mixed economy person, you need a supply side and the freedom of capital for innovation and flexibility but a command side for stability. The American economy has this at the moment but of course much of the command side goes on the military budget, much like the Soviet Union as was. Corporatism/Communism what's the difference both concentrate capital and the means of production, perhaps nuance is the only discernible difference. Conjecture again but valid I feel.

This of course gives enough largesse to enable totalitarian states to be either Left Wing or Right Wing. Control being the only true aim they have.

I notice in your signature the Anarchist reference. Do you think in this modern World that such a lack of any central management is achievable. I say this as I know a little of Anarchist philosophy. The Spanish Civil War could be seen to echo what I have said above. Didn't both sides turn on the Anarchists as they were rather successful in Barcelona in maintaining order and feeding people as well as creating nascent local industry? After all it was Proudhon that coined the term 'property is theft' and was bitterly opposed to Marx's totalitarian slant.

If I may just mention a little language confusion no insult intended. When I put 'hide bound' I meant set in your ideas, perhaps a British colloquialism not used elsewhere. You haven't hid but have defended your views but I was just stating you seem to be fixated with the paradigm.