I'm so tired of Leftist Crap!

a reply to: halfoldman

I am not lecturing you about communism. I am explaining that the left and right paradigm, and the lever that it applies to the voting public, is about dividing the hard working majority of people, of all income ranges, against one another, to prevent the majority controlling the excesses of an aloof and irresponsible ruling class.

Look at the way the west works, and you will see it in full action. Hell, look at the mess, the absolute balls up, that was the last election in the UK. The Liberal Democrats, for all that the parties leader, Nick Clegg, was quoted as saying "I am not the Kingmaker", that did not stop him from doing something that NO ONE who voted Lib Dem wanted, which was for he and David Cameron to form a coalition. He did not do that because he is good leadership material, and he sure as hell did not do it because he cared about our country. He did it because, like all glory seeking morons, he wanted power for himself.

Now, your experiences in South Africa prove the entire thing if you ask me. For a start, no system of government, whether Marxist, or capitalist in its nature, can be considered appropriate if it is not directly controlled by the public, not a head of state, not a prime minister or a president, but by the whole mass of the people. That is not the case in South Africa, and it is not the case here, or in the USA or in Russia or in Ukraine, or in Egypt, or anywhere the bastards who run Islamic State have influence, and it sure as heck is not the case in Saudi Arabia either.

In every nation I have just mentioned, in ALL nations that I am aware of, a small number of either relatively wealthy, or outrageously wealthy individuals, attain positions either through bloodshed or through backstabbing of another sort, which lands them power and prestige, and in a position to effect the lives of millions of people. This is not appropriate in ANY circumstance, whether the politics of that candidate are left leaning, or right biased. ONLY the people who are living in the nation concerned and are affected by the choices made in that nation, have any business actually making the decisions, which is why distributed democracy trumps every other method one can come up with, rendering all but itself as clearly one or another form of dictatorship.

This is not communism, just common sense!

a reply to: TrueBrit
A well thought-out thesis, and most Western governments have both capitalist and socialist elements nowadays.

I'm just very concerned about the sloganeering at present, because people are using communist jargon that they haven't studied, or experienced.

They're asking back for a system that's consistently and extremely brutal and authoritarian.

That's all I want them to know.

If they still want it then, that's not my problem.

a reply to: halfoldman

Well that is largely the problem isn't it?

In a world where propaganda and buzzwords, slogans and group think are so central to the political structure of nations, it is little wonder that things do not move forward on the world stage, or at national level as fast or as well as we might like.

However, the trouble with all of this is, that you have the standard Chicken and Egg scenario:

1) If people are too dumb to vote for what is good for them, then there is no helping them.

2) People will only get dumber, if they do not vote for things that give them a better education.

However, as much as I understand your ire with the imbalance that you are experiencing in your country, you have to recognise that neither an entirely right wing, nor an entirely left wing ideology can function a good society to live in. A nation which allows business to flourish, while making regular people the centre of its area of interest, and doing all it can to ensure that business can flourish without putting the citizen at risk, would be a great place to be, but that cannot happen if anti business, or hyper capitalism is allowed to run rampant.

What you seem to be having a problem with at the moment is not leftist crap, it's just political crap, and it would be the same flavour no matter which ideology was being followed.

Well perhaps you're right, and it is just political crap.


But I want people to know what communism has done.

I want them to know before the time.

a reply to: halfoldman

Can't say fairer than that!

There will always be a need for people to speak out against whatever ailing system runs their nation, especially in circumstances where the nation in question suffers serious problems because of systemic failure.

On that front, I applaud your determination in that regard!

a reply to: halfoldman

I don't know who you know,but my face book page is full of conservative Republicans. Get new friends?

a reply to: halfoldman

i agree the leftist movement is going to political correctness us right into the toilet

originally posted by: halfoldman
a reply to: TrueBrit
I'm just very concerned about the sloganeering at present, because people are using communist jargon that they haven't studied, or experienced.

We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn't, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened, we, at least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares.

But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell's dark vision, there was another - slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we desire will ruin us.

Source: Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman published in 1985

I'd recommend the book, but it's pretty depressing.

I'm tired of extremes on both sides.

originally posted by: halfoldman
The whole of Facebook and social media is full of posters that somehow proclaim "capitalism" or "America" as the bad guys.

I think that's just plain ridiculous.
Most of the world is running to traditionally white, Christian, capitalist countries.

If you want to see where people are starving look at socialism and Islamism.

Am I the only one who thinks these posters and statements should be a source of retaliation (with facts)?

But the Left has ruined it for everybody.
Soon, the monster they created will have their heads rolling down the Jihadist streets.
Then they will still find a way to blame it on the USA and the Jews.

The Left has lured the Western world down a garden path.
Will we ever recover from it?

Take people's food away and see where they fall in. That's going to happen. We cannot sustain feeding everyone and when the scales fall too far it'll explode. Too many people and not enough jobs. What did the old folk call it? The great purge.

a reply to: LOSTinAMERICA
Good point.
The left claims they will feed everybody, but a consistent historical trend suggests that they never feed anybody really.

a reply to: halfoldman

I hate to say it, but you never see a soup kitchen dedicated to the memory of Margret Thatcher.

There is a reason for that.

www.theguardian.com...

a reply to: TrueBrit

I'm game, what's the reason?

Maybe a whole bunch of young, self-centered assholes walking around, telling everyone the big corporations made everything bad.

a reply to: halfoldman

No, as the link I have just added to the post explains, the people that used to run soup kitchens, and organise against enforced austerity in Thatchers years in government, were those who were at the thin edge of the wedge, hardworking poor folk. Policies enacted by the Tory government at the time, meant that mining pits were closing at a much higher rate, and Thatcher was instrumental in cracking down on protest against these financially motivated closures, which were costing families livelihoods.

You never see a soup kitchen with her name on it, because her ilk are the ones that cause people to need handouts, not the sort who actually take responsibility for harming people's ability to earn money doing an honest days work.

a reply to: TrueBrit
Just like I read here that Pepfar (which supplied a lot of people with HIV-medicines) may be closing down.

www.devex.com...


Despite helping many Africans, Pepfar is almost unmentionable.

Aid when needed from the "evil" United States.

Who else gives aid that matters?

a reply to: halfoldman

We have no idea what socialism looks like in South Africa?
Really?
We've had a Marxist party called the ANC in power since 1994, many of who's leaders were trained in Soviet Russia

Nelson Mandela served as president in the ANC during that time! He understood the importance of Marxist theory for social change and thus overthrew the South Africa's apartheid government!

You gotta at least give creds to south african comrades who supported Mandela's work through that hectic time.

a reply to: dimaryp
An interesting view.
However, regarding the present and future, Nelson Mandelas are in short supply.

a reply to: halfoldman

And at the same time, it is an American company that was looking to evict the tenants of an entire housing estate in London, and had to be campaigned against very publicly in order to get them to back down. Very charitable.
www.theguardian.com...

Do you think that Americans living in tent cities, and bankrupting themselves every time they go to the doctors, even with the affordable care act in place, give a God damn how nice the US is being to residents of other nations with its aid budget? Do you think they ought to?

We could go back and forth with this again and again.

a reply to: TrueBrit
I'm not from the US, and can't really say ...

All I can say is that when ever there's a disaster, it's people from capitalist countries who give aid and help.

We ain't had flood-help from North Korea lately.

But then it's an open secret that Western countries exist for other people to take advantage.

a reply to: halfoldman

Interesting. When you say help, do you actually mean paid contracting, or genuine, off the books assistance, out of the goodness of ones heart?

I am just curious, because when the Chilean miners were stuck down a deep hole in the Earth, it took an international effort of paid contractors to get them out, at a cost to the Chilean government of about fifteen million dollars or so last I heard. Some things were donated absolutely free of charge, like the sunglasses the miners wore to protect their eyes upon first leaving the mine. They were donated by Oakley. Apparently, they got an estimated forty one million dollars worth of free advertising out of placing their product there, at that moment in history.

In fact, no body involved in that rescue was even remotely there for altruistic purposes, but because they were paid to do so. It was no less of a grand effort, a feat of engineering and pluckiness that defies the odds in all particulars, and very impressive for all that. But squishy brotherly love was not the motivation behind the sterling effort.

I suppose that is not important, and that only the results have meaning.

I think it is also worth noting that China and Cuba both sent health workers into the Ebola hit regions of North Africa to treat the sick, and try to stem the tide of the disease spread. Neither of those nations are what you would call capitalist.