"My parents didn't fight off communism..."

Originally posted by Brood

Originally posted by RKWWWW
So all previous attempts to implement communist governments have been unsuccessful blood baths, so what? That's no reason to fear Communism. Let's try it a few more times.

edit on 3-10-2010 by RKWWWW because: (no reason given)

Nah, I'd rather let the fear encompass everything I decide based on this idea that has not worked. We couldn't possibly tweak all the clear problems there are with, it didn't work, let's not bother talking about it.

Why are "red" ideas the political witch?

I agree. Let us not waste time second guessing the past and wallowing in fear. We have nothing to lose but human life. Full speed ahead, and remember, our motto is "True Communism Has never Been Tried".

reply to post by rusethorcain


I suppose if you embrace both the concept of communism (with a lower case c), and the ideas of Buckminster Fuller that both might seem to be corollary, but Fuller embraced neither capitalism, nor communism and saw both systems as failed paradigms that embraced the notion of scarcity. He argued that communism, capitalism, and the idea of scarcity was rooted in Malthusian and Darwinian principles that led to a sort of eat or be eaten mentality. Here is what he has to say in his own words:

Malthus could not foresee that refrigeration and hermetic packing would hold foods in good condition for indefinitely prolonged periods, which foods in his time often rotted in the fields because there were not enough local consumers, and would perish before reaching the masses who dwelt at too great a distance thereby to be sustained.

Rather than agreeing to continue the arguments that planet earth is a place with limited resources, he instead postulated there was abundance:

We are blessed with technology that would be indescribable to our forefathers. We have the wherewithal, the know-it-all to feed everybody, clothe everybody, and give every human on Earth a chance. We know now what we could never have known before-that we now have the option for all humanity to "make it" successfully on this planet in this lifetime.

Suggesting that there was more than enough to make every man, woman, and child a millionaire several times over:

Technologically we now have four [seven!] billion billionaires on board Spaceship Earth who are entirely unaware of their good fortune.

Where Marx and European communists were obsessed with class warfare, Fuller on the other hand refused to be pigeonholed:

I live on Earth at present, and I don't know what I am. I know that I am not a category. I am not a thing — a noun. I seem to be a verb, an evolutionary process — an integral function of the universe.

Where Marx, and far too many communists sought to reform humanity and some how eliminate greed, Fuller on the other hand;

I seek through comprehensive anticipatory design science and its reductions to physical practices to reform the environment instead of trying to reform humans, being intent thereby to accomplish prototyped capabilities of doing more with less...

Where Marx and his cohorts insist that labor is the means of production, Fuller has a much different take:

We must do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian-Darwinian theory, he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.

Fuller saw both capitalism and communism as being entropic, and strongly felt that humanity was destined to be synergistic:

Universe is synergetic. Life is synergetic.

Lamenting we have not quite achieved this destiny because:

Synergy is the only word in our language which identifies the meaning for which it stands. Since the word is unknown to the average public, as I have already pointed out, it is not at all surprising that synergy has not been included in the economic accounting of our wealth transactions or in assessing our common wealth capabilities.

Explaining that it is the physicality of the planet and universe that are entropic:

The physical is inherently entropic, giving off energy in ever more disorderly ways. The metaphysical is antientropic, methodically marshalling energy. Life is antientropic. It is spontaneously inquisitive. It sorts out and endeavors to understand.

Separating the physical from phenomenon he asserts:

We are now synergetically forced to conclude that all phenomena are metaphysical; wherefore, as many have long suspected — like it or not — "life is but a dream."

And rather than embracing or advocating any economic or philosophical system rooted in the past, he instead declares:

It is essential to release humanity from the false fixations of yesterday, which seem now to bind it to a rationale of action leading only to extinction.

Eschewing not just classism, but racism, and even culturalism by stating:

The youth of humanity all around our planet are intuitively revolting from all sovereignties and political ideologies. The youth of Earth are moving intuitively toward an utterly classless, raceless, omnicooperative, omniworld humanity. Children freed of the ignorantly founded educational traditions and exposed only to their spontaneously summoned, computer-stored and -distributed outflow of reliable-opinion-purged, experimentally verified data, shall indeed lead society to its happy egress from all misinformedly conceived, fearfully and legally imposed, and physically enforced customs of yesterday. They can lead all humanity into omnisuccessful survival as well as entrance into an utterly new era of human experience in an as-yet and ever-will-be fundamentally mysterious Universe.

Not at all willing to accept that in any economic system people must either share equally what is viewed as limited resources, or unequally horde and hunger for those unlimited resources, Fuller enthusiastically asks:

Are you spontaneously enthusiastic about everyone having everything you can have?

Completely uninterested in judging people or embracing class warfare, he instead postulates that:

This book is written with the conviction that there are no ‘good’ or ‘bad’ people, no matter how offensive or eccentric to society they may seem. . . You and I didn't design people. God designed people. What I am trying to do is to discover why God included humans in Universe.

Not at all falling into the trap that too many do regarding corporatism, Fuller fully understood what it was, and what it meant:

Corporations are neither physical nor metaphysical phenomena. They are socioeconomic ploys — legally enacted game-playing — agreed upon only between overwhelmingly powerful socioeconomic individuals and by them imposed upon human society and its all unwitting members.

He had no need to blame the existence of corporatism on capitalism or communism and instead only sought to find the truth, insisting that:

The nearest each of us can come to God is by loving the truth.

I never try to tell anybody else what to do, number one. And number two, I think that's what the individual is all about. Each one of us has something to contribute. This really depends on each one doing their own thinking, but not following any kind of rule that I can give out, any command. We're all on the frontier, we're all in a great mystery — incredibly mysterious. Each one possesses exactly what each one is working out, and what each one works out relates to their particular set of circumstances of any one day, or any one place around the world.

Rather than endorsing any system that would necessitate mental and physical medical diagnosis to determine who is genuinely needful, and who is genuinely capable, he boldly declares:

I never try to tell anybody else what to do, number one. And number two, I think that's what the individual is all about. Each one of us has something to contribute. This really depends on each one doing their own thinking, but not following any kind of rule that I can give out, any command. We're all on the frontier, we're all in a great mystery — incredibly mysterious. Each one possesses exactly what each one is working out, and what each one works out relates to their particular set of circumstances of any one day, or any one place around the world.

In explaining his views on the new integrity, and doing the right thing he first describes our past and present humanity:

Doing the right things for the wrong reasons is typical of humanity. Precession — not conscious planning — provides a productive outcome for misguided political and military campaigns. Nature's long-term design intervenes to circumvent the shortsightedness of human individuals, corporations, and nations competing for a share of the economic pie. Fundamentally, political economists misassume an inadequacy of life support to exist on our planet. Humanity therefore competes militarily to see which political system... is fittest to survive. In slavish observance of this misassumption, humans devote their most costly efforts and resources to "killingry" — a vast arsenal of weapons skillfully designed to kill ever more people at ever-greater distances in ever-shorter periods of time while employing ever-fewer pounds of material, ergs of energy, and seconds of time per killing.

Explaining that doing the right thing entails:

We must progress to the stage of doing all the right things for all the right reasons instead of doing all the right things for all the wrong reasons.

Suggesting that:

Every child has an enormous drive to demonstrate competence. If humans are not required to earn a living to be provided survival needs, many are going to want very much to be productive, but not at those tasks they did not choose to do but were forced to accept in order to earn money. Instead, humans will spontaneously take upon themselves those tasks that world society really needs to have done.

And ultimately concluding:

Dear reader, traditional human power structures and their reign of darkness are about to be rendered obsolete.

Bucky Fuller, unlike capitalists who look at a drop in production and find someone to blame, or unlike communists who look at a rise in profits they get no share in and find someone to blame, sought to blame no one and understood that blame is wholly irrelevant, and instead sought to create a new paradigm void of jealousies, division, and hatred, and instead filled with knowledge, truth, and love. Bucky Fuller was not a communist, nor was he a capitalist, he was a futurist who unlike Yogi Berra who lamented the future isn't what it used to be, saw great things ahead for humanities future, but pragmatically understood that this was the optimist in him speaking and that we could just as easily fall prey to Yogi Berra's lamentation and destroy ourselves. Fuller seemed to place his bets on our prosperity, all of us, each and everyone of us, prospering and flourishing, not limiting ourselves to antiquated political and economic systems, but simply acting with profound integrity and aiming towards a genuine greater good where each of us were not concerned with what others were doing, and only what we as an individual were doing to achieve that greater good.

I am a-political.
Still, whenever I imagine how I might rule the world differently....people tend to call the plan I devise "communism."
I always think... Is it my fault someone has already smeared the name?

I give up. I don't know enough about politics to argue some of the good points presented. Unfortunately perhaps, this does not prevent me from having opinions and sharing them freely!

As well I recognize and regard some much more knowledgeable folks aboard the thread, also people with obvious trauma and or experience. So many well spoken, firm convictions against communism per se. I would be a fool to argue here and try to pick my battles.

Believe individuals should have unlimited freedom except when this infringes on another person or groups ability to enjoy their same inherent right to these same freedoms.
I knew a man sailing the Caribbean, working off a grant, paid to island hop and study the habits of lizards. Give me that job please. The quest was to find out why the highly aggressive and territorial lizard did not get into more deadly altercations. How do they keep the peace? They respect each others territory.

"Territory" is a basic human right, I think land ownership is preposterous and to many people this sounds like communism. If there are 6,872,600,000 people on the planet, there should be 6,872,600,000 parcels of land doled out..."communism" in the extreme. We'd recognize when we were running out of resources and space.


Understanding basic human needs and providing them is socialism or communism.

There is a way to argue providing human beings basic human needs.
This is a tragedy.
The tragedy of our times, I think.

This is apropos of nothing...but generally still on topic en.wikipedia.org...
Points out how anarchy is aligned with socialism and communism.

Anarchism is a political philosophy which considers the state undesirable, unnecessary and harmful, and instead promotes a stateless society, or anarchy.[1][2] It seeks to diminish or even abolish authority in the conduct of human relations.[3] Anarchists may widely disagree on what additional criteria are required in anarchism. The Oxford Companion to Philosophy says, "there is no single defining position that all anarchists hold, and those considered anarchists at best share a certain family resemblance."[4] There are many types and traditions of anarchism, not all of which are mutually exclusive.[5] Strains of anarchism have been divided into the categories of social and individualist anarchism or similar dual classifications.[6][7] Anarchism is often considered to be a radical left-wing ideology,[8][9] and much of anarchist economics and anarchist legal philosophy reflect anti-statist interpretations of communism,

When I think of anarchy, I think of the Tea Parties. And I stared at this page so long, en.wikipedia.org... ......the word anarchist began to look like antichrist.

Originally posted by Nosred
Maybe it hasn't worked in the past for a reason. Have you ever read Animal Farm by George Orwell? If not I suggest that you do. It explains that while communism itself is a good thing, it can never work because of the corruption of leaders.

I also don't understand your title. My parents did fight off communism so..........

LMAO. Animal Farm was an argument against Leninism, not communism. George Orwell himself was a communist and fought as a soldier to defend a communist & anarchist revolution in Spain from fascist invaders.

To cite a George Orwell novel as some sort of argument that "communism can never work" is absolutely ridiculous given that Orwell himself was a communist who fought for those ideals and shed his own blood in their defense.

reply to post by Yazman


First of all get your facts straight. Orwell was a democratic socialist, not a communist. There's a big difference. Second of all, he wrote Animal Farm after he saw people who were against Stalin's regime being brutalized and oppressed to show how a communist society can never work due to the inevitable corruption of leaders. Have you even read Animal Farm?

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux

Fuller seemed to place his bets on our prosperity, all of us, each and everyone of us, prospering and flourishing, not limiting ourselves to antiquated political and economic systems, but simply acting with profound integrity and aiming towards a genuine greater good where each of us were not concerned with what others were doing, and only what we as an individual were doing to achieve that greater good.

20 years ago I thought he was a genius. Now I think he was naive. Still love him though.
Thanks for an, as always, illuminating reply.

reply to post by rusethorcain

Understanding basic human needs and providing them is socialism or communism.

Under capitalism this is known as supply and demand. It is an economic model that concludes that within a competitive market any particular goods or services will vary until a medium is reached by which the quantity demanded by consumers equals the quantity of supply made by producers. Normally under communism models, the need is usually handled by price controls without any regard for cost controls. However, under capitalism often the price is regulated by notions of scarcity and what is viewed to be in scarce supply but high in demand will create a price increase.

Buckminster Fuller argued that neither model took a synergistic view of the whole picture. Using as an example of oil, he posited that the ultimate cost of extracting oil from the ground, and the excess chemicals exhausted into the atmosphere constituted a cost not ultimately calculated within capitalist or communist models, and that such a cost was prohibitive enough that it would ultimately be more cost effective to take people who other wise do nothing truly productive for a regenerative eco system, and yet are reliant upon fuel to get to work and return home, and just pay them to stay at home so they are not adding to the depletion of earth's resources, and adding to the atmosphere's pollution.

There is a way to argue providing human beings basic human needs. This is a tragedy. The tragedy of our times, I think.

I suspect the tragedy stems from arguments that posit that in order to provide for basic human needs a re-distribution of wealth needs to be implemented. Fuller did not so much argue for a redistribution of wealth as much as he argued that all of us can be wealthy and there is quite simply no need to redistribute wealth. He argued that if we all stopped viewing production as being an us versus them scenario, and instead each of us just took a good look around us and decided what needed to be done, each of us would contribute to the overall greater good in our own way, and since we were all contributing in a way that obtained this greater good, then all of us would have all our needs met. It does not matter that a person born with down syndrome and at the age of 56 has the mentality of a two year old, as this viewpoint is just as valid as a 56 year old with the mentality of an octogenarian. Each viewpoint would address a specific need that benefited all of us, as long as each person was unencumbered with old and failed paradigms.

This is apropos of nothing...but generally still on topic en.wikipedia.org... Points out how anarchy is aligned with socialism and communism.

Not for nothing, and quite ironically, Wikipedia also features an article on Anarcho-Capitalism:

Anarcho-capitalism (also known as “libertarian anarchy”[1][2] or “market anarchism”[3] or “free market anarchism”[4]) is a libertarian[5][6] and individualist anarchist[7] political philosophy that advocates the elimination of the state and the elevation of the sovereign individual in a free market. Economist Murray Rothbard is credited with coining the term.[8][9] In an anarcho-capitalist society, law enforcement, courts, and all other security services would be provided by voluntarily-funded competitors such as private defense agencies rather than through taxation, and money would be privately and competitively provided in an open market. According to anarcho-capitalists, personal and economic activities would be regulated by the natural laws of the market and through private law rather than through politics. Furthermore, victimless crimes and crimes against the state would not exist.

All of these systems, communism, capitalism, monarchies, democracies, dictatorships, and variants on anarchy are all, in Fuller's estimation, failed paradigms based upon dark ages thought processes. I would love to believe that Fuller is right on the money, and he seems to be operating on some form of Christ consciousness, (ironically a consciousness that is alternately touted as being either communistic or capitalistic, monarchistic, or anarchistic, depending upon ones bias), that all too often eludes me. I would love to see us all flourish and prosper but am not willing to embrace communistic or socialistic principles as long as there are people declaring 56 year old's with the mentality of a two year old as being useless. When my own child was two years old, he was far from useless, and as teachers go, he taught me much at that age, and his proclivity towards industry, his unbounded curiosity was inspired.

Since it's creation, 100 million people have been killed in the name of Communism.

Enough said.

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux

"to each according to their needs, from each according to their capabilities"

CCCP kept another conception:

Anyone, who can work, must work according to Conscience & Mind.

that ideology allowed to build Great Industrial Country with Great achievements in all branches of Science. USA could have kept approx. level only with help of dollar as the World currency CCCP was destructed no because of uselessness of System, but perfectly due to idiots like gorbachev at Main Wheel

reply to post by Brood


I'd like to take this moment to say that my parents didn't fight off communism ...... at all.

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux

Under capitalism this is known as supply and demand

capitalism makes monopolies: cheap goods make maximal profit, but really qualitive & safe production cannot be cheap just see at the statistics of obesity in USA, which was made thanks to Imperia of holy Mcdonalds Amen Mcdonalds

reply to post by SarK0Y


Oh yeah, McDonalds is to blame. Never mind people CHOOSE to stuff their faces with it.

And capitalism doesn't make monopolies. Governments choosing the winners and losers do.

reply to post by Brood


Communism is a system, all systems are flawed, no system is perfect.

Capitalism compared to communism is the devil. Communism compared to Capitalism is the devil.

Read the above sentence over and over and over again, until you wake up

reply to post by projectvxn

And capitalism doesn't make monopolies

why not, my friend? just example, two corps make the same goods: first make greater, cheaper & faster, but second has more qualitive & safe product -- who will take Lion share of the market??

Governments choosing the winners and losers do.

completely no diference between corrupted gov. & monopolies, any monopoly can became gov. at the end.

funny.

my grandparents grew up in the mid west. They (as a demographic, not specifically) fought the capitalists and gave us most the labor laws we enjoy today.

so i guess i could say 'my great-grandparents' didnt fight off the capitalists...'

reply to post by Seeker PI

No luxordelphi, I'am refering to the Communist government of China that currently has America by its economic balls. That China the one with the big red flag.

don't overrate China too much

Everyone thinks Communism is great when they don't have to live under it's boot.

Originally posted by Darkrunner
Everyone thinks Communism is great when they don't have to live under it's boot.

Just because you are the positive product of Capitalism, doesn't mean it is heaven, there are people who suffer significantly under Capitalism, just like there are people who suffer significantly under Communism.

For you to look at the negative product of a system (forgetting your own) shows that propaganda has got you

Originally posted by oozyism

Originally posted by Darkrunner
Everyone thinks Communism is great when they don't have to live under it's boot.

Just because you are the positive product of Capitalism, doesn't mean it is heaven, there are people who suffer significantly under Capitalism, just like there are people who suffer significantly under Communism.

For you to look at the negative product of a system (forgetting your own) shows that propaganda has got you

Where did I say Capitalism was a panacea? I never said Capitalism was the best form of government. You put words in my mouth sir.

Capitalism has it's share of problems, but I would like to ask, what facets of the communist philosophy do you find redeeming?

I was born in Poland in 1980 so first ten years of my life I spend in communism. I wouldn't wish such thing to my worst enemy. Someone who has not experienced communism on himself could not even imagine how ridiculous and scary this was but polish experience could be different because in the eighties no one believed that communism could survive.

And by the way. Some photos of wealthy communist china in modern days. This is the real face of China, this is how majority of that people live but western reporters are not welcome in such places. This man who made that photos and published probably would not visit china anymore because they wouldn't let him in. lol


fishki.net...