General

Re: Conservatives - what did they have against the USSR?

Brainpolice — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 09:19:15 GMT

Sure there was. You're being naive.

No, you are being naive. There was no realistic communist threat to the lives of average Americans. The communist threat was largely towards the people actually living in the communist countries. There was no communist military threat to America. Communism mostly fell all on its own, crumbling under its own weight - it couldn't even maintain itself without imports from "capitalist" countries. The idea of a communist threat to America was largely propaganda by the military-industrial-complex - a blatant exaggeration of the threat of what ultimately is a marginal group relative to our own society.

Average Americans were fine to go on living their middle class lives without any meaningful encounter with communism. It was their own government that realistically presented more of a threat to them than the foreign communist governments. This is just like the current terrorism and islamofascism issue - it simply does not present a threat to the daily lives of most Americans. We will most likely never come into contact with an islamic terrorist or be personally affected by one. The same was more or less true of the communists during the cold war. Anything much beyond this is alarmist.

Oh, btw, the Communist have won. They have completely undermined American culture, infiltrating it's colleges with their professors, movie stars and musicians, all sorts of pop culture icons are left or radically left. They have succeeded in helping drive America to bankruptcy, and hijacked it's foreign policy for a Trotskyite obsession with Democracy.

I'm sorry, but this is just conspiracy theory nonsense. American culture has not been infiltrated by communism. The fact of the matter is that communism failed. It is not everywhere around us. You're also stretching the word "left" to mean "communism". Yes, our popular culture is "left" in a sense. This by no means translates to outright communism. "Ooooo hollywood are a bunch of commies!" What a joke. This isn't even true about our politicians. Are they authoritarian bastards? YES! But communists? Hardly. The American political class has chosen middle-of-the-road corporatist socialism. Our democrats are quasi-corporatist and our republicans are quasi-socialist. The combined trend of the status quo is as such a fusionism - center-statism.

Re: Conservatives - what did they have against the USSR?

Marko — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 02:42:22 GMT

Nitroadict:

You should probably know about various political movements if you are going to strengthen your arguments, I'd imagine, yes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maoist_Internationalist_Movement#Theoretical_Line

Well I don`t see that I should have known about what seems to be an obscure and miniscule organisation based in the US. Particularly seeing how I`m not American. Somehow in my parts first association to Maosim is not "MIM".

Thanks for the link anyway.

Re: Conservatives - what did they have against the USSR?

Nitroadict — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 01:56:13 GMT

Marko:

garegin:

brand of humor? LS is cristal clear here. the west was and is using the superprofits from the third world so garbage collectors have plasma TVs.

Oh I don`t know. I think it may be a situation where no matter how sarcastic you are being somebody will think you`re being serious. Or is it the situation where no matter how serious you are being, somebody will think you are being sarcastic??

garegin:
if you want it from the horse's mouth, here you go.

According to MIM, imperialism's extraction of super-profits from the Third World allows oppressor nations to buy off a large portion of their labouring population, which MIM does not view as a 'working class' in the strict sense. MIM argues that these 'workers' bought off by imperialism form a new petty-bourgeoisie called the labor aristocracy. These classes are not the principal vehicles to advance Maoism within those countries because their standards of living depend on imperialism. At this time, according to MIM, imperialist super-profits create this situation in Canada, Quebec, the United States, England, France, Belgium, Germany, Japan, Italy, Switzerland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Israel, Sweden and Denmark

Should I know this MIM guy?

You should probably know about various political movements if you are going to strengthen your arguments, I'd imagine, yes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maoist_Internationalist_Movement#Theoretical_Line

MIM holds that after the proletariat seizes power in socialist revolution, the potential exists for capitalist restoration under the leadership of a new bourgeoisie within the communist party itself. In the case of the USSR, the bourgeoisie seized power after the death of Stalin in 1953; in China, it was after Mao's death and the overthrow of the "Gang of Four" in 1976.

MIM upholds the Chinese Cultural Revolution as the farthest advance of socialism in human history.

According to MIM, imperialism's extraction of super-profits from the Third World allows oppressor nations to buy off a large portion of their labouring population, which MIM does not view as a 'working class' in the strict sense. MIM argues that these 'workers' bought off by imperialism form a new petty-bourgeoisie called the labor aristocracy. These classes are not the principal vehicles to advance Maoism within those countries because their standards of living depend on imperialism. At this time, according to MIM, imperialist super-profits create this situation in Canada, Quebec, the United States, England, France, Belgium, Germany, Japan, Italy, Switzerland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Israel, Sweden and Denmark.

Re: Conservatives - what did they have against the USSR?

Nitroadict — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 01:52:14 GMT

liberty student:

Brainpolice:
there simply was no meaningful commie threat to the lives of average Americans

Sure there was. You're being naive.

The communist threat was that third world countries would stop serving the west with endless natural resources, commercial goods and infinite credit. Communism is a liberation philosophy at it's core. It's radical, pro-labour, proletariat revolution.

That's definitely not in the interest of the American hegemon and certainly not in the interest of the Thursday night poker playing, beer swilling, Sunday afternoon football watching, factory labourer with an endless pension at the expense of future generations.

Oh, btw, the Communist have won. They have completely undermined American culture, infiltrating it's colleges with their professors, movie stars and musicians, all sorts of pop culture icons are left or radically left. They have succeeded in helping drive America to bankruptcy, and hijacked it's foreign policy for a Trotskyite obsession with Democracy.

+1, especially on the Trotskyite point. As melodramatic as a referrence this is, Cradle Will Rock didn't get it half-wrong, as The Great Depression certaintly holds a high place in statist-left folklore (as does the Cold War in statist-right folklore as well, methinks).

On an aside, I've read elsewhere (it could've been from infowars, this forum, or even counterpunch, I'm not quite sure as my bookmarks are a constant mess) that Obama more or less represented a type of candidate for a Trotskyite re-take of the American Empire (whereas McCain represented more or less what Bush II represented, AFAIK).

If I can find the source I'm referring to, I'll post it up here later, but I remember it being an interesting reading.

Re: Conservatives - what did they have against the USSR?

Marko — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 01:31:58 GMT

garegin:

brand of humor? LS is cristal clear here. the west was and is using the superprofits from the third world so garbage collectors have plasma TVs.

Oh I don`t know. I think it may be a situation where no matter how sarcastic you are being somebody will think you`re being serious. Or is it the situation where no matter how serious you are being, somebody will think you are being sarcastic??

garegin:
if you want it from the horse's mouth, here you go.

According to MIM, imperialism's extraction of super-profits from the Third World allows oppressor nations to buy off a large portion of their labouring population, which MIM does not view as a 'working class' in the strict sense. MIM argues that these 'workers' bought off by imperialism form a new petty-bourgeoisie called the labor aristocracy. These classes are not the principal vehicles to advance Maoism within those countries because their standards of living depend on imperialism. At this time, according to MIM, imperialist super-profits create this situation in Canada, Quebec, the United States, England, France, Belgium, Germany, Japan, Italy, Switzerland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Israel, Sweden and Denmark

Should I know this MIM guy?

Re: Conservatives - what did they have against the USSR?

garegin — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 01:28:02 GMT

i meant morally

Re: Conservatives - what did they have against the USSR?

Marko — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 01:21:00 GMT

They weren`t "going to" fight the West. They were concerned NATO would attack them.

Re: Conservatives - what did they have against the USSR?

garegin — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 01:16:32 GMT

i see your point, but how were they gonna fight the west if they viewed every new african country like benin, angola and guinea-bassau as a fiscal headache.

Re: Conservatives - what did they have against the USSR?

Marko — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 01:05:59 GMT

garegin:

so, your aknowledging that they did want to take over europe. and that the polish were part of the imperialist/capitalist camp.

They hoped that with a swift victory they could hook up with communists in Germany and Hungary. The Polish were in a camp of their own. They couldn`t care less for the Russian`s ideology. They were fighting for their borders.

garegin:

and yes, the soviets did give up on worldwide revolution after trotsky, but they still had their hopes high with angola and nicaragua

No they didn`t. They couldn`t have cared less for these places.

Half the time (Nicaragua, Afganistan...) revolutions were headaches, because the revolutionaries if successful always ended up wanting some sort of aid and support from the Soviet Union and she was forced to oblige being the official Defender of the Marxist-Leninist Creed, but actually they hated doing it as it was costly.

Other half the time (Angola, Ethiopia...) it was just KGB employees passing time, playing proxy war with the Americans, sending Cubans against the South Africans, stunts like that. Just something that was in the job description.

The only place USSR really cared about was Warsaw Pact and the plains of Northern Germany.

And anyways. Trotsky wasn`t about world revolution. That is just a phrase. He was about Soviet Union exporting revolution to every last corner of the earth on the ends of Red Army bayonets.

Cold War era Soviet Union on the other hand never exported communism (read its sphere of inflence) via its military. Its military was only directly used in its narrowly defined sphere of influence, so by statist rules it was playing fairly. Its most belligerent action was intervention in Afganistan, but even in this case Afganistan had turned communist on its own, before they moved in and had been in their broadly defined sphere of influence since the midd 1970s.

Re: Conservatives - what did they have against the USSR?

garegin — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 00:51:29 GMT

brand of humor? LS is cristal clear here. the west was and is using the superprofits from the third world so garbage collectors have plasma TVs.

if you want it from the horse's mouth, here you go.

According to MIM, imperialism's extraction of super-profits from the Third World allows oppressor nations to buy off a large portion of their labouring population, which MIM does not view as a 'working class' in the strict sense. MIM argues that these 'workers' bought off by imperialism form a new petty-bourgeoisie called the labor aristocracy. These classes are not the principal vehicles to advance Maoism within those countries because their standards of living depend on imperialism. At this time, according to MIM, imperialist super-profits create this situation in Canada, Quebec, the United States, England, France, Belgium, Germany, Japan, Italy, Switzerland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Israel, Sweden and Denmark

Re: Conservatives - what did they have against the USSR?

Marko — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 00:33:14 GMT

liberty student:

The communist threat was that third world countries would stop serving the west with endless natural resources, commercial goods and infinite credit. Communism is a liberation philosophy at it's core. It's radical, pro-labour, proletariat revolution.

Do people get used to your brand of humour after a while?

I`ll be damned if I can decypher this.

Re: Conservatives - what did they have against the USSR?

garegin — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 00:32:19 GMT

Marko:

garegin:
the soviets efforts were thwarted by germans(after WWI), british and americans.

Actually the Bolshevik advance westwards was made impossible primarily by the Polish winning the Polish-Bolshevik war.

garegin:

did and do marxists want to take over the world? yes

In that case Soviet Union stopped being Marxist when Trotsky fell out of grace.

so, your aknowledging that they did want to take over europe. and that the polish were part of the imperialist/capitalist camp.

and yes, the soviets did give up on worldwide revolution after trotsky, but they still had their hopes high with angola and nicaragua

Re: Conservatives - what did they have against the USSR?

liberty student — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 00:22:57 GMT

Marko:
"Commies"? You`ll have to be more specific.

And they were not a threat to the American Empire as such, only an obstacle to its world wide hegemony.

Congrats. You just repeated what I said.

Re: Conservatives - what did they have against the USSR?

liberty student — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 00:20:43 GMT

Brainpolice:
there simply was no meaningful commie threat to the lives of average Americans

Sure there was. You're being naive.

The communist threat was that third world countries would stop serving the west with endless natural resources, commercial goods and infinite credit. Communism is a liberation philosophy at it's core. It's radical, pro-labour, proletariat revolution.

That's definitely not in the interest of the American hegemon and certainly not in the interest of the Thursday night poker playing, beer swilling, Sunday afternoon football watching, factory labourer with an endless pension at the expense of future generations.

Oh, btw, the Communist have won. They have completely undermined American culture, infiltrating it's colleges with their professors, movie stars and musicians, all sorts of pop culture icons are left or radically left. They have succeeded in helping drive America to bankruptcy, and hijacked it's foreign policy for a Trotskyite obsession with Democracy.

Re: Conservatives - what did they have against the USSR?

Marko — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 00:09:48 GMT

garegin:
the soviets efforts were thwarted by germans(after WWI), british and americans.

Actually the Bolshevik advance westwards was made impossible primarily by the Polish winning the Polish-Bolshevik war.

garegin:

did and do marxists want to take over the world? yes

In that case Soviet Union stopped being Marxist when Trotsky fell out of grace.