Pope Francis

Albion said:

Oh how silly. But I see by the alteration in your post--now uncapitalizing the term--that you are acknowledging the truth of what I wrote and have chosen just to try to talk around it.

When we speak of Communist governments, we speak of real governments that have recently and current governed--and of their form of government. To play their game of pretending that totalitarian rule is wonderful because an imaginary Eden awaits at some time in the unknown future is theory at best and more like disingenuousness, if we are to be straightforward about it.

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Your selective reading continues. Even the first post you replied to acknowledged that Communism is an unrealistic and most likely unachievable ideal. I am not "playing their game", I am pointing out that your usage of the term is incorrect.

Here, let me try to make it more accessible to you via an analogy:

You are basically insisting that what Christians are doing here on earth qualifies as "Heaven" or "The Second Coming". I am pointing out to you that this is not the case, since Christians believe that the fabled paradisical state beyond the end of the world will only take place in an unspecified future, although many believers have always been convinced that this future will take place in their lifetime, and is just around the corner.
Thus, calling the Christian status quo "heaven", "the celestial Jerusalem" or "paradise" is factually wrong, even if these are part of their eschatology.

I'm pretty sure that even the most fanatical one-party dictatorships do not pretend that they've already reached a state of communism (except perhaps for North Korea: any kind of insanity is possible in North Korea).

Jane_the_Bane said:

Your selective reading continues. Even the first post you replied to acknowledged that Communism is an unrealistic and most likely unachievable ideal. .

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Well, you "made me look," as the saying goes; and of course I didn't say anything like that. Best I can tell by looking back through the messages, the post that would be considered the 'first' said this>

"Communism is a governmental system of forced redistribution of the wealth"

You know exactly what I've been saying, what it refers to, and that it's correct. You would just like to make an appeal for something more flattering to Marxist totalitarianism. OK. You got to play. Now it's over. You have a nice evening!

A selective reader, a last-worder, AND a mind-reader. Wow.

"The first post you replied to" refers to the first post I wrote in response to you, of course.

smaneck said:

Did anyone here ever suggest that totalitarianism was good?

Did Karl Marx ever recommend totalitarianism?

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"there is only one way in which the murderous death agonies of the old society and the bloody birth throes of the new society can be shortened, simplified and concentrated, and that way is revolutionary terror". Karl Marx 1848
The only way Communism can be implemented is through violence and under totalitarian conditions. Lenin and the rest understood quite clearly what Marx meant.

danny ski said:

The only way Communism can be implemented is through violence and under totalitarian conditions. Lenin and the rest understood quite clearly what Marx meant.

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I'm of the opinion that a Communist type of Government can happen through the willingness of the people. It need not always be through violence. Where I've changed through the years is that now I'm of the opinion that America has evolved more into a Capitalist way of Governance and less as a Democracy. So just as we the people willingly embraced a Capitalist way of Government over a Democracy, others could just as easily embrace a Communist way of Governance. No violent revolution required.

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danny ski said:

"there is only one way in which the murderous death agonies of the old society and the bloody birth throes of the new society can be shortened, simplified and concentrated, and that way is revolutionary terror". Karl Marx 1848
The only way Communism can be implemented is through violence and under totalitarian conditions. Lenin and the rest understood quite clearly what Marx meant.

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Always suspicious when the beginning of a sentence is left off a quote, and those suspicions seem to be realised.

ebia said:

Always suspicious when the beginning of a sentence is left off a quote, and those suspicions seem to be realised.

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Here you go.
The purposeless massacres perpetrated since the June and October events, the tedious offering of sacrifices since February and March, the very cannibalism of the counterrevolution will convince the nations that there is only one way in which the murderous death agonies of the old society and the bloody birth throes of the new society can be shortened, simplified and concentrated, and that way is revolutionary terror.

danny ski said:

Here you go.
The purposeless massacres perpetrated since the June and October events, the tedious offering of sacrifices since February and March, the very cannibalism of the counterrevolution will convince the nations that there is only one way in which the murderous death agonies of the old society and the bloody birth throes of the new society can be shortened, simplified and concentrated, and that way is revolutionary terror.

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Very different indeed

The USA (and many other parliamentary democracies) have long since turned into an oligarchy.
A Princeton study finds:
Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organised groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.(source)

I think one of the greatest errors at the end of the Cold War was to assume that the failure of one faction meant that the other was completely in the right and an unbridled success story. Such false dichotomies are all too tempting, as evidenced by our storytelling and mythmaking traditions - yet they are also fatally wrong.
The second greatest error was the absurd assumption that capitalism (or the "free market", as some prefer to call it) goes hand in hand with democracy and civil liberties, instead of promoting a quasi-feudal plutocracy. The vast economic success (and "free market"-policies) of various autocratic regimes around the globe (Pinochet's Chile, Batista's Cuba, China, Singapur, Kuweit...) put that misconception to rest straight away.

Leninism or the various other forms of artificially creating a revolution are not a viable alternative, however. They failed not only because the states they conquered were mostly agrarian societies: they failed because they fell to the temptation of power, and did not manage to win the hearts and minds of the people with their crude propaganda.
If you want to see propaganda at its "best", look no further than the commercials you can see every day on TV. Everyone thinks they are immune to their influence, and yet statistics clearly show just how effective these spots are - which is why companies sink billions of dollars into marketing each year. If communist propaganda was a blunt club, capitalist propaganda is a carrot dangling in front of the populace's nose, convincing them that they are only going where they want to go, while the oligarchs steer them exactly where they want them to end up.

smaneck said:

I didn't say he didn't believe in violent revolution. So did our Founding Fathers. I said I know of no evidence he believed in totalitarianism, which is something very different.

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Lol! What do you think the dictatorship of the proletariat mean?

I like the Pope. Means a lot to me how this Pope relates to other Faiths.

smaneck said:

In the context in which Karl Marx was writing it would have been a democracy. Workers were not yet enfranchised in most industrialized nations in 1848 despite the fact they made up a majority of the population.

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According to Marxist political theory, the existence of any government implies the dictatorship of a social class over another. In Marx's days (as well as in our own, arguably), a small monetary elite was calling the shots (a "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie", as represented by the Koch brothers, Walmart, etc.), so a dictatorship of the proletariat - meaning a government owing allegiance to the majority of the populace - actually means an INCREASE in democracy rather than a decrease.

But of course, even the "dictatorship of the proletariat" was only conceived of as an intermediate state towards communism: meaning a society WITHOUT government, and thus a breaking of the vicious cycle of one social class having dominion over another.

The Pope likes to science. I just read Church employs a dozen full time astrophysicists as part of the four-century old Vatican Observatory.

gordRedeemed said:

The Pope likes to science. I just read Church employs a dozen full time astrophysicists as part of the four-century old Vatican Observatory.

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The Pope is also heavily influenced by the theology of Teilhard de Chardin, who was a scientist. If a person studied Teilhard, many of the recent statements by the Pope will be put into perspective.

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smaneck said:

In the context in which Karl Marx was writing it would have been a democracy. Workers were not yet enfranchised in most industrialized nations in 1848 despite the fact they made up a majority of the population.

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Susan, 1848 so different to the event of 1844