117 Forum Posts by "oligarch"
Does this pattern occur because one's wealth is proportional to the relative scarcity of their skill, and skills are normally distributed? Does anyone understand this pattern well?
Skills have virtually nothing to do with wealth.
At 5/20/08 12:02 AM, butsbutsbutsbutsbuts wrote: 1: It cannot be said that the basis of socialism is unrealistic head in the clouds garble, there is nothing wrong with taking a step back and looking at society objectively and some of their assertions are logical. What is wrong is declaring the works of Karl Marx, or some other cult icon, to be completely infallible and leave no room for alternative views such as the following views.
First of all, socialists are not necessarily Marxists, if you knew what either of them were, then you would know that. Secondly, Marxism is not a cult, it's a philosophy.
2: You need a certain level of freedom before the worker's negotiating power can be united and unfortunately freedom usually contradicts socialist ideology. Property rights are indeed a social construct, but so is liberty and justice, unfortunately people do not want to be at the mercy of the state or a commune and will always want private property. Religion is sometimes misused but if you allow some infringements of people's free speech it will be misused aswell, there is no choice but to allow complete religious freedom.
Civil libertarianism does not conflict Socialism, Socialism is a broad term referring to a variety of economic doctrines. When Marxist talk about the abolition of private property, it is in reference to the means of production, not personal property. Religion is most often a tool of oppression and but Marxists do consider all religion to be oppressive by default. Marxists are are not entirely opposed to religion as it can sometimes be a force for social justice but will always disagree religions in the debate of materialism versus idealism. Many socialists are christians(Hugo Chavez for one).
3: You don't need socialism and related ideologies to unite worker's negotiating power anyway. Most of society's problems can be solved without needing the whole caboodle.
The goal of Marxism and most socialisms is not to unite the workers negotiating powers as you seem to think but to establish a worker's state in which there is no need for negotiation as the means of production are controlled by the proletariat. However, you are mistaken in believing that the labor movement can be successful in negotiation without socialism. The basis of Marxism is history and history proves that that the working class can only make meaningful, progressive steps forward when united with socialism and will be otherwise be defeated.
You don't know what socialism is, don't come to conclusions about it.
None of those things imply that she's a Marxist, just intelligent, and even if she was a Marxist, why is that a bad thing?
If your asking "Would I vote for a candidate who would raise taxes?" then the answer is yes.
At 4/14/08 10:09 PM, Al6200 wrote:At 4/14/08 08:50 PM, uhnoesanoob wrote:You have that off. The special forces weren't paid by the government so they kidnapped random people. The government didn't kidnap the special forces as your analogy would suggest.At 4/14/08 08:00 PM, Dante-Son-Of-Sparda wrote: who cares the damn sand people deserve itYeah, how about you work for me for five months and instead of me paying you, I kidnap you?
The Special Forces aren't kidnapping the workers because the Iranian government has failed to pay them and the workers have kidnapped no one.
At 2/10/08 03:15 PM, machacker2000 wrote: You've seen pictures of the Middle East. If we lived there, our houses would be draped with canvas to cover all of the bullet holes, and we'd hear small arms fire every day. We are over there so it won't be like that here.
The Middle East is like that because we're there you fascist.
At 2/25/08 09:08 PM, FlashCridic1124 wrote: This may be an old subject to dwell on but I do get really pi$$ed off when you don't support the troops. And the anti-war rallies anger me as well, I get it, but people have died as soldiers and for there beliefs, and if they where alive how do you think those troops would feel seeing such an act?
Wow, you must really really hate the troops.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpTRm3jQl Fo&eurl=http://www.cpusa.org/article/arc hive/148/
Sam Webb interview: Democracy and the 2008 elections
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8rUoHPyY 8Q&eurl=http://www.cpusa.org/article/arc hive/148/
Communist Party USA Response to 2008 State of the Union
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsCPH7djq lo&eurl=http://www.cpusa.org/article/arc hive/148/
Jarvis Tyner on the Importance Black History Month (Communist Party USA)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qAHF2fk0 hc&eurl=http://www.cpusa.org/article/arc hive/148/
Elena Mora: Super Tuesday Feb 5th Analysis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEpNKqx6f M0&eurl=http://www.cpusa.org/article/arc hive/148/
Libero Della Piana: on MLK and his legacy
At 2/2/08 07:44 AM, Al6200 wrote:
No, you're confusing policy with results. You're trying to say that the USSR didn't have Communist policy because it didn't have your idyllic results, rather it had realistic results (corruption, authoritarian government).
No, the USSR did not have communist policies, It was small scale capitalist, then Stalinist, then state capitalist, and then capitalist.
At 2/1/08 07:51 AM, KupaMan wrote: Whatever, queen. Communism is retarded.
Very sophisticated argument!
If a "communist" country does not practice socialism properly(eg. USSR), then it does not practice socialism at all and is therefore not a communist country.
In a nut shell, Scientologists claim all mental and emotional problems can be solved through a technique called a "rundown", which means locking someone in a room. Lisa McPherson was locked in one such room for 17 days against her will, during which, she starved to death while being eaten alive by cockroaches.
At 1/31/08 09:33 PM, MortifiedPenguins wrote:
You could:
A. Not get Universal Health Care, and try to keep a balanced budget.
or
B. Tax and Spend.
You could keep a balanced budget with healthcare for all if raise eliminate the current tax cuts given to the ruling classes as well as raise their taxes and make major cuts to defence spending.
At 1/31/08 07:33 PM, TheMason wrote: stuff
The means of production are supposed to be controlled by the proletariat, not the government. The Bolivarian revolutionary workers who have seized factories from coup plotters recognize that that many reason that many 20'th century socialist states failed to achieve proletariat government was because the basis for the socialism was a legal basis and not the workers themselves and are run by democratic soviets.
Socialism is an economic system but Communism is both economics and politics and healthcare is just as essential a service as police and fire fighters.
At 1/31/08 06:44 PM, Al6200 wrote:At 1/31/08 06:39 PM, oligarch wrote:In other words, you're trying to tie the definition of communist policy to its results in order to make the success or failure of communism impossible to falsify.
No, China wasn't communist, it was Maoist and Maoism has nothing to do with Marxism. If you think the CPUSA advocates Maoism then you are not qualified to form your own opinion on the subject.
Mao didn't know the first thing about Marxian economics and he was a Stalinist and the Soviet Union used the NEP, then it Stalinist and then state capitalist; at no point was there an attempt to build the kind of genuinely Marxist, democratic socialism that the CPUSA advocates.
Here is an interview view with Sam Webb about the 2008 elections.
It is an interesting and in my opinion, accurate analysis of the current political landscape of the importance of the 2008 elections as well as a statement on the role of democracy in socialism.
Also of interest and relevance to the topic, is Sam Webb's response to George W. Bush's final State of the Union address Here.
There is no correct religion and there is no after life and no religion is any better than the rest of them.
As leader of the ANC, Zuma is likely to become president which would be good because as I see it, he will actually do something for South Africa and he will maintain healthy relationships with the trade unions and the Communist Party. The corruption charges may become a problem though.
He's the only logical choice.
At 12/2/07 03:53 AM, jcorishas wrote: Damn Oligarch, consider the source of this "intelligence" and who benefits from this from this supposed discovery (Chavez on both accounts).
I am inclined to believe the Venezuelan government on this one given the CIA's history in Latin America.
Many communist governments were freely and democratically elected during the cold war but almost all of them were deposed by the U.S. and replaced by ruthless dictatorships.
At 12/1/07 10:03 PM, ElGufoPazzo wrote: I've never met a republican who thought a democrat was an idiotic because of their political views.
I've never met a Republican who didn't think that a democrat was an idiot because of their political views.
Republicans do the same thing just as much if not more.
At 12/1/07 07:55 PM, Christopherr wrote: The Republicans are the free-market people.
They both are, Republicans are just more neoliberal.
Venezuelan counter-intelligence recently uncovered a CIA plot destabilize and then briefly invade Venezuela on the day of referendum.
The Democrats are free-market centrists and the Republicans are authoritarian, imperialist, neoliberalists. The only party with a shred of reason it its doctorine seems to me to be the CPUSA.
Presidential and parliamentarian republics are not real democracies as they do not accurately represent the working class.
No, its not the American people's fault its the bourgeoisie's fault, the ruling classes makes all the decisions and as a socialist I find it insulting that you call John Edwards a socialist.
