In These Times

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• • 11 Nov 08
  • 9:34 am

  Armaros, I disagree with your contention that communism is the antithesis of democracy, at least in theory. This is from Wikipedia: "According to the Marxist argument for communism, the main characteristic of human life in class society is alienation; and communism is desirable because it entails the full realization of human freedom." I don't think that any of the attempts so far to set up pure communistic societies have been faithful to this ideal, largely because of how they were brought about, and therefore have failed. But to say that Communism, per se, and Democracy are incompatible is false. Communism is …

  Posted to What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been

• • 11 Nov 08
  • 4:12 pm

  armaros, Again, I have to disagree with your contention that egalitarianism goes against human nature. What about tribal societies? They're human, their societies are egalitarian, and they don't need a dictatorship to enforce their way of life. As people living in a relatively new culture where all the food is locked up we tend to forget that there are other ways of living, ways that have been around for millions of years. Also, Communism is antithetical to Fascism. Any good fascist will tell you that, and distance himself as much as possible from any association with Communism. Fascism is an ideology …

  Posted to What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been

• • 11 Nov 08
  • 5:56 pm

  armaros, Tribes by definition are not multi-cultural, and I never suggested they were. I'm not sure what you mean by multi-faceted, but I'm sure that tribal life has different aspects to it that make life interesting, in the same way we have holidays, hobbies, games, social activities, etc. And tribal societies are egalitarian in that everyone participates equally in the feeding of the tribe, and everyone benefits equally from it. Of course, there are people who have more say in tribal affairs than others, and this function would vary greatly from tribe to tribe, but tribal societies are dictated primarily by …

  Posted to What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been

• • 12 Nov 08
  • 10:29 pm

  Communism didn't kill anyone- Stalin did. Kind of like guns, right? They don't kill- people kill. I think a better way of shutting down dissenting opinions has already been found right here by the Bush administration- fire anyone in the Justice Dept. who is not in ideological lockstep with the neo-cons. Or perhaps the more blatant McCarthyism of the 1950's. And isn't it too bad that social security wasn't privatized four years ago as Bush would've liked- I'm sure we all would've enjoyed watching our futures go down the drain alongside the Dow and the major lending institutions. The Brave New …

  Posted to What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been