BS: How many socialists are there here?

Subject: RE: BS: How many socialists are there here?
From: Slag
Date: 15 Apr 08 - 05:53 AM

Nothing like a nice broad definition to tighten things up!

Subject: RE: BS: How many socialists are there here?
From: GUEST,PMB
Date: 15 Apr 08 - 05:08 AM

He actually was the guy who got the trains to run on time

Others have suggested that that was a side effect of using 3 phase induction motors in the electrification of the Italian railways. With those motors, they either run on time or not at all :)

Note Teri: Social != Socialist in Benito's case.
National Socialist != Any Other sort Of Socialist in Schickelgrueber's case.

Also note that the Mugabes, Nkrumahs, Kenyattas and so on used the tag 'socialism' as a way of getting support (economic and political) from the Soviet Union. Other dictators, like Banda and Bokassa, courted Britain and America. The result on the ground was often not a lot different.

Subject: RE: BS: How many socialists are there here?
From: Teribus
Date: 15 Apr 08 - 05:00 AM

Well Guest PMB,

Mussolini was the Head of the Italian Social Republic. One of the founders of Italian fascism, which valued nationalism, corporatism, expansionism, social progress and anti-communism combined with censorship and state propaganda. Some domestic pre-war achievements of Mussolini's Government were the taming of the Pontine Marshes, the improvement of job opportunities, and public transport (He actually was the guy who got the trains to run on time).

But with regard to Hitler, Stalin, Mao and latest boogey-man-de-jour Robert Mugabe all were self-styled "Socialists/Marxists" of some form or other. Hitler's "National Socialist Party" was "modelled upon" Mussolini's Fascist Party it was never a direct copy, and even Mussolini's description of the Italian State that he headed was the "Italian Social Republic", so maybe Slag is correct after all.

Subject: RE: BS: How many socialists are there here?
From: GUEST,PMB
Date: 15 Apr 08 - 03:30 AM

To the best of my recollection, he and his party was a socialist endeavor. Mussolini too.

Your recollection is not all it ought to be, slag.

Subject: RE: BS: How many socialists are there here?
From: Slag
Date: 14 Apr 08 - 10:41 PM

Well, I was glad to see that someone finally mentioned Hitler, although in an oblique way (thank you, Donuel). To the best of my recollection, he and his party was a socialist endeavor. Mussolini too. Joe Stalin and crew embodied much that was socialistic. They kinda make the money grubbers look benign. Tens of millions dead on the revolutionary battlefields of the world in the name of socialism. Not very favorably impressive to one who hates war and violence.

Are pickpockets really just disenfranchised socialists?
When you got that "group" assignment in school to do a report, you know the one I mean, where six of you do nothing and one poor schmuck does all the work and the other six get as good a grade as the one who put in the effort, was that some kind of socialism?

Some one above mentioned Social Security above. That's the system whereby every working stiff's biggest tax is to the SS program and the money goes to, uh, goes to, well, Washington DC and gets SPENT and so technically their is NO MONEY in the program, per se, but uh, weel, they say now, "BANKRUPT" by 2019, so maybe that isn't such a good illustration, Hmmm? I'm having a hard time getting a handle on this "Socialism" thing.

I don't think I'm in favor of it.

Subject: RE: BS: How many socialists are there here?
From: fumblefingers
Date: 14 Apr 08 - 10:27 PM

I'd be a socialist provided I could be in charge.

Subject: RE: BS: How many socialists are there here?
From: Monique
Date: 14 Apr 08 - 06:15 PM

Sure he did! That's probably why he started to have his salary increased by 172%

Subject: RE: BS: How many socialists are there here?
From: Teribus
Date: 14 Apr 08 - 05:33 PM

"France is perhaps the most successful socialist country today.
They balance personal freedom and socialism much better than anyone else with the pssible exception of Denmark or Sweden."

Of course it is as long as everybody else pays for it.

Won't continue to do that forever of course some of their EU "partners" are beginning to see the light, as did Sarko - he for one realises that the party is coming to an end and La Belle France cannot afford to pay for her "socialist state".

Subject: RE: BS: How many socialists are there here?
From: Monique
Date: 14 Apr 08 - 01:40 PM

Well Donuel, I'm afraid that when Sarkoleon's reign is over, there'll be much less socialism left in my country!

Subject: RE: BS: How many socialists are there here?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 14 Apr 08 - 01:25 PM

sorry about all the spelling and typing errors

al

Subject: RE: BS: How many socialists are there here?
From: Donuel
Date: 14 Apr 08 - 01:11 PM

France is perhaps the most successful socialist country today.
They balance personal freedom and socialism much better than anyone else with the pssible exception of Denmark or Sweden.



China - not so good but going forward in a hurry until their air and water set them back.

US- going backward in democracy, economy and compassion.

Russia- going forward with their version of the Bush's Young Republican religio-politic democracy movement ( which is neither democratic or a true Hitler Youth program).

UK ?????????

Subject: RE: BS: How many socialists are there here?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 14 Apr 08 - 01:00 PM

Strangely enough I couldn't sleep last night and woke up about 3 a.m.
Guitar obviously, coffee obviously, and tv as background to drown out the bum notes.

Anyway there was this FBI files programme on. And it was all about Raymond Luc LeVasseur and Tom Manning. They were all socialist revolutionaries in America and eventually they were caught by the clever old FBI.

Their case was interesting. from a number of points of view. Which of us through those years and were involved in student politics and remembers how confused and silly our thinking was, can honestly not say - there but for the grace of god....

Their big mistake of course (apart from getting caught) was to commit their crimes in a place where there was no hope of grass roots support. Far worse terrorist acts than theirs, have been absolved in Norhern Ireland under the Good Friday Agreement - that your presidents did so much to achieve, and which for many has been such a boon.

I would be interested to hear waht they made of teh case stateside. To be quite frank, I'd never heard of these people before last night.

Theres a load about them on the internet if your memory has deserted you on the subject.

Subject: RE: BS: How many socialists are there here?
From: GUEST,L. D. Bronstein
Date: 14 Apr 08 - 11:22 AM

Ah Vlad my old comrade. I wish in the end you could have seen it my way.

Subject: RE: BS: How many socialists are there here?
From: autolycus
Date: 14 Apr 08 - 10:48 AM

and the uncovering, in secret, of vast numvers of working-class tories, eho make life difficult, particularly for themselves.

Still, that's their business.


Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: How many socialists are there here?
From: GUEST,V.I.Ulyanov
Date: 14 Apr 08 - 10:38 AM

Do you think REAL revolutionaries would TELL you?

Subject: RE: BS: How many socialists are there here?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 14 Apr 08 - 10:23 AM

okay I counted, three socialists in all. two armchair ones, and one hot blooded revolutionary....

Subject: RE: BS: How many socialists are there here?
From: Don Firth
Date: 13 Apr 08 - 03:08 PM

Beside the point. I don't see what that has to do with it.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: How many socialists are there here?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 13 Apr 08 - 02:48 PM

yeh, it works now they've nicked all our fish....

Subject: RE: BS: How many socialists are there here?
From: Don Firth
Date: 13 Apr 08 - 02:13 PM

Those who keep citing the Soviet Union and China as examples of the failure of Socialism neglect to take into consideration the Scandinavian countries, where it is working quite well.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: How many socialists are there here?
From: autolycus
Date: 13 Apr 08 - 06:18 AM

Was it something I said?

:-)

Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: How many socialists are there here?
From: autolycus
Date: 12 Apr 08 - 06:27 AM

And there's a quote,

"The rich will do everything for the poor except get off their back".

I have discovered that many of the not so well-off and the poor won't get off the backs of the poor either.

   Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: How many socialists are there here?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 12 Apr 08 - 06:06 AM

'Our "democracy" is corrupt from top to bottom'

And furthermore some people tops are nearly as corrupt as their bottoms.

Subject: RE: BS: How many socialists are there here?
From: akenaton
Date: 12 Apr 08 - 05:09 AM

Stigweard...I agree with most of your post.
Politicians of all parties are now openly corrupt and are rewarded by us for being so...........in a so called democracy.


I too am self employed and am taxed heavily, although less so than my son who is on PAYE on a low to medium wage.
Almost one third of my son's and his wife's earning go on taxation while the high earners and politician "fiddle" tax and expenses.
Our "democracy" is corrupt from top to bottom.

Subject: RE: BS: How many socialists are there here?
From: autolycus
Date: 12 Apr 08 - 04:51 AM

imo, Marx was right about the working-class needing to do it.

in my current experience, the UK is a concervative , small 'c', country,I mean, kingdom, where many of the wotking class have a CEO's baton in their knapsack, and otherwise have an infinite quantity of putting-up-wth-ness-with-their-chains to keep them going till they're gone.

And selling off council houses (social housing) to them not only set the seal of the future for capitalism, but demonstrated by its popularity where large swathes of the British working-class are at.

Really makes me wonder why the Conservatives and people further right get in such a sweat about twitches from the centre-left (making them out to be rabid communists and everything)

Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: How many socialists are there here?
From: Stu
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 05:19 AM

One of the big problems we face is that 'democracy' has been come interchangeable with 'capitalism' in modern political parlance. In the case of the US and UK, the formation of virtually all foreign policy and much domestic policy (especially with regards to taxation and economic de-regulation) is disproportionately influence by the interests of big business*

Evidence of this is easy to find, with the most recent issue being Brown quite happy to do the bidding of the Chinese when they ring up demanding he holds the Olympic torch to help legitimise their ongoing persecution of not only the Tibetans, but their own people.

This illustrates what might be the defining characteristic between socialism and capitalism - moral integrity. Capitalism is, by its very nature, exploitative. It has to show a certain disregard for the most vulnerable in society, whether local or global in order to produce goods cheaper than they will be brought for. This can work providing the employer/buyer has moral integrity and can keep his greed in check, but as so many of us from the industrial disputes we see on the TV we know this often doesn't happen even within our own countries - and it is taken to extreme when dealing with large factory states like China. This attitude of exploitation extrapolates out and before we know it we're letting our leaders stand by whilst an entire culture (in this case Tibetan) be systematically eradicated in the most brutal fashion because it makes economic sense.

This is why capitalism will ultimately fail us. Global warming, third world health, workers rights across the planet and the freedom of every individual is threatened because we have let people who are blinded by self-interest run our countries and the ultimately, the world. They ignore the advice of scientists, community and religious leaders in pursuit of profit and then tell us we are unpatriotic, unrealistic or idealistic when we question their motives. They won't regulate the free market and the free market is now beginning to control them and that is a bad place to be, for all of us.

*It's important to note this applies to larger companies only. I am a sole trader and despite being hailed as the 'backbone of the economy' or whatever we pay tax on everything, no concessions or loop holes. Class 4 NI contributions anyone? I would contend that sole traders who come under the VAT threshold are the single most taxed group of workers in the country.

Subject: RE: BS: How many socialists are there here?
From: theleveller
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 03:14 AM

Us? Them? What's he talking about, nurse?

Subject: RE: BS: How many socialists are there here?
From: Rowan
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 02:44 AM

Ah!!!! The days of Ram-SDS, Trots, Marxist-Leninists, Bakuninites. Maoists etc. And that was just in some of Melbourne's suburbs.

Thank goodness everything's so much simpler these days, when the plaques and the senior moments have left us with just enough connecting neurones to be able to cope with "Us" and "Them".

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: How many socialists are there here?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 02:11 AM

Thanks Bruce. My wife was looking through Facebook today - she said - I think I've found Trish Spencer for you.

And there were several Trish Spencers to choose from, but one photograph looked very much like her. However the lady in question turned out to live in Australia and had never set foot in England.

there was a lot of radical chic around in those days - there were all these books around like Regis Debray's Revolution dans la Revolution - god knows what all that was about.

I went on one of the anti Vietnam war marches about 1967. I found myself walking down this road in London, and I heard this kid on the sidewalk say, who are those people Mummy?
She said in a very posh voice, those people are all communists...
(and I'm thinking bollocks to you dear!) then one of my fellow marchers(looking even younger than my 18 years)sidles up to me and says, which branch are you in then?
I said, Branch....?
He says, you know, branch of the communist party - I'm from Lewisham...
I said, I'm not a communist
he says, what the bloody hell are you doing here then? Anyway whatever you do - don't get mixed up with that lot behind us - they're syndicalists. they're very mixed up, they haven't got it worked out - like us.....When it comes to Vietnam, they are completely unsound.

Subject: RE: BS: How many socialists are there here?
From: Peace
Date: 03 Apr 08 - 03:03 PM

I LOVE that song, Al. Have for a long time now.

Subject: RE: BS: How many socialists are there here?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 03 Apr 08 - 03:01 PM

I used to fancy a girl named Trish
With her long brown hair, shw was quite a dish
I was hypnotised
by her big blue eyes
And her little mini skirt
going swish swish swish

Trish Trish
she was a communist
I was an anarcho syndicalist marxist lenninist

for the rest of the song
http://bigalwhittle.co.uk/id10.html


sorry! meeting actual anarcho syndicalist - after all these years...just brought it all back

al

Subject: RE: BS: How many socialists are there here?
From: Doc John
Date: 03 Apr 08 - 02:59 PM

To me there are two poles: left wing (=socialist) & right wing and then liberal (not capital L) & authoritarian. These intertwine with each other. Witness the Spanish Civil War. Democracy is another matter altogether. It's rather like tolerance: if you are tolerant should you tolerate intolerance. An interesting example is 'Pride's Purge' in the Civil War: parliament, who hardly represented the majority but were democratically elected, wanted to come to terms with the King. The army - who were probably more representative of the people but hardly democratically elected - realized that this was futile and purged parliament so that only those who wished to bring the King to trial remained. Dubya is always banging on about 'mocracy as if it's some kind of religion but not in the Gaza strip!
Doc John

Subject: RE: BS: How many socialists are there here?
From: Donuel
Date: 03 Apr 08 - 02:01 PM

A real democracy will always lead to socialism. There will always be more working folks than ruling families.

That is why we have so many laws to circumvent or eliminate democracy and preserve the country as a Republic which is firmly in the grasp of the power elite whose 1% owns 90% of the capital and still wants more.

Subject: RE: BS: How many socialists are there here?
From: number 6
Date: 03 Apr 08 - 02:00 PM

I think they were a hard core revolutionary baker's union in Eastern Europe back at the turn of the century. Movement started out in Latvia.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: How many socialists are there here?
From: Mark Ross
Date: 03 Apr 08 - 01:59 PM

I'm an anarcho-syndicalist and member of the IWW(Industrial Workers of the World)myself.

"Dump the bosses off your back!"

Yours for the OBU(One Big Union),

Mark Ross

Subject: RE: BS: How many socialists are there here?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 03 Apr 08 - 01:53 PM

What's a Schactmanite? Are they the ones that hang from the roof - I get mixed up.

Subject: RE: BS: How many socialists are there here?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 03 Apr 08 - 03:26 AM

Thanks that turned out much more positive than I expected.

Stringsinger:

"I think that there are partial Socialists in many countries of the world such as in Germany, Sweden, and Canada. "Socialist" is a hard label to figure out. There are so many who disagree such as Schactmanites and Trotskyites."

I feel sure this is right. We have no right to be trusted with our ideas or our governemnts unless we can show that what we advocate is good and fair. We have shown that with the UK Health Service.

Subject: RE: BS: How many socialists are there here?
From: Rowan
Date: 02 Apr 08 - 11:58 PM

"Let the ruling classes tremble at a communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workingmen of all countries, unite! "

"Anyone who knows anything of history knows that great social changes are impossible without feminine upheaval. Social progress can be measured exactly by the social position of the fair sex, the ugly ones included. "

.... Karl Marx for both quotes.

And yet his wife was extremely poorly treated by the man himself, even according to the rather Dickensian conditions regarded as "acceptable" at the time.

Arguments over principle are essential (although most in our society seem to have an interest in arguing over principal and capital gains) and I'm wary of ad hominem arguments but, it's always made me wonder about the relationship between beliefs and actions.

I'm trying. Some of my friends agree; I'm very trying.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: How many socialists are there here?
From: number 6
Date: 02 Apr 08 - 11:24 PM

"Anyone who knows anything of history knows that great social changes are impossible without feminine upheaval. Social progress can be measured exactly by the social position of the fair sex, the ugly ones included. "

.... Karl Marx

"Women should be obscene and not heard."

.... Groucho Marx

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: How many socialists are there here?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Apr 08 - 11:14 PM

Idealists of all countries...prepare to be laughed at by many and ignored by many more. Prepare also to be arrested, tortured, and shot. It depends on where you are living. If you should ever succeed in triggering a national or regional revolution (as happens very rarely) prepare to have it quickly stolen from you by an assortment of unidealistic thugs and then prepare to be betrayed by the bureaucrats and powermongers who take over when the revolution is won. And if the revolution somehow holds relatively true to its original ideals...then prepare to be shunned, isolated, named as the greatest "evil" in the world, and attacked relentlessly by the greatest military and financial powers in the world around you.

Idealists are never tolerated for long. Not in religious affairs, and not in political affairs either.

Subject: RE: BS: How many socialists are there here?
From: number 6
Date: 02 Apr 08 - 10:52 PM

"Let the ruling classes tremble at a communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workingmen of all countries, unite! "

.... Karl Marx

"A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five. "

.... Groucho Marx


..... biLL

Subject: RE: BS: How many socialists are there here?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 02 Apr 08 - 10:00 PM

Socialites have more fun.

Subject: RE: BS: How many socialists are there here?
From: Stringsinger
Date: 02 Apr 08 - 06:57 PM

I think that there are partial Socialists in many countries of the world such as in Germany,
Sweden, and Canada. "Socialist" is a hard label to figure out. There are so many who
disagree such as Schactmanites and Trotskyites.

I think most civilized countries of the world practice some portion of socialism.

The only way to answer this question is to ask, what kind of socialist are you?
Then we can determine how much agreement you have on Mudcat.

The word socialist has been misrepresented and misunderstood that a detailed
description and definition by the people who calls themselves socialists need to
expressed before the question can be answered.

Stringsinger

Subject: RE: BS: How many socialists are there here?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 02 Apr 08 - 12:39 PM

By democracy, you surely mean free and fair elections. Right?


Yes


What if the majority votes against your favoured form of governance, Socialism?

Then we cannot have it.

Since so far we have completely failed to convince almost anybody we have a long way to go.

I am tempted to say, in fact I will, global warming is likely to cause such chaos, in which the rich will look after themselves and the poor will starve and possibly invade rich countries, that the chances for:

"making the means of production, distribution and exchange more democratic."

a bit slim.

In the end democracy is the essential, how far can we use to organise a fairer world?

Cheers

Les

Subject: RE: BS: How many socialists are there here?
From: pdq
Date: 02 Apr 08 - 12:19 PM

Those two terms are not mutually exclusive.

Subject: RE: BS: How many socialists are there here?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 02 Apr 08 - 12:15 PM

..........as opposed to a sociopath?

Subject: RE: BS: How many socialists are there here?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 02 Apr 08 - 12:12 PM

I'm a socialite!

Subject: RE: BS: How many socialists are there here?
From: pdq
Date: 02 Apr 08 - 12:10 PM

"Socialism must be coincidental with democracy..."

By democracy, you surely mean free and fair elections. Right?

What if the majority votes against your favoured form of governance, Socialism?

Subject: RE: BS: How many socialists are there here?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 02 Apr 08 - 12:01 PM

Socialism must be coincidental with democracy and about making the means of production, distribution and exchange more democratic.

We have some way to go
Cheers
Les

Subject: RE: BS: How many socialists are there here?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 02 Apr 08 - 08:00 AM

What's a socialist?

Subject: RE: BS: How many socialists are there here?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 02 Apr 08 - 05:19 AM

Albert,
you make a number of points with which I agree. But the working class ain't what is was. For one the unions have little power.

It is not simply the Labour Party that has failed to advance socialism, it is the whole of the left. The best organised has been the SWP, with which I guess you are familiar. It has no clear idea of what socialism might be, it has almost no members and nobody votes for it and it has achieved nothing of any note in 30 odd years of existance.

"I am a member of Respect which came into existence out of the anti war and social justice movement" Really, why did the Trotskists get into bed with an opportunist unrecontsructed pro-soviet stalinist who favoured the soviet invasion of Afganistan?

Most of the Labour Party are anti war and pro social justice. The Labour Party is not a happy or comfortable place but you will find more working class and middle class socialist here than anywhere else.

That is simply it.

Cheers, I have to build an Invertibrate habitat in my garden