(03-18-2019, 08:47 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: But communism as defined by Marx is the ideological communism. You're talking about people defending communism as an ideology, but to defend the ideology is to defend Marxist communism, not Stalinism, Maoism, or any of the perverted less-than-half-assed attempts at communist governments. Ideological communism isn't workable, especially on a nation-state scale. Pure democracy also isn't, nor anarchy, nor capitalism, nor many other ideologies. However, critiques of those ideologies should be based on the ideologies themselves, not the corrupted versions of them people throw together.
I make derogatory comments about capitalism all of the time, but I know at its core capitalism is about the fair distribution of resources based on a free-market economy. It isn't the corrupted neo-liberal shit show that is currently screwing over the working people in this country and many others. If we are ever going to improve our societies, we must understand what the ideologies really are and where we have strayed from them. We must look at where others have gone wrong in applying these ideological viewpoints so we can continue to improve our current society. When we push false narratives about what an ideology is or isn't it harms the efforts towards progress.
I don't think Marx ever took time to describe what a state should look like, since his ultimate goal was a rather libertarian/anarchist disappearance of the state altogether. The only (quasi) state form he praised (that I can think of) was the short-lived Paris Commune. That was in his Critique of the Gotha Program, the German Social Democrats "reformist" platform in 1875.
What people currently criticize as communism is usually a Marxist-leninist or Stalinist state, with its one-party rule and bureaucratized control of the economy.
(03-18-2019, 08:42 PM)fredtoast Wrote: Not insinuating anything.
Just making a direct quote where you claim that white supremacists are just acting in self defense.
I think he was saying that white supremacists were responding to a perceived (and real) diminishing of white people proportionally to the rest of the nation. He called their political activity a "last ditch effort" and is probably right about that.
So they are acting in self defense against a perceived threat to their race. The same reason the Klan formed up back in 1865, to defend white supremacy against the (in their view) upended status quo at the end of the Civil War, when free blacks would soon be voting.
I believe MattC was describing the behavior of white supremacists, not defending it.
(03-18-2019, 09:49 PM)Dill Wrote: I think he was saying that white supremacists were responding to a perceived (and real) diminishing of white people proportionally to the rest of the nation. He called their political activity a "last ditch effort" and is probably right about that.
So they are acting in self defense against a perceived threat to their race. The same reason the Klan formed up back in 1865, to defend white supremacy against the (in their view) upended status quo at the end of the Civil War, when free blacks would soon be voting.
I believe MattC was describing the behavior of white supremacists, not defending it.
Hmmm...if only someone had said that earlier. With like 90% fewer words.
“History teaches that grave threats to liberty often come in times of urgency, when constitutional rights seem too extravagant to endure.”-Thurgood Marshall
(03-18-2019, 05:22 PM)Matt_Crimson Wrote: I think you're misunderstanding what I am saying here.
I'm saying that white supremacy and Islamic extremism aren't really all that comparable because they do not currently create the same problems in a way that represents how dangerous one actually is as opposed to the other in today's world. I'm not denying that you can compare a white supremacist terrorist attack to an Islamic extremist terror attack and draw some similarities from the two attacks. I'm saying that when looking deeper into the complexity of the issue and going beyond the surface questions of "Who killed what people and why" the two really don't stand up well to comparison in today's world. Even if you just look at it from the standpoint of terrorist murder, I believe the argument still stands because the influential factor plays a big role in these murders. The probability that someone will act out in the ideology of Islamic extremism is significantly higher than someone acting out within the ideology of white supremacy. This is why I brought up the fact that "Only whites can be white supremacists but anyone can be an Islamic extremist" because more people can be and have been influenced by Islamic extremism than people have been influenced by white supremacy in recent times because more people are proportionately able to be influenced by Islamic extremism, including whites. Islam isn't exclusive to Arabs, whereas white supremacy for the most part is exclusive to whites only, thus creating an advantage for Islamic extremism to be the more dangerous of the two. This is one of those "problems" I was talking about, and why comparing the two as if they’re on a similar path is silly. The idea of white supremacy being "on the rise" is laughable in comparison to the continuous flow and rise of Islamic extremism. If you look at the KKK alone it's nowhere near what it used to be. Its membership numbers are currently reported to be around 12,000 members when in the past they had around 4 million members at the early days of their organization and around 6 million at their peak. Yet even at these high numbers they weren't able to keep themselves afloat and remain as a serious threat to American Democracy. But the media somehow wants people to believe that white supremacy is this monstrous problem in the present day even when whites are increasingly becoming a minority? This is why I'm stressing the point that we need to bring the conversation more towards the realms of what is happening now when discussing the "rise" of white supremacy. Too often people are distracted and bring up the past and start talking about Nazi’s as if that's really all that meaningful to the argument of how dangerous white supremacy is in comparison to Islamic extremism in today's society. What Nazi's, the KKK, etc… did 80 years ago is irrelevant when determining how dangerous white supremacy is now. I'm not denying that it's important to look at why these groups became what they were back then, because I believe that actually is important in a historical sense. But to try and use that history and take the number of people that were murdered and apply it to the argument to try and act as if white supremacy is becoming or is as big of an issue as it's ever been is absolutely ridiculous. The National Socialist Movement is considered the largest Neo-Nazi group in the United States and only consists of an estimated 400 members. Add that to the 12,000 KKK members that currently exists and you still don't even come close to filling just a third of the Bengals stadium. The truth is, this media narrative that "White supremacy is on the rise" is a deliberate attempt to stoke fear among the general population and ignore the fact that the time for white supremacy is over and that Islamic extremism is replacing it as the prominent problem in the world. Just because five hundred white guys were sitting on their couches and saw Donald Trump win the presidency and went "YEAH GO WHITE PEOPLE" and decided to join some racist groups that vary in sizes ranging from a track and field team to a high school gym class, does not mean "White supremacy is on the rise" in any real meaningful sense that translates into a massive problem of white supremacy taking hold of the world. But that’s what the media wants you to believe. The world has changed Dill. Whites are increasingly becoming a minority and the world as a whole is becoming increasingly more moral. This is not a great recipe for white supremacy. To act as if white supremacy is some huge problem like it was in the past is to deny the fact that the world has been substantially progressing towards a more moralistic environment, and that any regressions popping up in today's society are nothing more than anomalies in current times where the immoral ideology of white supremacy is fading more than it is "rising". As I mentioned earlier, the fact that "Only whites can be white supremacists but anyone can be an Islamic extremist" gives a far greater advantage to Islamic extremists. Even more so, the increasing moralistic view of the world that I just mentioned also adds to this advantage, because more people are losing their sense of "superiority" and becoming more accepting of different races, cultures, religions, sexes, etc..... This is why I have such a problem with the comparisons. They don’t translate how these comparisons matter realistically today, and when examining the realities of these two groups, you will find that they aren’t really all that comparable. “The New Zealand white supremacist Trump lover wrote a manifesto that mimics ISIS” So what?? Everyone should be afraid that a bunch of white people are going to come out of the forest now and start shooting people? I mean honestly Dill, what is this comparison really trying to say by comparing this guys manifesto to the rhetoric of Islamic extremist groups like ISIS? That white supremacy is becoming or currently is just as dangerous? What a comedy show. ISIS was the fastest growing extremist group the world had seen in recent times. People were joining them by THE THOUSANDS, from across the globe and they were taking over large portions of land and violently executing anyone who stood in their way and continually drove a message of establishing a caliphate at home and then establishing one throughout the entire world. What white supremacist group compares to that today that you know of? What white supremacy group is doing close to anything that ISIS accomplished? Again, this isn't about whether there's some surface level comparison when it comes to comparing these white supremacist attacks to Islamic extremist attacks. Of course there is, but in the context of current day happenings the two ideologies really aren't comparable in the severity of the problems that they create today that go beyond "This group attacked this building and that group attacked that building and they both killed people". Islamic extremism is more influential, more destructive, and more divisive than white supremacy has been in the last 20 years and the problem only seems to be growing while white supremacists needed someone like Donald Trump to help boost their numbers.
So then, why are we even spending time to compare them? I know why. Because the media is all about building a narrative and having people believe the garbage they’re putting out. Fear white supremacy! Fear the white man! Trump’s America is gonna kill us all!
Spare me…. The turnout for the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally in 2017 that turned deadly has been estimated to have had roughly over 700 individuals who came out to support the rally. You ever notice that the media never says anything about the fact that the following year (2018) when a 2nd Unite the Right rally was held only about 30 people showed up to support the rally while over a thousand protestors came to counter them? Yet they continually bring up the Charlottesville rally from 2017 and the violence that extended from it and how Donald Trump emboldened them. Why is that? Because it doesn't fit the narrative of how white supremacy is "On the rise".
A more accurate headline would be "White supremacy is fluctuating, but overall it is declining". What we're seeing with white supremacy right now isn't some significant rise that is going to threaten American democracy, or even the world at large. What we are really seeing with white supremacy today are its last ditch efforts to prevent the extinction of white identity that is being threatened by the overwhelming push of cultural diversity and moralistic values.
Parts of your post are clearly about the entire world, but then you make a lot of comments about the United States and Donald Trump.
So just to be clear, are you claiming that violent acts by white supremacists in the United States are declining? And are you claiming that there are more violent acts committed by Muslim extremists in the United States than white supremacists? If so what is the source for this claim?
(03-18-2019, 10:29 PM)GMDino Wrote: Yes, but you took Jesus' name in vain to 100 points to Hufflepuff.
I’m thinking Harry Potter reference, but I’m stuck after that.
“History teaches that grave threats to liberty often come in times of urgency, when constitutional rights seem too extravagant to endure.”-Thurgood Marshall
(03-18-2019, 10:49 PM)GMDino Wrote: Jesus was not in Harry Potter.
Well what the hell is Hufflepuff?
Plus I was just claiming Jesus was black. I just punctuated it poorly.
Jesus Christ? He’s black.
“History teaches that grave threats to liberty often come in times of urgency, when constitutional rights seem too extravagant to endure.”-Thurgood Marshall
(03-18-2019, 09:38 PM)Dill Wrote: I don't think Marx ever took time to describe what a state should look like, since his ultimate goal was a rather libertarian/anarchist disappearance of the state altogether. The only (quasi) state form he praised (that I can think of) was the short-lived Paris Commune. That was in his Critique of the Gotha Program, the German Social Democrats "reformist" platform in 1875.
What people currently criticize as communism is usually a Marxist-leninist or Stalinist state, with its one-party rule and bureaucratized control of the economy.
I'm aware, but that's still ideological communism. Both capitalism and communism, ideologically speaking, rely on little to no state. They rely on power solely in the hands of the people. I know most people are usually criticizing corrupted, applied attempts at communism when they are criticizing communism, but that is not the ideal version of communism. It's not the ideology.
"A great democracy has got to be progressive, or it will soon cease to be either great or a democracy..." - TR
"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." - FDR
(03-19-2019, 08:25 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: I'm aware, but that's still ideological communism. Both capitalism and communism, ideologically speaking, rely on little to no state. They rely on power solely in the hands of the people. I know most people are usually criticizing corrupted, applied attempts at communism when they are criticizing communism, but that is not the ideal version of communism. It's not the ideology.
I get the point you're making in this, and the previous, post. However, you're making it in a vacuum. At some point an idea must be judged by its fruits. In this case, communism, whenever put into practice in the real world has produced a single party autocracy often with an all powerful dictator at the helm. This is almost invariably accompanied by human rights atrocities, often on a vast scale. Even when it occasionally does not it results in an oppressive government that allows no dissent or variation of thought. So, I am forced to disagree. Communism, as an idea, is a polluted and dangerous ideology.
(03-19-2019, 11:11 AM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: I get the point you're making in this, and the previous, post. However, you're making it in a vacuum. At some point an idea must be judged by its fruits. In this case, communism, whenever put into practice in the real world has produced a single party autocracy often with an all powerful dictator at the helm. This is almost invariably accompanied by human rights atrocities, often on a vast scale. Even when it occasionally does not it results in an oppressive government that allows no dissent or variation of thought. So, I am forced to disagree. Communism, as an idea, is a polluted and dangerous ideology.
I would only make the argument that what is being called communism is not, in fact, communism. Communism has never been achieved. Soviet leaders, and others, have used an end goal of communism as an excuse to consolidate power. They saw in Marxist writings a way to foment revolution and they seized on that. Just looking at the Bolshevik/Menshevik split you can see the way Lenin, and later Stalin, saw the revolutionary ideals of Marxism as a way to really wrest power for themselves rather than for the people.
Classical Marxism is dangerous in the way it requires revolution to reach communism. It is predicated on there being a violent revolution against the ruling class and at the end there is no such thing as class. There has always been a ruling class in every attempt at "communism," though, which means that communism has never been attained. I think the better argument to make against communism would be that it is unattainable and far too many have died under the guise of trying to attain it. This reliance on revolution, by the by, is why I am a social democrat.
"A great democracy has got to be progressive, or it will soon cease to be either great or a democracy..." - TR
"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." - FDR
(03-19-2019, 08:25 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: I'm aware, but that's still ideological communism. Both capitalism and communism, ideologically speaking, rely on little to no state. They rely on power solely in the hands of the people. I know most people are usually criticizing corrupted, applied attempts at communism when they are criticizing communism, but that is not the ideal version of communism. It's not the ideology.
I wasn't correcting you Bels, just tossing ins some additional info about Marx and the state.
People largely identify communism with marxism-leninism and the Stalinist state form. Few actually read Marx anymore, and fewer still read Lenin or Stalin--at least in the US.
Would be more accurate to say something like "wherever the Stalinist state-form has been imposed" or some such, when talking about what people usually call Communism. Viewed through the prism of anti-communism, numerous different "communisms" are melded into one under one label. That was one of the great deficiencies of US foreign policy during the Cold War.
Also, "Marxism" as philosophy and social scientific practice has a much broader legacy than Stalinism as a form of political organization, and in Western Europe a rather positive one. Marx's description of capitalism as a mode of production still seems valid and useful for explaining current trends in globalization.
PS In post #94when you use the term "classical Marxism" I assume you are refering to what is sometimes called "orthodox Marxism" or "marxism-Lenism." From 1848 on, Marx himself thought that the proletariat could acquire state power through the vote as well as through revolution, despite his later critiques of reformism. The idea of a vanguard party which seizes power and maintains a functioning core of the bourgeois state to bridge the gap between socialism and communism--that's all Lenin.
(03-19-2019, 12:19 PM)Dill Wrote: PS In post #94when you use the term "classical Marxism" I assume you are refering to what is sometimes called "orthodox Marxism" or "marxism-Lenism." From 1848 on, Marx himself thought that the proletariat could acquire state power through the vote as well as through revolution, despite his later critiques of reformism. The idea of a vanguard party which seizes power and maintains a functioning core of the bourgeois state to bridge the gap between socialism and communism--that's all Lenin.
Interessant. I was unaware that Marx thought that way. I knew that was one of the splits (hence the emergence of social democrats), but I did not know that Marx himself had said that was a possibility.
"A great democracy has got to be progressive, or it will soon cease to be either great or a democracy..." - TR
"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." - FDR
It's an interesting read as it covers Europe and the Anglosphere. I found of particular interest that in Germany far-right violence was exceeded by that of the far-left. In any event, I suggest the read, I think it brings some needed perspective.
(03-19-2019, 08:37 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: To bring the topic back to OP, here's an interesting article from the BBC about the prevalence, or rather lack thereof, of right-wing terrorism.
It's an interesting read as it covers Europe and the Anglosphere. I found of particular interest that in Germany far-right violence was exceeded by that of the far-left. In any event, I suggest the read, I think it brings some needed perspective.
I found it interesting how much they show right-wing extremism is on the rise in both Western Europe and North America. I wonder if the trend is the same for other extremism over there, of if it is just right-wing extremism on the rise. It's also interesting that right-wing violence is the lowest category for their situation, but the highest here in the U.S.
"A great democracy has got to be progressive, or it will soon cease to be either great or a democracy..." - TR
"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." - FDR
(03-19-2019, 09:15 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: I found it interesting how much they show right-wing extremism is on the rise in both Western Europe and North America. I wonder if the trend is the same for other extremism over there, of if it is just right-wing extremism on the rise. It's also interesting that right-wing violence is the lowest category for their situation, but the highest here in the U.S.
It is on the rise, but the number are still extremely low. As for lowest in the US, they didn't give us something to compare it to. Even so, at its worst right wing extremists killed 22 people in a year in the US. While this is of no solace to those killed or their loved ones, that's an incredibly low number. The same year right wing extremists killed 22 people, 2015, over thirty people were killed by dogs.
Again, I must stress, I'm not saying right wing extremism is a non-issue or something we should ignore. However, the raw numbers rather suggest it's nothing close to the problem we're being told it is.
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