On "us vs them", terrorism, etc.

ziggy wrote:

I am curious though, are you now saying that communism of yesteryear was the same boogeyman that terrorism of today is Ziggy?

Mostly, yes. For example, it was the political excuse for the escalation of the Vietnam War in the 1960s, even though the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution says nothing about communism.

Tell that to the 100,000,000 million or so who lost their lives to that boogeyman.

ziggy wrote:

Aaron wrote:

ziggy wrote:You don't win anything.

Pure communism, or the stage in history after socialism, refers to a classless, stateless society, one where decisions on what to produce and what policies to pursue are made in the best interests of the collective society with the interests of every member of society given equal weight in the practical decision-making process in both the political and economic spheres of life.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism

Sure I did. You need to go back and read the thread. Terry claimed Stalin wasn't a communist and didn't rule with communism. I never claimed he was a strict communist but that he used communsim to rule the USSR.

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (18 December 1879[2] – 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and head of state who served as the first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953. After the death of Vladimir Lenin in 1924, Stalin rose to become the leader of the Soviet Union, which he ruled as a dictator.

You mistakenly equate government centered socialism with stateless communism. American corporate socialism has much more in common with Soviet style socialsim than Soviet socialsim under Stalin had with communism.

I'm not mistaking anything Ziggy. Socialism is an economic and political philosophy that promotes state or common ownership of production and resources but allows for capitalistic ventures, private property and corporate ownership, inheritance and grants to the citizenry certain rights and privileges, including electing government officials.

Communism on the other hand is a sociopolitical movement that aims for a classless society based on communal (hence the word, communism) ownership of everything with the aim of ending wages for labor and ownership of private property and is often mistaken for socialism. Ask any true communist and they will tell you that socialism is nothing more then a vehicle to achieve true communism.

Stalinism on the other hand was an ideology in which Joseph Stalin used communism as a means of governing as a brutal dictator and was opposed by classic Marxist and Leninist. Once again, despite what you and Terry incorrectly claim, the USSR utilized a communist philosophy under Stalin.

It's interesting that while communist stated goal is a classless society, outside of a few small indian tribes and Christian groups, it has never been successful. Too often, you have individuals like Stalin who assume control and abuse the philosophy. That's part of the reason why communism fails on such a grand scale.

ziggy wrote:

As the General Secretary of the Communist Party, I'd say I made my point. I'll take cash please.

The Communist Party of the USSR, like the Democratic Party or the Republican Party of the USA, is/was just a name for a political machine. It has nothing to do with what it meant by a democratic or republican or communistic society by function.

Sure it does. It describes the basic philosophies and tenets that are shared by a group of people. Just because you choose not to recognize something does not make it so.

Par the course; you don't have a clue what you're talking about.

I'm not mistaking anything Ziggy. ..............................

.....................................Par the course; you don't have a clue what you're talking about.

Well, at least you are consistent in that you proclaim yourself always right, and anyone who disagrees with you always wrong.

I don't think I'm right over everybody. Mostly it's just you.

If you want to change that, try being right once in a while.