A Lot of America’s millennials approve of communism

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Re: A Lot of America’s millennials approve of communism

Post by Hermit » Tue Jul 27, 2021 5:00 am

Brian Peacock wrote:
Tue Jul 27, 2021 12:19 am
The people who like to trot out Orwell are the same ones who trot out MLK as if he'd agree with everything they say. Apparently it takes a socialist to prove that socialism is bad, and a civil rights hero to prove that BLM is a lie
While Orwell rejected communism as a consequence of his experiences with POUM and the Trotskyites during the Spanish Civil War in 1936-7, as well as his realisation of what Stalin was really about, he explicitly advocated socialism. In a short essay titled Why I Write, published in 1947, he wrote: "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it." (Italics in the original)

As for the article mentioned in the opening post, its author has no idea what communism is. It is guaranteed that a third of America’s millennials do not approve of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the nationalisation of all means of production.
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops. - Stephen J. Gould

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Re: A Lot of America’s millennials approve of communism

Post by rainbow » Tue Jul 27, 2021 6:11 am

Hermit wrote:
Tue Jul 27, 2021 5:00 am
Brian Peacock wrote:
Tue Jul 27, 2021 12:19 am
The people who like to trot out Orwell are the same ones who trot out MLK as if he'd agree with everything they say. Apparently it takes a socialist to prove that socialism is bad, and a civil rights hero to prove that BLM is a lue
While Orwell rejected communism as a consequence of his experiences with POUM and the Trotskyites during the Spanish Civil War in 1936-7, as well as his realisation of what Stalin was really about, he explicitly advocated socialism. In a short essay titled Why I Write, published in 1947, he wrote: "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it." (Italics in the original)

As for the article mentioned in the opening post, its author has no idea what communism is. It is guaranteed that a third of America’s millennials do not approve of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the nationalisation of all means of production.
One should read "The Road to Wigan Pier", where he extols the wonderful Capitalist System.
Workers are now being deprived of crawling kms in mine workings to get to the pit face and doing a 12 hour workday. No freedom to do that anymore.
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Re: A Lot of America’s millennials approve of communism

Post by Brian Peacock » Tue Jul 27, 2021 6:21 am

Sean Hayden wrote:
Brian Peacock wrote:
Tue Jul 27, 2021 12:19 am
Sean Hayden wrote:
Why Socialists Are Despised, As Explained By George Orwell
If one accepts Orwell’s premise that for the common man socialism means improved living and working conditions, why is socialism unpopular? The fault lies with socialists. For one thing, socialism attracts a fair number of cranks. “One sometimes gets the impression that the mere words ‘Socialism’ and ‘Communism’ draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, ‘Nature Cure’ quack, pacifist, and feminist in England.” Some of those categories should be dropped and new ones should be added, such as gender studies students. However, the sentiment is correct. An ideology that appeals to a large number of oddballs has little hope of being adopted by the average man.
...
George Orwell was a rare individual, a socialist with worldly experience and a capacity for introspection. Capitalism’s future is secure for as long as the political left fails to produce men like him.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/timreuter/ ... rwell/amp/
I've noticed the angry Right often like to give the impression of revering and/or admiring Orwell for his insight, when in fact he'd loath and despise pretty much everything they stand for. The people who like to trot out Orwell are the same ones who trot out MLK as if he'd agree with everything they say. Apparently it takes a socialist to prove that socialism is bad, and a civil rights hero to prove that BLM is a lue - but where's the right-wing counterparts proving neoliberaliam false, eh? Nobody on the Left is saying "Even the Right think that the Right is wrong," so perhaps it's only the Right who go in for that kind of Cuntish Exceptionalism?
The left is always doing this. I do it a lot since Trump.

--//--
Where are the Republicans of yesteryear? Where are those who rejected the John Birch Society, who stood up to Joe McCarthy in the '50s, who worked across the aisle to pass landmark Civil Rights legislation? Where are the Republicans of old who knew how to speak truth to power and who convinced Richard Nixon he had to resign for the good of the country? Where are the courageous Republicans who believed in conservatism, like Liz Cheney, who would say simply and truthfully, Joe Biden is President, Trump is not a patriot and does not represent our Party?

And, finally, where are the Republicans who can see that the rise of wild and crazy conspiracy theories they know are false, coupled with blind loyalty to a former president who has more in common with fascist authoritarian dictators than past American presidents, are all leading us rapidly down the road to the destruction of our democracy?
https://www.google.com/amp/s/thehill.co ... -and%3famp
The kind of counterpart to Orwell supposedly decrying socialism I'm thinking of would be to claim that someone like Freedman was actually telling us that supply-side economics or moneterism etc was a bad idea. Making such a claim would be a monstrous exercise in gaslighting.
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Clinton Huxley » 21 Jun 2012 » 14:10:36 GMT
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Re: A Lot of America’s millennials approve of communism

Post by Hermit » Tue Jul 27, 2021 6:22 am

rainbow wrote:
Tue Jul 27, 2021 6:11 am
One should read "The Road to Wigan Pier", where he extols the wonderful Capitalist System.
Workers are now being deprived of crawling kms in mine workings to get to the pit face and doing a 12 hour workday. No freedom to do that anymore.
I have read it. If memory serves me right, the miners were not paid for the time they spent crawling to and from the coal face either.
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops. - Stephen J. Gould

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Re: A Lot of America’s millennials approve of communism

Post by rainbow » Tue Jul 27, 2021 8:28 am

Hermit wrote:
Tue Jul 27, 2021 6:22 am
rainbow wrote:
Tue Jul 27, 2021 6:11 am
One should read "The Road to Wigan Pier", where he extols the wonderful Capitalist System.
Workers are now being deprived of crawling kms in mine workings to get to the pit face and doing a 12 hour workday. No freedom to do that anymore.
I have read it. If memory serves me right, the miners were not paid for the time they spent crawling to and from the coal face either.
Communism in the form of successive Socialist Labour governments put and end to that freedom.
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Re: A Lot of America’s millennials approve of communism

Post by Sean Hayden » Tue Jul 27, 2021 10:41 am

Brian Peacock wrote:
Tue Jul 27, 2021 6:21 am
Sean Hayden wrote:
Brian Peacock wrote:
Tue Jul 27, 2021 12:19 am
Sean Hayden wrote:
Why Socialists Are Despised, As Explained By George Orwell
If one accepts Orwell’s premise that for the common man socialism means improved living and working conditions, why is socialism unpopular? The fault lies with socialists. For one thing, socialism attracts a fair number of cranks. “One sometimes gets the impression that the mere words ‘Socialism’ and ‘Communism’ draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, ‘Nature Cure’ quack, pacifist, and feminist in England.” Some of those categories should be dropped and new ones should be added, such as gender studies students. However, the sentiment is correct. An ideology that appeals to a large number of oddballs has little hope of being adopted by the average man.
...
George Orwell was a rare individual, a socialist with worldly experience and a capacity for introspection. Capitalism’s future is secure for as long as the political left fails to produce men like him.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/timreuter/ ... rwell/amp/
I've noticed the angry Right often like to give the impression of revering and/or admiring Orwell for his insight, when in fact he'd loath and despise pretty much everything they stand for. The people who like to trot out Orwell are the same ones who trot out MLK as if he'd agree with everything they say. Apparently it takes a socialist to prove that socialism is bad, and a civil rights hero to prove that BLM is a lue - but where's the right-wing counterparts proving neoliberaliam false, eh? Nobody on the Left is saying "Even the Right think that the Right is wrong," so perhaps it's only the Right who go in for that kind of Cuntish Exceptionalism?
The left is always doing this. I do it a lot since Trump.

--//--
Where are the Republicans of yesteryear? Where are those who rejected the John Birch Society, who stood up to Joe McCarthy in the '50s, who worked across the aisle to pass landmark Civil Rights legislation? Where are the Republicans of old who knew how to speak truth to power and who convinced Richard Nixon he had to resign for the good of the country? Where are the courageous Republicans who believed in conservatism, like Liz Cheney, who would say simply and truthfully, Joe Biden is President, Trump is not a patriot and does not represent our Party?

And, finally, where are the Republicans who can see that the rise of wild and crazy conspiracy theories they know are false, coupled with blind loyalty to a former president who has more in common with fascist authoritarian dictators than past American presidents, are all leading us rapidly down the road to the destruction of our democracy?
https://www.google.com/amp/s/thehill.co ... -and%3famp
The kind of counterpart to Orwell supposedly decrying socialism I'm thinking of would be to claim that someone like Freedman was actually telling us that supply-side economics or moneterism etc was a bad idea. Making such a claim would be a monstrous exercise in gaslighting.
I read it again and I still don't see a critique of socialism, just of a certain type of socialist.
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Re: A Lot of America’s millennials approve of communism

Post by aufbahrung » Tue Jul 27, 2021 1:03 pm

Solzhenitsyn

https://www.joshuatcharles.com/blog/201 ... -socialism

Orwell wasn't at the coalface of the horror that was Communism writ big, unlike Solzhenitsyn...

A lot of the bad appears on the side of the right at present, but how much of that is illusion because the left lacks the totalitarian power it desires? My guess is the evil is in both left and right, both being human constructs with flawed human beings at their flawed ideological helms...
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Re: A Lot of America’s millennials approve of communism

Post by Hermit » Tue Jul 27, 2021 1:35 pm

aufbahrung wrote:
Tue Jul 27, 2021 1:03 pm
Orwell wasn't at the coalface of the horror that was Communism writ big, unlike Solzhenitsyn...
And whaddyaknow, he was dead set against it since 1936. "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism..." Yes, my dear fellow, communism equalled totalitarianism as far as Orwell was concerned. He continued: "...and for democratic socialism, as I understand it." There is such a thing as democratic socialism, you know? If you don't, familiarise yourself with the governments and policies of the Nordic countries, especially as practised in the 1960s and 70s. The UK missed out on it recently when Jeremy Corbyn was axed by the right wing of his own party. That's why you got lumbered with Boris Johnson instead. Enjoy.
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops. - Stephen J. Gould

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Re: A Lot of America’s millennials approve of communism

Post by aufbahrung » Tue Jul 27, 2021 3:41 pm

Hermit wrote:
Tue Jul 27, 2021 1:35 pm
aufbahrung wrote:
Tue Jul 27, 2021 1:03 pm
Orwell wasn't at the coalface of the horror that was Communism writ big, unlike Solzhenitsyn...
And whaddyaknow, he was dead set against it since 1936. "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism..." Yes, my dear fellow, communism equalled totalitarianism as far as Orwell was concerned. He continued: "...and for democratic socialism, as I understand it." There is such a thing as democratic socialism, you know? If you don't, familiarise yourself with the governments and policies of the Nordic countries, especially as practised in the 1960s and 70s. The UK missed out on it recently when Jeremy Corbyn was axed by the right wing of his own party. That's why you got lumbered with Boris Johnson instead. Enjoy.
Nordic countries had small populations and vast amounts of oil when the price was good in them years. No magic 'social idealogy' involved albeit avoiding far left ideology like Venezuela was a smart move.
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Re: A Lot of America’s millennials approve of communism

Post by Hermit » Tue Jul 27, 2021 4:20 pm

aufbahrung wrote:
Tue Jul 27, 2021 3:41 pm
Hermit wrote:
Tue Jul 27, 2021 1:35 pm
aufbahrung wrote:
Tue Jul 27, 2021 1:03 pm
Orwell wasn't at the coalface of the horror that was Communism writ big, unlike Solzhenitsyn...
And whaddyaknow, he was dead set against it since 1936. "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism..." Yes, my dear fellow, communism equalled totalitarianism as far as Orwell was concerned. He continued: "...and for democratic socialism, as I understand it." There is such a thing as democratic socialism, you know? If you don't, familiarise yourself with the governments and policies of the Nordic countries, especially as practised in the 1960s and 70s. The UK missed out on it recently when Jeremy Corbyn was axed by the right wing of his own party. That's why you got lumbered with Boris Johnson instead. Enjoy.
Nordic countries had small populations and vast amounts of oil when the price was good in them years. No magic 'social idealogy' involved albeit avoiding far left ideology like Venezuela was a smart move.
1) Nordic countries had democratic socialist governments well before before the north sea oil became economically significant.
2) Neither Sweden nor Finland benefited from it.
3) The UK was a major beneficiary, but it didn't engender a socialist-democratic government. It elected Thatcher instead, who gave the windfall to the already rich.
4) The "small population" thing is a canard.
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops. - Stephen J. Gould

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Re: A Lot of America’s millennials approve of communism

Post by Seabass » Tue Jul 27, 2021 8:12 pm

Sean Hayden wrote:
Mon Jul 26, 2021 2:00 am
Why Socialists Are Despised, As Explained By George Orwell
If one accepts Orwell’s premise that for the common man socialism means improved living and working conditions, why is socialism unpopular? The fault lies with socialists. For one thing, socialism attracts a fair number of cranks. “One sometimes gets the impression that the mere words ‘Socialism’ and ‘Communism’ draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, ‘Nature Cure’ quack, pacifist, and feminist in England.” Some of those categories should be dropped and new ones should be added, such as gender studies students. However, the sentiment is correct. An ideology that appeals to a large number of oddballs has little hope of being adopted by the average man.
...
George Orwell was a rare individual, a socialist with worldly experience and a capacity for introspection. Capitalism’s future is secure for as long as the political left fails to produce men like him.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/timreuter/ ... rwell/amp/
One Tennessee pastor gave his members two options: come to church maskless or be kicked out. Pastor Greg Locke told his members at Global Vision Bible Church in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee that he will ask anyone with a mask to leave.

The warning from Locke comes after various states and communities reinstate mask mandates because of rising COVID-19 delta variant cases.

“If they go through round two and you start showing up (with) all these masks and all this nonsense, I will ask you to leave," Locke said during a service on Sunday. “I will ask you to leave. I am not playing these Democrat games up in this church.”
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nat ... 385007001/
Insanity like this is the direct result of a far-right media ecosystem that has been dehumanizing and demonizing liberals for decades. Can't really blame this on sandal-wearing or fruit-juice-drinking or gender studies or whatever.
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Re: A Lot of America’s millennials approve of communism

Post by JimC » Tue Jul 27, 2021 9:05 pm

I know this sounds a little dark, but if the batshit right continues with this anti-mask, anti-vaccination schtick, their demographic may decline...
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Re: A Lot of America’s millennials approve of communism

Post by Svartalf » Tue Jul 27, 2021 10:14 pm

You say it like it were a bad thing.
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Re: A Lot of America’s millennials approve of communism

Post by laklak » Tue Jul 27, 2021 11:19 pm

Global Vision Bible Church of Mt. Joliet, TN.

Do they have snakes?
Yeah well that's just, like, your opinion, man.

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Re: A Lot of America’s millennials approve of communism

Post by Brian Peacock » Wed Jul 28, 2021 12:54 am

These guys are socialists, right?

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Clinton Huxley » 21 Jun 2012 » 14:10:36 GMT
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