Old boy with a sense of humour

(The Older Gentleman) wrote in

I'm not basically disagreeing, but:

Remind me how people get to and from the ISS, again?

 

Depends how much cannon fodder you have to equip on a fixed budget, obv.

 

You arm the front row(1). When the armed guys drop, the next line
picks up the weapons and carries on advancing. That worked when bodies
were cheaper and more easily available than weapons to somebody like
Uncle Joe.

1. And the rearmost row, obviously: they'd be the Commissars, with the
orders and inclination to shoot anybody who decided that they'd rather
not advance in the face of almost certain death.

 

Not hugely relevant to guerilla insurgencies, that. I was thinking more
of kids in the LRA.

 

Why build model boating lakes when it's more exciting to be kicking
the shit out of something or petting a virtual dog on your DS.

Paul.

 

Well dodged.

I can't think of anything one would "big up" pre about 1990 though

 

It isn't?

 

Exactly. The basic tenets of Communism have many good ideals, however
- somebody always has to have the big black Zil, has to have a better
house, has to have slightly less scratchy denim overalls. Human
nature, that's the problem.

 

TOG said

His verdict? It would have worked, but the guy in it probably had to be
braver than (even) he was.

Makes me wonder

Would USA have ever put a man on the
moon if Russians hadnt proved possible

Brave to go where no man had gone before

"Written with a Pen not a Pencil"

 

Isn't it?

 

Everyone is equal. Just some people are more equal than others.

 

Indeed. Carmichael's cock, for example.

 

Well **** we could discuss the finer points of National Socialism and how
Hitler was a great leader on that basis.

Mark's ten tenenents of Communism

* Central banking system
* Government controlled education
* Government controlled labor
* Government ownership of transportation and communication vehicles
* Government ownership of agricultural means and factories
* Total abolition of private property
* Property rights confiscation
* Heavy income tax on everyone
* Elimination of rights of inheritance
* Regional planning

What's good about that, excepting maybe a limited form of 9 and of course it
somewhat omits "one party politics"

Then lets not forget the finer points of the 3 Phases

* Phase 1: A revolution must take place in order to overthrow the existing
government. Marx emphasized the nee­d for total destruction of the existing
system in order to move on to Phase 2.

* Phase 2: *A dictator or elite leader (or leaders) must gain absolute
control over the proletariat*. During this phase, the new *government exerts
absolute control over the common citizen's personal choices* -- including
his or her education, religion, employment and even marriage.
Collectivization of property and wealth must also take place.

* Phase 3: Achievement of utopia. This phase has never been attained because
*it requires that all non-communists be destroyed in order for the Communist
Party to achieve supreme equality*. In a Marxist utopia, everyone would
happily share property and wealth, free from the restrictions that
class-based systems require. The government would control all means of
production so that the one-class system would remain constant, with no
possibility of any middle class citizens rising back to the top.

Sounds a lot like the sort of nightmares h.sapiens has spend some thousands
of years escaping from. I read this morning there are some Union leaders
who still dream of it. I hope we bar them from any sort of Public Sector or
Teaching employment.

 

Would you like to say where Marx advocates each of these three phases?

 

Did I attribute those words to Marx? of course it can be interpreted and
cribbed in many ways but I think that's succinct

It still sounds a *bit* like you are supporting Communism, yet I take you as
way way too intelligent (and decent) to ignore history or society.

 

Two things.

A government of philathropists, pragmatists and those without ego or self
interest is a work of fiction.

Most people don't want to give up control of their lives, so it refers to
coercion and theft.

Mindewe the current tax system I consider to be no more or less than
coercion and theft of personal assets

 

`Marx exmphasized the need for ...'? So where does all this come from?

Why not support it?

 

Mark who?

While you're there, what's a tenenent? Not a squalid flat in Glasgow,
is it?

<snip, the rest of the biggest bite I've ever had - broke me rod, it
did>

 

And your two things cover what I referred to in my previous post as:
"Human nature, that's the problem". Good work.

 

Well yes HTH but anything that doesn't is but a work of fiction