New York City

[Impenitent]

I don't know, according to you the only countries that have been socialist were places like Cambodia and the Soviet Union.

And China, and North Korea, and Bulgaria, and Zimbabwe, and Venezuela, and Cuba, and Congo, and Vietnam...and lots of other places.

None good. But that's the history of Socialism.

Sounds like the sort of countries a God who drowns everyone would approve of. Hopefully, Europe will snap out of their stupor and usher in austerity programs soon. Don't want workers to get complacent. Capitalists can't profit off of complacency.

but they can profit off of boat building...

-Imp

[promethean75]

"But your attitude holds you back from those choices"

"Choices"? Buddy, i can hardly walk to the mailbox without being arrested or lynched.

"if you planned things carefully, smartly, could put yourself in a very different situation in 10 years."

Oh, I'll be in a different situation in ten years... don't you worry, mister. *wink*

[Age]

Are you talking to any one in particular?

I believe I am talking to some people, I hope I am not just talking into the air. Are you implying that there is no “particular” person? Is there then a general person? An ur-person, a meta-person?! I sense you edging toward a mystery but I just cannot figure it out. What gives?

you asked, 'The question is really in how the money is obtained, isn’t it? How it is paid for', which has been answered by some, already. So, I was just wondering if there was any particular person that you were asking these two questions to, exactly, because, again, they have already been answered, here.

[Age]

What place are you thinking of, where Socialism has produced that?

I don't know, according to you the only countries that have been socialist were places like Cambodia and the Soviet Union.

And China, and North Korea, and Bulgaria, and Zimbabwe, and Venezuela, and Cuba, and Congo, and Vietnam...and lots of other places.

None good. But that's the history of Socialism.

LOL
LOL
LOL

'None good.'

Now, could one come across with and any more narrowed or closed view, here?

[promethean75]

"But noble Promethean waits on The Revolution"

My final position is as follows. I am not a capitalist or a socialist or a revolutionary, but as a philosopher and theorist, i recommend Marxism to the world. The contradiction is that this would exclude myself since my circumstances (legal) would be the same (I'm guessing), so i would not acknowledge that kind of State either.

It comes down to this. If a fellow were to ask me, "Hey, what is the best way you think me and those other folks over there could get along well for a very long time in a material world" i would hand him the communist manifesto and text him a couple Professor Wolff youtube links.

Still, i am a paradox somewhere between an egoist anarchist and a Marxist, two diametrically opposed positions.

I do not work for anyone or employ anyone. I'm like an eighth century peripatetic craftsman mechant bard philosopher or something. Problem is i couldn't be a categorical imperative, and the world wouldn't work if everyone did what i do. So i gotta come up with a plan where everyone works but not for a private party other than themself. Categorically, you end up at turbo-Randian anarcho-capitalism or Marxism. The only other alternative is a fake-ass nanny state capitalism, and i don't like fake-ass nanny state stuff.

[Alexis Jacobi]

This world is a sick joke. Your God is a sick joke.

It is helpful to understand the incarnation of Jesus in light of the (various) incarnations of Vishnu. Try to think of it like this: Just as you recognize and interpret the world as “sick” and as also being a “sick joke” (as if behind the scenes the creator laughs and exults) so too did the Ancient Rishis thousands and thousands of years ago.

The world, for us, for any being that becomes aware, presents us with painful and tragic realizations about circumstances and in every instance outcomes in life here. What distresses the mind is that tragedy and pain are intermingled with awesome beauty and, for us often, experiences of genuine joyfulness. And then — the hammer drops. The trap springs. All on a sudden it can all turn ugly.

From a very real perspective — consider this picture — man wanders in a tragic world of chaos and pain. However, it is knowledge that man uses to mitigate his circumstances. Knowledge — vidya — is presented as having many levels. So how to create fire is one level (a metaphor of all science-knowledge). But then there are other levels of knowledge generally described as ‘wisdom’. And within the traditions of wisdom there is (said to be) levels of knowledge about “the soul” and the soul’s relationship to Greater Being or to the Supreme Being.

Now, the notion or the emblem that Christianity attempts to present is that of the descent of the Divine Intelligence taking a form within the “material entanglement”. I.e. the material world. The world that, frankly, you are in stark disagreement with. That is to say that your personality, your soul, rebels against not only The World but moreover the conditions you, and man, face.

Christianity, I think we must say, is ‘contaminated’ by its profound association with the Hebrew mythos. This is the root of an ‘imperious’ ideology that is embodied in the image of Yahweh. We must face the fact: Whatever that imago is, it began as a storm god and a warrior god of a specific desert people in power-struggles with neighbors. It was not ever a “universal picture” of the salvific idealization. It is obvious, is it not? that today as these crazy battles go on all around us (all surrounding The Holy Land) that we see playing out not the higher ideation of a Vishnu-like incarnation spreading knowledge about peacefulness or self-realization, but in truth diabolical energies of a very low order. (Horrifyingly it is easy to note this when, for example, we listen to a Christian Zionist preacher calling out to “God” for a missile to destroy the Dome of the Rock so that “Jesus will return” to establish his Kingdom of Peace.)

It is called “madness” as I am sure you recognize.

Is there or is there not knowledge — vidya — that both clarifies what this existence is and how it is that we are here within “the material entanglement”, and then how we are to act in the face of our condition?

There is a way to understand Immanuel’s obsession with an imperfect, indeed a misleading, picture of a divine power that presents salvific knowledge. There is a way to see through his outmoded apologetics and, if you will, to clarify it. It’s tough because “Immanuel” and a hundred million others cut by the same mold will fight tooth and claw to keep you from this knowledge (or evolution of perspective), and (IMHO) reveal the diabolical energy in misunderstood and misappropriated ideas. Still though it can be done.

[Immanuel Can]

i recommend Marxism to the world.

Because you hate success, or because you hate mankind, the way Marx did?

i would hand him the communist manifesto

Oh. Like Marx did.

i don't like fake-ass nanny state stuff.

Oh? So you're not personally a Marxist, you say...but would recommend Marxism...because...no reason?

Hmmm...I'm not sure anybody can make sense of that.

[promethean75]

Exactly! That's why I'm a contradiction.

[promethean75]

If you can gain a massive reduction of pain for a vast majority at the expense of a slight reduction of pleasure for a very small minority, as a statesman and economist, you take the deal. It's a no-bainer.

[Alexis Jacobi]

If you can gain a massive reduction of pain for a vast majority at the expense of a slight reduction of pleasure for a very small minority, as a statesman and economist, you take the deal. It's a no-bainer.

Would you please at least consider the Matzo Ball Soup cure??

[Impenitent]

If you can gain a massive reduction of pain for a vast majority at the expense of a slight reduction of pleasure for a very small minority, as a statesman and economist, you take the deal. It's a no-bainer.

Would you please at least consider the Matzo Ball Soup cure??

"No soup for you!" - Soup Nazi

-Imp

[MikeNovack]

MARXISTS would would tell you that they are the only leftists (and even they are in factions). Do you understand what I am saying? You wouldn't accept my defining YOU according to Catholic teachings (likewise making a claim to the one true Christianity)

But again, I'm not. Marx and Engels are. And it's them you are claiming don't know what they're talking about.
[/quote]

I am NOT saying that Marx and Engels "didn't know what they are talking about. I am saying "wrong", but my dispute with mid-late 19th Century thinking goes much deeper << And we ARE elsewhere disputing "material determinism" more generally.

Let's try something else IC. Let's look at something else. If you acknowledge a strain of "leftism" outside of Marxism, that should at least cause you to think in broader terms. I want you to look at the "True Levelers" (aka "Diggers"). Since like you a Protestant sect, you should be familiar with their language. Are you saying their "all things in common" is not "leftist". If not, why not? << and an answer like "because not Marxists" unacceptable -- you are trying to SHOW (give evidence for) the proposition "no leftism outside of Marxism" so you can't USE that in your argument >>

I am not going to suggest you go back further, say to John Ball's "When Adam delved and Eve span ...." because the 14th Century plague pandemic was upsetting everything, and I don't think much of Ball is actually available (beyond the attributed couplet). But in the case of the True Levelers, writings are available.

[Immanuel Can]

MARXISTS would would tell you that they are the only leftists (and even they are in factions). Do you understand what I am saying? You wouldn't accept my defining YOU according to Catholic teachings (likewise making a claim to the one true Christianity)

But again, I'm not. Marx and Engels are. And it's them you are claiming don't know what they're talking about.

I am NOT saying that Marx and Engels "didn't know what they are talking about.[/quote]
WEll, they were horrible people, Marx especially, but they are still the sources most Socialists refer to as core.

If you acknowledge a strain of "leftism" outside of Marxism,

Look, we all know the old historical stuff about the French, and the origins of Left and Right in their National Assembly. But these terms have taken on new meanings since then. "Left" is not the precise term, and merely indicates a contested political direction: "Socialist" is more accurate. So let's work with that.

The "Levelers" are a historical artifact now. Whether we call them "right" or "left" has nothing to do with present day realities. Let's stick to clearer terms. Socialism is nicely defined by Marx and Engels as that situation in which the State owns the means of production. Those who believe in that are "Socialists," regardless of other particulars: those who don't really believe that aren't really Socialists, but more like Lenin's "useful idiots," whom Socialist ideologues can easily manipulate because of their ignorance, but who don't really understand the goals of the ideology to which they are about to be enslaved.

Let's stick to Socialist ideology. We can't fix the various grey-area "useful idiots". They don't even know enough to know they're being had. They certainly can't speak intelligently about Socialism. If they understood it, they'd be running the other way.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Let's try something else IC. Let's look at something else. If you acknowledge a strain of "leftism" outside of Marxism, that should at least cause you to think in broader terms. I want you to look at the "True Levelers" (aka "Diggers").

World Turned Upside Down

I think that you may find that what many Conservatives fear, and for good reason, is handing to Government overall control of the human economy through models based on redistribution. And when they are also infused with Marxian religious zealousness they are inevitably destructive.

Take Chavez in Venezuela. A revolutionary program where big government did redistribute wealth (oil wealth, not wealth from taxation: i.e. not through contributions of the people) by funding schools, neighborhood improvement projects, literacy projects, while simultaneously using their positions for unreally extreme projects of corruption.

True, this is an historical pattern in Latin America and the underdeveloped world generally, but in each instance where the Marxian model was adopted (a party structure installed) the same outcome results.

[phyllo]

funding schools, neighborhood improvement projects, literacy projects

Nooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!