Forum Replies Created
-
Replies
-
Rich_cb wrote:
The issue I have is that, at a state level, it appears impossible to implement the ideology without committing atrocities. Removing large amounts of personal property without resorting to significant violence seems impossible. The advantage of prehistory is that we don’t really have strong evidence of how things were actually organised, so we can project whatever we want onto that era. Inter tribal warfare is a thread that runs through human history so the idea that it wasn’t a feature in pre-history seems a bit far fetched.How convenient – just ignore all the atrocities that are committed by far-right states and only see a problem with communism. Honestly, I’m bored with your whataboutism and continual justification and simping for the evil Tories, who delight in ensuring that only their mates benefit.
You do realise that Capitalism is about to render huge swathes of our planet uninhabitable, right? As long as your Tory mates are making money, then I expect you’re okay with that, like you’re okay with them exploring for more oil to dig out of the ground.
FFS.
All communist states have, AFAIK, engaged in large scale human rights abuses.So have all far right/fascist states, do you have any point apart from whataboutery?
I think he’s trying to link communism and authoritarianism together. There’s certainly issues with trying to centralise control of resources and it’s a non-trivial problem – money is a very effective way to allocate resources. However, there’s major intrinsic problems with Capitalism – without strict governmental controls, you allow unrestricted growth of the robber-barons and their power increases exponentially at the expense of the people that actually do and create things. This is the modern curse of the billionaires that hoard wealth seemingly just to ensure that other people suffer. It’s inherent in Capitalism that the divide between the rich and poor will always get wider and unfortunately, wars are inevitable due to the amount of money involved and the profits that a small minority will make from people’s suffering.
Rich_cb wrote:
That Communism is not a benign ideology.What specific part of the ideology do you have issues with?
Whilst modern communism is relatively new (i.e. Marxism), the principles have been put into practise in many religious institutions such as monasteries for a long time. Certainly, prehistoric hunter-gatherer societies were organised around collective ownership and they didn’t have parasitic landlords demanding rent for imaginary possessed land.
What examples of anti-semitism under Corbyn’s leadership actually are there?Good whataboutery on the Nazi party of Germany. Like Brexit, the party cause is whatever we say it is – there are a few loose MAGA type basic principles, but it seems to me a lot of it about creating this situation/atmosphere where folk with ideas that appeal no matter how bizarre or heinous get an airing and get to put this stuff into practice.
Govenrment is there to protect us from foreign invasion (or untoward influence, rather than troops landing at Hastings), to protect us from the worst effects of big business, while ensuring the country is prosperous, ensure justice and protect people from crime and the mob; I would argue that in modern times there is stuff to do around health and well-being, safety.
Can you honestly say the Tories have succeeded at any of that on any level in the past 10 years? Do you believe they ever will, or have I with my O level, A level*, degree in politics, post grad certificate in policy admimstration and lifetime career in public service got the wrong definition of what the public should expect?
* OK, the A level was a bit shit – blame girls, or rather a girl.
I believe it was mainly a small minority of Labour supporters making antisemitic posts online.
In July 2019:
While other political parties and some of the media exaggerate and distort the scale of the problem in our party, we must face up to the unsettling truth that a small number of Labour members hold anti-Semitic views and a larger number don’t recognise anti-Semitic stereotypes and conspiracy theories. The evidence is clear enough. The worst cases of anti-Semitism in our party have included Holocaust denial, crude Jewish-banker stereotypes, conspiracy theories blaming Israel for 9/11 or every war on the Rothschild family, and even one member who appeared to believe that Hitler had been misunderstood. I am sorry for the hurt that has been caused to many Jewish people. We have been too slow in processing disciplinary cases of mostly online anti-Semitic abuse by party members. We are acting to speed this process up. People who hold anti-Semitic views have no place in the Labour Party. They may be few – the number of cases over the past three years represents less than 0.1% of Labour’s membership of more than half a million – but one is too many.There’s also evidence of political interference with anti-semitic complaints (inappropriate involvement) and generally poor handling of them.
Rich_cb wrote:
That’s a pretty decent definition of Nazism but who are you counting as a Nazi? Goebbels/Hitler etc are easy, they directly committed historically awful crimes. They are worthy of hatred. What about an average citizen who only joined the party in order to keep their job? It’s not a straightforward question without an explicit definition of exactly who we’re talking about. Those who directly committed crimes are the obvious ones to condemn but what of those who in some small way enabled those crimes? Those who joined communist parties may have had entirely good motives but did they, in some small way, act an enablers for the atrocities committed in the name of communism that continue to this day? On an entirely different scale, you might not like the policies of the Conservative party but is every voter to be held responsible for every action? Was every Corbyn supporter responsible for the worst examples of antisemitism that occurred under his leadership?I’d consider people that agree with Nazi ideology to be Nazis. People who were coerced into going along with the Nazi party share some of the blame if they quietly went along with the policies, although I understand it takes bravery to stand up for what’s right.
There’s a saying – what do you get if you let two nazis into your house? A house with three nazis in it.
If people agreed with communist ideology, and then unwittingly took part in authoritarian regimes, then they too share some guilt for their part, though the communist ideology isn’t the problem, but the nature of the regime.
There’s obviously a problem with single party states as they tend towards authoritarianism and corruption and often most people have no say in what’s going on (and that’s assuming that they even know about it). However, in a system with more than one party, you must take some responsibility for which party you vote for. I can understand someone being hookwinked by others, but at some point it should be obvious that you’re propping up the baddies and you must change your allegiance.
I don’t believe that Corbyn supporters had much knowledge about Labour’s antisemitism, and they deserve some blame if they knowingly supported and encouraged antisemitism. I’ve long thought that the Labour party isn’t fit for purpose (e.g. Blair should be tried for war crimes).
essexian wrote:
I feel the 320 plus people murdered under Thatchers orders on the General Belgrano may beg to differ.
Well, yes, but I don’t think Thatcher was intending to bathe in their blood to keep her youthful, good looks.
Rich_cb wrote:
No, it’s an historical quote from a figure I’m assuming you’re not a fan of. It has the exact same tone as your quote. I think it’s correct to condemn those who commit crimes directly. How are you defining Nazi? Should we hate/despise/discourage people who have willingly joined communist parties? Or should we chuckle at squirrels in communist attire?Your refusal to answer a straightforward question speaks volumes about your ethics. I notice that you’re only willing to condemn people who directly commit crimes, but that ignores that people can persuade others to do their bidding and commit atrocities on their behalf. Also, a lot of atrocities weren’t necessarily illegal due to the introduction of immoral laws.
Why would you want to hate people who joined communist parties – is there part of the philosophy that you find objectionable and if so, what? I suspect that you dislike the behaviour of authoritarian communist leaders and the atrocities that they ordered, but that is a separate issue from the philosophy of communism.
I’d go with something like this for a definition of a Nazi, though modern Nazis are not typically associated with Germany:
Nazism is a form of fascism, with disdain for liberal democracy and the parliamentary system. It incorporates a dictatorship, fervent antisemitism, anti-communism, anti-Slavism, scientific racism, white supremacy, social Darwinism and the use of eugenics into its creed. Its extreme nationalism originated in pan-Germanism and the ethno-nationalist neopagan Völkisch movement which had been a prominent aspect of German ultranationalism since the late 19th century, and it was strongly influenced by the Freikorps paramilitary groups that emerged after Germany’s defeat in World War I, from which came the party’s underlying “cult of violence”. Nazism subscribed to pseudo-scientific theories of a racial hierarchy, identifying ethnic Germans as part of what the Nazis regarded as an Aryan or Nordic master race.
Rich_cb wrote:
That’s not your quote but it’s identical in tone to your quote from earlier in the thread.So you’re just making shit up then?
Simple question – do you think it’s morally correct to hate/despise/discourage Nazis?
Rich_cb wrote:
Keep justifying your hatred if you want. The same arguments have been made multiple times before. “The treatment they receive from us is hardly unjust. They have deserved it all.”What the blazes are you on about?
What treatment are you referring to?
Is it some imagined treatment that makes you into a victim?
Hirsute wrote:
White collar crime isn’t crime then. Let’s not worry about corruption around PPE during the pandemic or the award of contracts to organisations linked to the PM/PM family.Don’t forget the partying whilst not allowing people to visit dying relatives. Or am I just out-grouping those who think the laws that they implemented don’t apply to themselves?
Indeed. But then, I thought the same when this song came out:Then, the most evil women ever, Thatcher, came to power and it was all downhill from there.
I’m certainly no fan of Thatcher’s policies, but I doubt that she was the most evil woman ever. Elizabeth Báthory would be a strong candidate though.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_B%C3%A1thory
(A vampire character based loosely on her was played by Lady Gaga in American Horror Story: Hotel)
Rich_cb wrote:
You don’t just reserve your ire for the people in power though. You’ve claimed in this thread that anyone who supports the government is “part of the problem”. Every time an outgroup has been persecuted in history those doing the persecution have been able to justify it to themselves. History’s great crimes were enthusiastically cheered by people just like us, who justified the persecutions in the exact same way we justify our own hatred.People who vote to keep them in power are definitely part of the problem as without them, the Tories wouldn’t be in power. If they choose to vote differently, then they’re not part of the problem – what possible issue do you have with that?
If someone goes around stabbing other people and I declare them to be a problem, but not when they stop stabbing other people, then it’s nothing to do with me putting them in an out-group, but the fact that their stabbing is causing significant harm to others.
Similarly, hating Nazis for their atrocities is nothing like being a Nazi. Presumably you don’t hate Nazis yourself and would be happy to be considered one of them as otherwise you’d be out-grouping them wouldn’t you? Or do you concede that Nazi hate and hating Nazis are entirely different?
Hirsute wrote:
Are organised crime gangs or people traffickers an outgroup? So if I hate them, I’m somehow wrong. Seems you can just say ‘oh you are making them an outgroup’ no matter what this group do, say or endorse. There’s no line to cross.Exactly – Rich_cb is trying to act like Tories are the victims here. It’s a common right-wing ploy to go on the defensive and accuse others of doing what they themselves are doing.
It’s like in the U.S. where right wing politicians accuse transgendered people of abusing children, though the vast majority of child abuse is carried out by non-transgendered people in positions of power (e.g. police, clergy, coaches etc).
Rich_cb wrote:
It’s beyond you because you don’t want to admit that you are the same as the people who you hate. Out groups haven’t always been defined by unalterable characteristics. The Kulaks in the Soviet Union were an out group and were massacred. They were largely just ordinary people who happened to be ‘bourgeois’. Communists and Socialists were an out group in McCarthy era America. Socialism/communism is a political choice. The persecution of both those groups was still wrong. What happened to the Kulaks was on a par with any cruelty meted out to any group. As a fun little example of how similar you are to those that you really hate consider which unsavoury groups in history would have said the following about their chosen out group:If they weren’t so hell-bent on sleaze, cruelty and self-serving greed, then they wouldn’t be so hated.The point that you are deliberately ignoring is that the people in power are not being persecuted and they’re certainly not having their children illegally locked up in hotels: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/sep/01/home-office-defies-high-court-by-placing-100-asylum-seeker-children-in-hotels
Rich_cb wrote:
I’m not missing the point. You are. Throughout human history people have wanted an outgroup to hate. They have justified why they hate that outgroup in various different ways but ultimately it’s the same desire to hate. I’m sure you think your particular out groups are different and that your particular motivations are different. They’re not.If they weren’t so hell-bent on sleaze, cruelty and self-serving greed, then they wouldn’t be so hated. It’s precisely their destruction of so much of this country that has to be stopped. As soon as the Tories are out of power, there’s not going to be any persistent campaign to hate them, though history will not be kind to their rampant abuse of power and environmental destruction.
To be honest, I’m sick of your lies when you attempt to justify the unjustifiable. How you can possibly think that persecution of refugees is any way comparable to people complaining about the morally unjustifiable cruelty of the rich, entitled Tories is beyond me.