National socialism and communism in Greece?

Started by TheBadger, May 01, 2013, 05:10:48 AM

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TheBadger

#15
Hey Guys. Thanks. Because its not like I can just walk across the street and ask my neighbor  about living in Eroupoe... Acually he is from China though ;D

A few things I would like to add to the conversation...

@Cypher
what you described in your first post about the kind of community/society you would prefer to live in has been tried, and by your own people in fact.

The Mayflower Compact
In the name of God, Amen. We, whose names are underwritten, the Loyal Subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord, King James, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, Etc.

Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith, and the Honour of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern Parts of Virginia; do by these Presents, solemnly and mutually in the Presence of God and one of another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick, for our better Ordering and Preservation, and Furtherance of the Ends aforesaid; And by Virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions and Offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the General good of the Colony; unto which we promise all due Submission and Obedience.

In Witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape Cod the eleventh of November, in the Reign of our Sovereign Lord, King James of England, France and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth. Anno Domini, 1620


Given the situation of the landing, the good nature of those involved, and all other variables that I know of, I cannot imagine a better chance for the IDEALS behind communism to actually work in practice. But it did not work. It failed... And pretty badly too. IF you or anyone wants to know more just look up the The Mayflower Compact... But for the love of all that is scholarly, stop relying on wikipidia, people! Its not a scholarly resource. (I am saying this in general, not to you Richard)
(here ends todays rant on wiki)

@Seth,
That program did not say anything bad about France or England. It only showed that some of what is happing in Greece and spain is also happening in the more stable countries in Europe. They only showed that stuff because they made the point that what is going on in the Southern nations is spreading to the North. The program did not say Eroupions were stupid. I did. And I only did to provoke a discusion about something I think is interesting and important with people who are seeing history happen with their own eyes and in person... You guys :) And also because it is funny, since many of you like to point out flaws in the US and call us stupid.

Also I understand your feelings about hating all governments including your own (not just the US) I feel it to sometimes. Im just not ready to lay down.

@T-U
I sense a real effort to be diplomatic on your part. Thank you for that.
QuoteCan anyone here explain to me what they mean with "fascist/fascism" or what it means to them?
Here I think you mean the so called "fascists" in Greece? I can tell you that in the news show from the OP that the leaders of the movement (I cant recall right now what they call their party) Claim not to be Nazis, and that in the interviews they
refuted the notion that they were fascists, saying "fascist is an italian word". "We are Greeks", they said. "We are Nationalists", they said.

However, the parties headquarters was filled with Nazi books, including Goebbels books.
So I say if it looks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck... Its a Nazi!  :o

You asked if I was being too black and white. Well yes black and white, but not too much.
In your analysis you did not consider two of the most important elements of the issues I brought up and  you brought up. That is, History and language.
Language; In the simplest terms (in English) Anarchy is the absence of government, and Communism (not its ideals, but structure) is total government. So it is literally (by definition) impossible to be a Anarchist Communist.
However, if you are suggesting that Anarchy is a way to destabilize the current government, as a way to build support for the communist party, then this is still not Anarchy, it is subterfuge. Subterfuge is a classic tactic of all communist movements.

I can also tell you (based on that show, and those interviews) That none of the activists, from any of the movements, came off as being very intelligent. They all looked rather young. And more than anything It felt like they were just very angry, and even scared.
I did not get the sense at all, that the interviewers were doing the show with an agenda. They seemed to just be curious. And no, I don't think the show was, or was intended to be comprehensive in explaining what is happing in Greece. I felt like it was just supposed to be a look at things.

History; Everyone so far has seamed to leave out a absolutely crucial part of the equation. That is, in the case of Communism, and Fascism (or at least in every case where a government called ITS SELF these things) there ALWAYS has come Totalitarianism.
This is true in every case on every continent. Every effort to establish a Communist government or a Fascist government in earth's history, has required for its establishment, and been responsible for, mass murder, theft, rape and slavery. (murder has also been used to prevent these governments from forming, as well as lesser tactics)

In every case the result of the establishment of a communist Government resulted in gross inequality between the people in the government and the rest of the nation. This inequality is always worse in the end, than it was before the change.

And this is why I used the word stupid in the OP. How can you possibly tolerate the idea, that somehow, todays Europeans can make work, what everyone else, everywhere, has failed at? It is foolish pride. You cannot make a government more "Just", by giving it more power. Communism and fascism only make the evil people in our world more powerful.
I think you would have better luck again trying to turn lead into gold.



I do not deny the problems and issues you or anyone has pointed out. And I share your anger at the likely causes. But the proposed solutions are asinine.

I also have become disillusioned with Democracy. Democracy requires for it to work, a highly moral, highly educated population, where the culture is firmly rooted in a claim to Truth, and where all members belong to the same culture and language (but not race). With those things gone we are doomed. (We are sooooo diverse now though, isn't it great?! Doesn't it just work so well?!)

Lastly,
If I must choose (because of force) between Communism (and to a lesser extent, socialism) or Fascism, I choose Fascism.
Communism (and to a lesser extent, socialism) destroys the individual for the sake of the collective. And with all my heart, I hate the "collective". But I love you all as individuals!
Though I will never have to make this choice, because I will die trying to kill anyone who tries to force it on me.
I do not except any vote, or any majority, that attempts to make me a slave or a serf, or a servant of anyone who hates me, or whom I hate.

You will always have to collect your TAXES (really extortion) under threat of violence. I only pay my taxes because if I don't, the IRS will come to my house with guns, then they will steal my house and put me in jail. Or murder me if I fight back.


Anyway, these are just my feelings. Take em' or leave em'. It wont change anything.

P.S. I realize I say "you" a lot. I really mean people in general. Not you guys here. Its a lazy habit, I know. Sorry.
It has been eaten.

PabloMack

#16
Call me a brainwashed American but I have pretty much the same view as TheBadger. After thinking about the "pure form of communism" and researching it, I have come to the conclusion that this is not a form of government at all. Governments are what rule over these pockets of voluntary cooperation. So from there up, you can have a democracy, a republic, a religious totalitarian state, an oligarchy like we see in what we call "communist states", a dictatorship etc. Everyone should keep in mind that, at least in the USA, people are free to live in a commune if they want to. That means that only people who want to live there do. There is no one forced to live like that. So people who don't like that sort of thing are not represented in any study that some pseudo-scientist might do to try to "understand" this phenomenon. I am excluding cultish groups that have a charismatic leader like the "Branch Dividian" who held people captive and brainwashed people who, in reality, lived under threat of punishment. So I think this true form of communism should be left out of discussions of forms of government just like we would leave out other groups like the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology or the National Rifle Association. People in those groups love it because they chose to belong. Like TheBadger says, if someone forced him to be in a commune he would hate it. I would too.

I want to share what to me is a remarkable personal experience. I have a neighbor, a lady in at least her 70's who used to live next door to my mother-in-law. She is a close friend of ours and a member of our church. She had a son Randy who I met about three years ago when we first moved to our new house which is now in this neighborhood. Randy had married and divorced and had no children. He was a very religious man and he started reading all of this "latter day" hype on the web and he started to believe a lot of it. One of these things he came across I investigated and it took me no more than fifteen minutes to discover it was a hoax. But telling this to Randy was insulting to him. He became alarmed and decided to abandon his plans for the future because he felt that the end of the world was near. He quit his job and joined a commune in Arkansas. I would hear about him periodically through his mother. I think he somewhat found some fulfillment. He was a hard worker but he ended up being about the only one who would do all of the work in the commune. He got very little help from the predominantly lazy members of the commune. I am trying to paraphrase what Bernice told me from the letters that her son wrote her.

After about a year, he came down with cancer that ultimately forced him to come back to live out the final days with his family. Other members of the commune would have done little for him in his weak state. I am presuming that they just wanted all of the free labor that he provided. After his life was over, I attended his memorial. His nephew and brother gave wonderful monologues about him and I wish I had recorded them on video. His nephew loved his uncle and talked about how he longed to understand this enigma who was his uncle. This man was truely remarkable. He had inspired me to begin writing a screen play for a full feature movie about his life even before he abandoned his plans to join the commune. It is surreal that the rest of his life was to be lived out in front of me even before I got very far in the script. I wish I had recorded the eulogy because I could really use it to finish the screen play. His nephew is now a lawyer.

TheBadger

#17
Pablo,
Its interesting that this conversation brought a cult to your thoughts.
The cult of personality is alive and well in western civilization. For me I see no difference in whatever cult or sect it was in your story, and the modernist neo-religions that grow up under Communist, Fascist, world views.

Just take the blind faith that is given to the secular "statesmen" of our times. Their words are often revered and defended as if they were spoken by Jesus, or Mohamed, or the Buddha. They become like Roman Emperors who are paid tribute like a god, despite the obvious temporal, human fallibility of their being.
Only the worship is not like you find in a temple or church. But is preformed as a kind of works based personal salvation faith.
And because of them we end up with ideas like "liberation theology" and Concepts as pointless as "social justice", or in the case of communism, the state will become a perverted form of a living god where service to the state is the highest calling.

In Christianity, a member of the Church is said to be part of the body of Christ. Its likewise in communist ideology, so that the collective is the living soul of the state. Believe it or not, the philosophy of modernism actually teaches that man is literally God. And in communism the State is the manifestation of divinity on Earth. This is how the world ends up with people like Stalin, and Hugo Chavez, and Castro in Cuba, and so many other examples. It always ends up the same! They become the roll of living martyrs, the images of the faith, messiahs. But there can be only one God, so all other views must be crushed. This is why wherever there is Communism there is religious persecution. The religions that are allowed must also pay tribute to the State. Sound familiar?

This is why I never understood how an atheist could be a communist. Its like their making fun of themselves.



It has been eaten.

TheBadger

T-U
QuoteIt's a natural process. An end will come to this, things will get better and then it starts all over again etc. etc.

Ahh, I missed this point in your post. So you think this is just things balancing out? I have heard some other people make this argument.
I think that it is the most hopeful possible explanation of whats happening. I hope you are right.

It has been eaten.

AP

Things can get better but i am more of an optimist and i do not see the process starting all over again. At least not on the scale of previous human history. The power of the Internet is waking people up as before all we had to rely on is the Mainstream Media and Newspapers. No longer. What i see daily on You Tube and various Blogs all over the Internet is folks slowly starting to wake up and gather the knowledge through technology that the State is bad for everyone. The new younger generations are starting to realize this and they are questioning there Schools, Government, what the bad cops are doing and so on. The a revolution starting to rise. I see more talk about gold, silver, bitcoin, litecoin. There is a movement here in the US were folks are building there own self-sustaining mobile homes wanting to get off of the grid, not wanting a mortgage, nothing to do with the banks, growing there own vegetable gardens, discovering the abuse of Monsanto GMO Foods. Taxation itself is being questioned as a form of Theft. Libertarians are invading the Neo-Con Parties. Agorist communities being planned all over. Pharmaceuticals are being put into question. War being a racket. So on and so on.

PabloMack

Seth, could you give us your spin on what is going on in Mali?

Seth

#21
I am always for non-interventionism.
As it is written on the charter of the UN.
France went there because we fucked up everything in Lybia, giving to violent islamists weapons and capacities to destabilize other countries around.
As USA did in Iraq and Afghanistan.
French african politic is absolutely scandalous, we act as if they still were our colony.
And Europe is doing the same thing with the countries it rules.
And USA tries to do the same thing to the World.
Thanks to people like Putin, Ahmadinejad, Chavez and other rebels, USA didn't win yet. I don't share their views (of the guys I named), but I can say I share their rebellious attitude, and hopefully, one day the World will be something else than what we know today and that we will have a multitude of ways of life, not only the american one as a model.

It is funny, well that is not the word I might use, to read people writing that communism or fascism brought inequality or get lots of people killed, and went from an idea to totalitarism !
Just look at what capitalism and so-called democracy is doing in every country.
Denying democracy, bringing war everywhere for ressources (but telling everybody it is for freedom and democracy), inequality is everywhere (more than 47.8 millions poor people in USA need food stamps to survive), even justifying the killing of millions people.
Propaganda turns people into mindless puppet, happy to share the opinion of the "majority", and considering others as stupid and even enemies.

It is easy to citicize other kind of government and seeing them as evil, but really, "we" do the same, and I bet in several centuries people will see us as evil barbarian murderers.

TheBadger

#22
Seth, I agree with you on a lot. And even where I do not agree with you I often understand and share your sentiment.

But...
QuoteThanks to people like Putin, Ahmadinejad, Chavez
This is a little sick. And not at all correct. These people are brutal animals. You say we (the US) kill to many people, and you are right. But the people you say are good kill there own people. Even animals do not kill their own. And Ahmadinejad is a little insane.

And...
Quotemore than 47.8 millions poor people in USA need food stamps to survive
Everything in France is subsidised. not just food for the poor, but nearly every aspect of life.
And your unemployment is much higher than it is here per capita.

http://www.bls.gov/fls/intl_unemployment_rates_monthly.htm despite that france has a much smaller population. 65.44 million Vs 313.9 million (2012) in the US.

Socialism does not work. But when it fails people who refuse to except that, blame America.
Socialism does not necessarily lead to totalitarianism, so I do not take issue with your people choosing it. Its your right.
But I would not want it. I don't even like food stamps. Its shameful that we need food stamps here so much now. Im really embarrassed by it. But I don't want kids to starve either. So I don't say anything bad about people who have to use them.

As soon as Obama is out, the jobs should come back. Right now a company is taxed an amount near equal to what any employee is paid, for each employee . So if the taxes were taken away, a company could higher twice as many people, or pay twice as much for the same work.

I am not saying there are no problems here . I am saying that looking to old ideas (such as Communism) and old technology (like solar and wind in the case of the environment) are not solutions. The left has no good ideas at all. And the far right is a little crazy. So we are here in the middle fighting it out.
It has been eaten.

Seth

As I said, I don't support those guys, I just thank the fact that they are still leaders in the world not ready to put their pants down in front of the USA.
Oh yes, in France, we try to take care of poor people too, instead of taking care of the reason of their poverty.
It was not an attack against USA only, but against a logic, that is applied in almost every capitalist and so-called democratic country.

Mmmmh, I'd rather prefer a leader that kills his own people than a leader than kills millions of people from another country.
Should I remember you that Ahmadinejad was elected in Iran, and that Iran never attack another country first ?
Should I remember all the black ops against Chavez ?
Should I remember that Putin brought pride back in Russia when Eltsine sold the country to USA ?

Oh yes they are not the democratic kind of guys you ("we") like... so what ?
Who are we to decide ? The axe of Good ?
Bring Powell back with his weapons of mass destruction to explain us with simple words.

USA is not the police of the World, nobody decided they should decide who is good and who is bad.
I didn't care about the talibans, as they didn't care about me.
USA should take care of their violence problem before taking care of violence in the other countries.


And you have to admit that if communism failed, USA was part of it. I think I remember something called Cold War back then.
And don't mistake my purpose, I am faaaar from being communist.
I am attached to private property. Some ideas are good in communism, but that is not my way of thinking.

TheBadger

^^ Thank you for clarifying. I agree with nearly everything you say in your last post.

It has been eaten.

efflux

#25
Putin, Ahmadinejad, Chavez to various degees stand for something that isn't part of the globalist banking cartel so they are a check on power, like them or not.

Things can be boiled down to simpler terms. We have the collective and Individual. It's human nature than we are willfully creative individuals so any collective ideas must be kept in check to protect the individual.

Democracy is useless by itself. 51% of the population can decide the other 49% get exterminated. That would be democratic. Democracy means mob rule. Tyrants love it as long as they can manipulate the ideas. For this they need propoganda such as we see in mainstream media. This is why democracy must be kept in check by inalieniable rights. These were god given rights initially. These rights must not be given by government like EU human rights which have lots of exceptions. There are no rights in the European Convention on Human Rights. All government needs to do is claim a state of emergency and you have no rights. If it's decided they are god given or from some higher level than government then they can not be removed by government.

The whole left right thing is a divide and conquer.

The government's purpose should be to represent the people. One way of doing this is for money to be released direct from government for purposes of sustaining wealth and productivity of the people into the future. Of course for this to work the people need to be educated and alert to any corruption. Mainstream media propoganda steps in here again. There is still a problem with government printing money directly but I think private banks printing money is even worse. We also need other money systems to keep the government in check.

To boil things down further. Progress of humanity is due to the willful creativity of people as individuals that can increase productivity for everyone due to an increase in energy flux density. This is what marks us out from the rest of life on this planet. No other animal is capable of willfull creativity and developing energy from sources such as fire for example. Windmills and solar power are low energy flux density. They can not replace oil so we need new ways. Nuclear power and related directions is the only way unless you are an Oligarch who simply wants a mass culling of people. All those unemployed people in Greece, Spain and elsewhere are simply excess to requirements of the Oligarchy. Check out the story of Prometheus who was codemnded by the gods for bringing fire to the people. The gods we have now are a bunch of psychopathic Oligarchs in governments and banks. This austerity business is simply a method of handing power over to the "gods" (bankers and government) rather than it being in the hands of people.

Most of above was the reason behind the American Constitution. Yet America is now a tool of these gods and their empire.

efflux

The reaction in Boston to the bombings demonstrates how far gone the US is because under the constitution you have inalienable rights. It doesn't matter what has happened, the Police don't have a right to shut down a city and march innocent people out of their homes at gunpoint unless they have specific evidence to say that a terrorist suspect is on your property. It was one 19 year old guy. A danger yes, but not enough to come anywhere near justifying the reaction.

Once you have a situtation where government can just declare some state of emergency and set up a total police state where you have no rights then all freedom is gone. This is exactly what Hitler did.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enabling_Act_of_1933

efflux


efflux

#28
Here's some things that the UK Civil Contingency Act would allow. I don't know what similar things are set up in the rest of Europe but this act was apparently to harmonise us with Europe:

Confiscation of property, with or without compensation
Destruction of property, animals or plants; with or without compensation
Deployment of the armed forces
Forced movement, to or from a place
Forcing a person to act, without remuneration or compensation
Prohibiting assembly
Prohibiting travel, or virtually any other activity
Imposing taxation or compulsory ID cards
Restricting the freedom of the press
Banning a critical organisation
Neutralising the House of Lords as a brake on Government power to act
Handing over powers to a foreign power or armed force
Dissolution of Parliament; appointment of a new government and PM
Appointment of judges and magistrates
Concluding an international Treaty
Recognising the legitimacy of a foreign State
Acting where there are any gaps in statutory 'emergency powers'
Under Act of State rules, Crown servant immunity from court action can be given for 'torts' (in England) and 'crimes committed outside its jurisdiction'
Pardoning a convicted person

We now have massive growth in support for UKIP (United Kingdon Independance Party) in the UK. Headed up by Nigel Farage although it seems that even Farage doesn't have a full grasp of things.

efflux

One thing that ties the UK and the US together is common law. That's based on certain fundamental rights. Bills or acts in UK and US government do not trump common law or at least they are not supposed to. This is what the US Constitution is based on. For The EU to set up its be all end all biggest tyranny of all time the US and UK have to be overthrown. Notice Obama is ready to sign up to things like this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EU%E2%80%93US_Free_Trade_Agreement

He's already signed up the a UN treaty which essentially destroys the second ammendment. You can't have people with guns in a police state. They will push and push to disarm the American people.