The Communist Manifesto

[ViperOverLord]

In summary, of this thread:

Saxi: "The Communist Manifesto is 100 pages long."
Whathisname: "No! You're wrong! It's 91 pages long!" [victory dance!]

Similar conversations in history:

Saxi: "It feels like it's 100 degrees out."
Whathisname: "HA! Wrong again! The heat index shows it only feels like it's 95 degrees! Another win for me!"

Saxi: "It's 100 miles from Sacramento to San Jose."
Whathisname: "You've clearly never even been to California. It's actually 119 miles. Do you even know where Sacramento is?"

Jesus Christ, will someone buy this kid a friend?

Thanks, guy!
Saxi!
Unofficial CC Happiness Ombudsman

Great analysis, ViperOverLord.

It's official. There's no post of mine that you can't troll

[jimboston]

It's unfortunate that my serious thread got turned into this back and forth inane bantering.

Yes... it's unfortunate that Saxi can throw around BS... then when asked to defend his position or provide additional details he refuses and goes off on tangents.

[jimboston]

You're so witty Sax... Not.

Obviously you are smart... but you are also full of shit and insincere.

Apparently you don't value honesty, sincerity, etc. You'd rather trollalong.

You're old dick probably gets stiff when you know you have pissed someone off with yout BS.

GFY

you seem upset

So does that mean your tiny old pecker is now stiff?

[Timminz]

It's unfortunate that my serious thread got turned into this back and forth inane bantering.

Yes... it's unfortunate that Saxi can throw around BS... then when asked to defend his position or provide additional details he refuses and goes off on tangents.

Indeed. Most times, a "back and forth" is just one person. Don't worry. You're not like that. It's just the other guy.

[Metsfanmax]

It's unfortunate that my serious thread got turned into this back and forth inane bantering.

Yes... it's unfortunate that Saxi can throw around BS... then when asked to defend his position or provide additional details he refuses and goes off on tangents.

Yes, it is unfortunate. That doesn't mean you, or anyone else, should spend pages on end going back and forth insulting each other and saying the other person doesn't understand the argument. That happens in half the threads on CC, and it's incredibly boring. Either address the content of the thread, or don't post. I don't think anyone enjoys reading these pissing contests.

[jimboston]

It's unfortunate that my serious thread got turned into this back and forth inane bantering.

Yes... it's unfortunate that Saxi can throw around BS... then when asked to defend his position or provide additional details he refuses and goes off on tangents.

Yes, it is unfortunate. That doesn't mean you, or anyone else, should spend pages on end going back and forth insulting each other and saying the other person doesn't understand the argument. That happens in half the threads on CC, and it's incredibly boring. Either address the content of the thread, or don't post. I don't think anyone enjoys reading these pissing contests.

GFY

I will respond to Saxi the way I feel like at the given moment.

Go tell your kids what to do... don't presume to tell me how to handle myself. I will do what I want even if I know it is useless.

[Metsfanmax]

It's unfortunate that my serious thread got turned into this back and forth inane bantering.

Yes... it's unfortunate that Saxi can throw around BS... then when asked to defend his position or provide additional details he refuses and goes off on tangents.

Yes, it is unfortunate. That doesn't mean you, or anyone else, should spend pages on end going back and forth insulting each other and saying the other person doesn't understand the argument. That happens in half the threads on CC, and it's incredibly boring. Either address the content of the thread, or don't post. I don't think anyone enjoys reading these pissing contests.

GFY

I will respond to Saxi the way I feel like at the given moment.

Go tell your kids what to do... don't presume to tell me how to handle myself. I will do what I want even if I know it is useless.

I don't understand why you would intentionally be a pain in everyone's ass. No one likes it, and I simply can't understand why someone would do something knowing that everyone else hates it. I wish you would refrain from posting further in my thread, because I want to discuss the Communist Manifesto and you're preventing this from happening.

[Metsfanmax]

the point being that the communist manifesto is a rather terse and easily-digestible treatise. its predictions could easily be reduced to 10 or so bullet pointed blurbs. not that the op did it correctly. but the op is so irrelevant by this point that i can't even remember who he is, and i don't feel like looking.

It's not like this was my summarization, I pulled this directly out of the text. Marx didn't intend it to be a summarization of the predictions of the work, but rather a terse description of what the future communist country might look like.

[saxitoxin]

It's unfortunate that my serious thread got turned into this back and forth inane bantering.

Yes... it's unfortunate that Saxi can throw around BS... then when asked to defend his position or provide additional details he refuses and goes off on tangents.

Yes, it is unfortunate. That doesn't mean you, or anyone else, should spend pages on end going back and forth insulting each other and saying the other person doesn't understand the argument. That happens in half the threads on CC, and it's incredibly boring. Either address the content of the thread, or don't post. I don't think anyone enjoys reading these pissing contests.

GFY

I will respond to Saxi the way I feel like at the given moment.

Go tell your kids what to do... don't presume to tell me how to handle myself. I will do what I want even if I know it is useless.

that's the spirit, Fielding!

[jimboston]

I don't understand why you would intentionally be a pain in everyone's ass. No one likes it, and I simply can't understand why someone would do something knowing that everyone else hates it. I wish you would refrain from posting further in my thread, because I want to discuss the Communist Manifesto and you're preventing this from happening.

I have a three-point response...

# 1 - GFY

# 2 - This is not YOUR thread... there is no ownership of threads as far as I know here on CC.

# 3 - I was attempting to discuss the Communist Manifesto with Saxi. He was being a little bitch and has side-tracked that attempt. You are further side-tracking my attempt to engage Saxi, and get him to answer specific questions, by your attempt to try to tell me how I should post.

You have no ability to control what I write nor what manner I write in. If you don't like it... don't read it. You speak for yourself. You do not speak for "everyone". Good Bye.

[jimboston]

that's the spirit, Fielding!

You Saxi can also GFY.

You have yet to explain how it is within the nature of most people to give up power, wealth, prestige, etc.... once it has been given to them. It is in fact against human nature... and it is why there can never be a "temporary dictatorship of the proletariat".

Please... I am willing to be educated... now is your chance.

Isn't it your stated goal to spread your diatic message? Go on... help me with my ignorance.

[SultanOfSurreal]

I didn't have time to read this novel, but it's probably a good thing.

You tried to seize an Ah-Ha moment by derailing the thread into minutia but it didn't work out. Pounding out volumes of word vomit to win some imagined battle of quantity is inane. Each backward rationalization to save a pedantic point digs you deeper than the previous.

By your choice of verbiage, manner and style of composition, it's clear you're on a learning exploration. That's fine. Just don't feign expertise when you have none to proffer.

you can ignore my advice if you'd like, but you are unlikely to find better counsel around here. wordiness and faux-pompousness alone won't make you a more effective troll than the rest of the rogue's gallery here. it's a shame, you had potential

[heavycola]

I like your manifesto, let's put it to the test-o

[nietzsche]

It would be great that this thing allowed to view youtube videos right here so I can post some 1960 propaganda against communism.

Saxi I have a few annotations to your rich presentation about communism:

1. I agree with you that 18 points can't really say what communism is all about, you need to keep the spirit of it alive, as angry as it would have made Marx to talk about spirits.

2. I didn't know about the dictatorship been necessary (I do understand why now) and temporal (it didn't make sense a Stalinesque 200-year USSR).

3. I still mantain my point that without personal property nobody takes care of things. The same goes for progress, without the personal gain I'm not sure people would make the effort to come up with new solutions. It's true tho, that a communist people wouldn't need 21st century technology to be happy.

3.1 I guess that nobody is sure about these since anything can change in a couple of generations living without the capitalist spirit. Perhaps Marx saw it all perfectly in a Nostradamus-like way and it does work perfectly after all.

4. There are some things that are only started and after that, they survive by themselves. i.e. Men are awfull happy being slaves, men love religion! don't take that away without pills!

4.1 If a person is smart enough to see clearly above the cloud of capitalist Jesus, most likely would like to play by the actual rules, since it's easier that trying to change the system, besides, most likely he would do well.

5. The global communist party, the Vanguard.. where are they today (honest question).

6. Don't be naughty saxy, jimboston was only asking you out of honest interest about your intimate relationship with the now-mentally-decaying Fidel.

Please comment nicely on my uneducated points.

[saxitoxin]

Nietzsche, my favorite!

2. I didn't know about the dictatorship been necessary (I do understand why now) and temporal (it didn't make sense a Stalinesque 200-year USSR).

The emergence of any Socialist regime automatically entails a State of Emergency as it will be immediately beset by the forces of parasitic capitalism on all fronts.

Libertarian Democracy is the goal of aspiration but, as a system of governance, is too fragile to survive the turbulence of a generalized siege. For that reason Democratic Centralism, the so-called Dictatorship of the Proletariat, must be empowered of the Vanguard party during the period of revolutionary transformation.

All capitalist states are dictatorships. The Socialist state must temporarily engage the mantle of absolutism until internationalism triumphs. In the unlikely event that the Vanguard refuses to surrender that mantle, the people will simply shake it off in a spirit of revolutionary fervor.

5. The global communist party, the Vanguard.. where are they today (honest question).

Over the last 100 years the global struggle of farmers and workers suffered - as do all movements of zeal - from both internal fraction and external sabotage by the aforementioned forces of parasitic capitalism. Unfortunately there are many claimants to the title of global vanguard, though most are revisionist and degenerate. Off the top of my head...

Fourth International - Socialist Equality
Trotskyist, revolutionary

Fourth International - Workers Revolutionary
Trotskyist, revolutionary

International Marxist Tendency
Trotskyist, cooperative

Committee for a Worker's International
Trotskyist, cooperative

International Communist League
Trotskyist, pathfinder ("Cuban-style" socialism)

International Conference of Marxism-Leninism
Hoxhaist ("Albanian-style" socialism)

Revolutionary International
Maoist (pre-70's "Chinese-style" socialism)

Friendship League
Juche ("Korean-style" socialism)

World Socialist Movement
Proto-Marxist ... this would be the tendency to which Mets would affiliate

International Worker Association
Syndicalist (cooperative Anarchist) ... they've always struck me as a bunch of romantics more interested in sipping espresso in a bookstore in Venice than Action Direct; this would be the tendency to which I think you, Nietzsche, would affiliate

Radical Women
Feminist

I'm sure that's not a comprehensive list.

[nietzsche]

It would be great to build a simulator to see if it would work in the end. If the simulator es fancy enough, designed by neutrals, and the thing work reasonably well, just enough to be a fun ride, people might change its minds.

We would have to find good metaphors tho, no way to simulate a whole world in a decent reality. But yet again, cybernetics revealed many things that psychology couldn't for years beating around the bushes. An experiment like that in these days might end up revealing the part of psychology and sociology (or whatever is the science that studies groups, I can't recall right now) that hasn't been figured it out.

In the simulator we could call cadets like "el Che" the saxies.

[jimboston]

The emergence of any Socialist regime automatically entails a State of Emergency as it will be immediately beset by the forces of parasitic capitalism on all fronts.

Libertarian Democracy is the goal of aspiration but, as a system of governance, is too fragile to survive the turbulence of a generalized siege. For that reason Democratic Centralism, the so-called Dictatorship of the Proletariat, must be empowered of the Vanguard party during the period of revolutionary transformation.

So in order to overthrow the State the Vanguard must create a State?

Seems counterintuitive.... yes there is an expression "Fight Fire with Fire"... but in reality we generally use other things like Water or some sort of blanketing chemical to fight fire.

Who determines how long the period of revolutionary transformation should be? Who decides when transformation has come to an end and it is time to move to true Libertarian Democracy?

All capitalist states are dictatorships. The Socialist state must temporarily engage the mantle of absolutism until internationalism triumphs.

All capitalist states are dictatorships. We (the masses) are just blind to this because we have been indoctrinized to believe in our capitalist system as having some sort of 'freedom'... but that's all a myth, correct? Kinda like in the movie the Matrix... we aren't really in a democracy here in the US... we just think we are.

In the unlikely event that the Vanguard refuses to surrender that mantle, the people will simply shake it off in a spirit of revolutionary fervor.

Why do you think it is unlikely that the Vanguard would refuse to surrender power? You can't say who these people might be... you don't know their personalities. Do you think it is more in tune with human nature to want to retain power.... rather than give it up? Even if you convince yourself you are keeping it for the "right reasons"?

What makes you belive that "the people" will be able to "simply shake it off"? If the people can't revolt against current corrupt capitalist governments... what makes you think that they would be able to revolt against a dictatorship run by the Vanguard so readily? Presumanly the actual people running the Vanguard at this point may not even been the same as a generation or generations may have elapsed since they came to power. The people born into this power wouldn't give it up so readily.

If the revolution was faster... and the same people were running the Vanguard... you assume they would simply relenquich this power? The Vanguard may convince "the people" that they are still corrupt and blind having lived under capitalism for generations.... and that they (the people) are not ready for true Libertarian Democracy. So therefore the Vanguard should hold power "just a little longer" till the people are ready.

There's no reason to believe the Vanguard would give up power... nor is there any promise that the Vanguard could be "shaken off".

It's all BS Talk.

[saxitoxin]

It would be great to build a simulator to see if it would work in the end. If the simulator es fancy enough, designed by neutrals, and the thing work reasonably well, just enough to be a fun ride, people might change its minds.

We would have to find good metaphors tho, no way to simulate a whole world in a decent reality. But yet again, cybernetics revealed many things that psychology couldn't for years beating around the bushes. An experiment like that in these days might end up revealing the part of psychology and sociology (or whatever is the science that studies groups, I can't recall right now) that hasn't been figured it out.

In the simulator we could call cadets like "el Che" the saxies.

We had a simulator from 1919-1989! Unfortunately, people kept breaking into the lab and throwing wrenches into the machinery.

[saxitoxin]

Who determines how long the period of revolutionary transformation should be?

Who determines how long an earthquake should last?

Who decides when transformation has come to an end and it is time to move to true Libertarian Democracy?

Who decides when it has stopped raining and it's okay to go outdoors?

All capitalist states are dictatorships. We (the masses) are just blind to this because we have been indoctrinized to believe in our capitalist system as having some sort of 'freedom'...

Great point, I agree!

Why do you think it is unlikely that the Vanguard would refuse to surrender power? You can't say who these people might be... you don't know their personalities.

In the DDR the vanguard was entrusted to the revolutionary defense committees of the Socialist Unity Party, as well as to the Combat Groups of the Working Class and to members of the National Front: the Free German Youth, the German Trade Union Federation and the Radical Feminist League. These were millions of regular people with regular jobs: carpenters, firefighters, teachers, physicians. They were the working people who cook food and clean toilets, take care of the sick and keep the streets safe.

As a product of a capitalist hierarchy you can only understand the concept of a "vanguard" as some type of ivory elite. It can just as easily be, and has been, a popular, mass appeal.

Do you think it is more in tune with human nature to want to retain power.... rather than give it up? Even if you convince yourself you are keeping it for the "right reasons"?

What power? The power is people's power. It is inherent from, and emanates within, it. In the absence of people's power there is no power in the revolutionary non-state. Ergo, there is nothing to seize, retain or monopolize.

[jimboston]

You are now contradicting yourself Saxi.

YOU said there would be a Dictatorship of the Proletariat... if there is some form of Gov't people have to run this. These people hold the keys... whether these people start as elites or start as farmers, once in power they become elites.

They will not give up that power. It's less likely that a farmer who achieves greatness will give it up than and elite who already has it, achieves even more, etc.

Your answers are (as always) the biggest cop-out.

Your nickname is no longer Saxi, it's cop-out.

Not the CC Happiness Ombudsman.... rather the CC Copout Kid.

[saxitoxin]

You are now contradicting yourself Saxi.

YOU said there would be a Dictatorship of the Proletariat... if there is some form of Gov't people have to run this. These people hold the keys... whether these people start as elites or start as farmers, once in power they become elites.

They will not give up that power. It's less likely that a farmer who achieves greatness will give it up than and elite who already has it, achieves even more, etc.

Your answers are (as always) the biggest cop-out.

Your nickname is no longer Saxi, it's cop-out.

Not the CC Happiness Ombudsman.... rather the CC Copout Kid.

Once again, from your perspective as a subject of a plutocratic regime, you - incorrectly - assume those "in power" must sit in palaces of purpled ease. That's understandable you think that because that's what happens in the west. It's your frame of reference.

However, we embrace an alternate vision of empowerment, where those in power are the people working in the fields, they are the people cleaning the toilets, tending to the sick in hospital, teaching your children.

The core of dialectic Marxism-Leninism is that power is spread to the radicalized masses. This is the essence of People's Power! For instance, roughly half of the adult population of the DDR were members of the Socialist Unity Party or the other member organizations of the National Front.* They were the vanguard. They were the dictatorship of the proletariat. Not some gaggle of professional congressmen and presidents of mega-corporations as in the west.

[jimboston]

You are now contradicting yourself Saxi.

YOU said there would be a Dictatorship of the Proletariat... if there is some form of Gov't people have to run this. These people hold the keys... whether these people start as elites or start as farmers, once in power they become elites.

They will not give up that power. It's less likely that a farmer who achieves greatness will give it up than and elite who already has it, achieves even more, etc.

Your answers are (as always) the biggest cop-out.

Your nickname is no longer Saxi, it's cop-out.

Not the CC Happiness Ombudsman.... rather the CC Copout Kid.

Once again, from your perspective as a subject of a plutocratic regime, you - incorrectly - assume those "in power" must sit in palaces of purpled ease. That's understandable you think that because that's what happens in the west. It's your frame of reference.

However, we embrace an alternate vision of empowerment, where those in power are the people working in the fields, they are the people cleaning the toilets, tending to the sick in hospital, teaching your children.

The core of dialectic Marxism-Leninism is that power is spread to the radicalized masses. This is the essence of People's Power! For instance, roughly half of the adult population of the DDR were members of the Socialist Unity Party or the other member organizations of the National Front.* They were the vanguard. They were the dictatorship of the proletariat. Not some gaggle of professional congressmen and presidents of mega-corporations as in the west.

If there is going to be an interim Gov't of any kind while the Vanguard is revolutionizing the rest of the world you MUST have some group of people who MANAGE things. PERIOD.

These people will have power and they won't want to give it up. Period.

[saxitoxin]

You are now contradicting yourself Saxi.

YOU said there would be a Dictatorship of the Proletariat... if there is some form of Gov't people have to run this. These people hold the keys... whether these people start as elites or start as farmers, once in power they become elites.

They will not give up that power. It's less likely that a farmer who achieves greatness will give it up than and elite who already has it, achieves even more, etc.

Your answers are (as always) the biggest cop-out.

Your nickname is no longer Saxi, it's cop-out.

Not the CC Happiness Ombudsman.... rather the CC Copout Kid.

Once again, from your perspective as a subject of a plutocratic regime, you - incorrectly - assume those "in power" must sit in palaces of purpled ease. That's understandable you think that because that's what happens in the west. It's your frame of reference.

However, we embrace an alternate vision of empowerment, where those in power are the people working in the fields, they are the people cleaning the toilets, tending to the sick in hospital, teaching your children.

The core of dialectic Marxism-Leninism is that power is spread to the radicalized masses. This is the essence of People's Power! For instance, roughly half of the adult population of the DDR were members of the Socialist Unity Party or the other member organizations of the National Front.* They were the vanguard. They were the dictatorship of the proletariat. Not some gaggle of professional congressmen and presidents of mega-corporations as in the west.

If there is going to be an interim Gov't of any kind while the Vanguard is revolutionizing the rest of the world you MUST have some group of people who MANAGE things. PERIOD.

Of course. The group just happens to have millions-upon-millions of people in it. In the case of my experience, over half the country's population, in fact.

I'm sorry you're having difficulty understanding.

[jimboston]

Of course. The group just happens to have millions-upon-millions of people in it. In the case of my experience, over half the country's population, in fact.

I'm sorry you're having difficulty understanding.

Not possible.

I have no trouble understanding.

Your BS is just too thick.

You can say that "half the country" was part of the Vanguard running the Gov't.
You can say it but it's BS.

I can say that "We the People" run the USA... and we both know that's BS. Though less than what you pretend.

GFY... again.

[jimboston]

BTW... what fuckin' country are you talking about anyway... I guess Germany, but are you meaning East or West? and what time period did this supposedly occur?