Progressives (Liberals)

I don't give a **** about the Bolshevik situation. It has practically nothing to do with what we are encountering here. Those people had a different background than Americans and had culturally instilled characteristics that made them surrender to communism. To say that new people with different expectations will do what Bolsheviks did is just propaganda.

Who are "they"? Are there really Leninists somewhere in the USA?

They really are: "Revolutionary Organization of Labor" ( formerly known as the Ray O. Light Group)

There is also the Workers World Party, which was, founded by a former member of The Socialists Workers Party

Yes, there are Leninists/Marxists here in the US. Maybe you've heard of their military arm, Antifa? If you see someone defending socialism and actively pushing for it, they are Leninists/Marists. We have at least 3 of them serving in the Federal govt right now, 2 were recently elected and the 3rd is running for President for a second time. We have a few here on A2K as well, Communists one and all. This little gem was posted in the last week, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs."

That reminds me at my time as a student in the 70's, when we had had five different Marxist-Leninist parties on the ballot paper for the university parliament. (I nearly was elected then as a candidate of the "Save the opening hours of our university cafeteria's pub party" - we got two seats, I've missed the third by ten votes.)

That's an interesting but uncommon if not unknown definition.

By that definition, we've got some millions here, not just the few.

(Actually, "Leninists/Marxists" usually is written as 'Marxist-Leninist' since Marxism–Leninism is the ideology of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, of the Communist International, and of Stalinist political parties.)

It's a lot historical evidence which is not applicable to any of the programs proposed by contemporary democratic socialists in the USA. None of those countries were remotely similar to the country you and I live in. The very fact that we're talking about candidates who must win the support of voters in free elections should tell you something about the difference. None of the progressive candidates are doctrinaire Marxists and none of them believe in a vanguard party or a dictatorship of the proletariat. No one is proposing the extermination of class enemies. It's the Trump supporters who seem to be obsessed with putting their political opposition in jail — "Lock her up!"

The USA isn't a poverty-stricken country of uneducated peasants, our political system is not amenable to a true dictatorship, and the biggest threat to public safety by armed political extremists comes from the right-wing, not the left. The rag tag collection of anarchists known as "antifa" is hardly a threat to our republic. If their counterparts on the right, like the Proud Boys and the various white nationalists, didn't exist the brownshirts of the left wouldn't either.

No, they're more like Fabian socialists. You obviously don't know what you're talking about.

Not to mention the capitalists who are held as sterling examples of social stability and progress are about to extinct the planet, if not checked.

You are selling the same pile of **** with different names. It doesn't matter what you call it, it isn't compatible with the US Constitution.

You are outta your damn mind. Nina Turner herself told us about this and about 25 people were with her! You’ve got to pull this Russia **** out of your ass. This is a fact.

Jesus Christ, people. Stop drinking the Center for American Progress KoolAid!

It wasn’t portrayed as a scoop — just a fact—which IT IS.

Vote for what you love.

Hightor is right. There are all kinds of socialism. Leninism for one is not at all the same as Marxism. State conterl of the means of production is totally differwnt from worker control of the means of production, for one thing. The Constitution is totally silent on how the economy is structured and operates. Which pretty much means anything goes as far as it is concerned.

I disagree. The lessons are indeed as apt now to us as they were in the examples I cited. The underlying point is that efforts to give the government exclusive control of the management of social and economic issues, themselves end up in changing the character of the government - and in very undesirable ways. When government controls everything the stakes for power become very high indeed, usually resulting in authoritarian tyranny and pervasive corruption.

Moreover a considered look at progressive political programs, ranging from the "War on Poverty" to government sponsored affirmative action down to the more recent efforts to control and force subsidized government capitol into the real estate and college tuition markets reveals a somewhat breathtaking record of failure to achieve stated objectives and in several cases lasting unanticipated harm to the very processes they were designed to improve.

It's a conservative trick, blaming the government for not doing it as good as private concerns, but it turns out it is screwed more so in private hands. Deregulation - taking it out of government hands- always results in higher prices and service no better than before. It's always a scam to dig their mits deeper in our pockets. Nongovernment concerns have totally screwed the working folks and corrupted the government away from serving the public. Only some strict controls can stop the piracy.

You are dead wrong in all of this. There is ample evidence out there to establish the benefits of competition and market capitalism in improving the speed and effectiveness of capital allocations to and investments in needed areas, and better service and product quality for the products produced in them as well. Government agencies, operating without competition and backed up by the irresistible force of government, have little incentive for quality improvement, better efficiency or lower cost for the goods and services they may provide. ( The result in East Germany was the Lada - a car with a plastic body and a two cycle piston engine, while, across the wall, Germany was producing Mercedes , Volkswagens and Audis.

Venezuela and Cuba are living examples of this and of the Tyranny that usually results from a government with unlimited power over social and economic life.

Everything you are arguing for has set this entire planet on a ticking time bomb. As for the kind of socialism I am arguing for, it is almost the same as the type of socialism of Roosevelt the one that made this the most powerful country in history. Had he not died when he did, we would have possibly had what I am arguing for back then. It allows businesses to thrive, but not to engage in the cutthroat tactics that characterize nearly all big businesses these days.

Venezuela and Cuba can't be used as examples of systemic failure, because both are systematically sabotaged by our government.