Democrats are Communist says Horowitz

Oh, look at the last four posts! Didn't really see that. That's funny!

Hippies and quakers live in communes ergo hippies and quakers are communists.

And kibbutzniks. Kibbutzniks are communists.

And then there had been this "Christian Identity" commune in eastern Oklahoma known as "Elohim City" ... ...

the entire state of Utah is a commune.

bloody hippies

Glad, I'm going not there but to a smaller NM commune in May!

BBB
The inhabitants of the entire block where Dys lives is a commune. It's run by all of the pets. Fred is the loudest so he's in charge.

BBB

I know. But smaller than Utah.

Re: Water
Yeah, obviously communes communism.

That brings us back to this, though:


Actually, not to want to confuse things even further, but here I think Okie actually has a point. Lemme go off on a limb here..

To take your quote from brittanica.com: communism is the system in which property is owned by the state or community.

It doesnt say "all" property, but obviously more is implied than the nationalisation of key industries, which even parties like the Brit and Dutch Labour parties at one point proponed, I believe.

And to really get the state/community to own all or most all property by definition means expropriating entire swathes of citizenry: farmers, shopkeepers, et cetera; and consistently keeping everyone from establishing property henceforth.

How are you going to bring that about without enduring force?

The communist tendency to equate state and community moreover helps to translate that 'enduring force' into personal, clique or party dictatorship pretty much by rule.

Anarchists at least wisely recognize that pitfall (of equating community with state). But they too face the necessity of (enduring) force to achieve communal property on any larger scale than a local community (where it could conceivably still be established by consensus, like it's been known to have been done in pre-modern times).

(That - on a sideline - is why I believe that peaceful anarchism - the only anarchism I propone - can only be established locally, and most probably no longer in our times either)

Oh bugger, I got the last post on the page again. Just leaf back, folks.

Anyway, regarding the original subject of this post, obviously - like Walter said - any equation between communism in the USSR and politics like that of today's US Democrats (or any of Europe's social-democrats and socialists, for that matter) is inane.

I'd add that there is also a big difference between the (mostly peaceful, idealistic and regularly useful) activity thats been done by communist opposition activists in democracies, and the realities of the communist system established once they got into power. My motto: every democracy needs a communist(-type) party, but dont ever let them get into power!

Hey nimh, didn't you favor "Die Linke" on that German elections thread, though?

Yep.

I take it that is in reply to my post that I would never vote for a communist? :wink:

Well, I'd go even further: I would pretty much never vote for an ex-communist either.

Thats why I would never have supported the PDS (the ex-communist party of East-Germany).

So I think it was wonderful that last year, finally, Die Linke was formed, in which the PDS merged with the mostly West-German WASG, an initiative of dissatisfied leftwing Social-Democrats, trade union activists and the odd Green dissenter.

Even if, like you (I presume) and me, you dont really accept the word of PDS folks that they are no longer (or even never were) a communist, Die Linke still had plenty of folks that had never been associated with any communist party, ever! For one, its national number 1 candidate, Oskar Lafontaine (ex-Social-Democrat).

In Holland, I am a member of the Green Left. The Green Left, back in the late eighties, was formed as a merger between four parties of what used to be called "the small left". The three main ones were the left-Christian Radicals, the Pacifist Socialists (those of the original "third way") and, yes, the Communists. At one point (back in 1994) they had an ex-communist in the top spot, so I switched. But by now, former Communists are hard to find.

Yuh. That's exactly the point, I'd never vote for an ex-communist. And even though I'd grant the point that the WASG-guys would be in a majority within the party, I'm still very suspicious.

Plus I don't particularly like definitely-non-ex-communist Lafontaine (somebody once aptly characterized him as an "attenion whore" <snicker>). The whole process during which he held an (interesting) post within the red-green administration, resigned, left the SPD, wrote his book and then joined the PDS/WASG/Die Linke didn't do much for me to make him overly electable.

(darn, I'm having fun discussing European politics here)

Yeah.

Having said that, I still have to come to terms with our current administration. But that's a different topic and will probably be discussed elsewhere. Unless George shows up in this thread, teehee....

O.K. - so Israel is, like, full of communes. So Israel is a communist nation. And the U.S. supports Israel, so, like, the U.S. must be a fundamentally communist nation.

Most excellent.

I learn something here every single sunshiny day.

bookmark

If anyone appreciates comedy, simply throw out the possibility that the word "communism" just might have a very slight chance of deriving its meaning from the word, "commune." Then let all the chickens jump on it like it was a grasshopper in a chicken pen! Sit back and enjoy the fun.

on the other hand, you could just keep trolling.

Some people are convinced i'm a communist and I don't even know what it is except I think Avacados should be free.

(off topic, i'll go away)

So, if Communism and Democracy are not opposites, could you have a functional government that is both Communism and Democracy? And don't give me that bias crap if you are anti-communist. Communism does work.