From: Terry W. Colvin (fortean1@frontiernet.net)
Date: Mon Jun 19 2000 - 16:17:18 MDT
Terry, would you forward this again please, but not to skeptic,
I think they have seen my response to such tiradas a few times.
Eva
> Mike LaTorra replies:
> Do you mean countries like Germany? Or Czechoslovakia? Or perhaps Hungary?
> Or do you restrict your classification of "most advanced" to the USA at the
> beginning of the 20th century?
>
As you know, E. Germany, Czekoslovakia and Hungary had the soviet
type totalitarian system foisted on them via the USSR army that
liberated them from fascism. In the case of Hungary and
Czekoslovakia, they attempted to democratise the system, but
this threatened the US-Soviet status quo, so it was suppressed.
But East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Hungary were again, not exactly
those most developed and most democratic of capitalist countries.
England, France and the USA and Western Germany was far more
advanced, yes.
> If the countries I listed first are acceptable candidates for Marxism,
> then clearly the experiment has been tried and failed, but not for lack of
> trying. The blood, sweat and tears of numerous unwilling "experimental
> subjects" show that the only thing most of them were willing to risk their
> lives for was trying to escape from their respective "workers' paradise"
> States.
You forget about the millions who were fighting to be relieved from
serfdom, from poverty and hoped socialism would bring freedom
from it. Freedom from poverty and illiteracy should count, too.
You seem to forget about the millions who
emigrated to found the USA - emigrated from European poverty
much before they were trying to emigrate from soviet totalitarianism.
> However, if you think only the USA qualified for Marxism, then please
> explain why, when Leon Trotsky visited America, he concluded that it did not
> need a revolution. Was he insufficiently Marxist for you?
>
please let me have the source for this, because I certainly had never
heard about it, I suspect a very out-of-context quote here.
>
> Terry:
> The failure was not due to "communism"
> but to its absence.
>
> Mike:
> LOL! Are you the Pope of Marxism, or do you have some evidence and arguments
> to support your pontifications?
>
Well, I'm afraid, you seem to be rather ignorant about it,
I expect you studied a rather one-sided interpretation.
Communism is a democratic socialism, where the state
becomes non-existent "withering away". Did the USSR or any other
pseudo-socialist country demonstrated any such?
No. Therefore they were not communist, not even socialist.
They were non-capitalist, at the best approximation.
> Terry:
> So this is the usual ignorant and crappie
> strawman propaganda....
>
>
> Mike:
> Yes, that's certainly the way your statements seem to me. I have made a
> thorough study of Soviet Marxism using documents in English and Russian, and
> although I can fault the Russian Marxists for much, I cannot fault them for
> being insufficiently Marxist.
>
Whether an -individual- was Marxist or not, has nothing to do
whether a -system- succeeded being communist or not.
> Terry:
> ..and I won't join Forteana
> to put them right... but Terry - pass this on,
> I'm sure it is off-topic there, too, but if anyone
> wants a (decent!) argument, you may pass my email
> address...
>
for the rest it is a repetition of the first post. What do you mean
Marxism in practice? Like stuff that is new and therefore by
definition hasn't yet happened? There is the theory
to discuss, the conditions that were insufficient for
the development of democracy therefore the eventual
failure of the system.
You can also look into the analysis of capitalism, and how that is
failing, endangering the whole survival of the human species
as due to its economical mechanism it cannot coordinate the
world to distribute resourses in a sane manner or to invest resourses
in a sustainable manner. Than look into what alternatives there are
to make us a consciously organised intelligent and cooperating
species in the interest of survivable and enjoyable lives.
Eva
> Mike:
> A decent argument is not what you have given us, but merely in your words
> "the usual ignorant and crappie strawman propaganda" for which Marxists have
> become justly famous. If you want to debate the facts of Marxism in
> practice, I've got the facts to back up my claims. If you want to debate
> Marxist theory, then please don't waste my time because Marxist theory bears
> as little resemblance to reality as cartoon physics.
> Look, if Marxism is so great, yet it has failed everywhere it has been
> tried with utterly catastrophic results, then why would any advanced country
> want to try it? Just to disprove Marx once and for all at an even greater
> cost in human misery?
>
> Regards to friends of freedom everywhere,
>
> Michael LaTorra
>
> --
> Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA)
> < fortean1@frontiernet.net >
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>
Durant@umist.ac.uk
--
Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA)
< fortean1@frontiernet.net >
Home Page: < http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/8958/index.html >
Sites: Fortean Times * Northwest Mysteries * Mystic's Cyberpage *
TLCB * U.S. Message Text Formatting (USMTF) Program
------------
Member: Thailand-Laos-Cambodia Brotherhood (TLCB) Mailing List
TLCB Web Site: < http://www.tlc-brotherhood.org >[Allies, CIA/NSA,
and Vietnam veterans welcome]
Southeast Asia (SEA) service:
Vietnam - Theater Telecommunications Center/HHC, 1st Aviation Brigade
(Jan 71 - Aug 72)
Thailand/Laos
- Telecommunications Center/U.S. Army Support Thailand
(USARSUPTHAI), Camp Samae San (Jan 73 - Aug 73)
- Special Security/Strategic Communications - Thailand
(STRATCOM - Thailand), Phu Mu (Pig Mountain) Signal Site
(Aug 73 - Jan 74)
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