House of Windsor

[Edric O]

Edric: Just when I was fully prepared to abandon this place for good...

[c=#00dd00]Tsk tsk, Wolf, you know you can always rely on me for a lively debate. :) So, let me respond to your points in turn:

1. It seems I should have been more precise. Rent is a form of exploitation. To the extent that a landowner gets his income from rent, he is living off other people's labor and is therefore a parasite. This is the most blatant, direct form of exploitation that exists in our society. A landowner who gets all of his income from rent and hires other people to oversee his properties (such as the British royal family) is obviously not making any contribution to society.

Property taxes reduce the extent of this exploitation, but do not eliminate it. Any rent income that the landowner gets to keep after taxes is too much rent income. Any wealth that the landowner receives without working was created by the work of someone else.

Now, the degree of moral outrage I feel at this is proportional to the size of the undeserved rent income. A person renting out a second home is technically exploiting other people, but it's a minor problem and certainly not something to get too upset about. A landed aristocrat or real estate tycoon, on the other hand, is utterly reprehensible scum who leeches away intolerable amounts of wealth from the workers.

2. I did not say that "European monarchy" was responsible for the First World War. I said European kings were. There is an important difference. "Monarchy", like "communism", is an abstract concept. Abstract concepts are not conscious actors; they cannot carry guilt or innocence. Kings, on the other hand, are real flesh-and-blood human beings who can be held responsible for their actions.

I did not suggest that we should have punished "monarchy" for WW1 (how would that even be possible?). I suggested that we should have punished the specific kings responsible. The Tsar, Kaiser, Emperor and Sultan did not deserve death because they supported an abstract concept that was responsible for the war (if I believed that supporting an abstract concept responsible for the war was their main crime, then I should have logically said that they shared the guilt with every other monarchist and nationalist in Europe - which I did not say). No, abstract concepts have nothing to do with it at all. Those monarchs deserved death because they were personally responsible for ordering millions of innocent people to be massacred. The fact that they were kings is largely irrelevant to their guilt. The point is that they were mass murderers.

Notice, by the way, that I did not include the British King in my list of tyrants. I said: "The Tsar, the Kaiser, the Austrian Emperor, the Ottoman Sultan and their various crowned relatives in Central and Eastern Europe should have been made to fight each other to the death, just like they did to so many poor young boys." These were monarchs with real power, and therefore direct responsibility and guilt for the horrors of the war. The British King bears significantly less guilt, due to his significantly smaller powers.

And yes, I would be more than happy to extend the same treatment to other mass murderers of different political persuasions. Including those, like Stalin, who had the audacity to oppress people in the name of an ideology that is the sworn enemy of all oppression.[/c]

[Wolf]

1. Now we're getting somewhere...

I fail to see a meaningful distinction between rent and other forms of investment income--at least one sufficient to support your outrage. You say your moral outrage is "proportional" to the amount of rent received, but I see no explanation, really, for why (allegations of parasitism are insufficient). It seems to me that rent is merely a return on an original capital investment--paying a mortgage, maintaining a property, cleaning up pollution from a previous owner--and is, in fact, a necessary economic incentive to provide low-cost housing, environmental sustainability, and low-cost means of production. In fact, rent is not limited to real property: I therefore fail to see how rent is any different from taxes (periodic payments in return for the "lease" of citizenship and public welfare rights), or how rent is any different from wages (periodic payments in return for labor). You seem to be under the false impression that a landlord does nothing, or that renting real property is some form of "easy" money, or that lessees are simply schlubs to be taken advantage of. None of this is true, at least in any general sense. First of all, the lessee receives a meaningful property right that is actually quite significant. If paid by the lessor to surrender his property, a tenant will actually be taxed at a preferential rate (better than the lessor's) for that income. The tenant may also enforce "property" ownership rights over the property he has leased as if he were the true owner of the property--landlords are not all powerful, by granting a lease they have carved out legal interests and sold them to others in a very real sense. Second of all, at least in the United States, rental income--though significant--is not the primary source of most firms' and companies' profits. Virtually all organizations--companies, state governments, private actors--rent out all or some of their real property, in addition to machinery. (This raises an ancillary point: are you limiting your hatred of rent to rent for the lease of real property, or are we to include rent for other capital investments--machines, movies from Blockbuster--as well?) Rarely is it the case that "Old Lady Sherman" (or whoever) is sitting on a pile of money while slapping pitiless tenants with oppressive rents. First of all, there is rent control--at least in the US, at least in the residential context. Second of all, most landlords are not the "evil capitalists" that seem to feature to the exclusion of anyone else in your narrative. Most landlords, and indeed, most tenants, are commercial: one company has found that it can no longer make as good use of a property as it once did, but maintains it because the costs are marginal enough, another company can make great use of it, but lacks the capital base to purchase the property, therefore, a rental agreement is ideal and results in a tremendous benefit to society. Are we to force all commercial uses of real property to require the sale of that real property? Most commercial landlords will be unwilling to sell; most commercial tenants will be unwilling or unable to buy. In the residential context, this would be crippling, and you would render vast swaths of the population (including those we think of as "middle income") homeless: must all tenants actually buy real property in order to live on it? What about those assigned on long-term business assignments or college and graduate students, who will only be in a given area for a short period of time? What about large apartment complexes, where one is nominally "purchasing" a block of sky at an exorbitant rate? It seems to me that you haven't thought this through. As for the British Royals, their model of real property use is no different from... well, any other landlord--which I think is what you were getting at by making this a discussion about rents. When I think about how the Royals also have constitutionally imposed duties and responsibilities of state by virtue of birth, then I think the equation gets even weirder--and a commercial or residential real property paradigm may be insufficient, but, well, we can talk about that.

2. My only goal with the World War One discussion was to get you to drop the point because of its (1) irrelevance to a discussion on leases/rents and (2) its net effect of discrediting yourself (as a communist today) as much as the British monarchy (as royalty today).

[athanasios]

If someone doesn't like rent he is free to take a loan and buy/build his own house.

The attack of the circus government on landowners-and I am one of them, will soon lead to their outage. No dudes, simply we cannot tolerate to suffer to obtain property and then you come to say that we have you pay your f***s as we are the ones who posses. When you wasted your money smoking cannabis, hiring h*** and eating caviar we were working hard, eating lentils, building and repairing. And we continue to do so. **** ***!

Provide me with social security, free health, proper work, pension (in the future), and food and I do not need to rent property. And do the same for the students who study in universities away from their home, workers, etc...

-

Isn't Prince Phillip from Greece?

Got it right dude: Former Greek royal family. Even though not of Greek roots (aka second generation Greek and Greek speaking), everything good comes from Greece. ;-)

Actually Greece would have been in a far better position if he became the King of Greece. Phillip is a smart guy and wouldn't commit the same errors the royal family did here. Errors that led to their getting kicked out. Ah, well we have parliamentarism now-the term that describes the 3 families 'royal lines'. As if 1 line wasn't enough.

[ErasOmnius]

The reason is that there is not more home ownership, is the fact that there is Interest and Lending. Interest and Lending drive the costs of commodities and services up--especially housing. The Bankers like to create an de facto serfdom by creating generational loans in The West. The standard 30-year loan is an example of this. If the price of a condo or home came down to its' 'cash' price, then the price of homes would be far less.

The cost of an average home in the USA is approximately $103,000. But what would it be if generational loans did not exist? If a young couple paid cash for a home, and interest loans did not exist. Probably around $4000 or $5000. Loans from so-called bourgeoise royalty (the Bankers), have created de facto serfdom. You can buy and sell homes as a young family, but a young family will always have to pay interest on a generational loan to 'co-own' the home with a Bank.

[athanasios]

Houses are very cheap to build-if you remove the taxes and licenses! Those added the loan interest are the invention of the mafia who rules the world and drinks the blood of workers.

And I am p*** *** too much these days, because on a building I own property they charged 180 euros to replace the timer of the heater. Last year I payed less than 40 for the one in my building and replaced it myself in less than 1hr-and I am not an electrician. So here the worker is a thief. He charged 140 for less than hour's job, whereas this is triple another person's daily salary. And such people often protest about the worker's rights and baptize themselves communists...

[Edric O]

[c=#00dd00]Wolf:[/c]

I fail to see a meaningful distinction between rent and other forms of investment income--at least one sufficient to support your outrage.

[c=#00dd00]The other forms of "investment income" (which is to say, property income) are profit and interest. You are correct that they are fundamentally similar to rent. That is why I am opposed to all three of them. After all, I'm a communist, it should be rather obvious that I oppose profit and interest. All communists do. Property income, in all its forms, is undeserved income. It is wealth that was originally created by workers, but ends up taken by capitalists (profit and interest) or landowners (rent).

Profit and interest are bad enough in their own right, but I reserve special scorn for landowners and their rent because they are far more secure in their position than most capitalists. A company can go bankrupt and cut off the owner's profit stream. Land, however, never stops giving rent to the landlord. Both capitalists and landlords are parasites, but landlords are - how should I put this - lazier parasites. And if we're talking about a landlord who inherited his land (such as the British royals), that makes it even worse.[/c]

You say your moral outrage is "proportional" to the amount of rent received, but I see no explanation, really, for why (allegations of parasitism are insufficient).

[c=#00dd00]I do not understand what you do not understand. Labour is the source of all wealth. Workers produce all the real income in society. Therefore, people who get income without working (such as capitalists and landlords) are taking part of the wealth that workers make. And the workers have no say in how much wealth is taken away from them. That is why the capitalists and landlords are parasites. They produce nothing, play no useful role in society, yet they get an income - and the size and distribution of that income is not under the control of the workers who produced it.

Now, you may try to counter that by saying that landlords and capitalists provide the service of making their property available for others to use - and in fact, you did say this. It is true that as long as we live in an economy based on private property, we need to pay the owners in order to get access to their property and put it to productive use. But this is an argument against private property. Let me show you. The argument goes like this:

A. The existence of private property necessarily implies that some people will get an income without working (and the size and distribution of this income will be outside the control of the workers).

B. It is immoral and unjust for some people to receive an income without working (and without the workers being able to control it).

C. Therefore private property is immoral and unjust.

This is, in fact, the primary Marxist argument against private property.[/c]

Are we to force all commercial uses of real property to require the sale of that real property? Most commercial landlords will be unwilling to sell; most commercial tenants will be unwilling or unable to buy. In the residential context, this would be crippling, and you would render vast swaths of the population (including those we think of as "middle income") homeless: must all tenants actually buy real property in order to live on it? What about those assigned on long-term business assignments or college and graduate students, who will only be in a given area for a short period of time? What about large apartment complexes, where one is nominally "purchasing" a block of sky at an exorbitant rate? It seems to me that you haven't thought this through.

[c=#00dd00]It seems to me that you have failed to think "outside the box". Of course it would be absurd to force every tenant to buy the land or property she currently occupies - for all the reasons you listed. But that is not the only way to abolish rent.

There is another way, in light of the argument against private property that I just made above. Let all land be nationalized (or let it be made common property, if you prefer to keep the state out of this), and let us write down a new set of laws for deciding the use of land. The laws could be as follows (this is just an example, many variations are possible):

a. Everyone has the right to a home. If they currently occupy a home, they shall keep it and enjoy all the rights of a private owner, except that they cannot rent or sell it. If they do not occupy a home, the state shall provide one for them. If they used to own multiple homes, they must choose one to live in and forfeit the others.

b. The building of new homes in the future must keep pace with population growth, and will be administered by a dedicated public agency. The leadership of this agency shall be democratically elected, and their projects for future residential development (where to build, what kinds of houses to build, etc.) shall have to be approved by referendum - either on a national or (more likely) a local basis.

c. Land may not be bought, sold, or used as a source of income (such as by charging rent). The use of all non-residential land shall be decided by a democratically elected agency, different from the one mentioned under point b, above. Basic principles about the use of this land (e.g. how much to dedicate to natural parks, how much to dedicate to industrial development, what kinds of buildings may or may not be built in specific cities, etc.) shall be decided by referendum.

d. No person or entity occupying any land can be charged rent for the use of that land. When a conflict arises between different persons or entities wishing to occupy the same land, the dispute will be resolved by the public agency in charge of administering that land, or by the courts (if a legal challenge is involved), or by referendum (if it is a matter of public interest). "Matters of public interest" can be defined more clearly in other laws.

e. When a person dies, their legal heir has a choice between giving up her current home to move into the house of the deceased, or keeping her current home and giving up the house of the deceased. Either way, the heir has the right to keep and bring along with her all her property from the house she is giving up.

Presumably, after such a list of laws and practices is adopted, people will find a single name they can use to sum it all up - just like we sum up the long list of laws and practices we have today under the name "private property".[/c]

2. My only goal with the World War One discussion was to get you to drop the point because of its (1) irrelevance to a discussion on leases/rents and (2) its net effect of discrediting yourself (as a communist today) as much as the British monarchy (as royalty today).

[c=#00dd00]My World War One comments were never meant to imply that the current British royals carry any blame for the war. What I meant to say was that Phillip has no right to complain about the deaths of his WW1-era relatives, because those royals got what they deserved. He would not deserve the same treatment, of course. But they did.[/c]

[ErasOmnius]

I think banning the loaning of money, and especially the concept of interest would accomplish a great deal, as well.

[athanasios]

Banning money is even better: Free food, free products, free housing. That's the paradise Christians are praying for and get scorned.

[ErasOmnius]

I think that it is impossible to ban money in our current world situation, and it is impossible to ban interest on loaned money. But it's nice to dream.

Back to the overall topic of the Thread, as I am now interpreting what is happening in Europe. A bomb in Italy, and the misguided man in Romania. It all must be related to the budget cuts the whole continent is going through.

[athanasios]

I am not dreaming. I am preparing for.

Either you go for all of it or for nothing. No way to water the wine with communist solutions that have miserably failed.

-

Bombs? Those Italians cooperating with Greeks are mere amateurs.

-

A quote from a comment on the link you provided about the Romanian man:

am romanian, and I ask the EU to put pressure on the romanian government to stop wasting money on stupid things and start care for its people.

It is shocking how deep, people are made to sleep. Wake up, it is EU (and other of course) that want the money to be wasted that way and not to care for the people.

Those are the enemies! Finish them!

(Ops this is not an Ordos briefing, sorry...)

[Edric O]

I think banning the loaning of money, and especially the concept of interest would accomplish a great deal, as well.

Yes. But just like with rent, you can't simply ban interest and leave the rest of capitalism unchanged. That would be a disaster. Banks would no longer be able to function. Financial markets would cease to exist, and investment would grind to a halt.

So if you're really serious about getting rid of interest, you must do it the smart way. You must first get rid of financial markets and banks, and build an economic system that has no need for them (for example, socialism). Then you can safely ban interest.

The function of financial markets under capitalism is to guide investment. Banks decide where and how money is invested to produce new things (or more things). We need to replace them with a different way of guiding investment - one that doesn't cause periodic recessions, doesn't operate outside the people's control, and doesn't suck money from us like the banks do. I personally advocate a system of democratic economic planning as the alternative. That is how socialism guides investment. Basically, people pool their savings and then decide, democratically, on how those savings are to be used to build new factories (or whatever else they wish to build).

I think that it is impossible to ban money in our current world situation, and it is impossible to ban interest on loaned money. But it's nice to dream.

Like I said, it's impossible to ban interest on loaned money under capitalism. Capitalism cannot function without interest. But other economic systems can. I personally advocate socialism, of course (and eventually communism), but in principle there should be several possible non-capitalist economic systems that would allow us to get rid of interest.

Banning money is even better: Free food, free products, free housing. That's the paradise Christians are praying for and get scorned.

Getting rid of money itself would be a step further (much further) than eliminating interest or rent. It is possible - yes, even in this world, not just in paradise - but it is difficult. Like you said, a society without money would have to be a society that offers free food, free housing and free products. That is communism. It can be achieved by increasing productivity to a very high level, such that we have so much food, housing and other stuff that we can afford to give it away for free.

Of course, we will never be able to give away an infinite amount of free stuff. So, even in communism, there would have to be some limits on how much free stuff you can get (for example: make cars free, but have a rule that each person can only have one car; or make houses free but limit each person to a single house; and so on).

This, by the way, is the difference between communism and the Christian heaven. Communism is a better society - maybe even the best possible society - but it is still limited by the physical constraints of this universe. You can have things for free, but not an unlimited amount of them. The Christian heaven, on the other hand, is a spiritual place where material constraints no longer apply. Heaven is not about food, housing or free things - when you are in heaven, you don't even need them any more.

[Edric O]

I am not dreaming. I am preparing for.

What do you mean, "preparing for"? Do you mean you're just waiting for Christ to come back to solve all the world's problems while you do nothing to fix them in the mean time? Then you're doing it wrong.

We Christians are not called to be passive in the face of evil and injustice. We must pave the way for Christ's return by fighting the evils of this fallen world and beating back the kingdom of Satan as much as we can. We are to put our trust and faith in God, but He will not merely come to help us at the end of time. No, He will help us right now if we struggle for equality, for justice, for compassion and love. When Christ returns, He must not find us cowering in darkness. He must find us doing our best to shine the brightest light we can manage. Perhaps we will be able to show Him that we have built a communist world in His name. Perhaps not. But at least we must try!

Just like we must try to fight our own personal sins even though we know that only God can truly overcome them in the end, so we must try to fight the social sins of the world - especially capitalism - even though we know that only God can give us a truly perfect society.

Either you go for all of it or for nothing. No way to water the wine with communist solutions that have miserably failed.

Our solutions have not failed. They have not been tried - not all of them at once. We propose equality, democracy and economic planning. Some countries tried economic planning, but without equality and democracy. Other countries have democracy, but without equality or economic planning. Bits and pieces of our solutions were tried here and there. Sometimes large pieces. But never the whole package.

And you need the whole package in order for it to work. For example, economic planning can only serve the people if it is guided by democracy.

[ErasOmnius]

I have always wished that what you were saying was true, Edric -- but what I have found out is exactly the opposite. The Powers/Bankers are always going to control the World. The best I can do, is to be someone who is there to physically help, when someone has lost everything.

They've either lost everything because of their addictions; or because of too much interest on their loans, and it has led to financial collapse. Both of the former I know that God is against. In my opinion, trying to set up a socialist paradise always leads to the Old Soviet Union.

[athanasios]

We Christians are not called to be passive in the face of evil and injustice. We must pave the way for Christ's return by fighting the evils of this fallen world and beating back the kingdom of Satan as much as we can. We are to put our trust and faith in God, but He will not merely come to help us at the end of time. No, He will help us right now if we struggle for equality, for justice, for compassion and love. When Christ returns, He must not find us cowering in darkness. He must find us doing our best to shine the brightest light we can manage. Perhaps we will be able to show Him that we have built a communist world in His name. Perhaps not. But at least we must try!

Just like we must try to fight our own personal sins even though we know that only God can truly overcome them in the end, so we must try to fight the social sins of the world - especially capitalism - even though we know that only God can give us a truly perfect society.

Excluding the word communist, I congratulate you as this is the way a true Christian should speak and act. These are the best words in this forum and I am very glad to find a person that shares the same thoughts with me, because such people are very rare.

[ErasOmnius]

Edric, how will God help us right now if we struggle for equality, justice, compassion, and love?

[Edric O]

Excluding the word communist, I congratulate you as this is the way a true Christian should speak and act. These are the best words in this forum and I am very glad to find a person that shares the same thoughts with me, because such people are very rare.

Thank you! But I cannot exclude the word communist. :) To me, it is an essential part of being a Christian.

I have always wished that what you were saying was true, Edric -- but what I have found out is exactly the opposite. The Powers/Bankers are always going to control the World.

No. They are not gods. They are not invincible. They are human and make mistakes. They are greedy, short-sighted, prone to infighting, and often stupid. They can be beaten.

I know it's difficult to see that now, because we are living in a time of crushing capitalist dominance. But we can take inspiration from history. The capitalists came very close to defeat in the 20th century, several times. For example, if the German capitalists did not have Hitler to save them, it is likely that the Great Depression would have caused a communist revolution in Germany. And then without German support, Franco would have lost the Spanish Civil War and Spain would have probably overthrown capitalism too. WW2 would not have happened, and without it capitalism could not have pulled itself out of the Depression. This would have probably caused more revolutions in the 1940s in Europe, and a growth of the communist movement in the United States (in real life it was greatly weakened by WW2, and then McCarthy mopped up the pieces). Who knows where all that might have led?

That was just one example of how the 20th century might have been different. I can think of at least two other ways that capitalism could have fallen: There could have been successful communist revolutions in Central Europe in 1918-1921 (Germany, Italy, Austria and Hungary got close). Or the Soviet Union could have moved to a real socialist system and won the Cold War.

The point is that it was entirely possible for capitalism to have fallen in the 20th century. It didn't. It was saved by a series of random events (mainly WW2). The capitalists got lucky that time, but will their luck last another century?

The best I can do, is to be someone who is there to physically help, when someone has lost everything.

They've either lost everything because of their addictions; or because of too much interest on their loans, and it has led to financial collapse. Both of the former I know that God is against.

And that work you are doing is very important. You're helping people who need help the most. Keep it up and never lose hope!

I'm not saying you should be doing anything different. But I do wish that the work of helping the poor was combined with political organizing. There are many, many people like you who see suffering and want to fight it. But the vast majority look at it as if it were a natural disaster, as if they were helping the victims of an earthquake or flood, as if poverty and homelessness are just something that happens and we must do our best to cope with the results. No. It is not something that just happens. It is the effect of human evil. Intentional, deliberate evil. People are poor or homeless because other people profit from this state of affairs. We should help the victims of capitalism, but at the same time we should organize ourselves (and the victims themselves, for that matter) into a political party capable of fighting the capitalists.

In my opinion, trying to set up a socialist paradise always leads to the Old Soviet Union.

What makes you think that? The Soviet Union was the product of a set of specific historical circumstances and specific mistakes made by the Russian communists. You can be sure that those mistakes will not be repeated.

Edric, how will God help us right now if we struggle for equality, justice, compassion, and love?

I can't presume to predict what God would do, but I am sure that He will help us to win more people to the cause, that He will give us the strength to endure in the face of adversity, that He will give us good friends and a strong community, and that He will let the capitalists' minds be clouded with greed and overconfidence.

[ErasOmnius]

Edric, I am greatly interested in your viewpoints.

I would like to know what you think about the People's Republic of China.

Most importantly; Sharia Law, the Islamic Diaspora [islamic Immigration], and socialism.

Thanks.

[Edric O]

I have not forgotten about this thread. I just had a lot to write in other threads over the past couple of weeks. :) Ok, let's see, I will answer your questions in turn.

The People's Republic of China is a capitalist country today, not much different from the US or Europe or Africa in its economic system. It did not use to be this way. From the early 1950s to the early 1980s, the People's Republic of China followed the Soviet economic system - although it performed significantly worse than the USSR, because the Cultural Revolution threw most of the country into chaos for a decade. Over the course of the 1980s, China transitioned to capitalism. This transition was imposed by the government against the wishes of the majority of the people (as can be seen from the Tiananmen uprising, for example; the Western media will never tell you this, but the students and workers there were protesting against recent free market reforms, as well as in favour of democracy and human rights). It's difficult to put a precise date on when China became a capitalist country again, because the process was gradual, but it's clear that the transition was complete some time in the 1990s. Therefore, for socialists and communists today, China can only provide a negative example: how not to do things.

Notice, by the way, that I referred to "the Soviet system" and did not call it socialist or communist. That is because socialism and communism require a planned economy under the democratic control of the people. The Soviet system had a planned economy, but it did not have democracy. So it was only, at best, half-socialist.

On Sharia Law: Most people in the West are not aware of this, but the Muslim world has gone through an enormous resurgence of religious conservatism over the last 25 years. It was somewhat like the rise of the Christian Right in the US, but a thousand times bigger. A young Arab friend of mine told me how women in his mother's generation wore miniskirts in the 60s and went to the beach in bikinis. Now they are afraid to leave the house without a head covering.

The point is, all this recent stuff about Sharia Law and Islamism is indeed recent. It's a new development that has taken the Muslim world by storm. There are many Muslims and Arabs fighting against it - especially the various Communist Parties in the Middle East - but they are losing. Islamism has succeeded in presenting itself as standing up for the little guy against evil Western powers. In reality, Islamist movements tend to be funded by various Muslim capitalists and oil tycoons who want to use them as pawns in their struggle to compete with Western corporations. As you may know, the Bin Laden family is one of the richest in Saudi Arabia.

Sometimes the political situation is even more complicated. The Taliban, for example, are a movement largely funded and supported by the Pakistani military and intelligence services, who are engaged in a 4-way struggle against the Pakistani civilian government, Western powers, and India.

On Muslim immigration to the West: It's the same as all other immigration. Communists always support immigrants - not because we think it's great for people to leave their home country, but because all workers must stick together, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, or religion. Any measures taken by capitalist governments against immigrants will allow them to cut wages for everyone, so they will hurt native workers too. As for the fact that Muslim immigrants are Muslim, we must of course fight against religious conservatism within Muslim communities in the West just like our comrades fight it in the Muslim countries. If we win the fight here, we may even be able to use the Muslim communities in the West as a base from which to support our struggling comrades in the Middle East. Socialist Muslims can, and I believe will, defeat Islamism. But their struggle is connected with the struggle for socialism everywhere else. A victory anywhere will strengthen the movement everywhere.

I hope that covers the issues you wanted to hear about. I'm not sure if you also wanted me to talk about socialism on its own, not in relation to something else...

[athanasios]

... In reality, Islamist movements tend to be funded by various Muslim capitalists and oil tycoons who want to use them as pawns in their struggle to compete with Western corporations.

That's the meat of your post. For example see how Turkey is threatening Europe for not beeing accepted in EU: the country is fast converting to an Islamic Theocracy. BTW the recent victim was a famous Turkish actor (lovable by Greeks) in a new serial (I won't miss that when it comes to Greece!) about the life of a sultan. Islamists resorted to violence demanding the serial to be banned because their sultan is portrayed in the serial as lover of pleasures and consuming alcohol (http://www.tlife.gr/Article/news-onour/0-9-11529.html) ...

As for the fact that Muslim immigrants are Muslim, we must of course fight against religious conservatism within Muslim communities in the West just like our comrades fight it in the Muslim countries. If we win the fight here,

If the rate of immigration of Muslims to Europe doesn't drop, it is a lost battle.

[ErasOmnius]

It looks like if an actor or actress wants to improve their movie career, simply play someone from the royal family sympathetically. Be it King George VI overcoming his stuttering, or Queen Elizabeth realizing that she should grieve over the death of the mother of her grandchildren.

Those crazy Windsor's seem to be always portrayed in a positive light.

[Dante]

Windsors. Plural, not possessive. How old are you again?

In related news, there is a movement in parliament to remove the gender bias when determining succession. In other words, a male heir wouldn't automatically inherit the throne if an elder female sibling was around. The government, however, doesn't seem to view the debate as particularly important. Wonder why.

[athanasios]

Is it?

[Dante]

Relatively.

[ErasOmnius]

I will say one thing about gender bias. If a pro-life, female politician dares to have an opinion; she is lambasted, and the media of The West tries to portray her as an idiot, such as Sarah Palin

Of course, the freak, female politicians of Scandinavia are allowed to 'champion' their philosophies at will.

[ErasOmnius]

Windsors. Plural, not possessive. How old are you again?

I am 47 years old.

In related news, there is a movement in parliament to remove the gender bias when determining succession. In other words, a male heir wouldn't automatically inherit the throne if an elder female sibling was around. The government, however, doesn't seem to view the debate as particularly important. Wonder why.

Because the ruling government of the United Kingdom probably doesn't need to expend political capital in a cause in which it doesn't believe in. I'm sure that Mr Cameron has much more important matters to attend to. And if the next government is Labour, why would they want to 'dust up' a controversy on something that is immaterial (Charles is the eldest, and a male; William is the eldest, and a male)? That should take care of the UK monarchy until 2025, or later.

But eventually, I'm sure that the whole women as non-submissive to men will have to play out in all fields. Even in the case of having a queen, instead of a king, if the female is born first. Just as its' going to play out in Sweden, when Crown Princess Victoria succeeds her father.

But what is more important is how 'traditional-oriented' female politicians are treated by the media of The West. If a pro-life, female politician dares to have an opinion; she is lambasted, and the media of The West tries to portray her as an idiot, such as Sarah Palin. Of course, the freak, female politicians of Scandinavia (which in my opinion, includes Iceland), are allowed to 'champion' their philosophies at will.