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The return of fascism


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  • 1 month later...

Ok, I've been gone for a long time because real life has kept me away - for very happy reasons - but now I'm coming back to regular (or at least semi-regular) posting, and I want to pick up where I left off in this thread. Especially since I have a large backlog of things to reply to. And given that today is the anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, what better way to celebrate than by replying to some of the communism-related posts made since I left?

In fact Edric, wasn't that topic in your signature "Communism and human nature" about how communism is actually impossible? What warrants going over it again?

edit: actually I found the topic and it wasn't quite as I remember it, heh. I could swear you had abandoned communism for a more realistic socialist vision.

As you wrote in your edit, the topic in my signature was about how communism is entirely possible, and how the "human nature" argument is misguided and wrong. But thank you for helping me realize that the link in my signature was broken (due to the forum software change). I just fixed it. Here is the updated link.

But in any case, that was 8 years ago, so yes, maybe we do need to go over it again. After all, I'm sure all of us have developed new arguments in the meantime, and there are many people on the forums now who were not here back then. For my part, I noticed that the more I study history, the more I understand the huge variety of different human societies that have existed, the more I realize that many "unrealistic" things are in fact perfectly realistic, and some have already happened in the past.

We already have many posts in this thread dealing mainly with communism. I think I could split them into a new communism-related thread, or just start a new one.

And who is it who is protesting? Could is be all the syndicates looking out for their own? Where were they when people in the private sector lost their jobs? As a matter of fact, this public tv was part of the media that keeps reassuring people austerity works. And suddenly it bit them in the ass.

Where were they when people in the private sector lost their jobs? I don't know, maybe they were having one of the other countless general strikes that have happened in the past two years? The Greek workers' unions (syndicates) have been extremely active in protesting austerity. You certainly cannot accuse them of apathy.

You know what strategy the ruling class always uses against the working class? Divide et impera. Get some workers to hate other workers, and then they will be too busy fighting each other to challenge the system. That's why they encourage anti-immigrant sentiments, for example, to make native-born workers and immigrant workers fight each other. And for the same reason, they encourage conflict between private sector and public sector workers. They try to get those of you in the private sector to resent the workers in the public sector, to hate it when they get higher wages or benefits... instead to standing together to demand higher wages and benefits for everyone.

And here you are, playing right into their hands by resenting public sector workers.

Quit daydreaming eh? I am acknowledging that immigrants are a problem, a far more sensible approach than nice-sounding-but-useless-in-reality theories that most people have no time for.

I'm not sure exactly who those "most people" are, but judging from the election results, opinion polls and general political activity, most people in Greece right now absolutely agree that the current system is broken and needs to be replaced - although, of course, not all of them can explain precisely why it's broken or what should replace it.

We are living in the middle of a major crisis of capitalism. You are living in one of the countries worst hit by that crisis, where the economy lies in ruins, the capitalist system can barely manage to hold itself together, and unemployment, poverty and desperation have become commonplace. Yet despite all this, you're still telling me that the idea of overthrowing capitalism is just a silly daydream? Really? From where I'm standing, it looks increasingly like it's the only hope for millions of people. You do realize that past revolutions have happened under precisely the kinds of conditions that exist in Greece today, right?

That's not to say that a revolution will happen any time soon (it certainly won't), but the fact is that we are closer to a revolution today than we have been in many decades. And if capitalism continues to stagnate, with continued high unemployment, widespread poverty and low growth - which seems to be the most likely scenario for most of Europe and the US in the near future - then a true revolutionary situation may well arise in 5 or 10 years.

After all, the question is not if capitalism will cease to exist, but when, and how, and what will replace it. Nothing lasts forever.

As for immigrants, you say that they are a problem but you don't explain why. Is it because they are competing with Greeks for jobs? Well, then we've already talked about this. Job market competition is a feature of capitalism, which would not exist in a socialist planned economy. And, once again, I need to point out that this is no "daydream", but rather something that has already been done by planned economies in the past. Even the Soviet economy - as imperfect and badly managed as it was - succeeded in abolishing job competition and unemployment. So this is by no means a pie-in-the-sky idea. It was done before and it can be done again.

I'm not sure what else you need me to spell out for you, but I'm not going to say much more on that here.

Just answer the question I asked: Who or what caused the current economic disaster, in your opinion?

I'm not demanding some kind of long essay here. A few sentences would be enough. But you keep dancing around the issue and not answering this question. If you answered it, then we can actually discuss our respective political and economic views, rather than me trying to guess what you believe and responding to that.

I have no sympathy for the guy who thinks it's normal to be "hired" in the public sector to spend his day at a cafe and who finally gets fired. And I really doubt that he needed that kind of job or else he would start a revolution. He'd need to get off his ass first.

Really? You think people in the public sector just "spend their day at a cafe"? This is exactly what I was talking about earlier when I said you've accepted the divide-and-conquer propaganda of the ruling class that seeks to make workers from the private and public sectors hate each other.

The public sector workers at the former public TV station ERT kept it going for over four months after the government officially shut it down and fired them all. They kept broadcasting online, working for free, occupying their own workplace in defiance of government orders, until they were brutally evicted yesterday.

Let me repeat: They worked for free and risked arrest to stand up to the government. AND YOU CALL THEM LAZY ?

Maybe I'm not arguing, just observing how things work in real life. Where people naturally form hierarchies, are lazy or ambitious, have ideas or just prefer to be told what to do, are capable of weilding power or not. A fascist model such as the soviet one is the only way to squash such differences.

The Soviet model was not fascist... and it certainly did not squash those differences (after all, there was a hierarchy, some people had power and others didn't, etc.), so I'm not sure what you're talking about.

Look, we all know that there have been many different types of societies in human history. You seem to be saying that capitalism is the only kind of society that's compatible with the things that people "naturally" do. But this is absurd, because people have lived for thousands of years under various kinds of non-capitalist systems. Capitalism has only existed for a few hundred years. To call it "natural" is ridiculous.

So all you're doing is observing how things work in real life right now, and assuming that it is the only way things can ever work (despite the fact that they have already worked very differently in other kinds of economic systems in other historical periods). That doesn't make you wise or insightful, that just makes you obtuse.

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And here you are, playing right into their hands by resenting public sector workers.

And this is the hallmark of union leader rhetoric. Fight for privileges of their own and at a moment of crisis remember that we 're "all" in it together.

I actually live in the UK now, not Greece. Nonetheless, the obvservations I made are my own; the guy I mentioned sitting at the cafe is a real guy I know.

Strikes can be a potent weapon when not abused to the point of becoming meaningless. Strikes were common in Greece long before the crisis; a mechanism so that the organizers could pocket money to end it.

 

Really?

"Really" isn't a punchline.

Let me repeat: They worked for free and risked arrest to stand up to the government. AND YOU CALL THEM LAZY ?

Are you striving to be a union leader or politician Edric? For this is what your repeated attempts to excite emotionally would suggest. You 're not addressing the masses.

 

Just answer the question I asked: Who or what caused the current economic disaster, in your opinion?

Nor purposeful obtuseness will get you anywhere. I have already attributed blame to fellow Greeks - I 'm not shouting it loud and clear or repeating myself because this issue is between ourselves. Of course the blame includes the governements of ND-PASOK that we voted for the past 20+ years, with the latter bearing far more of it - again, for reasons I already mentioned here: socialist facade and outrageous promises that could not possibly be sustained. I also remarked that people voted for Syriza not because their views genuinely shifted to the left but because it is now telling them what they want to hear - a modern-day PASOK.

Oligarchy and monarchy were similarly 'natural' obviously, especially when most people were illiterate. Noone's forcing you to reply by the way... if I 'm inclined to expand my views I will, until then noone told you you got to guess and respond accordingly.

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  • 6 months later...

So in Europe we have first party that is soviet in disguise: Merkel, Tusk and their lackeys. Second is some kind of pro-Germany but anti-Merkel fascism and their backbone is Italy with Renzi. As usual France and United Kingdom choose neither, they despised again both Germany and Russia and support USA's agents that will win this war.

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