[Nikkolas]

I've asked this quesition before and am still in search of an answer.
I don't know if anyone has noticed but if you visit any communist website like Marxist.com or the World Socialist Website you can find speeches made by open Marxists given to universities and other places around the world.

Communism, or the attempt to make communism work, has killed more than any form of fascism. It poses a constant threat to anyone who isn't a worker and anyone who believes in religion.

Yet I've seen no fascist speeches made any time recently at any venues. And fascism in its original form preeches only that all people, be they workers or whatever, unite.

So...why the disproportion in poblicity? If one is allowed why not the other? Especially since the former is a far more organized and dangerous belief.

[Zyx]

Are you kidding me? Turn on CNN and you'll get Fascism. Never mind Fox. The whole of the West is fascist. It's always been Fascism versus Socialism, and the Fascist won. The Socialist, who you believe are more spoken, are the minority. They need to talk because we're in a Fascist state. Look at how we attack other nations, look at how we are not condemned for it, look at how we have racists, sexists and classists. Look how we feed on this stuff. It's ridiculous that you'd say that Fascism is not represented. It's as if you don't go outside.

[Nattering Nabob]

I'm starting with the Fascist in the mirror...

[Zyx]

Did I really type that?

Anyway, what makes us non-fascist?

We're a one-party that not only still denies rights domestically, but also interferes destructively abroad.

[Nattering Nabob]

Anyway, what makes us non-fascist?

We're a one-party that not only still denies rights domestically, but also interferes destructively abroad.

You are taking tidbits and using them to suggest we are fascist...the Republicans do the same thing to show we are socialist...

[Zyx]

Tidbits? These "bits" have tremendous consequences for the third-world. Without a doubt, our privilege and ignorance cause global poverty. We sustain it on our heavy consumption of raw materials and our militaristic manner of acquiring these substances. After that, we impose large taxes, low prices and bad governments on the third-world. We do all of this so that we can sit around and be overindulgent to the point where obesity becomes a new norm.

Socialist? Only a fool would see our superexploitation and call us socialist. There is nothing socialist about the West, especially not the United $nakes. One could say 'liberal' but that's hardly socialist.

[Nattering Nabob]

Tidbits? These "bits" have tremendous consequences for the third-world. Without a doubt, our privilege and ignorance cause global poverty. We sustain it on our heavy consumption of raw materials and our militaristic manner of acquiring these substances. After that, we impose large taxes, low prices and bad governments on the third-world. We do all of this so that we can sit around and be overindulgent to the point where obesity becomes a new norm.

Socialist? Only a fool would see our superexploitation and call us socialist. There is nothing socialist about the West, especially not the United $nakes. One could say 'liberal' but that's hardly socialist.

Well...as I said...Republicans do the same thing you are doing...maybe you could find a Republican and you could both discuss whether your "tidbits" are really tidbits...

[Nikkolas]

And it's not exactly unheard of for a Marxist grooup to exploit others. So a lot of those points to show how fascist America supposedly is can swing back and show how Red it is.

[Zyx]

Nonsense, Nikkolas. That is very unheard of. If a Marxist group exploits others then it is not Marxist.

[Kapanda]

Without a doubt, our privilege and ignorance cause global poverty. We sustain it on our heavy consumption of raw materials and our militaristic manner of acquiring these substances.

Are you a socialist? You guys need to give up with this argument. It has been rebuked over and over and over again!

Unless, of course, like Nattering said, you're taking Iraq war-like instances to show that the west acquires raw materials through power. Of course, that is a very misleading argument, because even if Britain had previously an Empire, and the US expanded its influence through Cold War proxies, those days are now over. These instances are very rare now. I can think only of the Iraq War in fact.

[Zyx]

I managed the time to watch the documentary Blood Coltan.

Maybe you ought to take a look at it.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4473700036349997790

Beside from that, observe the debt of third-world nations. Certainly, all nations are in debt, but many third-world nations can't even pay the interests on their debts anymore. Beside from this, unfair trading is the norm. Prices, determined by Westerners, make earnings by Third-Worlders meaningless. They need to work more and harder to get less. That's what we forced upon them. Speaking for Africa. It never had currency, let alone rent; now, African nations are in debt to the world, a remnant of colonization, and African people starve because subsistence farming can't be subsistent: Africans need to do wage labour or else they won't afford homes, and wage labour usually means producing cash crops for the capitalist machine and buying expensive food and clothing from bourgeois nations. That is, arable land is not being used to feed indigenous people, but to feed capitalists. How can you say that we don't cause poverty?

[Kapanda]

Unfair trading, fine. Not trading in on itself, which is what you previously mentioned.

[Zyx]

What do you mean that I previously mentioned trading?

Either way, clearly giving guns to militia to force labour onto poor people and their kids, so that we can get coltan and build cell phones to cell around the world, is not doing anything but increasing global poverty.

[Kapanda]

What do you mean that I previously mentioned trading?

ithout a doubt, our privilege and ignorance cause global poverty. We sustain it on our heavy consumption of raw materials and our militaristic manner of acquiring these substances.

You didn't mention the word 'trading', but that's what I mean.

Either way, clearly giving guns to militia to force labour onto poor people and their kids, so that we can get coltan and build cell phones to cell around the world, is not doing anything but increasing global poverty.

Whatever you know about that situation is more than I know (can't even remember the region in which it is happening).

Still a far outcry to Facism. Nattering Nabob's comment still stands. The West is as Fascist as Democrats are Socialist.

The other side that is quite relevant is the good trading relations that the West has with many Third World Countries, and how it contributed to the development of previously poor countries (see Asian Tigers).

But, though there is mighty amounts of guilt to be placed on Europeans' shoulders because of colonialism and slavery, much of the brunt now is to be picked by our African leaders, and as such, poverty in Africa is not so much to be blamed on Western Fascism, and more on less-than-proper African leadership. Either way, the winds of change are abound.

[Zyx]

Still a far outcry to Facism.

Arming people to force labour on them is a far cry of Fascism?

We literally create Wars in foreign states. How do we fail on fascism? Sure, the more appropriate word ought to be imperialism, but there is hardly a difference, especially not in the context of this thread.

Nattering Nabob's comment still stands. The West is as Fascist as Democrats are Socialist.

This is nonsense. Moreover, Socialism =/= Communism. Socialism, in its truth, is merely liberalism. I wouldn't deny that Democrats were liberals.

The other side that is quite relevant is the good trading relations that the West has with many Third World Countries, and how it contributed to the development of previously poor countries (see Asian Tigers).

I am not too familiar with the economies of these Tigers. I can guess that they are largely cash crop societies--that is, they have a limited amount of functionality and these functionality are mostly suited for providing for the West. That is, the West is still their leader and they still depend on it. Is this so?

as such, poverty in Africa is not so much to be blamed on Western Fascism, and more on less-than-proper African leadership.

You don't get that Westerners kill African leaders. Especially when that leader is a soi-disant Communist.

Look at the Independence movements of Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bassau. All of these were late colonies to be independent, helped by the Soviet Union and their original colonizers were Portugal. All of their leaders were assassinated by Western interests. These leaders were able men, no less.

When colonizers left, they imposed a debt and retreated what materials they had in Africa. Westerners then installed oppressive, puppet leadership and that's that. How dare you blame the Africans?

It's like blaming Iran for how we assassinated their liberal leaders and gave their fundamentalist leaders guns and bombs for our consumption of their oil. Why can't you fascists concede your blight?

[Kasu]

Without a doubt, our privilege and ignorance cause global poverty. We sustain it on our heavy consumption of raw materials and our militaristic manner of acquiring these substances.

This has a reactionary character to it. As if to say if we were to end global poverty, our days of over consumption and mass production would come to an end. As if our standards of living are simply too high, and it needs to be reduced in order for people in other countries to get out of poverty.

There is more than enough resources on this earth to provide everyone on the planet with everything they need. Food, shelter, transportation, and consumer goods. Instead of stepping back and undoing the advances brought by capitalism, we need to move to the next step, and expand on those advances, to allow everyone to enjoy them in the fullest way possible. The problem is not heavy consumption, the problem is an obsolete economic order.

Your explanation seems more along the lines of post-modernism, not Marxism.


Remember that we live in World-Capitalism. A global economic system that includes all countries, every country participates in some way to production. Some for raw materials, some for assembling, some for marketing.. You can't support a nation just because it is in poverty against more advanced capitalist countries, that is nationalism. Instead, build the revolution in the most advanced countries, such as the United States, and then the rest of the world will follow.

[Zyx]

The Americans don't appear to be a revolutionary people. It is senseless to wish that they were. I agree with the Third-Worldist line of expecting the leaders of world revolution to be those in the Third-World. If we cut off the First-World resources, they'll finally gain a global cognizance. One can only hope that their responses are not toward the status quo!

[Kasu]

Pessimism has no place in the struggle for socialism. We're full of a revolutionary past, and we have a whole future ahead of us, full of economic collapses, recessions, depressions, and revolutions. And then, socialism.

[Zyx]

Pessimism may be bad, but idealism is worse. It may take 100 nations to reject the capitalist machine for Communism to become a reality, but that's much more likely than one United $nakes to reject its hegemonic status.

[Kasu]

That just isn't reality. The reality is, more and more people are questioning the viability of capitalism itself. People aren't stupid, they have jobs, they have kids they have to take care of, they have families, they have houses they have to pay. If there aren't any jobs, if more and more people get laid off, their wages cut, and their standards of living continue to decrease, people won't just stand around and let it happen. Large sections of the population would become class conscious and radicalized. A vanguard party would be built that would lead the working class to revolution. It is by no means out of the question.