> CB: What is your reasoning that a comparison of
non-contemporaneous states is puerile ? It seems like
a non-sequitur. For one thing, liberal
> democracy arose in history before socialist
democracy did. So, to make a comparison between the
two ideologies, one has to take examples from
> further back in history to get the actual history of
liberal democracy. You can't drop off all the
horrifying examples of your ideology from the > debate
by confining discussion to the time period after 1917.
My ideology? Okay, whatever... I'm a marxist. I don't consider Lenninism, with its obsession with production, marxist. How conditions in the USSR were supposed to bring about an end to alienation is something nobody's ever properly explained to me. Swapping one owner for another (who, okay, holds ownership in trust for the people) doesn't seem like a great improvement to me. Especially when you still have all the oppressive, Taylorist (and very alienating) mechanisms in place.
Now can you explain to me how these horrifying examples came from "liberal democracy". It seems to me as an ignorant bystander, that these horrifying examples happened in an imperfect liberal democracy. Blacks couldn't vote, ergo not really a liberal democracy as I understand the system. Nor can I see how any of this happened because of liberal democracy. What is it in liberal democracy that leads inexorably to these actions?
Yes liberal democracy arose before Lenninist (allegedly marxist) dictatorships did. However comparing a country in the early C20th with one in the late 18th is ridiculous - as I suspect you realise. Attitudes were different, people were different and the economics of the situation were different. I'm anything but an apologist for the US (nor do I, as you bizarrely seem to, consider the US the apex of liberal democracies. I'm not sure that it is one in any meaningful sense) - but I think if one really must make these comparisons, then one must do ones best to make the comparison meaningful. I mean why not compare it with Greece while you're at it. Or compare the US to Cambodia. What do we learn from the exercise?
What about the horrific treatment of homosexuals within the Soviet Union? What about the suppression of worker's movements? What about the use of slave labour (sorry, political prisoners).
> Liberal democracy in the U.S. today is a police
state.
Typical bloody yank. Nowhere outside the US even exists. All liberal democracies are the US. Now me, I like the Netherlands - dislike the US.
You're right though. Last time I was last in the States I noticed that you couldn't move for secret policemen. They were everywhere, everyone was listening to what you said, bugs, informers. Terrible. And poor Doug being sent to that gulag for advocating Marxism in his book. I really don't understand how you've stayed out of prison, Charles, given that you want to overthrow the state. Blind luck I guess.
> CB: Where are the thousands of detainees TODAY ?
Remember the Cincinnati riot, LA riot, the Miami
riots, the Detroit riots, the Kennedy
> assassination, the King assassination, the Black
Panther assassinations, COINTELPRO ? Hello. The Palmer
Raids ? The Gitlow case ? Lynching ? The > long
history of liberal democracy is , contrary to its own
self portrayal, saturated with police state substance.
You've solved the Kennedy assassination? I've always suspected it was squirrels - malicious little buggers. Never trust a rat with a tail, its up to something.
Yes the history of the US is rife with repression. I know this. What's going on at the moment is revolting. Sure. Point is that in the USSR the government could disappear you without fear of reprisal. It was the law, it was legal, it was right. In the US they had to pretend otherwise. Makes things rather harder (and easier for people to fight back). The detainees are, for example, all non-citizens. Citizens have rights within the US, and can't be illegally detained. There's also criticism of these things (imperfect, yada, yada - but still possible and present). Whereas in the SovUnion...
There are not strictly speaking political crimes in the US, though there were in the USSR. There were not Gulags in the US, though there were in the USSR. You can move freely within the US (and leave for godsakes. I mean what kind of paradise won't let you leave), can't move freely within the USSR.
The nature of power is that it corrupts. I don't imagine for a moment that any authority in any country will be perfect, but if we have to have authorities (and I'm not convinced we do, but you don't share my "ideology"), then at least let them have checks on their power. Representational democracy is flawed, but when the choice is between that and the SovUnion (which used to have its regular pretences of democracy by allowing people to vote for the party candidate. I mean come on), I know which I'll choose.
> CB: By advocating liberal democracy in the abstract,
Justin and you do not escape the actual history of
liberal democracies.
I'm not advocating liberal democracy for anyone - I'm just saying that I'd rather live in the (real), very imperfect, liberal democracy that I live in now - rather than the Stalinist/Krushevite police state you have been advocating/defending (and you have been).
> CB: If you don't admit that the slave/jim crow
system and genocide against the Indians of U.S.
liberal democracy was worse than Stalinist Russia >
then you are a racist dog .
All this happened within the C20th did it? Perhaps you should mention the Greeks, or Venice, or something.
This is starting to feel like an argument with a Zionist. Why exactly do you feel that the death of Ukranians, political prisoners and people who looked funny at Stalin is better than the deaths of Blacks? To me both seem reprehensible, but I lack the advantages of your political clarity I guess. And what about the Khmer Rouge? They were into neutralising "bad" intelligensia.
Things got better in the US - mainly it has to be said due to the various oppressed forces (Blacks, gays, women, workers) fighting the system. Imperfect as this system very definitely was - it was still possible for them to cause change within that system. True it was met by resistance, but it was possible.
> And given that you laud on this list the role of the
police in suppressing
> counter-revolutionary forces (such as presumably the
Worker's Councils in
> Hungary, Soviets in Moscow, or indeed the various
working class revolts against
> the party during the history of the USSR
>
> CB: You are bizarrely twist what I say to fit
whatever distortion your anger drives you to think up,
but you argue almost predominantly with
> your strawmen.
>
Um, the Worker's Councils, Soviets and various working class revolts (by factory workers, peasants, etc) were brutally repressed within the USSR. Seeing this happened post Stalin - I can only imagine that you see this as a good thing. The official reason given at the time was that they were counter-revolutionary forces as I recall.
I'm not angry, btw - more bemused. You remind me of a "Flat Earther" I used to know. I don't think you stand a chance of bringing your revolution about - I'm more worried about the damage you, and your kind, do to socialism.
> I'm not sure what point you think you're making.
You're the one who's been demanding a
> police state - to destroy political undesirables.
>
> CB: This is another one of your warping, distorting
versions of what I have said. You and Justin are
slanderers and liars. Your ideology is
> associated in actual history with much more state
repression and annihilation than mine is.
Well I don't really see the point of repeating Justin's post on this point. Kruschev presided over a police state. You are a Kruschevite. QED really.
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