Though I've had differences with him, I've never gotten the impression that Justin "red baits" (a flexible term, easily tossed about). And certainly in this forum one need not go on & on about the crimes of the market -- we all know them, yes? Criticism of Stalinism or any of its cousins seems to me a way to dig through the failures of socialism and progressive action in an effort to learn what went wrong and why (as well as what went right). At least that's my view. ^^^^^
CB: Maybe Kelley would ( for a fee) do another poll of list members on this. If we can get agreement that the crimes of the market are the biggest ( with Brad D as the lone dissenter), I'd be glad to focus on criticism-self-criticism of Stalinism and other Marxist and socialist errors. I suspect though, that we on the left need to sharpen our ability to argue this, if only because most of our work has got to be outside of this list, as with your family.
It's good to know that you, as a non-Marxist leftist, know this fact.
^^^
I'm not a Marxist by any stretch, but even I know that capitalism's mass graves are far larger than state socialism's -- and they are still filling up. You should see the looks on my conservative relatives' faces when I counter the inevitable "100 mil. dead under communism" statements with the fact that under Brit capitalism, India alone suffered 100 mil. dead. They simply can't believe it. Of course, they think I worship at Lenin's tomb. After the USSR fell apart, my brother-in-law actually tried to console me, for he was sure I was depressed.
Red Staters, eh?
DP (wearing the Red Army tee he got for X-mas)