Thomas Seay:
The burden is on Charles to prove to us that China is socialist
^^^^ CB: Not really. Iraq is not socialist, and the U.S. is still in an imperialist relationship with Iraq. Most imperialism is not in relation to socialist countries. U.S. liberals' attitude toward Iraq is imperialist in general.
China has never claimed to _be_ socialist. It claimed to be a People's Republic oriented to socialism. The proletarian proportion of its population has been too small to be socialist, from a Marxist standpoint. Turns out from the history of the Soviet Union and such that a socalled stagist version of Marxism disciplines the real world more than those who would travel the road to socialism bypassing capitalism thought. Or so that seems to be the reasoning of the CPC. Are there a core of Chinese Communists in top leadership and the military who will lead a transformation to socialist relations of production after enough capitalist forces of production have been drawn in ? Or will the new Chinese bourgeoisie takeover ? Only the future will tell.
Better to "take a chance" on the Chinese Communists than the U.S. "left" liberals, especially the anti-communists here, in assessing the best long term interests of the Chinese working masses.
Same with North Korea.
"Take a chance" means have a rhetorical position , not really do anything. That's why the issues of China and N.Korea were in no way a reason not to follow ANSWER's fine lead in the weekend's fantastically successful demonstration. China and N.Korea are redbaiting , anti-communist diversions when it comes to joining ANSWER in the anti-war efforts.