These guys are the real thing, not virtue signaling children ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GB4s5b9NL3I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXVEnxtZe_w
You can learn a lot from intelligent mature opponents ...
Quote from: Baruch on July 19, 2018, 08:16:45 PM
These guys are the real thing, not virtue signaling children ...
You can learn a lot from intelligent mature opponents ...
My 2 favorite Marxists? Marx and Hengel. Because they are both dead... And never imagined the Soviet Russians. LOL!
At one time, I confused capitalism and democracy as synonyms. Only through some sit down conscious rational thinking did I realize they were not the same thing. I forgive myself for this error, and a stupid one at that. While I haven't determined the reason for the stupidity, I think it was just some subtle and maybe even some unintentional brain washing I had been exposed to during my formative years. This may have been from sources outside myself, or it may have come from within, as we do a lot of brainwashing to ourselves. Reason is the only way out that I have found. Otherwise, we end up making value judgments based on our likes and dislikes of a thing, rather than it's actual benefits or harm.
Quote from: SGOS on July 21, 2018, 06:58:17 AM
At one time, I confused capitalism and democracy as synonyms. Only through some sit down conscious rational thinking did I realize they were not the same thing. I forgive myself for this error, and a stupid one at that. While I haven't determined the reason for the stupidity, I think it was just some subtle and maybe even some unintentional brain washing I had been exposed to during my formative years. This may have been from sources outside myself, or it may have come from within, as we do a lot of brainwashing to ourselves. Reason is the only way out that I have found. Otherwise, we end up making value judgments based on our likes and dislikes of a thing, rather than it's actual benefits or harm.
It is a view that is strongly suggested in US politics and history. Don't blame yourself. It can be hard to separate the two sometimes. But they ARE not the same.
Quote from: Cavebear on July 21, 2018, 06:38:22 AM
My 2 favorite Marxists? Marx and Hengel. Because they are both dead... And never imagined the Soviet Russians. LOL!
Lenin was only a genius in his own mind. Stalin killed geniuses (like Trotsky).
Quote from: SGOS on July 21, 2018, 06:58:17 AM
At one time, I confused capitalism and democracy as synonyms. Only through some sit down conscious rational thinking did I realize they were not the same thing. I forgive myself for this error, and a stupid one at that. While I haven't determined the reason for the stupidity, I think it was just some subtle and maybe even some unintentional brain washing I had been exposed to during my formative years. This may have been from sources outside myself, or it may have come from within, as we do a lot of brainwashing to ourselves. Reason is the only way out that I have found. Otherwise, we end up making value judgments based on our likes and dislikes of a thing, rather than it's actual benefits or harm.
That last sentence, is exactly why you aren't an SJW (which is necessarily a young inexperienced person).
Quote from: Baruch on July 21, 2018, 09:41:51 AM
Lenin was only a genius in his own mind. Stalin killed geniuses (like Trotsky).
Did I mention Lenin or Stalin? You sure love to throw apples into the pudding!
Quote from: Cavebear on July 21, 2018, 09:48:12 AM
Did I mention Lenin or Stalin? You sure love to throw apples into the pudding!
You mentioned the Soviets. Though technically, neither Lenin, Stalin or Trotsky were true Russians.
Quote from: Baruch on July 21, 2018, 10:09:12 AM
You mentioned the Soviets. Though technically, neither Lenin, Stalin or Trotsky were true Russians.
But they were all "soviets". And in contradiction to your post (what a surprise), Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known by the alias Lenin, was born to a wealthy middle-class family in Simbirsk, Russia. Trotsky, of course, was Ukrainian and Stalin was a Georgian.
Quote from: Cavebear on July 21, 2018, 12:54:43 PM
But they were all "soviets". And in contradiction to your post (what a surprise), Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known by the alias Lenin, was born to a wealthy middle-class family in Simbirsk, Russia. Trotsky, of course, was Ukrainian and Stalin was a Georgian.
Imitating Cavebear ... I already knew that circa 1972.
Lenin was part Tartar. Trotsky was Jewish. Dzerzhyinsky (founded Cheka/KGB) was Polish.
Quote from: Baruch on July 21, 2018, 01:55:51 PM
Imitating Cavebear ... I already knew that circa 1972.
Lenin was part Tartar. Trotsky was Jewish. Dzerzhyinsky (founded Cheka/KGB) was Polish.
Well, according to recent DNA test, I'm part Tartar, part Vietnamese (still laughing at THAT one), part Swedish, part Irish, part Frankish, and some Middle Eastern.
So?
Quote from: Cavebear on July 25, 2018, 11:40:08 AM
Well, according to recent DNA test, I'm part Tartar, part Vietnamese (still laughing at THAT one), part Swedish, part Irish, part Frankish, and some Middle Eastern.
So?
The Russians now claim they were never Communist, just victims of non-ethnic Russians, such as Jews, Georgians etc. They don't want to own up to the collaboration and initial enthusiasm for utopia.
You are too old to be an Amer-asian Vietnamese boat refugee.
Quote from: Baruch on July 25, 2018, 01:16:22 PM
The Russians now claim they were never Communist, just victims of non-ethnic Russians, such as Jews, Georgians etc. They don't want to own up to the collaboration and initial enthusiasm for utopia.
You are too old to be an Amer-asian Vietnamese boat refugee.
I can just hear Ensign Chekov saying "we inwented demokracy". (I tried to get a backwards "r" in there, but couldn't)
But the DNA test went back 2500 years.
Quote from: Cavebear on July 25, 2018, 01:23:48 PM
I can just hear Ensign Chekov saying "we inwented demokracy". (I tried to get a backwards "r" in there, but couldn't)
But the DNA test went back 2500 years.
Yes, Ho Chi Minh had to guerrilla a long long time ...
Quote from: Baruch on July 25, 2018, 08:05:55 PM
Yes, Ho Chi Minh had to guerrilla a long long time ...
Keep in mind that Ho Chi Minh first asked the US for help in establishing a democracy to get free of the French Colonial Empire, and only when we refused his pleas, he went to the communists for assistance. Had the US been rational at the time, all of Vietnam might have been a bulwork of democracy like South Korea...
Quote from: Cavebear on August 01, 2018, 03:12:59 AM
Keep in mind that Ho Chi Minh first asked the US for help in establishing a democracy to get free of the French Colonial Empire, and only when we refused his pleas, he went to the communists for assistance. Had the US been rational at the time, all of Vietnam might have been a bulwork of democracy like South Korea...
Yes, but we would have had to go to war with NATO ... against France, Portugal, GB at least, who were then still trying to hold onto their colonial empire. There were Americans who wanted to do that, including FDR. He considered handing over Hong Kong to China.
Quote from: Baruch on August 01, 2018, 01:21:56 PM
Yes, but we would have had to go to war with NATO ... against France, Portugal, GB at least, who were then still trying to hold onto their colonial empire. There were Americans who wanted to do that, including FDR. He considered handing over Hong Kong to China.
No. All we had to do was nothing and invite Ho Chi Min to Washington and learn how to set up a fair election. We freed the French and they treated us like crap. And still do. A democratic Vietnam would have been worth all the French complaints. 60,000 killed there.
Quote from: Cavebear on August 04, 2018, 04:18:09 AM
No. All we had to do was nothing and invite Ho Chi Min to Washington and learn how to set up a fair election. We freed the French and they treated us like crap. And still do. A democratic Vietnam would have been worth all the French complaints. 60,000 killed there.
Ho was a communist. If we had competed with the Soviets at sponsoring anti-colonial Marxists like Mandela, we would have ended the cold war sooner.
One million Vietnamese killed there.
You can think Churchill and the other post-WW II W European leaders who seduced us. But we weren't quite the lackeys they wanted us to be (Suez Crisis 1956). We did try to assassinate DeGaulle .. but who wouldn't? (Day of the Jackal).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gReGEDkusWo
More recent interview with Varoufakis ...