Multi-culturalism boon or bane?

[Insidious Rex]

How dare you bundle us with the extremists! Label us again and we'll send plane loads of camo wearing militia over there to shoot up your bucolic villages and quaint cities! And by God youll pay for insinuating we are religious wackos! Now can we please get back to the good old american muslim bashing!?

[The Gaffer]

Come and have a go, if you think you're hard enough.

[inked]

Muslims bashing one another, you mean? With rocks?

I find it highly amusing and even a touch ironic that I am the one being labeled
("What a nasty racist little troll you are, inked.) merely for linking the news reports.

Hey, CBG, did I miss the part about female genital mutilation and stoning in your text? Or do you mean that FGM and stoning are no more serious than the text you quote? Or do you mean that people who act through legal channels are just as vile, obnoxious, and mean as those people who do FGM or stoning? Your metaphor is a bit mixed to say the least. And you fail to clarify who should be belted, so is it belting the offender for the stoning (seems superfluous buried up to your neck, but hey, you know how safety conscious liberals are!) or for the FGM?

[inked]

Originally Posted by The Gaffer

Come and have a go, if you think you're hard enough.

Hey, Gaffer, I read the article but I think I missed your point? Was it that with thirty to one odds the police were stymied? Or was it that your society can mobilize thirty police to one criminal? Or that criminals there don't know how to pull triggers?

Sorry for the confusion. But I know you could help clear it up!

[Comic Book Guy]

Originally Posted by inked

Muslims bashing one another, you mean? With rocks?

I find it highly amusing and even a touch ironic that I am the one being labeled
("What a nasty racist little troll you are, inked.) merely for linking the news reports.

Hey, CBG, did I miss the part about female genital mutilation and stoning in your text? Or do you mean that FGM and stoning are no more serious than the text you quote? Or do you mean that people who act through legal channels are just as vile, obnoxious, and mean as those people who do FGM or stoning? Your metaphor is a bit mixed to say the least. And you fail to clarify who should be belted, so is it belting the offender for the stoning (seems superfluous buried up to your neck, but hey, you know how safety conscious liberals are!) or for the FGM?

You didn't miss anything, there was nothing about female genital mutilation or stoning in the story I linked. If you're into this thing called reading, you can parse the report and find that there is nothing there.

I suggested no sort equivalence between the story I gave, and the stories of stoning of female genital mutilation, of which you've recently provided. Obviously some crimes are more serious than others. However, both are examples of what I described: Religious fundamentalists using the institutions in their respective countries to impose archaic ideas or practices to the cost of other peoples liberty. Both are not as bad as each other, although both are unacceptable in a civilised society.

If I present a case of something that's clearly wrong, and if someone else presents another separate, irrelevant case of something even worse, it doesn't effect the value judgements we make on either case. To even attempt to do so is entirely infantile, and very unimpressive rhetoric.

I don't understand your remarks about 'belting' and liberals. Either you're using slang I don't understand, you're addressing someone else, or you're being incoherent. Believe me, labelling a Socialist and a man of the Libertarian Left a mere Liberal is quite the insult these days, but as you had no way of knowing either, it doesn't deserve any comments.

[Tessar]

Okay, that is enough sly digs from everyone. I will begin deleting posts if I see any more of this, and if necessary I am going to start asking certain people to refrain from posting in this and other political/religious/cultural debate threads.

I am not opposed to people expressing their opinions, but please make sure that you are making your points and presenting your evidence without making belittling statements.

[inked]

CBG,

I think it is a slang thing: "Strap yourself in and get your exclamations of faux-outrage ready!" I took for "Belt yourself in ..." as in seat-belts in cars and restraints in amusement park rides.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally Posted by Comic Book Guy

Believe me, labelling a Socialist and a man of the Libertarian Left...

Wait, both at once? How is that possible? Isn't the basic Socialist doctrine that the state must own the means of production, and the basic Libertarian doctrine that the must do no more than is absolutely necessary? Or did I misunderstand you?

[Comic Book Guy]

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

Wait, both at once? How is that possible? Isn't the basic Socialist doctrine that the state must own the means of production, and the basic Libertarian doctrine that the must do no more than is absolutely necessary? Or did I misunderstand you?

Heh, no, but I understand your confusion. The basic Socialist doctrine was traditionally workers control and own the means of production, as opposed to being dehumanised as mere tools of production. It has great tradition in nearly every mass popular moment in history, and entirely in accord with the ideas of classic Enlightenment libertarians such as Adam Smith etc. That's the core. I could have said economic conservatism as well. These terms, with their traditional meanings, all approximate the same ideas.

To be honest, as I understand it the word has gone under a serious Orwellian perversion in some countries, such as America and Russia, for entirely propagandistic reasons.

[inked]

CBG, isn't the state the basic unit in Socialist dogma whereas in Libertarian dogma the individual is the basic unit, in each case, of politics. Thus a Libertarian Socialist would seem self-contradictory as well as a Socialist Libertarian.

Unless merely muddled.

[Comic Book Guy]

Did you not read my post? Or are you ignoring it? The core is "Workers control production" and always has been. In other words, Industrial Democracy and organisation. Who do you think the workers are if not individual 'units'?

It's only muddled if you don't understand the actual meaning of the terms you're using, and the level of political discourse doesn't rise above a demonstration of 'imprecision of language', using Orwell's phrase, where discussion doesn't represent anything in the real world.

[inked]

apparently, CBG, I am having difficulty with the definitions you allude to and the historical realities of Stalin, Pol Pot, and Mao.

Help.

[Grey_Wolf]

CBG, you're truly dazzled by the supposed promises of communist agitators. And, furthermore, your opinion is that anyone who contradict your view of left wing politics is either an idiot or in other ways beneath you.

So here is what I have to say:

Communism and Socialism are all for collective, non-questioning obedience. Look at the Ukrainians who were starved to death by Stalin. They didnt want to be under the iron-heel of the Soviets - therefore Stalin found it expedient to shut the borders of that land completely, thus assuring that 7 million men, women and children starved to death. That is the essence of left wing thinking - either obey or die.

I suspect you will say that it was not the real communism that existed in the Soviet Union, but, my friend, there really isnt any such thing. Communism is Communism is Communism - the basis of which is that if your opinion differs from that of the Rulers you are bound for Siberia or out-right shot for your crimes.

[Comic Book Guy]

If I seem contemptuous, it's not of those who "contradict me", which hasn't happened, and I'm willing to accept if it genuinely does happen, but it's of those who don't demonstrate any facilities of comprehension and reading and say things that bear no relation what I said, and terms that I've explicitly laid out twice. I show this in the case of people who have made a complete non-sequitur and brought up the totalitarian, Anti-Socialist, undemocratic Communist regimes of the 20th century, of which the Russia and the Soviet Union was the model.

Communism, the legacy of which I deplore and recently wrote about it on here in fact, was based upon the power political doctrines of the leaders of Bolshevik movement, whose philosophy was basically a right-wing, totalitarian deviation of orthodox Marxist ideas. In other words, they wanted a ultra-powerful state where private ownership was abolished, but still maintained the hierarchical institutions and means of control, where a "mass body of workers are subordinated to one will", paraphrasing the words of vanguard leaders Leon Trotsky and Vladimir Lenin, the totalitarian ideologues I'm supposedly "dazzled by". This all of course, is the total opposite of the actual traditional values of Socialism and Libertarianism, where free individuals voluntarily make decisions of production and their own lives themselves, not handed down orders from the centralised power of the "Red Bureaucracy" and the "Dictatorship of the Proletariat". The "historical reality" of this, is demonstrated by the initial actions of the Bolshevik movement after their coup d'etat of November 1917, which were the seizure of control by force of Soviet worker councils, were individual workers gathered to make decisions on production and working conditions themselves. The Bolsheviks, of course, fearing and despising genuine Socialism and democracy. Incidentally, the word "Soviet" actually meant "council" and worker control, before undergoing it's perversion by the propaganda wings of the world's main institutions of power. Soon after all this a former trainee priest named Stalin consolidated his power and it just turned into a massive nightmare for the population.

Leon Trotsky, who was highly culpable in the creation of this monstrosity, after his flight from Russia after his bitter rival Stalin seized power took advantage of his growing personality cult amongst marginal sections of anti-Stalin international Left, and used his considerable intellect and command of language to write highly cynical and self-aggrandising polemics which reverted to the original, early left-Marxist and Socialist pre-Bolshevik positions, which emphasised and re-established the core of Socialism, workers control the means of production. To demonstrate how disingenuous the man really was, consider the title of his treatise, "The Revolution Betrayed", it wasn't a revolution, nor was it betrayed, the Bolshevik vanguards were pretty successful in achieving their goals.

All of this is not disputed by any historian of 20th Century Russia. I recommend the outstanding work by Robert Savage, the leading historian of Russian Communism and it's leaders, particularly his books "Comrades!" and his brilliant biographies of Trotsky and Lenin. Funnily, the reason you can tell they are good is that the marginal, bizarre neo-communists of today absolutely hate Savage.

Sharp readers of George Orwell, who himself was a Socialist and hated totalitarianism, will spot that the Russian disaster was what he was satirising in his novel Animal Farm. The promise of Communism and moral force of Socialism was betrayed unto the total tyranny of chief bureaucrat Stalin and his hierarchical structures, "Some animals are more equal than others" . The workers and population were placed under even worse conditions than they had under state-capitalism and exploitation of wage slavery, were they had a relative amount of freedom. The State-Capitalist leaders, they were indeed great admirers of Stalin and were mightily impressed by what him and his vanguard leaders achieved. "The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again, but already it was impossible to tell which was which was which". State Capitalism was in fact so friendly with the evil, godless, materialist, egalitarian, brutal, oppressive, commie, pinko, whatever-meaningless-swearword-you-like Stalinists, that George Orwell in fact found it near impossible to get Animal Farm published in the West during his lifetime.

George Orwell was himself an eyewitness to contempt that the Russian communist regime had for Democracy, Liberty and Socialism. During the 1936 Spanish Civil war, while fighting for the POUM pro-Republican forces against the Western-backed and Nazi-backed Fascist forces of Franco's Falangists, he saw the very rare, genuine and successful attempt at voluntarily collectivisation and Libertarian Socialism (which was then called Anarchism, as ideals of dissolving unnatural systems of authority and coercion converge) crushed by force of the democracy fearing Communist regime, as well as the Fascists and Social Democrats. All well documented in his book Homage to Catalonia.

January has April's showers, and two and two makes a five. Why has actual reality and history of Socialism, Communism and Libertarianism and their differing political philosophies become equivocated, muddled and distorted? The answer is so obvious it's barely worth answering and explaining: Propaganda. The leading propaganda institutions of the 20th and early 21st centuries, the State Capitalist media of the United States and to a limited extent England, and the State-Communist commissars of the Soviet Union, both labelled and associated the Soviet regime with Socialism, for the reasons of serving themselves and power. Propaganda and public relations has the intention of stultification, leaving populations ignorant, uninformed and deluded ready for easy control and manipulation. The technique that is commonly implemented is the distortion of the words and the lazy "imprecision of language" that George Orwell recognised, decried and satirised, so discussion can't actually take place because words don't have a explicitly defined real meaning any more, and the original, historical meaning is impossible to use. They just become plastic and highly ambiguous , moulded to fit the needs of the propagandists and power. State Capitalist propaganda called the Russian tyranny Socialism because it defamed real Socialism by associating it with this brutality and totalitarian nightmare, recognising that both Socialism and Communism were threats to State-Capitalist power. It just becomes a swear word, which uncritical minds just repeat. Astonishingly, the leader of one the business parties in the United States, Barack Obama, gets slandered as a "Socialist" merely for not being right-wing enough. Commissar propaganda served their bosses by calling them Socialists, as they were well aware of the moral appeal that genuine Socialist philosophy had on the consciousness of the oppressed Russian people.

If you want further examples of this kind of outlandish distortion of political terms, just look at how the Soviet Union described their brutal expansionism, such as say the invasion of Afghanistan of 1979. It was always obscenely described as being in the interests freedom and democracy by the commissars. Same goes for the American invasion. Same goes for say, the words "Conservative" or Neo-Con in the United States, which now appears to describe extreme, radical Pro-State, Pro-Capitalist fanatics, Pro-Religion, nationalist fanatics, which is entirely the opposite of which Conservative really means, advocates of the ideas classical liberal, Enlightenment thinkers and the founding fathers of America.

All of this is not controversial if you five minutes to consider the nature of the power institutions, their interests, their motivations and the history. Otherwise you can just slavishly repeat the propaganda line from the power religions whenever uses the curse word of Socialism, and fret about bogeymen dictators.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

As a minor note, is it so wildly implausible that Western capitalists called the Soviet regime socialist, because it called itself that? I mean, it seems that you only need a further account of a name given to someone, if they themselves reject that name. Since you call yourself a Socialist, for instance, it seems the natural thing for me to call you a Socialist, and thus follow your lead. It seems likely to me that the same thing is what went on with the Western powers: the Russians called themselves Socialist, and the Western world took them at their word. Malicious intent to smear "true" socialism is one more cause than is necessary to explain the facts.

But anyway, the incarnation of socialism you briefly outline a few posts up is something I can get behind, and in fact is in basic agreement with the social teaching of the RCC.

One point I would question, though, is how much it is in accord with the ideas of Smith. He himself recognized in the Wealth of Nations that his system ends up de-humanizing workers, leaving them sharpening the heads of pins for twelve hours a day. From my reading of Wealth of Nations, at least, he offered no solution to the dilemma, nor did he show much interest in anything beyond a tip of the hat to the problem, basically saying, "Yeah, it's dehumanizing. Oh well, that's the way things work."

A socialism which strives to correct the tendencies of industrial capitalism to de-humanize workers is, surely, going a step beyond Smith.

[Comic Book Guy]

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

As a minor note, is it so wildly implausible that Western capitalists called the Soviet regime socialist, because it called itself that? I mean, it seems that you only need a further account of a name given to someone, if they themselves reject that name. Since you call yourself a Socialist, for instance, it seems the natural thing for me to call you a Socialist, and thus follow your lead. It seems likely to me that the same thing is what went on with the Western powers: the Russians called themselves Socialist, and the Western world took them at their word. Malicious intent to smear "true" socialism is one more cause than is necessary to explain the facts.

But anyway, the incarnation of socialism you briefly outline a few posts up is something I can get behind, and in fact is in basic agreement with the social teaching of the RCC.

One point I would question, though, is how much it is in accord with the ideas of Smith. He himself recognized in the Wealth of Nations that his system ends up de-humanizing workers, leaving them sharpening the heads of pins for twelve hours a day. From my reading of Wealth of Nations, at least, he offered no solution to the dilemma, nor did he show much interest in anything beyond a tip of the hat to the problem, basically saying, "Yeah, it's dehumanizing. Oh well, that's the way things work."

A socialism which strives to correct the tendencies of industrial capitalism to de-humanize workers is, surely, going a step beyond Smith.

It's not wildly implausible, but it's a lot more likely they defamed it purely for their own interests. The appeal of socialism exists beyond the borders of Russia.

RCC? Do you mean the Roman Catholic Church? I was brought up a Catholic and I don't at all understand, if that's what you meant of course.

Adam Smith was pre-Capitalist, and never lived to see it's rise. If he was around today, and consistent, he could easily be described as Libertarian Socialist. It's palpable from a reading from the Wealth of Nations. If you even take the first early chapters, regarding Labour, he's taking it for granted the Labour that produces the Wealth, are working for themselves and are not under any system of exploitation and are roughly awarded appropriately. Entirely opposite from the capitalist system of wage labour. Which is why Smith doesn't bother providing arguments against capitalism, it didn't exist at the time. He's speaking real tone of wonderment and appreciation for the innovation and skill of the pin-makers who act under their own initiative, not taking orders from above. His philosophy, beyond the micro-economics, was really summed up that conditions of "perfect liberty" should lead to "perfect equality" and that. "No society can be happy when the far greater part of the members are poor" If you look at the final three volumes, you can see the sheer contempt with which he considers the merchant and ownership class, taking it for granted that they are corrupt and only act in their own interests, influencing governments to take action to protect the interests at behest of the human population. Or his horrified conclusion of extreme division of labour leads to a situation where people are "as stupid and as ignorant as it's possible for a human creature to be" . I don't think he provided a solution, just pointed it out as something that should be prevented and opposed. The argument really was that free markets were highly efficient and lead to equality, and that individual Labour workers acting in their own interests serve society as a whole.

[Insidious Rex]

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

Since you call yourself a Socialist, for instance, it seems the natural thing for me to call you a Socialist, and thus follow your lead. It seems likely to me that the same thing is what went on with the Western powers: the Russians called themselves Socialist, and the Western world took them at their word. Malicious intent to smear "true" socialism is one more cause than is necessary to explain the facts.

On a related note Ive always found it interesting that North Korea likes to officially call itself the DEMOCRATIC PEOPLES REPUBLIC of Korea (I guess TOTALITARIAN STALINIST DICTATORSHIP wouldnt go over as well with Kim Jong-Il) while South Korea calls itself the REPUBLIC OF KOREA as if North Korea is truly more democratic than South Korea. And of course then theres China...

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by Comic Book Guy

All of this is not controversial if you five minutes to consider the nature of the power institutions, their interests, their motivations and the history. Otherwise you can just slavishly repeat the propaganda line from the power religions whenever uses the curse word of Socialism, and fret about bogeymen dictators.

Well put beyond the conception of many. The USSR was no more "communism" than the USA was ever a "free market". Clever human beings think of better ways to enhance their own well-being in the short term, not in the long term.

Communism and Free Markets have both failed ro represent reality because humans are naturally clan-orientered. We don't work towards a greater good, and we don't work purely selfishly either. We work based upon personal relationships above ability or accomplishment. Relatives, friends and even associates hold a stronger bond than personal ability. That ability may develop those other bonds, but it isn't the source of them.

To put it bluntly, theorists give us a lot more rationality than we deserve.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

Well put beyond the conception of many. The USSR was no more "communism" than the USA was ever a "free market".

I would it think rather less so. So far as I know, the closest to a real-life example of "communism" is the shared property of monasteries.

Originally Posted by CBG

RCC? Do you mean the Roman Catholic Church?

Yes.

If you even take the first early chapters, regarding Labour, he's taking it for granted the Labour that produces the Wealth, are working for themselves and are not under any system of exploitation and are roughly awarded appropriately. Entirely opposite from the capitalist system of wage labour.

I don't remember the particulars of these early chapters, but if you speak of the labourers being "awarded," that sounds like wage labour to me, or am I missing something?

If you look at the final three volumes, you can see the sheer contempt with which he considers the merchant and ownership class, taking it for granted that they are corrupt and only act in their own interests, influencing governments to take action to protect the interests at behest of the human population.

As I recall, self-interest is not in any way a negatively evaluated term in Smith. I'm pretty sure that it is the micro-cosmic version of the invisible hand, and is the only reason anything runs at all. From my reading, he does not give any ethical evaluation of self-interest, he merely states that all economy is based on it. Indeed, as far as I can tell, there is no more ethical concern in Smith than there is in Machiavelli, and this is one of my big beefs with him.

Or his horrified conclusion of extreme division of labour leads to a situation where people are "as stupid and as ignorant as it's possible for a human creature to be" . I don't think he provided a solution, just pointed it out as something that should be prevented and opposed.

Again, from my reading, he gave absolutely no real consideration to the problem, which I think is absolutely the biggest problem possibly imaginable in an economic system such as his. He merely adverted to an objection likely to arise from his work, and said in essence: "Yeah...someone else can waste his time on that one. I don't care." Again, from my reading this arises from his failure to implement any real ethical element into his ideas about what it means for real, everyday people.

[inked]

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On another question, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...205431_pf.html

if an occurrence is in Africa among soccer fans, is it multicultural or merely local?