Yabby and Loudmouth,

this is why I shouldn't have bothered. You reduce everything to your own puerile logic and shamelessly misrepresent people who try to think outside your miserable little square.
I've said elsewhere that I deplore all violence, and above that I don't relish revolution. But of course I'm compared with Bin Laden! (There was a good interview on Wednesday's or Thursday's Late Night Live btw, which offers a refreshing new take on western interventionism in Islamic affairs and is relevant to the debate here).
Loudmouth:
<* people's lives are as nothing compared to the completion of the historic task of revolution>

I didn't say this, nor imply it; it is your goonish and outrageous interpretation.

Similarly, this execrable little rant has nothing to do with what I've said: <What is socialism worth if it puts people a very distant second ? Second to what ? Some ideal ? What the hell are we supposed to be working towards if people have so little value ? By all means, as a revolutionary, jump over your cliff, but don't presume to take innocent people with you.> nor is it attributable to Marxist thought generally, which does put people FIRST--before economics!!

Nor have I recommended jumping off cliffs!
I have said we are going over a cliff with the present system, by which I mean economically, ecologically and ethically (you can add ontologically and spiritually to the list!).
I accept your apology!

Feel free now to conjure demons and fabricate to your heart's content.
You'll forgive me, though, if I take no further heed of your tawdry nonsense.

Grok and Squeers,

If that's the best you can offer, I don't see any reason to change what I have written. Thank you for closing those doors.

I'll keep looking.

Joe

See Squeers? It's impossible to discuss marxism or dialectics w/o obtuse people going round and round in obsessive little circles insisting that we instead apologize for stalinism's crimes, real or imagined. And of course the capitalist context of everything is always irrelevant -- because of course, these same people always live in the best of all capitalist worlds, even if they deny it for polemical reasons...

So like I said (and how I live my life and my relations with such people): they are simply going to have to learn about reality the hard way -- if they are lucky enough to survive the lesson, that is.

Party at Ground Zero.
See you there (in Hell) -- and don't be late, y'hear..?

Grok,

Can we try to get beyond talking about stalinism, as if that form of totalitarianism has been the only pathway that socialism can take, as if every 'experiment' with socialism degenerates in this way, into an abuse of absolute power in the name of the very 'people' who are being abused ?

Oops. I'm a bit late :(

In 160 years, and with a multitude of experiences in revolutions, uprisings, communes, governments, mountain soviets and jungle redoubts, have there been occasions when it has NOT gone down this path ? Seriously, has it ? How long ago ? What happened to these exceptions ?

Seriously, how can it work without degenerating into what used to be called social-fascism ?

And if it can't, then what ? What might be an alternative to BOTH capitalism and stalinist-socialism ?

Joe

Loudmouth:

How can we make you understand that you don't understand a damned thing -- except the propaganda you've been gullet-fed your entire life..? And you think we're trying to pull something over on you, or other.

The problem is YOU, however: and everyone like you. You wear your 'false consciousness' proudly, like a bloody medal. You don't know jack-doo-dah about socialism -- that much is painfully obvious. And I'm reduced to just saying this, because you don't take a point -- like the other ideologs who've passed thru here. How often must we go over the same points, like we're beating our heads thru a concrete wall?

Hi Grok,

Thanks for the empty ad hominems: they indicate the bankruptcy of your defenses of totalitarianism. I was born a CPA baby, named after you-know-who, grandad was a Wobbly, and I have always been interested, obsessed really, in where it all might be heading, as one qould. I date my first readings of Marx and Lenin in about 1961, Mao in 1962, etc. I've been around the block in that sense, so unless you have something substantial to add, I suggest you leave it to the big kids.

I firmly believe that, one day, something like the spirit of socialism will prevail, but it won't [by bitter experience] be anything like what we have seen over and over again so far. It won't be the same wheel, so please quit trying to re-invent it.

Joe