MovieChat Forums > Politics > Nazis haven't been a real threat since 1...

Nazis haven't been a real threat since 1945. Communism remains an ongoing, serious threat.


Communists ultimately did even more damage to the world than the national socialists did, they still rule multiple countries, at least two of which have nuclear weapons, including the most populous nation on earth and our biggest long term threat, communist thugs like Antifa are responsible for most of the political violence in the country, and communist ideas have more influence on the establishment class and policy makers than Nazi ones do, and are a greater threat to undermine the American way of life from within.

So why is there vastly so much more hand wringing about "Nazis", who are mostly non-existent, than about the very real communist danger?

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Nothing to see here, just another disinformation troll.

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What's supposedly untrue in the op, liar?

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He may not be a troll. Comes off like a lot of the people I live near, here in a red part of the country.

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What was disinformation?

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Maybe she's still diligently scouring the op, trying to find something that isn't true.

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Lol.

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After all this time, did you ever find anything in the op that's untrue?

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All of it. Starting with your ridiculous assumption that China is communist in anything but name. I guess it's not surprising you're not informed enough to know China is capitalist to the core, there's nothing "communist" about it.

Antifa violence is only common in Portland because they've got a bonkers mayor who instructs police they can't crack down. Meanwhile, right wing white nationalist inspired terror remains the predominant threat of terrorism in this country inspired by the white nationalist president.

Oh, and BTW, Antfi stands for 'anti-fascism'. So you calling them 'communist' is again based on your profound ignorance of the topic.

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China is a mix of communism and nationalism, the opposite of "capitalist to the core". Antifa was founded by the German communist party and imported into the US in the 2000s, and like other leftist groups it's violently rioted in cities all over the country (from Berkeley to DC). Just because they call themselves "anti-fascist" doesn't mean they really are, any more than the Democratic People's Republic of (North) Korea is really democratic, or Trump is really a "white nationalist" just because you say so, something only lying buffoons or the most deranged partisans claim. "Right wing white nationalist inspired terror" groups don't even exist. They're the odd lone wolf attack, typically some kid on psych meds, as opposed to the international Islamist terrorist movement or violent leftist criminal outfits like Antifa or BLM with vastly superior numbers and media/academic/politician encouragement, so it's absurdly stupid to claim they're the "predominant" terror threat. The profound ignorance is yours, as always.

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"China is a mix of communism and nationalism, the opposite of "capitalist to the core".

You're always making such a profound fool out of yourself by trying to talk about subjects that you're simply not qualified and insufficiently educated to be talking about.

Communism is an economic system that features an abolition of private property along with government owned and directed means of production and allocation of resources. Communism has what's known as a "command economy" where production, investment, prices, and incomes are determined by central government. China does not even remotely do this. It is capitalist to the core and has a free market economy.

For you to even bring "nationalism" into this (an ideology, not an economic system) only reaffirms how hilariously unqualified you are to be talking about this topic.

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It's hard to say which part of your post is stupider, you claiming that ideologies and economic systems are two completely different spheres with no overlap (which one are communism and fascism again, lol?), or your claim that China doesn't have a largely centrally controlled, government dominated economy, but is "free market" and "capitalist to the core".

eyedef's greatest hits:

- 40% of the Mueller report was redacted
- Bloomberg and Vox are "right wing" sources
- The Dayton shooter was right wing (in that post you even linked to a story about the El Paso shooter, wrong guy, to arrogantly correct others who were, of course, right)
- China has a "free market economy" and is "capitalist to the core".

And that's just the past week or two. Thank you for reaffirming how hilariously unqualified you are to do anything but serve as the buffoonish punching bag you are.

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Ideologies are not economic systems you dumb buffoon. God, your ignorance and lack of education really speaks for itself.

And now you revert to type by providing a laundry list of outright falsehoods. It's telling how you have to resort to lies because you know the truth hurts.

But here's another fact for you. Like I told you last week but you were too illiterate to process yourself.

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/08/nadler-house-already-in-impeachment-proceedings.html

You're welcome.

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"Ideology" just means "body of ideas", you drooling ignoramus. Things like communism and fascism are both ideologies and economic systems. You're shockingly uneducated on even basic facts.

Everything I said is true. I challenge you to pick out any one of that "laundry list" of your hilariously buffoonish faceplants I listed from recent threads to focus on and prove your lie that I lied about it.

As for Nadler, that's just repeating the status quo we already discussed on that first thread where you got eviscerated (the one where you laughably insisted 40% of the Mueller report was redacted). No new vote was taken. After the vote that was taken, where Dem leaders publicly denied impeachment proceedings were underway, Nadler went from agreeing with them to adjusting his spin and contradicting himself, which he was already doing by the time of our debate. I never denied he was claiming that and you have no point.

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ROTFL. When you're in a hole you should stop digging.

Once again, you're in one now. 😃

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So you can't even name one "lie" from my laundry list of your humiliating recent faceplants? LMFAO!

You're the one holding the shovel several feet underground, chief.

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That hole you're digging is getting hilariously deep sir gaslight. 😃

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You crying about me listing some of your most hilariously wrong claims without you being able to defend yourself on a single one proves otherwise. Excessive emoticon use also shows you're protesting too much. ;)

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You get pwned again by eyeDEF! LOL!

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https://moviechat.org/bd0000082/Politics/5d47d6c89f3c622265e18a9d/So-it-turns-out-that-the-Dayton-killer-is-a-leftist-Elizabeth-Warren-and-AOC-supporter-who-is-a-socialist-antifa-bro-n?reply=5d4aec4eb124ae5421f9a2df

LOL!

The lemming Doggiedaddy goes off the cliff with the vanquished eyedef.....again. What was your reply when eyedef claimed the Dayton shooter, who was actually a rabid antifa-supporting leftist, was a "Republican" because he got confused and read the wrong story?

Doggiedaddy: "Thank You!

Now let's see all the T-rumptards ignore this important fact."

LMFAO! If you ever started trying to cheerlead me I'd be worried.

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lolz. The El Paso shooter was a Republican Nazi, what's your point?

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The thread was about the Dayton shooter, LMFAO. My point was about atrocious reading comprehension, shallow posting, and the mindless lemmings who blindly cheerlead it in knee jerk fashion without regard for quality.

PS - And "Republican Nazi" might be a better description than you're smart enough to realize. The El Paso shooter hated both parties but slightly favored the Republicans because at least some of them oppose open borders.

But he had a generally leftist worldview, as the National Socialists did. He favored big government programs like universal healthcare and a universal basic income. He also spent much of his manifesto spewing environmentalist concerns. He wanted to depopulate the country so it could afford big social welfare programs for the remnant and to protect the environment.

He is not a conservative.

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Sorry but National Socialists were fascists in Nazi Germany. Fascists are right wing by definition and you are once again making a mockery of yourself.

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Try actually using your brain sometime instead of just repeating simple popular myths by rote. The debate over the proper placement of fascists and Nazis in different historical/national contexts aside, support for big government programs like universal government healthcare, a universal basic income, and radical green environmentalist policies are firmly on the American left.

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lulz. I love you how revert to aping right wing catchphrases and Jonah Goldberg talking points as if it's YOU that is actually having an original thought. lmao! You're not.

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It's amusing watching you make diversionary crap up about people or things I haven't mentioned (e.g. "Jonah Goldberg", "Fox News") while you avoid substantively addressing anything I did say. I'm clearly the only independent thinker in our debate. You're squirming with such desperation it's creating a dust cloud.

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[deleted]

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You're really desperate for help, eyedef. It's pathetic. You don't know any more about China than you did about the Mueller report before I educated you on it ("40%" redacted, LOL). You know even less about political philosophy. Please expound on the alleged difference between an "ideology" and an "economic system". This should be entertaining.

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You should feel embarrassed about bringing up Mueller after you tried to claim the Mueller Report exonerated Trump. I had to point out to you that you never read it because it said no such thing.

It became clear at that point that all you do is recite right wing talking points because only Bill Barr and Trump himself claimed the Mueller Report exonerated him.

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Liar. I had to explain to you that prosecutors don't "exonerate" people; the prosecutor's failure in court and/or facts compelling him to not charge do. Trump is exonerated as a result of the report, showing no evidence of collusion or criminal activity. What rhetoric the corrupt and feckless Mueller uses is irrelevant.

It became clear that you had lied about having read the Mueller report since no one can even glance at it and make the mistake of claiming that "40%" of it was redacted, lol.

You claimed Bloomberg, Lawfare, Democrat leaders, Vox, and the various other anti-Trump sources I had cited were all "right wing", lol. You began quite the meltdown on that thread. It's still ongoing.

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Nope, you insisted Mueller "exonerated" Trump of "collusion". That's when I called you out for being a liar because he never used the word "exonerated" and he never even evaluated whether he colluded.

You're just gaslighting again because it's what you do.

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Your gaslighting tactics are weak. You just lie about what I said and then falsely accuse me of "gaslighting". Quote and link to anywhere I ever claimed Mueller "said" Trump was "exonerated". Your inability to do that proves you're lying. By contrast I can link to numerous places where I explained that it didn't matter what words he used, just that he found no evidence of collusion after an exhaustive, well funded search by rabid partisans trying their best to nail the president.

Heck, I wrote this thread about it before I even interacted with you.

https://moviechat.org/bd0000082/Politics/5d38d2c2e6724865f92f6fff/Mueller-was-a-train-wreck-for-Democrats-Trump-is-even-more-exonerated-than-before?reply=5d38ec16e6724865f92f7105

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lmao! Thank you for proving my point. You claimed Trump was "exonerated" when the only ones claiming that was Trump himself and Barr.

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I just refuted your claim that you "had to point out" anything to me by linking to where I had preemptively destroyed the same argument made by someone else long before you and I interacted. And every honest legal expert claimed that Trump is exonerated.

You were also owned on the thread where you tried to deny that the Mueller report cleared Trump of collusion, further proving you hadn't read it. I had to quote where it defined "conspiracy" as "synonymous" with "collusion", and added "coordination" for good measure, defining that as any agreement with Russia, and clearing Trump of both conspiracy and coordination.

That was fun.

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"And every honest legal expert claimed that Trump is exonerated"

Exonerated for "collusion" that Mueller himself stated in the report he never even evaluated? You're a funny guy. I had to point out to you that Mueller never even evaluated that claim. You were left with egg on your face.

https://moviechat.org/bd0000082/Politics/5d41d3372e20552565354856/Only-a-liberal-could-collude-with-Russia?reply=5d438cfccc535257408c233e

That was fun.

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In all sincerity you were ripped to shreds there and you know it. Mueller cleared Trump and his team of even having any agreement with Russia, "tacit or express". The report explained why they weren't using the word "collusion" as the media frequently did, and made clear that the words they did use more than covered whatever "collusion" might conceivably mean.

https://moviechat.org/bd0000082/Politics/5d41d3372e20552565354856/Only-a-liberal-could-collude-with-Russia?reply=5d4241e43fa9ff3abe38d037

That's why you fled the thread without answering my question about what hypothetical "collusion" could take place without any agreement. Let's see if you answer that here, lol.

This is fun.

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Uh oh. I didn't need to look up "ideology" before, being educated, but I just did for kicks and given the top results it's really bad for you. A representative sample:


"i·de·ol·o·gy (ī′dē-ŏl′ə-jē, ĭd′ē-)
n. pl. i·de·ol·o·gies
A set of doctrines or beliefs that are shared by the members of a social group or that form the basis of a political, economic, or other system."

American Heritage
https://www.thefreedictionary.com/ideology


"A system of ideas and ideals, especially one which forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy."

Oxford
https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/ideology

eydef: "Ideologies are not economic systems you dumb buffoon."

LOL! What were you saying again? Your greatest hits keep growing every time you clumsily rush in to take a shot at me in a pitiful bid to recover face from your previous ass kickings......only to repeatedly fail again, you dumb buffoon.

I do enjoy our little talks though.

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ROTFL!

You actually had to look the definition of "ideology" up to understand what it means.

I said it before and I'll say it again. Economic systems are NOT ideologies you dumb buffoon.

"economic ideology is distinct from an economic system that it supports, such as a capitalist ideology, to the extent that explaining an economic system (positive economics) is distinct from advocating it (normative economics)."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_ideology

What makes you even more wrong is how you introduced "nationalism" into all this which isn't even an economic ideology, but a political one, when we were originally talking about economic systems. You keep proving you don't have the slightest idea what you're even talking about.

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LOL! All your Wikipedia source is doing is drawing a distinction between proposal and applied real world result, you idiot, a straw man argument which reinforces my position and undermines your claim that China isn't ideologically communist because its economic system is "capitalist" (it's actually mixed with a strong government lean, but either way you're wrong). That's why the definitions I cited (after I already correctly defined "ideology" in my own words, liar; you're the one who needed to look it up) said an ideology is the "basis" of a system. Your own source lists things like "communism" because they're both ideologies and systems, and not just economic ones:

"Communism is also a political system as much an economic one—with various models in how it is implemented"

Which is what I was talking about when I labeled China "communist". You started this absurd diversionary tangent on the Chinese economy, not me.

I didn't say "nationalism" was an economic ideology, you idiot, though it can certainly have an economic impact as I showed in detail. I said China had grown increasingly nationalist, which you apparently agree with, which has melded with its ruling communist ideology and shaped its policies and strategy.

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What's clear to me now is that you don't even know what communism is that you'd call it a 'political system'. Try reading the Communist Manifesto. Marx was an economist. Communism is an economic system you ignoramus.

So quick quiz, what "political system" did Marx describe in the Communist Manifesto? You claim it's a "political system", so what political system did he describe? Hint: It's not what you think it is.

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Look up "dictatorship of the proletariat" and get back to me, moron. Then learn about "Marxism-Leninism". I've actually read Marx and Engels. You can't have given your comments, unless it went completely over your head. Are you lying about this like you did about reading the Mueller report?

Marx was an economist.

One who called for a political, even violent revolution.

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lulz. You're hilarious because you're once again wrong. A revolution is not a "political system".

Next you'll be trying to say autocracy and communism are the same thing because up is down in your world right?

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I love how you're trying to hide from the fact that your own linked source states "communism is also a political system as much as an economic one". You keep posting sources that agree with me and disagree with you. This is like the Dayton shooter all over again. Or The Mueller report.


A revolution is definitely political. A "dictatorship of the proletariat" is certainly a political system. Communists say their regimes are in an indefinite state of "revolution" on behalf of "the people". I don't care about their use/misuse of the word "revolution". Marx himself didn't put a timetable on how long the "dictatorship" phase of the communist revolution should last, nor did Lenin.

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A revolution is not a political system. I love how you keep trying to insist words mean what they don't mean. It shows how desperate you are.

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Straw man argument underscoring your pathetic desperation. A "dictatorship of the proletariat" is certainly a political system.

"Communism is also a political system as much as an economic one" - eyedef's own source

LOL. Now do you have something else to say or are you done?


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[deleted]

Oh and that's your own source (from your own link!) I quoted above saying that, "Communism is also a political system as much an economic one"

You should at least read the pages you link to, and do a better job reading the posts you reply to.

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Wrong. Nationalism is a vague ideological tendency emphasizing national interest that can take many forms. It may or may not have economic implications. Trump's economic nationalism, for example, certainly impacts tariff/trade/contracting policy.

National socialism, aka "Nazism", which includes "national" in the freaking title, is a soft form of socialism (more moderate than communism) that favors central economic planning (to a degree) in the nation's interest, rejecting Marxism's theoretical abandonment of national allegiance in favor of class allegiance.

As for China, with its reforms in recent decades it's become a mixed economy. But those free market reforms have only gone so far politically and economically. It is certainly not best described as "capitalist to the core" or a "free market" economy, but rather one that's partially privatized but still heavily dominated by central government planning, especially compared to a US style society.

I've said myself over the years that China has evolved in a national socialist direction. National greatness has replaced the export of Marxist ideals as the chief concern, the economy has received a big boost with partial market reforms, but a heavy-handed government is still firmly in control.

If one wanted to reply to my op by saying that China represents a version of national socialism I wouldn't disagree. But I was referring to the Aryan "Nazism" the term typically evokes, and either way China still refers to itself as "communist", it has a one party, typical communist political structure, and I didn't mention economics per se in the op.

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You're the one who has no idea what you're talking about if you maintain that nationalism is "entirely irrelevant to a country's economic system". I even gave the example of Trump's economic nationalism, which is the impetus for him using tariffs as leverage in trade deals viewed as promoting the national interest, or buying US steel.

And you have no idea what this thread is about if you wrongly believe "no one was talking about National Socialism". That's an astonishing failure of reading comprehension on your part. At least glance at the thread op you clicked on, assuming you weren't just following another poster.

Trying to equate the Chinese economy to the US one is absurd. I said above that China has a "mixed" economy, but it's one way more heavily skewed to government control. China's state controlled companies cover more sectors than the ones you mentioned, and include oil, coal, construction, banking, telecommunications, transportation, steel, and auto manufacturing (unlike the US). While their GDP share has declined they control the most important parts of the economy.

As of 2015, the top 12 Chinese companies on the Forbes Global 500 were all state owned, and only 22 of their 98 companies on that list were private. https://fortune.com/2015/07/22/china-global-500-government-owned/ (things haven't changed much https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/05/why-chinas-state-owned-companies-still-have-a-key-role-to-play/)

And direct ownership barely scratches the surface of government control over officially "private" economic activity through vast, multi-layered arrays of overt and hidden edicts, regulations, taxes, etc., as one should expect given a political system which is still very communist. China's one party system is classically communist in form and it lacks an independent judicial system or checks and balances, which is why trade deals and laws aren't worth anything. Communist regimes can violate them on a whim. That impacts the economy too.

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Fair points on the greater mix of SOEs in China's economy than the US, but you're still wrong to call it "communist" in any way. Communism refers to an economic system that China does not practice. Its political system is distinctly autocratic, not communist.

Communism is an economic system, not a political one. The same goes for capitalism, socialism, and even fascism. Now, the historical examples of each of these systems has attached political connotations to them, but those are not intrinsic to them.

Who controls the means of production doesn’t tilt a political system one way or another. The definition of "state" is defined by the political system. It is entirely possible to have a communist economy with a pure democracy, or with a republic, or a theocracy. Just as it is possible to have a capitalistic economy with the various types of political systems, i.e. "states."

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I described China's ruling ideology and political system as "communist", and its economy as "mixed" with a heavy government lean.

You're wrong about communism not being a political system. Marxism, Leninism, and their various offshoots were very concerned with rule and power (e.g. Marx's "dictatorship of the proletariat), not just property distribution. They wouldn't have been satisfied, for example, with a hereditary monarch implementing a socialist economy while maintaining royal governance (though I agree there are other forms of "communism" that would be compatible with that). While I agree in general that self description isn't necessarily decisive, in China's case their several decade long commitment to communism, one involving massive domestic upheavals and wars (civil and foreign), is worth a mention, as is their close alliance with North Korea, another communist regime. Their current one party system (the Communist Party) follows a format similar to past communist regimes, complete with (sham) elections for officials at various layers building up like a pyramid with the highest leaders being chosen by a few thousand party elites. Other typical communist features like state encouraged atheism, a lack of meaningful legal structures, and tight state control over education and media for ideological indoctrination are also present.

"Autocracy", meaning one man absolute rule, doesn't seem to fit well given China has over 1.5 billion people and is governed by a massive bureaucratic machine. Their leader is basically a dictator but "oligarchy" might fit better since he was chosen by the party and he doesn't make most decisions.

Regardless, I can hardly be blamed for including China given the point of my op. Excluding the biggest self described communist state wouldn't be right, though my point would stand even if I had.

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"I described China's ruling ideology and political system as "communist", and its economy as "mixed" with a heavy government lean."

And that's why I'm saying you're wrong. It's authoritarian and autocratic, not communist.

The Communist Manifesto actually calls for an authoritarian dictator to take control, so as to forcibly (if necessary) nationalize the means of production. Once the state has taken control, then the benevolent dictator is supposed to willingly step down.

"Communist" governments have always struggled with that last step, which is why they all quickly devolved into autocracies. Marx would be the first to call out Lenin for ruling as an autocrat over an authoritarian state, not a communist one, because of his unwillingness to absolve himself from power after seizing the means of production. The dictatorship of the proletariat is supposed to fade away once they all reached Communism, when the populace would magically become politically mature enough to rule itself. This is why true political Communism has never been achieved. It's magic fairy dust. The reality is that whenever tried, nominally Communist political systems are in fact authoritarian autocracies in practice.

That's why "Communism" is a term used to describe the economic system that Marx proposes involving radical redistribution and centralizing means of production.

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The failure of communism to reach some utopian endpoint is irrelevant. The authoritarian rule Marx called for is a political system. But that's only one element. Communism is broader than Marxism. Lenin and other subsequent communists built on Marx's theories, adding more detail to the political elements. Marx was vague enough that it was easy for these communist parties to argue they were in a state of perpetual or at least extended "revolution", one where the state apparatus remained necessary. To this day communist governments describe their enemies as "counterrevolutionary".

And I don't necessarily share your belief that they're all just cynical liars (at least on that point), or the common sentiment among Western leftists that at worst communism was a noble idea that just didn't work in practice. Marxism is inherently evil. It cultivates base emotions like hatred and envy, and obliterates the higher and spiritual in favor of utterly material fixations. It also crushes the individual. It can be seductive, but that doesn't mean it's not morally bankrupt.

That aside, a communist political system is one in which a government is ruled by one party with the express goal of implementing communist ideology. That fits from Marx to Stalin to Xi Jinping.

PS - I don't know why your above post was deleted. I had nothing to do with it and don't think any posts should be deleted unless they're illegal.

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Have you been keeping track of everyone who's pwned you in the past 24 hours? Just wondering - because everyone else on this forum has. (Not looking good for you, right now.)

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Zero and counting.

PS -

https://moviechat.org/bd0000082/Politics/5d4c5600893552732c13bffd/Nazis-havent-been-a-real-threat-since-1945-Communism-remains-an-ongoing-serious-threat?reply=5d4eb3b03a9376268431e808

LOL! Not exactly a credible independent thinker are you?

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You've miscounted, as usual. Count again. We'll help you when you go past your 10 fingers...

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Wrong again. Tell me, "Doggiedaddy", do you still believe eyedef "pwned" people when he falsely claimed the Dayton shooter was a "Republican" and "not a leftist at all" after he completely misread the story?

Doggiedaddy: "Thank you! Now let's see all the T-rumptards ignore this important fact."

Is that still an "important fact", lol? I'm testing to see whether it's possible for you to ever admit you're wrong, even on a simple matter where you and everyone else can objectively see you're wrong without reading through a long exchange.

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"The failure of communism to reach some utopian endpoint is irrelevant."

Of course it's relevant. The very word "communism" is based on the very premise of that collectively utopian endpoint. The ultimate goal of communism is the establishment of a communist society. This is characterized by common ownership of the means of production with free access to the articles of consumption. It is classless and stateless which implies the end of the exploitation of labor.

By definition, a communist society cannot be ruled by an autocrat or by what you call "one party rule" since that is by definition NOT a classless and stateless society.

Leninism, Stalinism, Maoism, etc are all distinct from communism. Their focus is on the "dictatorship of the proletariat" and seizing means of production that I cited previously as a prelude to communism. But it's a farce to call a dictatorship "communism" that fails to establish a communist society that forms the basis of the very word.

A government can claim to be anything, that doesn't necessarily make it so in practice.

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I disagree (the "dictatorship" is the key political step in the communist process while the fake utopia is really post-political), but out of curiosity what common denominator name would you give to the system of nations like China, the USSR, North Korea, Cuba, etc. that officially call themselves "communist" and that have implemented communist ideas to various (sometimes extreme) degrees that covers them all while distinguishing them from other authoritarian systems?

Surely some distinct label is appropriate given their shared ideology, the many similarities in their rule, and their tendency, especially during the Cold War, to move in concert as an allied unit (apart from a few falling outs, most notably China/USSR though Soviet aid was crucial to Mao seizing China in the first place).

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Sure, they're all autocratic, authoritarian, and totalitarian in practice. That is the unifying common denominator, shared ideology, and similarities in their rule.

How can you call them Communist in practice when they are distinctly not classless and distinctly NOT ruled by the collective which forms the very basis of Communism?

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But you didn't distinguish them from other types of authoritarian systems, and clearly some distinction is needed or one is at a loss to describe the very real ideological component of the Cold War (among other things). The two struggling sides weren't just randomly arrayed.

Communist officials would reject your notion that they're not classless and would claim to rule as a collective representing "the people".

Remember that communism transcends pure Marxism, and isn't solely defined by it, but even Marx didn't put a timetable on his "dictatorship of the proletariat" and I'm not sure I agree with you that he'd reject all these regimes' "communist" nature.

Regardless, if those regimes call their own systems communist and are ruled by people espousing communist ideology I'm fine calling them "communist" as well. It's not like there are examples of supposedly "true" communist societies that are different from these many communist countries, the way there are with "democracies" that make it easy to ridicule use of the term by North Korea or the Soviet Union.

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I don't have a problem with calling China "communist" as a way of distinguishing their flavor of autocracy. The nomenclature has evolved into a label of convenience. I'm fine with that. My issue is trying to insist China is in any way Communism in practice when it's just not. And to be fair, I'm not sure you're insisting it is either.

The purpose of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" was to institute radical reform in collectivization. That goal has been abandoned. The "distinguishing ideological component" of the cold war was the fundamental economic system of communism vs capitalism. It's the communist economic system that would (supposedly) eliminate worker exploitation that formed the basis of that ideological tug-of-war.

If you want to call the underlying autocracy of the communist model a 'serious threat', I could agree with that. Autocratic governance appears to be on the rise throughout the world. But limiting your focus on those governments that only label themselves 'communist' seems to miss the mark. There is no resurgence of governments throughout the world that want to adopt the communist party model. The ideological battle of the Cold War is dead. The Communist Manifesto no longer holds any appeal on popular imagination.

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The Communist Manifesto has a lot more traction than Mein Kampf does, and yet half the American population routinely gets slandered as "Nazis", Nazis still appear as villains more frequently in entertainment fiction and non-fiction than communists, and sometimes the hand wringing over the alleged "Nazi" threat reaches such an hysterical pitch that one might think they're on the verge of taking over the world. Remember my op was comparing them.

My op also wasn't just about nation states. No one really advocates Nazism, but Marxist ideas are routinely repeated in political discussions and explicitly embraced by radical leftist activists, especially on campus. You still see people sporting Che Gueverra t-shirts, and see Soviet flags, red stars, or other classic communist paraphernalia. You don't see Nazi flags, though leftists will sometimes deface US or Israeli flags with Swastikas. And Antifa, the biggest group of violent agitators in the US, was a creation of the old German Communist Party. Versions of recognizably Marxist dogma appear in the literature of various activist groups.

The hard left has evolved and expanded with the New Left and other movements, but there's still a continuity that ties back to Marx and earlier. Marx is still sometimes cited with respect by academics. We could debate the degree to which policy is influenced by communism, but that's unnecessary to establish that it's vastly more of a threat than Nazism is.

Communism, even Marxism per se, was always about more than economics. It's about power (a Marxist would say the two are inherently tied), philosophy, culture, and one's entire worldview, including the existence of God. Marx was a comprehensive system builder. And while things have changed since the Cold War, communism can't be ignored when multiple hostile nations calling themselves "communist" are nuclear armed, one the most populous in the world and openly dedicated to displacing the USA as the planet's dominant superpower.

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Marx the economist is still cited with respect in academic circles because many of his critiques of capitalism in Das Kapital are just as cogent today as they were in his time. He lays the basis for much of our current understanding of labor and its relation to capital. He's also lauded as the father of modern sociology by offering social theories that could be tested by scientific method.

Marx the political theorist is viewed in academia as a study in failure. Instead of changing the world for the better, his political philosophy made it indisputably worse. Regardless, he was a brilliant thinker and compelling writer who advanced academic understanding in fields beyond just politics. Whatever 'traction' you think Communist Manifesto holds among academics over Mein Kampf is entirely justified. Because despite its faults it remains an interesting and thought provoking piece of work unlike Hitler's barely legible and heavily fictionalized racist screed.

To even call communism a threat sounds unhinged. There is no appetite among what you call the "New Left" or even the "Hard Left" to abolish private property, which is the distinguishing feature of communism from socialism. Only 4 countries in the world even remain communist in name, only China is significant. FYI North Korea removed all references to communism in their constitution in 2009, precluding any justification to even call them communist. It's a self described "socialist state" in name and a totalitarian dictatorship in practice, further illustrating the absurdity of ascribing the arbitrary label of 'communist' to China. China's 'threat' is not from an appeal to ideology or its authoritarian brand of 'communist' government over democracy, but as a conventional rival nation-state jockeying for supremacy in a multi-polar world. Your threat analysis of communism>nazism is pretty silly when neither is a real threat. It's the underlying of autocracy of both which are 2 sides of the same coin.

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Whatever 'traction' you think Communist Manifesto holds among academics over Mein Kampf is entirely justified.

I disagree. Marx didn't understand economics much better than politics, and his failure in one can't be entirely divorced from the other. His fundamental view of human nature and history were flawed. But I'm not interested in debating Marx's worth here. I appreciate you agreeing with my premise that Marx is still influential in a way Hitler isn't.
China's 'threat' is not from an appeal to ideology or its authoritarian brand of 'communist' government over democracy, but as a conventional rival nation-state jockeying for supremacy in a multi-polar world.

With more nationalist fervor than normal, which is the point I made earlier. Yet the fact remains that it is run by communists, while no nation has been run by people calling themselves "Nazis" since 1945.
To even call communism a threat sounds unhinged....
Your threat analysis of communism>nazism is pretty silly when neither is a real threat. It's the underlying of autocracy of both which are 2 sides of the same coin.

I'd agree with your last sentence (replacing "autocracy" with "totalitarianism"). But with respect you simply haven't been paying close attention to Western political discourse in recent years, especially from ground level activists but increasingly from media figures and politicians, or you wouldn't say that.

I've lost track of the number of times I've been called a "Nazi" for advocating for something like tax cuts, and ICE illegal alien detention centers being called "concentration camps" by Democratic presidential candidates while border patrol agents are slandered as the "SS" are just a couple of examples of how pervasive the "Nazi" hysteria has become. Movies, tv shows, political rhetoric, etc..

Continued....

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"I appreciate you agreeing with my premise that Marx is still influential in a way Hitler isn't."

My point being that Marx was an intellectual who made valid contributions to fields of academic inquiry whereas Hitler was nothing more than a racist and destructive warlord. It should come as no surprise Marx has more influence because some of his ideas still have currency even while others do not. Meanwhile there is no redeeming value, academic or otherwise, to Mein Kampf outside of it being a historical document depicting Hitler's fictionalized hagiography of himself and plans for world domination. Hitler was not an intellectual and his ideas only appeal to virulent racists.

"But with respect you simply haven't been paying close attention to Western political discourse in recent years, especially from ground level activists but increasingly from media figures and politicians, or you wouldn't say that. "

With respect, what "ground level activists" call you plays no role in whether communism or nazism pose legitimate threats. They don't, irrespective of what you may have been called. They're both dead ideologies and to hype either as "threats" is unhinged.

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It would have been respectful not to unnecessarily split my response in half, especially since you're mostly just repeating yourself. Again, thank you for agreeing with me about Hitler having less influence than Marx.

But you left out my comment about media figures and politicians. They've hyped up a nonexistent Nazi threat while increasingly openly embracing Marxist and neomarxist positions. That's unhinged.

North Korea is unhinged. Cuba and China are unhinged to some degree.

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"Respect" really had nothing to do with why I responded to your two post reply in sequence. It just never occurred to me to do otherwise.

"media figures and politicians"

I see media figures and politicians rightly bringing attention to the rise of right wing extremism and violence (many by neo-nazis, either self identified or inspired by nazi ideology) since Trump's election because this is entirely true and legitimate. Most Violence is Right Wing. Period.

https://www.adl.org/media/12480/download
https://www.typeinvestigations.org/investigation/2017/06/22/home-hate/
https://csis-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/publication/181119_RightWingTerrorism_layout_FINAL.pdf?MyC9DjLLRftoeUKvq6qxFPsCPFoTkBpH

Neo-nazis and white supremacists see Trump as their guy, just ask David Duke. That's entirely different than hyping Nazism as a true threat to our government which I maintain is not a threat. But I appreciate you agreeing with me on this so it's not clear why you're being so disagreeable. Of course I condemn reaching for the 'Nazi' label when it's unjustified just like I condemn your stretch to label the American iteration of Antifa "communist" when that's not their unifying ideology nor how they'd self identify as a group. But I have no problem calling them lawless goons if that makes you happy. But you do sound unhinged to imply they're a "communist threat".

And again, North Korea is not communist in name nor in practice while Cuba poses no threat. You're really reaching.
(cont)

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Most Violence is Right Wing. Period.

A stupid, blatantly false statement. Even if you meant "US political violence", you'd be wrong. The ADL is a leftist propaganda outfit only a step above the disgraced SPLC in credibility. The methodology of that group and similar leftist outfits has been thoroughly debunked.

https://www.thecollegefix.com/prof-debunks-study-claiming-right-wing-extremists-u-s-deadly-islamic-terrorists/

https://www.sebgorka.com/the-truth-about-right-wing-terrorism/

https://www.dailywire.com/news/49891/walsh-ilhan-omar-claims-white-men-cause-most-matt-walsh

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/11/about-those-fake-right-wing-violence-statistics.php

https://pjmedia.com/homeland-security/2017/08/14/cbs-news-host-norah-odonnell-pushes-fake-right-wing-terrorism-stats/

https://areomagazine.com/2017/05/28/no-youre-not-more-likely-to-be-killed-by-a-right-wing-extremist-than-an-islamic-terrorist/

The ADL doesn’t show its work (the full list of attacks it’s counting), but it does include this in the fine print:

”Total deaths include both ideologically and non-ideologically motivated killings.”

That’s a hell of a caveat. Basically they dig up every murder committed by someone who is tied in any way to “white supremacist” or “right wing” ideology and count it, whether the killing itself was ideological or not, while dishonestly not counting murders committed by leftists or non-whites the same way (and even excluding lots of explicitly ideological murders by those groups).

(Continued)

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A couple of years ago the GAO released a report it had been preparing for President Hillary Clinton (whoops!) claiming that most terrorism was “right wing”, to serve as an excuse for her to pivot from combating international Islamist (real) terrorism to cracking down on American “right wingers”, which had given the Clintons some traction in the mid 90s following the OKC bombing (which proved to be an aberration, not a trend).

Unlike the ADL the infamous GAO report did show its work and I read it. It quickly became clear to me and others that they were mostly counting routine “Aryan” prison gang violence as “right wing terrorism”, regardless of the victims’ races or whether there was an ideological motive or not; for example drug deals gone bad, robberies, and even things like a guy killing his own uncle as a gang initiation. The white prison gangs arose as rivals to the black and Hispanic gangs, yet none of the latter’s vastly more frequent violence was counted.

They lied.

Even in the cherry-picked examples it highlights the ADL is dishonest with its labels. For example it calls the Parkland shooting by Nikolas Cruz “right wing”, presumably because they described him as “white supremacist” for drawing some Swastikas for shock value at some point (along with lots of other stuff; I’ve seen Latino and other non-white bikers sport Swastika tattoos for the same reason), despite him being a half Jewish Hispanic who mostly killed white victims, and the shooting itself being non-political. In fact it’s been argued that Cruz’s minority status may be one reason why he slipped through the cracks and had his long history of bad/disturbing behavior buried in accordance with liberal guidelines rather than dealt with through expulsion and/or institutionalization.

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The ADL also counts Elliot Rodger, the first “incel” killer, as “right wing”. The half Asian British immigrant hated women and humanity in general because he wasn’t getting sex. That has nothing to do with “right wing”. If anything his chief complaint in his manifesto was about the lack of “fairness” and the gross “inequality” within the human race, which is why he rejected the species and talked about becoming “the closest thing there is to a living god” and committing violence to show his “worth”.

These leftist outfits typically commit category errors or label a killer “right wing” even if he also expresses left wing views (e.g. Austin suicide plane attack; a leftist Sanders supporter named Jeremy Christian who stabbed people in Portland was falsely labeled “right wing” because he had shown up to conservative rallies in Nazi regalia to troll them and was kicked out). Even the recent El Paso shooter was basically a leftist who also hated Hispanics, and spent much of his manifesto espousing his environmentalist views and his desire for social welfare programs like a universal income, which is partly why he wanted to reduce the population. The same weekend as El Paso a self proclaimed “Antifa” supporter committed a mass killing in Dayton, but that’s been largely buried by the media since his rabidly leftist views have been exposed, and because it’s unclear what the motive for the specific attack was it’ll no doubt be the kind of atrocity that gets omitted in future counts by dishonest outfits like the ADL.

But the huge difference between these alleged “right wing” attacks and the leftist or Islamist ones is that the former are invariably lone wolf, alienated young men who often have a history of psychological problems and prescription drug use (e.g. Dylan Roof, Cruz, Rodger). In fact given that the US is supermajority white, it’s astonishing that there isn’t a lot more white supremacist violence than there is.

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There is no “right wing” terrorist movement in the US. By contrast leftist violence is often coordinated at the large group level. Even leftist lone wolves can be more easily tied to mainstream liberal rhetoric than so called “right wing” killers can. While the El Paso shooter said he hated both parties and explicitly distanced himself from Trump, James Hodgkinson, who shot up the GOP congressional baseball team, was a self described “Rachel Maddow superfan” and was an active Democrat commentator indistinguishable from many on this board, aggressively taking the party line on every issue. It's Democrats using the language of war, calling themselves "the Resistance!"

The recent trend of Antifa individuals attacking ICE facilities with firebombs and/or rifles has been accompanied by manifestos repeatedly calling them “concentration camps” and spouting nonsense about “fascism”, just as AOC and a host of Democrat politicians and liberal media figures have been, and has been endorsed by Antifa groups in public statements. Gay activist Floyd Corkins specifically targeted the conservative Christian Family Research Council for mass slaughter because he saw them (falsely) listed on the SPLC’s site as a “hate group”. Micah Johnson, who murdered 5 police officers at a BLM rally in Dallas, said he wanted to “kill white people “ and cops because of “Black Lives Matters”, and what he had seen in (grossly biased) news coverage.

That doesn’t even include the huge number of isolated leftist assaults on Republicans (e.g. Rand Paul’s partisan neighbor tackling him from behind and seriously injuring him; a Pennsylvania Democrat executing his Republican local committeeman neighbor in his front lawn while the victim’s wife watched in horror https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/anti-trump-fanatic-charged-with-shooting-neighbor-twice-in-the-head).

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As for overall violent crime, in case you actually meant what you said, there were over 1.2 million incidents in 2017 according to the FBI.

https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-2017/topic-pages/violent-crime

“Right wing” attacks account for an infinitesimal percentage. Your sources deal with murder though, so assuming you meant to just speak to that, you’re still wrong. Leftist sources claim a few dozen “right wing murders” over the course of several years, the precise number depending on their particular dubious methodology. Your ADL source claims 313 “right wing” murders from 2009-2018. That’s been debunked above, but let’s use it for the sake of argument.

In 2017 alone there were 17,251 murders in the US.

https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-2017/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-3.xls

From 1980-2008, according to the Bureau of Justice, blacks committed 53% of the 565,636 murders despite being only about 13% of the population. The non-Hispanic white murder rate is unknown because the government traditionally lumps Hispanics in under “white”, but even combined it’s a minority despite them being 80% or more of the population. Blacks were 8 times more likely to commit murder than whites/Hispanics.

https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf

It’s a safe bet these black perps weren’t Nazis, the increasing leftist tendency to label even non-white Trump supporters “white supremacist” notwithstanding.

It’s also a safe bet that there were vastly more at least partly racially motivated murders by blacks that went uncounted as such than vice versa.

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But murders are only a tiny percentage of violent crime, and lone wolf attacks even tinier. Every political riot in recent years has been leftist. Occupy Wall Street; anti-WTO; Anti-police/BLM riots in Oakland, Los Angeles, Ferguson, Baltimore, NYC, Milwaukee, and elsewhere; anti-Trump riots in DC, Chicago, San Jose, Portland, and elsewhere; Antifa and other leftists rioting to shut down conservative speech at Berkeley, DC, Portland, and countless other cities. Even at Charlottesville, the one actual white nationalist rally worth mentioning, the violence was instigated by the far more numerous counterprotesters who showed up, and whose ranks were polluted with Antifa, BLM, and other unsavory characters.

https://www.dailywire.com/news/13228/here-are-all-left-wing-violent-protests-over-past-aaron-bandler
https://dailycaller.com/2017/06/16/this-list-of-attacks-against-conservatives-is-mind-blowing/

These riots and assaults leave numerous people injured, local businesses smashed, women raped, and sometimes people dead. They can involve thousands of people at a time and result in entire neighborhoods burning.

But they also have a broader impact that the rare lone wolf killings, tragic as they are, don’t. They stifle free speech and freedom of thought. That’s their stated goal. So do lower level “acts of disruption” like the long time practice of throwing pies or other items at conservative speakers on campus, or several people standing up during a lecture and chanting inane slogans repeatedly during the speech so the majority of the audience who wanted to hear it can’t. Flash mobs harassing Republicans and their families in restaurants, a tactic encouraged by Maxine Waters and some other Democrat office holders, has the further goal of driving them out of the public sphere altogether. More recently we’ve seen leftist mobs harass Republicans at their own homes at night, something that will get people killed if it continues.

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“Right wingers”, let alone conservatives, simply don’t do that stuff. The American right is libertarian, supports freedom, and wants an open, robust debate in the arena of ideas.

Islamist terrorism, which kills thousands around the world every year, similarly isn’t just about mortality rate as stupid people sometimes claim.

Terrorism targets infrastructure and poses a long term existential threat to the country. It wasn’t heart disease or white prison gangs that changed the NYC skyline forever, nor are they the ones always seeking nuclear/chemical/biological weapons.

Real terrorism has the purpose and ability to alter a people’s way of life. Like the Islamists, Antifa and leftists broadly have been trying to do just that, sometimes literally attacking “free speech” marches, to the point where Berkeley was attempting to charge conservative speakers like Ben Shapiro, Ann Coulter, etc. (the victims) exorbitant fees of hundreds of thousands of dollars for security due to the (one sided) threats they knew would erupt (a heckler’s veto). In Portland, multiple leftist groups issued violent threats warning the organizers of the annual Rose Festival parade to disinvite the local Republican group from participating (as it had in years past, along with Democrat groups) or else face attacks. The Republicans wanted to go forward but the organizers ended up canceling the parade.

”"You have seen how much power we have downtown and that the police cannot stop us from shutting down roads so please consider your decision wisely," the anonymous email said, telling organizers they could cancel the Republican group's registration or else face action from protesters. "This is non-negotiable."

https://www.oregonlive.com/rosefest/2017/04/organizers_cancel_82nd_avenue.html

So no, most political violence in America is definitely leftist. You’re wrong. Period.

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I see media figures and politicians rightly bringing attention to the rise of right wing extremism and violence (many by neo-nazis, either self identified or inspired by nazi ideology) since Trump's election because this is entirely true and legitimate.

Hogwash. The “right wing extremism and violence” crap has already been debunked, but they’re calling everyone from Trump to his cabinet members to rank and file Republican voters “white supremacists”, which is an outright lie. That gives cover and encouragement to leftist terrorist groups like Antifa to attack conservatives, cops, store owners, reporters, et..
Antifa brutally assaulted Andy Ngo, a gay half-Asian libertarian, just days after Nancy Pelosi absurdly labelled him a “white nationalist”, leaving him hospitalized. They attack people like Ben Shapiro, Ngo, Ann Coulter, Gavin McInnes, David Horowitz, Candace Owens (https://www.lifezette.com/2018/08/candace-owens-attacked-by-antifa-mob-stop-white-supremacy/), Milo Yiannopoulos (amazing how many of these so called “Nazis” are Jewish and/or non-white) and countless regular Americans who don’t have a bigoted bone in their bodies and aren’t socialists of any stripe.

https://www.dailywire.com/news/13098/watch-anti-trump-rioter-sprays-woman-face-pepper-james-barrett
https://www.bizpacreview.com/2019/08/18/antifa-thugs-knock-man-unconscious-attack-young-girl-portland-mayor-declares-largely-peaceful-event-786781

https://defensemaven.io/bluelivesmatter/news/video-antifa-beat-elderly-man-with-crowbar-bats-mace-2ctUAyDtGUWJvao37z20oQ/

Democrats and other leftists call Trump and Republicans “Nazis” purely as a political tactic. It’s cynical, dishonest, and disgusting.

You have no idea what you’re talking about.

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Neo-nazis and white supremacists see Trump as their guy, just ask David Duke.

Know any others? No, I didn’t think so. That you predictably have to cite “Duke” just underscores how few white nationalists there are (even Duke’s not a Nazi). They tend to view Trump as a lesser evil, but there are far more Marxists, black nationalists, murderers, and other unsavory types who support Democrat candidates. Democrats rarely if ever are even asked to push back against those elements. By contrast Trump has condemned Duke repeatedly over the years unprompted, and even left the Reform Party years ago when he found out Duke had joined it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoXThCb8EZA
That talking point really blew up in your face.
That's entirely different than hyping Nazism as a true threat to our government which I maintain is not a threat. But I appreciate you agreeing with me on this so it's not clear why you're being so disagreeable.

You’re the one arguing with me genius. It’s my thread.

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Of course I condemn reaching for the 'Nazi' label when it's unjustified just like I condemn your stretch to label the American iteration of Antifa "communist" when that's not their unifying ideology nor how they'd self identify as a group. But I have no problem calling them lawless goons if that makes you happy. But you do sound unhinged to imply they're a "communist threat".

It’s a radical leftist group (“unifying ideology”) founded by the German Communist party that includes many self described “communists”, with the rest calling themselves socialists or anarchists of various stripes but basically echoing the same rhetoric with the same goals (they're not anarchocapitalists, lol). They hold signs saying things like, “Only socialist revolution can defeat capitalist reaction” (talk of “revolution” is pervasive) and sport classic communist hammer and sickles or even wave Soviet flags.

https://thefederalist.com/2017/11/01/antifa-not-fighting-freedom-communist-revolution/

Antifa “actions” are often directly controlled by communist parties even today.

https://revcom.us/a/501/rcp-statement-why-we-have-taken-up-fight-to-build-refuse-fascism-en.html

Click through these pictures at the bottom of the page.

https://worldaffairs.blog/2017/08/16/antifa-international-violent-communist-gang-slideshow/

https://m.theepochtimes.com/antifa-tied-to-communist-revolutionary-groups-shows-documentary_2323144.html

Soviet flags and other classic communist symbols are way more common in street demonstrations than Nazi flags are. It’s not even close. Yet you blindly defend liberals like Nancy Pelosi falsely smearing innocent people as “white supremacists” as “legitimate” while wanting to ignore all the real communist activity. Your argument is unhinged.

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And again, North Korea is not communist in name nor in practice while Cuba poses no threat. You're really reaching.

China is certainly communist in name and that country alone is enough to constitute a serious threat, so that argument doesn’t work. Cuba alone is more of a threat than Nazi-run countries are, since there are no Nazi countries.

North Korea is very much communist. Almost its entire economy is state owned and collectivist. It identifies as state “socialist”, the formal governing ideology being called “Juche”, an outgrowth of Marxism-Leninism with a bit more nationalist bent. It was founded by communists and openly called itself “communist” for more than half a century (the recent tweak to the irrelevant “constitution” still left the “socialist” reference, and is likely just a futile attempt at post-Cold War PR marketing given the communist bloc’s embarrassing defeat), and has always been allied with other communist nations, including China to this day. Like other communist nations it’s a one party system ruled by the Workers' Party of Korea (a classic Marxist name).

You’re the one reaching, so hard in such convoluted, hypocritical fashion that I hope you don’t break your back.
"Respect" really had nothing to do with why I responded to your two post reply in sequence. It just never occurred to me to do otherwise.

Actually it was out of sequence, especially since the first post literally ended with "continued", and it not occurring to you was my point. But since you claim below this is your last reply I went ahead and responded here instead of consolidating the discussion below.

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This is partly driven by radical leftist groups like Antifa calling everyone they attack "Nazi" to justify their actions, even when they're beating Hispanics, Jews, Asians, blacks, etc.. That's unhinged, not me merely commenting on it, and their actions are often cheered by celebrities or media figures. Antifa, founded by the German Communist Party, claims to be a mix of communists, "anarchists", and socialists of various stripes, underscoring how problematic drawing a bright line between "communists" and "socialists" is. They clearly overlap. In fact Marx used the terms interchangeably, and obviously the USSR stood for Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

When the aforementioned communists like Che Guevara, Castro, Mao, and Lenin are routinely lionized by students, professors, or even an NFL player (who is himself lionized by the media and even corporations like Nike), quibbling over the precise proper definitional boundaries of “socialism” and “communism” would be a misguided attempt at being recondite rather than a clear comment about plain reality. The latter, a dose of reality, is useful given the context. Those self describing as “socialist” in the US are at an all time high, and while they come in different flavors they’re all trying to pull the country in the direction of less private property. Communism, whichever precise definition one wants to use, is plugged into that. Nazism isn’t. There is no Nazi movement in the US. There’s more of one in Europe though that’s still dwarfed by “black bloc” style socialist activists.

I used “communism” in the op rather than “socialism” because it’s more widely associated with the Marxist regimes, and I’m focusing on the contrast between two flavors of totalitarianism, the defunct one getting massive undeserved hype while the one still posing a threat is played down or even defended….often by the same people hyping up the former.

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"They clearly overlap. In fact Marx used the terms interchangeably, and obviously the USSR stood for Union of Soviet Socialist Republics."

This is irrelevant. All ideologies overlap to some extent with others. That doesn't justify conflating socialism with communism when socialism predates Marx and Communism and encompasses far more nuance and schools of thought than the strain of revolutionary socialism associated with Marx. Like I was saying, communism is a dead ideology. Its central tenet of radical redistribution was tried and it failed miserably. No one is advocating for it anymore. There is no national communist movement.

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I wish that was true. But Marxist ideology permeates leftist rhetoric more than old school American libertarianism does. One can't honestly pretend otherwise with a flippant dismissal about "all ideologies overlap(ping)". That's aside from the fact that communists still control multiple nations, some with nuclear weapons.

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"flippant dismissal about "all ideologies overlap(ping)""

I'll spend a little time explaining this before wrapping this up as the last post I'll read in this thread because what sounds flippant to you should be obvious were you more informed on the history and the subject matter and I just don't have the sustained patience. Fascism and some strains of conservatism overlap. Would that justify conflating conservatism with fascism? No, because overlapping ideologies in itself is not justification for conflation. Referring to socialism as communism is no more justifiable when socialism split from Marx and his school of "communist" socialism from the start when libertarian socialist Mikhail Bakunin presciently rejected Marx's "dictatorship of the proletariat" arguing if a Marxist party came to power, its leaders would just replace the tyranny of the ruling class they had overthrown with their own.

Socialism is far broader and includes anti-authoritarian schools that had always rejected communism while evolving under the 'socialist' banner. You can argue that all communists self identify as socialists but the reverse is certainly not true. That's because Marx added a bunch of crap to the ideology under the 'communist' banner that many socialists reject including self identified socialists in the US. To lump Democratic Socialists in with Communists or try imply their influence came from Marx is just historically ignorant and an egregiously noobish contradiction in terms. Democratic Socialism evolved separately in the UK under the banner of Fabian Socialism that advocated reform through laws, elections, and other peaceful democratic means. Communism poses no threat among Democratic Socialists in the United States that reject its branded authoritarianism, your hyperbolic and unfounded Jordan Peterson nightmare notwithstanding. /done

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Fascism and some strains of conservatism overlap. Would that justify conflating conservatism with fascism

Depends on which “conservativism” you’re talking about, since words like “conservative” and “liberal” mean completely different things in different national/historical contexts. In continental Europe, for example, “conservative” often refers to support for an expansive welfare state. In former communist countries it often refers to communists. You’ve consistently shown gross ignorance of history, political terminology, and the modern American empirical political reality.

“Fascism”, which unlike communism doesn’t control any nations or exist as an ideological force today, does not overlap with US conservatism at all. The American right is qualitatively different from the European right in that its extreme edge is libertarian (though center-right European parties have gradually emulated US conservatives over the decades, and even “far right” European parties generally aren’t fascist today). Fascism supported centralized government power with regimented command over the economy and typically a military dictatorship, along with a big welfare state that would ostensibly address capitalism’s “failings”.

Today “fascist” is just an epithet radical leftists use against their opponents. If anything US “liberals” (another terminological inversion) have more in common with fascists as well as communists than US conservatives do. Fascists and communists certainly have more in common with each other than they do with either US party (and not just “autocracy”), highlighting the inadequacy of the one dimensional spectrum.

(continued)

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By contrast moderate American “liberals” only differ from communists and other hard leftists by matters of degree, and often share issue stances because they’re all trying to pull the country in the direction of less private property and more government control.

That’s why overtly self-identifying communists move so freely throughout the broader left and have such power and influence, unlike Nazism which was a singular movement limited in its appeal. I never said all socialists are Marxists. In fact I articulated the opposite much earlier. For that matter not all communists are Marxists (English utopian socialist John Barmby founded the London Communist Propaganda Society 7 years before Marx published the Communist Manifesto), though there’s only space here to educate you on so much. While communism and various types of socialism continued to evolve after Marx, they’ve mostly done so within the same milieu and with actual overlap.

That’s why Che Guevara shirts and other communist symbolism is so popular among students, professors, and some celebrities ( https://www.thechestore.com/ ) while no one wears Mussolini shirts, lol. I’ve never seen anyone sporting a Hitler shirt either. There has also been a long history of Soviet sympathizers impacting US policy. From future New Deal architects like Rex Tugwell, Harry Dexter White (Soviet spy), and Stuart Chase visiting the USSR as a group in 1927 and coming away impressed (Chase, influenced by both Fabian socialism and Soviet communism, wrote a book called A New Deal for America in which he asked “Why should the Russians have all the fun of remaking a world?”) to self-described “communist” Van Jones becoming an Obama advisor and CNN host to John Brennan admitting he had voted for the Communist Party USA (which he apparently remained proud of) and still somehow becoming the head of the CIA of all things.

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Paul Samuelson, 20th Century America’s foremost Keynesian economist, wasn’t a self-described communist but consistently overestimated communist “success” as most Western leftists did, because they agreed with various elements of its guiding ideology. In his famous Economics, the most widely read economics textbook in US history, he kept predicting that the USSR would eclipse the USA in GDP, despite having to push the date this would supposedly happen further out with each new edition over the decades.

As late as the 1989 edition, he wrote, “Contrary to what many skeptics had earlier believed, the Soviet economy is proof that a socialist, command economy can function and even thrive."

Late that year the communist bloc began collapsing and the Soviet Union dissolved before his next edition was published.

Then there are KGB attempts to infiltrate the civil rights movement, the Black Panthers ultimately embracing Marxist dogma as their guiding principles, and Marxist created Liberation Theology, an attempt to infiltrate and co-opt religious Latin Americans and racial minorities in the US, that formed the core ideology of Jeremiah Wright’s church that Obama attended for years. The environmentalist movement has been so hijacked by state socialists that many in it openly call themselves “watermelons” (green on the outside, red on the inside). Marxist infiltration and co-option of US movements is a common theme.

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Now we’ve got the spectacle of numerous Democratic presidential candidates pledging to abolish all private health insurance, impose racial “reparations”, and end economic “inequality” while holding businesses “accountable” (for what exactly isn’t usually clear). Bernie Sanders is now just one of many politicians self-describing as “socialist”. The guy who almost won the Democratic nomination in 2016 has a history of praising Soviet-style breadlines, communist Sandinistas, democratic socialist Venezuela, and many things Cuban, and he honeymooned in the Soviet Union. He didn’t seem to place bright lines around all these things, and neither, generally speaking, have their respective leaders or legions of ignorant admirers.

So we’ve got enormous, distortive influence across society and policy impacting the American way of life. We’ve got multiple nations ruled by communists, two nuclear armed, one the most populous on earth. We’ve got Antifa, a group founded by the German communist party and filled with communists who routinely sport communist logos, committing most US political violence and negatively impacting cherished values like free speech at institutions and entire cities.

Maybe you don’t view all this as a threat because you like aspects of it, but since you already agreed with labeling China “communist” (as their “flavor of autocracy”), that country alone having nuclear weapons and being our rival is enough to settle this debate. I’m not even sure why you tried to dispute this.

Your equivalence is false and your argument fails.

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There is a new Nazi in the White House.

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And leftists claim that "Nazis deserve death and nothing else",* ergo.....


BTW, falsely accusing people of being "Nazis" makes you look ludicrously out of touch with reality and annihilates your credibility. At best you appear ignorant.


*Connor Betts https://nypost.com/2019/08/06/dayton-shooter-may-be-antifas-first-mass-killer/

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The New York Post is laughable as a source. They originated the term fake news 43 years ago when Murdoch bought it.

"The Post, according to a survey conducted by Pace University in 2004, was rated the least-credible major news outlet in New York."




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Are you challenging the quote I posted, lol? If so say so. Don't be a cowardly weasel that tries to cloud things up without making sincere points.

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"The Post, according to a survey conducted by Pace University in 2004, was rated the least-credible major news outlet in New York."

Be Best

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lulz. He is a bit slow on the uptake. Props for having more patience engaging in repetition for his benefit than I would.

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I lost patience which is why I just cut and pasted it. Perhaps he'll read it slower in order to comprehend it this time.

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Seriously, by fishing for help from other posters (especially one as dimwitted and borderline trollish as Keelai) you're coming off as desperate. It's pitiful. You're praising her for "repetition", LMFAO? She dodged the question without making a meaningful point, and it had nothing to do with our debate. We've established you're a moron but at least have some dignity.

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lmao! Your babbling incoherence speaks for itself beautifully.

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So you aren't challenging the quote, LOL? Good. You have no relevant point then.

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You were challenged. Your Murdoch owned tabloid isn't credible. You lost. 😜

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You're trying too hard. It only draws more attention to your debate embarrassments.

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For repeating that your source isn't credible after it was said to you twice already?

TBH, that really didn't require much effort.

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Effort in endless forced emoticons, cravenly rushing to backslap and associate with any poster I argue with no matter inane their comments are, protesting too much, etc.. And here it was a weak claim by biased partisans that has nothing to do with my post if keelai isn't challenging the quote I posted. It's hilarious that you lack the self awareness to avoid talking about the Dayton shooter after your spectacular faceplant on the topic:

https://moviechat.org/bd0000082/Politics/5d47d6c89f3c622265e18a9d/So-it-turns-out-that-the-Dayton-killer-is-a-leftist-Elizabeth-Warren-and-AOC-supporter-who-is-a-socialist-antifa-bro-n?reply=5d48ff641e1dc6397a3ee59a

Then again your crushing faceplants occur so frequently that you probably can't keep track of them.



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I'm still waiting for someone to seriously contest the op. The only attempt so far was some quibbling about whether China is really communist or not given their partial free market reforms in recent decades, which is missing the forest for the trees. It's ruled by communists (which is what my op actually says) who espouse communist ideology, it's controlled by the Communist Party in a one party system in a format similar to other communist countries, it's oppressively atheist in classic Marxist fashion, and even its economy is still heavily socialist, with most of its biggest companies across numerous industries directly state owned and much of the private sector controlled by the government in various ways via edicts, regulations, taxes, and the lack of checks and balances, a feature of the country's communist political system. So yes, China is communist, even with a mixed economy, certainly in terms of political rule.

Semantics over China aside, in that greater forest it's clear that communists pose a much greater threat to Americans and their way of life than Nazis do.

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So no one wants to try to construct an argument that Nazis pose a greater threat than communists? We're all in agreement then? Good.

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Communism isn't the threat to capitalism. Technology is. Communism is the boogeyman that corporations point to so that CEOs can keep wages as low as possible without a riot or without unions taking over.

As AI and robot tech improves, the free market will either destroy itself by eliminating all jobs or socialism will have to be expanded to limit the free market's usage of that tech to allow people to continue working.

As technology increases, so does socialism. There's no way around it. If you think there is, you haven't really thought about it.

Meanwhile, Nazism encourages people to hate each other. Hate begets hate, which begets hate. Its a poison on society. Socialism will become a necessity when technology surpasses what human workers can do. Nazism will never be a necessity for anything.

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That might be an interesting debate for another thread,* but this one is contrasting the unjustified and often absurd hand wringing over "Nazism" with the different treatment the media and liberal noisemakers give communism, which is still an actual threat to the country and world. You don't touch on the topic until the final paragraph and your assumption is off.

State socialism isn't some noble ideal that may or may not work in reality. It's inherently evil. It cultivates base emotions like hatred and envy, fosters hatred of entire classes and broad categories of people, obliterates the individual, and seeks to displace higher, spiritual virtues with utter materialism. For all the grief capitalism gets on that score from socialists at least it leaves room for other things. It's no coincidence that studies have shown, for example, that conservatives give way more money, time, and blood to charity than leftists do.

https://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/opinion/21kristof.html?em

Just look at where the actual hate is coming from. You're far more likely to see it in action at a typical leftist protest than a gathering of conservatives. Listen to the leftist vile on full display:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPhmk4ZiVJM&feature=youtu.be&t=701

*I'm not sure what will come of new technology and if you are then you haven't studied history. Predictions like the one you're repeating have been made for centuries. So far they've always proved wrong, as each time people have found new stuff to do. Frankly on futurism my concerns run deeper than jobs and involve human nature itself, but again that's another topic.






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It fits in this thread because communism isn't an actual threat to anything. As I said, its just a scare tactic that corporations use to keep wages as low as possible. Technology is the real threat to capitalism. And when technology starts tempting the free market to take jobs away from people, corporations will continue to blame that loss of jobs on communism.

Think about it. We have AI that can talk on the phone with people who have the thickest accents and get everything down without the person knowing they are talking to a computer. We have cars that drive themselves. And what are YOU talking about? Communism. Its just a diversion away from real issues... like its always been.

"We can't raise minimum wage to $15! We can't have healthcare for everyone! What are you? Some damn Commie?"

Maybe that crap still works in 2020. Thats what your Republican establishment empire is banking on. We'll see.

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I disagree, but does that mean you're even more annoyed by all the talk about alleged "Nazis", which dwarfs warnings about "communism"? Doesn't that distract even more from real problems, lol?

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The hatred that Nazism brings was the driving force behind the death of Heather Heyer. So I'd have to say its worth warning about. Also, Trump's presidency has stoked more openness of pro-Nazi attitudes. Since we're seeing an increase of Nazi rhetoric, it makes all the sense in the world to curb it before it gets an opportunity to take more lives.

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Actually her death resulted from a collision of hatred on both sides, except there are vastly more leftist radicals than "Nazis". There is no "Nazi" rhetoric in public and it's certainly not condoned by Trump, who has done nothing but condemn that crap. In fact the fake specter of a "Nazi threat" is routinely used as an excuse to silence conservatives and libertarians, who are the opposite of Nazis.

The hatred accompanying socialism and leftist rhetoric was the driving force behind Micah Johnson murdering several people in Dallas, saying he wanted to kill "white people" and cops because of "Black Lives Matters". It drove James Hodgkinson, self-described "Rachel Maddow superfan", to shoot up GOP congressmen at baseball practice. It prompted Floyd Corkins to try and massacre the mainstream conservative Family Research Council.

BS about "concentration camps" and "fascism" is repeatedly cited in the manifesto of the latest Antifa terrorist to attack ICE (with firebombs; he was killed in the process).

The very name "Antifa" supposedly stands for "anti-fascism", the lies that their opponents are fascist serving as the driving force behind the US group responsible for most political violence in the country. I could go on and on.

But I appreciate you coming along and supporting my op by serving as a useful prop and example.

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Antifa attacks Nazis to prevent people like Heather Heyer from dying.

Nazis attack people like Heather Heyer because Nazis are scum of the earth.

Trump and his supporters defend Nazis because they need Nazis to win an election, even if it means more Heather Heyer(s) dying. If and when another Heather Heyer dies, with no Nazi casualty, it will always be "because of both sides" according to Trump's rhetoric. Votes are more important than truth to him.

Black Lives Matter goes way beyond leftist rhetoric. BLM is a constant battle between black communities and police departments which have harsher standards for black communities than they do for white communities.

You can say "well, there is more violence in black communities." But all you're doing is admitting BLM has a point. If there is more violence in black communities that causes police departments in those communities to be more violent in response, then you admit police departments in black communities are more violent even against innocent individuals... because those innocents happen to live in black communities.

However, year after year, police deaths lessen. But the deaths of unarmed black people by cops? Not so much.

Also, as a nod to the other discussion we are having in the other thread. Nike's profits went up by siding with Colin Kaepernick. How is that possible if diversity isn't a boon for capitalism?

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/business/nike-reports-double-digit-profit-growth-after-colin-kaepernick-controversy

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Almost none of the people Antifa has attacked are Nazis.

Totalitarians of any stripe, whether Nazis or Marxists, are the scum of the earth. So are people who falsely accuse innocent people of being Nazis.

Trump has never "defended Nazis" and there aren't enough Nazis in the country to affect the mayoral vote of a decent sized city, let alone a presidential election. You feel you need to keep lying on a regular basis to give your side a chance in elections. Disgusting.

Violence in black neighborhoods is driven by criminals, not cops. Lying to smear cops and encouraging hostility toward them is also reprehensible, and it's getting more police killed. "Unarmed" blacks killed by cops is statistically negligible, and most of those are still justified when the full facts are revealed.

Multiple academic studies have shown that cops are more likely to shoot whites than blacks if anything, when interactions are accounted for. Black Lives Matters is an inherently bigoted movement founded on lies (e.g. "hands up don't shoot").

As for Nike, exceptions happen, especially with a big free push by biased media (look at fake Doctor Who's initial audience, or Captain Marvel's). It doesn't take a big percentage of the population to prop up a company. But let's see how long that lasts (D Who's ratings tanked and Marvel got terrible word of mouth from fans). They've branded themselves anti-American and pro cop-killer. I own Nikes right now that I bought a month before that commercial came out. I won't burn or trash them because they're my shoes, but I'll never buy a Nike product again without a radical change in leadership and direction. These things can take time.

But there are plenty of counter examples, as I pointed out on the other thread, from Gillette to most tv shows to the entire comics industry.

Whether a company succeeds or not typically has nothing to do with "diversity". It's about making a good product that people want.





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"Almost none of the people Antifa has attacked are Nazis."

The people Antifa generally attack are people who openly don some sort of Nazi or KKK garb. The only other group Antifa attacks are the Proud Boys which even Gavin McInnes himself has agreed went south real fast and walked back pretty much all of his pro-violence statements. So... victory for Antifa?

I agree with you that Antifa goes too far and causes more damage than it helps. You can't stop hate with hate. It just doesn't work. But lets be honest here. Fascism came first, before Anti-Fascism. Anti-Fascism is a response to the rise in Fascism. Nazis are not here to end Antifa. Nazis are here to spread Nazism. Antifa is here to end Nazism. The mistake Antifa makes is that its impossible to end Nazism by going fist to fist with it. Violence only gives Nazism an excuse to remain violent.

Trump defends Nazis by pretending they don't exist, and by defending Nazi rhetoric. Trump needs Nazi rhetoric to remain because it inspires his tribalist base to support him. Is that better?

"Violence in black neighborhoods is driven by criminals, not cops."

Where did I say violence in black communities was driven by cops? What I said was cops have to match a higher level of violence with their own. What I also said was that innocent people get caught in the middle of it more often in black communities than they do in white communities.

What the left says about innocent black people: "The cops are too harsh on those who are doing what they can to limit the violence of their community."

What the right says about innocent black people: *crickets*... Then they change the subject to criminals. Then they change it to athletes disrespecting the flag. Anything they can do to avoid the subject.

"Whether a company succeeds or not typically has nothing to do with "diversity"."

Because there's no surefire roadmap to a successful business. But once a venture is profitable, diversity has been documented to improve it.

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The people Antifa generally attack are people who openly don some sort of Nazi or KKK garb.

Lie. There aren't enough "Nazis" or KKK members in the country for a group like Antifa to even oppose. Antifa smashes businesses, reporters, peaceful libertarian/conservative protesters, and random passersby.

Perhaps most infamously (because there was so much video), they launched a brutal mob assault against conservative journalist Andy Ngo, a gay man of Vietnamese descent, inducing a brain hemorrhage requiring hospitalization. A mob of about 10 Antifa ambushed, maced, and savagely beat two Marine Reservists walking down the street minding their own business. They repeatedly called the Reservists "Nazis!" and "white supremacists". Both Marines are Hispanic, not that being Anglo white would have made them Nazis.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/marines-testify-about-antifa-mob-they-say-attacked-them-in-philadelphia

I could list many more examples, like the assault on Joey Gibson, a soft spoken libertarian who founded Patriots Prayer and seeks peaceful dialogue while standing up for free speech. Nancy Pelosi publicly smeared the man, who's half Japanese, as a "white supremacist" shortly before Antifa assaulted him and others.

https://pjmedia.com/trending/2017/08/27/violent-mob-attacks-trump-supporters-berkeley-patriot-prayer-leader-rescued-police/

Off the top of my head I don't know of any Nazis Antifa's attacked. They're always attacking innocent people. Not that simply being a Nazi justifies attacking someone anyway. Committing violence against people for their beliefs is anAmerican and shows a totalitarian mind set.

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Its kinda hard to pinpoint these crimes on a group. Oftentimes its just a guy by himself claiming he's part of a group, and the group gets blamed. Antifa isn't just every dude who calls someone a Nazi. Antifa are an organized group that organize to commit violence as a group.. though usually its just bully tactics such as staring people down with a mask on.

The El Paso guy is another example. Is he a Nazi or is he just a white nationalist inspired by Trump rhetoric? The latter makes more sense. People call him a Nazi because its easy. But most of the reporting clarifies him as a white nationalist. When you have Nazi, KKK and white nationalists all pretty much supporting the same thing, its easy to call them all Nazis. The left just has Antifa. So according to Fox News, a member of Antifa can be anybody that walks up to someone and calls them a Nazi. Its ridiculous.

In the case of Heather Heyer, I blame it on Nazis because, right after it happened, the Nazis that were there took credit for it. They said they scored it a victory that day because they got a kill and the other side did not.

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The El Paso shooter wasn't inspired by "Trump rhetoric". He even predicted the media would claim that and he preemptively debunked it in his manifesto. Heck, his manifesto spewed environmentalist and pro social welfare rhetoric. That was part of his motivation for wanting to reduce the population, to protect the environment and so the nation could afford left wing policies.

Americans wanting a stable border doesn't mean they hate Hispanics or want anyone harmed.

By contrast the repeated attacks on ICE facilities, GOP Congressmen, the Family Research Council, Dallas cops, and others I mentioned were entirely motivated by leftist rhetoric.

I don't recall any "Nazis" taking credit for the Heather Heyer killing, but then I don't spend much time following 12 irrelevant people closely. BTW, Jason Kessler, the organizer of the thing, was a two time Obama voter and former Occupy Protester who still holds leftist views and only left the Democrats because they're increasingly hostile to whites.

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The only other group Antifa attacks are the Proud Boys which even Gavin McInnes himself has agreed went south real fast and walked back pretty much all of his pro-violence statements. So... victory for Antifa?

A lie, as already documented, and Gavin McInnes never advocated any violence except in self defense, which he and the Proud Boys still fully support. They also oppose "white nationalism" and as freedom lovers are basically the opposite of Nazis.

Antifa doesn't "win" anything. Antifa are a bunch of weak cowards who only act in massive mobs. When they face the Proud Boys or other conservative groups when the latter have any numbers at all, even if it's still skewed in Antifa's favor, the conservatives beat them in the street fights. But it's invariably the leftists who start the fights. The conservatives just finish them.
Fascism came first, before Anti-Fascism. Anti-Fascism is a response to the rise in Fascism. Nazis are not here to end Antifa. Nazis are here to spread Nazism. Antifa is here to end Nazism.

Actually Marxism predates fascism by almost a century. Antifa was created by the German Communist Party and they still sport the scruples one would expect from such origins.

Their goal is to overthrow the United States in "revolution" (their frequent word of choice), and they cynically call anyone they decide to attack "Nazis" or "KKK" (including explicitly "all police are KKK!" in some chants).

Communism and Nazism share more similarities than differences where it counts.


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"Actually Marxism predates fascism by almost a century. Antifa was created by the German Communist Party and they still sport the scruples one would expect from such origins."

I'm talking about in the context of this conversation, junior. The type of "fascism" we're seeing today, like what was in Charlottesville, came before what we perceive as the current state of Antifa in the US. Kinda like how US Nazis are not real Nazis. they are Neo-Nazis. But we call them Nazis. In the 80s we knew them as skinheads. I couldn't go anywhere in south Florida in the 80s without hearing about skinheads. Yet not once did I ever hear a peep about Antifa.

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More BS. Almost all violent political riots in the US have been leftist since the 1960s, boy. Antifa was imported in the late 2000s but Marxist groups were already upping the loony assault factor throughout the Bush administration.

We aren't seeing any type of "fascism" today. Charlottesville was a singular event that gathered about all the "white nationalists" (not even the same as "fascist", but educating you on the definition of fascism would make this exchange even longer than it already is) there are in the country and they were still dwarfed in size by counter protesters.

There is no fascist threat, unless you count leftist groups like Antifa as fascist. They certainly employ the tactics classically attributed to fascists, even literally demonstrating in opposition to free speech.

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The Weather Underground were violent, causing the departure of Bill Ayers. But that was pretty much it for leftist crazies. And not a response to fascism.

"There is no fascist threat"

Oh no? Nobody killing brown skinned people at the El Paso border?

"unless you count leftist groups like Antifa as fascist. They certainly employ the tactics classically attributed to fascists, even literally demonstrating in opposition to free speech."

Yet there hasn't been one single Antifa massacre leaving a multitude of deaths. Proving that all Antifa are is a bunch of bullies. I don't like bullies and I don't like murderers. But I'll definitely take one over the other. And you're quite ignorant for pretending the murdering white nationalists do not exist.

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The Weather Underground were violent, causing the departure of Bill Ayers. But that was pretty much it for leftist crazies. And not a response to fascism.

In the 60s and 70s?!?! Unless you count the Black Panthers, Symbionese Liberation Army, or counterculture violence ranging from Charles Manson's hippie cult murders to the numerous protests-turned riots at Columbia, Berkeley, the 1968 Democratic convention, and many more, often led by radical groups like the SDS (Students for a Democratic Society). And Ayers' spin is BS.
"There is no fascist threat"
Oh no? Nobody killing brown skinned people at the El Paso border?

One racially bigoted kid isn't a "fascist" threat. You do realize fascism is primarily an economic ideology don't you? The same weekend an anti-Trump socialist and Antifa supporter murdered a bunch of people at Dayton, and violence from people like that is more of a pattern than anti-minority violence is. The El Paso guy doesn't even represent a racial threat. "Brown skinned" people are way more likely to murder whites than vice versa. It's not even close.
Yet there hasn't been one single Antifa massacre leaving a multitude of deaths.

Unless you count Dayton. Unclear motive but he was deep into Antifa rhetoric and that mind set so the fuel was ripe for just about any spark to set it off. And BLM and other leftists have murdered lots of people.

But murders are a tiny percentage of violence, let alone crime. Antifa and other leftist groups commit almost all the mass street violence, and have a negative impact on freedom of speech, free thought, basic civility, and the economy.
And you're quite ignorant for pretending the murdering white nationalists do not exist.

You're ignorant for claiming they're a big problem, one eclipsing the very real, much greater leftist threat. White nationalists have been totally marginalized for decades. Marxists haven't been.

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Trump defends Nazis by pretending they don't exist, and by defending Nazi rhetoric. Trump needs Nazi rhetoric to remain because it inspires his tribalist base to support him. Is that better?

Twisted projection, especially since Trump has repeatedly condemned the very few Nazis that do exist (mostly a few kids playing dress up for shock value). You just basically smeared half the country as Nazis.

The truth is Antifa has to call people like cops, Hispanic Marine Reservists, half Japanese libertarians, and gay journalists of Vietnamese descent "Nazis" to justify their violence against them. People like you and Nancy Pelosi enable them with your rhetoric. You lie and smear Trump and his supporters as "Nazis" because you feel it will help you win elections.

Disgusting.
What the right says about innocent black people: *crickets*... Then they change the subject to criminals.

Wrong. I'm not sure what "innocent" blacks you're talking about. The high profile BLM cases have involved "victims" who were doing something wrong. Conservatives talk about innocent black victims of violent crime all the time, or in the rare cases where someone is wrongly gunned down or abused in some way by the law conservatives are all for holding the cop or prosecutor accountable (e.g. Amber Guyger, Michael Slager cases). When black citizens have been prosecuted by liberal states like New York for defending their homes and shooting (in some high profile examples white) intruders, it's been largely conservatives defending them.

"Whether a company succeeds or not typically has nothing to do with "diversity"."

Because there's no surefire roadmap to a successful business. But once a venture is profitable, diversity has been documented to improve it.

Hogwash. And even if that was true, racial fixation wouldn't be a good thing that should be encouraged. If people negatively respond to skin color that's a BAD thing.

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"You just basically smeared half the country as Nazis."

Lol, no I didn't. I first said Trump defended Nazis. You didn't like that, so I clarified that Trump defended Nazi rhetoric. Trump's base is about 30% of the population. I would say that 30% also defends Nazi rhetoric, but not all of them live by it. There is a big difference. Many of those 30% defend Nazi rhetoric to either troll the left or argue with them.

"I'm not sure what "innocent" blacks you're talking about."

People like Eric Garner and Tamir Rice. Trayvon Martin got it started with police heavily siding with Zimmerman before the investigation even began. Then later on we learned what a madman Zimmerman actually was.

"If people negatively respond to skin color that's a BAD thing. "

There is no negative response though. Lets say you made $1,000,000 in profits off of $100,000 overhead. Then the next year you make $1,200,000 in profits. Is the $1,000,000 now bad? No. That $1,000,000 wasn't bad. It was status quo.

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You haven't cited a single piece of "Nazi" rhetoric defended by Trump or his supporters. Lies like yours echo Antifa's though, the scumbags who call Hispanics and Jews "white supremacists" and who call black conservatives and cops even worse, as the video I posted shows.

"I'm not sure what "innocent" blacks you're talking about."

People like Eric Garner and Tamir Rice. Trayvon Martin got it started with police heavily siding with Zimmerman before the investigation even began. Then later on we learned what a madman Zimmerman actually was.

Eric Garner was breaking the law and resisting arrest. It's a stupid law passed by big government NY liberals, but don't blame the cops for enforcing the law. They stood around with unimaginable patience for an hour or so trying to talk to the guy and persuade him to peacefully surrender. He never did and they eventually had to take him down. It's a travesty that the cop who just did his job is becoming the victim of vindictive ideologues who couldn't care less about innocence or true justice.

Tamir Rice was a tragic accident. Police got the call that there was a black male pointing a gun at people passing by. When they arrived and ordered him to raise his hands, instead he pulled out a toy gun that looked like a real one. A lot of cops have been killed at routine traffic stops or even when just trying to help people for not reacting fast enough when something like that happened. I'm not sure what your point is here.

Trayvon Martin assaulted Zimmerman, got on top of him, and beat him for around a full minute, slamming his head into concrete and shouting that he was going to kill him. If anything Zimmerman showed patience, finally fired once to save his own life, and then called police and an ambulance for Martin.

Those are some of the highest profile BLM cases. You're only making my point.




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Then the next year you make $1,200,000 in profits. Is the $1,000,000 now bad? No. That $1,000,000 wasn't bad. It was status quo.

It's less (aka inferior). In your scenario people are being judged solely by their skin color.

While some types of movies may appeal more to certain subcultures, fortunately in real life people seem to have no problem viewing movies with actors of a skin color different than theirs if it's a film that appeals to them. Race per se doesn't seem to make the difference.

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Police recently followed the social media of James Reardon and managed to prevent his lethal attack against a Jewish center.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OY-raWPPqI&t=60s

But to you... there's no problem... nothing to see here. Right?

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Police did their job. Wonder if they'll get any credit for it from the left. From your article:

"Reardon faces two states charges: Telecommunications harassment and aggravated menacing."

Don't know if he would have attacked anyone or not, but it'd be nice if they took action against the vastly more rampant leftist menacing comments. A leftist like Peter Fonda can tweet out a suggestion that they should kidnap the President's 11 year old son, put him in a cage, and feed him to pedophiles, and even that doesn't draw legal punishment. Sitting office holders like Dem. Maxine Waters can openly encourage the movement to drive Trump supporters from public through mob harassment tactics. Leftist rhetoric is frequently vile and often threatening.

Wait, are you still trying to compare the occasional lone wolf oddball in a country of over 300 million to a mass ideological movement?? Seriously?

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Or how about the leftist mob recently harassing Mitch Mcconnell and his family outside of his home in the middle of the night, shouting expletives at them, death fantasies about him being stabbed in the heart, and other vile crap?

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2019/08/08/twitter-blocks-mcconnells-campaign-account-n2551382
https://www.theepochtimes.com/black-lives-matter-activist-who-called-for-mitch-mcconnell-to-be-killed-refuses-to-apologize_3034552.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-Cv0DhzWRw


Isn't that "aggravated menacing"? Last I heard none of those scumbags had even been arrested despite the ring leader (the one spewing the most violent rhetoric on video) being identified as leftist activist Chanelle Helm, who has a history of racially bigoted comments and who has ties to the local mayor.

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Here's an interesting article about how far-right groups like Proud Boys work with right-wing media to blame "antifa" to take eyes away from white nationalism.

https://www.salon.com/2019/08/13/how-trump-and-fox-news-work-with-fascists-to-spread-hateful-propaganda/

That goal isn't to fight antifa, but to use it so they can have their "both sides" argument. Proud Boys will hold events called "end domestic terrorism," but will then spew rhetoric that causes passersby to get angry. And if a fight breaks out... Fox News calls it Antifa. Then the White House gets to skate by saying the violence is on both sides. Its all by design.

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Salon sucks. Amanda Marcotte, who's a terrible writer (I needed a machete to get through her loaded prose), didn't support her lying assertion with any evidence. Leftists have been assaulting people for a long time, from anti-WTO riots to throwing pies at conservative speakers like David Horowitz to shut down their college speeches.

https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/david_horowitz_hit_by_pie_at_butler_lecture/

With outfits like Antifa and BLM ratcheting the violence up, conservative groups like the Proud Boys have risen up to provide an organized self defense. Marcotte is right about the equivalence being false, but she's got the direction wrong. Leftist papers have resorted to headlines about "left wing" and "far right" groups battling in the streets to cover up the fact that it’s invariably leftist mobs assaulting conservatives, while the conservatives are fighting back to defend themselves. It's victim blaming.

Amanda even literally blames Andy Ngo, who was brutally assaulted and never fought back, for bringing it on, ludicrously claiming he was somehow "looking for a fight" because he dared to show up and exercise his first Amendment right to criticize Marxism and call for peaceful unity among Americans.

Her blog is disgusting but I'm glad you posted it because it further exposes the moral bankruptcy of the deranged far left mind set.

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Oh here's a beauty...

Fox News' edited video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldhqTLieuBc&t=60s

The unedited video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldhqTLieuBc&t=180s

A white supremacist armed with a hammer chucks it at Antifa counter protestors. Fox edits that part out, and only shows the counter protestors throwing the hammer back. Then we learn the bus was actually filled with "the American Guard" which is a white supremacist group according to the Anti-Defamation League.

"They're throwing hammers" this tool on Fox News says about the counter protestors. Gaslighting indeed.

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The Young Turks are jokes, LOL. The full video (which the YT didn't show but I will below) makes Antifa look even worse.

I know almost nothing about the American Guard, but I know from years of experience that the leftist ADL, an ethnic grievance lobbying group/money making machine, is only a few steps above the disgraced SPLC. Since I and every other Republican has repeatedly been falsely smeared as a "racist" and "Nazi" for years now, I take such accusations with a grain of salt.

I went to the group's site to read their own words with a fair and open mind.

"We believe that the most promising path to restoring America to a strong, functional, and free society is to spread these principles and promote them to every citizen of the United States.

We do this without regard to race, religion, culture, or previous political affiliation."

Don't sound like white supremacists. Their site makes it clear they're constitutional libertarians. I saw no mention of race at all except for the above quote. I also read the ADL hit piece, and it was extremely weak and speculative. Guilt by association by this or that member, "hidden racism", the ole rigamarole. They even spend paragraphs talking about that silly Gangs of New York movie, lol. Another biased article claimed the group's leader used to be a "white nationalist" but has since renounced those views, though in the only actual quotes by him they posted (without attribution) he just condemned Nazism and racial nationalism, and didn't even admit he used to think that way. So who knows? Frankly who cares? There's enough overt hate, bigotry, stupidity, and violence being perpetrated, mostly by the left, to deal with.

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I do know the AGs posted a fuller video showing a huge Antifa mob attacking the buses, or "rescue buses". They say they drive these around to provide escape and shelter to lone victims being assaulted by leftist mobs, which is plausible given what’s known about Antifa. Scroll down about halfway for the video:

https://theamericanguard.org/2019/08/19/understanding-the-assault-against-the-ag-rescue-bus-in-portland/

Antifa is throwing concrete blocks (or big rocks) and other items at the bus for an extended period of time, just as Fox News accurately said (FNC 1 million, YT 0).

At one point the driver opens the door and slips down the steps. A large group of Antifa seize the opportunity to pounce on him. Another guy inside the bus bravely stepped into the middle of the onslaught to haul the driver up and picked up a small hammer to defend themselves so they could get back inside and shut the door because it was the only weapon handy. He got them both in but before they could shut the door an Antifa guy got the hammer and threw it inside at the man, claw first. Then multiple Antifa sprayed pepper spray inside the vehicle, and the onslaught continued. They threw more objects and even chased the buses as they drove off trying to damage them further (though one unathletic Antifa puke wiped out in the process).

The hammer that your post and the YTs cherry-picked to fixate on was one tiny piece of the story. It’s not conservative mobs surrounding leftist vehicles or individuals and assaulting them with concrete blocks, pepper spray, nails, and other weapons. It’s invariably leftists like Antifa doing that. Anyone pretending otherwise is engaging in dishonest victim blaming.

And old tactic of people with totalitarian mind sets. The Big Lie. Gaslighting indeed.

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Yeah I remember when the communists enslaved half of the world and sent entire races of people into concetration camps for total extermination.

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Actually they came far closer to enslaving half the world than the Nazis did. They still oppress over 1.5 billion today. And they called their concentration camps "gulags" or sometimes "reeducation camps". They also murdered around 100 million people, sometimes for racial/ethnic reasons (Misqito Indians in Nicaragua; Montagnards in Vietnam; Stalin even had his own Jewish holocaust gearing up before he died).

**The more you know**

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You sound 100% identical to the last 20 or 30 pro-trump knuckle draggers we've been dealing with for the past two years here on moviechat. I seriously hope you're just another alt of that same idiot who's been flooding our board because the thought of a bevy of you is horrifying...

What a poster child for "Don't inbreed" you are.

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You sound like you lack the mental acuity to reply substantively, or even deftly get a rise out of someone. Unfortunately lame posters like you are a dime a dozen. Mindless bottom feeder cannon fodder. You take up space but that's about it.

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What? What's that? I can't hear you? Can you please try talking to me WITHOUT Donald's cheeto in your mouth so I can understand you?

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See?

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Its funny that Bernie Sanders is praising the people of Hong Kong, yet they are protest the very communism which he wants to bring to the US

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