Oddball Wrote:But from the UK, I'd pick Catherine Zeta Jones over Adam Smith any day of the week.

Can't argue with that one. :bluethumb:

Klutz, maybe your whole point in being on this board is to try to wow everybody with how much detailed factual knowledge you have. In your effort to write pages and pages about the the reasons why the Leninist-Stalinist system was doomed to failure, you have probably failed to see that I agreed with you.

What you want to try to "prove" is that that system was doomed to failure anyway, regardless of anything we might have done. I will agree with you there too. But what is so amusing to me is that you are just not going to allow yourself to see that our application of pressure against their weaknesses hastened the demise of their system, possibly avoiding a bloodbath worldwide as a result.

We could have dickered with them, as we had been. What we did instead is put our money where our mouths were, by heavily increasing defense spending. They tried to match it, they also instigated a spectacular public relations effort against us in Europe, but they failed. No demo would have had the nerve to try it.

I have said all this before, but you just ignore it and then, unbelievably, say I failed to prove my case. Your decision to ignore my facts is not my failure to prove my case. Rather than waiting for the inevitable to occur, with the likely result of either general war or bankrolling their system, as we do now with North Korea, we called them. Glasnost and so on resulted, in an effort to correct their absurd economic system, and then it could not be contained. At the same time, the Warsaw Pact, seeing weakness, began making trouble for them, trouble they could not financially or politically control.

Then you want to say that Lenin was not a true Marxist. I agree with you there, too. But whether you like it or not, he said he was and so millions died in the name of Marxism. As for your other comments about what Marx could not envision, all I can say is that it is further evidence of the utter bankruptcy of Marxist thought.

You can pile up as many facts as you will, most of which I will agree with, but you have yet to address the plain fact that the Reagan administration used the failures, lies, and disasters of the Soviets -- the facts about the Soviet Union -- against them, in ways to which they could not respond, absent general war. It is utterly true that the Soviets gave us these keys, unintentionally, but does that mean then that Reagan's efforts against the Evil Empire (ah, how I remember the day he said that) were meaningless? Are you truly that wooden?

Wryword Wrote:Klutz, maybe your whole point in being on this board is to try to wow everybody with how much detailed factual knowledge you have. In your effort to write pages and pages about the the reasons why the Leninist-Stalinist system was doomed to failure, you have probably failed to see that I agreed with you.

[truncated]

Wry, actually you nailed it on the head. I post here so I can wow all of you idiotic fockers. :wave:

Now how can you possibly think that is the case? Don't you guys know that I know that you all believe scholarly research is just some great liberal plot spawned by Beelzebub himself to dismantle the great American system of morality by casting degredating shadows upon our nation's glorious history and most venerable heroes like Ronnie rayguns Reagan so we can gain access to your bank accounts and rob you, giving the proceeds to crack mothers raising single kids who are getting abortions every day of the week!

Why on earth would I try to wow you GOPpers with information I've gathered when I realize that most GOP-types have absolutely no respect for what I studied, the fact that people do research and study things and what the nature of scholarly debate entails?

Also Wry, pointing out my ego and pride in having done research in no way strengthens your claim that Reagan used jellybeans shot out of grenade launchers to bring down Soviet Russia.

As I read your latest post, you allude to some kind of argument you made about Reagan, and you say you posted "facts." Well, let's look at just what you posted previously on this thread that opened up this lengthy discussion of Reagan and the fall of the mighty Soviet Empire. And before I continue, I haven't ignored anything and I saw that you agree with much that I posted, yet you still stick to your [ray]guns and say Reagan marched single handedly onto the Kremlin and put Gorby in a choke-hold while Jesse "the body" Ventura was looking for the predator.

"application of pressure against their weaknesses hastened the demise of their system"

Reagan did not claim the Soviets were weak and the Pentagon still purported the idea that they were militarily superior to the USA. Reagan claimed to Congress and the American people that they were our greatest threat and if we didn't arm ourselves to the gills, they'd overrun us.

Then you say something about a bloodbath. Well, that is what Reagan was claiming would happen if we didn't arm. Soviet documents from the 70s and 80s (made available on our shores after the 1991 fall) claim they were trying at all costs to avoid armed conflict with the USA, especially after Brezhnev's death. So, on one side of the world the American president tells his subjects that the Soviets are going to get us. On the other side of the world, a premier says the Americans are going to get us. Who is the aggressor here? Both nations, perhaps.

Next you say Reagan unleashed massive defense spending to counter the Soviet threat, something "No demo would have had the nerve to try it."

Statistics show that Reagan's defense spending was only 3% more than when Jimmy Carter was president. Before them, Kennedy and Truman pushed U.S. def. spending to record levels, which Reagan's spending never equalled. Account for Vietnam as well. The Cold War was a conflict with communism and we took the fight to the communists in Korea and Vietnam. Kennedy, when in congress, submitted and passed legislation to put military advisers there once the French pulled out. Eisenhower agreed and put them there, Kennedy as president escalated the war. LBJ fought it, haphazardly I might add, but we spent a ton of money in the process. Reagan, even in relative peacetime, never matched that level of spending. And, our war in Vietnam put pressure on the Soviets.


Glasnost is loosely translated as "openness" and perestroika is reference to economic reforms. Glasnost is the larger category here, but Glasnost came about after the soviet system had been failing for years. Gorbachev had a record of being very liberal, reform-minded in Soviet politics and this was entirely his brainchild. He even tried to politically initiate Glasnost in the mid-70s, but feared for his career. Before Gorbachev, Khruschev tried similar reforms, but he soon secumbed to hard-liner political opponents.

You haven't mentioned any facts in either of your posts, just unfounded assertions and false cause fallacies of logic.
quite simply, you claim:
The Soviet Union failed, and Reagan had massive def. spending policies just before its fall, I love Reagan, and therefore Reagan made the Soviet Union fall.

Now you don't support your claims that Reagan's def. spending was any larger than any president who preceded him. Certainly it was larger than Carter's spending in defense, but only a tidbit larger. Reagan couldn't pass anything grossly larger than Carter's because Reagan had a hostile Congress to deal with.

Also, all presidents who preceded Reagan used defense spending to pressure the Soviets. You don't make any qualifiable claim that what Reagan did was anything new.

On "true" Marxism versus untrue Marxism, you don't specify which is which. Lenin, once in power, began to cast aside ideas of Marx's that were completely untenable given the situation in which Lenin wrested power from the Kerensky provisional government. Lenin's takeover of power was not so much a revolution, he just marched into Moscow with followers, mostly sailers, and took advantage of Kerensky's fear. Not a shot was fired, not a person died. Two years later, the Bolsheviks murdered the deposed czar and his family. At the time of the takeover in October, the czar was in house arrest on the authority of the Kerensky government.

One glaring myth you purport is Lenin's use of Marxist ideals to form a government that led to the deaths of millions. This was not the case at all. Lenin's regime did not murder millions, rather Lenin's regime was embroiled in Civil War with the Greens, or those Imperial Russian military careerists who were not going away without a fight. The Greens fought the Reds in the Civil War and casualties were about equal.

Lenin did fight the Kronstadt sailers' uprising in 1921 or '22 that killed about 4,500 sailers who were upset with Lenin's policies that did not give power to the local soviet cadres as per Marxist theory. The Kronstadt uprising was a reaction to Lenin's move away from Marxism, and the Lenin government's quashing of free speech and civil liberties that he promised during his ascendency to power.

Stalin murdered millions during his totalitarian regime that resembled more of the czarist Russia the preceded Stalin. Stalin was decidedly non-Marxist and had Trotsky expelled and killed over it.

Your comments in this area are more simplistic causal explanations that have no bearing on how events transpired.

You claim Marx could not envision the way things would change. How would Marx have predicted the maleable practices of capitalism? It was a brand new form of economics at the time that resembled nothing that Europe had seen before. Certainly mercantilism is similar to capitalism, but in the case of the former economic ideology only a select few, closely aligned with the ruling authority profits.

I think it is quite boorish of you to have expected Karl Marx to know that capitalism would bend and change. What would have precipitated this idea for Marx? All over England during his life he saw child labor out of control and adults losing limbs in machinery only to be cast out as a result of their injury. He also saw men, women and children alike working 20 hour days for a pittance. You expected Marx to predict future events?

So in your view Marx's thought is bankrupt for not predicting the future, but Reagan could not predict the future. Why is his thought not bankrupt?

Have you ever read Marx? What else from his work is evidence of the bankruptcy of his thought? You don't offer anything here, you merely make a claim that lacks support. Why don't you point out some things in Marx's books that give credence to your claim? (his books are available via web page)

You end with:

"but you have yet to address the plain fact that the Reagan administration used the failures, lies, and disasters of the Soviets -- the facts about the Soviet Union -- against them, in ways to which they could not respond, absent general war. It is utterly true that the Soviets gave us these keys, unintentionally, but does that mean then that Reagan's efforts against the Evil Empire (ah, how I remember the day he said that) were meaningless? Are you truly that wooden?"

Reagan used the failures of the Soviet regime similar to the manner that Truman, Ike, Kennedy, LBJ, Nixon, Ford and Carter had done. Reagan didn't do anything new here, he just followed the long-standing U.S. foreign policy, tweaked to represent his ideology.

I never said that Reagan's efforts were meaningless, my whole reasoning to challenging you on this are as follows:
1. You don't support your assertions
2. You oversimplify cause and effect relationships
3. Your comments represent a love and passion for Reagan
4. You ignore historical process
5. You ignore new information available about the USSR
6. Your intent is to disparage Carter, Clinton, Gore and Kerry or anyone else who disagrees with you
7. You have ignored previous U.S. policies toward Soviet Russia that show Reagan's policies were more of the same direction for U.S. presidents
8. And you equate communism with the Democratic Party.

Your message here is that Reagan regained control of the U.S. government that had been pro-communist since the days of Roosevelt and then Reagan ended the communist regime in the USSR. So your ideas are twofold: 1. that the USA was communist until Reagan ended it here, and 2. then he ended it elsewhere.

Reagan didn't end the Soviet Union any more than George Washington did. Reagan didn't defeat communism in the USSR or its government any more than George Washington did. Reagan was the second-to-last U.S. president who had to deal with the USSR.

Reagan was merely a man, not God. Reagan was a good U.S. president in many respects, but he was also a bad president in many respects, just like all presidents.

The Soviet Union fell for many reasons, mostly it had to do with the overwhelming bureaucracy and poor governmental planning. Reagan was only one president among a long line of presidents who put pressure on the Soviet Union because that is what the United States has done historically with all of our enemies through history. We put pressure on the Barbary Pirates, the English, the Native Americans, the Germans, the Mexicans, the Spanish, the Russians, the Soviets, the Japanese and we are now pressuring Islamists.

I saw that you agreed with me, but you still stand by your unsupported conclusion that Reagan had beat the Soviets.

The Soviet Union was not going to last. Bob Dole could have been president in the 80s, the Soviet Union would have failed. Carter could have been president until 1984 and the Soviet Union would have fallen. George H.W. Bush could have been president and the USSR would have ended when it did.

By claiming that Reagan had such an effect on the Soviet system, then by those standards the USSR would have collapsed after Truman displayed the atomic bomb. What could have been more pressure than that?

The reason why I post here is, well let me offer this analogy:

Suppose you decide to follow Ole Miss football for the rest of your life. You get season tickets every season, watch almost every game closely, paying attention to all the details. You even decide to keep a journal of games, seasons, players, statistcs, etc. In the process you meet other Rebel fans at ball games and you clearly hear them talking about the game, the team, past teams,players, plays, coaches, etc.
Suppose these other Rebel fans tell you things like "Spurlock slammed dunked it in the second half" or "man I hope we can deal with Alabama's box-in-one defense this year, in 2003 they killed us with that." Also, suppose they say things like "the Ole Miss/Tennessee game in 2001 was great and they couldn't stop point guard Deuce McAllister" and while you are watching a game, Ole Miss fans are doing Ohio State Buckeyes' cheers rather than the usual hotty toddy.

Well, don't you think you would point out some of the mistakes being made in such a scenario?

You would say to these fans "you are thinking in basketball terms, Spurlock threw for a touchdown" or "We didn't play Tenn. in 2001 and Deuce was a running back." "We beat Alabama in 2003 and football doesn't have a box-in-one defense."

then the Rebel fans tell you are "wooden," "useful idiot" and "liberal" commie, pinko scumbag son-of-a-bee-atch.

they also tell you that you don't know anything and that you are ignoring facts.

Well, it is for reasons like these that I post here and the same reasons compel me to tell people in person that they are being oversimplistic. I also post on several other message boards, one on sports and the other being http://www.iidb.org as well as a history blog. I must say on the other forums I get better debate that challenges me because the interlocutors support the claims they make. On this site, by contrast, I try to be humorous because all you Repugnican Reagan worshippers crack me up! I laugh my freaking arse off at all of you guys and it is this process that aids my escape from my otherwise mundane work-day. This being the case does not strengthen your claims that Reagan beat the Soviets by bopping Gorby in the head with a bag of jellybeans. Likewise, the above explanation of why I post here has really no bearing on past events, i.e. the Reagan presidency and the fall of the USSR. Bringing this up like you did represents your disdain for people who don't worship your favorite, personal list of heroes.

:snore: :snore:

From now on, can I get an Executive Summary?

If I prod you another time or two, I think we can get a small book out of you, Dio.

So, your only real beef is that I did not cite "authority" for my statements? Geez, I thought this was a message board. Had I know that it was courtoom, I would have taken the trouble to go find sources. I respect the fact that you have studied, but really, Dio, leave the dissertation - writing at home.

I have indeed at times "equated" demos with communists. I thought that it would have been understood that those comments were deliberate overstatements. But alas, it seems you are without a sense of humor. Perhaps you have spent too lmuch time trying to know everything better than everybody.

Anyhow, this breathless recitation of facts, this mountain of minutia, does not really prove that much for me.

I don't think I have to engage in comparative budget analysis to prove my point. I think it is sufficient to point to the fact that our military was significantly re-equipped and given new spirit during the Reagan years. It did make a difference.

As for loving Reagan, I can't say that I loved him so much as I have been deeply appreciative of what he did to free the country from the grasp of dreary socialists, and in ending the cold war.

Millions were not killed in the regime begun by Lenin, old boy? Perchance this was a fact you missed while studying five year plans.

Anyway, son, let's see if'n you can whip up a ten page dump of facts, statistics, what-your-teacher said, leavening it all with a quote from Marx and other losers ever' now and again. Bust a leg, son.

Wryword Wrote:If I prod you another time or two, I think we can get a small book out of you, Dio.

Aw man, don't encourage him.

Quote:Millions were not killed in the regime begun by Lenin, old boy?  Perchance this was a fact you missed while studying five year plans.

Maybe remind him of Stalin's line: "A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic." For Uncle Joe, it was what, 12 - 15 million dead?

Quote:Anyway, son, let's see if'n you can whip up a ten page dump of facts, statistics, what-your-teacher said, leavening it all with a quote from Marx and other losers ever' now and again.  Bust a leg, son.

Let's not forget the other godheads of the far left: Mao, Pol Pot, etc.. The lefties simple refuse to confront the reality that, when it comes to genocide, they hold all the records for mass extermination.

Wryword Wrote:If I prod you another time or two, I think we can get a small book out of you, Dio.

So, your only real beef is that I did not cite "authority" for my statements? Geez, I thought this was a message board. Had I know that it was courtoom, I would have taken the trouble to go find sources. I respect the fact that you have studied, but really, Dio, leave the dissertation - writing at home.

I have indeed at times "equated" demos with communists. I thought that it would have been understood that those comments were deliberate overstatements. But alas, it seems you are without a sense of humor. Perhaps you have spent too lmuch time trying to know everything better than everybody.

Anyhow, this breathless recitation of facts, this mountain of minutia, does not really prove that much for me.

I don't think I have to engage in comparative budget analysis to prove my point. I think it is sufficient to point to the fact that our military was significantly re-equipped and given new spirit during the Reagan years. It did make a difference.

As for loving Reagan, I can't say that I loved him so much as I have been deeply appreciative of what he did to free the country from the grasp of dreary socialists, and in ending the cold war.

Millions were not killed in the regime begun by Lenin, old boy? Perchance this was a fact you missed while studying five year plans.

Anyway, son, let's see if'n you can whip up a ten page dump of facts, statistics, what-your-teacher said, leavening it all with a quote from Marx and other losers ever' now and again. Bust a leg, son.

First of all, teachers don't tell college students what to think, they tell students where to look for information. Usually information is in the form of raw data and it covers a wide variety of topics. The student is charged with perusing the information and then forming an opinion on it. The student then writes out a report telling exactly why the student has reached the conclusions they have reached.

As for citing, I'm not looking for an authority as you say, I am looking for something to back up your conclusion that Ronnie Rayguns Reagan defeated the Soviet Union. So far you have only said that Reagan defeated the Soviet Union because you believe this to be true.

Would you go into a court of law and say client X is not guilty of the crime client X is charged with because you really, really believe client X is not guilty?

Actually, a comparative budget analysis would prove your point much better than saying it is so because you say it is so.

You claim that Reagan "free[ed] the country from the grasp of dreary socialists..." but you don't qualify this statement with fact, this is merely an opinion of yours that is completely devoid of support.

I never said millions didn't die in the USSR, I merely pointed out that Lenin didn't kill millions, Stalin did and the first five year plan was Stalin's idea after Lenin had died. You have absolutely no idea of what you are talking about and your "facts" are your beliefs.

KlutzDio I Wrote:First of all, teachers don't tell college students what to think, they tell students where to look for information.

You are out of your mind. I want to see the raw data to support that.

Quote:Would you go into a court of law and say client X is not guilty of the crime client X is charged with because you really, really believe client X is not guilty?

That is not a novel theory.

Quote:I never said millions didn't die  in the USSR, I merely pointed out that Lenin didn't kill millions, Stalin did and the first five year plan was Stalin's idea after Lenin had died. You have absolutely no idea of what you are talking about and your "facts" are your beliefs.

Okay, let's establish the parameters; how many human beings do you acknowledge as dying at the hands of Lenin, before his protege kicked it up to a whole new level? And what are the "facts" about Lenin vs. Stalin in the body count you seem to have access to?

sherman&grant Wrote:

KlutzDio I Wrote:First of all, teachers don't tell college students what to think, they tell students where to look for information.

You are out of your mind. I want to see the raw data to support that.

Quote:Would you go into a court of law and say client X is not guilty of the crime client X is charged with because you really, really believe client X is not guilty?

That is not a novel theory.

Quote:I never said millions didn't die  in the USSR, I merely pointed out that Lenin didn't kill millions, Stalin did and the first five year plan was Stalin's idea after Lenin had died. You have absolutely no idea of what you are talking about and your "facts" are your beliefs.

Okay, let's establish the parameters; how many human beings do you acknowledge as dying at the hands of Lenin, before his protege kicked it up to a whole new level? And what are the "facts" about Lenin vs. Stalin in the body count you seem to have access to?

On me being out of my mind, and your request for raw data, I suggest going to college and if you can't afford to officially enroll, then sit in a few history or other humanities classes. Certainly there are some teachers out there who tell their students what to think, but these are few and far between. Every college professor I had began their classes with the statement "I'm not here to tell you what to think or what to believe. Actually if you write down on a test what it is you think I want to hear, then you'll get an F."

Like the old adage goes, in higher learning they teach one how to think, not what to think and that was my experience completely.

On quote two you say "novel theory" and I just want to clarify: that was not a theory, it was an analogy to get Wry to understand that statements, in debate like in a court of law, have to be supported. Wry is, reputedly, a lawyer and in my neck of the woods a lawyer has the intelligence level of a plumber.

Lenin? I don't know how many died at the hands of Lenin, probably only one or two personally. He might have ordered the deaths of several thousand, maybe even ten thousand. I would have to go research this to give you a more accurate figure. The real figure, the factual figure, I would say no one knows for sure like no one knows how many people George Washington killed.

I do know that the October Revolution is a myth, or at least the idea of the Bolshevik takeover being very violent in the month of October 1917 is a myth. Lenin and his entourage merely waltzed into power, Kerenksy having fled the capitol.

I suggest reading John Reed on this--Ten Days that Shook the World. Also, this was called the "bloodless revolution" in Russia for years until Soviet filmakers made movies in which he depicted Lenin leading valiant armies on the czarist capitol, which is entirely untrue. During the October "bloodless revolution" there was no czar, he was under house arrest.

Prior to the Bolshevik Revolution, thousands were being killed and butchered because the country was breaking up, going from the imperial regime to the provisional government and finally to Bolshevism and Civil War. Also, WW1 was going on and Lenin had not pulled Russia's troops out of the war yet and the Russians were getting slaughtered by the Germans.

Lenin, likely didn't kill more than Kerenksy did, and Kerensky was friendly with the West.

Stalin was not Lenin's protege. Had Lenin lived, rather than being shot only to die a slow death, he likely would have named another successor. But that is just it, the Bolshevik bureaucracy early on in the Evil Empire was just that, a bureaucracy and there was a process upon which premier would be chosen among the local Moscow or Kievan soviet. A soviet is a cadre of Bolshevik activists. Bolsheviks were contrasted from the other large revolutionary party--the Mensheviks. the Mensheviks were socialists who wanted to use the old czarist economy to reform the government and its apparatuses. The Bolsheviks were more radical, wanting a complete move toward communism by any means.

It was Stalin who wiped out the Mensheviks (the opposition) and established the NKVD, forerunner of the KGB. he did this while Lenin was on his deathbed and prior to Lenin's death and prior to Lenin's gunshot wound, he and Stalin were political opponents within the Moscow soviet. They disagreed on everything, but Lenin was tactful and gave Stalin duties that suited his character.

Once Stalin wrested power to those loyal to Lenin, he began clearing out the opposition, within and outside of the party. This is a confusing era because Stalin used propaganda (and other party members as well) to erect a "cult of Lenin" that was to replace the Greek Orthodox church, kind of erecting Leninism as a religion.

What shows the differences in Lenin and Stalin were the two men's policies. Lenin was much more practical than Stalin who was short-tempered and halfway deranged and paranoid. Lenin wanted to establish a firm Russian communism, whereas Stalin wanted world revolution quite immediately because Stalin was from outside of Russia--Georgia. Stalin took in the Soviet Union's buffer states quite rapidly, by 1928, and wrote a very famous piece about it for the communist party (it is linked in an above post I made on this thread).

As for facts, there are some very good links up on the previous post I made and I suggest you peruse those because I'm not here to tell you what to think, merely to outline what the historical record has shown me.

It's quite simple to see that Stalin killed more than Lenin because Stalin ruled during the show trials and purges or party officials, began the secret police force and was premier longer than Lenin (Lenin wasn't really "premier" just the leader of the largest soviet in revolutionary Russia). Also, Stalin ruled after WW2 in which thousands of officers and soldiers were murdered upon returning from the front. See, these soldiers saw the wonders of capitalist societies while fighting the war and Stalin thought there experiences to the USSR were dangerous, especially if the soldiers talked about it.

Lenin, on the other hand, ruled during the Civil War (and "ruled" is being used loosely because the country was in anarchy roughly from 1905 until 1925) and thousands died in that conflict.

What differentiates Lenin from Stalin, in my opinion, was complete control and political differences. Stalin favored a world empire, while Lenin was trying to figure out how to hold the country together and end the anarchy. They were both communists to a certain degree, Lenin being more of one than Stalin who was a breed of his own. Stalin reversed almost every governmental policy began or favored by Lenin and that is all linked in a previous post I made.

There is nothing inherently murderous about communism. It can be as murderous as democracy or it doesn't have to be. Democracy can be murderous and it doesn't have to be. The difference between the two is communism is economic theory, while democracy is a political theory. Communism is a poor idea, in my opinion, but had the reputation as a murderous form of government because of the Soviet experiment (and its satellite states). Marx did not write down--let's kill everyone who disagrees with us--but one could claim he did because he uses the term 'revolution' and here I think he means a new turn, the core meaning of the word 'revolution.'

I also say we haven't heard the last of communism, it is afterall an economic philosophy that has been around for eons of time.

I never did answer the original question on the original post on this thread, well I answered quite sarcastically. Here's a more serious answer and you guys can read this list of Great Americans and then you can tell me I'm out of my mind.

1. Thomas Jefferson-a racist, a womanizer and had the most philosophically developed mind of all the founding fathers.
2. Aaron Burr-because he was steadfast in the face of authority and killed Alexander Hamilton, who was a drunken fascist.
3. Old Hickory-reinvigorated American democracy by allowing those without property the ability and privilege to vote (not that voting means anything today).
4. Robert E. Lee-who said "we are fortunate that war is so horrible, lest we should grow too fond of it."
5. Mary Chestnut-civil war era beauty and daughter of a senator. She kept a great journal of what life was like in 1860s Charleston, SC.
6. Frederick Douglass-proved slaves can think for themselves and was quite articulate for one without a formal education.
7. Gen. ? Chamberlain-the hero of little round top during the battle of Gettysburg. This inexperienced officer was a political appointment and he shined during the war.
8. Henry Miller-cynic and novelist wrote some of the funniest books I've ever read, and wrote at a time when the material was considered taboo.
9. Jack Reed-the American communist/journalist had a great eye for detail and a zest for adventure. Travelled to Mexico to cover the Pancho Villa wars, and then to the new Soviet Union. when he was expelled from the Soviet Union, he walked from Moscow to Finland in the winter--and survived.
He later died penniless in Moscow.
10. Chesty Puller-Marine colonel who saved the United States from the Nicaraguans.
11. Dwight D. Eisenhower-greatest Republican president since Lincoln.
12. Charlie Conerly-1950s era Mr. NFL and he went to Ole Miss, my alma mater.
13. Malcolm X-he didn't take any crap off of anyone.
14. Stokely Carmichael-he didn't take any crap off of anyone either.
15. H. Rap Brown-not only did he not take any crap, but he started hip-hop music.
16. Vonnegutt-funny author.
17. Ross Perot-actually led me to temporarily believe that our political system actually works.
18. John McCain-war hero and political leader (which is quite different from a politician) who doesn't take any crap off of anyone, well except George Bush.
19. Huey P. Newton-Black Panther poet and existentialist.
20. Maya Angelou-author and activist.
21. Deuce McAllister-running back, the New Orleans Saints and former Ole Miss great, who doesn't take any crap off of the Falcons' linebacking crew (remember "the hit" he put on that dude who got in Deuce's way to the endzone?).
22. Thomas Paine-rabble rouser.
23. Bob Dylan-he turned the Beatles on to pot and then the Beatles' music got cool.
24. Jimi Hendrix-best guitarist since Son House.
25. Son House-MS bluesman who constructed the rubric for modern rock-n-roll guitar circa 1928.
26. Cassius Clay-stood up for what he believed in.
27. Pat Tillman-stood up for what he believed in.
28. Michael Walzer-West Point professor and ethicist.
29. Dr. Bill Lawhead-professor of philosophy, the University of Mississippi, who had the best lecture personality and sense of humor than any other teacher I've ever had.
30. My Grandpa-war hero who had a 30 year career in the Navy, who displayed the utmost integrity and personal character throughout his life and bestowed upon me and my family our sense of duty, our sense of pride and our sense of morality. During the wars he fought in he went out on the line and gave wounded marines morphine, and if their lives were salvageable, he pulled them back into the trenches. Grandpa always said that it wasn't terrible fighting a war or being in a war, the terrible thing, he said, was knowing you have to order men to their deaths.

I'm sure there are more, but I figured you guys will want to tell me I'm out of my mind after reading Thomas Jefferson on the list.

Quote:There is nothing inherently murderous about communism. It can be as murderous as democracy or it doesn't have to be. Democracy can be murderous and it doesn't have to be. The difference between the two is communism is economic theory, while democracy is a political theory. Communism is a poor idea, in my opinion, but had the reputation as a murderous form of government because of the Soviet experiment (and its satellite states). Marx did not write down--let's kill everyone who disagrees with us--but one could claim he did because he uses the term 'revolution' and here I think he means a new turn, the core meaning of the word 'revolution.'

I think murder under communism is inherent. Or, at least, inevitable.

Let's say that I round everyone on this message board into a room, and demand that everyone place their life savings into a big pot in the middle of this room, and I'll divide it and allocate it amongst everyone "equally". I will also determine how much everyone earns in their current jobs. Then I make it clear that I'm going to dictate what you can see, hear, and watch in media and entertainment. Given that this goes against people's human nature of setting their own path and having individual interests and work ethics, I'm going to get a lot of protests and refusals (except from those who will benefit from the big pot of loot being divided equally, of course ... they will love the coercive system I implement). So, I simply say that I'm outlawing protests, and whoever utters a peep of opposition will suffer the consequences.

Now, in a country with millions of people, you'll hear a lot of "peeps of opposition". So, there will be a lot suffering consequences.

Simply put, communism is based completely on an ideology of force. And where there is widespread force, there will utimately be bloodshed.

Quote:I also say we haven't heard the last of communism, it is afterall an economic philosophy that has been around for eons of time.

I fully agree. In fact, we may hear more about it. There will always be a large segment of people who believe in "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need". There will always be a large segment of people who will simply refuse to accept personal responsibility for their actions, and will demand restitution from 'society'. Many believe that the more government programs there are, the closer we'll get to a workers utopia. So, yes, socialism/communism ain't going away.

Since I was the one who mentioned Jefferson, I'll explain why I like him:

* He opposed a strong centralized government and respected rights of the states.

* He was anti-interventionalist in foreign affairs, and only saw the military (which he cut funding to) as needed only if America was attacked...

* He kicked pirate arse in the Meditarranean when they started attacking our merchant ships.

* He reduced the national debt by a third.

* In the original draft of the DoI, he vowed to allow colonists to speak positively about the British crown if they wanted, and also wanted to censure the monarchy for imposing slavery on America (both were stricken by others from the final draft).

* He sought to ban the spread of slavery, and also believed it was evil.

* He was quite modest and a soft-spoken leader.

----

Now, that doesn't mean he didn't have his faults. Despite his disliking slavery, he inherited slavery from his father and didn't exactly get rid of them (although he slowly freed them, one by one, over time). So one could reasonably charge some hypocricy here.

Secondly, he also enacted a shipping embargo that wasn't very popular.

But, overall, I would love to see a Jeffersonian candidate running for office now.


Klutzdio, as far as your list... I notice how you believe Jefferson was a racist, yet Malcom X and Huey Newton somehow escape this label. Pretty funny.

And a politician who liked to chase skirts? I don't believe it. It's not possible. :rolleyes:

Motown B,

You said:
"Let's say that I round everyone on this message board into a room, and demand that everyone place their life savings into a big pot in the middle of this room, and I'll divide it and allocate it amongst everyone "equally". I will also determine how much everyone earns in their current jobs. Then I make it clear that I'm going to dictate what you can see, hear, and watch in media and entertainment. Given that this goes against people's human nature of setting their own path and having individual interests and work ethics, I'm going to get a lot of protests and refusals (except from those who will benefit from the big pot of loot being divided equally, of course ... they will love the coercive system I implement). So, I simply say that I'm outlawing protests, and whoever utters a peep of opposition will suffer the consequences."

What you described is more of a Stalinistic, totalitarian type society. Certainly Americans of the past have been offered a similar society, one based on prohibitions of personal freedom rather than open-ness. I don't think anyone can say that communism is any more or less murderous than democracy.

Looking at all liberal democracies of the past, i.e. USA, France, Britain, Greece, Italy, Austria, Germany, Spain, Portugal, etc, etc, these have all gone through periods in which, for whatever reason, totalitarianism has swept into the mainstream public policy.

Consider the French unrest of 1968. Those students were protesting prohibitions forced upon them. Consider our nation during the Vietnam years, the overall black experience in this land since the 1600s, slavery, the fight for civil rights, 20th century riots, public executions, and institutional racism. Also, the workers' protests in Pennsylvannia of the late 1880s was a clear case of government power edging closer to totalitarianism because the form of capitalism during the time was"... against people's human nature of setting their own path and having individual interests and work ethics..."

All countries, all governments, all economic systems will eventually lead society down a murderous path. Murderous governments are an inherent aspect of human nature, not ideas contained in books. An idea doesn't kill anyone, similar to how 'guns don't kill, people with guns kill.'

Karl Marx didn't write a book so people would initiate totalitarian forms of government, his work was a reaction to totalitarianism in his society--mostly in the form of unregulated industry and maniacal industrial tycoons. And that is my whole reasoning for debating Wry on all of this. So many Americans,
1. criticize a man who wrote a book which most Americans have never read, i.e. The Communist Manifesto
2. equate Marxian communism with Soviet Stalinism
3. and claim Reagan brought all this to an end.

Back when I was a kid in the early 80s, I asked my grandpa why we hated the Russians so much. He said, "because they're communist!" And I asked what was so bad about that, and grandpa said, "well the communists believe in world domination." Well that was certainly true, well Stalinism favored world domination and Karl Marx's ideas of communism wouldn't work unless the entire world was on board, but in the same respect, democracy and Christianity favor world domination.

Motown Bronco Wrote:Since I was the one who mentioned Jefferson, I'll explain why I like him:

* He opposed a strong centralized government and respected rights of the states.

* He was anti-interventionalist in foreign affairs, and only saw the military (which he cut funding to) as needed only if America was attacked...

* He kicked pirate arse in the Meditarranean when they started attacking our merchant ships.

* He reduced the national debt by a third.

* In the original draft of the DoI, he vowed to allow colonists to speak positively about the British crown if they wanted, and also wanted to censure the monarchy for imposing slavery on America (both were stricken by others from the final draft).

* He sought to ban the spread of slavery, and also believed it was evil.

* He was quite modest and a soft-spoken leader.

----

Now, that doesn't mean he didn't have his faults. Despite his disliking slavery, he inherited slavery from his father and didn't exactly get rid of them (although he slowly freed them, one by one, over time). So one could reasonably charge some hypocricy here.

Secondly, he also enacted a shipping embargo that wasn't very popular.

But, overall, I would love to see a Jeffersonian candidate running for office now.


Klutzdio, as far as your list... I notice how you believe Jefferson was a racist, yet Malcom X and Huey Newton somehow escape this label. Pretty funny.

And a politician who liked to chase skirts? I don't believe it. It's not possible. :rolleyes:

Malcolm X and Huey Newton are racists, sorry for the omission.

Jefferson was a racist too. He publicly stated, and wrote in letters, that blacks and whites were not on an equal basis and freeing slaves would bring misery to both races, therefore the freedmen would have to go back should slavery end.

Until that time when all freedmen and women go back to Africa, Jefferson believed (like so many during the era) that slavery was a necessary evil.

He sought the ban on the slave-trade, not slavery per se. Jefferson, in my opinon based on his speeches, letters, journals, etc., like so many thought slavery in America would die a natural death. The ban on the slave trade, however, pushed the price of a slave to astronomical levels, almost overnight. From 1808 to 1809 the American slave became a luxury item, valuable property that a Planter was not going to relinquish without a fight.

Congress' ban on the slave trade had terrible consequences, but their intent likely was to expedite the natural end of slavery in American.

Malcolm X and Newton were on my list of great americans because they didn't take any crap off of anyone and that is an admirable quality to have. X was fearless in his condemnation of white American, and ironically he favored African Americans relocating back to Africa because of his racism.

Newton was racist in his writings, and possibly in his demeanor and day-to-day treatment of his white cell-mates, that I will never know for sure. Again, Newton was racist at a time in America when black racism could get one killed, along with their entire family. It's this 'i don't give a durn' mentality that all of these men had that make them great Americans.


That all being said, I'm a racist, just like many of you are possibly racists. I think racism is a normal human quality. Now when racists discriminate, that is use their power to exact cruelty upon others solely on the basis of their race, then that is when racism becomes a serious problem.

Glad to see no "useful idiot" nominated Sean Hannity for this thread. :D

Also sad I missed the Reagan debate. I, too, loved Reagan back in 1984 (oh, the irony!) and even heckled Mondale when he campaigned in Tupelo, Mississippi (was that the last time a presidential candidate has visited my home state? gotta love that electoral college!).

But I was young and dumb. I'd like to think I've read a bit and matured my worldview since then.

Anyway, I'm most interested in Mo's critique of Zinn's opening essay. If you included it in what is the 3rd page to my computer (with 10 posts per page), I'm sorry to say that I haven't read it b/c Mr. Internet is being hard to play with today.

However, please enlighten us all, Mo. How is questioning the basic assumption of capitalism beneath your contempt, learned sir?

I'll pick out one quote...

Quote:The president of Boston University makes $300,000 a year. Does he Work harder than the man who cleans the offices of the university?

Zinn appears to be implying that the BU president and the custodian should be making an equal salary. Tom Morello made a similar statement during the custodial strike in L.A. a few years ago. He opined that the folks cleaning up the office should earn as much as those "dirtying" it up (A guitar magazine pondered aloud if Morello pays his guitar techs and roadies the same income that he gets for a concert tour).

Joe... come on now. You're a smart guy. You really can't see why a university President earns more than the building's janitors?

Let me use an extreme hypothetical example: Suppose, for a second, that I'm the only human being on the planet who can cure AIDS and cancer using an extremely complex medical procedure I've taken years to create. Successful implementation of these medicines will require working hard, long hours. Meanwhile, there's a guy down the street who just got hired the late shift at Taco Bell, requiring him to work hard, long hours.

Zinn looks at this example and thinks...
"Hm, Motown works hard. Taco Bell guy works hard. They both work very hard, so why the income disparity? Capitalism blows."

Well, the reason is that the supply of guys who can cure hard-core diseases are in very short supply, while those who can handle the Taco Bell drive-thru are in ample supply. Modern medicine breakthroughs take years, nay, decades of learning to accomplish. Meanwhile, practically anyone with a fourth-grade education and up could learn to throw together some nachos and operate the pop* machine in one afternoon.

Both Motown and Taco Bell guy working hard, long hours, sweating up a storm? Yes. But this alone doesn't dictate salary disparities. Coming back to that Econ 101 textbook I talked about, supply and demand are the key determinants. If Taco Bell Boy quits after one day, there will be someone else doing his same job the next day. The skill sets required for that job is low, hence, supply is high, hence, salary is low.

Bare-boned common sense stuff Zinn doesn't get, or doesn't want to get. Yet, this guy taught at universities. Go figure.

* That's "soda" for all you non-Midwesterners. :wave:

Motown Bronco Wrote:A guitar magazine pondered aloud if Morello pays his guitar techs and roadies the same income that he gets for a concert tour

Gotta love his playing, and the fact that he's responsible for a lot of kids becoming politically aware, but THAT'S FUNNY! :laugh:

Quote:pop* machine

* That's "soda" for all you non-Midwesterners.  :wave:

Or "a coke" (two syllables) for the Texans in the house.

flyingswoosh Wrote:pat tillman, bill gates, reagan, the CEO of southwest airlines

Agreed --- though I in no way like what Gates' monster has become.

FWIW, I think <a href='http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,119404,00.html' target='_blank'>Joe Darby</a> should be added to the list of great Americans.

"Joe... come on now. You're a smart guy. You really can't see why a university President earns more than the building's janitors?"

So the guy who has the more disgusting job should be paid less. . .for cleaning up puke, mopping the floors, smelling trash all day. . .oh, now I get it!

Seriously, why should the President make more? Because he was brought up in a culture that exploits, he learned how to exploit (and profit from the working poor, who he employs) and thus easily took over the reigns as chief exploiter in charge when it was his turn?

Or is it just because he's "a smart guy"? And the janitor's dumb?