This isn't correct. — Hanover

It is correct.

HIV doesn't kill, it's the other diseases.

Right, I’m sure there was zero polarization on the issue in the UK. — NOS4A2

Since their Civil War, the English have been able to solve the problems in their society without large scale violence. Ok, there's Ireland and some colonies that were problematic, but otherwise...

The leader of the Republican Commonwealth still got a statue in the monarchy:

Out of sight out of mind. — NOS4A2

Some call it strategic silence.

I take the view of Popper that the two-party system is the superior one. I don’t see it as a monster. I see it as a boon. — NOS4A2

Let's see how well the centrist / right-wing duopoly can answer to Americans in the future.

And I believe polarization is an important aspect of a country’s progression and politics. The polarization surrounding civil rights, slavery, war has amounted to a better future for all. — NOS4A2

Oh yes:

Abolishing slavery in the UK: 0 deaths.
Abolishing slavery in the US: perhaps 600 000 - 1 000 000 dead.

Enjoy Canada for all what it gives you, NOS4A2. :up:

What makes people from wealthy, academical background lean left? — Ansiktsburk

Revolt against their parents and everything they portray to stand for.

The most vociferous and in their hatred of the right nearly disturbed have many a personal aspect to their loathing of everything reeking to the right and conservatism. If your ties with your parents are cut because of politics (among other issues, usually) that hatred is personal.

Seen some examples even in PF.

Kamala Harris said the “protests” won’t stop. — NOS4A2

As I said before, during Biden's vice presidency the Obama administration did stop nation wide protests very well: until today, I haven't seen any footage of how OWS was torn down. You think the media will criticize a Biden administration cracking down on violent protests? Think again.

What is not going to stop is the polarization of the Americans. Which actually benefits the two headed monster in power in the US with Americans focusing the hatred against each other and not the duopoly of the Democrat and Republican parties.

As as libertarian socialist, I stand by the original notion of left and right, with the left being for both liberty and equality and the right being opposite both — Pfhorrest

The "right-wing" during the French revolution was where the conscientious defenders of the constitution sat. Don't think that the supporters of the Ancien Régime sat there during the French Revolution.

Liberalism from the Age of Enlightenment was against absolute monarchy, divine rights of kings, hereditary privilege, state religion, the mercantilist policies, royal monopolies and other barriers to trade, and promoted representative democracy and the rule of law and free trade. Adam Smith is hardly a leftist philosopher, just as the American experiment isn't either a leftist endeavor.

I try not to make a habit of predicting the future, but no, I do not believe that. — NOS4A2

There you go.

It's usually that similar over the top accusations against Republican candidates were made by the media, not actually by the Democrat Presidential candidates. But Trump makes all the time such accusations, starting from the nasty attacks against his "fellow Republicans" (as let's remember, this guy was a Democrat before).

And from the way how Bernie was pushed aside, twice, it should be obvious also that the Democratic Party doesn't let it's "radical" democratic socialist wing to take power.

With similar thinking, I assume you get very low deaths to the AIDS pandemic too.

I think that Marx never addressed how the post-capitalist communist society would specifically be organized and turn from the proletarian dictatorship to full communism as the dictatorship was just a transitory phase.

Yet democracy isn't a safety valve for Marx, which people do agree with here, but a battle to be won, just as centralization is the means for the scientific planning to replace the market mechanism. As is written in the Communist Manifesto:

We have seen above, that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy.

The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible.

Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionizing the mode of production.

And direct democracy? I guess for the bolsheviks it was the soviet councils and "to soviet" was the answer to the question of democracy. And they surely understood the problem of this and put their hopes on education, on new generations creating the New Soviet Man (and woman), who would have as a trait selfless collectivism. What then Aleksandr Zinovyev later depicted as the outcome of this Homo Sovieticus was something else.

It certainly solicits the worst of the racists to come out touting their guns. — Benkei

And that's the objective here?

It shows which politicians listen and which don't. — Benkei

Which politicians are listening?

US liberals are mostly cowards that talk the talk but never walk the walk. — Benkei

So not only are the Republicans the problem, but also the liberals too?

If totalitarianism has taught us anything, it is that we must always pay attention to the sabotage of democracy. It would not have been possible for Hitler or Stalin to do what they did if there were democratic checks on their power. — JerseyFlight

Absolutely, I agree. — jamalrob

And the lack of democratic checks is the basic problem. Why I argue it's an inherent problem is because Marx has an agenda, communism, and an singular agent, the proletariat, which makes democracy just a tool to get to communism and to eradicate capitalism. So what about those who don't think this way? What democracy is for them? What is the role of consensus? What if too many people want to stray off from the project?

This is the way that authoritarianism creeps into the cause when theory hits the road. Marx anticipates a clash with the old regime, even if he hopes things being peaceful, but this more violent confrontational path comes to be the roadmap for marxist parties. Yet is there a road map to get to direct democracy?

How is peaceful protesting working out for them so far? — Benkei

How are violent protests working out so far?

I think you accidentally managed to say what is actually the case here: bothsidesism is indeed an "assault on common sense", since there is no equivalence, moral or otherwise, between "radical" leftwing and rightwing groups, fascists and anti-fascists, white supremacists and BLM protesters, and suggesting that there is is completely non-factual sophistry. — Enai De A Lukal

So how Wayfarer saying:

Rioting and looting is not civil protest. — Wayfarer

Is equivalent to make the case for white supremacy? To go against BLM?

What is the sophistry in saying that?

aaaaand there's that vacuous bothsidesism, right on cue — Enai De A Lukal

More like a vacuous assault on common sense and the political center from radicals from both sides, but in this case especially from the left.

As if people aren't against police using excessive force. As if there is some hidden racist undertone or disregard of police brutality in saying like Wayfarer that "rioting and looting is not civil protest". That's the vacuous part which is so strange.

But I guess these days you still can divide people if there would be common ground.

I’m not sure Trump’s comments are so outrageous, especially given the unrest, violence and destruction of property occurring right now. — NOS4A2

But will the Democrats put the demonstrators in charge of every lever of power in the U.S. Government?
Will the Democrats defund Police Departments all across America?
Will they pass federal legislation to reduce law enforcement nationwide?
Will they make every city look like Democrat-run Portland, Oregon?

Do you genuinely think that a Biden administration will do all those things once in power?

I share this view as far as the Republican-Democratic frontrunners go. Interestingly, I just recently came across an "Articles of Unity 2020" push for Gabbard, Yang, McCraven, Ventura, and others as potential last minute alternatives, though I don't see them getting much exposure to have any impact on November as of yet, nor do I know much about the organization behind the push other than it seems spearheaded by Brett and Eric Weinstein and looks like it may have some possible backing by Peter Thiel of Thiel Capital. — Kevin

The Weinstein brothers are a refreshing alternative to the ordinary hyper partisan approach. "Unity 2020" is a bit far off, but still, great insights. Nice to notice that others follow them too here.

I don't imagine we'll won't see many (if any) on the left trying to glorify whoever shot this member of Patriot Prayer — Enai De A Lukal

But there will be those, and they will be heard by Foxnews etc. And the mudslinging and modern day tribalism will continue.

Without Hitler, we would still have a weak and cowardly NATO that would not act when needed. — Gus Lamarch

?

But to blame Trump for the division, when most if not all of the rioters inform themselves through a hostile media, seems to me to be short-sighted and to attribute omnipotent power to one man. — NOS4A2

Let's do one reality check here before we continue. First, there are whole states that have seen NO riots in the last 20 years in the US including this year:



So from the map we can see that basically this is about some cities in the US. Yet the vast majority of the 320+ million Americans have not have riots on their streets.

To respond your comment: First, the political division was already there, and on election years it has been implemented right from the start by the two political parties for them to stay in power, for people to come and vote because the other side is so despicable. Now with the pandemic and the economy in shambles, this just backfires in the way we have seen.

Yet you simply should be objective and compare, just for example, the acceptance speeches of Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Yes, Biden did mention Charlottesville and Trump saying about "very fine people on both sides", but Biden didn't attack Republicans and the RNC. (Perhaps that was done by some other in the convention). Trump, many times, portrayed the democrats and their inaction to be cause of the riots and looting. So when Trump says "If the Radical Left takes power, they will apply their disastrous policies to every city, town, and suburb in America. Just imagine if the so-called peaceful demonstrators in the streets were in charge of every lever of power in the U.S. Government." is Biden making same kind of outrageous claims? No.

You may shrug it off as Trump being Trump, but that's the problem, just as with the most eccentric and wokest protesters and leftist hotheads you find in the social media, they both basically don't think that their outrageous accusations made in tweets etc. would have a physical response.

then he slayed another who tried to hit him with a skateboard. It turns out if you attack a man with a gun you get shot. — NOS4A2

Oh yes, a skateboard. Such a deadly weapon.

But this just shows how easily things escalate if you bring firearms into a riot. The next step is that both sides bring them. How "mostly peaceful" will that be? With self-loading rifles the death toll can easily rise. And it's the likely outcome in the US if and when riots and looting is allowed to continue. So those that celebrate and think it's OK and understandable to loot and destroy private property, the next level of civil unrest is very close by especially if the police doesn't take control of the situation. This response is just a part of the American psyche, not my moral opinion.

The basic problem why I am so pessimistic is that I do not see any way or even any intension to de-escalate the divide and the polarization. Nobody is interested in trying to unify the country, nobody cares about social cohesion. And the winner of the election, whoever it might be, is full of shit if he thinks he can then unite and heal the country.

Alternate history can tell us something, when it's done right.

Hence why the idea to protect the new world by keeping it separate? The best "defence" for the New World would have been trade and technology transfer to the new continent right from the start. A young Aztec Empire armed with similar cannons, muskets and steel weapons would likely sent a renegade Spanish band lead by Cortés back to Cuba, if they would have been lucky. A capable army keeps European Imperialists out. Period.

WW2 was of course the second act of WW1 and with that war we can easily see the problem we have in just how muddled the whole thing was and ready to collapse into the Great War.

So if the driver of the car carrying the Grand Duke didn't make the wrong turn, does anybody really, honestly, think that a Great War would not have happened? That we would have enjoyed peace up until our time? That the last time the World burned would really be the time of Napoleon? Just as said above, there are these situations that play out somehow and likely aren't dependent on just one individual actor. Even if the individual actors make the certain path to be as it is.

The Great War nearly started already at 1911 from the Agadir Crisis, hence in my view the alliance system laid in Europe would have bound to have snapped at some point, some butterfly-moment similar to the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand would have happened sooner or later, let's say during the years from1914 to 1930.

And let's think about the alternate history if the Great War hadn't happened in 1914, but later. Would it have been anything better in the 1920's or 1930's. Or how about happening in 1950? Likely military technology wouldn't have make the leaps in peacetime 1914-1918 as it did then, but the technology would have advanced. And with even better weapons, better airplanes, more chemical weapons, no understanding of how modern war is fought, guess what would happened to the death toll in the first years?

(War Flag and the Marine Jack of the German Empire in a demonstration in Germany in 2018.)

No, I think it’s wise for the president to show support to the victims of riots, and I think it’s a good move politically. — NOS4A2

When your strategy is to be divisive, to increase the antipathy between the left and right, sure, Trump will do so. And the current environment will happily help him in this.

I think Trump hopes that those that have been alienated by his pandemic response fiasco among other issues, can be now lured to vote him because of the disgust that people have against the riots and looting. He has been trailing in the polls, so he is quite desperate.

Yet when you think about it, it's simply a stupid strategy. (But very typical, try to rally your side to vote by painting the other side the worse way.) The problem is that the division will remain. What I have noticed that this election fever, or "silly season", never goes away in US politics as it calmed down before. People will remain as divided as during the election, and now you are start having soon genuine election violence.

It will just get more ugly.

Good ending for your video, philosopher004:

After sighing in relief, the actor takes the time machine back to his time and finds himself in gloomy backward age where the Third Reich led by NSDAP controls the UK, basically all of West East and parts of East Europe. Now the deceased victorious leader of Germany, Otto Strasser, is worshipped as a God like figure. Now understanding that Hitler was crucial part for Germany not to succeed, and that when lead by the leftist Strasser the Germans indeed somehow could pull off a remarkable victory against the allies, the actor then decides to halt himself before killing this baby, which is so crucial for peace and democracy to prevail and for Nazi Germany to collapse. Once on the ground again in 1889 the first actor doesn't believe this second himself coming from this alternated future and the actor ends up killing the first himself. By doing this, he kills also himself and then the city of Linz police have this strange case of identical twins committing suicide close to the house where the Hitlers live. And history resumes it's course that we know and Germany loses WW2.

Well, not funny, but anyway, just making the point how alternate history is problematic.

And that's why there are risk groups for corona virus, the old and those with other conditions like heart disease etc. Still makes the pandemic a pandemic. And the US deaths have blown well past the numbers of the 1968 flu pandemic, the H3N2 Influenza A outbreak, the so-called Hong Kong flu and also the 1957-1958 influenza pandemic by deaths.

Now there's only the Spanish Flu to compete with. That's 500 000 to 850 000 dead, so I assume this pandemic won't break the record.

Yes.

Or a very overblown threat estimate like with international terrorism, which is typical, as individual events always happen.

Yet the part of government propaganda isn't so well on with Trump (as it was during let's say the Bush years). Trump simply doesn't know how to lead institutions and organizations and now the only thing that he has managed is that his closest circle in the administration know how to parrot the Trump line (in order not to loose their job). Below that the US government is working just as it has done before.

Yet it's alarming when political discourse has gone to the level where the criticism against the other has nothing to do with what the other says or does. I guess it's the result of people living in their own echo chambers.

Partly. But then again, many conservatives can argue for law and order and not be fascists.

Of course Trump's argument is a non-sequitur, as Biden's stance is obvious and actually from the Obama years he has experience of breaking up widescale protest with the OWS protests. Then the Obama administration showed how this is done: crack down on the protest with a media blackout and the hold strategic silence. Never even admit that crack down was a coordinated effort and let the media focus on other issues.

What I fear is that some assholes start mimicking the US and try to provoke activist from the left and right to start riots, or that the media creates a similar juxtaposition. And if the mantra is that a non-violent demonstration isn't enough, that you have to break stuff and burn cars to get media attention, the future isn't going to be happy.

It's an interesting contrast how little focus is given to what is happening in Belarus. There Lukashenko (and Putin) are just waiting for some reason to crack down on the Belarussian protests, that have been peaceful.

The ugly way these things seem to be handled is that if the opposition is too peaceful, too responsible and especially too capable of getting support and understanding from abroad, create (either literally or just portray) an opposition group that is radical, violent, and which you can go after.

At least in June the FBI found no evidence of Antifa inducing riots (see here) and has been actually quite consistent in monitoring any kind of radical movements, even if Trump immediately wanted to label Antifa as a terrorist organization. Not so easy to do, because it isn't a foreign organization. Still, Trump needs a clear enemy to tag Biden with.

At least it was peaceful this sunday, but the crowds were not smaller.

And it will work. How? That's another matter. But the strategy is clear.

Trump going to Kenosha is directly btw. from the NRA playbook.

Looked at Trump's RNC speech, which obviously someone had written as it wasn't the typical Trump
noise & banter. Some highlights from Donald's speech.

So first, when your country HAS THE MOST deaths from Covid-19, has most cases per capita of the OECD countries and 11th highest death toll per capita, what stats do you refer to?

The United States has among the lowest case fatality rates of any major country in the world. The European Union's case fatality rate is nearly three times higher than ours. Altogether, the nations of Europe have experienced a 30 percent greater increase in excess mortality than the United States.

Now I personally don't know where this stat comes from, but I guess it's about the cases (the US has the most) and the deaths of those who have caught the pandemic. In preventing a pandemic, this isn't the greatest measure of success.

And how do you describe your response and the opposition?

Unfortunately, from the beginning, our opponents have shown themselves capable of nothing but a partisan ability to criticize. When I took bold action to issue a travel ban on China, Joe Biden called it hysterical and xenophobic. If we had listened to Joe, hundreds of thousands more Americans would have died. Instead of following the science, Joe Biden wants to inflict a painful shutdown on the entire country. - My Administration has a different approach. To save as many lives as possible, we are focusing on the science, the facts and the data.

And then even more scaremongering, seems that Joe is eliminating America's borders:

Joe Biden's campaign has even published a 110-page policy platform co-authored with Far-Left Senator Bernie Sanders. The Biden-Bernie Manifesto calls for suspending ALL removals of illegal aliens, implementing nationwide Catch-and-Release; and providing illegal aliens with free taxpayer-funded lawyers. Joe Biden recently raised his hand on the debate stage and promised to give away YOUR healthcare dollars to illegal immigrants. He also supports deadly Sanctuary Cities that protect criminal aliens. He promised to end national security travel bans from Jihadist nations, and he pledged to increase refugee admissions by 700 percent. The Biden Plan would eliminate America's borders in the middle of a global pandemic.

Now there would have been a time when referring to Muslim majority nations to "Jihadist nations" would have lead to an outcry, now it's barely even noticed.

And then what will Biden do, according to Trump, about the riots?

The most dangerous aspect of the Biden Platform is the attack on public safety. The Biden-Bernie Manifesto calls for Abolishing cash bail, immediately releasing 400,000 criminals onto your streets and into your neighborhoods. When asked if he supports cutting police funding, Joe Biden replied, "Yes, absolutely." When Congresswoman Ilhan Omar called the Minneapolis police department a cancer that is "rotten to the root," Biden wouldn't disavow her support and reject her endorsement -- he proudly displayed it on his website.

Make no mistake, if you give power to Joe Biden, the radical left will Defund Police Departments all across America. They will pass federal legislation to reduce law enforcement nationwide. They will make every city look like Democrat-run Portland, Oregon. No one will be safe in Biden's America.

And furthermore:

When there is police misconduct, the justice system must hold wrongdoers fully and completely accountable, and it will. But what we can never have in America -- and must never allow -- is MOB RULE. In the strongest possible terms, the Republican Party condemns the rioting, looting, arson and violence we have seen in Democrat-run cities like Kenosha, Minneapolis, Portland, Chicago, and New York.

There is violence and danger in the streets of many Democrat-run cities throughout America. This problem could easily be fixed if they wanted to. We must always have law and order. All federal crimes are being investigated, prosecuted, and punished to the fullest extent of the law.
When the anarchists started ripping down our statues and monuments, I signed an order, ten years in prison, and it all stopped.

During their convention, Joe Biden and his supporters remained completely silent about the rioters and criminals spreading mayhem in Democrat-Run Cities. In the face of left-wing anarchy and mayhem in Minneapolis, Chicago, and other cities, Joe Biden's campaign did not condemn it -- they DONATED to it. At least 13 members of Joe Biden's campaign staff donated to a fund to bail out vandals, arsonists, looters, and rioters from jail.

This above is the main point of Trump's re-election campaign. Trump did speak about trade and the threat of China etc. In a way, for Trump the George Floyd shooting and the consequences of that is an opportunity.

What happens to social cohesion in America, who cares the fuck about it.

Your argument is that we can judge what Marx wrote based on what Stalin did. That's what you literally say: — boethius

Let me put it this way.

What communist revolution has ended up being a democracy?

I am sure that Marx did want direct democracy, and as you said, was all for things like the Paris Commune, but that is the whole point. How to do it? And where is that democracy, if people want to have private property or otherwise go and "betray" the class struggle? Why the government and all the planning ended up as it did? The theory needs that strong centralized government. That's the whole point of the anarchist Bakunin critique of the Marxist state starting from things like: "reign of scientific intelligence, the most aristocratic, despotic, arrogant and contemptuous of all regimes".

Oh, things like having to do some work has gotten away with spending time here arguing with people. :wink:

No I agree with you. Forum has been a bit toxic of late. — DingoJones

And that's too bad, because this forum is a bit of a mirror to our times. As usually it's the more informed people here.

Nope, that refers to my quote from the Bible. The quote was basically used as an argument why monarchies exist and why people going against a monarchy are "un-Christian". People used those lines here even in 1918.

So, to be clear, you attach the genocides and slavery of "Christendom" to the teachings of Christ? — boethius

Just as Jesus Christ obviously doesn't talk anything that would justify a crusade, I don't.

Having said that: as I push through college to become a Social worker, I have had to table a program that works in tandem with the police department, because no one is going to have faith that peace on the street can be achieved by a group of social workers, without weapons, being able to deescalate the mood.

That is a division that might not heal. One that gives me heavy heart. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

Tiff, it's very sorry to hear that because I have found you to be a positive person on the forum.

I do notice also that even the Forum has become a bit hostile. It might be just me, of course...

This needs to be stated and clarified: ssu has been thoroughly refuted at this point. — JerseyFlight

Great answer, which tells just how open you are to open discussion.

Oh, ad hominems! Great.

And btw, it's Bakunin, not Bukunin.

Boethius, here is a long answer for a long comment. Thanks for the reply, anyway. Hopefully you will have the time and patience to read my response, but let's cut it more shorter if we continue the discussion.

If the answer is obviously no, as that's a ridiculous argument, — boethius

Well, I too find it as a ridiculous argument. If not Stalin, then some other. In the end all Proletarian dictatorships have become true dictatorships, if they have lasted long enough.

so too is the idea the actions of Stalin somehow condemn the ideas of Marx to such a degree that it can be just assumed without even needing to know anything about Marx and what he wrote (which you obviously don't). — boethius

As this accusation will be hurled at anyone criticizing Marx, I have referred to what Marx has written.

Do you only bring this kind of argument against Marxism, but wouldn't against market theorists or Christianity — boethius

What a strawman. Of course not

As if I wouldn't criticize the Church when there would be reason to do so. Surely you can criticize the Catholic Church for the crusades, but even better critique is simply what justifications people have used from the Holy Bible for the at-the-time society with things like from the Romans 13:1

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.

Somehow Christians in liberal democracies and even in monarchies have gotten past this.

You shouldn't quote Mikhail Bakunin if you have no idea what he was about and what was his basis of disagreement with Marx. - Go research the Bakunin-Marx disagreement and come back and defend Bakunin. — boethius

Another strawman.

The fact is that an anarchist like Bakunin can clearly tell the errors in Marx's thinking. What his own proposals and his thinking are is totally a different matter. And being an anarchist, I do think I'll find there things that I disagree with. Here Bakunin makes the clear case as likely do many other, but likely anybody else than a leftist criticizing Marx would be totally irrelevant. Otherwise I don't have to "defend" Bakunin. In hindsight many philosophers have been correct on some issues and wrong in others. It is as simple as that. And btw, you didn't say anything about this criticism that was objected against Marx.

Liberal capitalist theory is adamant, indeed ferociously convinced, that a similar structure does not happen in liberal capitalist economies, that everyone gets their fair shake — boethius

Liberal capitalist theory? What is liberal capitalist theory? Having studied economics, I don't recall this kind of theory. Perhaps be more specific just who you are talking about.

If you were interested in history, you'd know, or could quickly find out, that nearly all achievements made by labour — boethius

Seems you don't even read what I wrote, because I did refer to this above in the discussion.

More specifically, actually achieving those things through unions and so on while calling themselves Marxists — boethius

Not all trade unions are Marxists. There obviously are Marxist unions, but a lot aren't. Just like Marx isn't the only socialist around.

though we can't assign all the credit to Marx, we can't assign any credit to large owners of capital who were the opposition at every step, nor any of the credit to liberal economists decrying political action as "inefficient" because any state interference in the market will be bad for everyone. — boethius

Any credit? Trade unions were legalized in the UK when Karl Marx was six years old. And the reason why a brilliant philosopher like Marx got things so wrong, that the revolution didn't happen in the UK or Germany, is exactly because the state and the capitalists did do concessions and the Western States could do something about the inequalities brought on with the industrial revolution (and with earlier ones too).

Are you arguing the welfare state is incompatible with Marx's ideas? Or just coming from totally different conception of society? — boethius

What I'm arguing is that the modern welfare state was an answer to many issues that Marx pointed out and it didn't eradicate capitalism and private property. It has worked somewhat well.
And those societies that really did try to implement Marxist theory had lousy economic performance.

Would you argue that the problem of depression in Finland has nothing to do with alienation people feel as producers of commodities (or managers of producers somewhere down the line of commodities)? — boethius

I have no idea what you are implying with "people feeling alienation as producers of commodities". Finnish economy is a small export oriented economy with an ageing population, which is hard hit during global recessions (like this one), which naturally present a problem for the welfare state as taxes ought to pay for the system.

you'll need to actually read Marx and demonstrate how his ideas are simply irrelevant — boethius

Ideas of Marx aren't irrelevant, especially how much influence he has had on the World stage, but the main point was the reality of how the system works, how the government would work and how all the various experiments with Marxism have been a bit of a disappointment.

Welfare states are obviously a mix of liberal capitalism and socialist (including Marxist socialism) ideas; refusing to engage with the Marxist roots of the welfare state (that you enjoy the benefits of!), which, again, aren't the only roots, simply because "Soviets bad" is to simply choose to live in ignorance of history. — boethius

If you would refer to "socialist roots" of the welfare state I could agree with that, but you insist using "Marxist roots". As a person who has gotten a masters in economic history from the university, I do beg to differ here, because this simply isn't true in the historical perspective. You simply have to make a difference between social democracy and the Marxist-Leninist communists of the 20th Century as this divide was huge during the Cold War. Simply put it, not all "socialism" is Marxism and especially with the history of the Nordic countries, Marxists and Marxism hasn't been the driving force behind the welfare state but social democrats and usually the social democratic parties and ideological figure behind were people like Gunnar Myrdal. And of course, the programs were accepted and furthered by right wing parties too.

I did not merely try to call the Soviet Union a Right-Wing-Dictatorship, in actual practice that's what it was. You don't like this fact because it refutes your strawman argument. — JerseyFlight

In this case, you are simply creating your own fantasy. In the Real World Soviet Union is considered socialist and leftist. Sorry.

I am not sure I have ever encountered a more species-intelligent-thinker. One cannot think about material life and ignore Marx, even those who try end up in the same place. He simply thought about society in concrete terms, unshackled from the errors of idealism. — JerseyFlight

Right, Marx is on the pedestal. I thought it would be so with you.

What a great Bakunin quote. I wish I knew the full context but I agree with what he said here. — JerseyFlight

So you do agree with the criticism that Bakunin makes of Marx? Interesting.

If you want to see the whole work, it is here. The quote was from chapter 3.

It would undoubtably be far less divided without the orange Divider-in-Chief continuously inflaming the situation. — praxis

The divide can be less inflammatory, but it still does continue: the whole political system depends on it.

No matter what happens in the elections, the house divided will stay divided, that's for sure.

And the pleasant atmosphere will continue... :mask:

. It doesn't matter what you or I say about the Soviet Union, what matters is what the Soviet Union actually was. Did democracy exist in the Soviet Union? Did Stalin have power? Were there any democratic checks on his power? — JerseyFlight

I'm saying that there weren't those checks, not even after Stalin, even if the totalitarian system became more "humane" by changing the labour camps to mental institutions.

Yet it is simply pure dishonesty and flagrant denial from you to try think that the teachings of Karl Marx had nothing to do with a society that had as it's state ideology Marxism-Leninism and that you try to call the Soviet Union a "right-wing dictatorship". I guess "right-wing" is just a swearword for you, so perhaps you could call Stalin a nazi too.

Sometimes the dictatorship of Stalin is said to be where the Soviet Union lost it's cause. Yet it is simply ignorance to try uphold the fallacy of Soviet Union being a possible success "if not for Stalin". Stalin, the great scapegoat. How many times have I heard "if not Stalin" ...how benign the system would have been under Lenin. This thinking totally disregards the intrinsic problems of Marx's ideology, which do inherently lead to a totalitarian system.

Mikhail Bakunin saw this flaw well in the ideas of Karl Marx and writes in Marxism, Freedom and the State:

But in the People's State of Marx, there will be, we are told, no privileged class at all. All will be equal, not only from the juridical and political point of view, but from the economic point of view. At least that is what is promised, though I doubt very much, considering the manner in which it is being tackled and the course it is desired to follow, whether that promise could ever be kept. There will therefore be no longer any privileged class, but there will be a government, and, note this well, an extremely complex government, which will not content itself with governing and administering the masses politically, as all governments do to-day, but which will also administer them economically, concentrating in its own hands the production and the just division of wealth, the cultivation of land, the establishment and development of factories, the organisation and direction of commerce,, finally the application of capital to production by the only banker, the State. All that will demand an immense knowledge and many "heads overflowing with brains" in this government. It will be the reign of scientific intelligence, the most aristocratic, despotic, arrogant and contemptuous of all regimes. There will be a new class, a new hierarchy of real and pretended scientists and scholars, and the world will be divided into a, minority ruling in the name of knowledge and an immense ignorant majority. And then, woe betide the mass of ignorant ones!

Such a regime will not fail to arouse very considerable discontent in this mass and in order to keep it in check the enlightenment and liberating government of Marx will have need of a not less considerable armed force. For the government must be strong, says Engels, to maintain order among these millions of illiterates whose brutal uprising would be capable of destroying and overthrowing everything, even a government directed by heads overflowing with brains.

Bakunin was right far before the Soviet Union was formed on the new ruling class in the "classless society" which would rely on armed force. That the same thing happened in China and in many other places where communists took over, which says something about the ideology of Marx.

I care little about your formalism or anyone elses. The Soviet Union was a Right-Wing-Dictatorship presided over by Joseph Stalin. — JerseyFlight

Indeed you don't.

Hard to see how we are even on the same page here? — JerseyFlight

I guess we aren't. With utterly crazy statements from you like the one above it isn't surprising.

Comparing to the start of the Euromaidan protests in Ukraine, the focus on events happening in Belarus seem quite little. Perhaps the reason is that the events in the US and it's elections and the pandemic simply have veered off media interest in this Eastern European country.

What is notable is that Putin has forces ready to come to the help of Lukashenko:

Please don't turn this in another anti-natalism thread. — Benkei

Seems like interest in the Corona-virus is disappearing in this forum.