The "Che phenomenon"

alastair

That's your perogative, but the history of social democracy, and Marx's theories are there for all to see. Is it 100% Marxist? No it's not, but then I'm not seeing 100% Hayek/Friedman/Smith capitalist states either.

Cynical Apathy

Someone claimed that communists were "using Cuba to obliterate the US and kill tens of millions of people"
The USA had nuclear weapons in Turkey as a constant threat to the USSR, the USSR tactically placed their weapons in Cuba and in the end a reasonable compromise was reached where both countries agreed to stop threatening each others boarders.

Those innocent people whom Che is accused of murdering were high ranking members of the brutal and corrupt, US backed Batista regime who killed tens of thousands of genuinely innocent civilians in the mid 50s alone.

Nothing in this world is, or ever was, as simple as black and white. Was Castro the vile and oppressive dictator he is painted to be? The US were the bullies of the world at the time planning coups and planting puppet governments all over the world. They had plans to make a lot of money from Cuba until Castro nationalised everything. Powerful, influential people in the US demanded action to which JFK admitted he was foolish to responded to. Castro exchanged or ransomed captured CIA agents for baby food and medicines (not guns). There were hundreds of failed assassination attempts so he spent his time living in a state of war. The US could not let socialism prosper so close, as it could infect their own population.

Cuba remains an extremely poor country due to the unfair embargo still enforced by the United States but it has one of the highest mortality rates in the world.

According to Marx, Communism could only happen after the worlds main power (the US) adopted socialism completely and spread it to the rest of the world. Anyway his theories were written in the 1800s, if he were alive today he might have very different ideas.

Even in America, early socialist movements influenced labour unions to get better pay and conditions for the ordinary worker. IMO, Marxism has had a positive effect on Capitalism.

fontanalis

Cynical Apathy wrote: »

Someone claimed that communists were "using Cuba to obliterate the US and kill tens of millions of people"
The USA had nuclear weapons in Turkey as a constant threat to the USSR, the USSR tactically placed their weapons in Cuba and in the end a reasonable compromise was reached where both countries agreed to stop threatening each others boarders.

Those innocent people whom Che is accused of murdering were high ranking members of the brutal and corrupt, US backed Batista regime who killed tens of thousands of genuinely innocent civilians in the mid 50s alone.

Nothing in this world is, or ever was, as simple as black and white. Was Castro the vile and oppressive dictator he is painted to be? The US were the bullies of the world at the time planning coups and planting puppet governments all over the world. They had plans to make a lot of money from Cuba until Castro nationalised everything. Powerful, influential people in the US demanded action to which JFK admitted he was foolish to responded to. Castro exchanged or ransomed captured CIA agents for baby food and medicines (not guns). There were hundreds of failed assassination attempts so he spent his time living in a state of war. The US could not let socialism prosper so close, as it could infect their own population.

Cuba remains an extremely poor country due to the unfair embargo still enforced by the United States but it has one of the highest mortality rates in the world.

According to Marx, Communism could only happen after the worlds main power (the US) adopted socialism completely and spread it to the rest of the world. Anyway his theories were written in the 1800s, if he were alive today he might have very different ideas.

Even in America, early socialist movements influenced labour unions to get better pay and conditions for the ordinary worker. IMO, Marxism has had a positive effect on Capitalism.

Why does it need help from the capitalist pigs?

Monty Burnz

Cynical Apathy wrote: »

Cuba remains an extremely poor country due to the unfair embargo still enforced by the United States but it has one of the highest mortality rates in the world.

High mortality rates are usually considered a bad thing.

Cynical Apathy wrote: »

According to Marx, Communism could only happen after the worlds main power (the US) adopted socialism completely and spread it to the rest of the world. Anyway his theories were written in the 1800s, if he were alive today he might have very different ideas.

The US was not 'the world's main power' in the 1800s.

alastair

fontanalis wrote: »

Why does it need help from the capitalist pigs?

You do know there's a distinction between hindering something, and not helping it?

Cynical Apathy

Monty Burnz wrote: »

High mortality rates are usually considered a bad thing.


The US was not 'the world's main power' in the 1800s.

Lol, one of the highest life expectancy rates.:o

It is now and has been throughout the last century.

Monty Burnz

Cynical Apathy wrote: »

Lol, one of the highest life expectancy rates.:o

Fair enough!

Cynical Apathy wrote: »

It is now and has been throughout the last century.

Indeed, but not in the 19th century. Britain was surely the world's greatest power in the 1800s.

k.p.h

Cynical Apathy wrote: »

Lol, one of the highest life expectancy rates.:o

It is now and has been throughout the last century.

I pulled a :eek: when I saw that. You have corrected yourself though

I see some people fighting the good fight here today anyway

Mike 1972

Computer Sci wrote: »

Anybody who has made a living through the capitalist system, from the everyday worker to the wealthiest executives has made their living fair and square by using their assets/ wealth/ investments to buy and sell products and services. If anybody has been found to be gaining wealth illegally, they are brought to court and imprisoned, whether they are the everyday worker or the wealthiest executive.

I take it you dont follow the news much ?

Dudess

I agree condemnation of capitalism by wealthy western kids is hypocrisy, but I find it's actually possible to object to that without pretending atrocities aren't being committed against Palestinian people by the Israeli state.

Monty Burnz

Mike 1972 wrote: »

I take it you dont follow the news much ?

Great post!

In his defence, remember that Ireland is different...

Nodin

Monty Burnz wrote: »

Great post!

In his defence, remember that Ireland is different...

*cough *cough Berlo *cough *cough

V_Moth

4leto wrote: »

Given

alastair wrote: »

Given .

Monty Burnz wrote: »

Given

GIVEN SAVES!

from Arshavin.... :pac:

Cynical Apathy

Monty Burnz wrote: »

Indeed, but not in the 19th century. Britain was surely the world's greatest power in the 1800s.

The point being that Russia wasn't the world power Marx had in mind to implement his theories. Neither IMO would he have chosen Lenin or Stalin to lead the cause.

The countries who have tried socialism or communism did so out of necessity or oppression and with the exception of Stalin's reign in Russia were just as bad beforehand and they didn't fare much better afterwards.

CorkMan

I canvassed for Mick Barry of the Socialist Party before. I got a Che tattoo on my upper back, I now the situation I am in ATM (ie 1st world country in Ireland, constant food, water, ESB) allows me to think like this, like if I was had no money and was struggling for food I doubt i'd have these ideologies.

But nevertheless, I do believe in some parts of socialism. I don't want some people to be mega-rich yet others starving, like in Ireland ATM. In that sense Che Guevara does have a role in Irish society. Plus you maybe sure in the Arab revolutions there were plenty of Che flags being waved.

Monty Burnz

CorkMan wrote: »

But nevertheless, I do believe in some parts of socialism. I don't want some people to be mega-rich yet others starving, like in Ireland ATM.

Are you suggesting that some people must be poor in order that others can be rich? That wealth for some causes poverty for others?

CorkMan

Monty Burnz wrote: »

Are you suggesting that some people must be poor in order that others can be rich? That wealth for some causes poverty for others?

Yes. If the bankers had to pay off their debts, instead of the working man paying, their wealth would go down.

Yahew

Cynical Apathy wrote: »

Even in America, early socialist movements influenced labour unions to get better pay and conditions for the ordinary worker. IMO, Marxism has had a positive effect on Capitalism.

The history of Marxism has been re-written to make Marx the "founder" of socialism. Ideas of socialism preceded him by a generation, or two. Often Christian to begin with, it became secular over time. Progressive taxation, democracy, even nationalisation were ideas that preceded Marx. Marx, therefore, brought nothing to that party.

What he bought to the party was totalitarian ideas wrapped up in pseudo-democratic garb, illiterate economics, and bad philosophy.

Yahew

It's entertaining that nice Marxists, or people who claim to find some "libertarian" ideology therein seem to oppose the liquidation of the Kulaks. Lenin quite rightly pointed out that the Kulaks, if left to their own devices, would produce a bourgeoisie ( for Lenin - a grandson of a serf owner this was galling). In theory and in practice, I dont see anything in Marxist theory which would point out the flaws in Leninism, or Stalinism. In fact both terms are nonsense, like distinguishing between Nazzism and Hitlerism.

Monty Burnz

CorkMan wrote: »

Yes. If the bankers had to pay off their debts, instead of the working man paying, their wealth would go down.

You don't have a notion how banks work, do you? You mean that the people who work in the banks should find the billions to pay for the bad loans?

Were you one of the people who went into banks and roared at the counter staff a couple of years ago?

flahavaj

Eric Cartman wrote: »

These people dont seem to grasp the reality of the fact that their parents submission to the capitalist system has given them the freedom and financial means to express these views. The truth of the matter is , just like shell2sea supporters, SWP members and all the other youth - lefty groups , they are all run by and supported by products of the capitalist economy.

Once while standing outside a pub I witnessed 2 of these trinity college products talk about 'the celtic tiger was the worst thing that ever happened to ireland'

these kids are quite clearly morons and only have a very basic grasp of economics, If they actually got a job theyd soon shake these views, but its their views and utter laziness that keeps them from getting a job.

Its realistically a product of trying not to turn into their parents in the laziest way possible, and it seems the healthier and wealthier their upbringing was, the more they struggle to get away from it.

Unless gthey were wearing trinity t-shirts how could you tell what college they went to?

mehfesto

People do become wealthy at the expense of others though.
Anyone working a minimum wage job for a multinational company can tell you that.

Monty Burnz

mehfesto wrote: »

People do become wealthy at the expense of others though.
Anyone working a minimum wage job for a multinational company can tell you that.

They don't, unless they are rent seekers (like ESB employees, or corrupt politicians or whatever). If it's costing someone to work for a multinational money, why would they turn up for work?

(I used to work for peanuts for a multinational in the days before the minimum wage)

paddyandy

The Mad Masses are out in full force here to day.

Yahew

Monty Burnz wrote: »

They don't, unless they are rent seekers (like ESB employees, or corrupt politicians or whatever). If it's costing someone to work for a multinational money, why would they turn up for work?

(I used to work for peanuts for a multinational in the days before the minimum wage)

And nationalised or subsidised, or government supported and guaranteed banks ( too big too fail) - i.e. all of them? You know, ESB workers are definitely creators of wealth and providers of service - like power, and I have never had a problem with them being incompetent. They dont get a market wage, it's probably higher because of their union power, but fair play to them.

Bankers definitely get a non-market wage - why wouldn't it fall to normal wage rates otherwise? - and have brought down the world economy.

Monty Burnz

Yahew wrote: »

They dont get a market wage, it's probably higher because of their union power, but fair play to them.

I've no issue with how they do their jobs - it's just the fact that they get higher pay due to the ability to strike and cut the power to the country that makes them rent seekers. Of course they do produce wealth - but only to the level of where the market would pay them for doing the job. The premium they get due to their strike power is their rent.

The simplest definition of rent-seeking is the expenditure of resources attempting to enrich oneself by increasing one's share of a fixed amount of wealth rather than trying to create wealth. Since resources are expended but no new wealth is created, the net effect of rent-seeking is to reduce the sum of social wealth.
Rent-seeking generally implies the extraction of uncompensated value from others without making any contribution to productivity. The origin of the term refers to the gaining control of land or other pre-existing natural resources. In the modern economy, a more common example of rent-seeking is political lobbying to receive a government transfer payment, or to impose burdensome regulations on one's competitors in order to increase one's market share.
In modern industrialized countries, economic benefits derived by most people involve some form of rent-seeking, but in the aggregate such behaviors may result in substantial social losses.

There are many such people in Ireland.

CorkMan

Monty Burnz wrote: »

You don't have a notion how banks work, do you? You mean that the people who work in the banks should find the billions to pay for the bad loans?

Were you one of the people who went into banks and roared at the counter staff a couple of years ago?

No, the executives should. That fella who "borrowed" more than 50 million euro. Plus the bond holders too, they should have to pay, instead of the working man.

Monty Burnz

CorkMan wrote: »

No, the executives should. That fella who "borrowed" more than 50 million euro. Plus the bond holders too, they should have to pay, instead of the working man.

The executives don't have that sort of money, and the losses aren't theirs to take anyway. The losses belong to the bank shareholders - the people who owned the banks.

The bond holders are people who lent money to the banks, same as depositors did. I agree that they should have lost their investment, but then Fianna Failure made sure that couldn't happen.

Yahew

Monty Burnz wrote: »

I've no issue with how they do their jobs - it's just the fact that they get higher pay due to the ability to strike and cut the power to the country that makes them rent seekers. Of course they do produce wealth - but only to the level of where the market would pay them for doing the job. The premium they get due to their strike power is their rent.

I've no issue with how CEO's do their job. I do have issues with how bankers do their job. it's just the fact that they get higher pay due to the ability to set their own pay, or bring down the world economy. Both do create wealth, but the level the market used to pay them both was much less.

The premium is, for CEO's, lack of governance by the shareholders; for bankers their ability to bring down the world economy if they fail, or withhold credit.

The Master of Disaster

I agree with you to an extent in that there is an element of double standards with a lot young idealism but your cynicism prevents you from seeing when people genuinely do believe the causes they committed to when they were in college or when they were young. Not everybody who goes to college is a goatee-growing hippee who then becomes the arch capitalist of your imagination. I know plenty of people who remain committed to their ideals as much as their lives allow. They may have less time these days as work and family take up a lot of time but they still do their bit when they can.

Who you really hate, and I'm largely with you on this, is the idealist who's so far up his own arse or in the clouds that he has no grounding in reality; I remember being in a lecture with a guy in college who said that anyone who joined the Gardai was prepared to kill for the State or that all wealth was exploitation :rolleyes: You're right that Kate O'Sullivan's stunt was embarrassing because you had a pure idealist pull a stunt without any consideration of the reality of the situation. Did she really think that anything would happen? No she wanted to make a statement it just made her look like the silly leftist student stereotype of popular imagination. It's when you get that mix of idealism and pragmatism that things start to happen. An individual can make a difference either on his own or when he gets together with like-minded individuals to form an organisation just as long as he recognises the most appropriate and effective method of action for a particular situation.

cookies221 wrote: »

Che was a murderer and terrorist, btw. Kids may as well be running around wearing tshirts with Bin Laden or Saddam Hussein on the front. Violence is NEVER the answer. Did Gandhi need violence to win independence for India? Did Martin Luther King need violence to win civil rights for negros? What did the IRA's campaign of terror achieve, besides dragging this country back on to the Neanderthal age?

As an aside I think this view is just as naive as those student-leftists idealists that you patronise. Non-violence as a political method only works in certain circumstances. It worked for Gandhi in India because you had a foreign power (Britain) which was losing the appetite to sustain a large empire in the wake of the WW2. The average British person, the odd and notable imperialists aside, had no interest in maintaining a presence in India or were at the most indifferent while international pressure was present although not overtly forceful. Even this is a very simplistic view but it serves to contextualise the situation. Even closer to our time non-violence worked in Egypt and Tunisia but what about Libya? Only once NATO had supplied weapons, training and air support did the rebels fight their way to Tripoli and topple Gaddafi. At the moment how is non-violent protest working out in Syria? Reality always lies somewhere in between and rarely does the modern world allow us to align our ideals perfectly with facts on the ground. I do not espouse violence as such but merely highlight its utility in certain circumstances.

Also I actually do have a T-shirt of the band 'The Killers' which in place of the band's heads they have Hitler, Saddam, Stalin and Osama. I got it as a joke present and it never leaves the house