Bubye KRudd

buzzlightyear said:
If there is a real concern about communism/socialism, maybe people should be concentrating the recent US experience (bank bail out, GM purchase), UK (purchase of Northern Rock amongst others), we have approched nothing of this scale and magnitude.
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Let's keep in mind the US and UK public outsourced regulation of the banking system to government.

The US public also outsourced regulation of credit to a government agency.

GFC was the result of regulatory failure. The public and commercial world thought the govt monitored this stuff responsibly, and were lulled into a false sense of security.

Any Australian who has dealt with ACCC or ASIC will be painfully aware of how 'efficient' government regulation is in protecting the public.
 
Winston:

I'm well aware of Evatt and the split. Hell, I wrote a paper on it.... less than two months ago.

If you look at communist party membership, including its affiliates, there is a serious decline after the strikes of '47 when the chifley government used the military. Petrov affair, disillusionment and Labor split in '57 put the nails in the coffin, with only a weak presence of communists in Australia, let alone the unions being relegated to dock workers and some of the mills. You see these being weakly active within the Vietnam war, however in comparison to previous industrial actions by the communists it was minor. Hardly a great expansion of communist infiltration within the unions, it was a decline.
 
CJProperty said:
Hardly a great expansion of communist infiltration within the unions, it was a decline.
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I disagree. Hardcore communists just woke up that they can't bash others into alignment with their world view. They realized the Communist 'brand' had been tarnished, and needed to be rebranded into something more palatable and less nefarious to Jenny mainstream journalist and Joe Public.

I don't see any difference, but a whole lot of similarities between Communist principles and any number of Socialist branded agitators, such as Socialist Online. And I'll eat my well bashed Akubra if SO and student unions receive no funding or support from Australian unions.

Communist infiltration has grown more subtle and underhanded in its efforts to engineer the social and political landscape. Great effort is channeled into controlling the education syllabus and the interpretation and writing of history. The Left's obsession with multiculturalism is a deliberate attempt to dilute any one cultural or religious view from predominating in Australia; religious belief being communism's greatest and final opponent. Divide and conquer is the Socialist mantra.

Further, the left have woken up that the 'State' doesn't need to struggle to retain ownership of natural resources and the means of production. Instead, they let capitalists fight it out and think they are in control.....a lot easier for the left to come along afterwards, and risk free, up the tax rate.

In effect, the contemporary Australian left aims to make capitalism its bltch, making it do all the work, while more equal socialist masters sit back, and with sticky fingers, collect and redistribute, as they see fit.
 
And do you have any evidence of this? Or is this merely the ramblings of someone who doesn't use any form or sourcing and relies on coincidences and a story built up in your mind. Even the Quadrant wouldn't make such claims :)

This whole assumption of the Australian communists as an unseen malignant force is based on the assumption that they have always been in power (if ever!). Are you suggesting that the Left was in power under Howard? Why would such forces equivalent to the Illuminati allow for Hawke and Keatings reforms?

Your "Us" vs. "Them" concept is staggering, especially with your views towards religion and culture. In regards to multiculturalism, you inadvertently associate the "us" as the anglo-protestant view. How does this play into germanic/Italian/greek/french culture and religion which is inherently ingrained into the Australian culture, well before any talk of multiculturalism.

And don't get started on the transfer to profit based tax over production.

I challenge you: Provide evidence from credible sources to substantiate your views, I will quite willingly take into account such information. I don't take to extreme bias so see this as an opportunity to spread your views in the fight against the 'nefarious' Left puppet master.

... :p
 
After that fallacy and non sequitur peppered outburst CJ, you are obviously invested more emotively in your world view, than objectively.

I won't waste my time with you. Your view is the familiar generic stereotype of the exuberant dilettante , lacking historical or sociocultural perspective, with nil understanding or insight into the creation of Australia's parliamentary, legal, and justice systems.....you know, the very thing migrants are attracted to Australia for.

You need to read a lot more widely with eyes wired open CJ. One paper about Communism in the 50s doesn't cut it.

You obviously have the undergraduate consciousness that everything can be discretely packaged into neat little pigeon holes, socialism in one and communism in another. And you are so poorly informed on the history of Australian culture, justice, and education, that you distort the role of minority ethnic groups in their origin and evolution. Maybe you can explain why AUstralia doesn't have the public debt of Greece or the current account surplus of Germany.

Further, you talk with the wisdom and insight of someone who is yet to grasp or experience how grown ups engage in power plays, whether within various ideological factions of political parties, unions, socialist/communist groups, and major religions of Australia.

I am happy for you to live in the murky mire of your little cubicle and continue to base your ego and identity on the perceptions from within it.



CJProperty said:
This whole assumption of the Australian communists as an unseen malignant force is based on the assumption that they have always been in power (if ever!). Are you suggesting that the Left was in power under Howard? Why would such forces equivalent to the Illuminati allow for Hawke and Keatings reforms?
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WinstonWolfe said:
Maybe the ALP should read this, and realize the unions are not representative of the electorate.
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But then, they gave their not insignificant financial resources to the fighting of Workchoices in the last election, which tapped into the wider electorate fear (justified or not) that the Lib/Nats had gone too far in their legislation.

They acted like a strong vested interest with money to seek and influence public sentiment. Bit like the miners today!
 
communism actually can be quite successful
look at China now

the reason why it failed in Europe was partly because of the constant external threat from Western countries, and consequent spending on military at the expense of the rest of the economy. if you look at the history, western countries fought USSR even before it established itself as a state.

it was also partly due to USSR trying to spread communism around the globe, and sponsoring everyone who was willing to declare themselves communist.

if not for those two things, we would probably still have USSR on the map, and it most likely would be amongst the world leaders in the quality of life.
 
CJProperty said:
Winston:

I'm well aware of Evatt and the split. Hell, I wrote a paper on it.... less than two months ago.

If you look at communist party membership, including its affiliates, there is a serious decline after the strikes of '47 when the chifley government used the military. Petrov affair, disillusionment and Labor split in '57 put the nails in the coffin, with only a weak presence of communists in Australia, let alone the unions being relegated to dock workers and some of the mills. You see these being weakly active within the Vietnam war, however in comparison to previous industrial actions by the communists it was minor. Hardly a great expansion of communist infiltration within the unions, it was a decline.
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Why bring the Vietnam War up,That's history i would be interested on what paper you wrote on the Communist Party Membership,go onto any union controled building site and see how the system works under total union control no different from the Government we have..willair..
 
I didnt think WW would take up CJ Properties reasonable request. Theres a pattern.

BTW (all of you) - Unions like conservative and then leftist governments come and go.

Its cyclical! GET IT!

No one wins. There is no right way...one will rise - have power then fall. Its the way of the world.
 
Strannik said:
communism actually can be quite successful
look at China now

the reason why it failed in Europe was partly because of the constant external threat from Western countries, and consequent spending on military at the expense of the rest of the economy. if you look at the history, western countries fought USSR even before it established itself as a state.

it was also partly due to USSR trying to spread communism around the globe, and sponsoring everyone who was willing to declare themselves communist.

if not for those two things, we would probably still have USSR on the map, and it most likely would be amongst the world leaders in the quality of life.
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I disagree.

Communism stripped of its militarist and global pretensions would have been no more successful. Ditto for China had it remained a command economy.

The first reason is that communism, like any other brand of tyranny, denies the dignity of the individual. By suppressing free thought and speech, it encourages conformity against which people eventually react.

The second is that communism took all of a person's productive surplus. There was no incentive to be productive and so people weren't (eg low productivity of collective farms vs private farms). This lowers overall wealth for the nation as a whole. In less abstract terms, this was the difference between a western shopping with self-serve abundance, and Soviet shopping of queues and shortages.

It should be emphasised that despite what its backers in the west might have believed, communism did not mean equality - it merely replaced one class structure (based on family, wealth, profession or education) with another based on party membership.

When eastern Europeans saw through their leaders and that people in the west had freedom the walls came tumbling down and an evil system collapsed.
 
your post shows how little you actually know about communism

communism is not a tyranny. if communism is a tyranny then so is democracy, as it allowed people like Hitler to come to power.

there is no more suppression of freedom of speech and especially thought, than there is in democratic societies (internet filter rings a bell?)

there were incentives to be productive, your propaganda machine probably failed to mention it to you ;) Also it's not like there are huge incentives for a worker to be more productive in capitalist society. The surplus is pocketed by the business owner, and worker is lucky to get a raise along with the inflation level in most places. So increase in productivity comes from reducing the number of people working for you via improvement of processes and tools.

What it then means is that the private farmer from your example pockets the profits and government has to pay dole to the people he made redundant.
Sure it's better for the farmer, but not for the government(i.e everyone who pays taxes) and certainly not for the worker.

the difference between a western shopping with self-serve abundance, and Soviet shopping of queues and shortages was due to easy access to credit in the west. it only takes a small credit crunch, and all of a sudden the whole pyramid starts shaking (we saw it very recently)

With regards to class structure based on party membership - all you have to do is look at the members of major political parties in Australia. It doesn't look too different ;)

Communism did mean equality in things that matter.
Those things were:
access to free education, of equal quality.
access to free place to live (and by the way people who were productive would jump the queue)
access to a job. in fact everyone was guaranteed a job.
access to free health care
etc

the so called "walls" you are referring to, were built by western countries around eastern block. if you brush up on your history you will find that in majority of cases decision to change the political system was made by leaders, not by people. especially in case of USSR. majority of people voted to stay, but that didn't help.

also you'll find that a lot of countries are worse off now than they used to be when they were part of eastern block.
 
Strannik said:
also you'll find that a lot of countries are worse off now than they used to be when they were part of eastern block.
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to a large extent that has nothing to do with capitalism or communism.

that has to do with freedom of movement.

Have a bo peep at the dempgraphic changes in places like Russia per se over the last 15 years.

I have seen both sides of the fence ( wall) literally.


ta
rolf
 
Strannik said:
your post shows how little you actually know about communism

communism is not a tyranny. if communism is a tyranny then so is democracy, as it allowed people like Hitler to come to power.
Click to expand...

So if I get this right, you are saying that communism and democracy are morally eqivalent systems?

Were rights such as the ability to attend protests, profess a religion, publish material critical to the government, trial by jury, establish independent trade unions, own private property or travel overseas available to the average Eastern European or Soviet citizen?

there is no more suppression of freedom of speech and especially thought, than there is in democratic societies (internet filter rings a bell?)
Click to expand...

Stalin's purges
Political prisoners?
Mao's 'Cultural Revolution'
Tianamen Square?

During the cold war, why did so many more people want to defect from the eastern bloc to the west than the other way around?

Communism did mean equality in things that matter.
Those things were:
access to free education, of equal quality.
access to free place to live (and by the way people who were productive would jump the queue)
access to a job. in fact everyone was guaranteed a job.
access to free health care
Click to expand...

Equality for whom? And don't some of the political and economic liberties mentioned above matter?

Most of the above, at a higher average standard than which existed under communism, can be obtained for most people under some sort of liberal or social democratic system which preserves dignity, freedom and liberty for its citizens. And if we don't like what happened last week, we can vote for someone else in a few months!
 
Rolf Latham said:
to a large extent that has nothing to do with capitalism or communism.

that has to do with freedom of movement.

Have a bo peep at the dempgraphic changes in places like Russia per se over the last 15 years.

I have seen both sides of the fence ( wall) literally.
Click to expand...

i have not just seen both sides of the fence, but actually lived both sides of the fence, and i do remember the drastic fall in quality of life starting 1991 quite well.

the demographic changes actually happened due to people fleeing the "wild capitalism" of the 90-ies. this was the time when anyone who had connections and was willing to take a bit of risk could become a billionaire in few years because democratically elected government virtually gave away everything that was built during Soviet times. the risk part, by the way was not a financial risk, but a risk of getting shot in a process of asset acquisition.
 
Spiderman said:
So if I get this right, you are saying that communism and democracy are morally eqivalent systems?
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More or less. I'd say communism is morally even better, because it cares for the society as a whole rather than an individual. That's, by the way what Christian religion also teaches you ;)

Were rights such as the ability to attend protests, profess a religion, publish material critical to the government, trial by jury, establish independent trade unions, own private property or travel overseas available to the average Eastern European or Soviet citizen?
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ability to attend protests - isn't available to an average citizen from a democratic country either. Look at G20 in Canada and a lot of other events in democratic countries.

publish material critical to the government - yes. as long as it's constructive. there we even government posters, encouraging people to criticize constructively, because it improves things. criticism for the sake of criticism should be banned in my opinion.

trial by jury - that's not a right at all
establish independent trade unions - that's not a right at all, + communism had that
own private property - yes
travel overseas - yes

Stalin's purges
Political prisoners?
Mao's 'Cultural Revolution'
Tianamen Square?
Click to expand...
...Hitler's death camps

what's that got to do with communism?

During the cold war, why did so many more people want to defect from the eastern bloc to the west than the other way around?
Click to expand...
because Western propaganda was better than Soviet


Equality for whom? And don't some of the political and economic liberties mentioned above matter?
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equality for citizens of the respective countries. some of those do matter, but not all. if i had a choice between freedom to talk ****, and guaranteed livelihood for my family - i'd pick the second.

Most of the above, at a higher average standard than which existed under communism, can be obtained for most people under some sort of liberal or social democratic system which preserves dignity, freedom and liberty for its citizens.
Click to expand...
communism preserves those as well.
if all is good, then why do we have so many homeless people in Australia?

And if we don't like what happened last week, we can vote for someone else in a few months!
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just like Germans voted out Hitler?


One thing you need to set straight is which times are you talking about.
You seem to be comparing communism of the 1920-1940 with modern capitalism and democracy. i can assure you that communism in 1980-ies was as much different from 1920 version, as is current democracy.

in fact communism back in the 30-ies gave more rights to women and people of other races than democracy did for decades after that.
 

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