[Zipperfish]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

Public_Domain Public_Domain:

One of the weirdest things asked of communists is "How will communism efficiently distribute finite resources", which would suggest capitalists solved that problem. The swirling garbage patches in the ocean tell me otherwise.

Communists redistribute finite resources.

Capitalists create new resources.

And if you want to see a real environmental disaster you need only visit a communist country to see one of epic proportion.

My personal favourite is Mao's Four Pests campaign of 1958. In this he intended to eradicate from China: rats, flies, mosquitoes and sparrows.



As wiki puts it:

$1:

The masses of China were mobilized to eradicate the birds, and citizens took to banging pots and pans or beating drums to scare the birds from landing, forcing them to fly until they fell from the sky in exhaustion. Sparrow nests were torn down, eggs were broken, and nestlings were killed.Sparrows and other birds were shot down from the sky, resulting in the near-extinction of the birds in China.

But...then came the locusts. Anyone want to guess what the primary predator of the locusts was? Yes, the sparrows they just got rid of. Of course indiscriminate pesticide use and deforestation also contributed, but the resulting famine resulted in some 20 - 45 million starving to death. This I a cautionary tale I always relate to young environmental scientists I teach.

[BartSimpson]

Public_Domain Public_Domain:

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

None of these ideas have been approved by the Democrats who control 100% of California's government.

Reformism, getting shit done! I wonder which corporate interests like to play politics in Cali.

Real estate developers are the #1 monied interests in California politics. It's been that way since the 1880's.

[Public_Domain]

[BartSimpson]

Public_Domain Public_Domain:

Errors in judgment like the Four Pests are great examples of the need of decentralization in communistic movements. So much power to so few, able to compel a society to take part in such an awful judgment call, is purely dangerous.

Their goal was to get rid of a pest that was causing starvation due to the crops it was eating. Sadly they didn't know how reliant the ecosystem was on that bird to keep out the greater threats.

A lot of people paid for that good intention.

I don't see that as a concrete argument against communism though.

Pardon me if I edit one of your sentences here:

Their goal was to blame birds and rats for starvation due to the crops the five-year plans failed to produce.

[Thanos]

ShepherdsDog ShepherdsDog:

Naw...all the Jews were given fine short term accommodations,including rail passes.

You know what I mean though, that the National Socialists took the "socialist" part of their ideology very seriously. I've given up on trying to convince today's liberals or communists that Nazi Germany wasn't some kind of capitalist free-for-all. It was the most basic kind of socialism, the tribal kind, where committing economic and financial acts that would damage the entire nation were held to be abhorrent. Yeah, it was open season on Jews and Slavs, but anyone who didn't get with the program and tried to profiteer off of volk or state would have the hammer come down on them hard. Corporations and banks were still an essential part of the economy and could make profits but only under a highly regulated regime that clamped down on crimes like usury. Make all the money you want but you will not make it by causing harm to your own.

I hate saying it but on certain aspects of economics and social needs the Nazis had a greater social conscience than the thieving fuckers Ronald Reagan unleashed on the world economy ever did. It also puts this alt-right gang of idiots to shame because almost all of them support Reagan-style capitalism, which means they have no objection at all to the financial sector preying on the American people any more than the banksters do. If they're going to spout a bunch of half-assed "whites only" nonsense then they better start actually living it, and start saying that anyone ripping off of impoverishing another member of their own tribe in the name of profit and greed is an enemy of their people.

[BartSimpson]

Public_Domain Public_Domain:

A lot of people paid for that good intention.

I don't see that as a concrete argument against communism though.

The good intentions of communists like yourself have always been swept aside by the avarice and a thirst for power of people who thrill to the thought of commanding millions of people even to their deaths.

[Public_Domain]

[Public_Domain]

[Zipperfish]

Public_Domain Public_Domain:

and to top it off, here's peak capitalism in all its glory:

Chinese got ya beat...

[Zipperfish]

Public_Domain Public_Domain:

Errors in judgment like the Four Pests are great examples of the need of decentralization in communistic movements. So much power to so few, able to compel a society to take part in such an awful judgment call, is purely dangerous.

Their goal was to get rid of a pest that was causing starvation due to the crops it was eating. Sadly they didn't know how reliant the ecosystem was on that bird to keep out the greater threats.

A lot of people paid for that good intention.

I don't see that as a concrete argument against communism though.

Agreed. They should have known, but of course, lining up all the intellectuals against the barn is the first thing you do after any revolution. And then of course there was only top-down management. There was no feedback mechanism to signal command to change course, because questioning authority got you re-educated.

The biggest fucking argument against capitalism and communism is that they both end in ism. Isms become ideologies, ideologies become idolatry.

[Public_Domain]

[raydan]

That's the thing that I'll never understand about vegetarians, why do they need fake meat?






Kinda like a lesbian using a dildo.

[Public_Domain]

[Public_Domain]

[Thanos]

Public_Domain Public_Domain:

Thanos Thanos:

You know what I mean though, that the National Socialists took the "socialist" part of their ideology very seriously. I've given up on trying to convince today's liberals or communists that Nazi Germany wasn't some kind of capitalist free-for-all. It was the most basic kind of socialism, the tribal kind, where committing economic and financial acts that would damage the entire nation were held to be abhorrent. Yeah, it was open season on Jews and Slavs, but anyone who didn't get with the program and tried to profiteer off of volk or state would have the hammer come down on them hard. Corporations and banks were still an essential part of the economy and could make profits but only under a highly regulated regime that clamped down on crimes like usury. Make all the money you want but you will not make it by causing harm to your own.

I hate saying it but on certain aspects of economics and social needs the Nazis had a greater social conscience than the thieving fuckers Ronald Reagan unleashed on the world economy ever did. It also puts this alt-right gang of idiots to shame because almost all of them support Reagan-style capitalism, which means they have no objection at all to the financial sector preying on the American people any more than the banksters do. If they're going to spout a bunch of half-assed "whites only" nonsense then they better start actually living it, and start saying that anyone ripping off of impoverishing another member of their own tribe in the name of profit and greed is an enemy of their people.

This stuff bugs me. You've read Mein Khamf haven't you?

He admits to co-opting socialist imagery to fool working class people. That's why it's call the National Socialist German Worker's Party. Communism and socialism were super ripe in Germany. Hitler tapped into it.

And then they "protected" "socialist" policies like unions by controlling them, monopolizing them, and making sure dissent was channeled into lanes they controlled. The workers were appeased, but if they were to show any disgruntlement, the system was absolutely not there for them.

The concessions don't justify anything... They needed a compliant and patriotic people and gamed the project to get that.

The workers weren't any more protected under a communist regime than they were under a national socialist one. Cause any trouble and there's a gulag or Konzentrationslager with more than enough room in it for you too.

You mentioned food hoarding in one of your other posts. In that documentary I sent you the Committee of Public Safety appeased the urban poor in Paris by feeding them with what they stole from the peasants who had as hard and tragic a life, both under the nobility and afterwards, as any of the sans culottes ever did. Same thing got played out in Ukraine, where they were basically starved to death in order for the cities to be appeased. Ditto in Mao's China. Ditto in today's North Korea. All this shows is that when the state becomes controlled by extremists they're more than willing to sacrifice another group of victims in order to maintain their power over another group of downtrodden.