Quoting ARLO J BENSINGER JR <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > [Platt] > A trajectory, Arlo fails to mention, also followed by Mao, Pol Pot, Kim > Jong-il > and Castro, among others. > > [Arlo] > Once again, my entire post was about the errant trajectory that led from > Marxism, through Leninism, to Stalinism. That other regimes followed the lead > of brutal nationalism has nothing to do with original Marxist thinking, but > everything to do with the odd combination of utopic Marxist ideology and > Straussian-esque "man is stupid" neoconservatism. As for Castro, well, I > expect > you to squalk the Party Mantra. I hardly see him as an example of Marxist > failure. If anything, it evidences the idiotic foreign policy debacle of the > US.
Yes, we are not surprised that you consider Castro's Cuba a success. Nor that you deny a connection between Marx's "original thinking" and the horrors of communist countries such as China and North Korea. > [Platt] > In fact I would like to know of any country that followed "the noble ideas of > Marx" that didn't either 1)fail or 2) become a tyranny. > > [Arlo] > Like I said, you can criticize Marx for being naively optimistic, and from a > Straussian man-is-inherently-selfish perspective it would seem history has > born > Marx out to be too gracious towards man's inner nature. > > As such, anything that attempted Marxism on larger nationalistic levels failed > precisely for this reason, the reason that led Lenin to failure. Namely, a > disbelief that man would work towards his own best interests, and the need for > a coercive, propagandistic nationalist state to control him and orient his > actions. > > We've had this conversation several times before, so I will take these > comments > as being just more deceptive rhetoric on your part, but Marxism in practice > can > be seen among the Amish, and was seen among some of the earlier Native > populations, also Kabitzs in Israel afford an example. The question was about nations, not isolated small groups. By the way, what ever happened to all those Hippie communes? > [Platt] > Also, Arlo conveniently fails to mention in his biased abbreviated history any > mention of the KGB and gulags. > > [Arlo] > Ah yes, I failed to squalk your talking points, sorry. I think I was quite > clear about the ends of the trajectory, that began with human liberty and > ended > with a brutal dictator bent on propping up the nationalistic state above all > else. > > So ignore everything that was said and focus instead on an contextually > irrelevant ommisson. Yes, the trajectory led to a state that abused and > discard > human life. Yes, it led to gulags and secret police. But this says nothing to > anything that I have said. Namely that Marx began as a (perhaps overly) > optimistic treatise on ending human suffering, and soon adopted everywhere a > Straussian "myth" of Nationalism, and that this Nationalism soon led to > tyranny > (were we only so quick to learn). Yes, only Arlo would consider armed political bullies like the KGB to be "contextually irrelevant." > Now I expect the typical distortive rhetoric to kick in. If you want to have > an > honest, open dialogue, I am game. If you want to engage in your typical > embarrassing crap, then either (1) don't bother or (2) expect me to call it > for > what it is. See comment about "embarrassing crap" in my reply to Craig's post. ------------------------------------------------- This mail sent through IMP: http://horde.org/imp/ moq_discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
