GOP: the real American Communist Party

[jmowreader]

A few days ago, someone posted a picture taken from Facebook of a guy with a pissed-off expression pointing a gun at the camera, and an obscenity-filled anti-liberal screed was under it.

This got me to thinking about how the Communists took power in Russia. They started by suppressing opposing viewpoints, then killed off every non-Communist they could find, and finally purged the ranks of their party to eliminate everyone who wasn't thought to be quite Communist enough.

Now look at our Republican party. They eliminated the Fairness Doctrine, then rich Republicans bought most of the media outlets and suppressed non-Republican viewpoints. They're working damn hard to keep Democrats from voting. And as for the internal purges, my paper has received several letters from well-regarded local Republicans telling people to "vote against the socialist wing of the GOP." Do I think the guy with the gun would actually shoot a liberal if he wouldn't get in trouble for it? No. He wouldn't stop at one. He wouldn't stop at liberals. And he's not the only one who would try it.

The difference between the CPSU and the GOP is private property: the CPSU eliminated private ownership of property. The GOP, who hates the government, doesn't want the Evil Government to own anything, but they're fine with huge corporations taking over all the real property in the US.

[blm]

1. Saw something similar on Facebook.

"I'm for a healthy system of capitalism that treats its workers more fairly with wages a family can live and thrive and one that includes social programs to help out the nation's must vulnerable citizens. The GOP wants American workers to accept lower wages, reduced benefits and stripped of pensions, in other words, to be treated no differently than workers in China where fascism combined with communism in the 70s. The Republican Party now wants workers to take all the hits while the privileged elite take all the profits. Just like in China. NWO's fascist agenda is driving what used to be the Republican Party.


http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=395029670556911&set=a.145210952205452.28751.145209655538915&type=1&theater"

[brewens]

3. The next time a right-winger accuses us of being socialist and starts spewing free market lines, hit

them over the head with this. The bankers don't exactly believe in the free market. Rigging bond interest rates and putting the fix in on their mortgage based security ratings. They sure didn't think much of the free market there did they?

The bankers sure don't expect to lose when they screw up. For the rest of us that is part of the free market but not the guys at the top.

[mercymechap]

2. What you've said is so true.

They try to insult liberals by using the title "Socialists" while they defend Dept of Defense religiously, the closest thing to a socialist program that we have in the US.

[Scootaloo]

4. Just a quibble...

The "communism" of the USSR was fascism with communist rhetoric. In the actual operations of the state, party, and its apparatuses, there was no distinctive difference from Marco, Mussolini, or Hitler (or for that matter, Suharto, Pahlavi, or Pinochet.)

[Angry Dragon]

5. they are more terrorist than commie

[Dragonfli]

6. They are Fascists, not Communists, unlike them, you should learn what those terms actually mean. /nt

[white_wolf]

7. Repubicans are communists? Yeah that makes no sense.

They are much closer to to the fascists than they are to the Bolsheviks. Seriously, learn what words mean before you throw them around.

[blm]

9. The point was that fascists did take advantage of communism. Yes they are fascists, but, everything

they claim about China's communism is actually true of the GOPs fascist agenda for workers in this country.

[Taverner]

15. Communism =/= Fascism

Two different systems

Allende and Chavez were/are Communist in a democratic way.

[white_wolf]

18. Not to mention the libertarian communists (anarchists)

[Taverner]

28. Ahhh Nestor Makhno and the Free Soviets

Working Anarchism - until Trotsky invaded.

[blm]

21. Yes - But China's form of communism has actually morphed into fascism since the 70s.

.

[Odin2005]

8. You are insulting Communists.

[white_wolf]

10. No, These guys are the real Communist Party

http://www.cpusa.org/ Their party program is also much better than the GOP's.

[coalition_unwilling]

11. EPIC FAIL on so many levels one hardly knows where to begin. Stop insulting

Communists by equating them falsely with these fascist sociopaths.

Here's a good place to start: in 1977, when I was attending the U. of Missouri, the only organization on campus that was protesting South African apartheid was the Communist Party. The only group. And this at a time that Ronald Reagan was referring to Nelson Mandela as a 'terrorist.'

Jeesh, talk about your false equivalence.

[socialist_n_TN]

25. And that's no accident. Communists and socialists have ALWAYS.........

been on the forefront of social justice movements. If you're not, you're not really a socialist.

[Marinedem]

12. WOW!

Never thought I'd see so many people falling all over themselves to defend the glorious name of communism in one thread!

[coalition_unwilling]

14. If you bothered to study a little history, you might understand. To wit, the USSR fought

and defeated Hitler along a 2,000-mile front (losing 20 million people in the process) while the U.S. and UK were dinking around in North Africa. USSR lost 20 million. USA lost 250,000. But you have to study history to learn facts like that.

[Marinedem]

16. So...

What did any of what you just posted have to do with communism as a political philosophy?

Are you attempting to marry the military successes of the soviet union to the viability of communism?

Seriously, what the heck was your point?



Seriously, what does that prove?

When did anyone bring up WW2 or America?

[coalition_unwilling]

23. Hell yes, I am marrying the military successes of the USSR to the

Last edited Wed Aug 8, 2012, 09:44 AM - Edit history (1)

viability of communism. You said people on this thread were "falling all over themselves to defend the glorious name of communism" and I'm explaining why the USSR, which lost 20 million during World War II, deserves its glorious name. If you bothered to study a little history rather than resorting to cheap red-baiting, you might start to understand.

What you need to explain and will not be able to is why the Communists have lead the bourgeois political parties by 25-75 years in terms of social advances (like child labor, anti-racism, anti-sexism and so on).

You can't, you won't, and so you resort to cheap red-baiting. This was a tired-out cliche back in the 50s. And the passage of 50 years hasn't breathed any new life into the cliche.

[white_wolf]

17. Well first of all the OP is incredibly inaccurate.

Aside from that Marx's critique of capitalism is brilliant. Furthermore, the USSR as much as it failed to build socialism, it did create major improvements in Russia economic speaking. It took a semi-feudal state and turned it into a superpower in less than 50 years time, it took a country whose population was mostly peasants and made into a modern industrial state. The standards of living in the USSR were than the standards in the current Russian Federation. That isn't to say I agree with the USSR, I have plenty of criticisms, but it wasn't a complete failure.

[Puregonzo1188]

13. You might want to review some Russian history. Or some history of Communism. Or you know a

dictionary or an encyclopedia.

[white_wolf]

30. Or this:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/

[Starry Messenger]

19. Um, there is an American Communist Party.

I belong to it and so do a few others here. We are nothing like the GOP. Many of our most popular social programs today came from the Communists and have entered the mainstream.

[white_wolf]

20. Yep. I posted a link to CPUSA's website.

It wouldn't hurt for people to check it out, if nothing else we'd see less of these kind of ignorant posts.

[Starry Messenger]

22. Thanks WW for linking.

It was kind of a shock to see the OP on the birthday of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. The GOP clapped her in Federal Prison under the Smith Act as they did many American Communists.

[jmowreader]

31. Yes, there IS an American Communist Party

Last I checked, the American Communist Party isn't trying to stop people from voting for anyone but them; the Soviet Communist Party and the American Republican Party are both guilty of it.

[Starry Messenger]

32. The Soviet Union dissolved in the early '90's

KPRF encourages voting.

[HiPointDem]

24. the russian communists killed off every non-communist they could find, then killed communists?

why it's a wonder there are any russians left in the world, then.

[socialist_n_TN]

26. To believe the kindest take on your post.........

I'm going to assume your trying to score propaganda points with people by equating communism and the GOP, but it does no good to score propaganda points using lies and distortions. It just confuses all the political issues and encourages ignorance when you conflate the proto-fascism of the GOP with communism.

And I'm a Trotskyist, one of the ones I assume you were talking about when you said".... eliminate everyone who wasn't thought to be quite Communist enough." A LOT of Trotskyists, including Lev Davidovich himself, were killed by Stalin, but he never defended himself or his movement by conflating proto-fascism with the degenerated worker's state of the USSR. Trotsky had more intellectual honesty than that. You need to take a page from that book.

[socialist_n_TN]

27. And BTW, everything you attribute to the Communists...........

WAS without a doubt, true of the fascists. That makes a MUCH more honest comparison.

[phleshdef]

29. Liberalism/Progressivism PREVENTS Marxist style communism. Extreme conservatism leads directly to it

This kind of tea-party conservatism leads to the elimination of social safety nets and the hoarding of wealth by a fraction of the population. Without the government to turn to, poverty grows out of control, people turn to crime syndicates and anti-ownership political movements. Eventually it leads to the kind of revolution that other so called communist countries were born from.

Social safety nets, healthy wealth distribution and robust regulations/laws prevent this scenario from ever occurring.