From: Arlo J. Bensinger (ajb102@psu.edu)
Date: Mon Apr 25 2005 - 13:56:59 BST
Platt,
Your reply is so deliberately distortive of not only what I've said, and in
historical accuracy its hard to know where to begin...
[Platt]
> Your 2000 years carefully avoids any mention of the past 100 years when
> secular socialism played out its reign of terror. I don't blame your for
> avoiding the recent past since it doesn't fit your distorted ideas of
> history.
Who's avoided it? It was a key component of the historical context you seem to
want to conveniently avoid. Its your idea of a "distorted idea" to place your
benevolent "Christian morality" in its context the two thousand years when it
wielded power?
You can say its "recent past" has been without crusades and murder, but that is
ONLY because its power has been transferred to secular government, and hence
the brutality. This has been my core point, and I believe to be fundamental in
any analysis of modern practice.
But of course, Platt. To "prove" secular government is "brutal", you'd have to
ignore the brutalities that accompanied the religious power structure you seek
to replace it with.
[Platt]
> What you don't see to grasp is that any system which allows some people to
exercise unbridled power over other people intrinsically carries an open
invitation to abuse by the likes of Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro and other
communist dictators.
[Arlo]
I graps PERFECTLY WELL that "systems which allow some people to exercise
unbridled poewr over other people intrinsically carries an opne invitation to
abuse". Why do you think I am so critical of the direction Bush is taking us?
But this aside, when did I ever say, in any way, that I support any
totalitarian dictator? Indeed, your statement is ABSURD considering how vocal I
have been AGAINST the inherent brutality of power structures.
[Platt]
As a self-described admirer of Marx, I'm surprised
> you never heard of the "dictatorship of the proletariat." And I'm appalled
that you seem to be supportive of a system and a philosophy that in practice
and as a matter of historical record was every bit as monstrous as the Nazi
regime.
[Arlo]
What's appalling is such blatant distortions. If you'd actually READ Marx
instead of relying on McCarthian distortive scare-tactics, you'd see that what
Marx advocated was never put into practice.
Even a simple web search for "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" finds this from
Wikipedia: "The dictatorship of the proletariat is defined by Marxist theory as
the use of state power by the working class against its enemies during the
passage from capitalism to communism, entailing control of the state apparatus
and the means of production. Though under Stalin the phrase came to be
understood as a dictatorship in the name of the proletariat, the original
meaning was a workers' democracy where the working class would be in power,
rather than the capitalist class. Prior to 1871, Karl Marx said little about
what in practice would characterize a "dictatorship of the proletariat",
believing that planning in advance the details of a future socialist system
constituted the fallacy of "utopian socialism."
Wikipedia continues...
"Marx used the term "dictatorship" to describe control by an entire class
(rather than a single sovereign individual) over another class. Thus Marx
called capitalism the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, which he believed would
be superseded by the dictatorship of the proletariat, which in turn would be
superseded by a classless and stateless society known as communism or socialism
(Marx used the terms interchangeably). He viewed the dictatorship of the
proletariat as only an intermediate stage, believing that governments, that is
to say the use of state power of one class over another, would disappear once
the classes themselves had disappeared."
Even beginning readers of Marx understand that he considered ALL GOVERNMENT to
be "dictatorship". He did not use the word is the sense it has become, that is
rule by one tyrannical person.
[Platt]
> All killing on a large scale, whether by
> Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot or Pope Clement V has been justified by the
> killers on moral grounds.
That tyrannical power structures justify their actions by saying they are done
"in the name of morality" says little to their actual "morality". The
terrorists you fear so much believe their actions are "moral". The word means
little if taken this way.
[Arlo previously]
The secularly driven economies of the capitalist power structure defeated the
secularly driven economies of the totalitarian power structure.
[Platt]
> The political leadership in the West which guided the resources to defeat
communism were inspired and influenced by Christian belief, as were their
followers. Without that leadership (Reagan, Thatcher, Pope John Paul II) to
challenge communist expansion and it's goal of world domination, things would
be a lot different today.
"Inspired and influenced by Christian belief"? Such as? Democracy? Capitalism?
Wealth? Please.
If freedom is such a "Christian belief", where was it during the two thousand
years the church held all power? One would think that if it was "Christian",
then those would've been the free-est two thousand years known in history...
But it wasn't, was it? Even if I accept the statement that is was an "advocacy
of freedom" that brought down Russia, its still not a win for "Christianity".
Its a win for the rational-secular idea of "freedom".
Unless you can show me where in all its history, until the formation of our
pre-Christian Greek and Iroquios rational secular government, that
"Christianity" advocated "freedom".... I'll wait...
To say again, I'm sure there were benevolent individuals, guided by
spirtituality or secular rationalism, that abhorred the tyranny of that
totalitarian system and worked against it. But the thing that brought down
Russia was not "Christian", it was "secular": capitalism.
[Arlo previously]
And it is exactly what you continue to do, evidencing the fear used by
capitalist power structures to prevent dialogue that threatens the wealth
fixations of this country.
[Platt]
> Given the history of communism and its record of genocide, those who
> aren't afraid of it don't understand it.
[Arlo]
And those capable of understanding history condemn tyrannical regimes without
the need to employ distorted scare tactics and deceptive rhetoric to protect
the slightest challenge to the modern capitalist ideal of wealth fixation. And,
they may even actually read the writings of the players invovled to get a true
picture of what unfolded, rather than using McCarthian soundbites to scare and
mislead people.
[Arlo said]
> > The brutality of the past two thousand years that occured "in the name of
religion", has been replaced (through a transference of power) to brutality
occuring "in the name of fill-in-the-blank". What history shows us, is that
power structures, then and now, are not guided by "morals".
[Platt]
> Again, I suggest you read some history.
[Arlo]
Professing one's morality, and being moral, are two different things in my book,
Platt. Anyone can do the former (and historically has), few do the later. But
again, this (above) is my core point and you continue to ignore it.
[Platt]
> What I hoped for was rundown of Marxist morality, such as, ownership of
> private property is evil. But I guess that's asking too much. Again, you
> avoid Pirsig's idea that today's intellectuals have no provision for
> morals in their metaphysics.
[Arlo]
Marx saw "private property" as a focus on materialism that removed us from our
humanity. In many ways, it is quite parallel to Jesus' refuttal of wealth and
material possession, and is evidenced (again) by the Amish quite nicely. We can
talk about that too, if you'd like. With regard to material possession, Jesus
and Marx are very similar.
I've found you a web transcript of Marx's 1844 piece "Private Property and
Communism". Read it, and we can start a thread on it, if you'd like. But if we
do, I'd actually like to address the philosophy in it, and not simply argue
over McCarthian soundbites.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/comm.htm
[Arlo responds]
Really?... I thought the basis for democracy in this country was pre-Christian
Greece and the Iroquios Nation.
[Platt]
> I suggest you read some history, especially the documents of the founding
fathers.
[Arlo]
Of course, you can't answer. I expected as much. Despite what the founders
"claim", where do you find "democracy" in any historical period of christian
domination? I can answer that for you, Platt. "Nowhere".
In Greek Philosophy, of course. But that's pre-Christian. And in the letters of
Ben Franklin (among others) commenting on the social structure of the Iroquios
Nation. Even Pirsig said this.
But if you are better read at history, Platt, please tell me where Christianity
evidenced democracy?
[Platt]
> You find Marx admirable. He advocated abolishing private property as
> essential to his plan for a better world. You objected to each neighbor
> owning a snowblower (ignoring of course that without evil corporations
> there would be no snowblowers to fight over). The implications are clear.
[Arlo]
Yes they are. The implication is that although rational people can read what
I've written, people afraid of discourse will use any distortion possible to
obfuscate the point.
As I said, I could care less if people owned their own snowblowers. What I
personally believe is that it is that it is a waste of individual resources,
and something that has been made "important" only by corporate capitalist
interests. And is simply more evidence of how material acquisition supercedes
all else in this country. And how even this slightest challenge to this, such
as an offer to purchase a communal snowblower, is so impossible and
threatening, that Marxism is a long way off.
Imagine, that if instead of buying into consumerism, these people did purchase
communal items when it made more sense than to have individual ownership. Why,
this money could be invested and over time turn into real power! But we can't
have that, no sirree bob, we *need* people spending and indebting themselves
without regard or thought to support the wealth acquisition of corporate
America.
It is THAT dialogue that I am critical of. Not "individual ownership". Get real.
I'm going to move this over the thread DMB started, if you'd like to start a
"private property" thread, we can do that.
Arlo
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