: : : For Christ sake the standard of debate on the capitalist side has took a mad bastard dive, hasn't it?: : An anecdotal observation, Lark.
: : I put together detailed, circumscript posts like this one and this one and receive at best one response each.
: : Meanwhile, a brainless two-liner like this one is everyone's idea of stimulating talk.
: SDF: I myself have an anecdote to share.
: This was Frenchy's response when I basically accused him of being a sucker.
: : I'm outta here.
: SDF: None of the procapitalists will remember you, Barry. It sure looks to me what Anthony Woodiwiss would call "social amnesia," after Russell Jacoby's book SOCIAL AMNESIA. One side cites historical evidence; the other side retreats into philosophical fantasy, like in the historians' debates in the US. In such debates (Gary Nash's HISTORY ON TRIAL etc.), one side attempts to teach historical inquiry whereas the other side wants to forget history all the way back to Bartólome de las Casas.
It's important that a person be true to his beliefs. I'm convinced, without having read Das Kapital, Trotsky's writings, a detailed history of the Communist Revolution etc, that anything based on Marxism is destined to lead to disaster. Making claims that this side is just attempting to 'teach', while that side 'retreats into philosophical fantasy' is sheer arrogance. As a matter of fact, when this side points out the endless examples of carnage that Marxism has led to, that side over there is the side that scuttles for philisophical fantasy; "Oh! But no no no! The reason why the Stalinist regime failed was because___(fill in the blank with the appropriate misunderstandings of Marxist theory by Stalin)", or "That's an unfair accusation of Castro's policies! The reason that his state directed workers cominterm failed was because_____(fill in the blank with the appropriate misunderstanding by Castro on the theories of Marx)." or "Mao didn't____(you know the routine...)."
Please don't go on mewling about retreating into 'philosophical fantasy'.
