It was important for this country we voted Yes so gave the people 2nd chance. The 2nd vote proved that this was a wise moveOriginally Posted by bennocelt
and capitalism a resounding success? by any sane measure, liberal market capitalism fails to provide adequately for the majority of the world's population and since its engine is inequality - and not just its by- product - it never will.
A patriot is someone who knows how to hate his country properly.
Its absolutley hilarious to see the ******* right-wingers get put in thir place every time by Bohs Partisan.
Jebus using the SWP website to argue with Bohs Partisan (a member of the SP) about socialism and the policies of the Socialist Party...
The SligoBrewer chap's insightfull analytical arguments about the socialist system in Cuba..."one word= cuba success?" Ye got me there buddy.
and the same repetitive tripe from the C*****, same ****e I hear from the local FF/Rosary beed brigade *****.
Lads, ye will have to do better than that.
P.S. is Joe Higgins the only socialist in the Dail?
Yes and also the only effective opposition too. SF were exceedingly quiet in the Bertie fiasco while FG/Lab stuttered and stumbled throughout leaving the FF/PD circus off the hook.
After the next election there will be 3 socialist TD's in Dail Eireann, Joe Higgins and Claire Daly (SP) while John Halligan is tipped to gain a seat for the Workers' Party in Waterford will definitley liven the Dail up and bring much needed stimulation to Irish politics. What this country lacks is an effective opposition. I will stick my neck out right now and predict that Bertie will get into bed with the Provos. The former whose only long term policy is holding onto power at all costs, the latter having by this stage jettisoned any vestiges of republicanism that it previously possesed. But you know what they say about everything turning full circle.
Bring on next June......should be interesting.
Mod Edit: If you cannot debate with trying to insult people, please refrain from posting here.
Last edited by pete; 20/10/2006 at 10:25 AM. Reason: Partizan insults
I don't think Claire Daly will win a seat! Don't know many in Malahide/Skerries/Rush/Lusk area who will vote for her. Very good local politican but I can't see her getting on the National stage.
Smile........ it confuses people
OK, a few random points.
It's important to highlight the examples of Chavez, Morales, etc in the west as they provide a perfect answer to those who mutter "All politicians are the same" into their pints. Not so. All OUR politicians - or more precisely, all our MAINSTREAM politicians - may be broadly similar but they don't represent the full range of political beliefs.
There's a strong history of people providing an alternative approach to running the world, going back from Chavez through the Sandanistas to Che Guevara to the Spanish Republic to the Russian Revolution to James Connolly to etc etc etc. Unfortunately, as someone pointed out, in this country politics has been led not by differences between ideologies but by how strongly your ancestors felt about the Oath of Allegiance, which pretty much boils down to differing degrees of the same ideology.
Personally I think the onus is on apologists for capitalism to explain why they think it's the best possible alternative when it has given us roughly two hundred years of war, famine, poverty and exploitation, latterly topped off with environmental crisis and accelerating resource shortages. Without getting into a whole "What have the Romans ever done for us?" discussion, I reckon that's a pretty poor return for having had domination over most of the world in that time.
We don't live in a democracy. We live in a partial democracy - as a former boss of mine used to take great delight in pointing out: "Democracy ends at that gate". Most of us spend the majority of our waking time at work but we have no say in how that huge and crucial element of our lives is run.
Even the partial element of political democracy that we do have is far from perfect. We get to vote every five years and we're supposed to feel grateful? And if our elected representatives decide to do something that is repugnant to us or with which we totally disagree, we've to accept the fait accomplit and wait for five years to get our own back?
There's an alternative model of democracy that allows for voters to recall a representative who fails to represent them or who behaves in a way the voters find unacceptable - they get to choose someone better to do the job, there and then and no hanging about for five years. "But that's a recipe for chaos!" wail some and oddly enough, the wailers generally turn out to be the noisiest proponents of what they call "democracy". No - it's a recipe for making sure our representatives actually represent our desires. It's been tried several times in the past and guess what, the people involved tended to be fairly enthusiastic about it.
I don't buy the argument that "socialism failed", simply because what I define as socialism has never actually been tried. I don't believe socialism and capitalism can co-exist, whether peacefully or in a state of armed confrontation. What happened in eastern Europe / China / Cuba is a whole nother thread in itself, but let's just say I'm of the school that said "Neither Washington nor Moscow" - Bohs Partisan and one or two others may recognise the reference - and I don't just mean The Redskins!
Revenge for 2002
The Dr. is right of course.
Just one point to add; Capitalism's biggest weapon is Hegemony, the perception it fosters that 'there is no alternative' and the way in which it reaches right down into the minutiae of people's lives and imposes its model of thought in areas it has no business in; such that people talk of 'social capital' as if things like friendship and family ties and networks of community support could be quantified in the manner of a bank balance
A patriot is someone who knows how to hate his country properly.
i guess one could mention Sweden as an example of a socialist state, in all but name
She is tipped by most pundits and was only a hundred or so votes out the last time. She has massive support in the swords area which is the most populous area in the constituency. She will most definitely be in the mix.
TO TELL THE TRUTH IS REVOLUTIONARY
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Good band, they dont makem like that any more."Neither Washington nor Moscow" - Bohs Partisan and one or two others may recognise the reference - and I don't just mean The Redskins!
TO TELL THE TRUTH IS REVOLUTIONARY
The ONLY foot.ie user with a type of logic named after them!
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Sweden "was" an example of Keynsianism or Social Capitalism.
Great post by Dr. Nightdub and also some good points by SoS.
I'm hungover at the mo but later on when I get my head together I hope to post something more substantial.
TO TELL THE TRUTH IS REVOLUTIONARY
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I'd be very much on your side of the fence when it comes to this debate but it's things like the quote above which always work against socialists.Its absolutley hilarious to see the ignorant right-wingers get put in thir place every time by Bohs Partisan.
Jebus using the SWP website to argue with Bohs Partisan (a member of the SP) about socialism and the policies of the Socialist Party...
Everytime someone disagrees with you they're an "ignorant right-winger". It's pathetic, pretty childish and does your argument absolutely no good at all tbh
Jebus' reasons for using the SWP website were explained earlier on in this thread. I know the guy quite well and an "ignorant right-winger" he is not.
I didn't find his reasons compelling. I have often posted the SP site URL and since he knew I was a member of the SP how come he didn't just look that up? Because the SP site wouldn't have given him the same scope for a tirade as the SWP one did.
TO TELL THE TRUTH IS REVOLUTIONARY
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Would that make him an "ignorant right-winger" though
He googled it. If the Socialist Party website isn't the first to come up for that search then quite frankly that's their problem
He googled "Socialism in Ireland".Would that make him an "ignorant right-winger" though
He googled it. If the Socialist Party website isn't the first to come up for that search then quite frankly that's their problem
I never called him an ignorant right winger, although in Partizan's defence, the views that Jebus was putting accross were right wing.
TO TELL THE TRUTH IS REVOLUTIONARY
The ONLY foot.ie user with a type of logic named after them!
All of this has happened before. All of it will happen again.
A well run capitalist state! I am all for fairness & have some leanings towards social democratic model but there is a reason for bosses & workers. The boss gets paid more because he is more skilled/experience plus he has more responsibility & takes more sh!t. Communism failed completely as could not feed its own people. Capitalism is the only model but countries distribute the wealth created differently.
I would truely hate to work in a unionised company where everyone on the same grade gets the same pay & raise. I could not stand to sit by while some workers worked their asses off while others sat on their ass but all rewarded the same way.
Capitalism is every bit as deeply flawed as the *******ised version of Communism that was prevalent in much of Eastern Europe.
It also sruggles to provide basic economic needs to its citizens. Take the aftermath of the floods in New Orleans. Poor people can't get their houses re-built, it's the free-market folks
If you keep repeating this mantra it won't make it true.
Will I hit you with the hard facts Again?
1. Stalinism, despite what it called itself was as far from being Communism as a planned economy could be. As trotsky once wrote "the planned economy needs democracy like the human body need oxygene".
2. Despite its grotesque bureaucratic class, the Russian planned economy did bring many benefits to the citizens of the USSR. In 1917 Russia was a poverty stricken country with an economy comparable to a third world country today. The revolution and the construction of a planned economy brought Russia from having a feudal economy to being the second biggest superpower on the planet in the space of twenty years. In the soviet union every last person had a roof over their heads, the right to an education, the right to healthcare on demand. The life expectancy of a Soviet citizen was comparable to the life expectancy in the advanced capitalist countries that had taken centuries to reach the same level of developement that the planned economy achieved in decades.
On top of this, Russia was able to win the space race, fight the germans for three years on their own when the rest of the world was licking its paws and produce some of the best sports people on the planet.
3. I mentioned the planned economy needing democracy earlier. The fact that it didn't have this was what caused its collapse. Trotsky accurately predicted that this would happen in his masterwork The revolution betrayed. He said that if their was not a political revolution the bureacracy would strangle the planned economy and capitalism would be restored, with catastrophic results for the people of russia.
4. The restoration of capitalism in the former Soviet Union has been an unmitigated disaster. Life expectancy has fallen to an average of 54 years. There is widepread unemployment. Women who previously were garaunteed good jobs have had to turn to prostitution to make ends meet (please excuse the awful pun). Crime in Russia was virtually unheard of under the planned economy. The country is now a den of mafioso style crimelords. Have you noticed the numbers of eastern european people coming to Ireland for work? Why do you think that is?
TO TELL THE TRUTH IS REVOLUTIONARY
The ONLY foot.ie user with a type of logic named after them!
All of this has happened before. All of it will happen again.
Saying that 1980s USSR had better standard of living than 1917 doesn't mean much as the standard of living in the entire world has improved in those 70-80 years. Capitalism is the best system but also has its flaws - the US system has huge benefits to many but also some huge flaws.
Chinese communism wasn't much of a success either as they are prospering now but effectively a one party capitalist state.
Cuba has some success but overall a failure.
Is there a successful socialist state in the world today? I know you quoting Trotsky & others but is there demand for such a system or is it just book talk?
How well do you reckon the Irish economy would be doing with a U.S embargo pete??
No economy has had the level of Economic growth that the USSR had in such a short space of time. It would be the equivelant of Botswana going from where it is now to competing on a world scale with the US in 20 years.
In the 70's China went under a similar economic transformation. The bureaucracy is reverting to Capitalism now so they can keep power and avoid the issue of workers' democracy.Chinese communism wasn't much of a success either as they are prospering now but effectively a one party capitalist state.
A nonsense. Cubans have a far better quality of life than people in other Caribean states and considering it is such a small island that has been besieged by US imperialism for years it is doing remarkably wellCuba has some success but overall a failure.
There is no Socialist state today but there is huge interest in Trotsky's ideas in Latin America today.Is there a successful socialist state in the world today? I know you quoting Trotsky & others but is there demand for such a system or is it just book talk
Last edited by BohsPartisan; 20/10/2006 at 11:26 AM.
TO TELL THE TRUTH IS REVOLUTIONARY
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All of this has happened before. All of it will happen again.
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