TJ is spot on.

Communism is a socioeconomic structure and political ideology that promotes the establishment of an egalitarian, classless, stateless society based on common ownership and control of the means of production and property in general. In political science, the term “communism” is sometimes used to refer to communist states, a form of government in which the state operates under a one-party system and declares allegiance to Marxism-Leninism or a derivative thereof, even if the party does not actually claim that it has already reached communism.

The most dangerous people are those who would try to prevent free speech for whatever reason.

The free speech preventers are worse than the BNP, and if they are using publicly funded platforms to promote their vile ideas, then funding should be withdrawn.

So the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Comm?unist Party of Kampuchea are or were not actually Communist parties?

sorry, but PMSL at that.

Is the rule that evil murdering totalitarian regimes are the exclusive preserve of the right wing?

Big bloke – no they used a left wing ideaology and were totalitarian regiemes – but they were not communist as espoused by many political scientists.

You can call a dog a cat but it still remains a dog. Nasty totalitarian dictatorships with a left leaning rhetoric theose regiemes were but communist – no. Read some marx

Sorry TJ, but that’s just kak. Left leaning idealogies my ar5e. What, Stalin was actually a secret member of Nu Labour?
Stalin succeeded lenin, are you saying lenin wasn’t a Communist either?
Stalin claimed to be a communist, and I think I’d take his word for it over yours.

As I said – you can call yourself what you want but it doesn’t change what you are. any regime that keeps privilege for it members and does not respect the people of the state is not communist.

You can have left wing totalitarian dictatorships and right wing totalitarian dictatorships. You cannot have a communist totalitarian dictatorship – the two are incompatable.

You are mistaking the label “communist” for the political organisation “communist”

As I said above – you can call a cat a daog, train it to fetch, call it rover but it still remains a cat.

There has never been a state that actually was communist. The nearest is probably Nicaragua under the Sandinistas but that was only a near miss.

If you had read some Marx you would realise how far soviet Russia was from a true communist state

Big Bloke… didn’t Hitler and the Nazi party used to be called the National Socialists? Doesn’t that mean that sometimes people will tell fibs for their own purposes?

Hitlers bunch were called ( obviously translated)National Socialist German Workers Party IIRC.

The original quote I replied to was this
Did the Communist Party say that your accident of birth determined your rights
I’ve put the words Communist Party in bold as you seem to have missed them first time round

Stalin = member of Communist Party?
Pol Pot = member of Communist party?
Saddam Hussein = member of a socialist party?

I say Yes to all three. What do you say?

OK- slightly as cross purposes. My bad

🙄

In the meantime, will you be supporting the fight against Fascism ?

You seem very good at attacking the views of the BNP but not so hot on defending your own actions in denying free speech to others.

You have a conviction that as a “reasonable person” you are qualified to act as judge, jury and executioner and decide who should be allowed a platform and who shouldn’t.

As we have seen this week the anti-facist groups scored a spectacular own goal. Seeing a load of “left-wing soap dodgers” chucking eggs at democratically elected politicians and preventing them speaking isn’t likely to make many of the 1 million or so people who voted BNP change their minds IMO.

The best way to combat the BNP is to engage in the debate and expose to people what their policies actually mean and the impact it would have on those who they know and who they meet in their day to day lives.

Once more of the people who voted for them realise that they have friends, work colleagues, neighbours who are decent people that would be victimised by the BNP the more repulsive the BNP will appear.

I had enough to say on the subject on the “who’d vote BNP thread”, so quickly…
its no good getting all high and mighty about what the great unwashed may believe in/vote for (BNP), offer them a viable alternative (dont just get outraged that they dont hold your views), but you need to know what the people in the street actually think, not just your lefty leaning mates think they should think.

You cannot have a communist totalitarian dictatorship

Apart of course from every communist regime ever.

Porterclough

TandemJeremy – Member

You are mistaking the label “communist” for the political organisation “communist”

As I said above – you can call a cat a dog, train it to fetch, call it rover but it still remains a cat.

Soviet Russia was never communist in that it retained privileged for the elite and did not respect the ordinary workers. Whether true communism is actually possible is a moot point but it certainly never happened in Soviet Russia

Ernie, how many citizens did Stalin murder? I don’t have to jump on the UAF bandwagon to “prove” I’m against the BNP. Why do you leftists always try and take the moral highground ffs..

The UAF are acting like facsists

EDIT: I’ve read the whole post and now understand Communism has never done any wrong. oops sorry for the confusion 😕

While bored of the content, theres always room for being a pedant….

Less people went to the polls, meaning the BNP got a greater percentage of the vote. In fact, less people voted for the BNP this year, than in 2004; so there was no upsurge of support for the BNP, less people voted generally and therefore votes for the major political parties collapsed.

Fewer people. Fewer people damn it, not less, FEWER. You and your ten items or less isles, no wonder the BNP got seats – the country is going to the dogs!!

<pedantic rant over!>

I’ve read the whole post and now understand Communism has never done any wrong. oops sorry for the confusion

Communism has never done any wrong because ther has never actually been any, just people who have called themselves Communists, remember you’re not a real Communist until TJ says you are……..

enfht – yes, read a bit more carefully and do some research
Surely EVERYONE knows that a state run by a party calling itself the Communist Party is not a communist state.
And if that party turns out to be in complete denial of democracy, free speech, uses torture, murder and disappearances to maintain it’s hold on power, it is actually a fascist state, no matter what they call themselves.

Also
Tony Blair never told any lies

Gordon Brown is the best Prime Minister ever

George Bush is a genius

All MPs expense claims are totally justifiable

Jade Goodie was actually a bit of a babe

TV programs with the “Celebrity” in the title are enjoyable, entertaining and educational

RudeBoy talks sense … nah, sorry, just went a bit too far on that one

Or till you reach the definition of communism that Marx had?

Big boy – totalitarianism is not just for facists but others as well.

Its a very simple point but one some of you seem incapable of understanding. If you repress the people of the country and preserve privileges for the elite no matter what you call yourselves you are not communist.

I don’t care what ‘ism anyone is, but if they interfere with free speech – even David Irving’s – then they are a serious threat to our society.

people mseek power to further their own ends. It’s human nature. We regulaly throw around the word “democracy”, but the origins of the word are from Ancient Greece, which itself was a slave culture. I cannot reconcile the high ideals of democracy with slavery, but someone obviously did.
Regardless of the polical system, those at the top will serve themselves first – MPs expenses, anyone? – so no true communist state can ever exist. The people at the top wil set up their ruling elite. Or are you going to start that there should be no leaders, and a communist state is effectively leaderless and therefor anarchic? If you are that’s pretty much losing touch with reality. You might start with all the great ideals, but once you get the nice car, the house, the attention, the power you’ll kill to keep it. Literally. Wars have been started by politicians just to keep themselves in power. Result? What we’ve had is as close to communism as we’re ever likely to see, and that, like it or not is communism.
In the same way that we are supposed to live in a democratic state, but 1 vote every 5 years for parties you woould struggle to tell apart hardly constitutes a voice in government. But it’s close enough on paper, so we call it democracy.

are communists english people who pretend to be scottish?

very, very confused now : (

What we’ve had is as close to communism as we’re ever likely to see, and that, like it or not is communism.

I’m sure I read somewhere that after the Spanish civil war there was established a large anarchist/communist community in a part of Spain which lasted about 8 years with no state/government/leaders.

I have been away from this thread for a while, and feel I can add someclarity to a very TJ argument.

BBSB’s point was (waaaay back) – we should be suspicious of people who were members of the Communist Party of Great Britain, some of whom (he claims) are now in government.

Ernie claimed that communists and fascists were not the same.

BBSB cited examples of leaders who called themselves communists who were at least as bad, if not worse.

TJ noted that these people were not really communists.

TJ is (strictly) correct, but it does not advance his argument on the specific point unless he can also establish that the Communist Party of Great Britain is a superior model to other communist parties, and, were it to take power, would not inevitably plunge the country into the sort of murderous totalitarian shambles that all the other so-called communist governments cited by BBSB and others have done.

I hope that helps.

🙂

For those a bit less clued in than you like to think you are, his name is Josef Stalin.

The problem BigButSlimmerBloke, is that Stalin’s crimes were denounced by the communist party. But yeah, fair enough, if you feel that those in the present Labour government supported Stalin, then by all means start a campaign to expose them. But what the **** has that to do with opposing the BNP, please explain ?

However, much as he may be one of the heroes of cmmunism, he does pale somewhat when comapred to Pol Pot

Actually Pol Pot wasn’t ‘a hero of communism’. Indeed he was forcibly overthrown by communists.

Pol Pot was however, a hero of Margaret Thatcher. She did absolutely everything she possibly could, to help him remain in power.

And this was after his horrific crimes had been exposed to the world

Pol Pot was able to carry on killing for longer, partly as a result of the support which he received from Margaret Thatcher.

Get your facts right mate.

Stalin – leader of the Soviet communist party
Pol Pot – leader of the Cambodian communist party.

I believe these to be facts – which are you disputing?

I believe these to be facts – which are you disputing?

What ? You haven’t figured out what I’m disputing ? 😯

OK let’s give it another go then.

I dispute the claim that many Labour MPs including cabinet ministers, supported Stalin and Pol Pot.
There, how does that sound to you now ?

.

But anyway, let’s not get bogged down with that. Let’s for argument sake, say that you are in fact right and that I agree with you, ie : ‘many Labour MPs including cabinet ministers, did indeed support Stalin and Pol Pot.
You start a campaign (which will have my full backing) to expose these MPs who supported mass murderers. Sorted.

Now you tell me ………. what the ****, has this got to do with opposing the BNP ?

Are you telling me that because ‘many Labour MPs including cabinet ministers, supported Stalin and Pol Pot’, it’s OK to be a member of a racist and homophobic party ?

Well ?

and where exactly did I say that ANY labour MPs, or any British politicians of any sort supported Stalin, or any other politician?

Did you say this

Did the Communist Party say that your accident of birth determined your rights

Under the communist party regime of stalin, did accidents of birth determine human rights?
under pol pot, did accidents of birth determine human rights?

Don’t worry yourself too much about it though – I know better than to expect a sensible answer from you.

Mind you, you disagree with freedom of speech, you disagree with democracy, and now you try to make your point by making things up.

Sound familiar?

My my ,this is all very interesting.
all these long answers,must be quite an emotive subject 😕

Personally ,i couldn’t give a toss about any of it.
.
.All im worried about is where im gonna get £45 quid for a blue Chris king headset someone’s offered me 😆 😆 😆

Under the communist party regime of stalin,

So the these ‘many Labour MPs including cabinet ministers’ were in ‘the communist party regime of stalin’ were they ? OK, fair enough, they sound really terrible BigBut. Get your campaign going to expose them. No time to waste I fear. I’ll get some eggs.

Now we’ve sorted that out………. are you going to answer the **** question or not ?

WTF has this got to do with opposing the BNP ?

I would suggest that it’s got **** all, to do with opposing the BNP.

Because even if you found that some Labour MPs were personally responsible for carrying out Pol Pot’s executions, the BNP would still be a filthy nasty racist party.

Well ? …….hit me with it ……..wtf has it got to do with not tolerating the BNP ?

Or should ‘I know better than to expect a sensible answer from you’ eh ?

A boring fact – Number 3 in the UK Communist party at one time….My Grandpa! Taught himself russian and everything. Some Real russians stayed with his son once and were apparently in awe…. “You mean THE party?”

They went camping on Arran a lot. Pretty much like siberia out there in the summer.

Simple really, anyone who opposes free speech, or supports racism* is bad regardless of their ideology or end of the political spectrum.

*of course this does not include the fun racism the Welsh, Irish, and Scots have against the English, or unrestricted immigration of refugees into my back yard. 😈

After skimming through all the above I’ve come to 2 conclusions;

A. Most people on this forum have too much time on their hands (except me)
B. Dyna-ti was correct
3. All politicians are lying muppets, why not throw the BNP into the mix to liven the place up a bit.

and where exactly did I say that ANY labour MPs, or any British politicians of any sort supported Stalin, or any other politician?

Don’t suppose I’ll get an answer to that one, so let’s move on.

Did the Communist Party say that your accident of birth determined your rights

Yes, they did, under Stalin and Pol Pot. You seem to be in denial of something here. Maybe Stalin and Pol Pot were ok, because their crimes were carried out in the name of communism. I don’t know, you’re not capable of answering that one either. The point I was making though was that the same evils can be perpetrated in the name of communism as in the name of fascism. But you seem to be in denial of this, so let’s just move on shall we? After all, it’s the secoond or third time I’ve mentioned it, and all you can do is invent things you claim I’ve said

back the main agenda,

.wtf has it got to do with not tolerating the BNP ?

Or WTF has it got to do with tolerating free speech. I know, you don’t like it. Or more accurately, you’re all for it as long as the speech agrees with you. Same with democracy. Ok as long as you’re happy with it.
Whatever you might think of Griffin, i doubt if he’s an idiot. Without the PR machines of the major parties, and with an ideology that most people find deeply offensive, he has managed to get local councillors and MEPs elected. He strikes me as being pretty media-aware. Try, please, just try to think about what I’m about to say. The egg throwing incident showed the UAF in a poor light. they were breaking the lay, they assaulted an elected member of a parliament, and no matter how just the cause, they came out looking like idiots. Griffin, on the other hand, got free airtime on national television and column space in the papers that he would have used to spread his message of hate. the winner in this incident – the BNP. The UAF acheived the sum total of **** all apart from criminalising themselves and weaking any moral high ground they might have occupied.

I believe in free speech and democracy, and I believe in those things not just as a matter of ideology, but because if we allow them, we weaken those who seek to deprive us of it. Every egg throwing incident will be worth a few more points to the BNP and if no one turns up, I wouldn’t be surprised if Griffin hires a few idiots to do it for him.

But he won’t have to. There were nearly a million idiots who voted BNP as is their democratic right and i suspect that there will be the same number of right on lefties more concerned with being seen to do something and saying the right things to be concerned with the consequences of their actions and the amount of help they’re giving the BNP.

And before you mention tolerance. The boy in Perthshire with the carpet tacks wasn’t prepared to tolerate the Etape. Does that mean you support his actions. Like you he wasn’t prepared to tolerate something. Like you he was prepared to break the law to make his point? Like you the democratic process meant nothing (the Etape was sanctioned by the local council). The result of his actions? More disruption, and far more widespread for the Etape than would otherwise have been the case. The result was the reverse of the intention – and in exactly the same way, you are supporting the BNP in your actions, even though you claim to be opposing them.

The problem with you BigButSlimmerBloke, is that you just want to have an argument for the sake of an argument. You obviously enjoy infantile ‘point scoring’ and school yard taunting. And getting ‘one over’ ernie_lynch is clearly very important to you. Now there are plenty of people on here which I often strongly disagree with, and I am more than happy to strongly argue with them (and some like BigDummy and Aracer certainly give me a run for my money, I can assure you).

But if you start behaving like labrat and simply want to “win arguments” to prove just how clever you are, then I’m afraid I will let you ‘win’ every time, like I do with labrat when he behaves like that. I am only interested in making my points, not proving how ‘clever I am’.

However in a vague and almost certainly futile attempt to have a serious discussion with you, I shall deal with some of your points…….

You keep rabbiting on about ‘Pol Pot’. You claim that because his crimes were “in the name of communism” it therefore means that members of the Communist Party of Great Britain were responsible for those crimes. You very conveniently forget to mention that because of his horrendous crimes, the Pol Pot was forcibly overthrown by communists from neighbouring Vietnam.

Furthermore you chose to ignore the fact that, despite the whole world being fully aware that the Khmer Rouge had murdered 2 million Cambodians, despite the fact that in 1984 a British film called ‘The killing Fields’ which showed the full horrors and brutality of the Khmer Rouge appeared in British cinemas so that ordinary people were fully aware of the facts, despite all that, Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan continued to support Pol Pot.

Margaret Thatcher condemned the Vietnam invasion of Cambodia which brought to an abrupt halt the genocide being committed by the Khmer Rouge. She fully supported attempts by the Khmer Rouge to overthrow the new Cambodian government. Thatcher refused to recognise the new Cambodian government and insisted for many years that only Pol Pot’s right hand man should be allowed to take Cambodia’s seat on the UN. She even sent weapons and military advisers in the form of Green Berets and Special Air Service units, to overthrow the new Cambodian government. BTW, Pol Pot eventually dropped the ‘communist’ label completely, and simply described the Khmer Rouge as ‘nationalists’.

At the same time, the Khmer Rouge retreated west, and it continued to control an area near the Thai border for the next decade. It was funded by diamond and timber smuggling. Despite its deposal, the Khmer Rouge retained its UN seat, which was occupied by Thiounn Prasith, an old compatriot of Pol Pot and Ieng Sary from their student days in Paris, and one of the 21 attendees at the 1960 KPRP Second Congress. The seat was retained under the name ‘Democratic Kampuchea’ until 1982, and then ‘Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea’ (see below) until 1993. Western governments repeatedly backed the Khmer Rouge in the U.N. and voted in favour of retaining the Cambodia’s seat in the organization. Margaret Thatcher stated that “there are amongst the Khmer Rouge some very reasonable people and they will have to take part in a future government in Cambodia“.

As a direct result of the support which Pol Pot received from Margaret Thatcher, the Khmer Rouge were able to carry on murdering Cambodians for many years. Something which I have always believed Thatcher should face criminal prosecution for – conspiracy to genocide.

.

Likewise you claim that all communists, including those in the British communist party, are guilty of Stalin’s crimes. And yet you conveniently omit to mention that the full extent of Stalin’s crimes were only revealed to the world when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in 1956, denounced Stalin as a brutal despot.

in a sensational speech to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party Mr Khrushchev painted a graphic picture of a regime of “suspicion, fear, and terror” built up under the former dictator who died three years ago.

He said he wanted to break the “Stalin cult” that has held Soviet citizens in its thrall for 30 years.

The prime minister described the purges during the period of 1936-38.

He revealed that in 1937 and 1938, 98 out of the 139 members of the Central Committee were shot on Stalin’s orders.

Mr Khrushchev also condemned Stalin’s autobiography as an “odious book” in which Stalin refers to himself as “the workers’ genius-leader” and a “shy and modest person”.

He also accused Stalin of violent nationalism and anti-Semitism.

He revealed that in his last will and testament Lenin advised against the retention of Stalin as general secretary of the Communist Party.

Ten years previously Winston Churchill had considered Stalin a friend, ally, and part of the free world.

” We came here with hope and determination. We leave here, friends in fact, in spirit and in purpose”

Joint statement by Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin

They stated: “We expressed our determination that our nations shall work together in war and in the peace that will follow.”

During the Tehran conference Mr Churchill took the opportunity to award the Soviet leader the Sword of Stalingrad. The British prime minister handed over the sword as a tribute from King George VI and the British people for forcing the German Sixth Army to surrender at Stalingrad on 2 February this year.

Marshal Stalin proposed a toast, “To my fighting friend, Winston Churchill,” and a similar toast to President Roosevelt.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/1/newsid_3535000/3535949.stm

A poster of one of Marshal Stalin’s soldiers as seen by the Americans :

Assuming that Church isn’t guilty by association either, what are British communists guilty of – waiting ten years until Stalin had died and Khrushchev was able to expose the full horrors of his crimes ? And are Tory Party members guilty of all crimes committed by capitalist parties ? 😕

.

Hitler’s crimes have been well known for many years now. But it doesn’t stop BNP members including their leader Nick Griffin, from denying them. ‘Hitler wasn’t that bad – he never built gas chambers to murder Jews – doncha know ?’ I have never yet met a NF/BNP member who has a bad word to say about Adolf Hitler. In fact “idolise” was the word which a NF member once used to describe to me, his feelings about Hitler.

.

And to answer your question BigButSlimmerBloke, you know full well that the claim ‘many Labour MPs including cabinet ministers were in the communist party’ was first used on this thread as some sort of accuse for tolerating the BNP.

I have simply pointed out because a labour MP was once in the communist party, it does not necessarily mean that they supported mass murders.

And even if they did it is still no accuse whatsoever, to tolerate a nasty filthy racist and fascist party. Just don’t tolerate the commies in government AND the BNP.

Well said Ernie – I just gave up on this one – there are only so many times I can make the same point but you just did it eloquently.

Why, thank you TJ 😉

It was my finale attempt to make the point.

Although I can’t believe anyone read it 😯

That was the strategy you see – overwhelm the buggers with ‘words’ ……

We do not believe in free speech for Fascists

And that was when I stopped reading