On 18 Apr 2005 at 22:04 UTC-0700, Russ Paielli wrote:
While we're on the topic of murderous governments, I'd like to try a fun
little quiz for anyone who cares to give it a try. The following paragraph expresses views remarkably similar to Mike's. Can you guess who wrote it and who he worked for? (I have cut a few giveaway words to make the game a bit more challenging.)
--Russ
"We are socialists because we see the social question as a matter of
necessity and justice for the very existence of a state for our people, not a question of cheap pity or insulting sentimentality. The worker has a claim to a living standard that corresponds to what he produces. We have no intention of begging for that right. Incorporating him in the state organism is not only a critical matter for him, but for the whole nation. The question is larger than the eight-hour day. It is a matter of forming a new state consciousness that includes every productive citizen. Since the political powers of the day are neither willing nor able to create such a situation, socialism must be fought for. It is a fighting slogan both inwardly and outwardly. It is aimed domestically at the bourgeois parties and [cut] at the same time, because both are sworn enemies of the coming workers' state. It is directed abroad at all powers that threaten our [cut] existence and thereby the possibility of the coming socialist [cut] state."
Cheap trick, Russ ;-).
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/haken32.htm
This turnaround thing has been done before. See Emmett Grogan's autobiography "Ringolevio", for example (late in the book):
Well, I'm not sure what you mean by "this turnaround thing." As far as I'm concerned, the "turnaround thing" is the great historical whitewash that somehow managed to turn a monstrous socialist regime into a "right-wing" phenomenon, and which to this very day still tries to associate conservatives with that ideology.
Think about the morons who compare Bush with Hitler. Hitler didn't "cut taxes for the rich," he *murdered* many of them, many of whom happened to be Jews, of course. Hitler and the losers who supported him *hated* the Jews precisely *because* many of them were, shall we say, "economically successful."
The broader point is that socialism and communism have been far and away the most effective tool of despots for the past century. How many tens of millions more must die before some of us finally wake up?
--Russ ---- Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
