Alright You Lefty Radicals -- It's Time for Marx Madness!

[ksen]

http://marx-madness.com/



Not a Marxist and don't want to play? Yes, you can ridicule the concept below.

What purpose does this serve? So many modern socialist leaders do not even appear on the list.

What has to happen before any Socialist theory can serve the people? All of the participants have to attempt to the best of their ability to be HONEST. Actually, for any economic or social system to work, the guy that would bring the required lubricant would be Immanuel Kant. Whether you followed or attempted to implement anyone's social system from Marx to Adam Smith, you would run into this nasty little German philosopher biting at your heals the moment you started to attempt to lead...and bite he should.

We have a human tendency to allow our leaders to narrow our vision of the world. This tendency allows liars and advertisers to control far too much our human activity. For instance, take Mao. I read some of Mao's earliest works and found him to be genuinely concerned about human welfare...especially in the matter of education. Yet, you have to admit that as his power increased, he was able to lead his country into a "great leap forward" that landed flat on its face...starving and killing millions. He failed to understand there is no such thing as "the dictatorship of the proletariat." There are only dictatorships of dictators and dictators are notorious for being susceptible to flatterers and liars in their inner circle. He and his cause were lost once he assumed that role.

There is a great similarity between our leaders today, whether they call themselves Marxists or Bolivarians or Democrats and the notorious dictators of the past that is troubling to say the least. The dictator only narrows the potential of the people to live in a civil society. Some are luckier than others and do less social damage, but there are always creatures like Dubbiya and Putin and Hitler in the mix. So to vote for some high official in this Marxian mix makes very little sense. What Marx gave us was a theory that analyzed the liabilities of capitalism. His blueprint for a socialist society was primitive and only a guess on his part.

In the old FRDB forum in MF&P, one of the longest running threads was one on how to implement democratic socialism. There was such a wide range of far better thought out policy suggestions than anything Marx ever devised. We are witnessing some rather interesting experiments in socialism in some of the South American countries. They of course start their experiment greatly disadvantaged by foreign exploitation for centuries, but there are a few bright lights there.

We have forgotten how Washington very graciously stepped back from assuming long term leadership of our own country. True he was a slave owner etc., but he did have the good sense to step down and attempt to allow his nation to carry on without a dictator. I give him credit for that. That being said, my vote would probably go the Che, but possibly only because he didn't live long enough to be tested by the temptation of narcissistic dictatorship.

not getting the thread itt

 

[Nice Squirrel]

http://marx-madness.com/



Not a Marxist and don't want to play? Yes, you can ridicule the concept below.

What purpose does this serve?

Au contraire mon camarade, who does the Grail serve?

 

[arkirk]

What purpose does this serve?

Au contraire mon camarade, who does the Grail serve?

I did look at the list and saw the pairings etc. suggested and what I was struck by was that anybody who held secular socialist views really would be at a loss voting in that elimination. For the longest time, I have had the sneaking suspicion that socialism, if it is to serve society has to come out of peace and peaceful organizing, and if you look at the rocky past, almost all socialist leadership has had to fight wars and revolutions. The U.S. is in the middle east trying to bomb its way to peace, It isn't working. Socialism has the same problem. That's what I was trying to point out. I won't jump on any bandwagon for any social re-organizer that uses violence or subterfuge to accomplish his goals. It is an old rule...we cannot use the end to justify the means. A lot of people on the list were mighty mean and made some mighty big mistakes.

 

[ksen]

Stalin and Engels in the same bracket doesn't seem fair.

Ok, my final four are:

Che Guevara
Leon Trotsky
Freidrich Engels
Antonio Gramsci

And final winner: Engels

Round 2 is up and my Final Four are still intact!

Whew!

First big upset is Stalin losing to  Ernseto Laclau.

 

[ksen]

Stalin and Engels in the same bracket doesn't seem fair.

Ok, my final four are:

Che Guevara
Leon Trotsky
Freidrich Engels
Antonio Gramsci

And final winner: Engels

It's Angela Davis vs Che Guevera this week. My bracket might finally get broken.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

I voted for your final four. I choose Antonio Gramsci just because of Mussolini.

 

[ksen]

:fistbump: