Bernie staffer actively endorses Gulags

[Loren Pechtel]

I'm sure you can find a nutbar in any campaign. The right wingers here on this board do that a lot - Find a crazy person who may hold left wing views and conflate every non Trump cult member with them, amazingly forgetting that there have been a few "off-beat" right wingers creating a stir from time to time (I'm sure we could come up with a few examples - but it's a stupid game to begin with))

Yeah. I don't care about finding a nutter in a campaign unless the campaign should have known better. (Now, if you find a whole bunch of nutters that strongly suggests they should have known better.)

 

[PyramidHead]

Sanders isn't left enough for PyramidHead, but it is the best option for the discriminating communist. As a note, I believe PyramidHead is a Communist. He can correct me if I'm wrong.

I don't want to speak for him, but it's my understanding that he's a classic socialist. Ie he believes that the means of production should be owned and regulated by the community as a whole. Communism is where means of production are owned by the state. Socialism is ownership by the community or collective. I apologize in advance if I'm wrong.

No, Jimmy is right and I am a communist. Communism isn't when the means of production are owned by "the state", but specifically under the conditions where the working class dominates the capitalist class. The state is by definition a tool of the ruling class to oppress the others, so the state owning the means of production only makes sense if the proletariat is the one harnessing it, which can only take place following a revolution. This is basic Marxism.

What Bernie is trying to do, and what reformists and social democrats generally strive to do, is to use the existing institutions of governance and politics to increase the well-being of working people, while keeping those institutions generally intact. FDR's policies were no different. The dream is that eventually, through gradual shifts in policy and public opinion, the capitalist class will cede their authority over to the mass of people and a more egalitarian society will result. This has never happened in any durable way, which is why social democracies are always unstable without imperialist exploitation of poorer nations, foreign capital, etc.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Sanders isn't left enough for PyramidHead, but it is the best option for the discriminating communist. As a note, I believe PyramidHead is a Communist. He can correct me if I'm wrong.

I don't want to speak for him, but it's my understanding that he's a classic socialist. Ie he believes that the means of production should be owned and regulated by the community as a whole. Communism is where means of production are owned by the state. Socialism is ownership by the community or collective. I apologize in advance if I'm wrong.

No, Jimmy is right and I am a communist.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Ideas are more important than labels. People are more important than ideas.

People >> Ideas >> Labels

 

[PyramidHead]

Ideas are more important than labels. People are more important than ideas.

People >> Ideas >> Labels

Material conditions >>>>>>>> people, ideas, and labels