Is Communism Still a Threat?

[clb09]

YouTube - 1950's Cold War Propaganda - Communism Vs Capitalism (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irXVQnvc9FQ&feature=fvw)

[FrankRep]

Ten Planks of the Communist Manifesto Alive In The USA

LibertyZone.com


Communism, by any other name is still communism, and is VERY VERY destructive to the individual and to the society!!

The 10 PLANKS stated in the Communist Manifesto and some of their American counterparts are...


1. Abolition of private property and the application of all rents of land to public purposes.
Americans do these with actions such as the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (1868), and various zoning, school & property taxes. Also the Bureau of Land Management (Zoning laws are the first step to government property ownership)

2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
Americans know this as misapplication of the 16th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, 1913, The Social Security Act of 1936.; Joint House Resolution 192 of 1933; and various State "income" taxes. We call it "paying your fair share".

3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
Americans call it Federal & State estate Tax (1916); or reformed Probate Laws, and limited inheritance via arbitrary inheritance tax statutes.

4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
Americans call it government seizures, tax liens, Public "law" 99-570 (1986); Executive order 11490, sections 1205, 2002 which gives private land to the Department of Urban Development; the imprisonment of "terrorists" and those who speak out or write against the "government" (1997 Crime/Terrorist Bill); or the IRS confiscation of property without due process. Asset forfeiture laws are used by DEA, IRS, ATF etc...).

5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
Americans call it the Federal Reserve which is a privately-owned credit/debt system allowed by the Federal Reserve act of 1913. All local banks are members of the Fed system, and are regulated by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) another privately-owned corporation. The Federal Reserve Banks issue Fiat Paper Money and practice economically destructive fractional reserve banking.

6. Centralization of the means of communications and transportation in the hands of the State.
Americans call it the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and Department of Transportation (DOT) mandated through the ICC act of 1887, the Commissions Act of 1934, The Interstate Commerce Commission established in 1938, The Federal Aviation Administration, Federal Communications Commission, and Executive orders 11490, 10999, as well as State mandated driver's licenses and Department of Transportation regulations.

7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state, the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
Americans call it corporate capacity, The Desert Entry Act and The Department of Agriculture… Thus read "controlled or subsidized" rather than "owned"… This is easily seen in these as well as the Department of Commerce and Labor, Department of Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation, Bureau of Mines, National Park Service, and the IRS control of business through corporate regulations.

8. Equal liability of all to labor. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
Americans call it Minimum Wage and slave labor like dealing with our Most Favored Nation trade partner; i.e. Communist China. We see it in practice via the Social Security Administration and The Department of Labor. The National debt and inflation caused by the communal bank has caused the need for a two "income" family. Woman in the workplace since the 1920's, the 19th amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, assorted Socialist Unions, affirmative action, the Federal Public Works Program and of course Executive order 11000.

9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries, gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equitable distribution of population over the country.
Americans call it the Planning Reorganization act of 1949 , zoning (Title 17 1910-1990) and Super Corporate Farms, as well as Executive orders 11647, 11731 (ten regions) and Public "law" 89-136. These provide for forced relocations and forced sterilization programs, like in China.

10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production.
Americans are being taxed to support what we call 'public' schools, but are actually "government force-tax-funded schools " Even private schools are government regulated. The purpose is to train the young to work for the communal debt system. We also call it the Department of Education, the NEA and Outcome Based "Education" . These are used so that all children can be indoctrinated and inculcated with the government propaganda, like "majority rules", and "pay your fair share". WHERE are the words "fair share" in the Constitution, Bill of Rights or the Internal Revenue Code (Title 26)?? NO WHERE is "fair share" even suggested !! The philosophical concept of "fair share" comes from the Communist maxim, "From each according to their ability, to each according to their need! This concept is pure socialism. ... America was made the greatest society by its private initiative WORK ETHIC ... Teaching ourselves and others how to "fish" to be self sufficient and produce plenty of EXTRA commodities to if so desired could be shared with others who might be "needy"... Americans have always voluntarily been the MOST generous and charitable society on the planet.

Do changing words, change the end result? ... By using different words, is it all of a sudden OK to ignore or violate the provisions or intent of the Constitution of the united States of America?????
...


None are more hopelessly enslaved, as those who falsely believe they are free....


SOURCE:
http://www.libertyzone.com/Communist-Manifesto-Planks.html

[Reason]

Communism was never as big of a foreign invader type threat as the neocons would have you believe. (http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=207920)

[kahless]

Communism was never as big of a foreign invader type threat as the neocons would have you believe. (http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=207920)

Not sure what you are saying here I think the Czechs and Eastern Europeans would say otherwise. They however do very well transforming a country and supplying an insurgency rather than all out invasion. They could not beat us in the Cold War but have essentially won long term by infiltrating out entertainment, media and political culture. History has proven Joe McCarthy was in fact correct.

[FrankRep]

Is the Federal Reserve a threat?

[Matt Collins]

It's not a military threat for the most part, but Marxism is a threat to our way of life and the Marxists have already infiltrated our government and is pervasive in our society; most don't even recognize it as Marxism.

[libertygrl]

Get the book "Death of the West" by Pat Buchannan. He breaks down the history and infiltration of Communism into all of our institutions. It's EXCELLENT.

Also, here's the 4 stages of Communist subversion:

1. Demoralization
2. Destabilization
3. Crisis
4. Normalization

[RyanRSheets]

Absolutely.

YouTube - WTF - Learning English (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrFjsDF-E60)

[awake]

Communism and Nazi-ism are not threats under those titles, their doctrines are however alive and well under new ones. The challenge is to identify their ideas in the current 'movements'.

[Captain Shays]

Collectivism is the real threat. It can come in the form of Democracy, Socialism, Communism, Fascism, Dictatorships, or Monarchy.

One way we can detect it is this commonality ALL forms of collectivism exhibit.

Their leaders use their financial wealth to insure their political power, and then, they use their political power to increase their financial wealth.

The results are always the same. Extreme concentrations of both financial wealth AND political power into a few hands.

Very dangerous. Some call it oligarchy but oligarchy is just another form of collectivism.

It all boils down to "From each according to his ability to each according to his need".

Of course after they've convinced the working and poor that they are getting a fair shake, the elites always have a "need" which we have the ability to provide through taxation, working, warring and general subjugation to their power.

[Met Income]

Don’t focus on labels. Focus on force. Are you forced to do something by a violent monopoly or aren’t you? This is binary; it’s qualitative. You’re free or you’re not.

[stilltrying]

Not sure what you are saying here I think the Czechs and Eastern Europeans would say otherwise. They however do very well transforming a country and supplying an insurgency rather than all out invasion. They could not beat us in the Cold War but have essentially won long term by infiltrating out entertainment, media and political culture. History has proven Joe McCarthy was in fact correct.

The planks were started in other places well before USSR. But they was the first to fully implement it.

I dont know what you mean by beat us in the Cold War. Thats the whole point of the cold war was to beat us. Enemies are created. Who financed the communist movement? Once again I dont know what you mean by could not beat us, they were us. We went along for the ride.

[SelfTaught]

Communism is probably more of a problem nowadays because it's widely accepted under different names.

Communism and Socialism are cool now, they just don't call it communism and socialism. Today, it's called social justice and environmentalism.

Generally speaking, progressive = socialist/communist.

[CUnknown]

I think we have to break it down, what do you mean by Communism?

If you're talking about Russia and China as military or economic threats, the answer is pretty much still yes, they are threats. But there are better ways of dealing with these types of threats than militarism.

If you're talking about the ideas of Communism, then we need to break it down further. As has been pointed out earlier in this thread, some of the planks of the Communist manifesto are indeed present in our society, such as public schools and progressive taxation. These are present, but hardly threatening to us. As in, they are not about to bring down our country. We may not like them, but you have to admit that they aren't a real threat.

If you're talking about the international Communist conspiracy, you've been reading too many spy novels and should probably go take a walk outside or something. The "international Communist conspiracy" was mostly propaganda, although partially real. At any rate, that threat disappeared with the end of the cold war. So, relax.

If you're talking about Obama and his policies, then I think everyone on this board will agree with you that, most definitely yes, they are a threat, and a growing threat. Where I disagree is in calling them Communist. I prefer the terms Fascist or Corporatist, but that's semantics. Everyone says that Obama is socialist, but I barely see him as even left-leaning.. he's squarely middle of the road in the model of the first Bush or Clinton. That doesn't make him any less of a threat, it just means he's not actually a Communist.

SelfTaught said this, which I have a strong negative reaction to:

Communism and Socialism are cool now, they just don't call it communism and socialism. Today, it's called social justice and environmentalism.

You know, I wish Obama was socialist. I would much prefer a Ralph Nader or Bernie Sanders running the country than the corporate tool we have now. Real socialists do not kiss up to corporations, y'all! True socialists are our friends on many issues, from civil liberties to auditing the Fed and ending the empire. You've got to know your enemies, and true socialists aren't among them.

[AuH20]

Communism had a makeover after 1991. It's still here but under a different name.

[SelfTaught]

If you're talking about the ideas of Communism, then we need to break it down further. As has been pointed out earlier in this thread, some of the planks of the Communist manifesto are indeed present in our society, such as public schools and progressive taxation. These are present, but hardly threatening to us. As in, they are not about to bring down our country. We may not like them, but you have to admit that they aren't a real threat.

You know, I wish Obama was socialist. I would much prefer a Ralph Nader or Bernie Sanders running the country than the corporate tool we have now. Real socialists do not kiss up to corporations, y'all! True socialists are our friends on many issues, from civil liberties to auditing the Fed and ending the empire. You've got to know your enemies, and true socialists aren't among them.

Are you suggesting that socialism would work if we had the best, brightest, and most well intentioned in government?

[tremendoustie]

The best analogy I can come up with for the U.S. right now is the USSR circa 1885, but it doesn't quite fit, because there's a heck of a lot more consumption in the U.S, and a heck of a lot more debt, while there's also a bit more political freedom.

It's like death by subsidies and corpratism rather than central planning run amok (although we certainly have our share of that too).

[Met Income]

You know, I wish Obama was socialist. I would much prefer a Ralph Nader or Bernie Sanders running the country than the corporate tool we have now. Real socialists do not kiss up to corporations, y'all! True socialists are our friends on many issues, from civil liberties to auditing the Fed and ending the empire. You've got to know your enemies, and true socialists aren't among them.

Socialists kiss up the state instead. Which means they still force people to do things, which is immoral.

[tremendoustie]

You know, I wish Obama was socialist. I would much prefer a Ralph Nader or Bernie Sanders running the country than the corporate tool we have now. Real socialists do not kiss up to corporations, y'all! True socialists are our friends on many issues, from civil liberties to auditing the Fed and ending the empire. You've got to know your enemies, and true socialists aren't among them.


You might be able to argue that corpratists and facists are worse than socialists, but socialists are not our allies by any stretch. They still want to use the violence of the government to force their will on other people, and to control their lives and finances.

[Captain Shays]

Individualism vs collectivism

http://freedomkeys.com/collectivism.htm

[CUnknown]

Are you suggesting that socialism would work if we had the best, brightest, and most well intentioned in government?

I'm not sure I would say "work" without some sort of qualifier, but it would certainly work better than what we have now. I'm talking about rule by the people instead of by the corporations.

Met Income said:

Socialists kiss up the state instead. Which means they still force people to do things, which is immoral.

Well, this is probably true, I think. But still, Nader or Bernie Sanders as president would be far preferable to Obama or Bush.

tremendoustie said:

You might be able to argue that corpratists and facists are worse than socialists, but socialists are not our allies by any stretch. They still want to use the violence of the government to force their will on other people, and to control their lives and finances.

I think that first, we need to correctly identify the socialists and Communists. There are people like Bernie Sanders, a self-proclaimed socialist, who is on our side on a number of issues, and then there are the Democrats like Obama, who are not either on our side or socialist. As far as Communists, there really aren't any Communists in our government. The Communist Party in this country is extremely fringe and has no power whatsoever.

Once we've identified the true socialists, we can see that they aren't our enemies (at least in the short term). The stakes of the current power struggle in our country are so high that we need to work with anyone whom we have any common ground. If we have common ground with the Republicans, we need to work with them on those issues. If we have common ground with socialists, we need to work with them on those issues, too. These will of course be different issues, but each one is no less pressing than the others and we need all the help we can get on all of them.

Once we've taken our country back for the people, we will again have the luxury of choosing our enemies a little more broadly, but for now, let's try to be conciliatory and stand shoulder-to-shoulder against our real enemies together.

Edit: I try just as hard convincing my liberal friends that "wing-nut gut-toting conservatives" aren't the cause of our country's problems, that true social-democratic liberals actually have a lot of common ground with true conservatives. A lot of liberals don't even realize that there -are- anti-war conservatives out there. They talk shit about bankers, the WTO, and big corporations and don't even understand that conservatives have a lot of the same concerns.. What I want to see is Ron Paul conservatives going to liberal anti-war rallies, and then the liberals turning around and going to the End the Fed rallies. We'd be so much more powerful together than separate.

[Dunedain]

It is a huge threat. Egalitarianism, which is central to communism, is the undeclared state religion of the communist regime in power and it's ruining our entire civilization.

[awake]

I'm not sure I would say "work" without some sort of qualifier, but it would certainly work better than what we have now. I'm talking about rule by the people instead of by the corporations.

Met Income said:


Well, this is probably true, I think. But still, Nader or Bernie Sanders as president would be far preferable to Obama or Bush.

tremendoustie said:


I think that first, we need to correctly identify the socialists and Communists. There are people like Bernie Sanders, a self-proclaimed socialist, who is on our side on a number of issues, and then there are the Democrats like Obama, who are not either on our side or socialist. As far as Communists, there really aren't any Communists in our government. The Communist Party in this country is extremely fringe and has no power whatsoever.

Once we've identified the true socialists, we can see that they aren't our enemies (at least in the short term). The stakes of the current power struggle in our country are so high that we need to work with anyone whom we have any common ground. If we have common ground with the Republicans, we need to work with them on those issues. If we have common ground with socialists, we need to work with them on those issues, too. These will of course be different issues, but each one is no less pressing than the others and we need all the help we can get on all of them.

Once we've taken our country back for the people, we will again have the luxury of choosing our enemies a little more broadly, but for now, let's try to be conciliatory and stand shoulder-to-shoulder against our real enemies together.

Sorry, can't follow you on this. Those who propose government as the solution to our problems are not allies.

Democracy has allowed everyman the opportunity to plunder his neighbor, just so long as he can get a majority from which he can attack the minority.

[Met Income]

I'm not sure I would say "work" without some sort of qualifier, but it would certainly work better than what we have now. I'm talking about rule by the people instead of by the corporations.

Met Income said:


Well, this is probably true, I think. But still, Nader or Bernie Sanders as president would be far preferable to Obama or Bush.

tremendoustie said:


I think that first, we need to correctly identify the socialists and Communists. There are people like Bernie Sanders, a self-proclaimed socialist, who is on our side on a number of issues, and then there are the Democrats like Obama, who are not either on our side or socialist. As far as Communists, there really aren't any Communists in our government. The Communist Party in this country is extremely fringe and has no power whatsoever.

Once we've identified the true socialists, we can see that they aren't our enemies (at least in the short term). The stakes of the current power struggle in our country are so high that we need to work with anyone whom we have any common ground. If we have common ground with the Republicans, we need to work with them on those issues. If we have common ground with socialists, we need to work with them on those issues, too. These will of course be different issues, but each one is no less pressing than the others and we need all the help we can get on all of them.

Once we've taken our country back for the people, we will again have the luxury of choosing our enemies a little more broadly, but for now, let's try to be conciliatory and stand shoulder-to-shoulder against our real enemies together.

Edit: I try just as hard convincing my liberal friends that "wing-nut gut-toting conservatives" aren't the cause of our country's problems, that true social-democratic liberals actually have a lot of common ground with true conservatives. A lot of liberals don't even realize that there -are- anti-war conservatives out there. They talk shit about bankers, the WTO, and big corporations and don't even understand that conservatives have a lot of the same concerns.. What I want to see is Ron Paul conservatives going to liberal anti-war rallies, and then the liberals turning around and going to the End the Fed rallies. We'd be so much more powerful together than separate.

Did the mainstream think Obama was going to be a corporatist until he proved he was?

You either use violence to enforce your social/economic agenda or you don't. Violence is immoral.

[stilltrying]

Individualism vs collectivism

http://freedomkeys.com/collectivism.htm

This is definitely it right here. There may be a thousand different names for it but this is what it is. I somehow find it ironic that people are collectivizing to stop collectivization.