From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V11 #188 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Monday, June 10 2002 Volume 11 : Number 188 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: your mail [" FS Thomas" ] Re: Al Capone's guns don't argue [Michael R Godwin ] actual Robyn content - plus personal begging! [Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey ] Re: evil commie preverts [grutness@surf4nix.com (James Dignan)] Re: Cornwall [Stewart Russell ] Re: your mail [Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey ] Re: your mail [FS Thomas ] Re: your mail ["matt sewell" ] Elf Power ["Marc Holden" ] Re: Elf Power ["Jason R. Thornton" ] observations ["Natalie Jane" ] YipYipYip ["Glow Rose" ] Re: observations [Aaron Mandel ] Re: ouch canada, blaim the french [gSs ] More Dylan Covers [glen uber ] RIP - I guess [Ken Weingold ] tech help (RH=0) [bayard ] Re: let there be guitars... ["Mike Wells" ] Re: evil commie preverts [Christopher Gross ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2002 06:41:11 -0400 From: " FS Thomas" Subject: Re: your mail Said Steve (regarding my earlier post): > What a load of utter crap. and Jeffrey opined: > You forget that the > revolutionary acts which led to the founding of this country were, of > course, against the laws of the ruling powers of that day. I can't argue that with you on that point. I really should thank both you and Steve. I'm having a moment of clarity--it's all like snapping out of a haze. The US government was/is entirely wrong. Communism is such a better form of rule and SO much more effective than a free-market economy! The people of China, Vietnam, and the Soviet block have/had it much better than we ever do, what with the State controlling the means of production and the media in a much freer and more open society allowing the expression of discord. My bad. There's absolutely no reason to fly a red flag when faculty, staff and administration of a center for higher learning preach anti-American rhetoric to a younger, more impressionable generation. I don't know what I was thinking. Reagan was elected to the office of Govenor in '66 (and again in '70). At the time of his first election to office the Bay of Pigs was less than four years old. Don't either of you think that--even for a second--we were dealing with a different time with a even slightly different mentality? > using IRS > audits as harassment is pretty clearly illegal and unprincipled. IRS > audits are either random or motivated by dubious tax returns. Their > purpose is not to be used as a tool of harassment. And the 1931 conviction of Al Capone on tax evasion was entirely out of line, too, I would guess. Better to have left him alone. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2002 13:16:40 +0100 (BST) From: Michael R Godwin Subject: Re: Al Capone's guns don't argue On Mon, 10 Jun 2002, FS Thomas wrote: > And the 1931 conviction of Al Capone on tax evasion was entirely out > of line, too, I would guess. Better to have left him alone. Well, no, he was guilty of evading tax. According to http://www.gambino.com/bio/alcapone.htm> he was even prepared to plead guilty at one stage, in return for a reduced sentence. Speaking as a tax policy expert, taxation of the proceeds of crime is an interesting area. A few years ago there was a case in the UK of a prostitute who wanted to register as a taxable business, but was prohibited from doing so because prostitution is illegal. The view of the law seemed to be that if your primary activity is not legal, you should be compelled to evade tax as well. - - Mike Godwin ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2002 07:29:12 -0500 (CDT) From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: actual Robyn content - plus personal begging! Can anyone direct me toward an MP3 of "The Can Opener"? much obliged (hand fulla gimme) - --Jeff J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society www.uwm.edu/~jenor/ADS.html ::SCENE 2: ::Aunt Fritzi applies lipstick in the mirror. In the next room, Sluggo ::removes his ever-present cap and blows his nose in a red handkerchief. ::Nancy enters the room and accuses Sluggo of stealing the donuts that ::Aunt Fritzi made for her. Sluggo looks at the clock, which reads 8:54, ::and says he'd better hurry or he'll be late for his trombone lesson. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2002 00:42:40 +1200 From: grutness@surf4nix.com (James Dignan) Subject: Re: evil commie preverts >"[The FBI] had merely tried to protect civil order and >national security during a time when the nation feared >Communism and waged war in Vietnam." probably a dumb question, since it will no doubt introduce more rhetoric of various forms to the list but - exactly why was America so afraid of Communism? And don't just say "because it's un-American", that won't wash. In its purest form, communism (and its relative socialism) are government of the people, for the people, and by the people, which ISTR was the watch-phrase of one of the US's more well known presidents. It seems to me that communism and democracy can quite happily coexist. It works that way in various European countries. France and Italy have both had strong communist parties for many years (and before you suggest it, this is not the reason Italy's governments are frequently unstable). Let's face it, the US had an active communist party for many years prior to WWII. Up until the late 1930s, the US Socialist Party ran presidential candidates. It then fought alongside the Soviet Union during WWII. Oklahoma's first state government was socialist. I just don't get it. It would briefly have made sense during the depression of the 1930s, when the unions were organised actively against the government - but the main thrust of commie-bashing wasn't then, but later. Is it because communism, in the manner it developed in some countries, was a rutless dictatorship? I could probably buy that as an answer if the US hadn't bolstered similarly despotic governments in Taiwan, the Phillipines, South Korea, and various parts of Latin America (oh, and Thatcher). Or is it because the major communist countries sought to exert their influence on their neighbours? Like the U.S. does? I'm serious here, I really have never understood this. Anyone? James James Dignan, Dunedin, New Zealand. =-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-= .-=-.-=-.-=-.- .-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-. -.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-= You talk to me as if from a distance =-.-=-. And I reply with impressions chosen from another time -=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=- (Brian Eno - "By this River") ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2002 08:48:42 -0400 From: Stewart Russell Subject: Re: Cornwall Brian Hoare wrote: > > Mousehole ... is I believe the home of Stargazy Pie. I think the very far north of Scotland might dispute that. I can't remember if it's Shetland, Orkney or Wick that claims it's theirs. Stewart ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2002 08:56:33 -0500 (CDT) From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: Re: your mail On Mon, 10 Jun 2002, FS Thomas wrote: > I really should thank both you and Steve. I'm having a > moment of clarity--it's all like snapping out of a > haze. The US government was/is entirely wrong. > Communism is such a better form of rule and SO much > more effective than a free-market economy! etc. At no point in my discussion did I claim that communism was better than a free market economy (which we don't live in anyway, but I digress). Advocating the right of people to express their politics does not imply agreement with those politics. Still and all, one ought to ask the average citizen of the former Soviet Union how their life now compares with life under the Soviet Union. It shouldn't be necessary to say "I'm not a Stalinist," but I'm saying it, to clarify - but the "free market" and shock therapy shoveled to the Russians and forcefed by the farcical Yeltsin and whorish Putin have made things much worse for all but a small handful of mob thugs. There are more than two options in the political world, however. > expression of discord. My bad. There's absolutely no > reason to fly a red flag when faculty, staff and > administration of a center for higher learning preach > anti-American rhetoric to a younger, more > impressionable generation. I don't know what I was > thinking. I teach college. And the idea that college students are particularly "impressionable" is pretty much a myth. I just *wish* they were more impressionable when it comes to, say, learning how to put a coherent sentence together. Or elementary logic. But y'know what? We've got the *right* to be "anti-American" (by which you mean "opposed to the current administration's policies") - one of the better things about America. We can do so without fear of being harassed by government agencies, thrown into prison camps, or blacklisted. This, of course, was not true under Stalin - who resorted to such policies to maintain his ideas of a "moral and lawful order." Now which side are you on again? > Reagan was elected to the office of Govenor in '66 (and > again in '70). At the time of his first election to > office the Bay of Pigs was less than four years old. > Don't either of you think that--even for a second--we > were dealing with a different time with a even slightly > different mentality? No one has any problem with freedom of speech when it's being used only to say, "I love cute puppies." The test of how much a society values those freedoms is when people are saying things much of that society finds objectionable. > And the 1931 conviction of Al Capone on tax evasion was > entirely out of line, too, I would guess. Better to > have left him alone. *sigh* Tax evasion is illegal. It has to do with failure to report income or pay taxes, and is thus properly within the purview of the IRS. Saying "I like Fidel Castro and his beard" is not. The argument was against using the IRS as a tool of intimidation in matters unrelated to its mission - not against legitimately using it to ferret out tax cheats. Yeesh. - --Jeff J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society www.uwm.edu/~jenor/ADS.html ::PLEASE! You are sending cheese information to me. I don't want it. ::I have no goats or cows or any other milk producing animal! __"raus"__ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2002 06:59:40 -0700 (PDT) From: FS Thomas Subject: Re: your mail > Saying "I like Fidel Castro and his beard" is not. I LOVE Castro's beard. Makes me just want to hug the little BDU-wearin' bugger. ===== email: ferris@ochremedia.com fthomas@pharmedica.com (work) AOL IM: ferraatu - ------------------------------ Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2002 15:07:55 +0100 From: "matt sewell" Subject: Re: your mail You aren't patriotic, rotten Doctor - commie rat! An enjoyable rebuttal, anyway... Cheers Matt >From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey >Tax evasion is illegal. It has to do with failure to report income or pay >taxes, and is thus properly within the purview of the IRS. > >Saying "I like Fidel Castro and his beard" is not. > >Yeesh. > >--Jeff > >J e f f r e y N o r m a n >The Architectural Dance Society >www.uwm.edu/~jenor/ADS.html >::PLEASE! You are sending cheese information to me. I don't want it. >::I have no goats or cows or any other milk producing animal! >__"raus"__ - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: Click Here ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2002 08:21:21 -0700 From: "Marc Holden" Subject: Elf Power I saw Elf Power on Saturday night. They sounded great other, than the vocals getting buried in the mix at times. Andrew says that they plan to re-release the covers ep "Come On" this fall, with additional tracks--this is the one where they cover "Listening to the Higsons". They also did "Surgery" on Vainly Clutching at Phantom Limbs, just in case you didn't already know it. Marc I wish I had a kryptonite cross, because then you could keep both Dracula AND Superman away. Jack Handey ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2002 08:43:58 -0700 From: "Jason R. Thornton" Subject: Re: Elf Power At 08:21 AM 6/10/2002 -0700, Marc Holden wrote: >I saw Elf Power on Saturday night. They sounded great other, than the vocals >getting buried in the mix at times. Andrew says that they plan to re-release >the covers ep "Come On" this fall, with additional tracks--this is the one >where they cover "Listening to the Higsons". They also did "Surgery" on >Vainly Clutching at Phantom Limbs, just in case you didn't already know it. I saw Elf Power last Thursday, and they closed with a killer version of Bowie's "Five Years." Hopefully, that'll make the new version of Come On. They didn't play any Hitchcock, though. In the past, I've seen them do Eno's "Needles in the Camel's Eye" and the T-Rex tune "Hot Love" (with Laura Carter and another E6 girl doing the female back-up singer bit). Seems like they might have performed "Higsons" at one of the shows I was at - I don't really recall right now. Masters of the Hemisphere also played Thursday, and they ended their set with a half-assed version of a Black Sabbath song, sung by some drunk guy celebrating his bachelor party that they pulled up out of the audience. - --Jason "Only the few know the sweetness of the twisted apples." - Sherwood Anderson ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2002 09:36:48 -0700 From: "Natalie Jane" Subject: observations So Saturday was the dreaded Rose Parade in Portland. As a former Portlander once said of it, "I'd say it's a sight that's quite worth seeing, it's just that everyone's interest is stronger than mine." I kept trying to get across the street to get to my guitar lesson, but I was blocked by horses, floats, and a woman holding a lemur. (No shit!) It kind of sucked, but I liked seeing the lemur. Anyway, last night, after recovering from the lemur sighting, I pulled out one of my old sampler tapes. I made this about three years ago to entertain my sister and me on a trip to Buffalo. Old sampler tapes are weird - even sampler tapes that aren't that old, like this one. I learned several interesting things. 1. Belle & Sebastian really aren't so bad, though the Elephant 6 mailing list was never able to ascertain what an "Arab strap" is. 2. I want to go to Tom Waits's house for a barbecue! 3. "Life's Rich Pageant" is a fucking awesome album, and brings back memories of my sophomore year of college - like dancing to "Superman" at a house party where the floor bounced like a trampoline. 4. I fail to understand why I was ever enamored of the adenoidal bleating of Rufus Wainwright. 5. Dan Bern is indistinguishable from the thousands of boringly "quirky" folkies who pass through Ann Arbor on a regular basis like migrating whales. 6. I put on a couple of Beatles songs (from "Rubber Soul") to entertain my sister, and I'm amazed at how spare and empty they sound - as if all the band members were standing yards away from each other. Anyway, I'm just sayin'. gnat "Joey the lemur, a friend to mankind!" the gnatster _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2002 17:01:52 +0000 From: "Glow Rose" Subject: YipYipYip Yes, Im here. Plans for a vacation away evaporated with my mother-in-laws development of brain cancer. Shes spending alot of time in Vera Lynn land, and we're spending alot of time taking care of her. YipYipYip To salve at least my daughters stress I bought her a 20 doller guitar at a sidewalk sale(she's wanted one for a few years, but this is the first time we've stumbled, literally, across an affordable one) Its a Cameo, cordavan-colored-wood. Shes already had her first lesson and is making great inroads on "Mary Had a Little Lamb." I am finding that after 30 years I can still play "No Expectation" as badly as I did as a teenager. Any advice from other parental fegs on kid guitar stuff? Is there any site on the internet where a dyslexic, inept middle age woman can learn to play - -more- than "No Expectation"? - ------------------------------- Jffry: >Wouldn't it be easier just to run a police state and shoot or imprison >everyone who disagrees with you? Easier to run but harder to hide. People might notice something was amiss. Its more effecient and economical to manipulate people by their virtues and inattentions. YupYupYup Kay "Your hair is reminiscent of a digesting yak." Surrealist compliment generator. _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2002 13:07:58 -0400 (EDT) From: Aaron Mandel Subject: Re: observations On Mon, 10 Jun 2002, Natalie Jane wrote: > 1. Belle & Sebastian really aren't so bad, though the Elephant 6 > mailing list was never able to ascertain what an "Arab strap" is. Isn't it a dildo of some kind? That cheeky Stuart! Name-dropping a friend and spicing up the lives of his lonely listeners at the same time! > 5. Dan Bern is indistinguishable from the thousands of boringly > "quirky" folkies who pass through Ann Arbor on a regular basis like > migrating whales. That may be true; I'm not a huge fan of his. But he's a lot better than the NON-quirky "folk" musicians some of my friends listen to. I hadn't realized just how far the tag 'folk' had gone toward meaning "pop-rock singer-songwriter with guitar, very earnest, mild observational lyrics with no compelling rhythm or interesting rhyme". Well, that also describes Dan Bern pretty well, but (a) I have occasionally cared what he was saying and (b) his Dylan-wannabe thing is ten times more musically exciting than these other goobers I'm thinking of. Oh yeah, and they all use their real names, so you can't tell any of them apart. Those boys need to take a lesson from hip-hop. a ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2002 12:58:58 -0500 (CDT) From: gSs Subject: Re: ouch canada, blaim the french first off, it is pertwee then baker. the rest really don't matter. canada is groovy except you albertanisms gotta get rid of the french shit. this is america. do you know how much extra those fucking signs cost, me? the bc'ers are a bit more uppity than their neighbors but they drive better, possibly. though they all drive mostly like maniacs and the truckers and moving construction and logging people are rated equal on each side. anytown canada is like anytown usa. through the golden arches to wal-mart, you guys are moving north like flies. the rockies are real cool but don't go to banff or jasper unless you enjoy places like vale and aspen or winter park. i should have gone north or north west, instead i went north east from vancouver to hope then kamloops and revelstoke, across banff and into calgary. then up some forest ministries trunk road north, alongside banff and jasper national parks and then back down from hinton through the icefields and the center of the parks. the return trip went north along the western edge of the banff/jasper area initially and then above and beyond into a part of the canadian rockies that nobody else but me, a few guests and possibly some canadians should ever get to visit. the boat trip from port angeles, wa to vancouver island was pretty neat but the trip from sydney to tswassen was much better. victoria is like some sorta sin city were all the bad kids go and vancouver isn't much better. those big cities just remind me more of why i hate big cities. drugs are everywhere, especially smack and crystal. we stayed at a backpacker's hostel on vancouver island and walked around victoria that first night. it was interesting but every third or fourth person we saw said 'uptown', or so i thought. it was actually 'up down' or speed smack. the shit is everywhere. i had a couple grams of some really good smoke and some homemade nepalese temple balls and got busted by Canadian customs for smuggling. i wonder if interpol will get a copy? 135 us dollars for the privilege, though i gotta admit, canadian customs was much cooler than the jarheads on the us side even though i never got busted by them. like taking sand to the beach sorta, though the bc bud overall quality is apparently on the decline. on the way back to oregon, i rode a few ferries through the puget sound after stopping at the marco polo in mukilteo and visiting eddie tews. great meal, great restaurant and eddie is ok too! ;) a few weeks just visiting the islands and using the ferries would be pretty neat. but you better hurry as that is apparently a target of the disenchanted malfortunes. while i was ferry waiting on whidbey island i saw a couple guys clamoring out of the water wearing wet suits and tanks and carrying what looked like tools. when I got back to texas i watched a news program which said maritime terrorist strikes in the sound using underwater demolition techniques are a high new threat. kinda weird but what the heck, it just means ya got a slightly improved chance of getting blown up real good. they still use that on local radio, there. gSs ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2002 11:12:20 -0700 From: glen uber Subject: More Dylan Covers Hey, no one has yet mentioned "Open The Door, Homer" which was covered by Thunderclap Newman and Robyn Hitchcock. I, too, thought about the Band's "I Shall Be Released" "When I Paint My Masterpiece" and "It Makes No Difference" although I'm not certain Bob ever recorded the latter himself. And of course, there's also "If Not For You" by George Harrison, which Bob played on, but never actually recorded, right? "It Ain't Me, Babe" by the Turtles may be one of the best Dylan covers ever right up there with "My Back Pages" and "All Along the Watchtower." Is it a cover if someone else does it before the songwriter? I mean, is the Flying Burrito Bros. version of "Wild Horses" considered a cover when it was actually recorded and released before the Stones' version? n.p. "Up On Cripple Creek," the Band - -- Cheers! - -g- "Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible." - --Frank Zappa glen uber =+= blint (at) mac dot com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2002 14:23:47 -0400 From: Ken Weingold Subject: RIP - I guess John Gotti died in a Missouri prison hospital. - -Ken ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2002 11:24:31 -0700 (PDT) From: bayard Subject: tech help (RH=0) Another quick question for you brainy types - i'm trying to booy my new system off a CDR, and I can do it with the boot CDR I created, but then the system can't see anything beyond what was on the floppy disc i used to create the boot CD. I also can't switch CD's and use what's on other discs. help? Librarians, I promise I'll have a question for you eentually... - -- http://glasshotel.net ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2002 12:58:50 -0500 From: "Mike Wells" Subject: Re: let there be guitars... > Any advice from other parental fegs on kid guitar stuff? Is there any site > on the internet where a dyslexic, inept middle age woman can learn to play > -more- than "No Expectation"? Try http://www.danmansmusic.com/songs2.htm - the content is of wildly varying quality, but it's pretty amazing some of the stuff you find in there (I myself will cop to having pulled down a tasty transcription of Gord's "If You Could Read My Mind"). If you're on a dial-up be forewarned that it can be slow load. Then there's always Mel Bay. Personally I found the book stuff rather stifling, and really only advanced my technique by practicing things that were interesting to me. I suppose that's the only practicing I did, really, until later on. "Dust in the Wind," "Stairway to Heaven," a lot of Beatles and Floyd. I'll bet your girl will let you know pretty clearly what she wants to play. Michael "the legend lives on, from the Chippewa on down" Wells ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2002 14:34:55 -0400 (EDT) From: Christopher Gross Subject: Re: evil commie preverts On Tue, 11 Jun 2002, James Dignan wrote: > probably a dumb question, since it will no doubt introduce more rhetoric of > various forms to the list but - exactly why was America so afraid of > Communism? Not a dumb question, more like my idea of a relaxing lunchtime debate.... OK, first of all, your terminology is rather vague. Socialism and communism can each refer to at least four different things: social ideals, political ideologies, political movements, and established political systems. I think your question, as written, tends to blend all the above into one big socialist-communist mass, but to answer it, we really need to distinguish and differentiate. Now, my short answer would be that the US was afraid of communism because it was afraid of established communist *systems* (eg, the USSR), due to their very real record of doing evil stuff. It was secondarily afraid of communist *movements* (eg, the FSLN), because they sought to establish communist systems, and communist *ideology* because its believers often tried to establish communist movements and systems. And it was, err, tertiarally (?) afraid of communist *ideals*, and socialism of all types, because they were seen as linked with communist ideologies/movements/systems -- sometimes a mistaken impression, sometimes not. So the fear of communism came from mainly from the communist coup d'etats, expropriations and labor camps end of the communist spectrum, not the dreamy ideals of cooperation, peace and plenty. So that's the short version. Now, to bloviate a bit. First, I see a couple of problems with your statement that > In its > purest form, communism (and its relative socialism) are government of the > people, for the people, and by the people, which ISTR was the watch-phrase > of one of the US's more well known presidents. First of all, you are taking a communist/socialist ideal and treating it as the "purest form" of communism/socialism, which is misleading. Ideals, ideologies, movements and established systems are four different things, as I said above, and none of them have primacy over the others. One can be indifferent to, or even favor, a communist *ideal* of say, cooperation, and still oppose communist *ideologies* or *systems*, with their emphasis on one-party dictatorship and class warfare. Secondly, "government of the people, for the people, and by the people" can apply to a lot of systems, at least in the minds of their adherents. There's nothing uniquely communist or socialist about that phrase. And it lacks any specific reference to economics, whereas a belief in collective, state or communal economics is perhaps the most distinguishing feature of socialism and communism -- and one that differentiates them strikingly from the US. Now, I'd like to digress a little. Socialism and communism -- what's the difference between them? On the ideal level, not much: both look forward to a cooperative society without poverty, class distinctions, or just about any other social evil you can name. But socialists and communists differ sharply on how to reach this ideal -- in other words, on the levels of ideology, movements, and systems. I'd say that socialism is a theory (or, when put into practice, a system) in which private enterprise is mostly or completely replaced by state or public ownership of the economy, and the market economy is largely or completely replaced by a publicly planned economy. It is often, but not always, based on the theories of Marx and his followers. It's mainly an economic theory/system and can have almost any political structure, democratic or dictatorial. Think of the British Labour Party under Clement Attlee or the US Socialist Party under Norman Thomas. Communism is an offshoot of socialism started by Lenin and his Bolshevik party. (In fact, my one sentence definition of communism is "Marxism-Leninism, as oppposed to plain old Marxism.") Its main distinguishing characteristic is the idea of the vanguard party, which is not a normal political party but a disciplined group of professional revolutionaries who aim to seize dictatorial power and enact social change by force if necessary. Communism also shows many standard characteristics of socialism, but to unusual degrees: a.) it is always based on Marx (for justification if nothing else); b.) it is always dictatorial, whereas only a few other forms of socialism are; c.) it holds that an eventual complete abolition of private property and a totally planned economy is necessary for true socialism, whereas most other socialists think *some* private enterprise is all right; d.) it emphasizes class warfare (that's *literal* warfare) and doubts peaceful evolutionary change is possible or desirable. Think of Lenin's or Mao's or Hoxha's governments. Now, back to replying to James: > It seems to me that communism and democracy can quite happily coexist. It > works that way in various European countries. France and Italy have both > had strong communist parties for many years (and before you suggest it, > this is not the reason Italy's governments are frequently unstable). This doesn't prove much. France and Italy had strong communist movements *within* democratic systems, but in neither case did communists gain power. In fact that rarely even got to share power in a coalition government. So all we know is that communism in these countries could get along when it lacked the power to do otherwise. Now, if a Communist party had won a parliamentary majority in France, exercised power within the law and democratic norms, and relinquished power when a later election went against them, THAT might prove that communism and democracy can coexist. In general, why did the US doubt that communism and democracy could coexist? Well, not everyone in the US did doubt it; many thought communism was in the world to stay and all the US could do was try to keep if from expanding further. But for those who doubted democracy and communism could coexist, some might have been paranoid ... while others were probably reading communist literature and studying communist activities. Communists proudly proclaimed that they were the vanguard of the future, that every nation would inevitably have its communist revolution, and that the existing communist nations would do everything they could do to help this process along. Peaceful coexistence, in the communist view, could never be more than a temporary respite in the ongoing struggle. In other words, communism *proclaimed itself* a permanent threat to the US, and to democracy in general. > Let's face it, the US had an active communist party for many years prior to > WWII. Up until the late 1930s, the US Socialist Party ran presidential > candidates. The US has had a Nazi party for decades, which ISTR has even gotten on the presidential ballot in some states. Does that prove Nazism and democracy can coexist? (Also, note that the US Communist Party stayed active long after WWII, just with much less success.) > It then fought alongside the Soviet Union during WWII. Against the common enemy, sure. These were special circumstances that no longer existed after the war. > Oklahoma's first state government was socialist. But not communist. As argued above, it was communism, not socialism, that the US was really afraid of. (Of course Americans often confused socialists with communists; but many socialists have been confused on this point themselves.) > Is it because communism, in the manner it developed in some countries, > was a rutless dictatorship? "Some" countries? You have an exception in mind? > I could probably buy that as an answer if the US hadn't bolstered > similarly despotic governments in Taiwan, the Phillipines, South > Korea, and various parts of Latin America (oh, and Thatcher). However nasty those governments were, they were none of them *as* bad as the USSR under Lenin and Stalin or China under Mao. And more importantly, none of them were trying to spread their nastiness to the rest of the world. Communism was not designated an enemy in a random drawing. It merited enemy status because it was both evil beyond the usual run of evil, and a direct threat to the US and the rest of the non-communist world. > Or is it because the major communist countries sought to exert their > influence on their neighbours? Like the U.S. does? "Exert their influence" is a pretty mild term for what the USSR did in Eastern Europe or North Korea; "imperialism beyond the wildest dreams of Cecil Rhodes or Napoleon Bonaparte, and only a little short of Hitler's" is nearer the mark. Communism the political movement wasn't just bent on influencing the world; it was bent on *conquering* the world. I know, I know, it sounds like something out of a comic book (so do most communist economic policies), but it was true. And especially in the early years after WWII, communism seemed to be conquering a new country every few months. Now, having said all that, the necessary disclaimer: I believe American capitalism and democracy are far from perfect. I do not believe everything the US has ever done was right. I think many or most US leaders who fought communism were motivated by US interests, not an abstract commitment to democracy. I believe *some* US leaders and policies were informed by simple greed, without regard to any wider good at all. I believe many unscrupulous Americans used communism as an excuse to smear liberals and democratic socialists. And I believe that many actions the US took in the cold war were wrong, whether or not the American cause was good. So, if anyone wants to rebut me by bringing up Mossadegh or My Lai, I'll just say "Dude, I already allowed for that; read my disclaimer!" - --Chris ______________________________________________________________________ Christopher Gross On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog. chrisg@gwu.edu ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V11 #188 ********************************