Well, this thread went from fun to a bucket of shit quick enough, didn't it?

Oh I dunno. It dipped into the shit bucket for a spell, but then the Marx Brothers showed and things started to look up.

Better is to throw pies into faces - not shit.

Now if Trump will only say, "Good pie."

No shit, Sherlock.

"It dipped into the shit bucket for a spell"

Yep...the lowest point was this...

"I am sickened. Truly sickened."

...melodramatic manure.

"My point is that your claim that people who are marxists are going to shy away from naming themselves as such may not hold water."

And my point is: university -- where (currently) up is down and in is out -- is not the best measure of things.

"books exist"

Indeed they do.

Here's one: The Communist Manifesto...ignore all addendum...Marx and Engels wrote a tiny thing...you should be able to digest it in an lazy afternoon.

Read and see 'socialism' and 'communism' differ only in degree, not content.

That is: socialism is slidin' the ten inch blade into the belly only half-way and communism is pushing the blade in to the hilt.

Gutting is gutting done fast or slow, deep or shallow.

The problem is the pigs will always be more equal than others.

Socialism and communism is only same when one failed to learn from books. Animal Farm is only 112 pages. Anyone can read it.

"Animal Farm is only 112 pages. Anyone can read it."

Marx and Engel's work is shorter...read 'that'...go the source of the disease.

If I get y'all some sharp sticks will you promise to poke each others eyes out?

Fuck that.

Gimme a sharp stick and I'm gonna kill sumthin'

Well past the point of 'blinding'.

Well- the people who were protesting the nazi rally in Charlottesville weren't all university students - the removal of the statue had been voted on by the people of Charlottesville and a bunch of white supremacists from all over the country descended on their town to hold a rally. Many of those protesting their presence there were just ordinary citizens of the town.

Also as a former member of the Labour party I knew plenty of old-Labour socialists who had never been near a university - I know lots of union members at my work place, many of whom would consider themselves on the socialist side of things - and not many of them have more than a high-school education (in terms of formal education, they are of course mostly highly trained and experienced in their field)

This notion that socialism (or marxism) is the province of a university educated, middle-class, intelligentsia just doesn't cut it. They may be the ones who dig into it at an academic level but the labour movement has also generally been one of the streams of socialism.

"the people who were protesting the nazi rally in Charlottesville weren't all university students"

And not a one would call themselves 'communist' or 'marxist' even though the organizations they align with are, which goes some way as evidence that -- outside of university -- most folks steer clear of those labels, even when they agree, cuz they know most folks frown, rightfully, on such things.

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"the removal of the statue had been voted on by the people of Charlottesville"

No, the city council did, not the voters, and that city council decision is being disputed in court.

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"Many of those protesting their presence there were just ordinary citizens of the town.

No, most of the race-haters and commies were outsiders.

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"the labour movement has also generally been one of the streams of socialism."

Yes, I'm sure those folks sincerely believe their 'socialism' is the 'good' kind. They don't recognize that half the blade in the belly, instead of the whole blade, is still a bad thing.

Henry - you and I are never going to agree. There is so little common ground between our world views, there isn't even a vantage point from which to view each other's world.

Let's agree to disagree and leave it at that :p