Obama The Filthy Liar

[Aimless]

Frankly, when it comes to views on social policy, you are not that much different to Minx (not terribly surprising, seeing that you both live in "socialist paradises").

Ahem, I'm a humanist, but Nessie and I have reached our common ground through being intelligent and constructive unlike some people I could name

Okay so with that out of the way...

How important is Turkey to the US??

[Aimless]

Let's say we have a society with significant economic inequality, but one where the worst off still have a very good quality of life (e.g. the bottom quartile end up with $40k a year in income, while the top quartile ends up with $10 million, without prices increasing). Would socialists support the status quo in such a society? If not, why?

You keep forgetting that my "socialist" views have to do with helping people live well rather than with achieving economic equality. I can't say I'm surprised, knowing that you're incapable of considering anything that doesn't have to do with economics

[Loki]

I was referring to socialists in general in that post...

[Aimless]

Oops sorry, I just assumed since you keep referring to me as a socialist...

[Loki]

No, you're a Nazi, since all Nazis are socialists.

[Lewkowski]

Did authoritarianism exist before socialism? If yes, then why equate the two?

It is just another flavor of authoritarianism. Be it monarchy, dictatorship or tyranny of the majority. Government control is government control.

[Hazir]

If you dig out the history of Russia you discover that indeed soviet revolution in the first moments was more a capitalist revolution.
You had lazy elite people from the royalty owning everything, and poor and slaves having nothing and working hard. There was no property because everything was owned by elite landlords.
The reform of Lenin gave land to people, the first time people had private property, and it also should allow people to start producing and start a healthy economy.
Also, soviet revolution issued freedom of speech which allowed people to express they wanted not ot fight in WWI.

But then Lenin came and turned things upside down, the soviet party became the new elite, and absolutism from the czar era was restored. And Stalin became a virtual czar.
It was a sad thing that the work of Lenin towards a more democratic regime was wiped out by Stalin.

Now, this is a pretty piece of nonsense.

First off, Russia had already started to move towards modernisation, capitalism and constitutionalism. For all we know Russia could have become a democratic and constitutional monarchy if it hadn't plunged itself into a war it couldn't wage.

Lenin only allowed for some fringe capitalism in the New Economic Policy because his real aim of taking full control of all means of production backfired. The main reason why we see a difference now between Lenin and Stalin is that Lenin tried to impose his policies before he had the power to do so, where Stalin had the sense to wait untill he had the means to enforce bolshevism effectively. Lenin was not some benign father succeeded by an evil stepson. The reason why Stalin was Lenin's heir lies in the fact that Stalin best fit Lenin's ideological believes.

Ahem, I'm a humanist, but Nessie and I have reached our common ground through being intelligent and constructive unlike some people I could name

Okay so with that out of the way...

How important is Turkey to the US??

Turkey is less important than it was now that Iraq is under US control. I still would call it a relatively important ally for the US. Certainly on a par with Israel.

[Dreadnaught]

I suspect you've read more into this than you're letting on. I'm pretty sure we're already covered its origins anyway

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/wash...er-artist.html

It was the result of a photoshop tutorial, and the original artist didn't try to connect it to socialism, or blaster them all over the city.

I actually hadn't read about the origins at all, thanks for linking.