The following are the ten main requests of Karl Marx in the Communist Manifesto. Let's actually look at each one of the ten demands.

The most radical. Obviously, nationalizing all land and rents of land and public property won't work in modern day America.

We have had a graduated income tax (progressive) for a long time. It's not so bad. It works out.

Another radical one. The closest we are is having a death tax, which also is not that bad. But abolishing all rights of inheritance will never happen, and again would not make sense in modern day America.

This is certainly a strange one. Quite 1984-esque. This reveals the idealism on which communism is founded. Confiscating the property of rebels could lead to the situation we have in countries like Iran or Iraq pre-2003. If the government is good and a fair, righteous government, this to an extent could work. But that would absolutely never happened and in today's America would be awful. The closest we are to there is such things as confiscating drug dealers' property, IRS collecting property without due process, or the confiscation of property involving the Japanese internment camp during WW2.

This is what we think of when we hear communism. All the money centralized. No competition. Although we seem to moving closer with all this bailout talk, this will certainly never happen. It really helps no one.

I am not quite sure why this is with them. But transportation means like the Metro Transit Authority are state run. Again, the problem is the elimination of competition.

Not really specific. Too general. But nationalized factories and industries eliminates competition and could raise prices enormously. Not too good.

Unions have been a leader for better wages and better working rights. If it weren't for unions, or industrial armies, the workers would be screwed. Everyone must work. One of the main critisicisms of communism is that there would be no incentive to work, and we would all be screwed, but here we see that Marx wanted an obligation to work.

This one is weird and sort of irrelevant. Let's ignore it for now.

My favorite. With the exception of the last clause, this one is the one that is least represented. Marx was an advocate for free public education (which exists now) and the abolition of children in factories (which we have now). That certainly does not sound too bad.


So instead of reviving the McCarthy era, why not actually talk about issues instead of calling people communist, socialist, redistributionist, etc.

Obviously, the main victim here is Obama.

The only part of socialism that he advocates is redistribution (which is not even mentioned in the above ten requests).

He does not advocate anything else there that does not already exist.

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The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy...the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. ~John Kenneth Galbraith

Some men change their party for the sake of their principles; others their principles for the sake of their party. ~Winston Churchill

The Christian Right is neither

Well we do have federally and state subsidized housing, which even some of our Senators take advantage of. There is also section 8, it's not that radical of a leap if you also take into consideration the abuses of eminent domain.

We're already here too. Yet another reason I support a consumption tax.

We see a lot of this coming from the democrats. Class warfare and inheritance taxes are the card they play.

The Federal Reserve. Freddie and Fannie... need I say more? Because there is more, like the most massive credit account in the world, Social Security.

Who have thunk it? Teach the kids to be just smart enough never to question government. Do we really wonder why some people think Americans are stupid? Look who's been edukatin us.

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A modern look? OK, I got a new scope for my BMG.

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"The only title superior to President of the United States of America is Citizen."

Did you know the word "gullible" isn't in the dictionary?

Tresha quote:
I'm not sure why you are under the impression that because someone has mental health problems, they are incapable of intelligent and rational thought.

So lets take a look at the other end of the spectrum...Fascism.

1. Fascism holds that the institution of the State is itself the most important entity in society, i.e. that the government is more important than individuals.

Are we starting to see more and more of that nowadays? Hmm...

2. Fascism holds that the purpose of the State is not just to uphold rights and document legalities, but that the purpose of the State is to organize society and guide the spiritual and economic development of the nation.

Nothing like using fear to 'organize' society. And eliminating class warfare has never been the current administrations motive. (sarcasm)

3. The goal of the fascist State is to, essentially, protect people by removing "harmful" freedoms, while preserving "essential" rights.

Of course, the 'christian' right doesn't ever push spiritual development on us or try to remove our 'harmful' freedoms.

4. The fascist State embarks on imperialism, not only through the traditional means of colonial territorial control, like that of the British Empire, but through the use of hegemony to directly or indirectly control nations with or without occupation.

Wow, let me add, the article for my source is not recent. But that whole, directly control nations with occupation thing sounds vaguely familiar. Can anyone help me with that one? Starts with an I and ends with a raq?

5. One of the ultimate agendas, and successes, of the fascists was to create a strong and stable middle class. They viewed the problems of Western society to be both "out of control" laissez-faire capitalism and its opposing force, Communism.

Seems like this is a great time for the Bush Administration to get rid of that pesky "out of control" laissez-faire capitalism, which was originally seen as a leftist viewpoint.

6. Fascism sought to use the power of the State to protect and to stabilize the economic system by bringing the major capitalists into a system of cooperation with each other so that economic conflict would be reduced and through their cooperation stability would be, and was, achieved.

Anyone else seeing this happen right now!!! Is it the slightest bit shocking to you?

7. In order to regulate industry and "promote the interests of society" the fascists merged the State with private industry. Fascism is essentially organized capitalism.

Wow, so Fuhrur Bush is getting his wish.

8. Before WWII, Germany and Italy, began to promote science, mathematics, and engineering in school as a way to develop better scientists who could be employed to build better weapons and military corporations were given significant support from State funds.

They had to make sure that "No Child Was Left Behind".

9. However, both Italy and Germany ran up huge deficits (even before the war) which ended up severely hurting their economies by mid war.

Again, I'm noticing some eerie similarities here. I just can't put my finger on it.

10. Fascism, in the social sense, is ultimately an affirmation of "traditional values". Fascism embodied much of traditional social ideology, such as "machismo", family values, religious faith, patriotism, social structure, honor, and traditional hard work.

Weren't all those things the basis of the Sarah Palin pick. Traditional values? Patriotism? Family values? Religious faith? Good ole hard work?

11. The fascists talked a lot about the building of strong moral character, hard work, and family values. Fascism was an ideology of order and obedience where people were expected to fall in line with leadership, and questioning and criticizing were looked at as the qualities of the decadent "liberals".

Yeah, you leftist 'haters'. I can't believe any of you would ever question someone like Sarah Palin, or John McCain, or Bush, or Cheney, etc. Shut up and let them do their job, of controlling your every breath. And you, MSM, you better keep your distance, or we'll pull the plug completely.

12. Above all, fascism was a movement that gained its support from a growing religious sentiment among the public.

I know we haven't seen that happen...

13. Anti-semitism. Obviously, hate for Jews was very clear. But WHY did they hate the Jews. One of the primary reasons? Fascists saw that Jews wanted people to have equal pay for equal work. They sought liberal ideas that people should get money instead of make it. Of course Labor Unions were once considered "Jewish" institutions, even here in the states.

I've never heard any right wingers telling us to stop giving handouts to lazy's that don't do anything. There not 'too' proud of their rich republican brothers that landed face first in successful internet porn sites, search engines, or the good ole silver spoon. Of course, the poor are their own problem. Too bad you can't come up with a 'solution' to that one George.

14. What exactly were the charges against the Jews. The charges were that Jews promoted liberalism, equality, communism, socialism, secularism, are anti-patriotic, greedy, liars, and thieves, who control banking and finance and have corrupted capitalism.

I guess us Dem's need to be sitting on our front porches ready to catch the train, huh?

So, Obama completely flunks the communist test in the original post. But after 8 years of a Bush administration, we're nearly 100% (ok, so the anti-semitism is exactly hate of the Jews, just their values). Think about how many of those things were NOT on Americas list just 8 years ago, that are present now. I hope it scares you Pubs, and Dems. Its REALITY, right now. Its how the Nazis were founded. And they weren't founded on hate rhetoric. They were schmoozed into thinking that this type of thinking was truly best for their country. Of course, fear played a nice part as well. Pubs, are you still feeling justified by any of your beliefs?

Anyone want to go to a long summer camp? You just have to concentrate while your there.

I support this message.

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Sarah Palin "It was Ronald Reagan who said that (economic) freedom is always just one generation away from extinction. We don't pass it to our children in the bloodstream; we have to fight for it and protect it, and then hand it to them so that they shall do the same, or we're going to find ourselves spending our sunset years telling our children and our children's children about a time in America, back in the day, when men and women were free."

It's inevitable and it's desirable. But I would have to say the Communist Manifesto is a bit, well, out of date. Marx died in 1883, if he were guiding us now he probably would have a few other ideas.

But he was right about capitalism destroying itself. We should simply let it do so and then rebuild it along the lines - mutandis mutandis - that he suggested.

I see communism destroyed itself many times, capitalism hast done that yet?

I know you think that America is about to end but it is far from it, painful yes, scary yes, the end of capitalism not even close. Capitalism can and does hurt sometimes, but it always cycles out of its recessions and depressions, communism can't fix its financial problems, everything is concentrated into one bank, failure of which destroys the whole econcomy.

Diversification is always better then the singularity of communism!

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Sell a man a fish, he learns where to get a fish; Teach a man to fish, lose your customer base

Communism hasn't destroyed itself. It wasn't allowed to develop.

"America" won't end. It may change its nature in the future but it won't end.

American capitalism is finished, yes, that's true. But America will continue. Provided there isn't a plutocratic coup happening right now then the shakeout will result in a better society.

Market finds equilibrium by itself if left alone. The problem is government will never take its fingers out of the economy..

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Collective? I'm sure thats easy when your not surrounded by a bunch of (*)(*)(*)(*)ing retards!!!

The difference is that capitalism is strictly an economic philosophy, Communism is a form of government. Teh question is, have countries destroyed, or completely changed from a capitalist economy to something else. How about a hybrid of capitalism in partnership with the government.

Once again, that HAS happened before, and it was our George Bush's good friend Adolf and their fraternity brothers. The Nazi's took power because German capitalists bankrupted their economy and his 'government' had to step in and take over. Are we seeing a pattern here at all? Does it make you happy GOP?