It is important to understand that "our image" isn't ours at all but the image that capitalist institutions and mass media have created about us, as they once created demonized images of ablitionists, woman's rights advocates(they still do that in many instances) and earlier advocates of capitalism itself when it was transforming the feudal system. We have got to fight first of all for greater visibility and for our rights as we fight for the rights of the working class and for socialism. We have got to fight for the right to access to media to give people a chance to hear us, realizing that they will bring with them the baggage of anti-Communism. On the difference between Democrats and Republicans, it is a little more complicated for us and for the broad left. The Democrats get most of their votes from lower income people, working people, and people in the salaried professions who are generally progressive in their viewpoints. These are their "customers," so to speak. Their "investors"are the same class of capitalists which also invest in the Republicans, the first being, as one Communist said in the 1930s like "preferred stock"(the Republicans) the second like "common stock"(the Democrats). Politics like everything else is a dialectical process. For the capitalists as a class(not the various segments) the Republicans are almost always preferred over the Democrats but the Democrats, particularly the machine types in the North and the Clinton types in the South are more than acceptable because they can be easily bought and always have been. Non socialist progressive Democrats are another story in that they are preferred only when compared to advocates of socialism, nationalizers of capitalist industry, etc., but these progressive or liberal-labor Democrats have the political system stacked against them so they can't get the funding to get the media to get nominations(like Kucinich) or if they do, like John Kerry, who qualified in Massachusetts as a labor-liberal Democrat, have to move significantly to the right as Kerry did to make themselves "acceptable" to the capitalist class. Our role as a vanguard party is to confront these and other real political problems for the the advance of the working class and come forward with solutions which the working class will respect. If we do that we will make great headway in overcoming the capitalist propaganda against us.
By the way, whatever happened in the Soviet Union or other socialist countries, the capitalist propaganda against us would have continued to be savage and unrelenting, and any attempt by us to compromise with it would have put us in a worse situation. As a student of history, I can tell all comrades young and old that even during World War II, when support for the Soviet Union was never greater and even Republican politicians were praising the Red Army and conservative newspapers were saying nice things about "Uncle Joe" Stalin, conservatives in Congress were regularly saying that Communists in America were still no good un-American subversive agitators even though the Soviets were our "heroic allies" and Stalin was a pretty good guy!

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“Capitalism cannot reform itself; it is doomed to self-destruction. No universal selfishness can bring social good to all.” —Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois

because Lord knows the Communists never victimized anyone.

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This space for rent.

again, republibral trying to be a wise as without reading his whole post: i believe his point was that communism never existed, like democrisy in USA. it was a name taken, used and abused by a dictatorial government. that was his point i believe.

Care to explain the red fist avatar?
The provocative rhetoric?

While Communists/Communism do/does have a highly tarnished reputation, it is largely self-created. Voters can choose to support Communist parties in democracies and I think the people have made their decision.

honestly i dont even see a difference between the definition of democracy and communism. both [definitions] are about helping society. correct me if i'm wrong.

I honestly could care less if they are victimized. Your "Stalin was a good guy" comment is a great example of why they are rightly tarnished.

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JMS gets another English lesson:

Quote:

there is no "mostly unique;" thats like saying "sometimes always," its an oxymoron - its either one or the other.

The result:

Quote:

By the mid-19th century unique had developed a wider meaning, “not typical, unusual,” and it is in this wider sense that it is compared. The comparison of so-called absolutes in senses that are not absolute is standard in all varieties of speech and writing.

"as long as i am safe here pretending to be a rebel"

1. I read the whole post.
2. I am not a Republican.

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This space for rent.

but i didnt call u a republican, read carefully

Yeah, I'm sure it has nothing to do with what communists themselves have done...

Communists oppose free will. Thats what it really comes down to. And opposing free will is oppressive. THAT is what is tarnishing their image; their own ideology.