Yao Ming Filming Anti-Poaching Documentary in Kenya (VIDEO)

omg SLAM won’t let me post in response to you, chuba.

Again you’re an ignoramus who clearly has not learned much despite your age. Do you even know what sharia law is? Because as a Muslim I know what it is in its entirety and I can tell you with little to no doubt that it is no longer implemented in its entirety.

Teddy you have some blind spots but keep talking because your viewpoint is an important one. You too James. I agree and disagree with both of y’all at different junctures.

Teddy needs to go to the clink

Just a couple points in defense of my fellow commie teddy: the world is in EXTREMELY bad condition right now, which is why hes an extremist. Only extremists have the right answers. Something i notice alot of you seem to be doing is equating support for communism with support for china and the ussr. Its not. I dont even consider china to be communist (this is somethin james already pointed out actually) ever since mao’s death in the 70s. The ussr ceased to be on a path toward communism the moment lenin died. But most important, a true communist understands that government is not what our allegiance is to; the people are. So just because people consider china or n korea communist doesn’t mean they are, in fact many of their policies over the past 30-40 years point more toward proto-fascism. Absolutely the US and other “democracies” would like people to brand these countries as Communist–so that communism, a very seductive ideology, would be discredited in the minds of simpletons such as redd or the philosopher. This is a small aspect of the theme of the oligarchies in “liberal democracies” that life isnt perfect here in usa but its sure better than in the “communist countries!” Nonsense. Those countries are only considered communist by people who are anticommunist and the gullible naive folks who believe the lies of the power structure.

To sum things up: if you’re a humanist/environmentalist living in the 21st century, communism is the correct ideology for you. Is there much that can be adapted from other ideologies? Yeah sure i think objectivity is an intellectual virtue so i wont pretend that communism cant be adapted in some ways to fit the particular needs of our time (the ecological CRISIS first and foremost, income injustice, rising jingoism, etc). But overall there’s no question that we need to reevaluate our current set of values.

Also i would point out that all of you arguing that we as humans are essentially just evil and its not the capitalist system that should go are products of the capitalist value system and perhaps if you would reevaluate your values (i.e. adopt some more egalitarian/communistic values) then you might have a more optimistic opinion of humanity’s ability to thrive together.

As for Marx, his criticisms of the basic struggle for control of the means of production are more relevant now than they were in the 1950′s, as relevant as during the guilded age. The criticism of the privatisation of all resources, even to prevent someone from accummulating the bare mininmum outside the capital producing sphere is important because we live in an era where the idea of minimum wage is widely considered to be equal to the gulag in the mind of citizens. I have spent my whole adult life trying to get social democrats elected to office, and live in a riding (congressional disctrict for US readers) that had the former leader of the NDP, whom I helped to get elected, and admire philophically. The NDP would be something beyond the pale in the US: think of a political party full of Bernie Sanders or Dennis Kucinich except with a hope of getting elected.

Teddy, I didn’t say one word in support of US policy in afghanistan, not one, so you’re just making up a point of view and attributing it to me. What I said was that the USSR bears full responsibility for turning the place in to hamburger with its invasion and occupation of the nation, the same thing I say about vietnam vis a vis the US. THe same thing I’m saying in regards to Mao and STalin. You’ll notice I haven’t said one word regarding capitalism or state socialism in regards to these condemnations because that’s not what I’m talking about. Economics is another subject altogether and I’m not interested in that here. I’m talking about 10′s of millions of bodies and I’m talking about imperial behaviour. You’ve got a blind spot for a mass murderer and defend him based on it seems politcal offiliation, which is literally no different than say someone of an evengelical background supporting the war in Iraq because their guy did it, while condeming the previous guys incursions into Serbia on the same grounds. Not in one post did I say anything positive about US imperialism or western imperialism. I’ve made no argument supporting the take over of north america as a civilizing thing, or the slave trade as positive because eventually things smoothed out. AS I said in my early commments on here, I agree with your politcal outlook vis a vis the US, but I will never stand for someone supporting stalin anyway. Stalin was explictily the same as Hitler the end. It doesn’t matter what he did for his nation or people positively because he litterally murdered millions of his own people, invaded nations and murdered those citizens as well. There is no equivocating on this point.

I think moderators may be overwhelmed by the comments on here, not because of their content but because Teddy’s observasion about Social ism is correct.

Teddy, the total killing by Japan and Germany in World war 2 is roughly equal, but the final solution program of processing and murdering civilians which we call the holocaust is not equalled by any one thing the japanese did. It may not matter to a dead person whether or not they were burried alive by the japanese after being captured in an invasion, or murdered in a nazi death camp, but there is no single attocious program initiated by the japanese that is as large as the holocaust. If you count the holocaust as one of many nazi war crimes, and then compare total civilian death initiated by germany to those of japan though, it’s likely a wash. the wild card would be classifying dead in Eastern block countries as attributable to pre nazi agression (ie killed by stalin as he was taking his parts, or killing in his own empire) versus post. As nations, China and Russsia suffered the largest total number of killed, and we do nothing to acknowledge their suffering, nor the radicalizing effect that this would have had particularly in regards to china after the war. As an anology, the killing of the Khmer Rouge may never have occurred without the US bonbing of cambodia. I’m always amazed by the vietnemse response to a century of invasion by france, china and the US in NOT producing as awful a state as could be imagined. The fact that Ho chi Minh reached out directly to the US repeatedly prior to the invasion of south vietnam is a testement to how awful the US policy was in the region. The US could have had a communist government ally well before nixon’s trip to china, and it could have had a more productive relationship from then forward with the Soviets and the Chinese decades sooner.

Who gives a d@mn?

White liberal leftists are just as dangerous to the people of the Global South as neo-conservatives. Maybe more so, because they provide the ideological cover for NATO military aggression–paralyzing and immobilizing all radical elements of the left–and ALWAYS participate in the imperialist campaign to demonize non-white leaders. So, even when they claim to have not supported such-and-such military “intervention” (obviously we don’t make war anymore), they’ll give the bullsh!t disclaimer: “Well, at least we removed a tyrant… he was just as bad as us, probably worse. They’re at least better off then they were before!!!” I’m sure those Arab/African natives thank you for bringing them liberalism.
You cannot talk about imperialism without talking about white supremacy–they are 100% synonymous. It’s like trying to talk about socialism without talking about class struggle. This is basic common sense.

Cosign that liberals are as much a part of the rotten, decayed power structure as the conservatives and liberals (such as obama) are even more despicable because they talk a good game, but strictly to pull the wool over people’s eyes.

@james dont get me wrong my man it seems from everything you’ve pointed out that while we disagree on some key points, we both understand that there are incredible deficiencies and inequalities in the politico-economic system as it currently is and that folks such as kucinich are a major step in the right direction. That being said, I’ve tremendously enjoyed you and Teddy’s back and forth, and will always have an open mind to your opinions.

Teddy
You have to talk about both, I agree. But I think it is wrong to assume imperialism is a symptom of whiteness. Also white supremacy is a symptom of human supremacy and general bothering. Remember on a global scale “whiteness ” is a relatively new concept. Check out the book “The History of White People” for good info on that.

@ Allen: You’re right, the concept of whiteness as we know it has only been around for about 500 years or so–but why is that? Doesn’t that coincide with the rise of imperialism, when Europeans began enslaving Africans and plundering the so-called “New World” for gold and silver?
IMO imperialism and white supremacy are synonymous the same way racism and white supremacy are synonymous in any meaningful context–i.e. within the United States and in the world as a whole. There might be ethnic tension and racial discrimination between non-white groups elsewhere, or even in the US, but these are usually isolated; white supremacy is universal.
IMO imperialism and white supremacy are conditions necessary for Western powers to maintain their economic exploitation of non-white peoples (including people of color inside the United States) through capitalism. It’s how they rationalize their material gains at the expense of 88% of the world’s population.
Now, of course, white imperialism is not the only imperialism we’ve seen. The Japanese of the late 1800s – early 1900s, for example, made East Asia a living hell. However, if you compare the lifespan of Japanese imperialism with that of Anglo-European imperialism (which continues today), then it’s not much of a comparison.
The problem I have when people (not you necessarily) say things like “Oh, all humans enslaved each other,” or “I’m sure if China had the biggest military in the world, they’d be even worse than us” is that: 1.) It whitewashes these crimes, and even justifies them (because if you’re gonna be dominated, be thankful the nice white people did it instead of those crazy savages); and 2.) It doesn’t explain certain events in history.
The Chinese, for example, sailed to Ethiopia as early as 2nd Century B.C. Given the theory that humans are naturally supremacist/chauvinistic (which is definitely true to a degree), why then was there no East Asian slave economy surrounding Africa? Or vice-versa?
(thx for the recommendation, I’ll add that one to my list along with Richard Wright’s auto-biography).

Well I’m not interested in whitewashing or rationalizing.
My point is simply that believing that the root of the problem is whiteness can be dangerous. The tactics used by white folks in recent history were a continuation of tactics used since the beginning of human history. Now, the racial construct was a new thing, but the idea of othering your enemy to justify atrocities was not.
I understand that white folks like to use the atrocities of other people (Oh Arabs had slaves) to minimize the true scope of the actions of their ancestors, and I understand why that is dangerous. But, I also think it’s dangerous to constantly say “Well compared to America, our atrocities aren’t that bad.” That’s the type of logic used by dictators and warlords across the world to justify their corruption once they get into power and to distract the people from the reality that they are doing just as much damage to the people as The West, if not more.
That’s my only issue. The blame should be spread around, not to allow the West to get a pass, but to make sure that other folks don’t use the big, bad West as cover for their own evil.

AlLenp with the rational and sensible comment once again, good work!