Oblawa Augustowska
World War II ended in Europe in May, 1945. Sort of.
I say “sort of” because military operations didn’t exactly end with the fall of Nazi Germany. In many areas, operations continued – sometimes against other targets.
This article discusses one such Soviet operation: the Augustów roundup. Or, in Polish: the Oblawa augustowska.
. . .
After Nazi Germany surrendered, the Soviet Union occupied much of eastern and central Europe. They immediately set about installing Communist regimes loyal to Moscow in the nations they occupied.
One of those nations was Poland. The Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa) – the armed wing of the Polish Underground State, loyal to the western-oriented Polish Government-in-Exile – realized early on they were hopelessly outgunned by the Soviet Army. Wishing to avoid a civil war they could not win, they formally disbanded on 19 January 1945 to avoid further bloodshed.
However, not all persons laid down their arms and meekly accepted Communist rule. This was unacceptable to the Soviets, who permitted no political dissent within occupied Eastern Europe.
So the Soviets took action. Between 12 and 28 July 1945, the Soviets – with assistance from elements of the puppet Polish communist government’s security forces – rounded up former members of non-communist resistance organizations and their sympathizers in the Suwalki and Augustów regions. Estimates of how many individuals were seized during this operation range from approximately 2,000 to around 7,000.
Those seized were held in Soviet-run internment camps. The last internees were released in 1956.
Well, that’s not entirely accurate. Almost 600 of those seized by Soviet and Polish communists during the operation were never heard from again – including 27 women, some of whom were pregnant, and 15 teens.
These nearly 600 individuals . . . simply disappeared. They are believed to have been taken to the Soviet Union, executed, and their remains disposed of – simply because they were believed to be opposed to Communist rule in Poland.
The precise number of those who disappeared is not known with absolute certainty. However, recent research puts a very tight bound on the number of individuals who disappeared: either 592 or 593.
If that sounds somewhat familiar, it should. Exactly the same thing happened during the Kaytn massacre, only on a larger scale. In fact, the July 1945 postwar incident is known in Poland as “little Kaytn” (Podlaski Katyn).
Like the Kaytn massacre, the incident was denied for decades by both the Polish and Soviet Union’s Communist governments. However, unlike the Kaytn massacre, for this latter incident the victims’ precise fate and final resting place remains unknown. While documentation has been found in former Soviet archives indicating that the massacre in fact did take place, that documentation does not seem to provide sufficient details to identify the location(s) involved or the methods used.
. . .
Why write this and post it here? Well, for a couple of reasons. The first is for historical interest.
As for the second reason: the next time someone says that “Communism poses no threat”, ask him or her to comment on the Augustów roundup.
Then ask him or her to comment on the Kaytn massacre – which was much the same, except that it claimed 22,000 Polish lives vice nearly 600 in the name of Communism.
Then remind them that Hitler’s heinous Nazi regime murdered in cold blood (e.g., war casualties excluded) barely 1/3 as many individuals as did the Soviet Union did in their internal pogroms, intentional famines, purges, massacres, and labor camps between 1917 and 1991. All of those nearly 62 million Soviet dead were murdered in the name of Communism.
Then remind them that new research indicates that the Soviet Union murdered nearly 15,000,000 fewer individuals in cold blood (e.g., war casualties excluded) than did Communist China during the 20th Century. All of those nearly 77 million Chinese dead were murdered in the name of Communism.
Add three other Communist governments (Cambodia, North Vietnam, and North Korea), and the number of those murdered by Communist regimes in the name of Communism is just short of 144 million.
Let me repeat that last point. Almost one hundred and forty-four million dead – not including wartime casualties.
All murdered in the name of Communism.
And even that is only a partial total of those murdered due to state policy in the name of Communism. It only includes the top five Communist slaughterhouse states.
Now, after telling them that . . . ask them if they really expect you to believe Communism poses no threat.
If they still answer “yes”, well, simply walk away. That answer means you’re dealing with either a damned liar – or a willfully ignorant damned fool. The Soviets might have termed them a polezniye duraki (e.g., a “useful fool”). Or as the concept is more often expressed in English: a “useful idiot”.
. . .
“Those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
Author’s Note: to be correct, the letter “l” in all occurrences of the Polish word “Oblawa” above should have a diagonal bar accent. Unfortunately, this site’s character set doesn’t support that Polish-language character. The same is true for the word “Suwalki” above.
Category: Historical
Yes-it’s not he external threat of communism that worries me, it’s that those who have clearly not learned from the constant and repeated failures of Marxist ideology might attain power internally (or rather that they have learned entirely the wrong lessons and yearn to set up camps for those that would oppose their attempt to apply their depraved misunderstanding of human behavior).
Since the topic of those who were disappeared by the Soviets at the end of WWII was part of this article, it would be remiss of me not to give a shout out to Raoul Wallenberg, righteous among the nations.
The attitude is generally “those communists did it wrong because (insert talking point here) but we know how to get it right”.
History means nothing to them.
Winner, winner, chicken dinner!!!
That attitude never ceases to boggle my mind. The willful blindness takes one’s breath away.
“We are the ones we have been waiting for!”! Something like that?
COMMUNISM only killed a mere 120+million during the previous Century, but liberals merely want to give it JUST ONE MORE CHANCE.
They’re gunning hard for that billion-with-a-B body count.
[…] Source: Oblawa Augustowska : This ain’t Hell, but you can see it from here […]
Nothing to see here. Move along!
Yes, the gulag is down the street, turn left and keep turning left. Fair warning: once you’re there, you will be lucky if you die within a few days of arrival. Even luckier if they simply shoot you and bury you.
I still wonder, to this day, how Solshenitzyn managed to survive that hellhole he landed in.
He was meant to survive as an example of incorrect thinking.
And drugged into constant pain.
But they’re not “real” commies.
Larsie said so.
Larsie knows how to fix it, too… he’s learning all about that at that high falutin’ school in the bay Area!
Where he obsessively reads his dog-eared copy of ‘Das Kapital’ over and over and over again, while he stands and waits in the latest Free Shit line as the soothing melody of ‘The Internationale’ blares in the background.
Wearing the torn, filthy “Che” shirt and beret he’s had for the last 10 years…
If he just reads it long enough, maybe he’ll finally start to figure out what all the big words mean!
We would also be fools to think that people are not being murdered in the name of communism today.
Powerful post.
Thanks, Hondo.
Good job.
I recall how Stalin also held the Red Army outside of Warsaw while the Nazis and the last of the Polish freedom fighters duked it out, despite pleas for assistance.
You mean during the Powstanie Warszawskie? Yes, I’ve heard that.
Hell is too good for Joseph Stalin.
Citizen versus subject. I don’t understand why we are rehashing this yet again. Communism failed every time it’s been tried, so kids, stop listening to the ‘liberal elite’ and your Women’s Studies Professor.
“rehashing this yet again”
I’m old and I am tired of it. I wish it would go away but each generation falls for it every fucking time. Bernie Sanders. Just look at the fawning young idoits that fell for him. They do not get taught what Hondo just posted. That is the problem.
As much as it pains me to re read it, I will never shut my eyes to it.
^^^^ This ^^^^
“Just look at the fawning young idoits that fell for him”, and some of those idiots are acting violently toward any opposing viewpoints. Freedom of speech and expression are only ok to them IF you believe in their fake pluralistic, monochotomy.
Tired, sick and tired of being talked down to because I won’t open my wallet or my door to the government to save (insert, spoiled college-age, new wave lefty, cause de celebre, here).
Thanks Hondo.
Although little known or understood in the West, another really ‘bright spot’ in post-WWII Soviet communist history was the brutal forced expulsion of German civilians from the former eastern German provinces of East Prussia, Pomerania, and Silesia in the years immediately following WWII.
Just as in Poland, the Soviets also viewed the German population of those provinces as being hostile to communist rule, so therefore the German civilians had to be removed and/or disposed of.
Depending on the source, the total number of German civilians forcibly expelled to the West, or rounded up and taken into the USSR for use as forced labor, ranges from 5-8,000,000. Again depending on the source, the estimated total number of German civilian deaths that occurred during the expulsion ranges from approximately 500,000 to 2,200,000 (in view of the latter number, some sources have used the word ‘genocide’).
The expulsion was yet another example of a cruel, inhuman, monstrous communist policy that was purposefully designed and implemented by the Soviet communists in order to inflict the maximum damage and suffering possible on a civilian population.
So yes, kids, there’s really nothing at all to fear from communism. Keep on proudly waving that bright red Soviet communist Hammer and Sickle flag at your naive, silly-ass ‘protests’.
And may God help you if you ever actually find it flying again over where you and your loved ones live.
https://youtu.be/_uk2NeKBG5A
Another one from Sabaton, “Hearts of Iron,” about the German 12th Army’s effort to evacuate German civilians away from the Russians in defiance of Hitler’s orders in April of ’45.
Nicht ein schlact, ein rettungzaktion.
Should’ve returned the favor when the Soviet Union broke up.
“Okay, all Russians, pack your trash and head back to the Rodina.”
The fact that it didn’t happen gives the Russian the same pretext that the Germans used. “Ethnic Germans are being persecuted by the evil Czechs, Poles, etc”
Payback is indeed a bitch. “Those that sow the wind…”
Why is communism dangerous? Because it seduces otherwise well-meaning minds with bullshit about “the good of the people,” “workers’ solidarity,” “world peace,” etc. They buy this crap hook, line, and sinker. Try to point out what’s happened in every communist regime in history, and they bleat, “that wasn’t real communism!” Try to point out where those violent repressive totalitarian regimes did, in fact, follow Marx’s ideas to the letter, and the cry that you don’t know anything about Marx. Stalin’s murderous excesses were “exaggerated.” NVA/VC atrocities were America’s fault. Che Guevara wasn’t a sociopathic racist with a penchant for murder. Tito made Yugoslavia successful, never mind that his regime was corrupt as a Clinton and racist as all hell against anyone who wasn’t a Serb. To Cambodia or Laos, they say, “Huh?” And Red China? They become as dogmatic as ISIS, and happily embrace or ignore the horrors that their ideal state will inflict. Class warfare, blood in the streets, show trials, re-education…oh, don’t worry about those. And when they get what they want, and all those things come to pass, it’s all “for the cause.” Communist governments don’t go that way because the “attract conservative authoritarians.” They go that way because, at its core, communism really is a form of fascism. Not in the right/left sense, but in the fact that communist rule will strip away personal liberty from its subjects (they’re not citizens), keep them in line with Damocles’s Sword of disappearance into the State’s security facilities (remember Lubyanka? The “tallest building in Moscow, where they could see Siberia from the basement”), use them or dispose of them individually or en masse as the Party sees fit, and the Party elite will live in comfort and luxury while the proletariat hope that there’s still a roll of toilet paper available when the line moves up. The whims of the rulers are “for the good of the people,” and the actual needs and wants of the people are ignored or sacrificed accordingly. No such thing as privacy or personal freedom. Anybody not toeing the Party line is an “enemy… Read more »
“Tito made Yugoslavia successful, never mind that his regime was corrupt as a Clinton and racist as all hell against anyone who wasn’t a Serb.”
My grandparents’ siblings were murdered in cold blood or suffered in Tito’s concentration camps while the U.S. looked the other way.
One of many examples: http://www.dvhh.org/history/atrocities/Titos_Camp_Accounts/1944-Mueller.htm
BUT, but, but SOMEBODY said there’s nothing to fear about commies or communism.
That’s their fantasy. The reality is that it kept everybody equally miserable and impoverished except for an elite inner circle and even they were subject to purges which meant death by pain and misery, just look at the purges of Lenin, Stalin and Mao as examples.
Two music videos by Sabaton.
“Uprising” is about the Warsaw Uprising, and specifically mentions the Soviets halting their advance to let the Poles get slaughtered.
https://youtu.be/01IaKb6DmTw
“Inmate 4859” is about COL Witold Pilecki.
https://youtu.be/wvDg7UftJw8
Yes, communism was a threat in 1945.
It is not now.
It is not 1945. 1945 was a half century ago.
When I say communism is not a threat I mean communism is NO LONGER a threat. And I have repeatedly made that clear in previous posts when I said “communism is no longer a threat”. And it absolutely is not. There is no legitimate communist movement in the US. No party is embracing or even remotely considering embracing communism.
The highest public office a communist ever held in the US was two seats in the New York city council.
That is the high point of communism in America.
Socialism is not communism. And no relevant party is considering embracing “socialism” either.
What people are embracing that people on this board constantly misleadingly refer to as “socialism” are versions of “third way” capitalist models, these versions have many names; Rhine Capitalism, the Nordic Model, Social Market Capitalism.
But they are all VERSIONS OF CAPITALISM because they preserve a free market for the distribution of the overwhelming majority of all goods and services. They just recognize that some goods and services and costs are not well distributed in our current model. Healthcare, law enforcement, firefighting, military/defense services, costs of pollution, education, long-term high-cost scientific research (things that take more than 5 years to develop into marketable products; the internet, space exploration, satellites, cell phones, GPS; none would have happened in a pure capitalist model). All these things are inefficiently or inadequately managed in a pure capitalist model.
These models are ALL CAPITALIST models.
Polezniye duraki. Follow the link above, Poodle. You’ve just self-identified as one.
Ok, time to get back on the road.
Nonsense spin. I am not a communist sympathizer.
And I have read some of Von Mises’ work. You would like him.
But he is not well regarded for his ideological rigidness on many aspects of economics. He was inflexibly tied to ideological assumptions and unwilling to shift despite empirical evidence that challenged his assumptions.
Like I said, you would like him. He is a brilliant ideologue. And an above average economic thinker. But a terrible economic empiricist.
It’s a good thing for him that he was MI during his Military Career, the Combat Arms Units I was part of chewed pencildicks like him up and spit them out in no time!
Didn’t someone dig up some dirt a while back indicating that Lars was not nearly as good at his former role as he claims?
No. Someone made some anonymous claims about people thinking I was an arrogant “know it all”.
I was good at my job in MI.
In my experience, Lars, people who are good at their jobs don’t claim to be. They let their performance speak for itself. Those who boast about how good they are, generally aren’t.
I didn’t simply openly brag. I am responding to the unsubstantiated criticism.
My comments about my performance has always been in response to unsubstantiated attacks about my service motivated by people that question it because they do not like my political and social views.
The parts of my service that I feel I failed to perform I have not discussed on this board. Ironically they are not the areas that people seem to have attacked.
I find it bullshit that this board seems to feel such a ridiculous compulsion to discredit my service.
I served honorably for decades. That should be enough.
But because people do not like my politics here they feel that they need to also attack my military service.
It is bullshit to do that but people like Infidel do it nearly every time I post here.
Lars, we’ve been over this. It’s not that nobody likes your politics. Look at LC. He swings lefty pretty hard compared to most everyone else, and he gets a few rude replies (none of them from me), but not all that many. The problem is YOU. We don’t like YOU because you’re an arrogant prick who thinks he’s smarter than everyone else. That’s really the reason why so many question the quality of your service, because a personality such as you present here is often far too busy reminding everyone around him that he’s God’s gift to the organization to actually do his job competently. Maybe you were the exception, the unicorn-rare arrogant asshole who’s real performance actually resembled his self-image, but what are the odds of that?
Your politics really don’t matter near as much as you think they do. You will most likely deny this (again), but the fact is that you’re wrong, you’re projecting your own prejudices and bigotry on others, and your reply (assuming you give me one rather than pretending you didn’t read this) will almost certainly confirm everything I’ve said about you.
I do not think I am “smarter than everyone else”.
I work and associate with a whole community of people that I largely think is smarter than I am.
But I do not have any respect for the intelligence of people that label every economic idea they don’t like as “communist” and every idea they like as “capitalist” regardless of the actual economic impact or function of the idea.
It is intellectually lazy bullshit.
I have seen stupid shit like “communists just call themselves liberals now”.
So if you believe statements like that you are objectively a fucking moron.
And I lack the self control not to call morons out for being morons.
And I get back more than I give on this board. But at least I TRY to be accurate in my labels.
I am still labeled a communist constantly. Lazy mindless bullshit.
To most on this board LABELS > FACTS.
It is 1st order primitive tribal thinking day in and day out.
Lars T., have you ever thought about going into comedy? I can picture the crowds laughing every time you try to pass off your bullshit as facts!
Nice denial, Lars. But actions speak louder than words. Yet again, you completely miss the contrast between yourself and LC. I’m guessing that’s intentional, since that alone disproves your whole response. Good job proving me right!
Who’s the moron, again?
I think there was a comment on one of his OER’s that said, “I would not allow this officer to breed.”
Allegedly.
I was MI in 1st Group.
1st Group of what? Because your own bio says you are in Civil Affairs branch. You certainly are not an SF officer because you never would have survived the qualification course.
Q: What are the current communist countries?
A: As of 2016, there are five communist countries: China, Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam and Laos.
China:China became a communist nation in 1949 when Mao Zedong proclaimed China as the People’s Republic of China.
Cuba: Fidel Castro took over the government of Cuba in 1959. Two years later, the country was communist and had strong ties to the Soviet Union.
North Korea: Korea was divided into a Soviet north and American south after World War II and became a communist country in 1948.
Vietnam: Vietnam was separated into communist North Vietnam and democratic South Vietnam in 1954. After the Vietnam War in 1976, the two were unified into communist Vietnam.
Laos: The Lao People’s Democratic Republic became a communist country in 1975.
In China, if you defy the government, you get a death sentence and your family gets a bill for the execution.
In Vietnam, if you defy the government, you get ‘re-educated’. If that doesn’t work, you’re executed or imprisoned for life.
In North Korea, you dig your own grave before you are executed in various gruesome ways, such as anti-aircraft artillery.
In Cuba, you get $55 per month. The rest of your money goes into Castro’s pockets. If you don’t like that, you spend time in jail, if you’re lucky.
In Laos, you get to spend time in jail for the rest of your life.
You’re just another run-of-the-mill communist, piuperdink.
The communist subversives of the ’50s and ’60s constantly denied being communist. Then the Iron Curtain comes down, somebody gets a look at the inside of Lubyanka’s records room, and whaddaya know–turns out they were pen pals with the KGB, who gave them a nice cash allowance in return.
Just because Joe McCarthy was a grandstanding politician and a paranoid drunk doesn’t mean he wasn’t on to something.
I remember someone telling me his war story about when he was stationed in then-West Germany when the wall came down, somewhere in East Berlin the Stasi HQ was being mobbed and among that mob were some operators that secured the records room while allowing said mob the run of everywhere else and it was from said records that a number of Cold War Era sell outs were discovered and prosecuted. Liberals always want more Govenment control and surveillance when their party is in control much like nobody in East Germany could do anything sans being watched by the Stasi in its heyday.
Speaking of which, remember the old East German saying about the difference between nazis and commies: “The Gestapo were leg-breakers, but the Stasi were soul-breakers.”
IF you go on Real Clear History and search for it there are some good articles on the Stasi records when the wall came down.
A lot of files were shredded. Some were torn up. Computer geeks built a program to reconstruct those records. A lot of details about the Stasi HQ in Berlin
That is a bullshit copy and pasted source from reference.com which merely copied it from an old NOW DELETED response on ABOUT.COM.
China does not have a communist economy. Labeling something “communist” when it has a market economy is about as accurate as labeling North Korea “democratic” merely because it has “Democratic” in its name.
China’s government is not communist either. Partly because by definition communism has no government. So it is nonsensical to classify a government as “communist”. Communism is not a government model. China has a form of technocratic authoritarianism unique to China.
North Korea is still communist according to how you guys choose to define communism. And it is a prime example of how communism fails in practice. North Korea would have collapsed decades ago if it were not for its substantial black market economy that helps it to distribute goods and services more efficiently than the North Korean regime could.
Laos began to abandon communism in 1996 and is currently almost transformed to a market economy. It currently has among the highest economic growth in the world.
Vietnam also began to transition away from Communism a few decades ago. They are now mostly a market economy. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-18/vietnam-growth-makes-it-emerging-market-standout-in-shaky-world
Cuba is still close to how you guys think of communism. Though it began to transition in 2011. And the massive black market economy helps it to efficiently distribute good and services. Without it the Castro regime would have collapsed long ago. Which is why the regime largely turns a blind eye to the black market in Cuba with shops OPENLY selling black market good at established storefronts for years. The “government takes all but $55” is a nonsense stat.
And before you knee-jerk respond about how much of an idiot I am; LISTEN TO WHAT I AM SAYING. I am not defending communism. I am pointing out the FAILURES and how countries have abandoned it and how those that haven’t are only able to limp along because of the black market that functions as a more efficient distribution method than the communist economic model.
Lars T., if socialism is such a great thing then why is Venezuela such an impoverished hellhole these days?
“And the massive black market economy…” Lars T., if communism worked like dweebs such as you claim said black market economies would not exist, you lose yet again.
I am not a socialist, Infidel. And you are a waste of time.
Social market =/= socialism. Not even close actually.
And it would be helpful if you took a moment to try to figure out the difference between communism and socialism.
Most capitalist countries in the world are social market countries. Both Britain and the US also had one at one time.
I thought Communism was scientific Socialism? Ah, but what did Marx know about it?
Obława
Suwałki
===========
Let’s see if that works *after* I hit the “post comment” button. Right now, the diagonal diacritical mark is there.
If it does not work …. here’s yer diagonal:
\
JSF
I actually find it ridiculous that there is a group of functional grown adults in this country that still think communism is a threat to our nation.
It is literally absurd. Regardless of the atrocities of communism a half century ago, THERE IS NO THREAT OF COMMUNISM TODAY. Communism is a discarded theory. It neither works in theory or in practice. There is no communist movement in the US. Communists have not won a single election at any level of government in 50 years. And even then it was two seats on a city council.
There are currently over 500,000 elected officials at federal, state, county, municipal levels in this country. NOT A SINGLE COMMUNIST.
Over 12,000,000 elections in the US over the last half century. NOT A SINGLE COMMUNIST WON AN ELECTION.
Hell, there are 1000 clubs and student organization at UC Berkeley. Not a single communist club or organization. AT UC BERKELEY!! https://callink.berkeley.edu/organizations
*NEWS FLASH* Lars T., many of today’s Commies run as Demo-rats.
Bernie Sanders, a self-declared communist.
Who lives in a multi-million dollar mansion, standard for hypocritical commie bigwigs.
He has multiple houses, let’s not forget the sweetheart deal he got on that waterfront home after he bailed out of the race and endorsed President Trump’s opponent!
Real champion of the downtrodden, ol’ Bernie Sellout is! With his fake Vah-mawnt accent and his birthplace that changes depending on which crowd he’s speaking to.
And his wife, who bankrupted a college that charged snowflakes $50K/yr tuition, then bitches that everyone should get free college.
That one still makes me laugh.
No, Bernie Sanders is not a self-declared communist. He does jokingly call himself a socialist. But he is not a socialist either. The economic model he EXPLICITLY proposes is a Nordic Model that is DEFINED as a form of capitalism.
So he is a social market capitalist. Which is a model that WORKS BETTER THAN OUR CURRENT MODEL.
So what about his blatantly-false claims, his questionable fiscal history, and all those mansions, including the one he got in exchange for selling out to Hillary Clinton?
Shill for Sanders all you want, he’s still a two-faced piece of shit.
He doesn’t jokingly call himself a socialist–he’s very serious about it, to the point he even got kicked out of communes in VT for doing NOTHING but prattling on about the joys of socialism.
You must have some serious fucking inner ear dysfunction if you’re spinning that hard.
“So he is a social market capitalist. Which is a model that WORKS BETTER THAN OUR CURRENT MODEL.”
Larsfact.
Bernie “Fake News” Sanders, c’mon. Point to a successful country using that model.
Rhine capitalism, Germany?
Methinks you need to familiarize yourself with Zombietime.
And I have not seen a pure capitalist on this board yet. If you think that someone should not be able to falsely claim they are a veteran to help gain business or contracts or even panhandle then you are not a genuine capitalist. If you believe we should control the migration of labor across our borders; you are not a genuine capitalist. If you support Trump’s economic rhetoric; you are not a genuine capitalist. If you think children should not do factory work until they are old enough to be around machinery or have enough education to at least be literate; you are not a genuine capitalist. If you think that letting the injured, the sick, old people, low demand labor, the children of low demand labor, or the children of low productivity labor starve to death is NOT the best way should let the “free hand” deal with a labor surplus; then you are not a genuine capitalist. If you think providing low cost or free healthcare to senior citizens is a good thing then you are not a genuine capitalist. If you believe there should be any basic safety standard in the workplace at all then you are not a capitalist. If you think that the government should tell commercial truck drivers or heavy equipment that cannot take drugs while operating heavy machinery; you are not a genuine capitalist. If think we should prohibit the manufacture and sale of marijuana, or any other schedule one drug you are not a pure capitalist. Hell if you think there should even be something categorized as a class of drug you are not a pure capitalist unless that category was done for marketing purposes. If you think someone should not be able to mix whatever the fuck they want into a bottle and sell it to you through your pharmacist with your pharmacist telling you it does whatever he thinks will make you most want to buy it; then you are not a genuine capitalist. If you think your pharmacist should be required to have any level of basic education… Read more »
Stuff it, Poodle. Wait, scratch that – you’re already fuller of crap than a Christmas goose, you you already did.
The point of this article wasn’t to define who is, and who isn’t a capitalist – or a communist, for that matter. The point of this article was to point out the dangers of communist rule.
I cannot think of a single example of a Communist nation that did not end up, generally quite quickly, as an authoritarian dictatorship with zero respect for human rights or life, willing to murder on the industrial scale in order to “achieve a communist society”.
Every single one. Ditto most if not all failed communist movements – they only killed on a penny-ante scale because they failed to achieve political power.
Insanity may be defined as repeatedly doing the same thing while expecting a different outcome each time. Kinda sounds like most “Progressives” rapturously discussing what they’ll do when they form “that perfect Socialist state”.
By the way – your examples above are also in general specious. An example: depending on the precise circumstances, lying to achieve a commercial gain is often prosecutable as fraud; that is true whether the underlying economic system in place is capitalist, socialist, or communist. Under current Federal law, that’s exactly why stolen valor is unlawful: it’s a form of fraud.
Now, be a nice lad and go play in traffic.
“I can continue this list endlessly.”
Your ability to strawman is impressive.
Not so much impressive as pitiful.
There is literally endless examples of market distortion and market intervention policies that most on this board would agree with.
The point, Lars, is that I prefer a market or private solution over a political solution to almost any problem (there is the issue of what is a “public good”-and here I am using an explicitly economic term-and how to address that, but that involves only a very limited number of examples). Whereas I have never seen you talk about any problem whatsoever where you didn’t invoke a political solution. You are a statist Lars and only too eager to rely on coercion to achieve whatever end you desire and there is no way that you can realistically deny that.
There ARE.
I’d go back to the Bursar’s Office at UCB and work very hard to get your money back for their failure to provide you with any sort of meaningful education.
Keep babbling on there, pud-muffin, you’re not impressing any of us.
I’ve been meaning to ask this for awhile, Lars. What’s up with the “board” thing you use to describe TAH? The last time I remember anyone using the term with any regularity was circa 1990 as the short form for a dial-up bulletin board system. It’s the kind of thing somebody might use now if they were a non-native speaker.
Or is it some sort of hip ‘n’ groovy Berkeley retro reference to The WELL?
Just trying to get a handle on the scope of your dementia…
Just showing my age. I was into computers since my Vic 20 in 1980. I was building computers as a part time job when I was stationed in Okinawa.
So at some point I picked up the term “board” for a place where people post their thoughts and I have not stopped.
We all have those quirks in language picked up from past life experiences. I am sure that many on this “board” also call their car their “vehicle”. I still do.
Wait. Huh? WTF? You told us you grew up in abject poverty. How could your family afford the $299.95 for you to have a computer at age nine?
Or maybe you paid for it with the profits from your shine box.
Yeah, that’s it. He who shall not be named had a shine box.
Actually, there were no direct profits. The shine fee would be pledged as a donation on behalf of a shine collective under a Nordic social market model which meant each Vic 20 end user became a shareholder in a larger enterprise known as Grooming Inc.
Can you read that back to me, Claw?
Read back will occur once I’ve shackled it up.
Loan me your SOI, OK? My copy is indisposed at the moment.
Oops. Almost screwed the pooch. Pen and ink change required.
Delete SOI. Insert CEOI.
Mea Culpa.
I don’t call my car a ‘vehicle’. I call my car Jack.
I don’t have a car. My wife does. I have a truck.
Mrs. A Proud Infidel®™ doesn’t have a car, I bought her an SUV to ride around in while I drive a pickup truck.
I see what you did there.
This is annoying. Constantly feel forced to “defend” my life because members of this board are more interested in discrediting me than actually considering what I am saying.
My mom was a single mother. There were times she had a boyfriend that was middle class or upper middle class.
And now that you forced me to remember exactly what year I got it was in the summer between 6th and 7th grade. So around 1983. And it was not “new”.
Later I had a C64. Then I just used the Amigas and PCs in the computer lab at school.
Never owned a gaming system like Atari or Nintendo or Coleco etc. Though I did play games on the C64 and Vic 20.
I’m hearing tuning going on over in the orchestra section of world’s tiniest violins, Lars…
All Right! If I forced He who shall not be named to actually think and remember about something before posting, my work here is done. The annoyance He who shall not be named feels is just a perk.
Where’s my ARCOM?
What are you Jeff Foxworthy now?
BS. You do not get to unilaterally define Capitalism. Or any other word, for that matter. Not in English, anyway. You can start your own language, if you wish.
You have forgotten one of the progtards’ classic and immutable rules of rhetoric: “When I say a word, it means what I say it means, nothing more and nothing less!” You can win almost any argument if you get to re-define what all the words mean.
I posted a few more direct responses concerning communism but due to typos in the email address they are still awaiting moderation.
But “i’th not youw fuawt now, izzit”? You gots yourself what – Inglo-diddly-whatchamacallit? When I do it, I just admit that I posted in a hurry and did a shitty job of proofreading.
Remember, API, Commissar is never wrong. It’s always us, never him.
But of course, TOW! He sees us as uneducated peasants that should be bowing in awe of his imaginary brilliance.
We are experiencing technical difficulties.
There is nothing wrong with your set.
Please stand by.
Anyone who thinks communism is dead, or that communist tactics have changed, needs to read a book called: “Witness” by a fellow named Whittaker Chambers.
Compare the aims, tactics, and ideals of the communist party in the ’30s and ’40’s with those of the “popular society” today. The way the “whisper campaigns” and personal character assasination is used to about down any dissenting voices. But most importantly, the way that they aim to divide by destroying any kind of shared traditions, values, or beliefs that can be used to unite a coherent opposition.
Whether there are actual communists actively working to bring about revolution, or whether too many “useful idiots” have naively adopted the ideas of communism thinking that they have discovered something new, the effect is pretty much the same.
That is all…
And there is just such a person trying to accomplish that’
John Bachtell
http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/john-bachtell/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bachtell
A socialist is simply a communist with patience.
OKAY EVERYONE, now I’m going to say something positive. I truly think that Lars T. HAS NEVER let his education interfere with his total ignorance of facts, logic and common sense and has nothing less than a near perfect record of that.
He’s educated beyond his intellect.
“A socialist is simply a communist with patience.”
— aaaaaaand there you have it.
The word that often springs to mind is: RUTHLESSNESS. At any and all costs, human lives are just a tool, anyone denying yhis is just a fool. A dead fool.