Fascism puts Left foot forward 5784socialist sentences that mbuttes socialists are membership Maoists Look again. The Trots (though not every party) are the dills that spout the "general...
OK. I'm probably referring more to Lenin's contribution. I'm talking about what happened pragmatically than the theoretical position. There have only been a couple of places in the world where communist governments have come to power by democratic means.
Singapore hanging and press freedomThey actually do 47% voted for the rest penalty 43 % voted against the rest penalty 7% undecided The Australia press has made NTV for like a saint for going on rest row...
Yes. I know. It's a wonderful idea. And communist governments have had significant achievements to their credit - but in the end they all, without exception, become as self-serving as the worst capitalist systems, and even more dictatorial. Socialism in its ideal form is a worthy human endeavour - maybe the most selfless ideal in the history of humanity - but in its communist form at least, it has produced misery. The socialism of political parties in representative forms of democracy has achieved significant advances for people at the bottom end of the social and economic scale, and we have much to thank them for, but which parties in our own society now are genuinely socialist? The greatest failure of the Labor Party has been to try to act like Liberals, and has given their traditional supporters no reason to vote for them. Which is precisely why they continue to be in the political wilderness right now.
In that case, I'll subsbreastute "any person looking coolly at the history of the twentienth century" for "they". You need to care what "they" think in that case. You *have* to care what the electorate thinks if you are going to win government in a representative democratic system like ours.
I would like to see the Labor Party stand up strongly for values that they seem to have abandoned over the past 20 years or so. They are, for example, disgracefully mealy-mouthed about Iraq. They need to enunciate clearly what it is they stand for, and prove it by their actions. If they don't, then voters will go along with the smoothly delivered deceptions and nonsense that John Howard and his acolytes have fed us over the past decade or so, because they don't see any viable alternative. They have let him gain control of both houses of parliament, through knee-jerk election policies that have scared off traditional labor supporters. That is a great tragedy for this country because it has allowed the government to ram through parliament badly drafted and ill-thought out legislation that has now become law.
Labor's faction-driven party machine is increasingly a disaster, because it stops the best and most dynamic people from coming to the top - because those who engineer the factional votes are the ones who push their candidates through. That's got to change if the party is to re-establish the credibility it used to have - with sufficient numbers of voters to bring them to power. They can't just hope to win on the strength of LNP mistakes and stupidities - evidence of which abound right now. They have got to regain the imagination and confidence of their traditional supporters.
Having a government run riot in both houses of parliament is never good for producing sensible, reflective legislation, and it is sad that the only person forcing any sorts of compromises is one lone National Party senator - who no doubt will be brought into line over the next 12 months or so.
Rifty
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