Where's loudmouth Josie now

There is nothing to be gained by reading "big books" unless you do so with an open mind and question conclusions, unless you simply want to read something which bolsters your entrenched views. Seems you have done exactly that, or are very easily persuaded.

Your extract is such a weak, distorted and a pathetic attempt to re write history. I am surprised you missed the obvious weaknesses of Watson's feeble arguments. The attempt to link Hitler's Nazi philosophy with general socialist thinking in the turmoil of mid nineteenth century politics is such an obvious case of how easy it is to choose a few non related bits and pieces in order to make a case.

Your first quote is laughable. " Don't give me bollox about this being an end within socialism. It's not" Why not? Are you suggesting that such a thing is not possible. Was the Inquisition not an aberration of wider held Christian ideals? From the extracts of the author you are so pleased to quote, Hitler seems to have considered Stalin's concept of socialism an aberration, and we might buttume that Stalin felt the same about the Nazi's? So why is this difference of opinion about what socialism means not possible, when it seemingly is?

It is obviously better for your argument to ignore the facts, but how do you then manage to lump self described socialists like Atlee, Bevan, or Benn, and a few thousand others, into the same camp as Stalin, and, with even more deluded distortions, Hitler's? Did the Swedish 'socialist' governments have anything in common with the USSR's? To argue that the dictatorships led by genocidel maniacs which are used as examples is like putting up Iraq, the west's friend until recently, as typical of a modern capitalist country.

The fact is so obvious it screams out to you. Socialism is just a word. If maniacs use it to describe their politics and policies it does not tar other users with the same brush. The conveniently forgotten fact about most socialist thinking over the past decades is that it is seen as a force within a democratic system. As such, it is light years away from the dictator regimes of Hitler and Stalin. Not difficult is it?

I suppose that if you regularly post in a group which likes to hang meaningless titles like scum and blue pooe on thousands of people, the temptation to follow this easy route might rub off?

Maybe a few more "big books"? Maybe a different shelf?

LC the