[John23832]

Sure. The Stalinist were a horribly violent.

So were the US backed gorrillas in every violent uprising in South America in the 1980's.

So were Belgian trading companies in the Congo.

So were the French people during the Reign of Terror.

So were the Catholics during the all of the Inquisitions.

So were the Spanish during the expulsion of the Moors.

I could go on. The point being that this is not a Socialist trait. The first two were done with Capitalist intent. The last two were carried out with both political and religous power in mind. It's clear that you don't like Socialism, and that's fine... to each his own. But it's "disingenuous" to ignore history for the sake of proving your point.

[JoeAltmaier]

Ok lets make a list of Socialist societies that formed through rebellion and the formation of popular governments? Its seems to be a Socialist trait that it cant happen without being forced on a population by intelligentsia. Is that fair?

[John23832]

> Its seems to be a Socialist trait that it cant happen without being forced on a population by intelligentsia. Is that fair?

No, given the evidence, it's not fair. You could say the exact same thing for Capitalism.

Please. Now you're just being purposefully insulting.

[JoeAltmaier]

I'm not confusing Colonialism with capitalism.

[John23832]

What do you think the purpose of Colonialism was?

[pjlegato]

"Colonialism" does not exist as such. It's merely a sometimes useful intellectual abstraction, not a real thing. It has no objectives or purpose, because it does not and never actually existed as a real thing. It's merely a summary shorthand for a certain set of ideas.

Trying to impute motives to an unreal analytic abstraction is the reification fallacy.[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reification_(fallacy)

[John23832]

> "Colonialism" does not exist as such.

That is an empty refutation...

Colonialism was(is?) as very real practice. I really don't understand how you can claim that it is an "intellectual abstraction"

You went to Wikipeda for the definition of reification, but not for the definition of Colonialism[1]?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonialism

[pjlegato]

It's disingenuous to call attention to US-backed guerrillas in South America without also noting that the supposedly "indigenous people's movements" in the region that these guerrilas were fighting against were not actually local in origin at all.

They were universally created, armed, trained, and funded by the KGB as part of a massive decades-long social engineering program designed to make people think that there were organic third world socialist movements which had spontaneously emerged from the local population's great love of socialism. In reality they were all -- 100% of them -- created and operated by remote control from Moscow.

They served the interests of the Soviet Union exclusively. They were interested in the needs or betterment of local peoples only insofar as this also served to expand Soviet control and influence in those places.

As the local third world socialists usually naively did not realize this reality, the locals who actually worked and fought in the "indigenous" movements were internally referred to as "useful idiots" within the KGB.

Communism has always been an explicitly internationalist movement with the conversion of all countries worldwide -- and especially highly industrialized countries, above all the United States -- to Communist rule as the open goal. Under these circumstances, the US response of funding counter-operations abroad to counteract these KGB operations was appropriate.

See e.g. the Mitrokhin archive, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/capsule-review/2006-0..., etc.

[John23832]

Everything you said is irrelevant.

You completely ignored (or didn't understand) my point. I spread the attributions of violence around to show that using abhorrent violence to grip power has nothing to do with political inclination, economic system or religion. It is innately human.