The horrors of Communism in action flow directly from the socialist ideal of the abolition of private property and free exchange. Which, of course, doesn't work. The whole point of private property is to protect you from your criminal neighbors and the local S.W.A.T. team. Under socialism, you can't even hide under your bed because "the people", not you, own the space under your bed. When you point out that socialism doesn't work, you are deemed an enemy of the people and are shot, stabbed, frozen, starved or worked to death. Along with little Ivan, Svetlana, Grandma and Grandpa and the family dog, cow and horse. Plus mom, dad and baby sister.

That's why leftists always protect their little commie brothers: Because the seed of the horror is right in front of their eyes in their insistence upon abolishing private property. Woody Guthrie was nothing if not a total whore for Stalin. He was still defending Stalin in 1946! Guthrie was for peace only when Stalin was slaughtering the Poles by the hundreds of thousands and supplying resources to his pal Hitler because Guthrie slavishly followed Stalin's line. After Hitler invaded the USSR, Guthrie and Pete Seeger burned their peace records and preached war against Germany. Even today, liberals will never call out Guthrie and/or Seeger on this treachery.

Why? See above.

Wasn't he the Pope who shat all over "revolutionary theology" which stood to transform Central and South America? Some radial idea about the rich feeding the poor for their work...

and I LOVED this comment:

I have yet to see a convincing explanation by anyone responsible for these reports. Could it be that the US government had a vested interest in making the Soviet Union and the Communist system seem much more powerful than they actually were?

Those damned Commies were the Al Queda of yesteryear! GIVE US YOUR TAX MONEY AND SURRENDER YOUR RIGHTS SO THAT WE MAY PROTECT YOU FROM COMMUNISM! I MEAN AL QUEDA!!!

A six-hundred page history correcting all the propaganda we were fed does not sound like a pleasant weekend read, IMHO.

The point often overlooked in the Communist Manifesto is that the communist utopian state only comes about after the struggels of capitalism produce equality.

Marx, unlike later socialists, was a big believer in industry and it's ability to transform workers from serfs to equals, largely along the idea that industry and technology reduce scarcity which leads to an egalitarian utopian state.

I think however the water diamond paradox effectivly disrupts the utopian ideal. There where always be things that are scarcity, regardless of their usefullness, and that rarity will inform their value, which in turn feeds inequality as those with stars upon thars will always be that much more equal than everyone else. In essence under the soviet system, the scarcity of access lead to a unequal system, which ofcourse was the cause of most of the Soviet's woes.

as the US is to actual democracy.

Apparently, you don't know very much about the world. By most definitions, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Holland, Israel and many others are democratic socialist countries, and every one of them has huge amounts of private property. In fact, I own property in France, and the government hasn't tried to take it away.

Also, as evil as Stalin was, he controlled 1/2 of Poland only from September, 1939 until June, 1941. He did not kill hundreds of thousands of Poles. Oh, he certainly killed a bunch, but exaggeration is no different than a lie. He also provided no goods to Nazi Germany, because the CCCP had no goods.

Why does everyone keep talking about it like it doesn't exist anymore? China is still communist, Vietnam is still communist, half of Korea is still communist, Russia still leans in that direction, and parts of South America have all the ear marks of communist dictatorships. All these people hate us and yet we keep doing business with them, making them rich, while our own country has lost all its own manufactoring abilities. -- reformed druid

No. None of these countries, particularly not China or Russia, is communist in the least. With the exception of N. Korea, they all have mostly capitalist economies though Russia's borders on a kleptocracy.

The only thing these countries share socially and politically to some degree is repression. You, as do most Americans, still fall into the trap of conflating communism with a repressive political system.

The American Left, was never known for its consistency or wisdom - from its factional support of the Soviet Union to its present day weeping for the Gaza families of rocketeers and suicide bombers. Instead of placing the blame for Gaza's bombardment where it belongs, on the intransigency of its leadership, both PLO and Hamas, it blames their Israeli victims: thousands of Israeli civilians who have been subjected to rocket and to other attacks from Gaza and West Bank intifadas.

Now the calls for a two-state solution grow increasingly boring from repetition against the reality of unwillingness of those Arabs to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. Suppose the Israelis said that they were unwilling to recognize a future Palestine as a Muslim state! Even that would be a minor problem compared with the absence of a Palestinian government with whom to negotiate ANY possibilities at all!

Meanwhile, the Left cries about the retaliation by Israel for years of bombardment by the youths of Palestine, let loose by their elders. The Left sees only that the Israeli government is allied with the American centrist imperialists. What choice does Israel have? Israel has to deal where it can, and the US imperialists are its only source. Ending US imperialism is the task for us, Americans, not for Israelis.

The paranoia and frought anxiety regarding "Socialism" in the US is basically the feverish desire of oligarchs who control resources to retain their power and money. Therefore there is virtually no role for sane discussions or implementations of reaonable and practical socialistic programs, such as a single payer health care system.

Howeve there IS one highly successful socialistic enterprise, one adored by the entire country, in our culture. Its phenomenal success is directly attritutable to its foundational socialistic structure, which is almost exclusively ignored.

I'm talking about the Natonal Football League which is a model of socialist success beyond imagination. The NFL works completely on the principle of "from each their abilty-to each their need". All NFL revenues from television and ancillary income generated by items such as apparel sales all go directly into one pot. It doesn't matter if you are the Dallas Cowboys or the media huge NY Giants. Unlike baseball, ALL these revenues are collected and then split EQUALLY among all the teams. Thus an extremely small market like Green Bay can compete (and well) with much larger cities.

The only revenues owners keep apart from this are from individual ticket sales, parking, etc. Thus the flight of owners to other cities has to do with lucrative offers for better stadiums, luxery box deals and prospects for a better fan base. But the foundational money distribution remains the same.

How else would jerks like the Bidwells have survived wretchedly so long in Arizona, except for the most recent history of last year?

What a hoot. All this hysteria about "socialism", yet the most revered and successful of all sports enterprises is a great socialist model. Swallow that, Beck,et al.

Only in America.