Posted on 08/08/2005 8:35:35 AM PDT by Question_Assumptions
Apparently PBS has turned Joshua Muravchik's book Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism into a 3 hour documentary. They showed it in July but PBS in NYC is rerunning it late at night and other PBS stations may do so, as well. His book does a good job of explaining why socialism and democracy don't miss. I didn't hear about it so I thought a posting here might be useful to anyone who is interested.
Thank you for the posting and the link.
So the DO admit that socialism fell?
Well, sort of, BUT, (in a whiny, Pauly Shore voice) they didn't really do it correctly...
Keep us posted. Thanks!
Do you mean, don't mix?
(A) Well, sort of, BUT, (in a whiny, Pauly Shore voice) they didn't really do it correctly..
IOW, it's PBS' nostalgic stroll down memory lane.
Boston=Nope
New Hamshire=Nope
Providence=Nope
Hartford=Nope
Looks like we've got a boycott in Oh-So-Blue New England!
I may be too thick to fully appreciate the nuance of this definition of fascism, from the synopsis page on the PBS Web Site, but I always thought that fascism was the forced collaboration of a military dictatorship and and private industry. I fail to see the "brotherhood of class" connection. Am I truly a moron, or is this just more Marxist bull$hit from PBS?!
By no means all socialists were killers or amoral. Many were sincere humanitarians; mostly these were the adherents of democratic socialism. But democratic socialism turned out to be a contradiction in terms, for where socialists proceeded democratically, the found themselves on a trajectory that took them further and further from socialism. Long before Lenin, socialist thinkers had anticipated the problem. The imaginary utopias of Plato, Moore, Campanella and Edward Bellamy, whose 1887 novel, Looking Backward, was the most popular socialist book in American history, all relied on coercion, as did the plans of The Conspiracy of Equals. Only once did democratic socialists manage to create socialism. That was the kibbutz. And after they had experienced it, they chose democratically to abolish it.
Sounds like the Roosevelt administration to me. (Note: you only have to look at New Deal architecture.)
They both require totalitarian governments.
The only difference that I can see is that FDR did not refer to himself as "Supremo Generalissimo for Life", though he was president "for life".
That's a relief, I thought it was me.
I live a half day's drive from Boulder City NV, the town that Fed Gov and the Seven Companies built for the workforce which constructed Hoover Dam. The community (during the life of dam construction) reads like it was a paradise on Earth, every aspect of life regulated to ensure a happy, healthy, clean and tidy workforce. But a little probe beneath the shiny surface reveals a truly and totally fascist iron fist beneath the velvet glove. An interesting and revealing history to read.
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