TulipO

RE: The True Blood thing: I also hope it does not go that way, and almost said as much in my original post. <<shudders>>

Ummm, I loved it. What everyone is saying is true--its not following the comic--its more of an adaptation of the idea. Kind of like True Blood. But I have to say, I am genuinely excited to see what comes next. I have a few criticisms but nothing major. All in all this show is a blast.

Comic spoilers

slight book spoilers

IT WAS AMAZING. Binge watched the entire season this weekend. Fucking fantastic.

WHITE. BEAR.

Nice gif DOJ. As this show goes on, I'll have to be sure not to check this thread before breakfast again.

Theories on who the hell

I know, just wondering what unspoiled people think.

Response to DOJ's book stuff.

Well, how did everyone like them apples??

Too much gore? yeah, because Preacher is soooo much more gory than heads on spikes or

or that episode of the Sopranos where dude gets beheaded. Or everything on True Blood ever. Or the entirety of The Wire etc etc etc. WTF?!

Eh...I have a similar perspective on Theon. Although i don't think he dealt with that conundrum as best he could...

The whole story is really about the nature of good and evil and how those two things are never as clear as we would like them to be. There are characters you think are pretty fucking evil--until you meet one that is really evil. Its a story that almost forces you to have compassion for those who are characterized as villians but really, they just make some very poor, sometimes impulsive decisions. Then you find out that the "good" characters actually have created just as much trouble as the alleged villians and it gets really complicated.

For example:

Shit's getting real.

The first two episodes have been A LOT of exposition. Don't judge the whole season by that. They have been a little slow--especially I think for non-book readers. I don't find that the series has diverged too much from the books at all--in fact a lot of the dialogue is verbatim. However, they have cut ahead of a lot of the book plot and I understand why. Book 3 is super exciting, and a lot of crazy shit happens--but there are also several hundred pages of characters travelling that would be simply IMPOSSIBLE to render to film/TV. I mean, seriously characters be all over that shit in the book. This would be a 13 season show if we followed each character on every step of their epic journeys that were documented in book 3. So they show skipped a lot of travelling stuff and brought us right up to speed with the main action. I think this Sunday's episode is going to start to get really good...

I just discovered Little Britain! AWESOME. I know I am behind, but that is one hilarious sketch comedy show.

Not this time ;)

http://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/1910/04/laborpol.htm

The link is pretty much everything James Connolly has ever written for free, if it makes you feel better. Or it may make you shake your head at how different Eamon Gilmore is.

On a scale of 1 to shameful, how shameful are the Irish Labour party for selling its working class beliefs down the river to get into government?

Well I think they turn it up to 11 myself. Although sometimes participating in electoral politcis can be a useful tactic for radicals, parties that work within the confines of the current system are doomed to compromise their politics to the benefit of the ruling class. I think if you look at the history of the Irish Labor Party you will find that there were once radicals that helped form the party (may even be a few left) but they were some how pushed out by the reformist wing of the party. This is why socialists believe that we cannot reform our way to a different society and part of why a revolution is necessary.

Good Read: Reform or Revolution by Rosa Luxembourg

I always thought that's essentially communism, albeit with a super powered kick in the pants to make sure no one cheats. Is it? Does the part about "additional luxuries to those who WISH to work providing the above" make it something else? If it does, it kind of sounds BETTER to me.

Do you have a problem with that idea? That some people can have more, but that means they had to work to get it? It seems to me like providing everything everyone needs, establishing a comfortable baseline without the need for what's essentially indentured servitude, should be the goal anyway. If you WANT to go work, then you get some more shit. People like having shit, it seems like enough would bite to make it so the ones that were perfectly content could just sit around and jerk off.

That's kind of it. All communism/socialism means is that the majority of people--the working class--controls the means of production and holds the wealth produced in common. However, yeah I can see where this quote is coming from. Everyone would have to do some amount of work, but when the profit motive is removed, the necessity of a 40 hour (or more) work week becomes null. But if someone doesn't want to become a specialized worker (physicist or doctor etc) they certainly don't have to. And those who do want to would be free to. As far as luxuries go--I think we have to try and conceive of just how much wealth there is and what really prevents most of us from having it. What is a luxury item worth? It usually comes down to either enjoyment or status. When status is not a factor, then luxury items become for pure pleasure. And there are more than enough to go around.

Good Read: Das Capital Volume 3 by Karl Marx

There are kind of a lot of questions there, I guess.

Yes there are. I hope I have answered some of them.

Also, did you know this thread already exists in politics?

No. I may have blocked it from my memory because it probably involves arch calling me a holocaust denier or something.

So all, except those that live in mansions are left with the house they currently live in? So a poor student studying medicine who's currently living in a one bed flat in a terrible area, can never move to a larger/nicer house? Even after he becomes a talented doctor? A few follow up questions, do doctors get paid the same as burger flippers and do they get paid the same as strippers?

 

If America became Communist tomorrow and all the doctors wanted to move to Canada or Mexico because of wages, would you let them leave?

Goodness no! Let me just preface this by saying that this entire question requires speculation in to events that have not happened so its conjecture on my part, based on my experience as a communist and also some instances through history that have maintained a revolutionary character for a short period of time. (like the Paris Commune)

First of all with the abolition of ground rent, there would be no need for people to live in shitty conditions. Also, "terrible neighborhoods" wouldn't really exist. Revolution usually is not an instantaneus event--it is usually preceeded by a series of reforms through struggle that improve the lives of the working class. What makes a terrible neighborhood? Poverty. It is my belief that after a socialist revolution poverty as we know it would not exist. In addition, revolution doesn't freeze everything into place--in fact the whole idea of dialectical materialism is that things are constantly changing. History is a living thing created by the people who live it.

As far as what will doctors get paid vs restaurant workers and sex workers: We have to look at it outside of the context that we are currently experiencing. Work as we know it will radically change. I think there WILL be wages for a while. And no, someone who works in food service will not make as much as say a surgeon--however the gap between the two will narrow considerably. All "burger flippers" will have the opportunity to become doctors if they so choose. In addition when the profit motive is removed the amount of money one earns ceases to be the primary reason for doing pretty much anything. As far as sex workers go, currently in the US most strippers are paid *NOTHING.* In fact, they have to pay the boss for their stage time. They live entirely off of tips. This will not happen in a socialist society. Furthermore the character of sex work will also be radically different as one of the primary goals of the socialist project is to end the exploitation and oppression of women.

Finally, on the question of professionals moving across borders for better wages: Another tenet of the socialist project is internationalism. No socialist country can survive in isolation as a socialist society. If we examine the late stages of the Russian Revolution and see its descent into Stalinism and State Capitalism this becomes more clear. However, things could have turned out very differently had the German Revolution and other Europeam revolutions (Spanish Civil War etc.) been successful. Therefore, there wouldn't be nations as we currently have them, nor borders limiting the movement of workers.

Good Reads: A History of the Russian Revolution by Leon Trotsky, The German Revolution by Pierre Broue, http://johnmolyneux.blogspot.com/2012/04/future-socialist-society.html

I haven't seen SLP yet but: 1. I have heard from those who have that its excellent, 2. As you pointed out its nominated like crazy and 3. There are problems with the other contenders in the category, whether its content or distribution.

Would one own land, or would you and your family be assigned a living space which you would treat essentially like a rental home? So that, as ASC suggested, you could live there but strangers couldn't just come into your space? Want about farm land? How would agrarian reform work. Would the collective own the land, and a farmer would have to work it and be compensated for the yields?

No one could "own" land--but no one except the 1% would be forced out of their homes either. In the case of the 1% the act of seizing their assets is more about preventing counter-revolution than needing their shit. We have ABUNDANT housing space right now. So following a revolution, one of the first orders of business would be to end homelessness and ground rent. Whether or not an individual would have complete dominion over that space would be up to the people. That is a debate that hasn't happened yet essentially. In the future, I imagine we would be reorganizing the way that we actually live in society so all new housing/city planning would probably be organized in a more sustainable and community oriented way.

As far as farm land goes--farm work would be organized by farm workers like every other industry--so essentially the collective would own the land. Only instead of producing for profit, it would be need based. Also, farming would have to be organized in a way that maximizes ecological sustainability. Obviously, people who know how to farm should be in charge of farming so Joe Smith's Family Farm would not be appropriated, but Dole will be and the farm workers would run it.

Yeah, I think that Silver Lining Playbook will sweep it. I hope that jingoistic piece of crap Zero Dark Thirty gets nothing.

How do you like your steak?

Red, just how I like everything else.

No love at all for Cloud Atlas. Fuck the critics :(