Apech

Yep, aliens ....

You should have suspended him for bad spelling - if I had a supply of sodium hydroxide I'd be a lyer too.

Energy is pure delight.

Well, I had reason to drive to a place called Ulme this morning - for a funeral as it happens - but is wasn't someone I knew - a cousin of my friend. Anyway this Ulme is in a different council area to where I live and is run by the Communist party. yes, here they still have a fairly thriving CP. It runs some of the more successful local authority areas. Where I live is run (if you can call it that) by the Partido Socialista - which proves, if you were still in any doubt that just putting 'socialist' in your name doesn't make you a socialist (cp. our dear Mr. Hitler). The hallmark of a Partido Socialista administration is that the council leaders drive round in expensive black shiny cars, there are dodgy land deals, the contracts go the the mayor's uncle's brother's school chum (or similar) and ancient archeological sites are demolished to build concrete brutalist shopping centres. The hall mark of a Communist administration is - the sanitation works, the water supply is good, the streets are clean and well lit, the school buildings are new, the garbage is collected on time, local produce and commodities are sold at cost through co-operatve shops and the 'leaders' spend a lot of time making sure the old, frail and so on are ok. The Communists are linked here to the Green party so there is also a local Eco-Parque with organic veggies and recycling. In the national elections they get about 7-8% of the vote so have very few delegates. However the national leader is solid - and the kind of guy you wouldn't hesitate to ask to look after your valuables - unlike the rest of the lying smoothies which inhabit the national assembly. It made me think about the roots of Marxism. Of people with very little grouping together to improve things a little for themselves and family. Of people thinking about each other, rather than themselves for one. So far from the totalitarian Soviet Communism of Stalin et al as to unrecognisable.

Cor!

then it will never end!

That's an interesting thing to say.

It's not over till the banjo player sings.

They had a relationship but it was well, you know ... difficult ... they grew distant, talked about having a messiah baby but by then they were drinking too heavily, then it fell apart, screaming rows in church, the altar get's smashed, someone calls the cops, then God met someone else which made him angry, so he keeps away now and reads Christopher Hitchens and weeps.

Well I'm glad you enjoyed it.

You asked so i did. Well actually there is nothing inherently racist about fascism. Nazism which is a particular from of fascism is racist and antisemitic. I'm not aware of any collective ownership in fascism unless you mean the type of early agrarian reforms in thirties Germany. the idea is that the 'folk' gather round a ruling group or leader who defines the way and marches onward to a glorious in usually vaguely defined future. These definitions are intentionally broad - because of course there are so many camps in socialism and they are not the same - so you can only point to a general theme that they all share. Where I think it has all got a little confused is that there is a natural objection to totalitarianism whichever cloak it wears be it Hitler, Stalin or whoever. So the main tension is between individual freedom guaranteed by law and any system where the ruler imposes from above.

I think this is right is in a sense. I think history is in effect the story of human social development. Politics or government and the experiments which mankind has carried out to try to find the ideal way to live is not a static thing but an organic one. So at a certain point in history feudalism is the 'right' things, later it falls apart and is replaced - but that does not make it inherently morally wrong it just makes it 'of it's time'. What is interesting to me is not to take rigid positions right or left etc. because similarly they are 'of their time' and it is more about understanding the forces which are pushing to find new forms of living which are better than the past. The biggest problem (apart from human cruelty and greed) is being stuck in one mode of being when time has moved on. This really in my view is the big problem with today - we are trying to address current problems using the techniques of the past.

Ok. Socialism, which existed before Marx by the way he didn't invent it, is working towards the betterment of people through improving social organisation. In other words preferring the idea of the good of others or the many over the selfish interest of the few. Fascism is grouping of society around the elite few (who in the benign form of this movement are supposed to make decisions on behalf of the many) - as imaged by the Roman symbol of the fasces , viz: where the axe represents the ruling elite and the bundle of wood is the people.

yes its interesting to investigate why Jesus was characterised as a king, since he wasn't actually a king in the ordinary sense. there's a parallel in medieval India in the Hindu and Buddhist Tantras where the yidam or deity is placed on throne in his/her chakra = circle = kingdom and surrounded by his/her mandala = royal court of attendant beings. Why is the deity a king or queen? and what exactly is it's king-dom i.e. the dome or domain of the king?

Story of your life, eh?

I'm glad you mentioned that. What I was kind of hoping was not that people became socialists (because that's up tot hem) but that at least they understood what it was. i.e. it's not the same as Fascism.

You're a bit naive for a Brit.

Political reasons. There were neutral countries in WWII for good reasons ... I live in one of them.

Rude?

Cos she's a Bum

Nothing to do with the Nazi gold in Swiss banks then? Just the fact that some leather trousered gents with feathers in their caps had hunting rifles which scared the Wehrmacht?

Since we seem to be on the thread od Bible quotes ... here's one: The thing is, I think, there are two questions. One is where is the kingdom and the other is where or how do you go about 'seeking' it. The answer to the first might be 'everywhere and nowhere (specific)' and the other 'within yourself'. There's a lot more I could say about the tradition of mystical kingship ... both East and West ... but my lunch is ready

very good idea.

He's the thinking Bums new hero.

This man is far too sensible to get anywhere in modern politics ... but he is our new hero, well worth listening to even though he sounds a little tired ...