I would say that communists are essentially viewed as traitors by patriots in their home lands; however this doesn't bother me at all and I would assume wouldn't bother many other communists (being internationalists and all).
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Isn't Communism technically treason?
Proponents of revolutionary socialism seek for the overthrow of bourgeois rule by the Proletariat, the destruction of private property and creation of a stateless, classless society. Does this not technically mean that all revolutionary socialists objectively seek to overthrow their current government/"country"? Couldn't figures of authority just swoop in and mass-arrest anyone who identifies as a communist if the going gets tough? Would this mean that It'd be de jure illegal to identify as a communist in any country? Sorry for the lack of paragraphs - It's my computer.
'despite being a comedy, there's a lot of truth to this, black people always talking shit behind white peoples back. Blacks don't give a shit about white, why do whites give them so much "nice" attention?'
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EARTH FOR THE EARTHLINGS - BULLETS FOR THE NATIVISTS
I would say that communists are essentially viewed as traitors by patriots in their home lands; however this doesn't bother me at all and I would assume wouldn't bother many other communists (being internationalists and all).
hehe, you're just figuring this out now?
"Win, lose or draw...long as you squabble and you get down, that's gangsta."
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Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
In times of instability and crisis, capitalist states have infiltrated our ranks, our organisations, kept records on us, spread misinformation, and locked us up in prisons and "internment camps". They will - no doubt - do it again should we become a threat once more.
"Bakunin has become a monster, a huge mass of flesh and fat, and is barely capable of walking any more."
― Karl Marx
Yes, and we are proud to accept the title. The nation, that wretched enemy and partition of the world's laborers, is a bastion of defense against working class solidarity and unity and acts as an ideological stronghold for the propertied classes.
Of course as devout and unbound enemies of this social construction we of course meet the qualifications of traitors to our own nation, wherever in the world that may be.
I would say that this persists even now. Not sure how things are in places aside from the UK and the US, but infiltration is a constant issue. I think about a year ago now there was a huge scandal indicating infiltration of anti-capitalist groups and environmentalist groups (basically the only ones who actually do anything, although i'd put money on there being snoops in larger socialist organisations) in the UK, revealing illegal behaviour by the Po Po, designed to stymie any organisational effectiveness. The US has so many intelligence agencies I could imagine there are some revolutionary groups where the only members are NSA etc!
"He rather hated the ruling few than loved the suffering many."
Formerly known as Pragmatic-Punk / Right Hand Of Jah / Heinous Bifter
They didn't tell you that when you signed up?
My only allegiance is to the working class.
"I have declared war on the rich who prosper on our poverty, the politicians who lie to us with smiling faces, and all the mindless, heartless robots who protect them and their property." - Assata Shakur
We commit treason against the government - they commit treason against the people of the world.
I have no country. My country s Earth.
Any real change implies the breakup of the world as one has always known it, the loss of all that gave one an identity, the end of safety. And at such a moment, unable to see and not daring to imagine what the future will now bring forth, one clings to what one knew, or dreamed that one possessed. Yet, it is only when a man is able, without bitterness or self-pity, to surrender a dream he has long possessed that he is set free - he has set himself free - for higher dreams, for greater privileges.”
-James Baldwin
"We change ideas like neckties."
- E.M. Cioran
Treason, patriotism... those are just labels used subjectively. If patriotism means you want everybody of all races to have a good life, then socialism is as patriotic as apple pie.
For student organizing in california, join this group!
http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?groupid=1036
http://socialistorganizer.org/
"[I]t’s hard to keep potent historical truths bottled up forever. New data repositories are uncovered. New, less ideological, generations of historians grow up. In the late 1980s and before, Ann Druyan and I would routinely smuggle copies of Trotsky’s History of the Russian Revolution into the USSR—so our colleagues could know a little about their own political beginnings.”
--Carl Sagan
If communism is treason then they might as well hang me now.
In US law, that mostly falls under the Smith Act: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_Act
It varies from country to country. In some places being a Communist is mandatory.
Edited to add: The first real literary work produced by the Smith Act was James P. Cannon's Socialism On Trial. It's a fine work: http://www.marxists.org/archive/cann...941/socialism/
Last edited by blake 3:17; 15th January 2013 at 01:11.
Treason to what, loyalty to whom? It's all relative and "they" can label anyone or any situation as they see fit. Broody Guthrie got it right. Did you think that revolution was going to entail anything less?
Brospierre-Albanian baseball was played with a frozen ball of shit and tree branch
"History knows no greater display of courage than that shown by the people of the Soviet Union."
Henry L. Stimson: U.S. Secretary of War
Take the word “fear” and the phrase “for what, it’s not going to change anything” out of your minds and take control of your future.
[I]Juan Jose Fernandez, Asturias
"I want to give a really bad party. I mean it. I want to give a party where there's a brawl and seductions and people going home with their feelings hurt and women passed out in the cabinet de toilette. You wait and see"
To be fair, I'd say there's a bit of room for nuance there.
I mean:
Sure, I guess many so called revolutionary socialists seek to overthrow their current government and all would like for it to go away. But it's not that simple, I for one, know that if I had the chance to simply overthrow the government it would probably be a miserable failures.
Especially if I completely disregard the circumstances and do it without any sort of international struggle. Therefore, I don't personally seek to overthrow "my government". I seek for ways to facilitate the international working class overthrow capitalism. Which is not really the same thing as me seeking to overthrow the government of the country where I live. I actually think the idea of small groups simply plotting to overthrow governments is a bourgeois notion that's alien to class struggle.
Well, that's pretty much what they do every time, wether it's legal or not.
Not really, because in many, maybe most, so called western democracies, while it's illegal to plot the overthrow of a government, it's not illegal to "want" for it to be overthrown or to "believe" it will eventually be overthrown. So as long as you don't actually go try to physically do it yourself, there's a legal gray area.
But, as I wrote above, when things actually start happening it doesn't matter what's legal or not, they'll do whatever it takes to stop you.
I think some of you may have misunderstood me. I wasn't really touching on the moral implications of treason but rather the political implications of them. Isn't simply identifying as a communist in the here and now reason enough to validate you getting arrested by local security at any time?
'despite being a comedy, there's a lot of truth to this, black people always talking shit behind white peoples back. Blacks don't give a shit about white, why do whites give them so much "nice" attention?'
- Top Comment on the new Youtube layout.
EARTH FOR THE EARTHLINGS - BULLETS FOR THE NATIVISTS
Identifying as a communist is not treason because it doesn't do anything treasonous. However, fighting for communism, say, during a revolution, would be.
If you're looking to the overthrow of the bourgeois state while being currently involved with some sort of organization consisting of like-minded individuals, then how is that not treason?
'despite being a comedy, there's a lot of truth to this, black people always talking shit behind white peoples back. Blacks don't give a shit about white, why do whites give them so much "nice" attention?'
- Top Comment on the new Youtube layout.
EARTH FOR THE EARTHLINGS - BULLETS FOR THE NATIVISTS
You forgot anarchists as well.
Yes this has happened and will continue to happen quite a lot throughout the globe. However this position of "treason" that the communists hold forces non-revolutionary people to see how a "free" society is never free when a political group as historical persecuted as the revolutionary left is barred from speaking for the people. As the silencing of revolutionaries grows, it can hopefully build to a point where people wake up and see that it is the ruling class that commits treason by not allowing groups of people, whether it be political, economic, or social, equal rights.
"[People] act like its some kind of rock solid homogeneous body of masculine oiled men with big hammers and flat caps standing outside factory gates chewing tobacco and muttering 'those damn petit-bourgeois students and their alienating camera-smashing, I sure love me some CCTV! Don't you, comrade stakhnov?'." - Ravachol
