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From: mathon@tekbspa.UUCP (John D. Mathon )
Newsgroups: news.misc,talk.politics.misc,talk.politics.soviet
Subject: Re: Beyond Perestroika
Message-ID: <822@tekbspa.UUCP>
Date: 4 Apr 89 18:17:01 GMT
References: <3982@kremvax.mosc.cccp> <1658@orion.cf.uci.edu> <16287@oberon.USC.EDU>
Organization: Teknekron Software Systems, San Jose, CA.
Lines: 32

In article <16287@oberon.USC.EDU>, kriz@skat.usc.edu (Dennis Kriz) writes:
: In article <1658@orion.cf.uci.edu> dlawyer@balboa.eng.uci.edu.UUCP (David Lawyer) writes:
: 
:       "From each acording to his abilities, to each according to his needs."
: 
:                                  -- Marx
: The point with Marxism is that for fully 1/4 of the world's population (ie 
: those under Marxist rule) the very term "communism" makes them break out in
: hives.  There's no point explaining that country X isn't really "communist"
: becuase it's a term as with as much loaded connotation as "nuclear" or
: "radiation."
: 
: If you wish "save" communism (or the idea) then do what Madison Ave always
: does ... give it a less contraversial name.  Repackage it (and please while
: you do it, take out the class struggle and the subsequent Killing fields).
: 
: Just as Chernobyl and Three Mile Island will always be associated with 
: nuclear power, the Gulag will always be associated with communism.  

Good points, Dennis.  However, repackaging communism without removing the
state ownership of everything, the centralized control of all life and 
adding the notions of competing parties with a free private press and 
freedom of speech and right to a speedy trial with charges is unacceptable 
to me.

If somebody can put that all into a new "commufreeism" then I might buy it,
other than that it still  looks like bitter poison no matter what you call it:
i.e. socialism, democratic way, new-left, etc...  They all have the stink of
death and prison.

Of course if you do make all the changes above, seems like you're really just
renaming democratic capitalism.