Indeed, elucidator’s answer didn’t really elucidate anything.
'luci… you got some ‘splainin’ to do…!
I don’t hate Lucille Ball because she was, or was not, a Communist.
This is why I hate Lucille Ball!
Because she had a name that became part of a popular expression, not merely prior to your choosing your own username (fully aware of how it could be nicknamed), but probably before you were born?
Talk about a grudge. 
Here’s a medal.
I wasn’t asking for one. I was answering a question. Any reason for the driveby assholery?
Ah, no, her TV show became popular in the early 50’s and I…well, let’s put it this way, I still meet cute young hotties, but now they call me “Sir”.
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That happens when you get old.
What? Did something happen? Get off my lawn!
This may send the thread in an entirely new direction, but I think this needs to be explored further.
elucidator, I am well aware of your distaste for McCatrthyism. But I think your anti-anticommunism has, like so many others’ anti-anticommunism, made you quite blind to the real dangers of Communism.
The American Communist Party was controlled and financed by Moscow, and if things had gone any differently and the Soviet Union had come out on top, Gus Hall wouldn’t be remembered as a historical footnote - he would be remembered as basically the American Stalin. The experience of Earl Browder proved this - when he tried to distance the party from Moscow, he was promptly expelled from it and ostracized by leftists for the rest of his life.
Perhaps it is true that some patriotic Americans were momentarily seduced by Communism, but that does not change the fact that Communism was fundamentally hostile to and incompatible with American patriotism, and that the leadership of the Communist Party in America were not patriotic in any sense.
Given all of this, I don’t know why you can claim that it was once entirely possible to be a patriotic American and a Communist. Again, I think perhaps that sort of thing could happen for a time, like a devout Catholic mulling over atheism, or a Sunday school teacher just sitting in the parlor of the brothel to listen to the piano music. Eventually, though, these sorts of things really are incompatible with each other, and you really ought to face it.
I believe I saw Luc recently denounce communism at least mildly and in passing, likening it to objectivism or something.
Liberal, I am well aware of your distaste for Ayn Rand.* But I think your anti-objectivism has, like so many others’ anti-antiobjectivism, made you quite blind to the real dangers of objectivism.
The American Republican Party was controlled and financed by Neocons, and if things had gone any differently and the Republicans had come out on top, Ronald Reagan wouldn’t be remembered as a historical footnote - he would be remembered as basically the American John Galt. 
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- Or was that MY distaste for Ayn Rand?
I’m not saying 'luci is in favor of Communism here, just that he is a bit blind to its dangers. Just that he hates McCarthy and merely shakes his head at Gus Hall.
If the Communists had won, a guy like elucidator would have been the first resident of the camps.
Possibly. It’s Binswanger that I have a real problem with.
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There are no innocent political parties, Moto. I do not place the American Communist party on a pedestal, I am fully aware of thier shortcomings. The only corrective I would urge is that they were not all shortcomings. The Communists were on the forefront of the movement for racial equality long before it was respectable to the mainstream. Radicals are not beholden, they can scold us without worrying about respectability.
It is true that for a long time, American Communists were controlled by Moscow, but this was part and parcel of the Party line: unity was crucial, even if it involved sacrifice. If you read the stories of American lefties of the time, most will point to the Stalin-Hitler pact as the breaking point. Rightly so, in my estimation. And one should remember that it was a commonly held belief that a moral person was forced to an unpleasant choice: Stalinist Communism or Hitlerian Facism. It is not a choice I should like to be forced to, and I cannot judge anyone who made it.
And Gus Hall as Stalin? Please. It was a common joke in leftist cirlces that the Communist Party USA would have gone broke had it not been for the dues-paying FBI agents. The New Deal deeply undercut American Communism, nothing destroys a revolution like hope, if that hope is not dependent on revolution.
Lib is quite right, I have no interest in Communism, I don’t trust any academic excercise in political science, it is abstract, actual human interaction is much more messy and ill-defined. The notion that History is a force that can be predicted and relied upon is sillier than any theology. History is creative and chaotic, its only after the dust settles that we study it and discover that, yes, indeed, it was inevitable, couldn’t have happened any other way but that which suits our biases.
Communism as she is practiced in dull, grey, and dreary. Consumerist capitalism, based on the production and distribution of loud, shiny crap is better. But it isn’t enough. We are not done, and the future beckons.
If they had won a revolution, maybe. (See this alternate-history novel.) If they had won the WH and Congress by lawful elections . . . no, no camps.
That seems to be an admission that despite the overwhelming superiority of capitalism and the free market, it is conceivable that communism could have become the dominant economic system in the world today. How is that possible? Is capitalism not all it is cracked up to be? Knowing what we know today, wasn’t the fall of Communism inevitable?
First of all, when we all are on our knees, we are roughly the same height. So the equality they were preaching wasn’t a very sound commodity.
Secondly, you are well aware of the grossest forms of discrimination practices by actual Communists in places like the Soviet Union and China, so you are aware that these nice attitudes probably would not have made nice policy.
Glad to see you weren’t so deluded as I may have believed. But I still think you may give the Communists far too much benefit of doubt.
Well, who knows. Our victory in WWII wasn’t preordained. Nor was the survival of our allies. And the Soviets could well have become a nuclear power before us - especially with the help of captured German scientists.
Moreover, the Nationalist Chinese held on as long as they did only because they were getting massive amounts of help - from the Red Army. If Stalin had helped Mao instead of Chiang Kai-shek, he would have likely had Red China much sooner - and one that was an ally and not a rival.