Now you listen to me

[sathor]

Unbreakable union of freeborn republics
Great Russia has welded forever to stand!
Created in struggle by will of the peoples
United and mighty, our Soviet land!

CHORUS:

Glory to our great Motherland, mighty and free,

Bulwark of people, in brotherhood strong!

Oh! Party of Lenin! The strength of the people.

To Communism's triumph lead us on!

2.
Through tempests the sun rays of freedom have cheered us
Along the new path where great Lenin did lead!
To a righteous cause he raised up the people
Inspired them to labour and valorous deed!

CHORUS

3.
In the victory of Communism's deathless ideal,
We see the future of our dear land
And to her fluttering scarlet banner,
selflessly true, we always shall stand

Show me a country that had ideals so focused on THE PEOPLE anywhere else. If only we could try it in the west, it would succeed, and be the most beautiful and ever lasting government in the history of the world.

Comments

[chaos5023.livejournal.com]

Have you met The People?

[sathor.livejournal.com]

People keep telling me it gets so much better outside of this shithole, I keep thinking The People are better everywhere else...

Fuck, if they aren't, I suppose I shouldn't have a problem picking up an M16 and doing my duty for the country, eh?

[chaos5023.livejournal.com]

Your recurring military thing is completely insane.

The People are the same everywhere. Some places are better because there are more outliers there, either because there is just more populace for them to be 0.1% of or because there are reasons for outliers to congregate there.

[sendao.livejournal.com]

The People are idiots, but they're getting infected with intelligence more and more.

[noximist.livejournal.com]

You realize that the percentage of people who actually lived well under Communism in the USSR is much smaller than the percentage of people who live well in the US under capitalism, right? They said a lot of nice things about The People, then they killed any citizens who disagreed with them.

From a 2005 New York Times article:

"Forty million people moved out of poverty in Eastern Europe and the countries of the former Soviet Union from 1998 through 2003, leaving 61 million people still poor, the study found. The proportion of people living in poverty has fallen from one in five to about one in eight, household surveys of consumption on which the study is based show.

Economic growth and rising wages have been driving forces in the decline of poverty, with a strengthened social safety net playing a more modest role, the study found. It defined the poverty line as $2 or less a day, per person, double the usual global standard because of the added costs of heating and heavy clothing required for the cold climate in the countries involved."

And from The World Bank:

"According to figures published by the World Bank at the end of last year, 20 percent of the Russian population lives below the poverty line, which is defined as a monthly income of 1,000 roubles (less than 30 euros, or $38)."

You can't imagine the lifestyle most of the people over there led and lead; of the people I know who have left Russia (and there are a lot - UoT's Russian population is huge), the only ones who think highly of the country are the ones from Moscow, which is a relatively lucky and prosperous city. And Russia's a lot better off, on the whole, than Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, etc. Their economy is slowly rebounding, but it's going to take a long time.

I guess the question is, who could you ever trust to administer a Communist system? No one's done it even remotely well thus far, and the problem with politicians is that anyone who wants the job is the kind of person who shouldn't have it. You can't have a completely distributed government unless you want to return to small, tribal communities, which means that someone's going to be in charge... if you want a beautiful, well-managed Communist society, who would it be?

[sathor.livejournal.com]

Do you really believe that capitalism is the reason our countries are so wealthy and that we live well? I don't. I don't really believe it has anything to do with capitalism. I think it probably has more to do with the fact many of our corporations produce what we have overseas for far less, pushing down the countries it uses further. I can't really imagine our standards of living being all that much different under communism.

I read that NYT article as forty million people moved out of capitalist Russia after the fall of the USSR. Is it that surprising a "communist" country, although it certainly wasn't communist as per Lenin's vision, when switched to capitalism, suddenly burdens its people with great poverty? 90% of western wealth is in 10% of the hands roughly, that's a pretty significant burden, but we simply have more wealth as a whole. Switch the US's total wealth with Russia and what will happen?

What's so different about the world we live in? The people I worked with at the mill were living in poverty or close by US standards. Heat, shelter, water, food, maybe a little bit of entertainment. If you can buy that for 1,000 roubles a month in Russia, that's roughly what a thousand US dollars will get you over here and barely. 24% of the United States population in 2008 were under the age of 18, I'd assume the majority of them live in poverty as individuals, did The World Bank study adult population or total? The unemployment rate in the United States is roughly 8-10%, those are individuals without any income whatsoever, not even $1 a day. So, what, 34% of the US population individually in poverty at least? Not even counting those who are employed but still can't make ends meet.

Who can you trust to administer any system? The better question is, how necessary is it that the United States has a president at all? Communism in ideal form, to me, would be more like destroying the executive branch entirely and allowing only for a congress of people from across the country to govern it, a far more appropriate governing than a single individual elected by barely a majority in almost every case. Once the bi-polar nature of government has ceased (once the president is gone, you no longer ever have a single pole in power) it can begin to truly work towards good things for the people, and if it doesn't, the people can simply replace those who are not focused on their interests with someone who is. There's nothing inherently wrong with the idea of a communist democracy, in fact, I'd say it's closer to the dream than anything else. The military would not operate without congressional approval - there's a number of wars in our history that might've been avoided had that been the case.

But maybe you're right. This is the side I've taken, though. I've seen enough poverty my self to know that capitalism isn't as kind as some people seem to think. The people who labor, especially, the people who produce literally the vast majority of anything material that you have are the ones who are given the least in compensation. That hardly seems reasonable to me, and some day, that will end, either in bloody revolt or in the abolishing of that class thanks to technology. There are people who sit in offices all day who make hundreds of times what a hard working citizen does - that's not acceptable, because that bourgeois individual -has anything that he has because of laborers, not because of anything -he- has done himself-

Sometimes I think people begin to think shit just magically appears out of thin air in stores, physical infrastructure just magically appears too...and that because they have a job that pays ridiculously well, that they've done whatever they've done, they have a right to take -more- of that than the worker who helped to produce it -literally- with his own hands. To me, this is the highest insult to the entire working population, that individuals who do not work to produce directly are the ones who receive the most of what is produced. Absolutely ludicrous, noxi.

[sathor.livejournal.com]

I -know- it is. But I don't have fucking health insurance, I don't have any source of income, I'll be lucky if after my future college education I can pay off my debt, I have no guarantees...I'm sick of feeling like I'm stuck like that. I don't want to do menial task labor. I don't want to major in something just because I know it'll nearly guarantee me a decent job that I probably won't be happy in.

I might try and do one more year of college, maybe. If I don't like the way things look I will be shipping off. It's either that or straight to the military for me. Working around here, it'd take me forever to save enough money to leave, and then I have to pray I can survive wherever I end up. Things just aren't good. Besides that, there's quite a few expensive things I desire materially so I can actually pursue my art fully...and putting that off until I'm almost 30 seems unreasonable to my soul, so too does living at home with my parents and slowly saving for years to do the same thing.

Sigh.

[chaos5023.livejournal.com]

Nobody has any guarantees. I don't see how a course of action where it may turn out that it is your job to get killed really improves that. And I can't imagine what a rosy view you must have of the psychological demolishment and reprogramming you'll undergo, for you to be able to see it as something that will one day empower you to construct the life you want.

They'll probably beat the collectivism out of you, though, so that at least would be productive.

[chaos5023.livejournal.com]

Yes, capitalism is the reason capitalist countries prosper economically, because it's a system that tries to put the control of capital into the hands of people who know what to do with it, as opposed to collectives whose groupthink will only produce stasis at best.

You need to participate in some kind of Robert's-Rules-using organization so as to destroy your ridiculous faith in the ability of committees to make decisions.

That class-baiting propaganda about how the real work is done by the guy toting that bale is beyond retarded, too, even aside from having all the tread worn off its tires fifty years ago. Seriously, the guy who draws up the architectural plans for the building is a useless parasite because the guy hammering in the nails does the real work? Come on. The only point that rhetoric ever had was to incite guys who hammer nails for a living to be willing to beat people up for your cause, and it stopped working even for that purpose because it's transparently stupid.

[sathor.livejournal.com]

You know, I can concede in some respects, but there are some things I can't concede on, like inheritance and society's unwillingness to offer equal -opportunity- at the least.

[sathor.livejournal.com]

Although I have to admit, the more you talk about your feelings on politics, the more I feel like you believe in a sort of authoritarian rule...and you know, I don't necessarily disagree, but it's not a very popular ideal to be sure.

[chaos5023.livejournal.com]

Yeah, um, I can't really get with some kind of jealousy-driven economically totalitarian weirdness where people aren't allowed to help out their kids. Sorry. It's not your fault that your parents aren't rich, but it isn't Joe Trust-Fund's fault either.

[chaos5023.livejournal.com]

Surely the only authoritarian rule I could ever tolerate is my own.

[sathor.livejournal.com]

Now you sound like an anarchist!

Now maybe we've found somewhere we agree ;)

[chaos5023.livejournal.com]

I might be an anarchist in my heart, but never in my head. Anarchism, like communism, requires a level of cognizance, agency and general non-assholishness from people that is completely unreasonable to expect from most people, and the sort of cradle-to-grave thought control that would be necessary to impose those qualities on us is itself an unconscionable, inhuman atrocity. (Russia and China's half-assed failures at that kind of thing are bad enough; success would be infinitely worse.)

I'd be a libertarian, except that I believe the market needs the state to set the boundaries of where competition is allowed to go. Otherwise, the nature of the market is that if there is a business advantage to be gained by harvesting the organs of Bolivian orphans, eventually someone will harvest the organs of Bolivian orphans for business advantage, and everyone else will perforce begin harvesting the organs of Bolivian orphans or be driven out of business.

The state, however, needs to shut the fuck up about how I live my personal life.

[sathor.livejournal.com]

Well if I have a choice between shitty work that doesn't pay well and a fucking lifestyle I will hate, after all, it's not like I'm a ladies man and can have my insecurities and happiness helped out by getting continually laid (it would help)

As I am right now, I'm as good as dead. Nothing good in my life. My chances of dying in the military are smaller than as a civilian driver of vehicles.

It's the fucking pay man, it's so god damned good and I'll have some freedom when and if I get out. Sigh.

If I could just meet the fucking woman of my dreams this would be a simple fucking decision, but because everything in my life is so fucked right now it's leaning in a direction I'm not exactly happy about but at the same time curious and interested about.

[chaos5023.livejournal.com]

Is there really, truly no such thing as decent work that pays adequately and comes with a lifestyle you could tolerate? I mean, maybe I'm living in a rose-colored world because I can program computers, but it doesn't seem like it's that bad. I mean, if you worked as a technician in the recording industry, the work wouldn't be horrible, the pay would be passable, and the experience and social contact would dovetail with your artistic aspirations and help build your path to longer-term goals. I don't think getting some nice bachelor's degree in something relevant and getting into that sort of job is anywhere near beyond you.

[sathor.livejournal.com]

Unless you get a job with radio or in television work is freelance at best and intermittent...I'm not sure how well that would pan out for me. It would probably lead to the right connections, but that's a hard thing...my cousin is getting tutored by a grammy-winning composer, the college asked him to go back and teach courses in music theory (he's 20 years old.) His tutor told him that there's nothing more the college could teach him...basically what he was saying is that for him to do any better he has to get lucky and meet the right person.

Seems like a lot of things in life boil down to that. I just want some security, I want some money to play with soon, money I can invest in myself and my future. It's so hard to find that easily. College regardless means at least two more years, likely more...and plenty of debt to go along with it...no guarantees in life, I know. Bleh. I won't be able to afford a piano for years. I want a real one so badly.

So choices are military, philosophy, sound engineering, or shit work...

military, if i live through all four years...I could end up with close to $200,000 counting bonuses...and then future college is essentially free up to like $80,000...

I'd be able to get every piece of music equipment I want, save enough money where I can live securely anywhere for awhile and go back to college without any worries...

That's the good part about it, I know no one likes to hear that but for someone like me, with my choices of major and how risky they are...what other option do I have? Just take the leap of faith with whatever and pray?

[chaos5023.livejournal.com]

Yeah, sounds like a great deal, until you lose a leg or a hand or your dick to an IED, or what you thought was your four years of duty is up and you get stop-lossed, or your squad accidentally kills you in the course of hazing you for being a pussy commie "philosopher" instead of a real man like them, or whatever. But, tell you what, if you can watch The Hurt Locker and, within five minutes of the end of the movie, still say you want to join the military, then sure, go for it, I promise I won't give you any more shit.

It is a shame that the sound engineering work is apparently so spotty. I guess that's why the best DJ I know manages a Hot Topic. (Which works out really well for him, actually; part of the standard corporate-policy package is annual time off to tour with his band.)

You have lots of options, and there's no need to tell yourself a big story about your lack of choices in order to justify it if the military is the one you like best. Yes, if you don't want to do the slow grind that has you in your parents' house until you're 30, at some point you wind up having to take some sort of leap of faith. The military option is just as much of one as anything else; just in that case, it's not "get a degree and a bunch of debt and maybe you can have a job to go with them", it's "you'll definitely get a decent amount of money and educational benefits, and maybe you'll be alive and able to enjoy them when you do". And maybe the risks in the military aren't as bad as I think they are. The job risk isn't as bad as you think it is. You just get your degree, put all your shit in a bag and take a bus to New York or Chicago or Seattle or Atlanta or Austin or where-the-fuck-ever and hit the pavement. And if you need rent you take the first thing you can get, and if you don't like what you have you spend your off hours looking for something else, because this is not pissant rural Pennsylvania, there is A LOT of damned work to be done and never enough people to do it.

The immortal Jacob Clifton on the topic: "We dream of cages, where nothing is permitted. These dreams are lies. Jump."

[chaos5023.livejournal.com]

To expand slightly: the only reason anyone is ever unable to get work in the U.S. is because they want the work to be wherever's convenient for them. Or, in another formulation, the foundation of American economic opportunity is, and has been for sixty years, mobility.

[sathor.livejournal.com]

I can go anywhere, nothing tying me down...

Just no desirable skill set yet...and no money to travel just yet either...

Well, according to statistics, you actually have a greater chance of dying as a civilian than you do in the US military. That doesn't count injuries, though. There's a lot of bad things that can happen and it only takes one bullet well-aimed. Vice versa, of course. It's not even the body shots that will kill you, armor has gotten incredibly good. Some of the newer types can stop sniper rounds (not .50 cal) so I suppose the possibilities for death or maiming are mostly limb shots/head shots and explosives.

Considering I took a job piling lumber willingly, there can't be much I wouldn't be qualified for that doesn't require a degree. In fact, I could guarantee I'm a harder worker than most city boys simply for what I have experienced. I mean you are right...certainly a lot more jobs in a city. But the cost of living is a lot higher too. Can you live on 40 hours/week at minimum wage in a city? From what I've heard it's not possible. I suppose it probably wouldn't be hard to find two jobs, even if at minimum immediately upon getting into a city, but that's a ludicrous workload for anyone to maintain for long.

Everything is a risk. But to be honest, I'd rather do the college first, and then if things don't pan out, join the good ol' army at 28 or so. Won't be able to go special forces but 4 years in at 28 isn't that bad, and if i haven't managed to find happiness yet by then, no point in waiting around for that girl of my dreams...might as well take a risk and pay the debts off...and have some spending money to pursue other dreams...

I dunno Chaos. Everything seems so meaningless really. Philosophy, sound engineering, the whole bit. I really only ever found satisfaction in life when I was in love, and then I found satisfaction in everything. I'm not really sure what will lead to satisfaction now. Maybe it's just the lack of a sex life that's killing me. I suppose college might rectify that but if my history is any indication, doubtful at best :P Although I am better looking than I used to be.

It's not even that happiness is contingent on any thing really...it's almost like I'm afraid to take a risk in one direction because I'm afraid it will stop me from taking the others. There's only so much time.

[chaos5023.livejournal.com]

It seems strange to me to think that being able to make the music you do doesn't represent some kind of saleable skillset.

One person can live on minimum wage, in a city, barely, if they don't need a car and are extremely modest in their housing requirements. People tend to get roommates, which helps. But I don't think there's any great reason to be working minimum wage with a bachelor's degree.

But okay, so apparently what actually makes you happy is being in love. You don't need something to do so much as a reason to do it. That's useful information.

I thought you had already been at college for a while? Which makes me puzzled as to why you do not know that it is a smorgasbord of sexual and romantic options unparalleled in any other facet of our culture this side of Burning Man. Perhaps you weren't in a residential program. You do need to go there and live in a dorm, not commute. Trust me on this if in nothing else.

Gotta say, I believe I can speak without fear of contradiction when I say that college presents better romantic opportunities than the army.

And yeah, the thing about decisions is that you lose all the options you don't choose. That's why the word is assembled from Latin roots meaning "to cut away". The only trouble is, if you try to preserve all your options, you wind up getting none of them.

There's a mutating-meme story about how some person wants to go back to school or study French or whatever, but it'll take two or four or whatever years so they'll be 37 or whatever when they're done, and their friend is like, "and how old will be you be in four years if you don't do it"? Cutesy but valid.