@dervish
I don't doubt any of what you say about the corruption you experienced in the Eastern Bloc. It's been pretty well documented here for years and years.

I have a good amount of friends from that part of the world too, though most of them are younger and were in grade school during the fall of the Berlin Wall. But another guy about my age who is an architect who grew up in Serbia I think, spoke about going to college for free and getting a flat down by the seaside, all paid for by the government. I can think of a Russian girl roommate who translated a brief phone conversation with her grandmother in which she admitted she longed for the days of communism. Paul Robeson stood so tall, to powerfully and eloquently sing its praises, and paid dearly for it by being hounded and hunted by the fascist thugs of the FBI and CIA. Cuba has one of the greatest healthcare systems in the world and is a leader in organic farming and green energy (as is Russia).

Thing is we never hear the other side of communism. Of course even saying that, to American ears (though not at C99), puts one on the defensive right away. It must be said first that all economic and governing systems are subject to corruption, at varying degrees. One could very easily make the argument that capitalism has negated democracy entirely. It's beyond a shadow of a doubt that America is a complete fascist oligarchy that does a really good job pretending it isn't. But the fact remains - it is. No amount of Exceptionalism and Enlightenment propaganda and myth-making can cover that up. The courts, politicians, police, corporations, government agencies are all corrupt. It's all out in the open now, and has been for a long time to anyone who has really been paying attention.

The Communist experiments in Russia, China and Cuba were each different. One thing that can't be ignored is that the system of communism saved the world from Nazi domination. Fact is without the planned economy of Russia enabling them to push back on the monster war machine of the Nazis, not even the joint forces of the US and UK would have been enough to defeat them. No Western country was equipped to churn out the artillery and war machines at the rate they were, nor give of their sons and daughters (20 million died), which were the deciding factors. Russia won the Second World War because it had an economy that could produce large scale in every way. However, each of those communist experiments suffered under despotic totalitarianism that tore away at the utopianism.

In principle communism is a beautifully high-minded ideal that speaks to a universal brotherhood in which every human being is dignified with food, clothing and shelter. The very etymology of the word is all contains the cornerstone of society: community, to commune, communicate, common man, etc. America has invested perhaps billions of dollars in smearing and fear-mongering it to its citizens relentlessly for a century now.

That said, I don't know how much I'd personally like living in a society that I imagine to be (and have seen relics of in person) that drab kind of, pre-planned housing, commerce and infrastructure. At the same time, as I mentioned, I'd very much like to have the government supply many if not all of the basic necessities to modern living. Which ones to supply is a debate to have. But I know even conservative folks who think a lot more sectors perhaps should not be in private hands.

Socialism works. It need not be the full state ownership of most everything by the State as Communism is. But I'm all for taking production for lots of sectors out of the hands of private industry and into the governments. Capitalism created the middleman, and all of its subcontractors. Graft and extortion exist wherever the judiciary can be bought and sold.

It lightens the load for people, by stemming poverty, sickness, making healthcare and higher education a right and not a privilege, which reduces cost of living. It was pretty much agreed upon across Europe following a second brutal continental bloodshed spree that governments had better begin quickly to ensure to their fatigued and shocked citizens the prominence of social programs that took care of everyone. Sure, friends from those countries do say you could be waiting for an operation for some time while priority patients take precedence. But the fact remains no one lives in the shadow of being foreclosed upon for a medial emergency. Add to that, we currently live in a country in which college students are holding ONE TRILLION DOLLARS of student debt. These things are totally unconscionable.

As far as bureaucracies go, the "free market" and private ownership of all sectors in a capitalist society results in just a different form of it. Private enterprise has expertly finagled a position in which they're protected from the public by archaic fine print contracts that are compulsory if you want what they're offering. And because capitalism always manifests into monopoly and concentrated wealth that power is used to further loosen the laws to their benefit and be able to win games of attrition in which they throw endless money at any case. As MLK said, "Justice delayed in justice denied." Point is there's no real recourse anymore in the American justice system. It's a rich man's domain. They clutter up the court dockets with bogus, frivolous cases in order to mar the institution further.

You can find landlords all over this country too, and especially in NYC, who engage in the same kind of graft, bribery and lawlessness. Money buys yourself out of accountability, whether in Bucharest or Boston.

Personally for me I'd rather not have to look around for everyday items such as toilet paper, trash bags, plastic cups, napkins, etc. If there was a local gov't store that sold this crap at a fraction of the price I'd buy most of it there. Plus, many of these things are owned by pure scumbags like the Koch Bros. Just look into the holdings of the richest people in the country and they own all of these industries. What better bonus from government ownership could there be than putting these bastards out of business?

I also look at the way socialist governments handle the beginnings and endings of life. In the Netherlands when a couple has a baby they are visited by home helpers from the State, who come bearing a care package box with all the necessities you'll need. As a recent father I know how disorienting the whole thing can be (and still is). It's the most basic fact of life - we're all born. And the onus on those people charged with caring and nurturing that baby can be quite overwhelming at times. To have someone come to your house (if you'd like) and help with the cleaning, organizing, transition would be such a welcomed relief. Yet we don't do anything of the sort. Child care, paid leave for a mother, and some for the father? Doesn't exist in a the cutthroat American capitalist society. Not only that, we make all those things infinitely more difficult and very expensive. It's a Profit>People system here, and I'm sick of it.

Why have we not figured this stuff out? Same goes for funeral expenses. Everyone's gonna die. It's traumatic enough for those who have to fly by the seat of their pants having to get all that person's affairs in order, account for the whole dizzying burial, and hidden costs involved. Why do we still not have a society in which all of this stuff is figured out in order to ease the burden - especially when it's another of many things that everyone will experience?

What if we could marshal the world into a communistic-minded unity to corral all industry in the world to act swiftly to turn back climate change, by developing wind and solar power, organic farming and more efficient city planning?

If it's communism to want such things, then I'll take it.

My point is, I'm less interested in semantics than in rational, empathetic and compassionate action. What then are we to do?

regarding the government making diapers, etc.

I lived in eastern Europe under communism, and helped to destroy it. It was no system for humans. The idea is good, and angels could probably pull it off, but humans are too corrupt and self-centered to ever manage a system like that.

The corruption was so thick and obvious that you could cut it with a knife. Bureaucrats would laugh in your face if you asked them to do their job. Imagine waiting fifteen years for a government issued apartment, only to realize that once you got it, the water pipes and electricity had all been intentionally sabotaged. The same guys who sabotaged your flat would then offer to make it right for a very hefty fee, after hours and under the table. The bribes had to be factored into every transaction, and to afford the bribes, you had to come up with some corruption of your own.

The strikes and all are fine, but government actually controlling the means of production is ludicrous, and any who would support that severely under-estimate the amount of corruption that governments typically engage in.

@Timmethy2.0

The insurrections have come, finally. At such a pace and in so many countries, since 2008, that the whole structure of this world seems to be disintegrating, piece by piece. Ten years ago, predicting an uprising would have exposed you to the snickers of the seated ones; now it’s those who announce a return to order who make themselves look foolish. Nothing more solid, more self-assured, we were told, than the Tunisia of Ben Ali, the busy Turkey of Erdogan, social-democratic Sweden, Ba’athist Syria, Quebec on tranquilizers, or the Brazil of beaches, the Bolsa Familia, and peace-keeping police units. We’ve seen what followed. Stability is finished. In politics, too, they’ve learned to think twice before awarding a triple A...

The insurrections have come, but not the revolution. Rarely has one seen, as we have these past few years, in such a densely-packed timespan, so many seats of power taken by storm, from Greece to Iceland. Occupying plazas in the very heart of cities, pitching tents there, erecting barricades, kitchens, or makeshift shelters, and holding assemblies will soon be part of the political reflex, like the strike used to be. It seems that the epoch has even begun to secrete its own platitudes, like that All Cops Are Bastards (ACAB) which a strange internationale emblazons on the rough walls of cities, from Cairo to Istanbul, and Rome to Paris or Rio, with every thrust of revolt.

But however great the disorders in this world may be, the revolution always seems to choke off at the riot stage. At best, a regime change satisfies for an instant the need to change the world, only to renew the same dissatisfaction. At worst, revolution serves as a stepping stone for those who speak in its name but only think of liquidating it. In places, France for example, the nonexistence of revolutionary forces with enough confidence in themselves clears the way for those whose profession is precisely to feign self-confidence, and offer it up as a spectacle: the fascists. Helplessness is embittering.

Then the truth about what we're up against, and need to make clear to ourselves:

Like any advertising slogan, the catchphrase “We are the 99%” owes its effectiveness not to what it says but to what it doesn’t say. What it doesn’t say is the identity of the powerful 1%. What characterizes the 1% is not their wealth—in the United States the wealthy are far more than 1%—it’s not their celebrity—they tend to be discreet, and nowadays who doesn’t have a right to their fifteen minutes of fame? What characterizes the 1% is that they are organized. They even organize in order to organize the lives of others. The truth of this slogan is quite cruel, and it’s that the number doesn’t matter: one can be 99% and still be completely dominated. Conversely, the collective lootings of Tottenham are a sufficient demonstration that one ceases to be poor as soon as one begins to get organized. There is a considerable difference between a mass of poor people and a mass of poor people determined to act together.

Organizing has never meant affiliation with the same organization. Organizing is acting in accordance with a common perception, at whatever level that may be. Now, what is missing from the situation is not “people’s anger” or economic shortage, it’s not the good will of militants or the spread of critical consciousness, or even the proliferation of anarchist gestures. What we lack is a shared perception of the situation. Without this binding agent, gestures dissolve without a trace into nothingness, lives have the texture of dreams, and uprisings end up in schoolbooks.

The daily profusion of news, whether alarming or merely scandalous, shapes our conception of a generally unintelligible world. Its chaotic look is the fog of war behind which it is rendered unassailable. Its ungovernable appearance helps to make it governable in reality. There is the ruse. By adopting crisis management as a technique of government, capital has not simply replaced the cult of progress with the blackmail of threatened catastrophe; it has arrogated the strategic intelligence of the present, the general assessment of the operations that are under way. This move must be countered. As far as strategy is concerned, it’s a matter of getting two steps ahead of global governance. There’s not a crisis that we would need to get out of, there’s a war that we have to win.

A shared understanding of the situation cannot emerge from one text alone, but requires an international discussion. And for a discussion to take place, statements need to be offered, this being one. We have subjected the revolutionary tradition and positions to the touchstone of the historical situation and sought to cut the thousand ideal threads that keep the Gulliver of revolution attached to the ground. We have groped for the passageways, the gestures, and the thoughts that might allow us to extract ourselves from the impasse of the present. There’s no revolutionary movement without a language that can capture the state we find ourselves in as well as the fissure of possibility running through it. What follows is a contribution to its elaboration. To that end, our text is appearing in eight languages and on four continents at once. If we are everywhere, if we are legion, then we must now organize ourselves, worldwide.

Here's the complete chapter headings:

1: Merry Crisis and Happy New Fear

1. Crisis Is a Mode of Government.

2. The Real Catastrophe Is Existential and Metaphysical.

3. The Apocalypse Disappoints

2: They Want to Oblige Us to Govern. We Won't Yield to that Pressure

1. Characteristic Features of Contemporary Insurrections.

2. There’s No Such Thing as a Democratic Insurrection.

3. Democracy Is Just Government in Its Pure State.

4. Theory of Destitution.

3: Power is Logistic. Block Everything!

1. Power Now Resides in Infrastructures.

2. On the Difference Between Organizing and Organizing Oneself.

3. On Blockage.

4. On Investigation.

4: Fuck Off Google

1. There are no “Facebook revolutions”, but there is a new science of government, cybernetics

2. War against all things smart!

3. The Poverty of Cybernetics

4. Techniques against Technology.

5: let's disappear

1: A Strange Defeat

2. Pacifists and Radicals - an infernal couple

3. Government as counter-insurgency

4. Ontological asymmetry and happiness

6: Our Only Homeland: Childhood

1. There Is No “Society” to Be Defended or Destroyed.

2. Selection Needs to Be Turned into Secession.

3. There Are No “Local Struggles,” but a War of Worlds.

7: Omnia Sunt Communia

1. The Commune Is Coming Back.

2. Inhabiting as a Revolutionary.

3. Defeating the Economy.

4. Taking Part in a Shared Power.

8: Today Libya, Tomorrow Wall Street

1. A History of Fifteen Years.

2. Pulling Free from the Attraction of the Local.

3. Building a Force That Is Not an Organisation.

4. Taking Care of Our Power.

Dedicated,

To those for whom the end of a civilization is not the end of the world;

To those who see insurrection first of all as a breach in the organized reign of stupidity, lies, and confusion;

To those who discern, behind the thick fog of “crisis,” a theater of operations, maneuvers, strategems—and hence the possibility of a counterattack;

To those who strike blows;

To those watching for the right moment;

To those looking for accomplices;

To those who are deserting;

To those who keep going;

To those getting organized;

To those wanting to build a revolutionary force, revolutionary because it’s sensitive;

This modest contribution to an understanding of our time.

The billionaires see no national borders they just see things to buy and rule and play with. We need to not be played with the nationalism shit and we need to coordinate.