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Random Political Q&A

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14:42 / 14.03.06

Like the similar threads in the Conversation, Head Shop, and pretty much every other forum, this is a thread dedicated to asking questions you're too baffled/lazy/distracted/unequipped to answer for yourself, in the hopes that Barbelith's Big Brain will deliver some kind of satisfaction and possibly enlightenment.

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I'd like to start with an inaugural question which has bugged me for a while, but just not enough to actually spend a few minutes on Google.

Why are there Maoists in Nepal? and, as a corollary, what does it mean to be a Maoist today, now that the big dude is dead and China seems to formally stutter and look pointedly out the window when someone brings up the Cultural Revolution?

15:19 / 14.03.06

It isn't just Nepal, India has had recent trouble with Maoist rebels too...

It seems that Maoist rebels are seeking a continuing expansion of China's borders and influence...

19:54 / 14.03.06

They're not just a different flavor of communist?

22:46 / 14.03.06

A tricky question and one that is beyond my limited knowledge... Certainly I don't recall hearing about Maoist insurgents in China itself, which does not mean they are not there...

03:29 / 15.03.06

i always wanna know the derivation of 'republican' and 'conservative', terms used to name the political parties in the u.s. i come from australia and our 'conservative' politics is more or less their 'republican' party. what gives?

as a very well known, if not well regarded [very] conservative here once said, please explain?

s'funny the terms for political stances differing across the world and we sort of expect we can use 'our' term and everyone will understand who we mean...

03:30 / 15.03.06

oh, and good thread by the way, grant...

*

04:28 / 15.03.06

Astrojax, there is no "conservative" party in the US. There is the Republican Party (aka GOP, which actually does stand for Grand Old Party), and the Democratic Party. Conservative and liberal describe ideologies... and not very well.

05:31 / 15.03.06

I'm assuming the Maoists rebels in Nepal come from the fact that China borders Nepal... Maybe they were just inspired by Mao, and his whole rural and Asian version of communism. I always assumed they had a more direct connection with China, but wikipedia seems to suggest otherwise...

And while Conservative and Liberal seem to be fairly stable labels, as far as I know, the political meaning of being Democrat and Republican changes every few decades. Both parties stood for different things in the 1930s, the 1860s, etc. etc.

(not to make any jokes about how hard it is to imagine the current day Republicans as the ones who represented abolition or anything...)

05:38 / 15.03.06

Maoists are their own special breed of Communism. Based on Leninist-Stalinism and very militant.

05:43 / 15.03.06

Oh yeah Maoism focuses on a peasants revolt rather than a revolt of the industrial proletariat. My understanding is because Communists in China were forced to the countryside and began thier revolution there.

08:56 / 15.03.06

So are the Maoists also fighting an insurgency within China? Would we be able to find out if they were? Has anyone asked the Maoists? From all reports they actually seem quite keen to convert rather than kill... Former Monty Python star was abducted for a short time by Maoists while travelling and filming in Nepal...

10:12 / 15.03.06

Well officilly the Communist Party is still Maoist or believes in "Mao Tsetung Thought", but after Deng took over the party, they sort of dropped the Mao cult of personality. Deng created all the market reforms they have today (he and Mao didn't really get along I gather). They also like to say "Communist with Chinese tendencies" or something like that. In the HeyDey of Mao's chairmanship everybody was expected to carry "The Quotations from Chairman Mao Tsetung" aka "The Little Red Book" with them (I picked up a copy a few days ago). It's the most published book in the world, but only because the Chinese government printed billions of them.

Maoism also has alot of military strategy and philosophy in it, most of it is in The Little Red Book. Full of stuff like "Power emanates from the barrel of a gun". That is sort of what differentiates it from Marxist-Leninism and other Socialisms/Communisms.

I think what appeals in Nepal and places like that is the emphasis on peasant revolt and continuing revolution. Where pure Marxism supposes that a developed Capitalism must exist before Socialism and then eventual evolution into Communism, Maoism sort of skips the developed capitalism and Socialism steps. Which might appeal to places where Capitalism is not developed.

The Revolutionary Communist Party in the US is Maoist if anyone cares. They are very annoyingly fond of spelling America "AmeriKKKa" which can just get tedious. Mike Tyson has a tattoo of Mao on his arm.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

10:18 / 15.03.06

WRT the "republican"/"conservative" thing, it's also worth bearing in mind that in the UK, where we have a monarchy, those identifying ideologically as "republicans" tend to be on the left, whereas big-C "Conservatives" (or Tories) are largely opposed to small-r republicanism, though often in broad agreement with the big-R Republican party in the States.

11:07 / 15.03.06

This from Wikipedia:

The term 'Tory' originates from the Exclusion Bill crisis of 1678-1681 - the Whigs were those who supported the exclusion of the Roman Catholic Duke of York from the thrones of England, Ireland and Scotland, and the Tories were those who opposed it. Both names were originally insults: a "whiggamor" was a cattle driver, and a "tory" was an Irish term for an outlaw.

The Whigs became the Liberals in the 19th century but were marginalized in the 20th century and have since been superceded by Labour (a political party that is only 100 years old) as one of the two biggest parties...

11:43 / 15.03.06

assayudin, you rock. I just made the connection between the Sendero Luminoso and the Nepalese -- rural peasant revolt. Perfect sense.

11:48 / 15.03.06

Oh, and sleaze -- I know I've heard about Chinese officials in Tibet arresting Nepalese insurgents who were trying to tote guns back to Nepal.

13:34 / 15.03.06

Oh, and sleaze -- I know I've heard about Chinese officials in Tibet arresting Nepalese insurgents who were trying to tote guns back to Nepal.

The Chinese see the Maoists in Nepal as a de-stabilizing element in the region. I'm sort of lost on that one. But then they sort of wish North Korea would just piss off too, I'm told. Probably don't want India to get all froggy, what with having Maoist guerillas there and all.

Glad I could be of assistance!

Tom Paine's Bones

16:02 / 15.03.06

I'd link that to the old Stalinist doctrine of 'building socialism in one country'. Essentially, if that's your aim, than the last thing you want is 'ultra-leftists' destabilising the political situation, as it gets in the way of keeping your own country secure. The role of the Communist Party in the Spanish Civil War is a good example of this doctrine in practice.

Why does libertarianism seem to only be a significant political force in the US?

16:32 / 15.03.06

how big would you say it is?

Tom Paine's Bones

16:47 / 15.03.06

I'm not sure exactly (I'm not from the US) but it seems to be big enough to have representation at local government level. It certainly seems to be as big as many of the European Green Parties are.

16:57 / 15.03.06

There was a libertarian in Congress I think, and a couple state governors (one in Alaska).

Why only in the US? It's *probably* an organizational thing, but I'm not sure.

17:06 / 15.03.06

Libertarians in Costa Rica.

Ron Paul ran as Libertarian for President, but is now a Republican Congressman.

I lied about the governors, though. It's just state representatives.

23:45 / 15.03.06

Libertarian in the US is Anarcho-Capitalist (Minarchist)not Libertarian-Socialist. Different from the way the term is used or understood in Europe, I believe. Mostly they're nuts (at least the party is). Big on Gun issues and anti-taxation. And ther're not that big, I'd say the Greens are probably bigger.

Bubblegum Death

00:23 / 16.03.06

According to wikipedia, the Greens have 305,000 registered voters and the Libertarians have 200,000. But also according to wikipedia, the Libertarians are the largest third party.

Libertarians have been descibed as "Republicans who smoke pot".

04:32 / 17.03.06

Libertarians have been descibed as "Republicans who smoke pot".

Really? I see them as Conservatives who haven't been tainted by the Republican party.

07:25 / 17.03.06

Really? I see them as Conservatives who haven't been tainted by the Republican party.

I woudn't call them conservatives in the social sense though. They're generally socially permissive as well as economically permissive. For instance they are for Gay marriage, (or at least not opposed as a party), oppose drug laws, the PATRIOT act, gun laws etc... but they also oppose teh Department of Education, the EPA, Social Security, OSHA and pretty much any other Government agency that keeps Capitalism in check.

They can speak better for themselves though

12:48 / 17.03.06

Coming as I do from a land without a libertarian party, I have a bit of a problem getting my head what appears to me to be the central dichotomy of libertarianism.

It seems from the above link that Libertarians are fighting for greater individual freedoms and responsibilities... but I saw very little in the way of suggestions of what would safeguard these freedoms and responsibilities... An independant and supreme judiciary, well-funded police force and armed services would seem to both run counter to to libertarian values...

13:56 / 17.03.06

The question should be, why would a VIGILANT population, armed with melee weapons and sawn off shotguns need a police force?

14:00 / 17.03.06

Well as I understand it, the central Libertarian doctrine in its more extreme form is not so much 'freedom for all' as 'freedom for whoever can fight for it' ; I think essentially they would prefer to see individuals and small communities protecting their own rights using personal wealth and influence, property, manpower, guns and whatever else, as opposed to having it guaranteed via the meddling and corrupting power of centralised government.

An unsavoury hint of social darwinism in there I think, and maybe even a weird return to feudalism in this proposed Libertarian-Capitalist utopia..?

14:21 / 17.03.06

On the nosey.

There's a certain luxury-bunker mentality... they're behind various island-nation projects, including a couple that are basically super-sized luxury liners. Cruise ships large enough to be declared countries.

They're also attempting to take over New Hampshire. Go figure.

15:10 / 17.03.06

There must be more to it than that... otherwise it just stikes me as the credo of a petulant middle-class teenager than a fully form ideology...

15:14 / 17.03.06

Well as I understand it, the central Libertarian doctrine in its more extreme form is not so much 'freedom for all' as 'freedom for whoever can fight for it' ; I think essentially they would prefer to see individuals and small communities protecting their own rights using personal wealth and influence, property, manpower, guns and whatever else, as opposed to having it guaranteed via the meddling and corrupting power of centralised government.

An unsavoury hint of social darwinism in there I think, and maybe even a weird return to feudalism in this proposed Libertarian-Capitalist utopia..?

And from the Libertarians I've met I'd say this is exactly what most of them are into. There are a few few lefties as well, but they are in it for the Marijuana law reform I think.

Here's a few famous Libertarians:

Von Mises
Ayn Rand
Robert Anton Wilson
Penn Jillette
Tucker Carlson
Michael Badnarik

Tom Paine's Bones

22:17 / 17.03.06

A libertarian on another forum I frequent is currently happily arguing that, yes, actually, it is a unreasonable restriction of free speech to stop people shouting "fire" in a crowded theatre.

What I have noticed, at least from Internet libertarians (which is where I suspect I got the false idea that they only really existed in the US) is that a reasonable number of them seem to abandon their libertarianism when it comes to the issue of abortion.

Not quite sure how that works.

"I hate big government. But think the government should control women's reproductive rights".

All Acting Regiment

02:25 / 18.03.06

Amusingly, one of those libertarian island websites appears to feature an aspirational landscape screenshot from the game Far Cry. Less amusing when you look at the tacit asumption here (that there won't be any pesky native cultures already on the island to get in the way of freedom oriented people, who, "although it is really nothing more than a Yahoo chat group at the moment, will soon make plans to leave the sheep behind" ).

Does anyone have the link for the ocean liner they were going to turn into a free state?

18:58 / 19.07.06

As an American I know I've been feed a bunch of garbage about world politics and so I've been trying to educate myself.

Over here in the Israel terrorism thread I was reminded of a similarity I'd like better insight into.

It appears to me that the conflict in Northern Ireland has greatly reduced in my lifetime. While I understand that it is not the same as the conflict in the Middle East I've been wondering for some time if there are useful lessons to be learned and applied from it.

I've read a lot of articles and spoken with many native Irish about the identification with Palestine. Can anyone with more insight speak on this?

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