Can you IMAGINE a socialist society, as John Lennon did? Will you work for it?

[elvis]

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one​

Lennon is my favorite singer. Having said that, his politics were bullshit. Imagine has to be the funniest video of all time. Preaching communism on that grand piano in that huge mansion that sits on 99 acres.

 

[Derek_Plumber]

With socialism, you just change one aristocracy for another.

Do you have any idea what an "aristocracy" is? Try looking up the meaning before you use a word.

Are you really that big an idiot? Stupid infantile moron. Go look those up. I forgot you don't need to you probably have a mirror.

Got no time for the likes of you.

Don't forget your blood pressure medicine Tech_Esq Repub!

 

[Sarah G]

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one​

Not certain if a Utopian society will ever happen no matter how hard anyone actually works for it. People just aren't wired that way, it's a dream.

That is one of the cutest pictures of John Lennon ever though.

 

[garyd]

Socialism is based upon the rediculous notion that the only difference between human beings and ants is the style of governance under which they operate.

Under socialism there is no economic freedom and your bosses are every bit the asshole they are now and you always have the same asshole at the very top. If I am the slave of but one man I can easily get beyond his reach. However if I am the slave of the government where can I go for relief?

 

[JW Frogen]

John “imagined” a world with no possessions but he was certainly possessed by his possesions.

 

[Newby]

Nope. When we become a socialist society I will quit work altogether because somebody else will do enough work to support me too!

Where did the idea ever come from that socialism has anything to do with lazy people getting a free ride?

That is capitalism where the American aristocracy rides on the back of working Americans.

Who gets to relax on the golf course while you work? Socialism is a no brainer.

Better lives for everyone, and the fat-cats are gone.

The only "free ride" goes to a kid like this because his dad gives it to him.​

​

​

With socialism, you just change one aristocracy for another. The only reason to support it is that you are on the outs now and you think that you have a chance of being on the ins with the new guys. If that isn't why, you're simply a fool.

They are fools, as I said earlier, they put their head in the collective sand and deny basic human nature. There will never be a society without classes. Look at how one of their heroes, Stalin, institued a supposed 'classless' society at the point of a gun, and even then they couldn't do it.

 

[Agnapostate]

Still the standard drivel, I see. I don't expect we'll ever be encountering a rightist informed enough to make valid comments about socialist political economy.

 

[Newby]

You wouldn't be homeless and you wouldn't starve or die due to lack of medical care if you didn't work, but you wouldn't have much more than a place to live, food, and medical care. If you wanted a nice place to live, furniture, to eat out, to travel, to own a computer or cellphone, to access the internet from home, to own books or gear or anything beyond the necesseties you'd have to work. Not to mention that your community might not take very friendly to you if you didn't contribute, which working would contribute directly TO your community.

Congrats CMM, you just created classes......

 

[Newby]

Look, the USSR, Cuba, China, Venezuela, Sweden, etc. are not true socialist economies and the governments were hardly what Marxism or more recent socialist philosophies encompass.

Under a truly socialist system you'd still have to work. Its just that you would own part of the company where you worked. You'd have a stake in it. You wouldn't be homeless and you wouldn't starve or die due to lack of medical care if you didn't work, but you wouldn't have much more than a place to live, food, and medical care. If you wanted a nice place to live, furniture, to eat out, to travel, to own a computer or cellphone, to access the internet from home, to own books or gear or anything beyond the necesseties you'd have to work. Not to mention that your community might not take very friendly to you if you didn't contribute, which working would contribute directly TO your community.

You wouldn't be working for a paycheck, you'd be working to better your community; you wouldn't be working for wealthy people who pay you as little as they can get away with, you'd be working for you and your community, you'd work because you wanted a better life and a meaningful one instead of clinging to an unrealistic dream that you'll one day be wealthy and own lots of stuff. Life wouldn't be focused on the material but on the experiential.

It wouldn't be that you graduate high school and go to college to get a job, then get a job and work until your an elderly person and then retire for a little while before you die; it would be that you graduate school and go to college to learn, then you work because you want to be a part of your community and contribute and benefit from living in an organized society (because why live in one otherwise?) and when you got older you'd retire and not worry about paying the bills or dying because medicare won't cover your healthcare, but instead you get to take a different role in contributing to your community and enjoy your golden years.

And throughout your life, instead of work being your focus, you're able to spend more time with your wife or husband and with your kids as they grow up instead of working all the time until they grow up and move away. You won't worry about being fired because you want a raise but only because you don't do your job well. And you won't have to worry that you make so little compared to the cost of living that in order to maintain a quality of life and own a home you have to indebt yourself for 30 years or more.

It isn't perfect, but its not about money. Its about life, community, freedom, and experience. Research it. Stop assuming you know what socialism is because you don't. It hasn't yet existed in the world. If you only realized what the benefits of socialism truly are and give up your materialistic and unrealistic dreams of wealth and instead lived each day as a meaningful member of your community without undue worry about financial disaster because you lose your job and/or your house loses its value or you or someone in your family gets really sick. Let go of this idea that there is no competition in a socialist economy or that you don't have to work at all and can just leach of the system. People do that now in any system, both the very poor and the very wealthy. But if we got rid of the wealthy, you leach far more than the poor ever could, at least your tax dollars wouldn't go to already wealthy and would only go to the poor and the needy.

And how do you plan to force people into your 'perfect world' whenever they don't consider it theirs? What happens when their goals are different than yours? You're just going to magically erase all materialistic tendancies from human nature? You're insane if you think what you just stated is even remotely possible. And the reason it isn't possible is because of the DIVERSE nature of people, the very thing that you progressives embrace. Ironic, isn't it?

 

[Big Black Dog]

Where did the idea ever come from that socialism has anything to do with lazy people getting a free ride?

That is capitalism where the American aristocracy rides on the back of working Americans.

Who gets to relax on the golf course while you work? Socialism is a no brainer.

Better lives for everyone, and the fat-cats are gone.

I'm a bit offended by your "attitude" towards people who have been successful in their lives. I worked very hard for the biggest part of my life to be able to retire at age 55. I wasn't able to do it until age 56 though because of the economy downturn at the time. My position in life was not made on the backs of others as you put it. It was created by my own hard work and the way I managed my finances. You find fault with what I do with my spare time now while you work? Well, bozo, I earned every minute of my spare time. What you do with your life is your own business. It isn't my fault that you have a lesser station in life than I do. Maybe it's because you weren't as resourceful or simply didn't know how to manage your money. Don't know and I don't care. Your attitude points towards your own shortcomings and not mine.

 

[Derek_Plumber]

Socialism is based upon the rediculous notion that the only difference between human beings and ants is the style of governance under which they operate.

Under socialism there is no economic freedom and your bosses are every bit the asshole they are now and you always have the same asshole at the very top. If I am the slave of but one man I can easily get beyond his reach. However if I am the slave of the government where can I go for relief?

I don't know what you have been smoking, but you must have been pretty high when you were reading about socialism. Here is a new word for you to try when you come down, "Encyclopedia." Come down off your high and read the encyclopedia, that's E-N-C-Y-C-L-O-P-E-D-I-A. Take the book with a big "S" on it.

 

[Derek_Plumber]

John “imagined” a world with no possessions but he was certainly possessed by his possesions.

Can you back that up? I Googled John Lennon on materialism, and all I could come up with was this quote,

"If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there'd be peace."

Don't see anything there to support your statement. You got nothing. Your a Rush Limbaugh wannabe. Just another ugly Republican big mouth making it up as you go along.

 

[Derek_Plumber]

They are fools, as I said earlier, they put their head in the collective sand and deny basic human nature. There will never be a society without classes. Look at how one of their heroes, Stalin, institued a supposed 'classless' society at the point of a gun, and even then they couldn't do it.

Hey moron YOU are the one talking Stalin and 'classless' society, not the socialists. We also do not talk one party government. We believe in democracy. Where do you get your information? Oh, I get it. You are another Republican who does no research and makes it up as you go. Stalin....what bull shit.

With socialism, as has been proven in the European socialist democracies everyone gets a better standard of living because we don't have to carry those useless fat-cats any more. They get to go to work! Do you think Newby is a fat-cat? He's at least an ass kisser!

 

[Newby]

I think you're right up there with Bozo on the idiot scale. Good job.

 

[Political Junky]

Coloradomtnman needs to move closer to sea level. Socialism may sound lovely in a song but it sucks in reality. Have you ever been in any socialist countries? If so, I don't think you'd really want that for America.

Have you been in a Socialist country?
Sweden is a flourishing country ... just an example.

 

[Derek_Plumber]

You're just going to magically erase all materialistic tendancies from human nature? You're insane if you think what you just stated is even remotely possible. And the reason it isn't possible is because of the DIVERSE nature of people, the very thing that you progressives embrace. Ironic, isn't it?

No one is going to get rid of any "materialistic tendancies," but greed will be another matter. For the average working person, once the fat-cats are ousted, there will be more to go around.

 

[Derek_Plumber]

Designed by Dr Joseph Guillotine, a man described as kindly and who wanted to make execution more humane, the guillotine quickly became a symbol of tyranny during the French Revolution.

Victims were placed on a bench, face down, and their necks positioned between the uprights.

The actual beheading was very quick - often to the gathered crowd's disgust - taking less than half a second from blade drop to the victim's head rolling into the waiting basket.

However, debate rages over whether the quickness of the execution was humane or not, as many doctors put forward the notion that it could take up to 30 seconds before the victim lost consciousness.

That piece of gruesome news would not have worried the crowd, which continually called for aristocratic and royalist blood to be spilt.

An estimated 40,000 people travelled on the tumbrils through Paris to die under Madame Guillotine.

 

[Coloradomtnman]

Coloradomtnman needs to move closer to sea level. Socialism may sound lovely in a song but it sucks in reality. Have you ever been in any socialist countries? If so, I don't think you'd really want that for America.

Ha ha. Big Black Dog needs to stop drinking out of the toilet and eating cat turds out of the litterbox!

Like I've said, true socialism has never existed. When people say things like "Socialism! Just look at Russia or China!", its like JBeukema saying "Christianity! Just look at the Spanish Inquisition or the witch trials of puritan New England!" Stalin was to socialism what Jim Jones was to Christianity. Does that help put some perspective on it? I mean, where is there true capitalism? And would you want to live somewhere that practices true, laissez-faire, unregulated capitalism?

 

[Modbert]

Ha ha. Big Black Dog needs to stop drinking out of the toilet and eating cat turds out of the litterbox!

Like I've said, true socialism has never existed. When people say things like "Socialism! Just look at Russia or China!", its like JBeukema saying "Christianity! Just look at the Spanish Inquisition or the witch trials of puritan New England!" Stalin was to socialism what Jim Jones was to Christianity. Does that help put some perspective on it? I mean, where is there true capitalism? And would you want to live somewhere that practices true, laissez-faire, unregulated capitalism?

We did (the US), that's how we ended up where we are now.

 

[Coloradomtnman]

We did (the US), that's how we ended up where we are now.

That was the point I was trying to make, Robert. True capitalism didn't work because it was so cut-throat that people unionized and passed laws to protect themselves from how those with capital exploited those without. Ever seen, "There Will Be Blood"? That gives you an idea of what capitalism without regulation can be like. What we have now could be called "Compassionate capitalism" because it's not quite as amoral as it used to be in this country.

What is capital but money? I think we should just call capitalism money-ism because that's really what its all about.