Helpful Whispers TSP Broadcast - Today: Marx and Milograd
Posted by Helpful Whispers. April 25, 2013
FROM THE GOVERNMENT OF HELPFUL WHISPERS
A series of articles written by Helpful Whispers during the Milograd TSP Coup in 2013.
Day 1: Influence and the Supposed Clamp of the Oligarchy
[spoiler]What our friend Milly is doing with the ideals of communism is just plain stupid. Influence is not equatable to “means of production”, in the Marxist sense, because it has absolutely no relation to how much say you have in a region. How much say you have doesn’t come from influence, it comes from how much people are willing to listen to, in a way that NS doesn’t quantify in a little stat next to your nation. Topid and the rest couldn’t control that - and it is kind of ridiculous to say that an endo cap was a “tool of oppression”. Regions put that in place to make sure their democratically elected WA Delegate doesn’t get taken over accidentally, and to give a solid line that people know not to cross. To say, as Milly has, that influence is comparable to the Marxist concept of “means of production” (which isn’t really Marxist, but the phrase now firmly associated with his ideals), just betrays how much he is trying to shape this takeover as something it is not. Anyone with a true knowledge of Communism or communism knows that this farcical and rather inane attempt to equate this takeover to a communistic revolution is ridiculous. Even if he does institute a democratic rule eventually, how will it be communistic? He’s cleverly avoided ever using the word communism in the WFE, but uses practically all the language associated with it. The rule he has mentioned instituting once all this firestorm blows over is just democratic - the “means of production” won’t be distributed equally. They’ll just be distributed to the people who have more endorsements faster. In many ways, that’s more like capitalism - work hard to get endorsements, and you’ll get ahead in influence.
Influence is useless except that it helps you not get kicked and it helps you kick people if you are an oppressive dictator who wants to throw anyone out who supports another form of government. The WFE saying that influence somehow gives you an amount of “say” is totally ridiculous, as anyone who has been playing NS for even a moderate amount of time knows.
Furthermore, if this oligarchy had such a clamp on the region’s leadership, how did our dear friend Milly get into the position of Delegate? Oh yeah, it was through a democratic election in which anyone who bothered to sign up on the forum could participate in. That’s not an oligarchy - at worst, it is voters reelecting the same people too many times. It’s akin to the current situation in the US, where Congress’s approval rating is at about 10%, yet most congressmen get reelected to their offices - everyone wants change, but no one wants it to take place in their vote. No oligarchy existed. The region was entirely democratic, for those who registered to vote.
I support the Free South Pacific. Congrats to those who read this far. I’m not in the WA, so hopefully won’t be ejected, but if Millygrad is following through on his promise this shouldn’t be suppressed. I encourage everyone to endorse Brutland and Norden, a previously elected Delegate who was democratically elected - and not under false pretenses, the way Milograd was. Returning of the largest regions in the world to the control of a government that is actually stable and democratically elected, instead of throwing away the hard work, cultural traditions, and spirit that makes TSP great, is the best thing that could happen right now. Thank you.[/spoiler]
Day 2: Justification of the Revolutionaries
[spoiler]It is fascinating to me how the “revolutionaries” justify their actions. They must know they are lying - many have proclaimed 100% Milograd approval ratings within the region, which is blatantly untrue. They talk about foreign imperialists while they simultaneously talk about kicking out the native government and bringing in other nations to assist in the revolution. Now, its been a while since this leader took a 10th grade Helpful Whispers global course, but I’m fairly certain that kicking out the native government and instituting your own with heavy foreign support is imperialism.
They talk of how great democracy is right now, when there is absolutely no democracy - in fact, only WA nations have even the illusion of a vote, and anyone who doesn’t cast a vote for Milograd is ejected. This “endorsement cap” that Milograd abolished is even more rigourously enforced than ever before. This revolution does not have the support of the people, as is evident from the fact that this message board is filled with people disagreeing, while obvious puppets post cookie-cutter messages about how everyone should “hail Milograd” as if he is some sort of god.
They speak of how everyone should thank Milograd - for what? For instituting a currently non-existent democracy? For bringing in foreign people to prop up a currently dictatorial regime? For kicking hundreds out without a fair trial for disagreeing with him? For telling everyone who disagrees with him to “get out”? For running for Delegate of TSP with a campaign that isn’t even near what he did as Delegate? For warping Marxist ideals to fit NationStates aspects so certain political groups support him? For starting some People’s Revolutionary Commisariat that isn’t democratically elected, making it far more oligarchic than the previous government, which was democratic to begin with? For killing all the hard work of so many to make TSP a great place culturally, with a flourishing offsite forum, a lively board, and a great play to stay? I can’t see anyone thanking him for any of this, and can’t think of much to thank him for besides giving us a fun diversion from regular feeder politics.
They speak of how this is a people’s revolution, and how Milograd himself is a minnow. Even a moderately experienced NS player knows that Milo is only a minnow because he has been rampantly using ejection powers. Even a moderately experienced NS players knows that influence in no way can be equated with “say”, because it only helps to kick or not get kicked. How much say you have is totally dependent on how much people are willing to listen to you, in a way that NS code can’t and doesn’t quantify.
I support the previous rightful government of The South Pacific. Endorse Brutland and Norden and unendorse Milograd for a truly free, self-run nation that doesn’t have to use rampant banning, foreign support, and obvious propaganda to stabilize a “people’s revolution”.[/spoiler]
Day 3: In Response to the Motives of the Resistance
[spoiler]
— Begin quote from ____
How can you who oppose what is happening here and simultaneously think of yourself as a person who is for this region and its people? This is the Communist Revolution. This is the when the people are freed from having to take part in your politically bias, corrupt and false delegate elections. Do you expect people here to believe that when voting was held for delegates it was not heavily influenced by exploitative tactics? Even now you traitors to humanity are going round exclaiming that the ‘real’ government has been forced unfairly from power and that all nations should endorse some phony leader somewhere simply because they have the right to be the delegate here.
I mean you are telling people who to vote for. In my opinion, that is extremely undemocratic. Face the facts, Comrade Chairman is here as a result of popular support and his actions are of someone who is striving to protect the vulnerable from those who would seek to impose their illegitimate rule onto the people. The Communist cause has never been stronger and it strikes real fear into all of you who wrongfully oppose it.
Long live the revolution!
— End quote
This, first of all, is not a communist revolution in any sense of the word, unless you mean through roleplaying (But even your dear Milo is a non-communist nation). There is no equal distribution of anything, no government takeover of the means of production, and nothing that Marx would call a good communist revolution. Influence is the only thing that Milo has even tried to compare to a Marxist concept, but Marx himself would be disgusted by the comparison, especially since you most certainly are not equally distributing it, or taking it over to regulate it. You are just claiming to free it up, and even that you are not doing.
As for this being a people’s revolution, I wonder about the people who claim it and actually seem to believe it. Milograd brought in huge amounts of foreigners to prop up is regime, and most of The South Pacific has either been ejected, left, or is posting such as I am here. They are the true people that are being oppressed - not before, but now. They democratically elected a leader that instantly turned against the promises he made, ejected or robbed the rest of the government of their power, and rendered the people powerless as he banned so many without a fair trial. This isn’t a people’s revolution - this is a perverted version of an imperialistic communist intervention. Milograd’s approval rating is sinking, and is only buoyed by the fact that he throws out anyone who actively supports the legitimate government. What kind of people’s revolution is that? His approval rating is most likely less than 50%, and would definitely be less than that if all the natives returned and the foreigners left. Is this a people’s revolution, or a foreign takeover? The claim that this is somehow mandated by the people because it is communist is absolutely ridiculous. Marx would be disgusted with this revolution.
As for the farcical, inane, and asinine claim that the old government was telling people who to vote for, have you looked at the WFE, the regional telegrams, and the forum posts that have been shoved up the rear ends of every single person in the region lately? What kind of logic is it that people campaigning and trying to get others to vote for them is undemocratic, yet starting a huge propaganda campaign with mass messaging and a message constantly in the WFE is not?
The old government was supported by most of the people there. You have absolutely no evidence to support your claim that the dictatorial regime of Milograd actually has the mandate of the people, and these blatant lies covered only by a thin veil of flowery language can be seen through by anyone with a knowledge of the history of TSP and even the vaguest wisps of intelligence.[/spoiler]
Day 4: Marx and Milograd
[spoiler]For today’s Helpful Whispers broadcast, I’ll be detailing exactly why Karl Marx would be ashamed of Milograd and the terminology he is warping to fit an ideology that has little to do with what he is doing. This is going to go into quite a bit of detail, so if you want the results and not the meat, feel free to just read the first and last paragraph. Since I got called out on this last time, this entire thing is out of character. I figured people would figure that out when I started referencing real world things, but I apparently need to specify.
For those who don’t know, The Communist Manifesto is a book on Communism written mostly by Karl Marx. It details the principles of Communism, and while Communism as a whole has been subdivided and analyzed the crap out of, it still contains the base ideas for the ideologies in which Milograd purports his reign. Terms such as “means of production”, “proletariat”, and “bourgeois”, while they didn’t originate with Marx, have become thoroughly associated with his ideas. Milograd has equated the “means of production” to influence, the “proletariat” to pretty much everyone in the South Pacific who didn’t hold power, and has pretty much ignored bourgeois, terming instead the ruling party the oligarchy, a phrase which isn’t as much associated with Marxism, and indeed wasn’t even really stigmatized until Milly got hold of it. However, Marx’s book directly contradicts the comparisons that Milograd has made. Milograd’s revolution is not at all communist, unless one factors in a purely RP viewpoint, in which even then it could not wholly or even mostly be considered so. So, let’s take a look at exactly what makes Milo’s revolution tick compared to the Marxism that standard communists invision.
First of all, “means of production” is defined in Marx’s book as: “The tools (instruments) and the raw material (subject) you use to create something are the means of production” (#1). “Influence”, by Max Barry (or whoever wrote the section) is defined as “a measure of how well-respected a nation is in its region” (#2). They don’t sound much alike, do they? That’s because Marx meant his version of means of production to be taken in the most literal sense of the words - he didn’t even really think it needed to be defined. The means of production, as referred to by Marx, we just that - the things used to produce a product. Influence, on the other hand, isn’t even near that, as really anyone could tell you. It’s a measure of how respected you are in a region, at least for RP purposes. From a purely data and code-driven viewpoint, its a little number that tells people how hard to you to eject and how many people you could eject as delegate. That’s it - there is not association with any amount of “say” you have. And when one takes some time to think about it, there really could be no way to make a number born into the game could equate with an amount of “say”. The amount of “say” you have is purely determined by how much people are willing to listen to you - I challenge anyone here to quantify that. This propaganda nonsense that the previous government somehow robbed people of their say when they instituted an endorsement cap is totally asinine. Look at Milograd, just as an example: He’s a minnow (albeit only due to ejecting so many people), yet he has by far the most say in the region. His influence has nothing to do with that. The United Kingdom of Brutland and Norden, on the opposite end, is a leader of the previous government and has probably the most influence of anyone here. And yet, he can do nothing but seek to destroy Milograd’s reign from the outside, because all his influence means literally nothing. Returning influence to the people and comparing it to the means of production is something that Marx would be quite confused about. That’s because influence has literally nothing to do with the means of production that Milograd specifies. The only connection between the two stems from the pseudo-tangible link that Milograd has forged between the two concepts.
Onto the proletariat, and again we’ll be starting with a definition: "“The proletariat is that class in society which lives entirely from the sale of its labour power and does not draw profit from any kind of capital; whose weal and woe, whose life and death,whose sole existence depends on the demand for labour…” (#3). Right from the start, we see the disconnect. Since when have nations had to work in NationStates at all? Most of the nations in The South Pacific haven’t done any labor for any purported upper class at all, and a great many don’t even do anything but answer issues. Milograd defines his version of the proletariat as: “Minnows and nations that consider TSP to be their home, but are not included in its governance due to their disintrest in participating in an off-site forum. Furthermore, nations that would feel inclined to try to make their voice heard but don’t due to the common perception that such is futile thanks to the fact that the oligarchy may dispose of them with ease” (#4). Now, giving people a voice in government is a laudable goal, but do these definitions look anywhere near the same? Drawing a connection between the two only further digs Milo into the pit that is his own ignorance, or worse, intentional perversion, of the ideals that make Communism what it is. He hasn’t actually given the people back any power, but that’s a topic for another broadcast. The downtrodden masses which Marx refers to suffer their fate as one of a very literal toil - they slave away under the hand of the bourgeoisie, the controllers of the means of production, without receiving anything in return. In Milo’s comparison, we have a people who apparently didn’t have a voice in government, even though their voice could be heard as loud as every single person just by entering a name and password. This is comparable to registering to vote - does anyone want to abolish that in the US? This disconnect is perhaps the most significant of them all - there was no downtrodden masses of the TSP - in fact, the vast majority of The South Pacific’s people were in favor of the current government. In this current regime of Milograd, the proletariat are more accurately the people who strive for a rightful, just, and democratic government returned to them, though even that comparison would probably make Marx twitch. I’ll be taking a randomized poll in the future and using some college statistics on it, so look for that in the future. The proletariat of Milograd and the proletariat of Marx are two so radically different concepts that putting a connection between them would be akin to comparing the situation of the slave and the planet Mars - you could do it, but it doesn’t make any sense.
Lastly, we have the oligarchy, and once again definitions first. An oligarchy is defined as “A small group of people having control of a country, organization, or institution” (#5). This is where you’ll receive no argument - in fact, in the most literal sense of the word, most governments are oligarchies. In the US, there are maybe 500 people who control the federal government entirely, if you add up Congress, the power players in the legislative branch, and SCOTUS. In a population of 350 million, that’s a pretty darn small group. Calculating the proportions, the US is represented by .0000001% of its people, while The South Pacific’s percentage was somewhere around .0025% (10/4000). In both cases, there were fully democratic elections to elect representatives of the people that would carry out the duties of the government, as well as some appointments. Because The South Pacific’s government stayed relatively constant is actually most likely more of a testament to how good they were doing than anything else - people kept electing them because they approved of their policies. Now, oligarchy is in no way a Marxist concept, and no doubt I’ll get some Milograd supporters shouting about how I support oligarchies after this, but oligarchies are clearly not inherently bad. A democratically elected, representative oligarchy is what exists in the US, UK, and many, many other nations. It changes every election, as did the government in The South Pacific. If this oligarchy was so locked in place, how did Milograd obtain the most powerful position? Through a democratic election, ironically demonstrating not only the efficacy of the democratic process in TSP but also that the oligarchy was in not way locked into a set few people. Milograd himself is a breathing example of how the old government was great, as anyone who would open his eyes could see.
This has definitely been my longest post - actually, I might move this to Gameplay from now on. The point is, as is clearly demonstrated above, that Marx would be ashamed of this revolution, and anyone who calls this a communist revolution is either lying, misinformed, or doesn’t know what Communism is. When Marx wrote his manifesto, he did it to place down his ideals in a readable format to spread the word - apparently, Milo didn’t get the message. A more accurate term for the revolution that has been taking place is dictatorial imperialism, because a huge chunk of the support came from the outside, and the entire region is now being used to further his cause. Because of this, and so, so much more, I urge everyone to support the rightful, democratic, and just government of The South Pacific by endorsing Brutland and Norden and withdrawing your endorsement from Milograd. Hopefully at least some people read this far - I apologize for the length of this.
Sources:
- http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/ … production
- page=faq#gameplay
- http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/ … roletariat
- viewtopic.php?f=12&t=237460
- define - Google Suche … +oligarchy[/spoiler]