Foolish English Teacher

[inquisitive_socialist]

The other day my very conservative engish teacher siad that russia under stalin was the height of bolshevik cruelty. i agreed partially but his next statement was that because of people like stalin, communisms and socialisms will never succeed. what a moron i thought. wasn't it stalins paranoia and greed that led to his downfall? if communism cant work then trotsky, marx, engels, and lenin were all fools. i simply cannot belive that. if commnunism cant ever be sucessful then why did we have the cold war for so many years? if communism cant work, what do you call cuba and North Vietnam? i think he just generalized himself out of any respect i had for him. i always felt it odd that the people alive during the cold war generally know the least about what actually went on in russia. or maybe their so closed-minded that they dont care. i don't know.

[Non-Sectarian Bastard!]

USSR, Vietnam and Cuba are not Communist. Communism is by defintion stateless and leaderless. At most you can call them socialist.

That there have been a couple of failed attempts towards Communism, doesn't make it an unreachable goal. We should rather learn from those mistakes and use them in the future. Afterall everything takes effort, especially Communism.

In contrary to Capitalism, which is a goalless, idealless system which doesn't cost any effort to maintain and will never lead to improvement or end solutions to war, sickness or hunger.

[inquisitive_socialist]

i would agree that it takes effort to become truly communist. many countries are not what marx or trotsky would have called communist but i would in the world picture, they are as close to the communist ideal as you can get in todays world. i think that the ussr may have began as a socialism under the early bolsheviks but its difficult to call russia under stalin a communism. stalin took the communisat ideals and perverted them towards his own goals the way napoleon did in Animal Farm.

[DaCuBaN]

Just start chanting from the back of the class:

"You're thick, and you know you are!"

[inquisitive_socialist]

thats not in any way shape or form useful to me as a form of protest towards my teachers inability to make anything more than glittering generalities. i would really apreaciate a intellgient post be it for or against what i said. not childish school pranks.

[DaCuBaN]

My apologies: This is the OI forum, and I consider it a joke. I'm at work, and anything to lighten my mood is greatly appreciated.

The only way you can confront her is with hard facts: The glaringly obvious ones to point out are that there has never - outside the Paris Commune - been a working example of communism in existence; all the examples s/he uses are of socialist states. As has been outlined, a communist state is an oxymoron and so for her to intimate such is to undermine her understanding of both history and the english language; the subject s/he is meant to be teaching you.

If you wish to further undermine his/her argument, draw on the fact that Cuba - a socialist state - has totally free education up to PhD level, and rather than sending it's troops across the world, it sends it's doctors. Similarly, it is worth drawing attention to the fact that that same island, that has been under embargo for more years than I'd care to remember has one of the longest life expectancies on the face of the planet, and has survived despite it's lack of 'meaningful' natural resources, like those found in the Middle East or South America.

Also, point out that his/her objections to socialism (ergo communism) aren't based on the economic aspects of it, but on the authoritarian nature of the few examples she can think of.

And tell her/him to read a book, and stop embarrasing the entire education system.

[DaCuBaN]

For futher assistance, see this thread (http://www.che-lives.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=25500)

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

My history teacher this year is the most openly biased teacher I have ever had the displeasure to be taught by, So every time she says something asinine, she's forced to stop spewing garbage for an entire period and have a little debate with me. So she's pretty much stopped saying bullshit.

[Fidel Castro]

I personally wouldn&#39;t expect too much from your history teacher, in my experience the History sector of the education board has an unhealthy obsession with Stalin and Nazis. <_<

Your teacher was only perhaps partially correct. It can be said that persons such as Stalin can hinder the socialist cause, stories of mass murder, corruption and anti-Semitism don&#39;t do an awful lot to win over hearts and minds.

After all, who wants a golden toilet when someones just done a great smelly shit in it? :ph34r: