Originally posted by
[email protected] 6 2004, 07:17 PM
My whole point is the failure of communism is a terrible nightmare. You can not deny that Russia, China, Cambodia, North Vietnam were COMMUNIST REVOLUTIONS that went bad.
Failures of communism, although not exactly pretty, were not all nightmares. That means a lot coming from a socialist that is a staunch anti-soviet person. But I am realistic to exactly how far their failures exist and can see the exact same failures in Western Society's capitalism.
You can not deny that Russia, China, Cambodia, North Vietnam were COMMUNIST REVOLUTIONS that went bad.
Well I would certainly not put China in that boat. Socialism isn't the issue there and really that country is coming out ahead. The issue is traditional values, large sparsely populated areas over great distances with a lot of minor factions. China had severe issues well before any socialist components existed. China will be the next super power in 10 years. I don't think #2 in the world out of 100+ countries is really a failure.
More than likely China will be #1 with the US being #2. Unfortunetly with a large trade gap, a weakened dollar, a dependency on foreign oil, outsourcing of jobs across seas, loss of manufacturing, inflation with hints of stagnation around the corner (zero growth with inflation), constant unemployment, high cost of footing a war on terrorism almost completely alone, realisticly the US will be equals with Canada. More countries are preparing to drop the dollar standard. Unfortunetly with the rising cost of tuition 33% incremental 4 year increase in many 4 year universities, America will not be much of a service industry it was hoping to gear up to be.
Soviets were far from failures, they took a 3rd world country and in 1 generation made it into the 2nd super power in the world. In order to keep up with the soviets America had to pay for the present by sacrificing the future. The issue of Trade Gaps and Defecit Spending is now coming back to bite America in the ass. The real issues with the Soviet Empire was not so much gulags, something that America has and should be visible to anybody that goes to a major city. We do not ship off those who refuse to work to syberia, we leave ours to the street without I.D., Addresses, wages, healthcare, in fact ours is a little worse because they don't usually even have protection from the elements. You have heard of people going to gulags to never be seen again, well how many homeless people do you think that occurs to, in a country that does not have 0% unemployment you will delibertly create a homeless "gulag class" on purpose.
I don't see the Vietnam revolution as going bad or consider it a failure, if it is at all to be considered a failure it was because of the U.S. involvement in a civil war it had no buisness being in. Majority of the population was pro-communist party at the time. Dropping napalm, bombs from planes, burning down villages, killing innocent civilians in the mass for "kill numbers" and off shore bombing by ships is what made that civil war messy.
All civil wars and revolutions are messy. America of course didn't have a messy revolution. Why? Because it takes a month or more to get orders and troops back and forth from America to Britiain by sail. However look at the civil war within America. Something of which the increased federal powers mandated by Abraham Lincoln, many people feel America lost that war and created a large and imposing federal government.
Yes they were not communist at the end, but they started with the idealism.
Well I think what you are seeing here is that Socialism/Communism is fucking awesome and people know it. Once a person understand's their exploited existence the idea of socialism harkens good things. Now you have a very popular idea being tossed around, some bad people hijack that power.
There are plenty of 3rd world countries that have had capitalist revolutions going from Monarchies. Africa is your best place to look. Now do you have any idea how many people died in the Congo Wars? How many people are dying in all those capitalist revolutions? Those are tribal wars trying to take control of production by a minority and seize property for a ruling class in order to trade on a world free market. So to blantaly pull some failures like the Pol Pot, is truly unfair to credit the socialist ideal to that, I might as well say that Hitler was a capitalist. He seized control of lands and properties, the stock market in Germany did not go away. WWII and WWI were all about seizing control of power and land. America didn't wait till the very end to jump into the European Front for no reason. They let everybody else use up thier resources then went in a took over afterwards at a discount price.
The idealism lead directly into social injustice and secret mass graves.
So all the American Native Indians that died over a 100 year period, to the brink of genocide for capitalism growth? America playing fucking capitalist trade wars with Japan prior to Pearl Harbor, costed how many lives? How about all the union wars and the people that died in those? Whole cities choked of supplies so a union stand up would fall. How many slaves supported the American economy that helped it become a super power later?
Given the odds of the # of communist revolutions and the # of revolutions than became nightmares, what are the odds that the next random country that has a revolution is also going to be a nightmare?
Actually if you know anything about innovation, the more failures you have the greater chance of success you will have at the next turn. Your failures, if you are paying attention, will teach you how to do right the next time.
You want to look to better success than the recent failures, look to western Europe. Every year those socialist countries are getting rated #1 place on earth to live. Sure you might say, "They tax the hell out of you." well how much are you willing to pay to live in the #1 country? Do you want to pay less taxes and live in Peru? You can pay less taxes and live in a shithole or pay the most and be #1 in everything but crime, poverty, and malnutrition with homelessness.
I think it is pretty close or above 90%.
Considering more western countries are adopting more and more socialist programs and leaving the free market behind and the crule intentions of capitalism behind. I would say the next socialist revolutions will be much more succesful. America's ability to dictate world policies by instituting coups and insurgents is getting less likely. America will not be able to afford to disrupt another civil war and socialist revolution like it did in the days of the past. Socialists are now winning democrat elections worldwide.
You know America looks good right now, this very small minute tick of western society. To be so bold to think this is the end all, is short sighted to say the least. I suppose many a Roman citizen could not invision the falling of their empire.
The failures of communist societies can partly be blamed on America. If you know all the ends and out of true American history, you will see that most of what the soviets did, America did as well to their own populace. If America could have co-existed with the soviets a little better instead of initiating a cold war with them, socialism in Russia could have turned out much better. America would have been on the same track of authoritorian style government if it hadn't been geography. We don't have to erect giant walls to protect our citizens, our 2 neighbors are our allies. We have 2 giant oceans for walls.
But we have the same propaganda. We started indoctrination of the youth, like the Hitler Youth and the Soviet's version of the Boy Scouts. We had our KGB that deystroyed dissenters called COINTELPRO. We pushed legislation that broke our basic teniments of society like Pledges to a Flag, putting God everywhere, to break a seperation of church and state. We had gulags, our streets, we didn't park our tanks in our neighbor's countries like say what happened with Poland, Czech, E. Germany, but we used economic forces to control our allies as well.
We created a cold war, economic brutality, propaganda and forced communist nations to use innapropriate direct methods of control on their people. The Cold war broke the communist revolutions and sank them into bankruptcy, however the debt that America went in will cost America dearly soon. Once Americans find out that for every dollar they send away on taxes, 30 cents goes to just paying off intrest on the national debt, and they see their spending power removed, less upper class paying taxes because of trickle down economics, or voodoo economics, we'll talk about the failures of capitalism.