Why has communism failed?

[anti machine]

We have seen them all fall, from the Soviet Union to China. The communist/socialist states are poor and getting poorer. I acknowledge communism as the ideal system, but am puzzled as to why it has never truly worked as a state of gov't.

[Michael De Panama]

Well then, read this topic:

http://www.che-lives.com/cgi/community/top...um=13&topic=185 (http://www.che-lives.com/cgi/community/topic.pl?forum=13&topic=185)

[Nateddi]

This is a quote from myself posting in the Russia.com Community


Did communism really fail?
(I am not trying to be an apolgist, just giving you all some food for thought)

I mean, where would China, Russia, and Cuba be now if it wasn't for the Communists?

China and Cuba were both military dictatorships ruled under tight fists of Fulgencio Batista (cuba), and Chaing Kai Chek (China).
Russia was a backwards country thanks to centuries of theocratic and feudal rule by the Romonov dynasty. The peasants, serfs, and workers were very oppressed, which led to the rise of Lenin as an organizer and revolutionary of the oppressed classes. Kerensky would have failed, because its not easy to modernize without failure a country such as Russia.

In every single case, the Communist revolutions brought good instead of bad to the countries. We are not talking about Stalin's personal purges, which have nothign whatsoever to do with Marxism, and Rikbe can agree to that.

Cuba right now is much better off than the rest of Latin America. It is not part of the FTAA, it is not home as a sweatshop to American capitalist corporations (as most of Latin America currently is). If Cuba was to fall, it would become just that.

My point is simple. Communism in the 20th century, every attempt was made in a situation which Marx said would not work (lack of modern industry, lack of capitalism, etc). Nevertheless, the movements did bring more good to the countries, as compared to if there were no revolutions.
Communism is a very complicated philosophy. Its not as simple as a desire for an impossible "heaven" utopia. If it was just that, 20th century would not be full of attempts at an "unworkable" system.


(Edited by Nateddi at 1:17 am on May 15, 2002)

[Dynatos]

yes most communist contries are not doing very good but china is doing extremely good. They have one of the fastest growing economies in the world (8% GDP real growth rate, only 5% in the U$) , have the second highest GDP in the world (4.5 trillion) and only 10% of the population is under the poverty line (12.7% in U$A), thats fucking good considering the population of china is 1,273,111,290 (July 2001 est.). I think some day they might even be more powerful than the U$A. So I don't think communism Failed at all. It only failed in one country and created a chain reaction.

[Guest]

I don't think china will surpass the US any time soon, its gdp and growth #'s are impressive stand-alone, but they are based on its population, and when you consider that per capita gdp and growth are not even close to the U.S., and they have a major population-to-resource ratio problem, they also stil lag in technology, I mean, they are technologically proficient as far as eastern nations go, but still far behind the west

[Nateddi]

China isn't a good example. I don't consider them Communist at all.

At any rate, in a profit-less system, the GDP won't reflect the society as much as in a capitalist one, it will all be skewed, so I don't think that is the best medium for comparison.

[ID2002]

China is not true to tbe Communist ideology.
North Korea is.

(Edited by ID2002 at 3:01 am on May 15, 2002)

[Dynatos]

Quote: from Nateddi on 2:52 am on May 15, 2002
China isn't a good example. I don't consider them Communist at all.

could you explain how you got to that conclusion? not that I disagree or agree i just want to get more info about that.

[Guest1]

HOLY SHIT!!! NORTH KOREA!!! You DO realize North Korea is stalinist, right? About as far from communist as you can get!

[Michael De Panama]

Quote: from Dynatos on 3:06 am on May 15, 2002

Quote: from Nateddi on 2:52 am on May 15, 2002
China isn't a good example. I don't consider them Communist at all.

could you explain how you got to that conclusion? not that I disagree or agree i just want to get more info about that.


China has a ruling class, just like a bourgeoisie. China engages in trade with bigtime global corporations. The Chinese viewed the peasants, rather than the proletariat, as the vangaurd of the revolution. It is a very nationalist nation. I'm sure this is basically what Nateddi is thinking. I agree.

[I Will Deny You]

Democratic governments, while in my opinion are better overall, are inherently less efficient. As the US was running around during the Cold War overthrowing every communist government that they could, it was predictable that the democracies would be the first, or most likely, to be overthrown. (This was proven to be the case.) So only the dictatorships, which as a general rule were less communist, had less of the people's support and were more corrupt, survived. If Arbenz and Allende's governments weren't toppled I can assure you that the world would think of communism differently.
http://www.che-lives.com/cgi/community/top...um=22&topic=199 (http://www.che-lives.com/cgi/community/topic.pl?forum=22&topic=199)

Lindsay

[anti machine]

i do not, by any means, disagree with nateddi in the sense that the communist gov't implemented has always been far greater than the system before it. However, how can we call a system ideal when freedom has to be sacrificed for equality? Communism has never been chosen by the people-it has, to an extent, been forced on them. And GNPs and strong economies dont represent the living conditions of the people. An explanation i have to offer as to why communism has never been embraced by the people is that they had no politcal rights. The communist manifesto stresses the unimportance of the individual, and a dictator is never acceptable as a political leader. (then again, neither is a two-party system which will always be in power to make more money) I believe that socialism/communism is the ideal system, dont get me wrong, but it seems as if the people are never happy- i.e. Tienanman's Square. Perhaps the reason these countries have never reached their full potential is because capitalism still existed in the world, and a communist country is no match for greed and wealth.

[yuriandropov]

(Edited by yuriandropov at 7:28 pm on May 15, 2002)

[yuriandropov]

communism didn't fail. its only that the marxist theory of world revolution has not happened. every country that has tried communism has benefited massivly. the countries that were communist, started off as backward third world countries and virtually all of them now enjoy a much higher standard of living. marx wanted the revolution to happen in a developed nation. if that happened, it would succeed and set off a chain reaction in developed countries.

[Capitalist Imperial]

If those countries that have benefitted from communism (we assume you're correct) had instead gone capitalist/democratic, I surmise that they would have benefited significantly more, in that capitalism is the system that benefits not only the source country but in fact the world, history shows us that the most forward thinking, innovative, and inventive countries that have revolutionized the world the most economically, industriously, and technologically have been capitalist, it is the system that gives peronal freedom, but also demands personal responsibility, and initiative to work hard, and generate new, inventive ideas

(Edited by Capitalist Imperial at 8:13 pm on May 15, 2002)

[yuriandropov]

possibly in some nations but not USSR. the advances made by the USSR were rapid. that simply wouldn't of happened under capitalism because the vast resources of the soviet union would of gone into private hands not the hands of the state. if you want to talk about innovations, well, remember the USSR ws the first country to put a man in space, it was the leader in nuclear weapons technology and the sports science of the USSR was (and still is) light years ahead of the west. i'm not denying capitalism has been good for certain countries. but communism has been good aswell.

[Capitalist Imperial]

I don't know about sports medicine of the soviet union, but your athletes did very well in the olympics (except in 1980, our hockey team beat yours, ha ha) also, there is question as to whether your athletes used illegal steroids and supplements, also, your olympic athletes were paid, ours were not now, in space, you started good, but we surpassed you by far by landing on the moon 1st, and creating the space shuttle (first re-usable space vehicle), and we lead the international space station, and I think our nuclear weapons technology supasses yours, our targeting systems are more effective, we had the 1st ICBM, and we maintained our stockpiles better, after the end of the cold war, our scientists went to advise yours in maintaining your stockpiles, and found many of your nuclear weapons in disarray and disrepair

[yuriandropov]

i was mainly reffering to the cold war. during the early 80's we surpasses USA in nuclear weapons. USA is much better now, but the massivle state funding has dried up for FSU. steroids? i think we both know 90% if not more, of athletes competing in the olympics are taking performance enhancers. it doesn't matter which country your from, USA and USSR both abused steroids (although not as much as DDR). and yes, USA did get to the moon, but the point of the argument was that communism doesn't encourage innovationa and getting into space was itself, an innovation. however, i suppose you could say the cold war was capitalism on the biggest scale of all time. two huge corperations competing with each other for suprmemecy.

ps don't mention lake placid!!!!

[Guest]

Have you ever read about Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527)? He was one of the first to say that a ruler's attitude toward power should be based on an understanding of human nature- that we are liars, self-centered, and greedy. That is why communism fails. People are destined to look out for themselves. So it will pretty much be every man for himself for the rest of time. It seems that sometime, this system will be doomed. People will be so alone that we will eventually die out, but it probably won't happen anytime soon. WHY DO PEOPLE HAVE TO BE LIKE THIS, SO SELF-ABSORBED THAT WE"LL DESTROY OURSELVES? I wonder about that a lot.

[Nateddi]

Quote: from yuriandropov on 8:47 pm on May 15, 2002
however, i suppose you could say the cold war was capitalism on the biggest scale of all time. two huge corperations competing with each other for suprmemecy.
Î÷åíü õîðîøàÿà àíàëîãèÿ, Þðèé

(Edited by Nateddi at 9:07 pm on May 15, 2002)

[Capitalist Imperial]

lol, lake placid, lol, in the 80's, do you think soviet nukes suppassed usa??? I know USSR probably had more, but whose technology was really better? I'll have to research

[Capitalist Imperial]

I thought we were 1st with ICBM, and MX missle?

[yuriandropov]

if a war were to break out between USA and USSR, it would be like a boxing match between mohhomed ali and mike tyson. tyson (USSR) would have the raw power and if it went into a slug fest, would win, but ali (USA) had better technical experties, and if turned into a technical boxing match, would grind tyson down.

Íàòåääè, ÿ íå çíàþ, êàêîãî âîçðàñòà Âû - âñåãî ëèøü äåéñòâèòåëüíî ëè Âû áûëè äåéñòâóþùèå(æèâû) â òå÷åíèå õîëîäíîé âîéíû? Åñëè òàê, ÷òî ÿâëÿåòñÿ âàøèìè âîñïîìèíàíèÿìè? ß äóìàë, ÷òî àíàëîãèÿ áûëà ïðàâèëüíàÿ. Õîòÿ õîëîäíàÿ âîéíà áûëà ìîé ïðåäïðèíèìàòåëü, ÿ íå ìîã ïîìîãàòü çàäàòüñÿ âîïðîñîì, áûë ëè áû æèçíåííûé óðîâåíü ÑÑÑÐ ëó÷øå áåç ýòîãî.

[Capitalist Imperial]

hmmmm, thats a pretty good analogy, It would have been interesting to see a conventional war (no nukes) between the USA/USSR,of course, i'm not bloodthrsty, but the carnage and weaponry being used in such force would be phenomenal!!!

[SU37]

Quote: from Capitalist Imperial on 9:12 pm on May 15, 2002
lol, in the 80's,
I miss the 80's,lthe 80's had kick ass commericals,like that Macintosh one (http://www.uriah.com/apple-qt/1984.html)

[Nateddi]

And the decade in which our national debt doubled, and our poverty rate tripled,

Ah Donald.

[Capitalist Imperial]

our gdp skyrocketed, oh, and we all know that the US national debt is a paper tiger, who can enforce it???

[anti machine]

Thank you, yuri, that was exactly the answer I was looking for. and cappie imperial, i think your darth vader/evil empire icon suits you well. Contrary to your ideals, the living conditions of the people are more important than the upper class's and the war pigs' "innovations" in the name of their country.

[Guest]

bullshit, anti machine, america has given the world most of the greatest innovations and advancements of the 20th century because it fosters personal responsibility, which encourages innvation, free thinkin, and invention, stop blaming third world plight on america! many of these "opressed" countries were around hundreds of years before the US, who did you blame for their sad nature then???

[ID2002]

China has a very strong capitalistic mentality. It has sold out to big US corperations and Institutions. It will do anything for money. They have very rich and very poor people. There is inequality all over. It is no longer true Communism.
North Korea on the other hand is A COMMUNIST DICTATORSHIP. The people are state educated, and own only a collective house which is shared by many. Everyone lives for the Military...and children serve in the ARMY. Those who do not behave are either re-educated, or executed.
Religion has been banned. No one has food, but they have at least 100,000 tactical Thermonuclear warheads over 50 MT yield to chew on.

....I don't think this is the same idea STALIN had in mind.
I think this is quite differant.

[ID2002]

GUEST 216.203.235.9:

Canada invented a lot of what the US claims to be theirs!
We invented HOCKEY, BASKETBALL, VELCRO, SPIDERMAN, SPAWN, SUPERMAN, CANCER TREATMENTS, PROTYPE ANTI-VIRAL DRUGS, anti-SLAVERY LAW, Submarines, the Zipper, Canada space arm (etc)
....f%*k, we even mined the damn URANIUM for your A-BOMB's that the US dropped on Hiroshima, and Nagasaki.

Without Canada, the US would be a smoking hole in the ground because it so reckless and self centred when it deals with other countries. Your country is pushy and abrupt. When I go overseas I can always pick out an American tourist. They are disappointed when I tell them I am Canadian.
...sad but true!
I can travel to CUBA, and Bagdad...and many other places where US citizens are not allowed to go.
Why? Because Canadians are excepted everywhere, in every country. (even N. Korea)
....oh yeah: we also don't blow up our neighbours, and we don't put terrifs on your exports!

....I am curious why your country is this way?

What does your country hope to gain by pissing off it neighbours?


(Edited by ID2002 at 6:32 am on May 16, 2002)

[concerned]

Oh ID2002 here can travel to Cuba and Baghdad, good for you!!!! That sounds really wonderfull, we are all dying to go there.....such wonderful places

[Capitalist Imperial]

Quote: from ID2002 on 6:30 am on May 16, 2002
GUEST 216.203.235.9:



Without Canada, the US would be a smoking hole in the ground because it so reckless and self centred when it deals with other countries.

Oh, OK, ID2002, whew!!! Thanks for educating me, I'm glad Canada saved us from eradication, I never realized thit it was you that protected us, not the other way around, LOL, LOL, LOL, c'mon, look at what you're saying, get real.

[Capitalist Imperial]

Actually, we are confident in dealing with other counties because we earned the right to do that as the world's only superpower.

(Edited by Capitalist Imperial at 8:55 pm on May 17, 2002)

[anti machine]

ok guest 216, i never denied that inventions and inovations were numerous in America. But how do you justify progress when the very few and elite have the power and poverty runs rampant? a capitalist nation that appeals to human greed is a great system indeed, but for who? The 5% of people who get lucky aquiring wealth and law degrees? SOmehow I just don't get it. America has an inherent hate for communism because she is scared of it. A system where all people are truly created equal in every aspect could throw off the balance of our cushy lifestyles which revolve around little green slips of paper.

[anti machine]

cappie imp, The idea of a powerful country earning some god-given right to play "global referee" is absurd. What right is it of ours to lob cruise missles from thousands of miles away at innocent people who happen to live in a country we don't like? The only one with that "right" is God, and he doesn't do anything about it except laugh at us at the shit-hole we have created.

[Fabi]

the american (education) system does not encourage its students to be innovative, creative and independent... it does only if you play by the rules... which unfortunately means that you cant be truly innovative or creative...

this i suppose isnt just an american problem... but i think all of you who went through high school (or are maybe in the process) know what i mean...
innovation means being unconventional... which is 'new' and something to be suspicious about....

sorry for generalizing.... ;)

[Capitalist Imperial]

actually, anti-machine, i don't think povery "runs rampant" here, yes, we have our own relative "poverty", but even our poor live better than many of other countries "middle class"

Fabi, I don't agree,high scool may be a little dry, but oiur colleges i think do encourage free thinking and innovation, thats why there is so much protest and debate in our country, because our government allows it, and our society encourages it, it is communist countries that encourage everyone to be alike, and its a crime to speak out against the government

[Fabi]

you may be partly right and it is also what i tell people when trying to defend america, but the media are very biased... their journalism is just money-oriented a lot of times... and with colleges being sponsored by big corporations and events on campus and stuff, free speech is sometimes being limited...
like those kids who handed out anti-smoking pamphlets and got kicked off campus cause of the tobbaco sponsor of some on-campus event....

i am not lying, but i'm just too tired to find that quote... (it's 2:10 am here...)

also there have lately been a lot of reporters getting into trouble for critical journalism.... i think i mentioned it somewhere else already.... it may not be as bad as in other countries, but please dont deny that it's there....

and the US is full of double-standards... and conservative beliefs that are bs.... like the millions (or was it billions) that the gov spends on sex education, telling kids to be abstinent and stuff... the problem is that the programs dont show any results....
here's something interesting for you....


"Bashing Youth
Media Myths about Teenagers
By Mike Males

"Unplanned pregnancies. HIV infection and AIDS, other sexually transmitted diseases. Cigarettes, alcohol and drug abuse. Eating disorders. Violence. Suicide. Car crashes."

The 21-word lead-in to a Washington Post (12/22/92) report sums up today's media image of the teenager: 30 million 12- through 19-year-olds toward whom any sort of moralizing and punishment can be safely directed, by liberals and conservatives alike. Today's media portrayals of teens employ the same stereotypes once openly applied to unpopular racial and ethnic groups: violent, reckless, hypersexed, welfare-draining, obnoxious, ignorant.

And like traditional stereotypes, the modern media teenager is a distorted image, derived from the dire fictions promoted by official agencies and interest groups.

During the 1980s and 1990s, various public and private entrepreneurs realized that the news media will circulate practically anything negative about teens, no matter how spurious. A few examples among many:

* In 1985, the National Association of Private Psychiatric Hospitals, defending the profitable mass commitment of teenagers to psychiatric treatment on vague diagnoses, invented the "fact" that a teenager commits suicide "every 90 minutes"--or 5,000 to 6,000 times every year. Countless media reports of all types, from the Associated Press (4/4/91) to Psychology Today (5/92), continue to report this phony figure, nearly three times the true teen suicide toll, which averaged 2,050 per year during the 1980s (Vital Statistics of the United States).

* In a 1991 campaign to promote school-based clinics, the American Medical Association (AMA) and the National Association of State Boards of Education published a report that inflated the 280,000 annual births to unmarried teenaged mothers into "half a million," and claimed a "30-fold" increase in adolescent crime since 1950. In fact, 1950 youth crime statistics are too incomplete to compare, and later, more comprehensive national reports show no increase in juvenile crime rates in at least two decades. (Contrast, for example, the FBI Uniform Crime Reports for 1970 and 1992.) The facts notwithstanding, the national media (e.g., AP, 6/8/90) dutifully publicized the organizations' exaggerations.

* In the early '80s, officials hyping the "war on drugs" orchestrated media hysteria about "skyrocketing" teenage drug abuse at a time when, in fact, teenage drug death rates were plummeting (down 70 percent from 1970 to 1982). In the late '80s, the same media outlets parroted official claims of a drug-war "success" when, in reality, youth drug death rates were skyrocketing (up 85 percent from 1983 to 1991--see In These Times, 5/20/92).

Today, official and media distortions are one and the same. Who's to blame for poverty? Teenage mothers, declares Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala in uncritical news stories (see Los Angeles Times, 12/12/93) that fail to note that teenage mothers on welfare were poor before they became pregnant.

Who's causing violence? "Kids and guns," asserts President Clinton, favorably quoted by reporters (AP, 11/14/93) who neglect to mention that six out of seven murders are committed by adults. Who's dying from drugs, spreading AIDS, committing suicide? Teenagers, teenagers, teenagers, the media proclaim at the behest of official sources, even though health reports show adults much more at risk from all of these perils than are adolescents.


Media Myth: "Teenage" Sex
The strange logic of the modern media's attack on adolescents is nowhere stranger than its portrayal of "teen" sexuality. Consider its jargon: When a child is born to a father over age 20 and a teenage mother (which happened 350,000 times last year), the phenomenon is called "children having children." When an adult pays a teenager for sex, it is "teenage prostitution."
Some 2 million sexually transmitted diseases and a quarter-million abortions that result from adult/teen sex every year are headlined as "teenage" VD, AIDS and abortion. The causes of these "epidemic social problems" are teenage immaturity, risk-taking, and peer pressure. Their cure is more preaching, programming and punishment aimed at "teenage sex."

According to U.S. Public Health Service reports, 71 percent of all teenage parents have adult partners over age 20. California and U.S. vital statistics reports show that men over age 20 cause five times more births among junior high-age girls than do boys their own age, and 2.5 times more births among high school girls than high school boys do. Even though many more pregnancies among teenage females are caused by men older than 25 than by boys under 18, media reports and pictures depict only high schoolers. By their choice of terms and images, the media blame the young and female while giving the adult and male a break.

This is exactly the image desired by thousands of agencies and programs who profit politically and financially from the issue--such as the Centers for Disease Control, which blames "teenage AIDS" on promiscuous "kids...playing Russian roulette." (AP, 4/10/92) The media have followed the official lead: The three leading newsweeklies have all run cover stories featuring the same formulaic reporting.

Newsweek's "Teens and AIDS" (8/3/92), Time's "Kids, Sex, & Values" (5/24/93) and U.S. News & World Report's "Teenage Sex: Just Say Wait" (7/26/93) all featured surveys of "kids," photos of suburban schools, sidebars lambasting sexy movies, and dire commentary on sexual irresponsibility among schoolboys and girls. Time and U.S. News both blamed "teenage sex" on "confused" kids, and held up sex and abstinence education as the cure.

Imagine how different these stories would be if the media told the decidedly un-sexy truth about pregnant teens: the large majority are impoverished girls with histories of physical, sexual and other abuses by parents and other adults, and most are impregnated by adult men. When the L.A. Times, in an exceptional report (3/14-15/93), actually showed the bleak childhoods of pregnant, disadvantaged teens, the accompanying official rhetoric blaming MTV and "peer pressure" looked silly.


Media Myth: "Teenage" Violence
On "teenage" violence, the media picture is similarly skewed: "Teen Violence: Wild in the Streets" (Newsweek, 8/2/93), "Kids and Guns" (Newsweek, 3/9/92), "When Killers Come to Class" (U.S. News,, 11/8/93), and "Big Shots" (Time, 8/2/93) all follow a standard format. The lead-in details the latest youth mayhem, followed by selected "facts" on "the causes of skyrocketing teen violence": adolescent depravity, gun-toting metalheads, TV images, rap attitude, gang culture, lenient youth-court judges. And perhaps (in a few well-buried sentences) such small matters as poverty, abuse, racial injustice, unemployment and substandard schools.
Given the emphasis on "teen" violence, a California Department of Justice report (8/13/93) comes as a shock: It found that 83 percent of murdered children, half of murdered teenagers and 85 percent of murdered adults are slain by adults over age 20, not by "kids"--or, in President Clinton's stock phrase (AP, 11/14/93), "13-year-olds...with automatic weapons." In fact, FBI reports show 47-year-olds (people Clinton's age) are twice as likely to commit murder than are 13-year-olds.

But while the media champion official rhetoric on violence by youth, they rarely provide similar attention to the epidemic of adult violence against youth. The National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect (5/93) reported that at least 350,000 children and teenagers are confirmed victims of sexual and other violent abuses every year by adults whose average age is 32 years. Comparison of these figures with crime reports shows that for every violent and sexual offense committed by a youth under 18, there are three such crimes committed by adults against children and teens.

The reporting of the 1992 National Women's Study of 4,000 adult women (AP, 5/22/92) is a case study in media bias. The Rape in America report found that 12 million American women have been raped; of these, 62 percent were raped before age 18. The half-million-plus children and teenagers victimized every year averaged 10 years of age; their rapists' average age was 27.

The media unrelentingly headline "children having children" and "killer kids," and endlessly wonder what is "out of control when it comes to the way many teens think" (U.S. News, 7/26/93). Surely the widespread adult violent and sexual attacks against youths are a compelling answer. Consistent research shows such abuses are the key factors in violence, pregnancy, drug abuse and suicide among teenagers (see Family Planning Perspectives, 1-2/92).

But the same media outlets with plenty of space to dissect sexy videos and dirty rap lyrics couldn't find room to examine the real rapes of hundreds of thousands of children and teenagers every year. Time gave it three paragraphs (5/4/92), while U.S. News didn't mention it at all. Neither did Newsweek, although in four years it has devoted five cover stories to the dangers of rock and rap music (3/19/90, 7/2/90, 6/29/92, 11/2/92, 11/29/93). Similarly, the media have largely ignored the rising number of prison studies (including those at the Minnesota State Prison and the Massachusetts Treatment Center for Sexually Dangerous Persons) which show 60 percent to 90 percent of all inmates--and nearly all of those on death row--were abused as children. The most conservative study, by the National Institute of Justice, projects that 40 percent of all violent crimes (some half-million every year) result from offenders being abused as children (In These Times, 9/20/93).

In a similar vein, news outlets (other than a flurry of coverage of the National Commission on Children's report) have generally failed to examine the enormous increase in youth and young-family poverty, which rose by 50 percent from 1973 to 1991 (U.S. Census Bureau, Poverty in the United States). Nor have mainstream media seriously addressed the devastating effects of racism, rising poverty and unemployment on a generation of young people of color.

The media portrait reflects politicians' unadmitted priorities: Condemning violence by youth is a guaranteed crowd-pleaser; focusing on adult violence against kids isn't as popular. (Most news consumers are adults, and kids can't vote.)

In a rare exception--a report that devoted more space to poverty and child abuse than to TV sex--Time's Oct. 8, 1990 cover article pointed out a truth long known to prison wardens and juvenile court judges: "If children are not protected from their abusers, then the public will one day have to be protected from the children." But most outlets continue to treat violent youth as mysterious freaks of nature: The lead headline in the Sunday Los Angeles Times (12/9/93) opinion section blared: "Who are our children? One day, they are innocent. The next, they may try to blow your head off."

Perhaps the L.A. Times (whose landmark 8/25/85 survey indicated that childhood sexual abuse is epidemic, affecting one-fifth of all Americans) should instead question its own media escapism. From July through September 1993, that newspaper carried 34 articles and commentaries on the effects of violent media, rap and video games on youth--but not one inch on the effects of child abuse in promoting youth violence.

While the L.A. Times gives prominent coverage to charges of child abuse involving the rich and famous--like singer Michael Jackson and the Beverly Hills Menendez brothers--when the L.A. Council on Child Abuse and Neglect reported 140,000 children abused in the county in 1992, the Times (11/4/93) relegated the story to an inside section with no follow-up or comment.


Two Sides, Same Bias
The extraordinary lack of context and fairness in media coverage of youth stems from two elemental difficulties. First, the standard media assumption is that fairness is served by quoting "both sides"--but on youth issues, "both sides" frequently harbor adult biases against teenagers.
In the much-publicized debates over school programs to reduce "teen" pregnancy, for example, the press quoted "liberal" sources favoring condom handouts balanced by "conservative" sources demanding abstinence education (e.g. USA Today, 11/19/91). However, both lobbies based their arguments on the same myth--that heedless high school boys are the main cause of "teen" pregnancy--and avoided the same disturbing fact: that even if every high school boy abstained from sex or used a condom, most "teen" pregnancies would still occur.

The second difficulty is that "teenage" behavior is not separate from "adult" behavior. Such hot topics as "teen pregnancy," "teen suicide," and "youth violence" are artificial political and media inventions. In real-world environments, teenagers usually act like the adults of their family, gender, race, class, location and era, often because their behaviors occur with adults.

For example, Vital Statistics of the United States shows that white adults are twice as likely to commit suicide as black adults, and white teens are twice as likely to commit suicide as black teens. From 1940 to 1990, unwed birth rates rose 4.7 times among teenage women and 4.6 times among adult women. The FBI's 1992 Uniform Crime Reports show that men commit 88 percent of all adult violent crime; boys commit 88 percent of all juvenile violent crime.

Why are adult contexts, common to media reports on youth prior to the 1970s, only rarely cited today? Because that would prevent adolescents from serving as the latest scapegoats for problems that affect society in general.

And there is a subtler reason: the interests circulating negative images of teens want the source of malaise located within youth, where it can be "treated" by whatever solutions the publicizing interest groups profit from, rather than in unhealthy environments whose upgrading will require billions of dollars in public spending. Thus short-term political and corporate profit lies not in fixing environments, but in fixing kids.

The treatment industry's message is clear: "Our teenagers have lost their way," declares the AMA. The press has been a key element in the campaign to persuade the public that the cause of youth pregnancy, violence, suicide, and drug addiction lies within the irrational psychologies and vulnerabilities of adolescents.

A standard news and documentary feature is the "troubled teen" rescued by the teamwork of "loving parents" and "get-tough" professionals. (For an example justifying the abduction of youth by "therapeutic programs," see the Los Angeles Times, 6/2/93). Despite melodramatic media splashes advertising the "success" of this program or that therapy (often based on testimonials or the promoter's own "study"), controlled, long-term research finds efforts to "cure" troubled teenagers generally ineffective.

On the other hand, the publicity campaigns for such treatments--disguised as news--have been quite successful. During the 1980s, the number of teens forced into intensive psychiatric treatment quadrupled, while adolescent commitments to drug and alcohol treatment tripled. If institution and treatment industry claims are valid, we should have seen dramatic improvements in youth behavior.

Exactly the opposite is the case. is the case. In the last five to 10 years, intense media and government attacks on various behaviors--chiefly drug abuse, violence and pregnancy--have been followed by rapidly rising problems among teenagers. Stable violence rates and rapidly declining birth rates and drug death levels prior to 1985 have suddenly reversed: All three rose rapidly from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s. The media's unwillingness to question official policy and its failures helped make these reverses possible.


Beyond Youth-Bashing
A few journalists refuse to kowtow to official myths, and instead publicize the enormous racial imbalances inherent in "youth violence," the fundamental sexism of the current debate over "teen" pregnancy, the realities of millions of raped, beaten and neglected children, the skyrocketing rates of youth poverty imposed by ever-richer American elites, and the futility of modern behavior modifications, laws and treatments aimed at forcing the young to "adjust" to intolerable conditions.
Ron Harris's Los Angeles Times series on juvenile crime (8/22-25/93) analyzed the crucial factors of racism, poverty and abuse in creating today's youth violence, and exploded the popular fiction of lenient sentencing. (Teens, in fact, serve prison terms 60 percent longer than adults for equivalent crimes.) Kevin Fedarko's perceptive eulogy (Time, 1/20/92) to post-industrial Camden, New Jersey, "a city of children" relinquished to poverty and prostitution, may stand as the decade's finest illustration of 1990s America's abandonment of its young.

J. Talan's expose (Newsday, 1/7/88) of the profiteering behind the skyrocketing rate of fraudulent adolescent psychiatric commitments to "fill empty beds" in "overbuilt hospitals" was one of the few to question official "treatment" claims. Time's indictment of the "shameful" selfishness, abuses and uncaring attitudes of adults toward "America's most disadvantaged minority: its children" (10/8/90) also stands as an indictment of today's media obsequiousness.

These articles' debunking of conventional wisdom does not stop the same children-blaming myths from showing up in day-to-day coverage of youth problems. But these occasional exceptions do suggest how media responsibility could halt today's political assault on youth and heal spreading intergenerational hostilities."


it is of course great that this info is available, but still... hopefully you understand what i sometimes dont like about the media....

[Guest]

In response to your claims that censorship exists in america but to a lesser degree you must realize who the censorship comes from. After 9/11 a lot of reporters who tried to be "objective" about their reporting felt pressure to conform to the general publics view. But the fact remains that pressure did not arise from the government, but from their own news outlet, be it cnn or a newspaper. Now there is a peculiarity that doesn't allow us to call this censorship, and thats the fact that it was perpetrated by private individuals and entities. If this individuals and entities were not allowed to discriminate what they deemed innaproppriate then that would be censorship. If cnn had no say what went on the air on cnn, that would be censorship.

[Fabi]

then just call it corporate sponsorship.... it really doesnt matter... of course you can have weird definitions of censorship..... ;) didnt mean YOU you, but the ppl who define such things... ;)
here something more government related...

"Attempts by the U.S. government to exert control over media have been broad. In early October, Secretary of State Colin Powell voiced his concerns about the Al Jazeera television station during a meeting with Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa Thani, the emir of Qatar. Powell reportedly told Thani to "rein in" Al Jazeera, which operates out of Qatar and relies on the government for significant funding (Washington Post, 10/9/01). Though the channel is considered by many to be the most independent TV news outlet in the Arab world, Powell and other U.S. officials were reportedly upset by the channel re-airing old interviews with bin Laden and the inclusion of guests that are too critical of the United States on its programs. (In attempting to muzzle Al Jazeera, Powell was mirroring the complaints of Arab nationalists who contend that the channel too often airs the views of Israelis and Western officials.)

Once the air strikes began, Al Jazeera provided the only footage coming out of Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, documenting the killing and maiming of civilians. The station also aired videotaped statements delivered to it by Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda group--which were picked up and replayed by U.S. television networks. In an October 10 conference call with national security adviser Condoleeza Rice, executives from ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox and CNN reportedly acceded to her "suggestion" that any future taped statements from Al Qaeda be "abridged," and any potentially "inflammatory" language removed before broadcast.

Originally, the administration expressed concern about the possibility of Al Qaeda members sending "coded messages" to their followers in the segments--without offering any evidence that such a technique had ever been used, or that censoring U.S. news broadcasts would be an effective means of keeping any messages that did exist from terrorists.

But Rice's main argument to the networks seems to have been that bin Laden's statements should be restricted because of their overt content. NBC News chief Neal Shapiro told the New York Times (10/11/01) that Rice's main point "was that here was a charismatic speaker who could arouse anti-American sentiment getting 20 minutes of air time to spew hatred and urge his followers to kill Americans."

The following day, Fleischer took the administration's campaign further and contacted major newspapers to request that they consider not printing full transcripts of bin Laden's messages. "The request is to report the news to the American people," said Fleischer (New York Times, 10/12/01). "But if you report it in its entirety, that could raise concerns that he's getting his prepackaged, pretaped message out."

To its credit, the New York Times has apparently resisted such requests, even editorializing (10/11/01) that the "White House effort is ill advised." But some media executives seemed to actually appreciate the White House pressure. In an official statement, CNN declared: "In deciding what to air, CNN will consider guidance from appropriate authorities'' (Associated Press, 10/10/01). CNN chief Walter Isaacson added, "After hearing Dr. Rice, we're not going to step on the land mines she was talking about" (New York Times, 10/11/01). "We'll do whatever is our patriotic duty,'' said News Corp executive Rupert Murdoch (Reuters, 10/11/01), who took U.S. citizenship when his Australian passport interfered with his buying American TV stations.

Indeed, when a taped segment from bin Laden spokesman Suleiman Abu Gheith aired on Al Jazeera on October 13, U.S. networks handled it much differently than previous statements. Fox News Channel and MSNBC did not air any of the footage, while the other networks opted to show only portions of the tape, or paraphrase the content (Associated Press, 10/31/01).

Dangerously unbiased

Powell was not the only government official who seemed to think that a national emergency gave them license to attempt to interfere with news outlets. On September 21, the federally funded Voice of America radio service temporarily held a news story that featured comments from Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar after the State Department complained to Voice of America‘s board of governors (Washington Post, 9/23/01). When the station played the segment anyway, State Department spokesperson Richard Boucher (press conference, 9/24/01) criticized Voice of America for "asking the U.S. taxpayer to pay for broadcasting this guy's voice back into Afghanistan." Some media heavyweights shared that view: The New York Times’ William Safire (10/1/01) was clearly upset that the "seat-warmer at the Voice of America could not restrain its news directors from broadcasting the incendiary diatribes of Taliban leaders."

At KOMU-TV in St. Louis, run by faculty and students at the University of Missouri, on-air news personnel were prohibited from wearing anything that might indicate support for a particular cause, including flags or patriotic ribbons. This prompted state Rep. Matt Bartle to send an email to the station’s news director that threatened the KOMU’s state funding: "If this is what you are teaching the next generation of journalists, I question whether the taxpayers of this state will support it" (Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, 9/30/01).

It appears that journalistic neutrality is a dangerous message to send these days. When Cablevision’s News 12 station in Long Island, N.Y. adopted a no-flag policy for its on-air personnel, it wasn’t government officials that were upset by the supposed lack of patriotism--it was the station’s advertisers. One station official told the New York Times (10/7/01) that "a number of clients are talking about running their ads somewhere else." In such an environment, it shouldn’t be surprising that news that might portray the military in an unflattering light would also be censored. An Associated Press photo taken aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise showed a bomb with "high jack this fags" scrawled on it, apparently the work of an American soldier. The AP withdrew the photo, instructing news outlets not to run it in their papers (PlanetOut.com, 10/12/01). Mainstream media have shown little interest in reporting on the incident--suggesting that self-censorship is itself a phenomenon that might be too hot to cover. "



also they passed some law in britain a while ago that somehow encouraged free speech even more cause they found that the gov was so powerful...
but now, with corporations who are more powerful (at least by economic means) than a lot of countries, shouldnt it apply to them, too?

[Capitalist Imperial]

We agree there, I dn't like the media, either, it often works against american interests

[Fabi]

here is something more on censorship....

"Summer 1998

Eighth grade students in Tiverton, Rhode Island, must have been baffled when their teacher asked them to give back copies of Go Ask Alice in the middle of a class discussion, on orders from a principal who had not read the book. A mother's objection to language in Go Ask Alice so stirred the principal that--with no time for discussion--he demanded that the books be collected immediately. The teacher, who had used the book before with "huge success," was shocked when it was removed in violation of the district's complaint policies and procedures.

Considered by many teachers a valuable and important teaching tool for adolescents, Go Ask Alice, author unknown, is the diary of an adolescent's struggles with drug addiction and the tragic consequences.

In her letter to the school superintendent, Joan Bertin, NCAC executive director, urged the district to respect the First Amendment rights of students and teachers. A review committee has been appointed and has returned the book to the library from where it was also removed, and is considering its return to the classroom.
"

source:
http://www.ncac.org/cen_news/cn70goaskalice.html

[Guest]

There are many reasons why communism fails, but rather than get into the flawed philosophy behind communism, let us compare and contrast it with the market system.

The job of any economy is to allocate scarce resources to the production of certain goods, and to distribute the goods among a given society. In the free-market this is best left to the market mechanism. Where marginal utility of the consumer is equal to the price being charged, and the marginal cost of production. Of course, this is the theoretical model of perfect competition, where there are many different markets with many competitors and customers, who have perfect information about the product, which is all the same. Furthermore, freedom of entry and exit from the market can not be barred. Obviously, not a very realistic world. It is more likely that some markets will be monopolized by large firms, while others resemble that of the perfectly competitive model. Economies of scale sometimes permit this to occur. Still the question remains can any one market be completely monopolized. Surprisingly, not unless it is done by government decree. Any monopoly has the threat of being bought out by larger firms through hostile takeover. Moreover, monopolies don’t get to arbitrarily choose their prices and gouge the customer. If prices are too high the customer will not purchase the commodity desired, leaving the companies bottom line suffering. Markets do not have the capacity to oppress their customers effectively, since they are dependent on their customers to survive. It is better to let economies run on Adam Smith’s invisible hand of supply and demand, because when everyone suites their best interest, an economy’s resources are allocated by price.
In contrast, central planners must decide which outputs to produce, which inputs to use, and how to distribute them without the convenience of an efficient price system. It is easy to see how markets are dependent upon one another. Economies can be stopped dead as a matter of short short-sightedness. One industry’s output change can drastically effect other related industries. Input-output equations are often used to solve such problems. The lengthiness and complexity of these problems show the challenge of an economy that is completely controlled by the central government. It is impossible to predict how much of each output is needed and where they will be needed. A process to organize the various information needed to run an economy of interdependent markets is best left to a price mechanism in a free-market economy.
Furthermore, entrepreneurs are motivated by profit. In a market that equalizes income their motivation is taken away. Should it be expected that men will continue to devote their lives to inventing new products and processes of manufacturing when their reason is destroyed. The economic rent paid for such advances insures future innovation. Central planning will insure a stagnation of ideas as the free-thinkers, who generate useful market tools, vanish. Likewise, is the employees ability to work efficiently when he fears the state. People’s likelihood of decision making is directly proportional to the freedom to do so. To illustrate, it was common in the U.S.S.R. that businesses would stand still until state agencies could investigate. Only to find that the shipment wasn’t delivered because the producers were unsure what color the product was to be painted. The operator of the industry was hesitant to make decisions, because he did not answer to himself, but to the state. Looking at the differences in the market mechanism and central planning, it is clear why the communist economic plan is failing around the world.