Is the Cold War really over?

[TCBF]

At the end of WW2, we had all sorts of de-Nazification camps and programs around Germany to re-educate the ones not worth hanging.  Now that we have allegedly won the cold war, things are a bit different - we do not occupy the enemy's motherland (nor would we want to). Russia is, in any case, slowly de-populating itself. 

However, what about the re-education of the traitors in our midst who actively worked against the West during the cold war?  Heck, they are still fighting against us!  Maybe we should set up a few camps on Baffin Island, and start re-educating a few hundred teachers, professors, judges, radical activists and so on.

We may have won the cold war in Europe, but we lost it in Canada.

Tom

 

[dutchie]

Hey great idea! While were at it, we'll round up all other 'enemies of the State'...you know, the intellectuals...you can tell them by their spectacles. While were at it, let's also re-educate anyone who's beliefs differ from ours, we can't have that! Those leftist-pinko-limp wristed-free loaders! It's the 'teachers, professors, judges, radical activists and so on' that have caused all the problems. It's take a while, about 5 years...we could do it in 5 years with a plan (that name sounds familiar somehow...).

Sarcasm off.

Were you kidding? If so, you fooled me. If not, could you elaborate on why we should be re-educating people? Who? How? Please also explain how 're-education' fits into an apparently deomcratic and somewhat free society?

thanks.

 

[Infanteer]

Yeah, I'm wondering about this too?

If we forced people into re-education camps against their will, what would we have to bitch about in the politics forum?

 

[winchable]

I'm going to go on the assumption that, that post was meant to be ironic.
Fighting communism, winning over communism, taking up the communist practices we fought and won over to rid the world of...

If not..
eek...

*Che runs off to hide children in floorboards, waits for secret police*

The fact that I'm allowed to use the name Che without having to go to a re-education camp is one of the reasons I'm immensely proud of everything that has occured and everyone who fought or worked for in the 20th century regarding human rights totalitarianism.
Sounds like a gulag to me, yeah, Baffin Islands cold...siberia like almost.
I'd volunteer to go actually, so I could write a book called "A day in the life of...." It's been done you say? Where? Oh right, in the communist countries the cold war was fought against.

Like I said, hope it was a tongue in cheek post.

I know a Russian guy down the street from me, very quiet fellow, incredibly old who is a Jew a doctor and a writer and he's spent time in a "
"re-education camp" (though I think they called them something else in Russia at the time) I'm sure he'd love to know that the country he ran to after being released was taking up the same practices as his original tormentors.

Come to think of it, I know you wrote this just to get a rise out of us so you and the Max could laugh at our attempts at "outrage" "Shock" and "trembling indignation"

 

[Cloud Cover]

Jeeze.... Of course the cold war is over. Canada won,can't you tell by our huge peace dividend, upon which we starting taking equity loans in the early 1970's.

As for re-education ...how about an education first. For many sheople, one would appear to be too many.  

Cheers.
Steve Shields.

 

[Brad Sallows]

If you wish to do away with most of the Left and the "intellectual" classes, just let part of the extreme Left take over.

 

[TCBF]

You know, I just thought fair is fair.  If we have, in the past, re-educated National Socialists (NSDAP), why would we not want to re-educate International Socialists?  Read the column by Louise Arbour on "Freedom From Want" etc. in Saturday's National Post?  It could have been written by Karl Marx.

So what happens when those consuming the wealth outnumber those producing the wealth?

After WW2, there was no doubt - morally and ethically - the Nazis were vilified.  Why have the Communists and Socialists (Commie Lite) not been similarly vilified? 

"We have met the enemy, and he is us!" - Pogo

Tom Falls

 

[winchable]

Why have the Communists and Socialists (Commie Lite) not been similarly vilified? 

I haven't seen anyone in mainstream society say anything good about communists in a very long time.
As for socialists, it's such a broad term and really subjectiove when you look at the different people being classed as such. It's rarely used by anyone to describe themselves either.

In my eyes the communists have been villified, but I've taken the time to read about Stalins atrocities and realised he was far worse then Hitler.
That's education though,
Re-education brings to mind images of 1984, or the movie "Equilibrium" or as I said, Communist Gulags in Siberia, which you don't seem to be in favour of.

I think the problem here might be our different definitions of the words...or do you really think we should round up professors, lawyers, judges and politicians....because...well...like I said, I hope you're being Ironic and just trying to goad us into a bunch.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Yes; the country is full of people with bright ideas for public spending and collective rights at the expense of the individual; curiously, few of them believe themselves to be socialists.

 

[TCBF]

Irony: that's a good word.  Exactly.  I find it ironic that the "Left" in contemporary society refuses to acknowledge the crimes - of omission as well as commission - committed by their cohorts.

Example: You call yourself "che'.  If you called yourself "Adolph Eichmann", some people may have spoken to you about that.  No problem with "che", a folk hero to many who don't know or care that he was a sociopath who murdered Cuban Air Force pilots in front of their families, put their families in cages to die, and - as a commander in Africa and South America (and a criminally incompetent one) - fought against the very peasants he claimed to have been helping.  A medical student turned war criminal who probably caused more deaths than Eichmann.

Yet he is a hero to our Left.

Thus: we may have won the cold war physically, but are loosing it intellectually, because we stopped fighting it , and the "comrades" among us have not.

Tom

 

[dutchie]

Are you suggesting that Che (the one here, not the other one) is a communist? That's how it appears.....

I see where your coming from, and I agree that we haven't crushed communism out as we did (or so we thought) fascism...but that's because communism is alive (but not well) in Asia.

Further, the current brand of cimmunism/socialism is not as destructive (overtly) to western society as German fascism was, hence we aren't rolling massive amounts of troops into China, Vietnam, N. Korea....yet.

My 2 Cents.

 

[TCBF]

No, I am not slamming che.  That wasn't my intent.  Merely to illustrate that our society has demonized Eichmann (rightly) but has failed to demonize Che the revolutionary because he was...well...a revolutionary.  Which makes up for, i guess, being a war crimminal.  Didn't Lenin say "You can't make an omlette without breaking eggs?

Tom

 

[dutchie]

I agree, and see your point. It's always irked me to see people walking around wearing Che shirts or the commie red star shirt, yet get their knickers in a knot when you compare Che et al to other repressive brutal regimes.

 

[I_am_John_Galt]

No, I am not slamming che.  That wasn't my intent.  Merely to illustrate that our society has demonized Eichmann (rightly) but has failed to demonize Che the revolutionary because he was...well...a revolutionary.  Which makes up for, i guess, being a war crimminal.  Didn't Lenin say "You can't make an omlette without breaking eggs?

Tom

It's an "enemy of my enemy" thing: Guevara stood up against 'evil American capitalist pig-dogs' and is therefore a hero, details be damned ... we see it all the time: the worst atrocities of the Soviet Union, post-war Vietnam and Saddam (among numerous others) were each given a virtual free pass; Castro incarcerated dozens of librarians two years ago and it still barely gets a mention in the press ... I posted on another forum about Robert Byrd ... a great deal of anti-capitalism/anti-Americanism is reflexive (no logical consistency) ... moral relativism at it's worst.

In the words of another Soviet dictator, insofar as advancing the ends of the enemies of Western society, pacifists and socialists are "useful idiots."

 

[Infanteer]

I always wondered why the Swastika was rightly vilified for what it stands for, but some people have no problems wearing a hammer and sickle, which was responsible for more cases of systematic butchery then the Nazi's ever carried out.

 

[Brad Sallows]

I should see if I still have my "Hitler's European Tour" t-shirt somewhere.  It was an excellent tool for sniffing out humourless people.

 

[Gouki]

Every country has screwed up and no country is innocent... from America to China to Germany, from Capitalism to Communism to Fascism, they've all committed and done their own share of "attrocities"

Perhaps the reasons why people wear the Sickle/Hammer or have flags of it, or why they wear/have flags of the Red Star or the Stars and Stripes and lady Liberty, is more so because of the ideal they represent?

I'm on the same line as what I_am_john_galt was saying I think, but I wanted to highlight it some more.

 

[TCBF]

Interesting...so what ideals do the hammer and sickle, red star etc. represent other than the deaths of millions of innocents?

Tom

 

[FredDaHead]

Interesting...so what ideals do the hammer and sickle, red star etc. represent other than the deaths of millions of innocents?

Tom

How about equality?

 

[winchable]

Before we assume my reasons for respecting Guevara we should zip our pieholes, I don't presume to know why you revere certain people so let us keep assumptions to a minimum, about everyone.
Sufficed to say I don't wear the t-shirt to my IDS class and ***** about the war in Iraq and how Bush is a war criminal.
In fact I'm not sure if I have the t-shirt anymore...have all the books though, diaries, speeches, the biography etc. Anyway don't feel the need to defend myself much beyond that.

Chalk it all up to sticking it to the man...whoever the man is at the time.
That is the simplest possible argument I can come up with because I am knackered tonight.

People have been doing it since the inception of "The Man"
Jesus's little Fish, The underground railroad, Radio Marti, any labour movement during the industrial revolution....
The man of our lifetime, appears to be "The USA"
It is reflexive, John's right...the enemy of my "Enemy" 90% of the people who loved wearing their Che t-shirts to the protests in 5 years will be at U of T taking law, 10 years from now they'll be in the suburbs, voting, taking the kids to soccer practice and they'll be saying "Frigging communsits."
The youth are powerful, powerful people.
We control the media, fashion industry, food industry, the universities...what have you, think how many things you do and see in a day are somehow influenced by youth!
So, as long as there is a man to stick it to, media to sensationalize it, universities and "Intelligentsia" to encourage free thought....there's going to be reflexive actions, illogical, stupid, whatever you call it in 20 years it'll be someone else and it'll be ME doing the complaining.
And of course, everyone with eyes and ears is going to notice it and think it's the end of the world because it's Right there in your face to see because like I said, the youth influence (and by proxy control) just about everything you see in a day.

There you go, the awful truth, when you're young you do illogical things to stick it to someone, some people hold on to it until they're older but the majority of it, as I said, move on.