Is the Cold War really over?

[Cloud Cover]

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.

I had a similar shirt for the T-72 1988 world tour!!! Most people didn't get the joke at the time.

 

[TCBF]

"How about equality?"

Equality of what?  Equality of hopelessness, slavery and death, unless you are one of the Nomemklatura?  No, only Capitalism provides equality of opportunity - Communism and Socialism provide equality only in death. 

Tom

 

[badpup]

"How about equality?"

Equality of what?  Equality of hopelessness, slavery and death, unless you are one of the Nomemklatura?  No, only Capitalism provides equality of opportunity - Communism and Socialism provide equality only in death. 

Tom

Reminds me of a quote from Animal Farm, I believe it was " All animals are equal, some are more equal than others" That is what socialism/communism is, it is Not as Marx envisioned, and marxists expouse

 

[loyalcana]

Reminds me of a quote from Animal Farm, I believe it was " All animals are equal, some are more equal than others" That is what socialism/communism is, it is Not as Marx envisioned, and marxists expouse

BTW the author of Animal Farm was written by George Orwell a very dedicated socialist.

 

[The_Stu]

Reminds me of a quote from Animal Farm, I believe it was " All animals are equal, some are more equal than others" That is what socialism/communism is, it is Not as Marx envisioned, and marxists expouse

Animal Farm is a satire adaptation of Stalinism, not Marxism, or even Leninism. The differences are small, but noteworthy nonetheless.

 

[badpup]

Aye Stu, however even pure Marxism or socialism  will degrade into the unequal totalitarianism that is Communism. It is human nature that absolute power corrupts absolutely  :threat:

 

[I_am_John_Galt]

BTW the author of Animal Farm was written by George Orwell a very dedicated socialist.

BTW the author of Animal Farm was written by George Orwell a very dedicated disillusioned socialist.

 

[The_Stu]

I agree badpup, I was just pointing that out, and Orwell was a democratic socialist, which had a more center of left connotation in Orwell's day. Something like what the Labour Party in the UK is today I believe.

 

[Cloud Cover]

Wasn't Animal Farm essentially a story that demonstrated the pitfalls of the socialist revolution? Hnece, the book was banned from distribution after Russia switched sides during the war?

 

[TCBF]

Have your affairs in order first.  You just KNOW who will get the worst of that one. 

Tom

 

[I_am_John_Galt]

Then I asked how many innocent people died under that flag they were carrying and all I got was.....a blank look, then realisation, then hostility.

I recently came-across a book that tries to answer that very question: "The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression" http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/0674076087/qid=1112209295/sr=8-2/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i2_xgl14/701-5487749-8920325

From the mini-reviews:

From Library Journal
Courtois, director of research at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), leads the efforts of major scholars associated with the CNRS, who drew on recently opened Soviet archives to track the atrocities of communism worldwide over the last century. Concluding that communism's death toll stands at 85 to 100 million, they wonder forcefully why such "class genocide" is excused more easily than the Nazis' "race genocide." This book burned a hole in the French Left when it was published--and also hit the best sellers lists. Not easy reading, but a seminal document. (LJ 11/1/99)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Tabulators of the Red Terror from its inception in 1918 down to its vestigial continuation in such countries as North Korea and Cuba, the authors instigated an intellectual ruckus in France, a curious reception for this dry ledger of death. It was not, apparently, the recitation of killings that irked the left in France but Courtois' condemnation of Leninist regimes as criminal enterprises. That stance challenged the left's deeply seated tenets that communism, despite excesses, was progressive; that Stalinism was an effect of one personality, not an entire system; and that moral indictments of communism are mitigated by the unique evil of the Nazism it defeated. For even adumbrating a moral equivalence of the tyrannical -isms, Courtois' introduction was denounced as anti-Semitic by a Le Monde editorialist. History communism may be, but a comprehensive historical accounting has yet to be undertaken because academic historians tend to loathe such accounting as being subjective. But since 1989, the raw documentary material necessary to just discover what happened, let alone interpret it, has begun to emerge. This volume merely chronicles and quotes the draconian decrees and secret police reports that sanctioned mass executions, deportations, and the establishment of concentration camps; implemented the collectivization of land, which invariably caused famines that starved millions; or formulated plans for wars of aggression, as in Korea. Whether this work will agitate U.S. citizens as much as it has the French seems doubtful, but there remain precincts in the U.S. where it could ignite debate, especially among those who stubbornly cleave to a belief that Lenin, Mao, and Pol Pot were aberrations rather than the essence of communism.