Fidel Castro (Capitalist Democracy vs Socialism)

[Kosmo]

At first I gave you a long response, but it got lost. All I can say it's that you focus on the unavoidable errors of your society and project a biased or uninformed image on communism.

Communist goverments were the greatest killers in human history and they destroyed the societies they ruled upon.

The Gulag in the Soviet Union, the great famines of Ukraine and China, The Great Leap Forward, the killing fields of Cambodja or the Katyn massacre are just just some well known examples.

Communists killed the best of their subjects and forced the rest in moral abjection (maybe a reason for the wide spread prostitution you mentioned) and large scale slavery (not like that in chinese factories, but like that in chinese prisons). They made people spy and denounce each other and ruled thru fear. They were totally inept in economic policy and banckrupt prosperous countries like Cehia, Germany and Romania. They carried many wars of agression and despised human lifes of enemy or subject alike.

Please, read more, not leftist propaganda, but the true stories of how this countries were before them, how people lived for 70 or 50 years under them and how difficult still is to recover.

Information it's the key that they tried, and partially succeded, in falsifing and hiding.

[Zeke]

Be careful when using the word "Communist" because Communisn has never existed. All the regimes you have just mentioned were never Communist.

 

 

YES! there were horrible nations that claimed to be Communist and almost all of them did indeed fail. Yet when they did exist they made life slightly better for the people of the world. Thanks to the Soviet Union the Third World is slightly better off. The Soviet Union litterally gave away tractors, free food, and medical. Has America ever given away free tractors on the scale of the Soviet Union?

 

I think not. So though undemocratic, the Soviet Union did make a contribution to the world when it existed.

 

Kosmo you said the Communist countries despised human life. That may be so...but all nations despise life. Especially the United State and the richer more economically sound nations like England and Germany. Do you think we Americans really care about the lives of Nigerians in sweat factories. WE say we do...but are we really doing anything about it? Were the ultra consumers of the world we need them to survive.

 

Communist experiements failed...because their systems cannont meet supply and demand. Eventually all these "Communist" systems have to become Capitalist or crumble.

 

You also said Communist goverments were the greatest killers in human history and they destroyed the societies they ruled upon.

 

We can't forget all the Dark Age Kingdoms, the British Imperlists, the Americans, the Assyrians, etc. They killed their societies to.

 

No matter how you look at it...both sides of this argument are in some way evil.

 

The ultimate represenation of Capitalism: The United States...triumphed in the end over the "Wicked" Soviet Union. Now you have a world based around America and its globalization. People are loosing their culture and embracing American lifestyle. Everyone wants to be an American. Is that so good?

 

The Ultimate represantation of the Command Economy: The Soviet Union failed to beat the United States. But if the world had become Soviet then everyone would have eventually spoke Russian and lived in undemocratic if not deppresing countries. Their culture would have been whipped out by Soviet Globlization.

 

So both sides are equally evil and equally good. Historically speaking each has contributed their fair share to the world. No one is better.

[Kosmo]

I don't believe in moral washing like that. So, if assyrians killed people it's ok for Stalin to do so? Can you compare the bloddiest thing brits did, the Boer War with what Pol Pot did?

Did the US imprisioned and executed milions of french and dutch after WW2? Did they killed most german, romanian etc prisoners, including returning soviet prisoners?

Do the CIA fave 10% percent of the population hired as informers behind closed borders. Do they recruit 12 years old to spy on their parents? Do you have a personnality cult with mass rallies at your president birthday? The republican leadership makes bloody purges in the party with public admissions of guilt before the firing squad?

 

I don't know what you call comunism, but I know what comunism was and is and it's not pretty.

 

I'll rather be in a american style consumer society then in a soviet prison society. It's absurd to consider them even remotelly similar.

Yes, soviets did send some tractors to Africa, but many more weapons and this was done not for the love of africans, but to control them and to start or countinue wars. And the russians at home had little food because of the generous help that a poor country give to other poor countries for stupid political ambitions.

They left a lot of rubbles after "helping" Ethiopia, Angola, Tanzania etc.

 

I understand that your political disappointment with your goverment makes you over critical to it, but don't tell me that what was extremly bad can compare with something that was mostly good.

[Gaius Octavius]

Why is it that AN AMERICAN, addressing facts, has to first offer the apologia: "I am not a ____, but...."?

AMERICA WAS FOUNDED BY REVOLUTIONISTS, LIBERALS AND DEISTS.

 

Why is it that the moronic, super-patriotic, FECES FOR BRAINS, propaganda vomiting, dis-educated ill-literatti are not required to start each sentence that they flatulate - from either orfice - with the admonition: "I am a moron, but...."?

 

Many of the leaders of our home grown communist experiments are celebrated. The Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches are rife with communist communities.

 

What is wrong with being a liberal, and indeed a communist? Where is it written in the U.S. Constitution that being a liberal or communist is off the menu? ISN'T THAT WHAT IT WAS ALL ABOUT? Where is it written that the morons have the 'right' to decide what FREE SPEECH IS? And for whom it is applicable to?

 

If only the morons were simply :horse: .

 

_______________

 

Edit:

As all are aware, my vocabulary is quite limited, thus a 'certain party', who shall remain un-named the nonce, Pantagathus, :notworthy: (to whom I am eternally indebted), has rendered assistance. Please insert the new word IGNORANUS' for 'morons' in the very last sentence above. Thank you.

Edited August 17, 2006 by Gaius Octavius

[Moonlapse]

Be careful when using the word "Communist" because Communisn has never existed. All the regimes you have just mentioned were never Communist.

If the only Communism is a pure Communism, then I would argue that the same applies to your use of the word Capitalism.

[Gaius Octavius]

Kosmo, your knowledge of Rome may be encyclopaedic, but your knowledge of the world is only half-baked. Angola? Now, Lumumba was a bad boy. He took BACK Leopold's stealings (and those of others), so he had to go. Ever hear of the American Indian depopulation? Japanese internment camps? None of this was quite as bad as the communist's work - except if you were affected. Cuba, the point now, has always been ruled by despots in one guise or other. The Castro guise did a world of good for the common folk, if you accept it or not. Romania and Serbia were prosperous and liberal nations prior to WWII? How enlightening!

Your country was stolen from under your shoes a decade ago and that doesn't seem to perturb you. OK, by me.

If you prefer a return to a monarch and nobles, enjoy yourself. Bowing and scraping and the kissing of elbows is not so bad - if you are the noble. Frankly, I am all for that. The nobility have much too long been marginalized and maligned.

 

You are welcome to come to America as far as I am concerned. You may even join ranks with the repugnant party. Yea!, and I say unto you, join the multitudinous armies of the ignoranus'. You will, perforce of course, join the army and see the world - behind a rifle - as gayorgyeus XXXXIII brings freedom to the world (and whatever is next on the menu), and poverty and tyrany to my nation.

[Primus Pilus]

Gaius, someday you may get your wish of communism, and it will certainly devolve into dictatorship and oppression as it always has proven to do. Rather than being free to attack our current government with such zeal as you do now, you might not have such a luxury under another form of government.

 

I guess I'm just an ignorant moron though.

[Pantagathus]

as gayorgyeus XXXXIII brings freedom to the world (and whatever is next on the menu), and poverty and tyrany to my nation.

 

That is just too funny...

[Ginevra]

Hey, you're all American here. But... communism doesn't exist in your country. You don't know what you're talking about...have you ever had the choice to vote for a communist party? have you ever listen to what they wanted to do for people? Have you ever met communist politics in the square? I guess you haven't.

But I've done, and I am deeply communist. Without our communist granparents, that fought and died for liberty, my country wouldn't be what it is. We celebrate their memory every year. I know Russians did terrible things, but I also know what Fascists did. I saw the grave of my mother's grandfather - killed in a horrible way because he wanted to say what he though, and I heard my grandparents tell about the war.

Fascism is a big hole of shame in the history of Italy and sometimes I'm ashamed to be Italian thinking about that, do you know? But then, I remember what those people did, and they were communists.

 

You talk about "Capitalism Democracy". Honestly, you should shut up. You shouldn't talk of democracy, not after your dirty wars and games. Everyone knows what you did, and you do.

[Primus Pilus]

Hey, you're all American here. But... communism doesn't exist in your country. You don't know what you're talking about...have you ever had the choice to vote for a communist party? have you ever listen to what they wanted to do for people? Have you ever met communist politics in the square? I guess you haven't.

But I've done, and I am deeply communist. Without our communist granparents, that fought and died for liberty, my country wouldn't be what it is. We celebrate their memory every year. I know Russians did terrible things, but I also know what Fascists did. I saw the grave of my mother's grandfather - killed in a horrible way because he wanted to say what he though, and I heard my grandparents tell about the war.

Fascism is a big hole of shame in the history of Italy and sometimes I'm ashamed to be Italian thinking about that, do you know? But then, I remember what those people did, and they were communists.

 

You talk about "Capitalism Democracy". Honestly, you should shut up. You shouldn't talk of democracy, not after your dirty wars and games. Everyone knows what you did, and you do.

 

I believe you are misunderstanding the communist party as a part of a larger government rather than my assertion of what happens whenever 'communism' has been instituted as a singular entity. It has always been oppressive to its own populations.

 

Its not necessarily the fault of good people who believe in an ideal, but in large scale practice communism has never worked as intended.

 

By the by, please don't tell me to shut up. Just as you are allowed to freely express yourself here (and in fact encouraged to do so) I also believe strongly in my right speak freely.

[Virgil61]

(Whistles...what have I started?)

 

I am sorry everyone. I am not a Communist or anything but I got to take Gaius's side in this case.

 

I don't support Capitalism but I think its nessissary to some extent to promote economic prosperity.

 

Capitalism takes it too far when it uses slave labour in China to make stuff. Have Americans become so lazy that they can't make their own clothes? Nothing is American anymore. Everything is from the Third World.

 

A communist government forcing prisoners to work at factories producing products sold outside China isn't capitalism. Americans aren't lazy. The statistics are out there, American workers average more hours of work per week than Japanese or EU workers including Germans. American workers still have the highest productivity measurements in the world as well. In other words they are measured as being the most efficient in putting out their work product. That's not me talking, that comes from the economic data of the EU and the US.

 

What's the point of making clothes? It's a low tech and low skill sector. Be thankful we don't and can on average afford to work at higher paying more skilled jobs in sectors like telecom, software, etc.

 

I bet you in Cuba they make some of their own stuff. They do "honorable" jobs like cutting sugar cane and making cigars. What do Americans do...half of us work as retailers and in service occupations.

I feel sorry for Ursus...he has to work in that customor service job if I remember it corretly he doesn't like it very much.

 

And Cubans live in squalor. Their famous healthcare 'doctors' aren't docs like we have, they're given two years of training and the equivalent to advanced medics. Their number of actual MDs is much smaller. Your concept of service occupations misses a whole range of issues. It includes financial instruments, healthcare, legal services, consulting firms as well as retail outlets. A large service sector is an indication of a large amount of disposable income (wealth) available to utilize it.

 

America has walked away from our agricultural princeples, once a society moves to far away from its farming past then it begins to crumble. Look at Rome for an example.

 

Our agrarian principles haven't been around since the late 19th century when the industrial sector began to rival and then dominate the economy. In large part as a result of the industrial revolution America hasn't crumbled but instead risen to become the dominant power.

 

Corporations, huge retailer stores, mass production factories which pollute Earth's fragile environment...these are all the ways of Capitalism and slavery.

 

No they aren't they are the ways of implementing industrial capacity without knowledge of how it can damage the ecology. Most of the first world has implemented environmental standards, which decrease effeciency a bit and are more expensive but doable. It's now the third world 'catching up' and doing it on the cheap that is becoming the problem. It has only a part to do with capitalism but more about modes of industrialization.

 

Apparently you haven't visited the former communist nations of Eastern Europe to see the ecological devastation communist industry spawned.

 

I'd like to see proof that Rome ceased being an agrarian economy. You may mean that the old standard of sturdy Roman farms and farmers ceased being and developed into large slave plantations in Italy driving populations of non-slaves into Rome.

 

Economics is a tough road, there's so much bs and misinformation out there you really need to get a few years of college Econ to cut through the crap and get a good understanding of the field.

[Virgil61]

Hey, you're all American here. But... communism doesn't exist in your country. You don't know what you're talking about...

 

You talk about "Capitalism Democracy". Honestly, you should shut up. You shouldn't talk of democracy, not after your dirty wars and games. Everyone knows what you did, and you do.

 

Americans and Brits, not the communists, liberated Italy from facists--including my mother and her family in Guilianova. That was one of the things we did in our ''dirty wars'. You're welcome.

 

The 'Russians' did some bad things? You mean the Soviets, and 'some bad things' amounst to a possible extermination of 20-40 million human beings. But hey, it's political Euro-chic to hate America. God knows Italians want to be in on the latest, greatest chic. Our 'dirty games' were partially a response to avoid the fate of the Kulaks your Soviet comrades were so gentle with.

 

Sorry but I don't tolerate lectures and moral high ground from Europeans who have enough blood, racism and hypocrisy on their own hands to make any American blush without responding.

[Antiochus of Seleucia]

Hey, you're all American here. But... communism doesn't exist in your country. You don't know what you're talking about...have you ever had the choice to vote for a communist party? have you ever listen to what they wanted to do for people? Have you ever met communist politics in the square? I guess you haven't.

But I've done, and I am deeply communist. Without our communist granparents, that fought and died for liberty, my country wouldn't be what it is. We celebrate their memory every year. I know Russians did terrible things, but I also know what Fascists did. I saw the grave of my mother's grandfather - killed in a horrible way because he wanted to say what he though, and I heard my grandparents tell about the war.

Fascism is a big hole of shame in the history of Italy and sometimes I'm ashamed to be Italian thinking about that, do you know? But then, I remember what those people did, and they were communists.

 

You talk about "Capitalism Democracy". Honestly, you should shut up. You shouldn't talk of democracy, not after your dirty wars and games. Everyone knows what you did, and you do.

 

First, I'd like to point out, there is an American Communist party. They will never stand a chance though.

 

Communism can literally turn a mideaval country like pre-WWII Russia into a world superpower. However, as we all have seen, it only lasts so long before it evolves into a mix of capitalism and communism. I'm not sure the Soviets really made third world countries any better despite giving away tractors... there are now millions of post-soviet AK-47 and RPGs available to the weak governments of these 3rd world nations for dirt cheap. Factions in these countries destroy each other and hurt the population as they vie for power. Many people who have dreamed of living in a communist country go to one and end up hating it. (Lee Harvey Oswald for one example.) I am not for communism, but I wish to someday study the history of various societies such as the Soviets.

 

As for shutting up about our "Democracy," I know that right now it isn't perfect, but at least we have a chance of changing it without shedding blood. It's just a matter of the masses doing something about it.

 

Americans and Brits, not the communists, liberated Italy from facists

Edited August 17, 2006 by Antiochus of Seleucia

[Moonlapse]

Despite the fact that they are required for quick, semi-accurate communication of generalised systems of belief, I hate 'isms'. The intent for almost every political idea summed up with an 'ism' is arguably positive. However, good intentions have little to do with the methods. All these labels aside, I'm against any system that uses government as a means to social/economic ends, whether its under a newspeak label of Capitalism or Communism. My aversion to the many interpretations of Communism is the prevalent theme of government intervention.

 

On this premise, i'd say that the U.S. government has its 'Communist' aspects, regardless of the fact that we have a somewhat free-market economy. To me, Capitalism isn't rule by corporations, that's not even possible without the intervention and support of a government. To me, its allowing people to work and produce and have businesses and compete however they chose, under a goverment designed only to prevent the violation of rights (how rights are defined and what is covered is a whole other issue).

 

If a person wants to run his family and business according to 'Communist' principles, so be it. If he wants to do so on other principles, so be it. Just don't use the goverment as a way to enact these priciples in order to shape society/economy/etc as you see fit. This is what has happened to the U.S. - and not democratically. Politicians can and will be bought. We may democratically elect a representative, but political favors and money inside the goverment have far more potential than democratic will. The concept of laissez faire, in my mind, goes both ways. Neither should have control over the other.

 

American politicians really have very little accountability, considering their influence.

[Gaius Octavius]

Gaius, someday you may get your wish of communism, and it will certainly devolve into dictatorship and oppression as it always has proven to do. Rather than being free to attack our current government with such zeal as you do now, you might not have such a luxury under another form of government.

 

I guess I'm just an ignorant moron though.

 

You have my permission (if required), to think what you will of yourself. BUT, you do not have permission to get between my ears! If you would be so kind as to supply me with one example - one mind you - (Don't burden yourself with two.), or a valid syllogism that you may validly construct, where I have ever 'wished' for ANY form of government or economic society on anyone, then I will kiss your naked bottom in Macy's window at high-noon on Presidents Day.

 

Just in case you are not aware of it, I AM FREE to 'attack' or criticize MY government when called for and just. The Alien & Sedition Laws have expired! From what you have written, is it fair for me to conclude that you were in the forefront of those who confronted the malignant, malformed, cretinaceous, cowardly liars and propangandists who maligned the very breath, of our last DULY ELECTED president every moment of his eight years and then some??? Hah???

 

If you cannot fulfill the request contained in the first paragraph, then you owe YOURSELF - not me, mind you - an apology. :wub:

 

Take a peek at my earlier post.