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11-21-11, 10:03 PM | #166 | |
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Bottom line is, as I said in my very first post, the fact that things are bad now doesn't do much to excuse the wrongs of the Soviet regime. Choosing among lesser evils isn't really great choice. |
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11-21-11, 10:19 PM | #167 | ||
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------------------------------------------------------ To die for the people is weighter than Mount Tai But to work for the fascists, and die for the exploiters and oppressors is lighter than a feather -Mao Zedong |
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11-21-11, 10:28 PM | #168 | |
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Also, I very well can compare the death tolls of Socialism (they were not, and are not Communists; we've done this dance before), as you have held the man responsible for those deaths up as the model for a new world order. Again, basic facts. And by the way, are you planning to move to a nation that enforces these ideals of state service and ownership? Maybe a North Korea? If it is such a good idea, why not put your money where your mouth is? Instead of reading the revisionist propoganda and listening to the martial music, you could experience purge-era living firsthand. See how your internet access is then. |
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11-21-11, 10:28 PM | #169 | |
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------------------------------------------------------ To die for the people is weighter than Mount Tai But to work for the fascists, and die for the exploiters and oppressors is lighter than a feather -Mao Zedong |
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11-21-11, 10:35 PM | #170 | |
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Yes this dance, you will lose you don't want to go there. Yes 9 million, and what's the prison population of the "democracy" countries? Also you can accurately say 20 million Russians were slaughtered by the Nazis in the invasion. Also, I am moving to China for work, and plan to visit DPRK. Go ahead tell me how evil it is and they eat their people and all starve. Since I know you lived in North Korea you can say how terrible it is right? Or your going off of western fair tales? I have a good friend he has been there over 9 times? Do I need to bring him in the discussion? Do you want his email, for your questions?
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------------------------------------------------------ To die for the people is weighter than Mount Tai But to work for the fascists, and die for the exploiters and oppressors is lighter than a feather -Mao Zedong |
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11-21-11, 10:41 PM | #171 | |
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Kid, you're what the French call a poseur. You like the military marches, the cool looking banners. Think it's rebellious and hip. But you're comfortable in life. In your heart of hearts, you know that every bit of what you are saying is nonsense. You'll say no, that I am wrong. So, I'll repeat: Put your money where your mouth is. North Korea has negative population growth; they'll welcome you with open arms. If you believe in this style of governance so much, then man up and move. No? Didn't think so. /discussion |
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11-21-11, 10:50 PM | #172 | |
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------------------------------------------------------ To die for the people is weighter than Mount Tai But to work for the fascists, and die for the exploiters and oppressors is lighter than a feather -Mao Zedong |
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11-21-11, 10:58 PM | #173 | |
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And yes, if you believe, move. You insist so that despotic rule is the way of mankind's salvation. I am encouraging you to go, to experience it first hand if you believe in it. If you come back and still believe, then good. If not, then you have learned a valuable lesson indeed, and will have grown because of it. Can't wait to hear from your friend. And rest assured that we have methods to know if he is you. |
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11-21-11, 11:08 PM | #174 | |
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__________________
------------------------------------------------------ To die for the people is weighter than Mount Tai But to work for the fascists, and die for the exploiters and oppressors is lighter than a feather -Mao Zedong |
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11-21-11, 11:16 PM | #175 | |
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Anyway, you've chewed up enough of my time; I'm done. I might show up if your 'friend' comes along, but this style of argument doesn't hold my interest. |
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11-21-11, 11:17 PM | #176 | |
Navy Seal
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...and by the same token, it's very easy to speak of the needs for sacrifice in a revolution until you come face to face with living memory of it. It all sounds very reasonable as statistics, but the human problems of it are quite different. And that is the problem with such fixed, dogmatic positions - once they run into reality, they either get confused and collapse, or they lash out at everything that's different. Or both, and not necessarily in that order. And what you end up with is a mess for generations and generations to deal with, a historical trauma that leaves scars on millions of people for centuries to come. That is exactly, to a T, the story of the Soviet experiment - and no cold statistics will ever capture the real impact of it. No slogan and theory will ever justify it. The living memory of the real messy truth of Soviet times isn't going to go away very soon. Even when the people who carry it go, the damage done will stay. And for what?
The KPRF have cleaned up... a little. But their image problem isn't going to go away. Because it's not just an image, it is, in the end, what they stood for and what they can never take back. Similarly, the words "democracy" and "liberalism" are forever tarnished in Russia now, thanks to the 1990s. It will take a long time before anyone will take those seriously. Otherwise, noone's going to solve anything with banner-waving and selective memory. And in fact, they're very likely to make things worse. ...man, I feel more DDT songs coming on I know it's probably bad taste to spam songs in response to everything, but when the shoe fits... Here's one for you: It's a bitingly honest description of the stark reality of "nostalgic communism" in Russia today. Funny - but also scary if you think about it. Quote:
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11-21-11, 11:38 PM | #177 | |
Fleet Admiral
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Question: Did your relatives suffer under the Tsar? Where were they from in Russia? I think you've mentioned it before, but I forget. I'm trying to re-watch the film myself. My Russian is kinda rusty, but I still understand the majority of the film. You are totally correct that the film captures the spirit in Russia in the Mid-1990's. I'd love to hear the creator's opinion of Russia today. I always felt sorry for Nicholas II. He was definatley the wrong person for the job, not that he had much say in it. As a natioal leader, he's totally incompetent. It would have been interresting to see how Russia could have been, if he had listened to Stolypin. AFAIR, Nicholas didn't trust him (subverting his power), and imprisoned him or killed him off.
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11-21-11, 11:41 PM | #178 |
Fleet Admiral
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Great songs.
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11-21-11, 11:51 PM | #179 | |
Eternal Patrol
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Billions? We've had that discussion before, and I showed you specifically where you were wrong. Do we have to do it all over again.
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"Could be." That's the problem. Most of the people here have told their names, many of us have shown pictures, a lot of us know each other. Have you ever taken part of any personal discussions? As far as any of us can tell, you're still an invisible internet entity. There's nothing wrong with that, as long as we're discussing games, but as soon as we get to this kind of conversation you're hiding behind anonymity, unwilling to say anythng about yourself. Who are you really? As for how free we are, have you not read the thread on Free Will? I may or may not be as free as I think I am, but I can get a job doing anything I'm capable of, I can quit that job any time I want, pull up stakes and move anywhere in the Western Hemisphere I want, or pretty much anywhere in Europe. People in the Soviet Union had to risk their lives, and did, to escape. The West didn't build the Berlin Wall. You're precious Empire did. Yes, we have troubles. But we are free to discuss them and to try to change them. No one in the Soviet Union was ever allowed the freedom to do that.
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11-22-11, 12:17 AM | #180 | ||
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One of my great-great-grandfathers was born in a Jewish family in Odessa, and was an extremely talented artist. He was hired by the Tsar to teach art at his own private academy in Tsarskoye Selo, and the Tsar's family also commissioned a number of his paintings and mosaics, for some of which he was paid as much as 3000 roubles a piece (an astronomical sum in those times!). However his family was always quite poor. Why? Well, the reason was that the money he was making was largely going to fund the Bolshevik party! My great-great-grandfather was bitter that being able to move to St. Petersburg and work as an artist (for the Tsar), he was forced to convert to Orthodox Christianity, was disowned by his Jewish parents, and was still denied opportunities and advancement because of his origins. Another ugly fact of the "lost Russia" - it was viciously (and often violently) anti-Semitic at the turn of the 20th century. My grandfather firmly and genuinely believed in radical revolutionary ideals, because he wanted to change Russia into a place where people had equal opportunities - so he poured all his savings into the cause. After the revolution, however, his work was increasingly political rather than artistic, which is unfortunate because art was his real talent. Even more unfortunate because I don't think he really knew what he was starting. In 1923, he was sent on a political assignment to help establish the Soviet government in Belarus, where he contracted typhoid fever and died. Ironically, this is probably one reason that I'm here today - an old Bolshevik with Jewish ancestry would have been a dead man in Stalin's time. His family would've done no better, but instead luckily faded into obscurity (and crushing poverty). Had he lived to see what his revolutionary idealism helped create, I think he would've been absolutely horrified. A couple of my great-great (and great-) grandparents lived out in the countryside. Those that were primarily of Northern (Finnish, really) stock were indifferent and largely independent from the Tsarist regime. They were equally uninterested when Archangelsk, where they were living, was invaded during the brief Western intervention in the civil war. I think they just wanted to be left alone. Elsewhere, my peasant ancestors in the Novgorod region cautiously took up the Soviet cause in the civil war, but seemed to hold no particular bitterness against the Tsar. Their lives did, as I understand, improve after the revolution. Stalin's repressions didn't reach them. It was only WWII that was really devastating to their livelihood in the end. Under both the Tsarist and the Soviet regime though, my family was really lucky. Some had close calls, both with the Tsarist authorities and with the NKVD. That's why even my living relatives ended up with extremely mixed backgrounds and different experiences. Some embraced communism and stood firmly for it (oddly, this applies equally to those that descended from peasants, and those that descended from the German nobles); others turned to dissent, whether progressive (Western-oriented, liberal) or conservative (Orthodox, nationalist). In the end, nobody in my family cashed in on anything - they all got burned about equally by the Tzarist, Soviet, and post-Soviet regimes, but luckily not too harshly. Everybody wound up a bit poor, a bit bitter, and really disappointed that things didn't work out as they hoped. Though I guess that's probably a common story for a lot of Russians! |
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