Quote:
Originally Posted by johnpr
West Bengal has been ruled by the CPI(M)-led Left Front for three decades, making it the world's longest-running democratically-elected communist government.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) is the leading party in Kerala, West Bengal and Tripura.
Nicauragua was communist when we trained rebels (the Contra) who were mostly the private guard od the previous highly corrupt totaltarian government (non communist btw), so we had a large role in the downfall of that one.
china is the worlds 4th largest economy, For much of China's population, living standards have seen extremely large improvements, and freedom continues to expand, but political controls remain tight - yes they have had human rights issues but we are far from having never had issues and have always been a capitalist country (slavery anyone)
Laos, a communist country, has had great economic growth, its economy grew at 7.2% in 2006,[2] 35th fastest in the world.
so here we have it, successfull, (or was succesful until we got into it in the case of Nicaragua) communist countries, and not all of them have been totalitarian. no they arent pretending to be americans, but who says that everyone has to live like us, we can start talking about all the problems that capitalism has brought to the world (heavy polution, disregard for others, the trade of humans) if you would like.
so maybe doing your homework instead of trying to use age or your "im older than you" philosophy might help you make factual statements.
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I need to do my homework? Bwahahahahahahaaa...
While you were cherry-picking those sentences from Wikipedia, you apparently failed to read the rest of the articles and/or understand the context.
West Bengal, Kerala, and Tripura are Indian states, not a country. West Bengal is only 7.8% of the population of India as a whole, and a communist party having such an electoral record against other parties in a few states doesn't make the country communist. If India were communist (and it is not), the CPI would not be the leading party -- it would be the only party.
In Nicaragua, we didn't cause the downfall of the country. If we hadn't supported the Contras, do you really believe the Sandinistas would have been pressured into having the elections that resulted in Chamorro becoming president?
As for China, look back at what I said earlier. I won't dignify your repeated commentary about how bad we are/were -- it's irrelevant and if you can't make your point without saying something like that, you don't have a very good case.
Laos has a "great" economy? Huh? Did you not even look down the page to see that 80% of Laos' workforce is dedicated to subsistence farming? 7% growth of essentially nothing is 7% more of nothing, progress though it is. The article also says the growth didn't start until economic restrictions were relaxed (i.e. private enterprise, AKA capitalism, was allowed).
Since you brought up pollution, I will refer you to
this post of mine earlier in the thread. Are you choosing to ignore my points about ecologically dead rivers, the Aral Sea, rusting hulks of nuclear vessels, and might I add Chernobyl?
Finally, I didn't base my position on age vs. youth, as you assert. I said I based it on my knowledge and that your statements about communism marked you as a twenty-something. Sorry if that truth hits home in an unpleasant way, but I still believe it. Don't be surprised if two generations from now, some twenty-something says "What was the big deal about Islamic terrorism?," and when that happens, I suggest you recall this discussion.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Duffman
Shawn D,
Well maybe Nazi-Germany was not the best example. It just goes to show that not everything follows a cookie cutter model of government. Collectivism and capitalist are not mutually exclusive and opposition to economic liberalism is the only failure of my example. Partially it means that they were opposed to free trade, but with a nazi twist they were opposed to finance capitalism. Basically they were opposed to excess profits (wow, what was old is new again). Nazis hated communists and fought them every chance they got. During their administration they abolished trade unions. They supported ownership of enterprise and property so they were truly capitalists. I think they were a good example of say one thing and do another. More in the references below.
My apologies on my last comment (hillbillies). It was a sarcastic remark meaning that the Russian people where remarkably well educated under the USSR.
http://www.answers.com/topic/economi...-1?cat=biz-fin
http://www.answers.com/topic/nazism
http://www.answers.com/topic/nazi-germany
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/...aziregime.html |
I mostly agree with your statements above, but if you follow down in the answers.com links you provided (which, BTW, are clones of Wikipedia), you'll note that the Nazis imposed state ownership of corporations, which I wouldn't call being "true capitalists."
No problem with the hillbillies remark -- I just didn't understand what your point was. They were indeed very well educated in science, Russian literature (the anti-Czarist literature of great Russian authors, that is), and the "benefits" of the Soviet State, but they certainly were ill-educated about the outside world.