How Do You Define Morality?

[Undertoad]

Well now I have to use the ridiculous, horrible, and totally unfair phrase "people like you". I apologize in advance.


Dana. This whole notion of "but they weren't Communist" would hold a lot more water with me if people like you had said it just once before 1989.

All during the preceding 7 decades, people like you were holding up the U.S.S.R. as a model for a fine, functioning Communist society.

People like you went there, were taken on official government tours and came back raving about how much better their Communist system was. They have a great educational system! They have zero unemployment! There is no homelessness! The people seem happier there!

Only after glasnost and the opening of the society did it come out... that Stalin had effectively murdered and starved and purged so many people, that nobody could tell whether it was 20 million or 30 million. It was the only way he could keep his country, it turned out. The shit had been hitting the fan all along.

Meanwhile China was figuring it out. Maybe it was the experience of having capitalist Hong Kong boom right before their eyes. The Communists implemented free market systems and wham, they started booming. The Indians denationalized their farm system and suddenly they had enough food. South Korea outgrew North Korea by double every year. Until it was way too obvious... Communism always was an abject failure resulting in the deaths of millions. And it still is. You can't provide us with a single example of its overall success. Where it is implemented, people usually end up dying.

Meanwhile one of the biggest problems in free market nations is obesity amongst the poor. I repeat, the poor are obese. If Marx had foreseen that, which of course he totally didn't, he would have thrown away his writer's quill and taken up accounting.

The game is over, and free markets won. It was a blowout.

But I knew, in 1989, that people like you would start to say that this wasn't Communism. It was too much for the minds of people like you to face the total and obvious evidence. Nobody ever says "well that's it, I was wrong all along." There had to be another explanation. Up until 1989, those countries said they were Communist, you said they were Communist, we said they were Communist, everybody said they were Communist. The tag was proudly waved around and understood. So what the hell changed?

[queequeger]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

People like you went there, were taken on official government tours and came back raving about how much better their Communist system was. They have a great educational system! They have zero unemployment! There is no homelessness! The people seem happier there!

Only after glasnost and the opening of the society did it come out... that Stalin had effectively murdered and starved and purged so many people, that nobody could tell whether it was 20 million or 30 million. It was the only way he could keep his country, it turned out. The shit had been hitting the fan all along.

So what the hell changed?

You answered your own question, what changed was our knowledge of what the system was like. They took communist foreigners on official government tours, through pretend neighborhoods and parts of moscow that were constructed and occupied by, effectively, actors. I've got Polaroids of them at my parents' house.

The borders of Russia were incredibly tight and hid their dirty laundry for decades. 'People like that' didn't know what it was really like before they started saying it wasn't communism. The kremlin simply tricked the rest of the world into thinking they were something else.

I was young, but when I lived in Berlin, my pops would bring some Russian military members around (he worked with the whole nuclear drawdown) and these people were amazed that we had more than one kind of coffee in the states. They were like kids in a candy shop. That, I think, was the first time it occured to many people that maybe it wasn't so great over there, because it was the first time anyone got a real look inside the borders.

Originally Posted by Undertoad

The game is over, and free markets won. It was a blowout.

Depends on what you mean by 'won.' We made the most money, drive the most cars, and have the most guns. If that's the important thing than fuck yeah we won. But if you're more worried about the increasing wealth gap, if you're worried about the urban decay in a lot of major cities, if you're worried about consolidation of media, etc. I would say we defeated the enemy, but maybe we didn't 'win.'

Final point: Communism and socialism aren't going to happen by revolution and they're certainly not going to happen in a barely industrialized nation like early 20th century Russia (Which, I think, was Dana's point, not some ridiculous idea that the Russian people can't live free... that's something someone would use as an excuse to... maybe leave Iraq?). I think it's going to happen in a slow slide. In fact, the western world has been getting more and more welfare-ish and socialized this entire century. It's just that the US is a little further behind. I think it boils down to a 'me and mine' centered opinion that the states glorifies versus the 'everyone' mentality that is necessary for socialism.

And stop saying 'it's just human nature.' It's also just human nature to kill your opponents and take whatever woman you find most suitable. We've got strong evolutionary drives, but we can ignore/overpower them with enough practice. (and hey! in evolution, if we do that long enough, it won't be our nature any longer!) Saying 'oh, well, it's a nice idea but it's just not in keeping with our bad sides.' is maintaining the status quo. If we're not trying to build a better mousetrap every time, and trying to flaunt our good sides, why bother?