babble home
rabble.ca - news for the rest of us
today's active topics


Post New Topic  Post A Reply
FAQ | Forum Home
  next oldest topic   next newest topic
» babble   » current events   » international news and politics   » Is there anything "Communist" about China?

Email this thread to someone!    
Author Topic: Is there anything "Communist" about China?
Stockholm
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3138

posted 17 August 2008 07:55 AM      Profile for Stockholm     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
It seems to me that apart from a bit of iconography around Mao-Tse Tung and the fact that the ruling dictatorship has the word "communist" as part of its proper name. There is really NOTHING about pfresent day China that is remotely socialist. Canada and even the US are probably more socialist than China is.

There as an interesting article to this effect in NOW Magazine this week:

http://www.nowtoronto.com/news/story.cfm?content=164466

quote:
Getting information out is extremely difficult. Few people in the province have Internet access. No one has wireless. Internet cafés are some of the shadiest hangouts in Sichuan.

There’s no drinking age in China, but to use the Net you need an ID card that proves you’re a Chinese citizen, over 18 and you’ve passed a test to show you’re “responsible” enough. The woman at the counter flatly refuses to let me in.

You really don’t want to get sick in China. All health care is private, and hospitals are marketed as aggressively as soft drinks. Corruption is so rampant, people don’t feel safe unless they bribe their doctors. It’s dog-eat-dog. Ambulances don’t even get the right of way. I see more than a few, sirens blaring, stuck at a crawl behind a line of taxis.

Sichuan itself is one of China’s richest regions, a major agricultural basin known as “the province of abundance.” But it’s also an example of the country’s growing income gap problem.

A half-hour’s drive from China’s most expensive shopping street in Chengdu, skyscrapers give way to one-room shacks whose pell-mell bricks and patchy roofs would collapse like matchsticks in a quake.

From: Toronto | Registered: Sep 2002  |  IP: Logged
Robespierre
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 15340

posted 17 August 2008 10:19 AM      Profile for Robespierre     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Stockholm:
It seems to me...Canada and even the US are probably more socialist than China is.

Ahahaha! If you weren't so well-know around here, Stockholm, I'd call that a lame attempt at trolling but you probably believe it. Kind of scary to realize that an adult could have such misconceptions, but mostly just funny.


From: Raccoons at my door! | Registered: Jul 2008  |  IP: Logged
500_Apples
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 12684

posted 17 August 2008 10:26 AM      Profile for 500_Apples   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Robespierre:

Ahahaha! If you weren't so well-know around here, Stockholm, I'd call that a lame attempt at trolling but you probably believe it. Kind of scary to realize that an adult could have such misconceptions, but mostly just funny.


Stockholm is not the only one out there who makes such arguments.


From: Montreal, Quebec | Registered: Jun 2006  |  IP: Logged
unionist
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 11323

posted 17 August 2008 10:27 AM      Profile for unionist     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
It's a little-known babble fact that if a thread stops after three (3) posts, not counting the initial poster, it will shut itself down automatically in a short time. Please, please, please let's test that hypothesis.

ETA: Damn, Apples beat me to the punch. Oh well... would you believe five (5) posts? Please?

[ 17 August 2008: Message edited by: unionist ]


From: Vote QS! | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
Stockholm
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3138

posted 17 August 2008 10:33 AM      Profile for Stockholm     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
In Canada we have a free public health care system. In China, the system is totally privatized and if you have no money - you get no care.

Which country comes closer to "socialism"??

I'm asking a serious question. In what way shape or form is there anything remotely "socialistic" about China now? I see NOTHING.


From: Toronto | Registered: Sep 2002  |  IP: Logged
N.Beltov
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4140

posted 17 August 2008 10:45 AM      Profile for N.Beltov   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Stockholm's claim is true but obvious. The transition to full blown capitalism just took longer than the shock therapy that Russia went through. But in such cases, there are bound to be elements of the old system retained, just as countries like Canada retain pre-capitalist elements ... . like the monarchy for example.

And, by the way, it's not dog-eat-dog. It's man-eat-dog ... which you will discover if you travel in China and try the food. In my view, that's neither good nor bad but just how it is.


From: Vancouver Island | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged
Stockholm
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3138

posted 17 August 2008 10:49 AM      Profile for Stockholm     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
This is pretty sad:

quote:
You really don’t want to get sick in China. All health care is private, and hospitals are marketed as aggressively as soft drinks. Corruption is so rampant, people don’t feel safe unless they bribe their doctors.

From: Toronto | Registered: Sep 2002  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594

posted 17 August 2008 10:53 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Put another way, China's unprecedented growth rates for the last 21 years in a row aren't a result of NeoLiberal Washington consensus.

Remind me to start a thread that asks of there is anything capitalist about America anymore?


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
George Victor
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 14683

posted 17 August 2008 10:56 AM      Profile for George Victor        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
How about control of the exchange rate to favour export industries?

OH, and a one child policy to maintain elbow room? (Sort of a "command" performance in the bedroom?)

Centralized decision-making with some planning?

Language. Talk of "peasants" still, rather than consumers and taxpayers?(Not sure here.)

[ 17 August 2008: Message edited by: George Victor ]


From: Cambridge, ON | Registered: Oct 2007  |  IP: Logged
unionist
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 11323

posted 17 August 2008 11:08 AM      Profile for unionist     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by George Victor:
OH, and a one child policy to maintain elbow room? (Sort of a "command" performance in the bedroom?)

It shouldn't be forgotten that well within living memory, contraception and sodomy and abortion were all considered as criminal behaviour in Canada. Sort of a "command" performance in the bedroom.

This thread topic is idiotic. Name one babbler that has ever said that China is "Communist". I can't recall any. How about a thread entitled:

Is there anything "flat" about the Earth?


From: Vote QS! | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594

posted 17 August 2008 11:17 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by George Victor:
How about control of the exchange rate to favour export industries?

Yes that's a significant item on the list which isn't very neoLiberal of them. Meanwhile the west has been trying to purge our Keynesian history from the record as well as from university texts and post-secondary curriculum. Canada's William Krehm refers to it as "Stalinization" of economic theory around the western world. China's not supposed to be propping up the dollar like they do in order to maintain an undervalued currency. But big business like Walmart is plenty happy about it, so its's a rock and hard place for western corporations reliant on China's manufactured exports versus the interests of global money speculators and cabal of banksters.

[ 17 August 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Stockholm
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3138

posted 17 August 2008 03:32 PM      Profile for Stockholm     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
This thread topic is idiotic. Name one babbler that has ever said that China is "Communist".

That's not the point. The ruling party is the Chinese Communist Party and for many years people referred to "Communist China" - I was just initiating a discussion on how China (like Vietnam) is now communist in name only.


From: Toronto | Registered: Sep 2002  |  IP: Logged
Robespierre
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 15340

posted 17 August 2008 03:42 PM      Profile for Robespierre     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Hey, Stock, you ever play the Lou Dobbs drinking game? After a few rounds you can call anything, anything you like, and nobody will argue with you over it.
From: Raccoons at my door! | Registered: Jul 2008  |  IP: Logged
George Victor
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 14683

posted 17 August 2008 03:51 PM      Profile for George Victor        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
It shouldn't be forgotten that well within living memory, contraception and sodomy and abortion were all considered as criminal behaviour in Canada. Sort of a "command" performance in the bedroom.
(end quote)

Exactly!

And now that sexual practices are freer than ever - surely another indication of our march toward a true democracy - what government structure, we can ask, would be required to duplicate China's rigorously controlled birthrate? What modification of our apparently near ideal situation is required - because there will be modification required by some generation or other.

Surely not old Pierre's "there's no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation" idea of governing. But then, we learn in John English's biography on Pierre that he never lost the faith. And that church certainly would not countenance birth control just to maintain a country's ability to feed itself. Or limit CO2 emissions, etc. That would be all too rational.

The collectivist ideal from the far left would seem to be superior to the jack-booted variety on the right, even though both require citizens given over to acceptance of the authoritarian leadership.

So I wonder if, by a admittedly, rather crude process of elimination, we can say that it will ideally be a communist-leaning government that brings our population into a sustainable, zero-growth position as well.

That is, if we accept the premise, to begin with,
that it is a modified communist government that is holding the lid on population, while eliminating all restraints on economic growth in China, a la Bay St.

[ 17 August 2008: Message edited by: George Victor ]


From: Cambridge, ON | Registered: Oct 2007  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594

posted 17 August 2008 04:30 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Can anybody name a single capitalist government in the world today which demands either controlling interest, and depending on economic importance, or at least a large minority share of all foreign corporations doing business in that country? Back in the 1960's or 70's, cold warriors and captains of western industry would have said that is communism.
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Stockholm
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3138

posted 17 August 2008 04:59 PM      Profile for Stockholm     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
That sounds more like Mussolini or Franco style corporatism.

What is communist about a country with a gigantic and growing gap between rich and poor, no environmental standards of any kind, private health care that you have to pay for and private education that you have to pay for?


From: Toronto | Registered: Sep 2002  |  IP: Logged
George Victor
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 14683

posted 17 August 2008 05:06 PM      Profile for George Victor        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Party central has just agreed to pay for the education (probably primary) of the poor.

Looks to me like blood money for the deaths of so many in the quake.

Is there no public medicine at all?

[ 17 August 2008: Message edited by: George Victor ]


From: Cambridge, ON | Registered: Oct 2007  |  IP: Logged
Skinny Dipper
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 11459

posted 17 August 2008 05:13 PM      Profile for Skinny Dipper   Author's Homepage        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I will give credit to Stockholm for presenting this topic. Perhaps someone who has recently been to China can explain how communist it currently is compared to 30 years ago or compared to Marx's Communist Manifesto.

I won't suggest that any country is purely capitalist or communist. I am trying to figure out which aspects of communism still holds true in China. Too me, I just see a dictatorship. I don't see a communist dicatorship. Which elements of communism still exists in today's China?


From: Ontarian for STV in BC | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
RosaL
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 13921

posted 17 August 2008 05:14 PM      Profile for RosaL     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
China's defenders sometimes invoke Lenin's N.E.P.

ETA: No country has ever claimed to be communist. Some have claimed to be socialist.

[ 17 August 2008: Message edited by: RosaL ]


From: the underclass | Registered: Mar 2007  |  IP: Logged
Frustrated Mess
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8312

posted 17 August 2008 06:45 PM      Profile for Frustrated Mess   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Put another way, China's unprecedented growth rates for the last 21 years in a row aren't a result of NeoLiberal Washington consensus.

I think it is certainly patterned on it. In fact, Naomi Klein makes just such an argument as she details Milton Friedman's visits there. Didn't Rupert Murdoch make his home there?

In fact, China is probably a capitalist's paradise.

McCommunism - "Stalinism meets global capitalism"

[ 17 August 2008: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]


From: doom without the gloom | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594

posted 17 August 2008 06:50 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Stockholm:
That sounds more like Mussolini or Franco style corporatism.

You mean fascism. Fascists also believe in extensive private property laws in addition to corporatism.

Corporations aren't really allowed to own land in China by what I can tell. What they have in China are "special economic zones" Unlike NeoLiberalized Canada since we handed control of 36 key sectors of our economy to majority foreign ownership and control and mostly American, China actually disallows foreign control of key industries, like steel production, banking, manufacturing, energy and so on.

quote:
What is communist about a country with a gigantic and growing gap between rich and poor, no environmental standards of any kind, private health care that you have to pay for

Economies based on heavy and polluting industries are on the wane. The Chinese know and understand that they can't continue polluting like that forever and are actually ahead of the US and Canada wrt several areas of pollution regulations. They still use several million fewer barrels of oil every day than the most oil-dependent and most unsustainable economy in the world and born of false cold war era promises, the USA. The Chinese are using industrializing economy to build up the country for now.

quote:
and private education that you have to pay for?

I think Chinese were complaining last year or so that it take students two years on average to pay back student loan debt

In Canada, repayment schedules for the avg male is something like 18 years. For females it's 20-25 years. No students pay higher interest rates on student loan debt sentences than Canadians do.

Many Chinese are paying cash for homes as well. They have some of if not the highest personal savings rates in the world. Things in China are far from perfect though.

[ 17 August 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Robespierre
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 15340

posted 17 August 2008 06:52 PM      Profile for Robespierre     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by RosaL:
China's defenders sometimes invoke Lenin's N.E.P.

ETA: No country has ever claimed to be communist. Some have claimed to be socialist.

[ 17 August 2008: Message edited by: RosaL ]


Wow! Political Affairs. From the snappy design of that blog site one would never guess how fossilized the ed board is---oh, wait, they call it an "editorial collective". I clicked on the About us section and read the names listed, and, frankly, I'm shocked that most of those Stalinists are still breathing.

Interesting. Thanks, RosaL.


From: Raccoons at my door! | Registered: Jul 2008  |  IP: Logged
Stockholm
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3138

posted 17 August 2008 07:04 PM      Profile for Stockholm     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
In Canada, repayment schedules for the avg male is something like 18 years.

I'm talking about primary and secondary school - whihc are free in Canada. In China, no money, no school.


From: Toronto | Registered: Sep 2002  |  IP: Logged
Ken Burch
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8346

posted 17 August 2008 07:14 PM      Profile for Ken Burch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
One reason that some Babblers may be more sympathetic to the Chinese government than you'd prefer, Stockers, in addition to any belief in its lingering "left" traits, is that they see it as a counterbalance to U.S. imperial arrogance.

Now, a case could be made that, were China to become genuinely socialist(and, consequently, genuinely democratic)it would be a far more effective counterbalance. But that hasn't seemed to be the case that, with all due respect, you've made.

You might do better to actually try making that case, rather than letting your justified anger at the past crimes of the now-extinct hard-line Stalinist regimes make you sound like an old time "cold warrior" type right-wing social democrat...the kind that, too often, lets her or his hatred of "communism" overshadow any vestigial commitment to even the mildest form of social democracy.

And the kind that, in Germany, armed the Freikorps in 1919.


From: A seedy truckstop on the Information Superhighway | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
unionist
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 11323

posted 17 August 2008 07:16 PM      Profile for unionist     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Stockholm:
I'm talking about primary and secondary school - whihc are free in Canada. In China, no money, no school.

He's waiting for a bite!

Don't you know that to fish successfully, you have to keep quiet?

God, why don't they teach the fundamentals any more??


From: Vote QS! | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594

posted 17 August 2008 07:20 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Stockholm:

I'm talking about primary and secondary school - whihc are free in Canada. In China, no money, no school.


China now produces some 500,000 engineering graduates and 12,000 PhDs each year

At that rate they will "bury the west"

Chinese urban students will be free from tuition and other fees

As I was saying, China is far from being a utopian society. They have significant problems with everything from pollution and overcrowding to a lack of basic rights and protections for workers. But China is not all capitalism in a similar way that the US is not all capitalism since the 1930's. Laissez-faire capitalism in the US ended after 30 years. One US commentator said it was "duller and greyer than Soviet communism"


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Stockholm
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3138

posted 17 August 2008 07:56 PM      Profile for Stockholm     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
One reason that some Babblers may be more sympathetic to the Chinese government than you'd prefer, Stockers, in addition to any belief in its lingering "left" traits, is that they see it as a counterbalance to U.S. imperial arrogance.

That seems like a remarkably insensitive attitude to have towards the people who actually have to live in China (and Russia for that matter). It reminds me of people who miss the good old days when Brezhnev ruled the USSR - because it was a nice counter-balance to the US. Maybe if you are a leftist in Canada who thinks its good to have an arms race between the US and some other superpower as a way to prevent too much American power - it makes sense to long for the good old days of Stalin and Brezhnev. I don't know if the people imprisoned in the Gulag are feeling quite as nostalgic.

If China actually stood for something humanistic and represented values that represented some sort of "better way" than what we see in the West - then I might agree. But instead we are getting into a pre-WW1 situation where you have countries vying for power for its own sake - there is no ideology, it's just the US wanting to expand American power, Russia wants to expand Russian power, China wants to expand Chinese power. Its just three imperialist countries just after power for its own sake and no one even makes the slightest pretention to doing the world any favours - its just three-way nationalist imperialism and I think that's pretty sad.


From: Toronto | Registered: Sep 2002  |  IP: Logged
Robespierre
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 15340

posted 17 August 2008 08:07 PM      Profile for Robespierre     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
China confiscates Bibles from U.S. Christians
By Gillian Wong, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
quote:
BEIJING - A group of U.S. Christians who had more than 300 Bibles confiscated by Chinese officials when they arrived in China is refusing to leave the airport until the books are returned, their leader said Monday.
Story @ Canoe.ca

Now, why doesn't my "socialist" government or yours do such a fine job as this, eh, Stockholm? I think they still have a few things to learn from Beijing.


From: Raccoons at my door! | Registered: Jul 2008  |  IP: Logged
Zak Young
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 15396

posted 17 August 2008 09:04 PM      Profile for Zak Young        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
If by "communist" you mean "state control of the means of production" then certainly - but as to whether China is more or less communist than Canada, I cannot comment. If you have a different definition of communism, please supply it.
From: London | Registered: Aug 2008  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594

posted 17 August 2008 09:55 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Stockholm:

Maybe if you are a leftist in Canada who thinks its good to have an arms race between the US and some other superpower as a way to prevent too much American power - it makes sense to long for the good old days of Stalin and Brezhnev. I don't know if the people imprisoned in the Gulag are feeling quite as nostalgic.

Vlad Putin said yes, the world is definitely more terrorized and feeling less safe today in a unipolar world since dissolution of the USSR.

US cold war fiction author Robert Ludlum said that the decade of the 90's saw a loss of personal freedoms around the western world. I agree. US hawks have moved to annex Canada and remove our sovereignt through backroom deals with Liberal and Conservative governments ie. SPP and other secretive negotiations not associated with democracy in general. The US itself has moved to violate privacy in America with intrusive wiretap laws. And that country whose economy is dependent on war and military spending now owns the largest incarcerated population in the world. Election fraud? That would mean the current criminal admin in Washington is illegit, even by western world standards for limited democracy.

quote:
If China actually stood for something humanistic and represented values that represented some sort of "better way" than what we see in the West - then I might agree. . . it's just the US wanting to expand American power, Russia wants to expand Russian power, China wants to expand Chinese power.

It's always been the US and Britain wanting to expand empire. Frustrated Mess and posters provided information in another thread describing pax Americana maneuvering since turn of the last century. And the US., Brits, and Japanese tried hacking off pieces of China for each of themselves from the 1930's right up to 1949 when their very murderous proxy in China, Chiang Kai-shek, was chased from the country by Maoists and gangster associates fleeing to Formosa, and to Burma and all over South-East Asia and working with the CIA to deal drugs around the world.

eta: I think it's a sign of just how much control is exerted over the world by the west when China is centred out for introducing their presence in Africa and South America etc. The US and Europe control or exert influence over most of Africa and what are the poorest and most war-torn countries in the world. If China is an alternative to the IMF and Wall Street and London jackals as a source of development funds in the Congo, Angola and Sudan, then maybe it is a good thing. Choice is what free markets are all about, and unipolar world empires tend to collapse at some point anyway.

[ 17 August 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Ken Burch
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8346

posted 17 August 2008 10:24 PM      Profile for Ken Burch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
So that you understand, I don't actually AGREE with the China-as-counterbalance thing myself, Stock. I merely thought it would be interesting to see you address it.

The primary cause of international destabilization
and the marked increase in international militarism after 1989 has been the fact that the U.S. leadership has drunk deeply of the "world's only remaining superpower" koolaid. The U.S., in the international sphere, has operated with few or or any contraints and with almost no obligation to respect the values or sovereignty of any other country.

There are legitimate moral and ideological reasons for honorable people of the left not to see China or Russia as counterbalances to U.S. imperial arrogance. But those who argue against that then have an obligation that to demonstrate there are other means to place checks on the ambitions and reach of The Great Spread Eagle, or to propose effective new methods of doing so that comport with your own sense of purity. At the moment, I don't know of any at all. Can you, Stocks think of any?

The U.S., my own country, is very close to asserting itself as the next Rome. Only in this case a Rome with nuclear weapons and psychologist-assisted torturers. This will not only destroy the world, but drain the U.S. of the last dregs of its soul as a nation.

Do you, Stocks, have any suggestions at all of how to prevent this WITHOUT making the kind of alliances you see as deals with the devil?

Sorry for the thread drift, but this need to be able to hold back the Holy Texian Empire is not one you've ever seriously addressed.

[ 17 August 2008: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]


From: A seedy truckstop on the Information Superhighway | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594

posted 17 August 2008 10:43 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I think that during the cold war era, U.S. hawks and billionaire class around the world suffered from an inferiority complex in that they felt the need to maintain certain illusions of democracy. And that included propagandizing the world with false promises for middle class capitalism for the other 85% of humanity. We realize now it was a colossal lie.

Englishman Gerrard Winstanley, leader of what was probably England's first communist movement, said to Oliver Cromwell that if life didn't improve for peasants, then they would not object to occupation by a foreign military. Cromwell acquiesced to their demands for about a year until Brits gained the upper hand on France and Spain militarily.

I think US hawks believed they would have the upper hand on Asia militarily for what would be a brief window of opportunity after 1991. Hawks created a list of countries slated for regime change. And I think that window is closing now.

[ 17 August 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Stockholm
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3138

posted 18 August 2008 04:10 AM      Profile for Stockholm     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
The primary cause of international destabilization
and the marked increase in international militarism after 1989 has been the fact that the U.S. leadership has drunk deeply of the "world's only remaining superpower" koolaid.

I actually don't see an INCREASE in international destabilization and militarism since 1989. To be sure there have been conflicts, but I don't know about you, but I would be quite happy NOT to have to go back to the good old days (sic.) characterized by the following:

The Berlin Blocade
The Berlin Wall
Greek Civil War
Korean War
Vietnam War
Invasion of Hungary
Invasion of Czechoslovakia
Invasion of Grenande
Proxy wars all across Central America
Vietnam War
Cuban Missile Crisis
Arms races and MAD
Three major wars in the Middle east

I really don't miss all that stuff at all....


From: Toronto | Registered: Sep 2002  |  IP: Logged
Frustrated Mess
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8312

posted 18 August 2008 04:21 AM      Profile for Frustrated Mess   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
I actually don't see an INCREASE in international destabilization and militarism since 1989.

Willfully blind or just plain ignorant: You decide.


From: doom without the gloom | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
Stockholm
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3138

posted 18 August 2008 05:09 AM      Profile for Stockholm     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
There is instability and there is militarism and there is war in the world today. Whether it is WORSE than the sum total of all the military spending, instability and loss of life that characterized the entire Cold War is open to debate.

I remember the 70s and 80s 9and i have read about the endless "world on the brink of nuclear war" of the 50s and 60s - and i don't feel at all nostalgic for any of that.


From: Toronto | Registered: Sep 2002  |  IP: Logged
Frustrated Mess
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8312

posted 18 August 2008 05:31 AM      Profile for Frustrated Mess   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
So it is feelings of nostalgia, or the lack thereof, that determines whether the world is a more militaristic and dangerous place than in the 80s. That would explain a lot.
From: doom without the gloom | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
Stockholm
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3138

posted 18 August 2008 05:39 AM      Profile for Stockholm     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Maybe we can start a whole new thread entitled: "When was the world a more dangerous place? Now or at the height of the Cold War and the nuclear arms race?"
From: Toronto | Registered: Sep 2002  |  IP: Logged
Frustrated Mess
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8312

posted 18 August 2008 05:41 AM      Profile for Frustrated Mess   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
You don't think there has been a nuclear arms race since the Bush regime you seem enamored with decided to break the ICBM treaty? You think everyone sat back and thought, "yeah ... that's okay"?
From: doom without the gloom | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
Stockholm
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3138

posted 18 August 2008 05:43 AM      Profile for Stockholm     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
If you want to claim that I'm "enamoured with Bush" don't complain if I call you a lover of Pol Pot and Adolf Hitler and a child molester. Its just as ridiculous.
From: Toronto | Registered: Sep 2002  |  IP: Logged
Robespierre
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 15340

posted 18 August 2008 05:44 AM      Profile for Robespierre     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Stockholm:
Maybe we can start a whole new thread entitled: "When was the world a more dangerous place? Now or at the height of the Cold War and the nuclear arms race?"

Well, you're the one who started THIS thread based on some imaginary belief that anyone (at Babble, at least) thinks China is a communist state. Don't complain now that it's trailed off like a bottle rocket to places you never wanted it to.


From: Raccoons at my door! | Registered: Jul 2008  |  IP: Logged
Frustrated Mess
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8312

posted 18 August 2008 05:55 AM      Profile for Frustrated Mess   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Exactly. You start a trolling thread and then get all poofy when you're called on it.

quote:
If you want to claim that I'm "enamoured with Bush" don't complain if I call you a lover of Pol Pot and Adolf Hitler and a child molester. Its just as ridiculous.

What a stupid thing to say.

My statement that your enamored by the Bush regime is based entirely on your own statements and even this thread. I mean, isn't it fair for me to conclude that you are far more comfortable with a nuclear armed USA under Bush the Butcher than a Russia or China even though the history shows the USA is far more willing to use unrestrained and ruthless military force than either of the above?


From: doom without the gloom | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
unionist
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 11323

posted 18 August 2008 05:59 AM      Profile for unionist     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I think the world has become a far more dangerous place since this thread opened.
From: Vote QS! | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
George Victor
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 14683

posted 18 August 2008 07:43 AM      Profile for George Victor        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 

From: Cambridge, ON | Registered: Oct 2007  |  IP: Logged
Michelle
Moderator
Babbler # 560

posted 18 August 2008 07:56 AM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
People, you know, if you don't like a thread, you can always ignore it. There was absolutely nothing wrong with Stockholm's opening post. He started a thread about the government system in China, saying that it's not really communist.

I know that there are a handful of sworn enemies here who will slobber like Pavlov's dog every time one of their nemeses post anything at all on babble, but you know, some of us who maybe don't know as much about governments like China's just might be interested in exploring this topic.

Not everyone is a world-weary expert on the subject. It's not "old hat" to everyone in the world. What IS getting really old is listening to the same people bitching and bickering at each other in every damn thread they enter.

If you don't want to discuss this topic with Stockholm, then please, just stay out of the thread. The insults and derailing are not only against policy, but they're a type of trolling, too.


From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
George Victor
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 14683

posted 18 August 2008 08:07 AM      Profile for George Victor        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
If China actually stood for something humanistic and represented values that represented some sort of "better way" than what we see in the West - then I might agree. But instead we are getting into a pre-WW1 situation where you have countries vying for power for its own sake - there is no ideology, it's just the US wanting to expand American power, Russia wants to expand Russian power, China wants to expand Chinese power. Its just three imperialist countries just after power for its own sake and no one even makes the slightest pretention to doing the world any favours - its just three-way nationalist imperialism and I think that's pretty sad.

The above post, by Stockholm, is indeed a return to fundamental thinking and away from labels. It demands comment.


I hope that Jiajie can help us out on the details of any residual welfare and changes occurring in China. It is indeed important to know these things.

And humour, where appropriate, comes as relief among the accounts coming out of the vale of tears.

[ 18 August 2008: Message edited by: George Victor ]


From: Cambridge, ON | Registered: Oct 2007  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594

posted 18 August 2008 09:50 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
China is not communist.

The USSA's is not a purely capitalist economy either.

Every time a country tries on full-blown capitalism, the leaders either have to bring the army in to prop it up, or its swept away by popular opinion.

I appreciate Stockholmer's attempt to simplify the world in cold war era terms for our sake, but it's not an easy task. Too much for one person or one thread even.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Zak Young
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 15396

posted 19 August 2008 12:09 AM      Profile for Zak Young        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
"Every time a country tries on full-blown capitalism, the leaders either have to bring the army in to prop it up, or its swept away by popular opinion."

For example?


From: London | Registered: Aug 2008  |  IP: Logged
Robespierre
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 15340

posted 19 August 2008 01:39 AM      Profile for Robespierre     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Zak Young:
"Every time a country tries on full-blown capitalism, the leaders either have to bring the army in to prop it up, or its swept away by popular opinion."

For example?


Cuba, 1 Jan 1959.


From: Raccoons at my door! | Registered: Jul 2008  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594

posted 19 August 2008 02:04 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
USA, November, 1932 after 30 years of laissez-faire

Chile, 1990 after just 16 years

The new Liberal capitalism was forced on dozens of other countries with similar results to varying degrees


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
kropotkin1951
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 2732

posted 19 August 2008 11:32 AM      Profile for kropotkin1951   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Don't worry Canada has always had an elite that liked to be the best allie of the Empire. Until WWII our elite was divided between whether or not to be pro-American or pro-British Empire.

In BC it seems that all is not lost because we have a significant part of our business elite who understand that as the US empire recedes we need to align with the next great power. Our ties to China deepen everyday because its good for business and what's good for business is good for businessmen.


From: North of Manifest Destiny | Registered: Jun 2002  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594

posted 19 August 2008 11:51 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
But our North American elites presented the Khans a stifling wall of bureaucracy and foot-dragging when they wanted to invest in Canada's tars sands. China's oil company got fed up and left town for Venezuela where they were welcomed with open arms. Our unwritten national energy policy drafted in the U.S. again.

[ 19 August 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
kropotkin1951
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 2732

posted 19 August 2008 11:55 AM      Profile for kropotkin1951   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Fidel:
But our North American elites presented the Khans a stifling wall of bureaucracy and foot-dragging when they wanted to invest in Canada's tars sands. China's oil company got fed up and left town for Venezuela where where they were welcomed with open arms.
No that was our neo-con ideologues with deeply integrated ties to the American Empire. I don't believe for a minute that it was rejected by our China friendly business elite in Vancouver and Richmond.

Personally I would reject any further expansion of the tar sands by either America or China but that is another debate.


From: North of Manifest Destiny | Registered: Jun 2002  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594

posted 19 August 2008 12:07 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Too late, the St Laurent Liberals handed our national gas industry to the Yanks decades ago. Diefenbaker campaigned against it but then said nothing about it once elected.

We're going to run out of conventional gas reserves in 11 years or so, and the cheapest crude oil in another 13. Get ready to pay through the nose for gasoline and home heating fuels even before then.

Tommy Douglas said there would be a day when Canadians would turn on their water taps to trickle flows of water. I can see it coming.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged

All times are Pacific Time  

Post New Topic  Post A Reply Close Topic    Move Topic    Delete Topic next oldest topic   next newest topic
Hop To:

Contact Us | rabble.ca | Policy Statement

Copyright 2001-2008 rabble.ca