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Author Topic: Lech Walesa leaves Solidarity
unionist
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 11323

posted 22 August 2006 01:56 PM      Profile for unionist     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Walesa leaves Solidarity movement

quote:
Lech Walesa has left the Solidarity trade union movement he founded and led during its struggle against communism in the 1980s...

He said he was in disagreement with his former political allies, President Lech Kaczynski and his twin brother, Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski...

Mr Walesa, who won the 1983 Nobel Peace Prize, has not been a member of the trade union since the beginning of the year, it was revealed on Tuesday.

"He has not been paying membership fees since the end of last year," a leading Solidarity member, Jerzy Borowczak, told the AFP news agency...

The main point of disagreement is the new policy to make public all the files of the former communist secret police.

Until now only members of the government and parliament had to declare whether they had any connection to the former security services.

"I didn't like their conspiracy theories. They were always suspecting people," Mr Walesa said about the Kaczynski twins.

Critics warn that the so-called transparency legislation might turn into a witch-hunt.

More than half a million Poles, whose names appear in the secret archives, could face vetting.


I just found it interesting.

[ 22 August 2006: Message edited by: unionist ]


From: Vote QS! | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 22 August 2006 02:14 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I remember Ron, Maggie and Brian holding hands with and pledging solidarnosc with Lech for a job well done. Gdansk shipyards, Pittsburgh and Sheffield Steel mills are rusting museum pieces now.

Maggie saved 5 pennies a ton with Polish coal and saved British taxpayers a grand total of 5000 quid in crushing English coal miners. 240 Poles froze to death this year after 17 years of the capitalist economic long run. Official reports admit to hundreds of thousands of homeless in Poland, but the Poles have been notorious for understating unpleasant facts in recent years.

And communist China is the world's shipbuilder nowadays. They have dealt with the devil in having it their way.

[ 22 August 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
unionist
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posted 22 August 2006 03:27 PM      Profile for unionist     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Fidel:

And communist China is the world's shipbuilder nowadays. They have dealt with the devil in having it their way.

Well, Gorbachev and Walesa and their like dealt with the devil too. They just ended up making a worse deal.


From: Vote QS! | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
mayakovsky
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posted 22 August 2006 03:54 PM      Profile for mayakovsky     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
The BBC story is a bit more complete than another I got this morning. But both are full of vagaries. The other story I read said that Walesa broke with the glimmer twins because they were too 'conservative'. This one talks about secret police issues.

Post communist countries face many issues with the opening of secret police files. Romania is going through a similar discussion right now. As the opening of the Stasi files in East Germany showed, nobody's shadow is clear. The twins could be seeking political capital on opponents or Walesa may be protecting repuatations.

Fidel is right about the western leaders in the 80s using Walesa in 'solidarity' then leaving them and the workers in their own countries out to dry.


From: New Bedford | Registered: Mar 2004  |  IP: Logged
Martha (but not Stewart)
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posted 22 August 2006 04:22 PM      Profile for Martha (but not Stewart)     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Fidel:
And communist China is the world's shipbuilder nowadays.

"Communist" China is communist in name only.


From: Toronto | Registered: Mar 2006  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 22 August 2006 05:03 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Half of China's economy is still in the hands of the CCP. And I wouldn't try to buy land there.
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Martha (but not Stewart)
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posted 22 August 2006 06:54 PM      Profile for Martha (but not Stewart)     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Fidel:
Half of China's economy is still in the hands of the CCP. And I wouldn't try to buy land there.

Half the state assets and all of the land are in the hands of the only legal party in an totalitarian and increasingly nationalistic (not internationalistic) state-capitalist country. Sounds more like fascism (in the classic sense) than communism. (This analysis of what China has morphed into has been around for a while: for a classic source see this, from the Wall Street Journal, Feb 22, 2002.


From: Toronto | Registered: Mar 2006  |  IP: Logged
a lonely worker
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posted 22 August 2006 07:14 PM      Profile for a lonely worker     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Martha (but not Stewart):

quote:
"Communist" China is communist in name only.

I agree wholeheartedly with this statement. A friend of mine's father is with the CCP (going back to the days of Mao). When he came to visit last year he said we were more "communist" than they were because we have free education through to high school (although their university system is far cheaper and better) and healthcare for all. In China everything is paid by your company if you have a job, if not or you live in the rural areas you're pretty much screwed.

I do agree with Fidel that they do have a higher degree of state ownership but unfortunately this potential to create a world class social structure is being wasted on mindless development in the urban areas further widening the divide (in contrast to Cuba and Venezuela which are investing most of their resources in improving rural areas and guaranteeing equal access to social programmes irrespective of geographic area).

China is developing a unique brand of state capitalism that replicates many of the same problems we have here in inequity, environmental degradation and resource exploitation. They are correcting some of this but I fear there will be some major bumps in the road when neo-liberal globalisation crumbles and their customers will have to choose between paying for clean water or buying more McCrap at Wal-Mart.


From: Anywhere that annoys neo-lib tools | Registered: Jul 2005  |  IP: Logged
a lonely worker
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posted 22 August 2006 07:31 PM      Profile for a lonely worker     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Now Martha, I just posted saying I agree wholeheartedly with you, then you wrote this:

quote:
Sounds more like fascism (in the classic sense) than communism.

This is false. The three pilars of classic fascism are:

1 - Fervent nationalism leading to a massive military, police expenditure and a beligerent foreign policy. (the role of the state)

2 - Total corporate control of the economy. (the role of business)

3 - The church controls the masses. (keeps them humble).

Although China does exhibit some of these traits (especially on the crime and punishment side) China doesn't fit this mold because:

1 - It's foreign policy is decidedly non-interventialist or nationalistic (outside it's immediate area).

2 - It still is extremely interventionalist in the economy (as all of us agree)

3 - Religions, except the Falun Gong, are tolerated but definitely NOT encouraged (in fact to appear respectful to all appears to be the current fashion).

OTOH, there is a country that is a neighbour of ours (who also writes the article you quote) that much more closely match the templates of these 3 pillars. Three guesses who they are ...

ETA, I read the article you quoted and three things immediately struck me:

1 - Although they talk about Mussolini and Hitler they gloss over other fascist states like they never existed such as: Pinochet's Chile, Franco's Spain, Salazar's Portugal and even our own Maurice Duplessis. All of which provide a longer and less violent context of the true face of fascist principles. Read about them and tell me whose policies they more closely match China or a neo-con government.

2 - The state religion issue is too huge to ignore. All facsist leaders were religious fanatics. They used religion to fuel hate for "unbelievers" or "godless socialists" to keep the masses compliant and obedient. After all, if you speak against them, as the chuch would say, you're speaking against god.

3 - This sentence really pissed me off:

quote:
It is therefore wrong to think of contemporary China as an intensely unstable system, riven by the democratic impulses of capitalism on the one hand, and the repressive instincts of communism on the other

"democratic impulses of capitalism". WTF? These guys are seriously into the neo-lib kool aid if they think it is somehow democratic that your say in society is based upon how many shares you own or how much cash you have!

Sorry for the rant, but whenever I see such simplistic statements every other part of the article loses any objectivity.

[ 22 August 2006: Message edited by: a lonely worker ]

[ 22 August 2006: Message edited by: a lonely worker ]


From: Anywhere that annoys neo-lib tools | Registered: Jul 2005  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 24 August 2006 01:57 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by a lonely worker:
China is developing a unique brand of state capitalism that replicates many of the same problems we have here in inequity, environmental degradation and resource exploitation. They are correcting some of this but I fear there will be some major bumps in the road when neo-liberal globalisation crumbles and their customers will have to choose between paying for clean water or buying more McCrap at Wal-Mart.

I agree. And I think that both China and India have moved toward market based economies using similar but still different approaches. What is remarkable about China and India's rapid growth successes compared with the tragedies of Russian glasnost, former Eastern block nations, African and Latin American experiences is that all of the tragedies occurred in countries following Washington consensus for liberalizing economies the closest. Thailand followed IMF structural adjustment plans the most and faired about the worst among Asian economies. India is still pretty much a disaster as far as extreme poverty and increasing gaps between rich and poor are concerned, and they were being guided by the IMF to some extent whereas China was never under pressed to make rapid changes since the end of Mao's reign in 1976. And China's infant mortality and longevity have only continued to improve over India's same health statistics as well as every other democratic capitalist third world country still struggling to industrialize.

The formerly imperialist fourth world China that was metaphorically on its knees as a nation and mired in civil war until 1949 and behind even India wrt to economy and human development, and the formerly Maoist China until 1976, seems to have had a head start in its move toward market socialism(but not nearly a total and perfect market socialism by any means). So,

Why are other third world capitalist nations not catapulting ahead like China did since 1978-9(or the other Asian tiger economies have since the second world war)?. How would other poverty-stricken capitalist nations go about copying just China's successes with unprecedented economic growth and purchasing power for its citizens ?. Never mind that widget capitalism is unsustainable as well as immoral - let's all be capitalists for a few minutes in order to figure this out.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
unionist
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posted 24 August 2006 05:42 AM      Profile for unionist     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Martha, you link to an article which:

1. Is from the extreme-right Wall Street Journal
2. Is more than 4 years old
3. Is reprinted by a website (Benador Associates) which features speakers of the calibre of Richard Perle
4. Says China is developing fascism!!! (although I'll give Benador and the WSJ this much - they are in a position to know!!!).

How such a sick and slanderous article managed to generate discussion among babblers is beyond me.

[ 24 August 2006: Message edited by: unionist ]


From: Vote QS! | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
unionist
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posted 24 August 2006 05:55 AM      Profile for unionist     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
All right, here is the scoop from Wikipedia on Michael Ledeen, whom Martha described as a "classic source". I thought I recognized that name!! This man certainly knows about fascism:

quote:
Michael Ledeen (born August 1, 1941) is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He is also a contributing editor to the U.S. National Review and the Jewish World Review. Ledeen was a founding member of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs and he continues to serve on the JINSA Board of Advisors. In 2003, the Washington Post alleged that he was consulted by Karl Rove, George W. Bush's closest advisor, as his main international affairs adviser.[1] Ledeen is also a member of Benador Associates...

Ledeen, who has always been staunchly anti-fascist, holds political views which stress "the urgency of combating centralized state power and the centrality of human freedom"[3] that are said to have influenced or inspired the Bush administration...

Ledeen has often been accused of associations with shady organizations. According to the Asia Times, for example, "Ledeen's right-wing Italian connections - including alleged ties to the P2 masonic lodge that rocked Italy in the early 1980s - have long been a source of speculation and intrigue, but he returned to Washington in 1981 as "anti-terrorism" advisor to the new secretary of state, Al Haig."...

Ledeen was a major figure in the biggest foreign policy scandal of the Ronald Reagan administration. As a consultant of National Security Adviser Robert C. McFarlane, Ledeen vouched for Iranian intermediary Manucher Ghorbanifar, and met with Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, and officials of the Israeli Foreign Ministry and the CIA to arrange meetings with high-ranking Iranian officials and the much-criticized weapons-for-hostages deal with Iran that would become known as the Iran-Contra scandal...

Michael Ledeen has been accused by opponents of being involved in the forgery which claimed that Saddam Hussein had bought yellowcake in Niger...

"One can only hope that we turn the region into a cauldron, and faster, please. If ever there were a region that richly deserved being cauldronized, it is the Middle East today."...

In a 2003 column entitled "A Theory," Ledeen outlined a possibility that France and Germany, both NATO allies of the United States, "struck a deal with radical Islam and with radical Arabs" to use "extremism and terrorism as the weapon of choice" to bring down a potential American Empire. He stated, "It sounds fanciful, to be sure," but that, "If this is correct, we will have to pursue the war against terror far beyond the boundaries of the Middle East, into the heart of Western Europe. And there, as in the Middle East, our greatest weapons are political: the demonstrated desire for freedom of the peoples of the countries that oppose us."..

Writing in The Nation, a left-wing magazine, Jack Hubermanm, who describes Leeden as "the most influential and unabashed warmonger of our time", attributes these quotes to Leeden:[11]

* "the level of casualties (in Iraq) is secondary"
* "we are a warlike people (Americans)...we love war"
* "Change—above all violent change—is the essence of human history"
* "the only way to achieve peace is through total war"
* "The purpose of total war is to permanently force your will onto another people"
* "Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business"

From the other side of politics, The American Conservative has claimed that Leeden has strong sympathies for Italian fascism and that "Ledeen’s careful distinction between fascist 'regime' and 'movement' makes him a clear apologist for the latter."



From: Vote QS! | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
DownWithAbrahamism
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posted 24 August 2006 07:11 AM      Profile for DownWithAbrahamism     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
As much as I may deplore its initial backers, Solidarity is -- aside from the Green Party -- the only party in Polish politics that doesn't get off on seeing sexual minorities lynches in the streets.
From: Montreal | Registered: Aug 2006  |  IP: Logged
IgnoramusMaximus
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posted 24 August 2006 11:54 AM      Profile for IgnoramusMaximus     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Fidel:
I remember Ron, Maggie and Brian holding hands with and pledging solidarnosc with Lech for a job well done. Gdansk shipyards, Pittsburgh and Sheffield Steel mills are rusting museum pieces now.

Maggie saved 5 pennies a ton with Polish coal and saved British taxpayers a grand total of 5000 quid in crushing English coal miners. 240 Poles froze to death this year after 17 years of the capitalist economic long run. Official reports admit to hundreds of thousands of homeless in Poland, but the Poles have been notorious for understating unpleasant facts in recent years.

And communist China is the world's shipbuilder nowadays. They have dealt with the devil in having it their way.


And for bonus points you should ask how is Polish health-care system doing or -- better yet -- how are all those millions of pensioners doing when their monthly pension is around $100 and the prices of most things are only slightly below the average EU levels.

Hint: "well" is not the right answer.

What particularly pisses me off are the memories of all those "scandalous" TV "investigative reports" on the vast "lagrasse" of the "commie" Polish government members, who had -- wait for it -- two four room apartaments instead of the one the avegage family could have or --- and we are talking major shock here -- a comfortable cabin in the woods. The Solidarity affiliated "rebel" TV reporters used to choke on their spittle when "exposing" all of those "horrible examples of exploitation of the hard-working Polish citizenry".

Fast forward 20 years and these pitiful "perks" of the old guard commies are truly comical when put next to veritable palaces and 100-floor executive towers of the lords and masters of the new "social justice", dog-eats-dog capitalism style.

And so it goes, if you want to get the dumb populace to stick its own genitalia into a bear trap, all one has to do is to appeal to their greed, jealousy and the need for scapegoats who, if only removed, would enable every Joe Idiot to become an instant multi-millionaire. It never fails. For more modern reference, see: The US Neo-cons and the Conservative Party Of Canada.

[ 24 August 2006: Message edited by: IgnoramusMaximus ]


From: Winnipeg | Registered: Jan 2006  |  IP: Logged
Martha (but not Stewart)
rabble-rouser
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posted 24 August 2006 12:12 PM      Profile for Martha (but not Stewart)     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by unionist:
Martha, you link to an article which:

1. Is from the extreme-right Wall Street Journal


I disagree that the WSJ is "extreme" right wing. It's pro-business and pro-capitalist, sure. This is not extreme, but mainstream. Of course, the mainstream might be quite wrong about many things: I would never deny this.

quote:
2. Is more than 4 years old

Yes, the idea that China's system is morphing into something more like fascism than communism is more than four years old.

quote:
3. Is reprinted by a website (Benador Associates) which features speakers of the calibre of Richard Perle

I care whether the analysis is interesting, and whether the arguments are convincing. I do not care where the article is reprinted: I'm sure that you can find interesting and well-argued articles reprinted in all sorts of wacky places.

quote:
How such a sick and slanderous article managed to generate discussion among babblers is beyond me.

I will gladly re-read the article in order to determine whether it is "sick" or "slanderous". I did not notice anything, on my first reading, that was either sick or slanderous. So, perhaps fellow babblers can indicate which parts were, in fact, slanderous.


From: Toronto | Registered: Mar 2006  |  IP: Logged
Martha (but not Stewart)
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posted 24 August 2006 12:18 PM      Profile for Martha (but not Stewart)     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by unionist:
All right, here is the scoop from Wikipedia on Michael Ledeen, whom Martha described as a "classic source".

I described Ledeen's article in the Wall Street Journal as a "classic source" for the idea that China is drifting towards something more like fascism than communism. By a "classic source" I mean, an influential source, a source often cited, a source widely disseminated, and so on. Whether it is a source carefully argued with conclusions appropriately reached from the evidence is another matter: and this matter can best be taken up only by investigating the argument itself.


From: Toronto | Registered: Mar 2006  |  IP: Logged
unionist
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 11323

posted 24 August 2006 12:31 PM      Profile for unionist     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Martha (but not Stewart):

I will gladly re-read the article in order to determine whether it is "sick" or "slanderous". I did not notice anything, on my first reading, that was either sick or slanderous. So, perhaps fellow babblers can indicate which parts were, in fact, slanderous.


Fascism is a 20th century phenomenon of hatred and aggression, of conquest and murder. Of all countries in the world today, how do you get off calling China fascist?? Calling China "fascist" helps prepare public opinion for encirclement and containment, if not worse. And the source cited for this "analysis" is a confidant of Karl Rove, a promoter of foreign invasion and war, an Iran-Contra promulgator.

I actually don't want to grace this thesis with any more comment than the above.


From: Vote QS! | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
unionist
rabble-rouser
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posted 24 August 2006 12:37 PM      Profile for unionist     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by IgnoramusMaximus:

And so it goes, if you want to get the dumb populace to stick its own genitalia into a bear trap, all one has to do is to appeal to their greed, jealousy and the need for scapegoats who, if only removed, would enable every Joe Idiot to become an instant multi-millionaire. It never fails. For more modern reference, see: The US Neo-cons and the Conservative Party Of Canada.


I might have put it differently, but your comments are right on.

Poland has a bad record of seeing through scapegoating.

Today, it is the communists (and their "secret police").

Sixty years ago, it was the Jews.

Poles need to stand up and tell the Church and the Americans and the nouveau riche that the days of the sucker play are over. I only hope this happens without too much more upheaval and suffering.


From: Vote QS! | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
Steppenwolf Allende
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posted 24 August 2006 12:54 PM      Profile for Steppenwolf Allende     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Well, as a strong supporter of the Solidarnosc in its initial stage as a union, Lech Walesa lost it for me as a leader in 1985 when I saw a photo of him kissing Margaret Thatcher's hand (he should have punched her in the mouth).

It was clear by then that Walesa was selling out his union and its founding principles (which are actually far more socialistic than any of the hollow rhetoric of the Stalinist state capitalist regime) to win convenient support from the freaky right like Thatcher and Reagan looking for ways to destabilize the Soviet bloc.

The idiot allowed himself and his union to be used as pawns in their war to break up that bloc and then to be thrown away and forgotten, like what happened afterward.

Seriously, the one big thing people had under the otherwise authoritarian state capitalist economies of the old bloc was at least a stable and reasonably reliable social infrastructure and safety net.

Now that it has been sold off and/or corrupted by gangsters and state capitalist bureaucrats turned "entrepreneurs," and people are mal-nourished and ill, hungry and increasingly homeless, where is all that support and assistance from the US and the UK they were looking for?

Where is all that post-World-War-II Marshall Plan-style infrastructure investment that Walesa was hoping to get for his people?

Not only is he yet another pseudo-socialist fraud, but he has proven he's not much of a skilled negotiator for his union either--failing to get even one binding commitment from authoritarian right-wing thugs he dealt with, like the lady whose hand he kissed.

Then again, the fact he even thought these creeps would seriously care about the welfare of Polish workers shows what a sucker-faced dummy he really is.

So he quit the union? Maybe they should have kicked him out long ago.


From: goes far, flies near, to the stars away from here | Registered: Aug 2006  |  IP: Logged
IgnoramusMaximus
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posted 24 August 2006 12:55 PM      Profile for IgnoramusMaximus     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by unionist:

Poland has a bad record of seeing through scapegoating.

Today, it is the communists (and their "secret police").

Sixty years ago, it was the Jews.

Poles need to stand up and tell the Church and the Americans and the nouveau riche that the days of the sucker play are over. I only hope this happens without too much more upheaval and suffering.


Unfortunately Poland is only one example of such goings on. Just look at what is happening in the US and -- sadly -- around here. Aren't the same very tactics being used on us? Look at all the whining about how taxation is "thievery" and how it stands in the way of glorious self-realisation of wildest riches of nearly everyone. How single payer medicare is "tyranny". And so on.

As to Jews, well look at how these "Islamic terrorists" who "hate us for our freedom" are evidently hiding under every bed, thus warranting wholesale removal of checks on power of authocratic institutions, racial and religious profiling, arbitrary searches, arbitrary abuse, denial of right to travel and general securocratic paranoia everywhere.

Give our Glorious Conservative Revolution a few more years and there will be "internment camps" for all those who dare to look "suspicious" while failing to nod vigorously at every drivel coming out of the Conservative Party members and its wholly owned, subsidiary media. It was Jews back in the 30s and 40s and it is Muslims now. It really matters not who. The only criteria is that they are identifiable as "others" who can be safely (for the greedmongers and power seekers) designated as "they, them" versus our "us".

Sadly, I do not think Poles have a monopoly on stupidity.

[ 24 August 2006: Message edited by: IgnoramusMaximus ]


From: Winnipeg | Registered: Jan 2006  |  IP: Logged
IgnoramusMaximus
rabble-rouser
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posted 24 August 2006 01:29 PM      Profile for IgnoramusMaximus     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Steppenwolf Allende:
The idiot allowed himself and his union to be used as pawns in their war to break up that bloc and then to be thrown away and forgotten, like what happened afterward.

...

Not only is he yet another pseudo-socialist fraud, but he has proven he's not much of a skilled negotiator for his union either--failing to get even one binding commitment from authoritarian right-wing thugs he dealt with, like the lady whose hand he kissed.

Then again, the fact he even thought these creeps would seriously care about the welfare of Polish workers shows what a sucker-faced dummy he really is.



He is simply a buffoon. His role in Solidarity was similar to what the role of Dubya is down South: an ammiable, "folksy" puppet operated from behind the scenes by the real powers. One should note that most of the "leadership" of Solidarity of that time became mega-wealthy and exceedingly powerful, long since having abandoned any pretense of care for the plight of the organization's ordinary members, as was their objective from the get go. One cannot seriously propose that any of them actually believed any of that crap they were peddling to the dumbstruck masses. Walensa is an uneducated loaf whose worldview revolves exclusively around ... the greatness of Lech Walensa. He and Paris Hilton have amusingly quite a lot in common. All Thatcher and Regan had to do is to wine and dine him, tell him how "important" he was and drive him around in fancy limousines to fancy hotels. That was all it took.

I am sure the true reason he resigned was because the other conmen decided to take the limelight all for themselves.

quote:

So he quit the union? Maybe they should have kicked him out long ago.

Solidarity is as much a union as the NSDAP was a "workers" party. A "sham" would be a generous description.

[ 24 August 2006: Message edited by: IgnoramusMaximus ]


From: Winnipeg | Registered: Jan 2006  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
rabble-rouser
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posted 24 August 2006 06:47 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Steppenwolf Allende:

Seriously, the one big thing people had under the otherwise authoritarian state capitalist economies of the old bloc was at least a stable and reasonably reliable social infrastructure and safety net.


A friend of mine lived in Russia for a year a few years back. He said there are a lot of poor people, but no one is homeless still. Apartments were affordable for locals in the city where he was teaching. And most of them could afford to buy a McBurger but prefer buying a whole fish from the local market, even in the middle of winter. Russians gnaw and nibble on frozen fish like we do with fast food.

Canada has timber and natural wealth like Russia, but we have thousands of homeless people and many more subsisting in substandard housing amid an ocean of lumber and natural wealth being carted off, siphoned-off and trucked away 24/7 by foreign interests.

ETA: I don't believe the Russians set out to create a state capitalist society. They knew it wasn't a socialist goal for the long term. And I don't believe they ever pursued consumerism on a scale that was developing in the west. Stalin's war capitalism was about staving off western aggression. Stalin was a militant product of that aggression.

[ 24 August 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Martha (but not Stewart)
rabble-rouser
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posted 24 August 2006 08:05 PM      Profile for Martha (but not Stewart)     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by a lonely worker:

The three pilars of classic fascism are:

1 - Fervent nationalism leading to a massive military, police expenditure
and a beligerent foreign policy. (the role of the state)

2 - Total corporate control of the economy. (the role of business)

3 - The church controls the masses. (keeps them humble).]


Interesting point about #3: It's true that many fascist leaders have used
religion, and that the Chinese authorities do not. Mind you, Hitler
himself thought that religion was for the weak, and although he happily
used religion when it suited his purposes, neither Catholicism nor
Lutheranism played an important role in Nazi ideology. (Correct me if I am
wrong on this.) I suppose you could reasonably argue that Hitler was not a
true fascist: Nazism was its own thing, with some relationship to
fascism. Hitler used other means to keep the masses "compliant and
obedient", including a personality cult.

As for #1, many commentators have claimed that China is increasingly
fervently nationalistic.
Here's
a random source on this, but google can provide many others. One can argue
that an atheist state could let nationalism do the work that religion
might otherwise have done. As for a belligerent foreign policy: Tibet
comes to mind; also, mainland China's threats to invade Taiwan if they declare independence, which they already have de facto. But I grant that China has not sought a colonial empire. Nor, however, did some of your examples of fascist regimes: Pinochet's Chile or Duplessis's Quebec (obviously).

Anyway, my main point was, and still is, that China is hardly communist. Perhaps not fascist either, but pretty disturbing in its own unique way: see this from today's Globe and Mail.

[ 24 August 2006: Message edited by: Martha (but not Stewart) ]


From: Toronto | Registered: Mar 2006  |  IP: Logged
IgnoramusMaximus
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posted 24 August 2006 08:18 PM      Profile for IgnoramusMaximus     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Fidel:

A friend of mine lived in Russia for a year a few years back. He said there are a lot of poor people, but no one is homeless still. Apartments were affordable for locals in the city where he was teaching.


I am not sure how things are in Russia, but Poland is an economic basket case. Complete with hordes of homeless being chased away from railway stations and underground passages where they try to survive in winter (hence the hundreds of frozen to death last year). Many elderly are completely destitute to the point of rummaging through garbage for food. Medical care is available only to the affluent (and the affluent class is indeed present, society getting more stratified by the minute) while the government medical services are so ridiculously underfunded that hospitals burn through their "monthly" budgets in the first three or four days of the month. Poeple are turned away from hospitals after that. I could go through the rather long list of the glorious after-effects of the Jeffrey Sachs' "shock therapy" attrocities but you get the idea. Add to this a political scene where the Church runs a de-facto single party system, having most of the populace, and thus politicians and their "parties", firmly in its clutches. Now throw in all of the worst attributes of the most greedy and hateful of regressive "conservative" psychopaths looking to exact revenge on anyone and everyone who dared to somehow opose their designs for unlimited power, wealth and glory in the past -- thus the witch hunts you are seeing now -- and you will start to see the gory picture come into foucs.

All I know about Russia is that their economy was similarly gutted and sold off to Yeltsin's drinking buddies, a.k.a. the "oligarchs", for pennies on a dollar, creating overnight lords and masters who owned 2/3rd of the country's national resources and industry. Following which all that amusing stuff with "economic collapse" occured.

[ 24 August 2006: Message edited by: IgnoramusMaximus ]


From: Winnipeg | Registered: Jan 2006  |  IP: Logged
unionist
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posted 24 August 2006 08:27 PM      Profile for unionist     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Martha's latest "random source" on China is an article written by a contributing editor of National Review (!), printed in the Washington Times (!).

Martha, I need to know whether you are aware of what these things are.

National Review (of William S. Buckley Jr.) has been the leading ultra-conservative organ for decades.

The Washington Times was founded in 1982 by "Reverend" Sun Myung Moon -- founder also of the "Moonies", notorious anti-communist, cold warrior, religious cultist.

What's up here?


From: Vote QS! | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
Martha (but not Stewart)
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posted 24 August 2006 09:09 PM      Profile for Martha (but not Stewart)     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
OK ... here's a less random source: The Guardian, a reasonably left-wing British newspaper.

This book review considers four books, including Chinese Nationalism in the Global Era by Christopher R Hughes (184pp, Routledge, £18.99). The reviewer, Martin Jacques, agrees with Hughes about "the growing importance of nationalism" and even concedes that Hughes may be right that "this has become a central plank of the regime's legitimacy." Jacques's take is slightly different from Hughes's in detail, but a common point is the growing importance of Chinese nationalism.

I looked for Jacques's and Hughes's credentials, since these might be of some relevance. In particular, I wanted to check their left-wing bona fides.

Jacques is a writer and broadcaster, currently writing a book on the rise of China. During the last year he has been a visiting professor at Renmin University, Beijing, Aichi University, Nagoya, and Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto. He was, among other things, the editor of Marxism Today and deputy editor of The Independent, another left-wing British newspaper. Jacques is now a columnist for The Guardian. He is a co-founder of an organization called Demos: more work needs to be done to assess the legitimacy of this outfit. See here for details about Jacques.

Hughes is a faculty member at LSE. He has an article, "chinese nationalism in the global era" for Open Democracy. Open Democracy's political leanings seem to be leftist: this month candidates for their "Bad Democracy" awards include both the Pope and the G8. I will let you judge both Hughes's article and Open Democracy.

My point: the idea that the Chinese regime is increasingly relying on nationalism is not confined to right-wing commentators.


From: Toronto | Registered: Mar 2006  |  IP: Logged
Martha (but not Stewart)
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posted 24 August 2006 09:20 PM      Profile for Martha (but not Stewart)     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
OK, here is another left-wing source on growing Chinese nationalism.

A blog in the Washington Monthly mentions China's "alarming nationalism". This was followed up with some interesting discussion. This was all in the context of the anti-Japanese demonstrations in China in 2005. The Washington Monthly, by the way, is on the centre-left of the political spectrum -- basically Democratic (as in the Democratic Party) as far as I could tell from the mission statement.

[ 24 August 2006: Message edited by: Martha (but not Stewart) ]


From: Toronto | Registered: Mar 2006  |  IP: Logged
unionist
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posted 24 August 2006 10:48 PM      Profile for unionist     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Martha, thanks for your hard work in finding other sources. The Guardian article is quite coolheaded and nuanced, and points to some good reading material. Can I bring some closure (at least from my side) by saying that the charge of "fascism" is a tad excessive?

Let me also express my opinion that the most "alarming nationalism" I have encountered in today's world is that of the United States of America, with Israel's being a close second. Other nationalisms, such as China's, which manifest themselves in a more defensive fashion (though not always), do not alarm me.

Now - back to Lech Walesa!


From: Vote QS! | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 24 August 2006 10:55 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by IgnoramusMaximus:
Fast forward 20 years and these pitiful "perks" of the old guard commies are truly comical when put next to veritable palaces and 100-floor executive towers of the lords and masters of the new "social justice", dog-eats-dog capitalism style.

Yes-yes, fat Politburo members lived in the lap of luxury - caviar, Napoleon brandy, and luxury vacations to the Crimea with all the high ranking party members. (razz)

I know what you mean, IM. Since the revolutions, the superrich have learned not to flaunt their wealth, which is unprecedented now. I think even the Tsars would have been astonished with the level of greed and corruption today.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Cueball
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posted 24 August 2006 11:05 PM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
You are right there. They would not even have recognized it as greed and corruption, rather SOP.
From: Out from under the bridge and out for a stroll | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 24 August 2006 11:15 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
What is SOP, Cueball?
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Cueball
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posted 24 August 2006 11:16 PM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Standard operating procedure. In other words the tsar would be astonished that people would call it greed and corruption.
From: Out from under the bridge and out for a stroll | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 24 August 2006 11:17 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
HA!
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Martha (but not Stewart)
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posted 25 August 2006 07:17 AM      Profile for Martha (but not Stewart)     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by unionist:
Can I bring some closure (at least from my side) by saying that the charge of "fascism" is a tad excessive?

Sure. My main point, anyway, is that China has more or less given up communism.

I can't resist one more leftish source: The New York Review of Books. In "The Global Delusion" (April 27, 2006), John Gray writes, "China has abandoned central economic planning for a type of state capitalism closely linked with nationalism." This is not the topic of the article, but rather it's part of a subargument against the idea, fashionable in the 90s, that "that societies everywhere were embracing "democratic capitalism." " Gray gives a list of countries that have not done so, including Iraq, China and the United States under Bush, which Gray claims "has tilted toward a mix of protectionism, an unsustainable federal deficit, and crony capitalism."


From: Toronto | Registered: Mar 2006  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 25 August 2006 10:37 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Sure, they've given up communism like the U.S. and western world gave up laissez-faire capitalism in the 1930's. Laissez-faire capitalism collapsed around the western world after 1929. And if that wasn't proof enough that it doesn't work, they proved it again during closed economic experiments in South America in more recent times. Galbraith said that pure capitalism was intolerable in America. Milton Friedman's pro-capital economics was described by economists as being incompatible with democracy.

China's state banks have loaned billions of dollars to Russia for renationalisation of oil, natural gas and state vodka production here and there. And it's beginning to turn things around in Russia. After 17 years of falling life expectancy and soaring levels of poverty, Russia's economy is slowly beginning to pull itself out of the doldrums caused by glasnost-induced shock and privatisation schemes.

And next to North Korea and somewhere approaching perhaps Singapore's market socialism, China's is probably the most interventionist market economy in the world. State banks still intervene in suppressing the value of Yuan on world currency markets. That's not a part of liberal democracy either. The economic results are clearly unlike any experiment in third world democratic capitalism before it. With the state demanding controlling interest, or large minority shares in all foreign corporations doing business in China, China is clearly much further to the left than democratic socialism in Scandinavia and N. Europe.
Nowhere else in the world do capitalist dogs tug on such short leashes. And they seem to enjoy it, too.

What China needs most right now is trade unionism to remedy the gross human rights violations being ignored by capitalists and the CCP.

[ 25 August 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Ken Burch
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posted 25 August 2006 02:36 PM      Profile for Ken Burch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Lech Walesa ended up being one of the great disappointments of my life. The original Solidarnosc program called for worker's control of the factories, NOT THE REINSTITUTION OF WESTERN GREEED.

But Lech gave up everything he believed in. He never used his time in power to protect workers from the arrogance of Western capital. And he did little to stop the revival of Polish antisemitism. A man who could have been a people's hero degenerated into just another right-wing nationalist.

If he's left Solidarnosc now, it hardly matters. As does Solidarnosc.

It never had to be this way.


From: A seedy truckstop on the Information Superhighway | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
Steppenwolf Allende
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posted 25 August 2006 10:24 PM      Profile for Steppenwolf Allende     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Good discussion—from Lech the Loser to China Chumps. But, as pro-democracy and anti-capitalist activists, I think it’s critical that we stop falling into the trap of misusing historic terms and practices in the way the corporate media and various authoritarian regimes keep telling us to.

quote:
My main point, anyway, is that China has more or less given up communism.

The question is, since when did China ever “give up” on communism. The answer is it can’t give up on something it never had. Sure, the US State department calls it “communism” but that is hardly an accurate source—especially by its own admission that since 1948, it associates that term with the anything relating to the foreign policies of either China or the former Soviet Union.

[URL] http://www.trumanlibrary.org/diary/index.html[/URL]

The historic fact is that "Communism" comes from the word "commune," which defines the numerous cooperative democratically self-reliant townships throughout central Europe, and the Communist Manifesto was written to advocate this form of democratic economy and government on a global scale (i.e.; socialism). So why do so many folks insist on defining economies like the Soviet Union, former Eastern Bloc, China, etc. as "communist?"

[URL] http://latter-rain.com/general/commu.htm[/URL]

[URL] http://www.communism.org/#comments[/URL]

[URL] http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm[/URL]

Mao Ze dong, after the 1949 Chinese revolution, declared that a form of "state capitalism," based on large to-down state owned corporations and bureaucracies were to run the economy and accumulate capital wealth, instead of the population (and released several business plans on this development). Capitalism is what it was then and is today.

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-5/mswv5_30.htm

This is like what happened in Russia after the 1917 revolution with the introduction of the New Economic Policy in 1919, which was in fact a comprehensive business and economic reform plan based on state capitalism. Lenin himself admitted to this in an entire book called State Capitalism During the Transition to Socialism

http://books.google.com/books?ct=title&q=Lenin:+State+Capitalism+During+the+Transition+to+Socialism

In fact, the only thing communist about the Chinese economy has been the rather large agricultural cooperative movement (communes) which pre-dates the 1949 revolution by over a century—and then basically monopolized and emasculated and eventually driven to failure by the Mao government.

[URL] http://www.newleftreview.net/[/URL]

[URL] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_life_in_the_People's_Republic_of_China[/URL]

The only really big change is China’s state capitalist structure is that in the last decade it has worked both to attract foreign corporate investment at home in several big ways and pursued an aggressive foreign investment policy abroad far more than it did before.

Actually, this isn’t new for a major predominantly state capitalist economy. The former Soviet Union began doing this on a smaller scale starting right back to the 1920s, growing under Stalin in the 1930s, especially in Europe, and then significantly expanding again mainly in Europe after the Stalin era and into the 1970s--mainly in the form of joint ventures with major corporations, both in the Soviet Bloc and throughout Europe and Asia. Much of these investments are still in place today, only now the ownership has been transferred to the former republics (although Russia, of course, got most of it).

This big difference, though, is that outside of a few key manufacturing and technology ventures, Soviet investment was mostly stuck in banking and finance, bond trading and real estate (these are key ways they exerted influence over other countries within their sphere). And in most cases they did not go for controlling interest in foreign ventures (this doesn’t include all of the personal fortunes and private holdings of Soviet senior bureaucrats, corporate executives and top party hacks outside that country).

China, instead, is investing abroad in a wide variety of industries and ventures, and it IS going for controlling interest wherever in can. Some folks may remember the concerns over one of China’s state-owned industrial firms getting controlling interest in Stelco last year.

A couple reports on China's true economic development are:

http://www.tsc.nccu.edu.tw/2004conference/onishi.pdf

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/sgabriel/economics/china-essays/18.htm

PS: Skookum comments by Ken Burch.


From: goes far, flies near, to the stars away from here | Registered: Aug 2006  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 25 August 2006 11:38 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Steppenwolf Allende:
The question is, since when did China ever “give up” on communism. The answer is it can’t give up on something it never had.

Ah! But that couldn't be less true. Dog-eat-dog laissez faire capitalism died in America in 1929 and again in 1985 Chile and 1990's Argentina for good measure. RIP.

China was a fourth world nation behind even India in 1949. China's infant mortality, a common economic measure of successful nationhood, was also worse than India's in 1949. Hundreds of millions of Chinese were born in the rice paddies and died in the exact same vicinity an average of 30 to 35 years later. Enter Mao.

By 1976, China's infant mortality was better than what democratic capitalist India's IM rate is today in 2006. Mao's socialism doubled Chinese life expectancy. And World Bank statistics bear evidence to these facts.

Something similar happened in fourth world Singapore in 1965. Social democrat, Lee Kwan Yew tookover and invested in education, infrastructure, state industries, state housing and and health care. Singapore surged ahead. While Maggie Thatcher and Milton Friedman were busy pauperizing a nation with real pro-capital economics, Singaporean's were on their way to earning fifth highest incomes on average in the world with market socialism. Most people are impulsed to say that China and Singapore are capitalist economies, and they are usually the one's who still describe the USA's economy as capitalist without realizing what it was that picked America(and the rest of the western world) off its knees economically after the 1930's. And today, four of the top ten most economically competitive nations are actually social democracies practicing market socialism, and Singapore. Singapore rose faster, further than Hong Kong,8 another island nation once described as the epitome of financial services and run and gun capitalism with the only diversification being sweat shop textile labour.

Communism is the left wing and capitalism the right wing. Socialism is the body of the dove that controls both wings enabling it to fly.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Steppenwolf Allende
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posted 26 August 2006 01:11 AM      Profile for Steppenwolf Allende     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Communism is the left wing and capitalism the right wing. Socialism is the body of the dove that controls both wings enabling it to fly.

Ya know, despite the fact this is totally out of whack with history and definition, I just can't dispute it, because, I gotta admit, it's got to be the most poetic and enchanting economic statement I have ever heard!

You must be a real smooth-talking silver-tongued devil with the ladies, Fidel! good on ya.


From: goes far, flies near, to the stars away from here | Registered: Aug 2006  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 26 August 2006 09:17 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Yes, it's an old slogan that I can't remember where it came from. Anyway, it is out of date because I think the evidence from science is that crony capitalism based on government subsidies is going to be the kiss of death for our planet eventually.

I think the successes of China's market socialism are in stark contrast to Jeffrey Sach's and Harvard and friends shock therapy for Russia's economy. Free market reforms in Russia caused the economy to contract by about half, and the country's wealth was stolen by oligarchs. Russian GDP was halved, and the number of poor Russian's increased a whopping 30 times over. The economic recession in Russia was said to be even worse than that of the 1930's era depression as a result of unbridled laissez faire capitalism in the U.S.

One U.S. official said about glasnost at the time, ~ "We believed that the first generation of capitalists in Russia would be good guys, but they turned out to be ruthless motherfuckers."

The Chinese learned from Russian glasnost to maintain large control of its industrial base and demanding state control, or a large minority share in all new special economic zone privatisations. And, like the Russian experiment in failed Smithian laissez-faire, the CPC fully expected gangster capitalism and the waves of private sector corruption that followed. Western commentators have denounced the death penalty in countries like China and Singapore, but the bulk of state-sponsored executions in those countries have not been for subversive activity or homicides but for charges of corruption. And there are people who think Fidel Castro is a hardliner. They have no idea. And they have no idea about the way it will be when the economic disciplinists are no longer able to allocate enough resources for the masses in order to maintain predatory capitalism with a few oligarchs making the really big decisions.

During times of imperialism, money followed power. It's the reverse now, and democracy is bought and paid for. Democracy is really plutocracy, and predatory capitalism is failing to deliver on its promise to make everyone better off around the world.

Hard liners in China and Singapore are made out to be Stalinists in our newspapers, but the west is currently recovering from a bout with corruption itself since stock market and banking frauds of the roaring 90's leading up to 2000 and culminating with the largest corporate bankruptcies in U.S. history. The new silicon economy was dubbed the swan song of capitalism in the west until the fat lady sang during the trials of for the ring leaders of ENRONg, Global Crossup, Arthur Andersen, Adelphia and World Con.

Economists defined an economic driver which could be based on a single human characteristic, "self-interest." For reasons of scientific simplicity, they threw out the rest of human behaviours like compassion and a desire for community among others. Market socialists realized that Adam Smith's homo economicus wasn't very scientific at all. They realized that homo economicus as the central figure acting within a society would distort not just human behaviour but the overall results as well. Self-interest could manifest itself as appalling greed. And I believe this is where we are at now with the world-wide experiment in market socialism.
Remember, laissez-faire capitalism was rejected around the western world after 1929 and we pay lip service to an "invisible hand" like Romans did with gods of prosperity.

I think as far as which economics will we be using in the future, choices will eventually be reduced for us by marauding, run and gun capitalists chewing up the world's natural wealth. Environmental economists are telling us that our governments have been neglecting environmental capital(as well as social), and that the global economy has been living on credit. They say that this is unsustainable over the long run. The choices will be "Socialism or barbarism", and the U.S. Republican Party has already chosen.


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

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