Long live liberty and socialism. Smite all enemies of the People's Democracy!!!

[ 15 May 2005: Message edited by: NDP Newbie ]

[ 15 May 2005: Message edited by: NDP Newbie ]

[ 15 May 2005: Message edited by: writer ]

Might I suggest you employ the ten second rule when posting, Newbie? Or perhaps, if ten seconds is too short, the ten minute rule? I find myself thinking twice quite often before posting, and I think my posts and my credibility are the better for it.

Edited to add: Also, in my view, if "shit-disturbing" means criticism: every country needs shit-disturbing!

[ 17 May 2005: Message edited by: kurichina ]

Bob Rae says that China is on a tear building new universities and spending on infrastructure all over. In terms of economic growth, no developing countries have matched China's 21 consecutive years of economic growth at anywhere between 6 and 10 percent. Meanwhile, the second largest country in the world, and with natural resources the envy of the world, Canada stumbles along with three percent with corruption being a hallmark of our own liberal democracy.

China began experimenting with market socialism, and many of us would like to see more emphasis on socialism.China has much room for improvement, I agree. But it's undeniably true of the capitalist third world with the IMF as their ball and chain.

[ 16 May 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]

Tuition (for citizens) is free in Scotland, but I agree is bad in England. It's certainly very costly for foreigners like myself. But there are also many Chinese who are excluded from ever going to university despite having the talent. My roommates from China (despite being quite nationalist and pro-government in most matters) say that many are forced to work in factories with little safeguards despite having the ability, but not the money, to go to school. It seems that most of China's spending is aimed at the cities and that rural people are told to wait and stay in poverty until it's "their turn". I don't think they'd accept that if they could vote in someone who represents their interests.

And don't even get me started on the (extreme lack of) reproductive rights in that country!

Edited to add: I don't think paranoia can justify human rights violations, though. That would mean that the US's paranoia justifies human rights violations in the so-called War on Terror. The CIA could very well have been mucking about in China - they muck about everywhere. But people who violate human rights can ultimately only blame themselves. They make things easier for their enemies.

[ 16 May 2005: Message edited by: kurichina ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by kurichina:

And don't even get me started on the (extreme lack of) reproductive rights in that country!

---

But how many more people can that country feed and house as it is ?. But I agree, no government should dictate who gives birth and who doesn't. It would be a dilemna for the best of world leaders. Of course, in order to develop respectable infant mortality and life expectancy, developing nations require increasing amounts of electrical power generation, according to the UN. China's power generation projects have become the largest undertaking in history and definitely at the expense of the environment.

And we are seeing more Chinese students in Canada, too. We're not seeing many from African nations, El Salvador or Honduras though.

[ 16 May 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]

kurichina wrote:

quote:

---

I don't think paranoia can justify human rights violations, though. That would mean that the US's paranoia justifies human rights violations in the so-called War on Terror. The CIA could very well have been mucking about in China - they muck about everywhere. But people who violate human rights can ultimately only blame themselves. They make things easier for their enemies.

---

Right on. I don't see any reason any longer for regarding the Chinese empire very differently from the way we regard the American empire. The power politics are converging, and that has indeed been obvious since Tienanmen Square. Don't push me on that point, Fidel: I know someone who was in the square that night and had to run for his life, who saw more killed than the government has ever admitted to.

And to add insult to injury, you quote Bob Rae!?! Liberal apologist extraordinaire! The man who happily joined the slavering capitalists on Team Canada, who was pleased to enjoy a boat ride through the Valley of the Three Gorges whose flooding he -- HE -- was happy to see go ahead, for the greater glory of global capitalism ...

China's population problem can be addressed by development and real education, not by forcibly imprisioning women, mutilating their bodies, and denying them proper medical treatment. I'm not, nor do I wish to be the ruler of anything, Fidel, but you are being purposely naive if you think it's only about the number of children and not about sexist control of women's bodies.

Edited to add: Oh, skdadl posted while I was typing! Some of what I'm saying is repetition of one of her always elegantly stated points.... No bother though, it bears repeating, probably.

[ 16 May 2005: Message edited by: kurichina ]

[ 16 May 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]

My sources for China's one-child policy come primarily from refugee claims (the case law that set precedent on the issue and is avaliable in the public domain) in the UK, Canada, the US (including Chi An Wei, whose biography by Steve Mosher - which what I think you might be talking about - publicised the issue), Australia and NZ. These claims were remarkably similar on the facts, in all the countries in which they were filed, but different on the category under which they were thought to qualify for refugee status. That has to do with the inadequacy of the 1951 Convention, which doesn't imagine that anyone could be persecuted on account of their gender. But, my point is that so many have successfully made these claims now that I have to believe there is truth behind them.

edited because i left out a very important word

[ 17 May 2005: Message edited by: kurichina ]

Emily Lau -- Centre-left and civil libertarian

Martin Lee -- A bit of wuss, but still less bad than the Beijing-Corporate Cabal.

Tung Chee-hwa -- Incompetent right-wing thug.

Donald Tseng -- Opus Dei Catholic and British Knight.

Rita Fan -- Fascist bitch.

Lien Chan -- Pro-China, far-right, known for spousal abuse and tax evasion

Lee Teng-hui -- Progressive democratic reformer and Taiwanese nationalist. Anti-China and not particularly fond of America.

Chen Shui-bian -- More progressive socially and economically than anybody in the pro-China parties

James Soong -- Responsible for huamn rights abuses against left-wing Taiwanese nationalists in Kaohsiung

Jiang Zemin -- Family has ties to Bush family

Deng Xiaopin -- At best, no further right than Margeret Thatcher

But as Ralph Nader has said, MIT is the same publically funded research institute which failed to warn anyone of design flaws in car manufacturing resulting in preventable deaths of scores. Ultimately, the Chinese government is responsible for its own domestic policies, I agree.

[ 16 May 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]

Even the Westernized, simplistic view of the 1989 Tiananmen Square events is oversimplified yet again right here in this thread.

FWIW, most of the dying happened in other cities (where there were also protests) and around the edges of the city, where workers were hoping to stop the tanks from actually getting to Tiananmen. However, none of that happened in front of a Western TV camera, and so none of it is being discussed here.

Also, Deng Xiaoping's role in the crackdown is usually misunderstood, and the absolutism and brinkmanship of a small core of the students in the square is rarely discussed.

(From my fragmentary memory) -The protesters had recieved almost all of their initial demands, and there was a major division within the people in the square. They were undone by a consensus based decision model they had adopted - without 100% agreement, they would not/could not leave the square. A small group of the students had set their minds on bringing down the government, not eventually but immediately.

In the government, a similar division existed between the reform oriented and the hardliners. The reformers (who included or were at least implicitly supported by Deng) were inclined to let the protests run their course, and were instrumental in making many of the concessions that did happen.

Unfortunately, the students were unable to accept compromise as a result of their decision making structure, though many were satisfied. Eventually, the hard-liners in the government won their arguments, in part because of the absolutism of some of the protesters. Deng and the reformers had the choice of either backing off or being arrested.

In the end the reformers won that fight, but they went into retreat for a couple of years as a result of Tiananmen.

My knowledge of Chinese politics is fragmentary and somewhat outdated now, but it never ceases to amaze me how we in the West will easily impose our own understandings on the events in other parts of the world. I suppose all cultures do it, but with events such as Tiananmen it becomes all the more depressing, because it implies that our many cultures have so far to go before we are even discussing the same events with the same basic information.

quote:

---

Originally posted by arborman:

FWIW, most of the dying happened in other cities (where there were also protests) and around the edges of the city, where workers were hoping to stop the tanks from actually getting to Tiananmen. However, none of that happened in front of a Western TV camera, and so none of it is being discussed here.

---

I must admit that I am confused about the Tianenmen incident. Apparently, the New York Post and Wall Street Journal back then reported that a massacre had occurred in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. Harrison Salisbury was there, and he said that he spoke with a BBC journalist some time during the protest events and said neither him or the other journalist witnessed anyone being shot to death. Salisbury traveled the surrounding countrysides and made no mention of a massacre in his diary.

In fact, just for a current comparison, Tony Blair made mention of some 400 000 Iraqis killed in Saddam's purges, but no one has been able to verify it. In fact, a CIA expert on Iraq says it never happened. Tony has since recanted the allegation.

What did happen at Tianenmen Square [and in other cities] ?. Did the Chinese try to cover it up?.

[ 16 May 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]

i mean, really, would we tolerate a right-wing poster who said things like "neo-nazi" when referring to the NDP or if they said words like "bitch" about women politicians?

[ 17 May 2005: Message edited by: Willowdale Wizard ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Fidel:

I must admit that I am confused about the Tianenmen incident. Apparently, the New York Post and Wall Street Journal back then reported that a massacre had occurred in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. Harrison Salisbury was there, and he said that he spoke with a BBC journalist some time during the protest events and said neither him or the other journalist witnessed anyone being shot to death. Salisbury traveled the surrounding countrysides and made no mention of a massacre in his diary.

In fact, just for a current comparison, Tony Blair made mention of some 400 000 Iraqis killed in Saddam's purges, but no one has been able to verify it. In fact, a CIA expert on Iraq says it never happened. Tony has since recanted the allegation.

What did happen at Tianenmen Square [and in other cities] ?. Did the Chinese try to cover it up?.

[ 16 May 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]

---

Well, there was definitely a massacre - the western media was present, and a number of video tapes did make it out. I've seen parts of some of them, and I won't soon forget the lines of troops, shots being fired, and seeing a person drop in the street from a bullet.

Again, however, most of the dying happened in other cities and at the outskirts of Beijing, not in the square (where the cameras were).

There was also a massive coverup, more for the benefit of the Chinese than anyone else. Also enormous bravery on the part of many individuals, and a few soldiers (from what I understand).

As for what they were protesting for - more democratic openness is probably the shorthand. Some of the hardliners who overplayed their hand might have been pushing for a regime collapse, but most were riding a wave and hoping to open up the system a bit. The protest started, weeks earlier, as anger because of African students having sex with Chinese women, but then evolved into a memorial for a reformer who had died, and from there developed into something significantly more positive.

quote:

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Originally posted by Fidel:
Ok, I'll settle for that explanation: That it's far too complex for me to understand, and the CIA, with thousands of agents in major cities around the world and annual budget larger than Ontario's, were just minding their own business.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mr. Magoo:
Uh, not to be a grammar-nazi, but that was quite the run-on sentence there.

Anyway, dude, one hour. Can you guess what I mean by "one hour"?

---

Speaking of grammar-nazis; It's "you're" when you mean "You are a bunch of wannabe nazis."

"Your" is a possessive, as in: "Your cake is very tasty."

No worries though mate, I frequently make that mistake myself.

You mean "their" where you say "there," and "wear" when you say "were."

And reading a phrase like: "a disgrace to the Nazi party" really gets one thinking!

edited to fix speeling.

[ 31 May 2005: Message edited by: thwap ]

quote:

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Aolf must be from the dropout Berlin chapter, a second rate Nazi clique. And free tuition there, too. tsk-tsk Pity that.

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quote:

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Originally posted by arborman:

You don't think that it's a bit culturally chauvinistic to assume that a significant event in China (with 1.2B people and a 5000 year history) happened because of the CIA?

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Fidel:

VietNamese and Cambodian cultures are several thousand years old, too. Do you think it would be historically naive to forget how the CIA was as deeply involved in cultural events there and up to fairly recently in Cambodia ?.

---

quote:

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China began experimenting with market socialism, and many of us would like to see more emphasis on socialism.

---

I don't find very much that is "socialist" about China today.

China seems to have turned itself into a gigantic sweatshop for western multinational corporations.

The Chinese trade union federation is so tame that its the one labour federation in the world that Walmart is willing to recognize.

quote:

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Originally posted by radiorahim:

I don't find very much that is "socialist" about China today.

China seems to have turned itself into a gigantic sweatshop for western multinational corporations.

---

...You mean a sweatshop for western multinationals that must cede 51 percent controlling interest to the Chinese state. That's even further to the left than democratic socialism.

India was a colonialist sweatshop in 1949, the year that Mao tookover China, and Chiang Kai Shek fled to Formosa with the wealth of China to setup WACL. China was on its knees in 1949 as was India, but China was even moreso a fourth world nation. By 1976, China's infant mortality was better than India's is today. Today, India exports food to the market while millions starve to death every year. Same in Africa where IMF loan principles are paid back several times over in compound interest. What does China owe the to the IMF ?. And with owning the fewest natural resources compared to real experiments in capitalism: Russia, Africa and Latin America, China is, at least, progressing whereas in the failing capitalist states like Russia and Latin America(excluding Cuba) infant mortality has risen and adult life expectancy is abysmal to worse than ever.

The Yuan is still not a floating currency as per liberal democracy. Of all the IMF/Washington consensus experiments in liberal democracy around the world, China conforms to it the least. When all checks for IMF structural adjustment programs are accounted for, Thailand fits those requirments to a tee. And it has faired about the worst.

Mao didn't ask to lead several hundred million illiterates. He did the best he could with what he had to work with. And it's not all sweatshops, Radiorahim. None of IBM or INTEL or MS are setting up R&D labs in Honduras, El Salvador, the right-to-work states, Guatemala or even capitalist Poland. They like China though. There are no labour union issues in any of those countries where black market is the rule and money and profits carted and wheelbarrowed across borders freely, untaxed. Why are Eastern European economies not bustling, because they have flexible labour markets now too.

Why do industrialists choose a country on the other side of the planet to invest in ?. Is it really just about low wages ?. Can we point to any successful experiments in fully deregulated capitalist economies besides 1920's America ... before true capitalism took a nosedive into the dust bowl?. Why point to a bad example in China where the rules of laissez-faire are trampled with impunity ?. Every system has its limits. Baby steps.

[ 04 June 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

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The Chinese trade union federation is so tame that its the one labour federation in the world that Walmart is willing to recognize.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by radiorahim:
The Chinese trade union federation is so tame that its the one labour federation in the world that Walmart is willing to recognize.

---

These are trade unions who are not allowed to strike either. That right was taken away in the 1995 Constitution and replaced with a clause that prohibits individuals from "disrupting the flow of commerce". (My Chinese roommate's words when we where discussing the BBC strike.)

I agree, China is not democratic, and while they may be 'socialist' in some bizarre technical sense, they are very, very, far removed from the spirit of socialism, IMO.

Edit: according to this it was in 2001 that an amendment took away the right to strike, and replaced it with a carefully worded:

quote:

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The trade union shall strive hard in its task to assist the enterprise or institution to restore the normal order of production as soon as possible.

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Although my roommate assured me that the BBC unionists would be promptly arrested in China had they done the same thing. (And this was only a 1 day strike!)

[ 04 June 2005: Message edited by: kurichina ]

quote:

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Originally posted by arborman:

But we're not talking about Vietnam and Cambodia.

---

Well your remarks have been somewhat confrontational, I must say. I think you're probably right to say that a number of Chinese were shot to death, but not at Tianenman Square, where at least two English-speaking news journalists say they saw nothing an no shots fired during the 13 days of protest. Nor did a BBC news journalist or Harrison Salisbury see anyone crushed by armoured tanks.

Rampant CIA-related crimes these days... China is not the exception! Are you a bad enough dude to rescue President Huey?

quote:

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Very damning. Do you have a source.

---

Asianlabour.org

People's Daily Online English edition

China Labour Bulletin

Here's how Eric Lee, author of the "Labourstart" website puts it:

quote:

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China does have a trade union movement -- on paper. The All China Federation of Trade Unions claims to be the world's largest union, but it does little for its members. Nevertheless, due to a quirk in Chinese law, the ACFTU now seems destined to play a role that no one expected it to play. The world's largest employer, Wal-Mart, which has become a symbol of virulent hostility toward unions (not allowing a single one of its one million employees to enjoy union representation), is starting to do business in China. When informed that under Chinese law, it would have to recognize the unions (even if these are the docile, management-friendly unions of the ACFTU), it initially balked, and then relented. It seems that the first Wal-Mart workers in the world to enjoy union representation may yet turn out to be in China -- a country which is not normally seen as being particularly union-friendly.

---

2004 Labour Year in Review - Eric Lee

quote:

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Although my roommate assured me that the BBC unionists would be promptly arrested in China had they done the same thing. (And this was only a 1 day strike!)

---

Interestingly enough, although strikes are illegal in China, they happen much more often then you would expect.

Some of the strikes have been over privatization of former state owned enterprises. Others have been against multinational corps... such as this one involving 10,000 workers at the Japanese owned Uniden Corporation in Shenzen on May 3rd. Uniden is one of Walmart's major suppliers.

The China Labour Bulletin link (above) also mentions this strike.

No Sweat.org UK

Right now the workers are demanding the right to form an independent trade union. Maybe next they'll be demanding...socialism??? Perhaps its time to dust-off those old copies of the Communist Manifesto...relearn the words to "The Internationale".

quote:

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And it's not all sweatshops, Radiorahim. None of IBM or INTEL or MS are setting up R&D labs in Honduras, El Salvador, the right-to-work states, Guatemala or even capitalist Poland.

---

I beg to differ. There are trade unions in Honduras, El Salvador and Honduras. Being a trade unionist can be a very dangerous occupation mind you, but yes they do exist.

As a matter of fact in El Salvador, despite the conditions of repression the banks have been unionized for a very long time. The banks for the most part aren't organized in Canada.

Union Made in El Salvador

2004 Honduran teachers strike

Analysis: Guatemala strike may spread

Unions are also very much alive in Poland too.

Trade Unions’ Protests in Steelworks

Wherever workers are treated like crap...they'll organize!

[ 04 June 2005: Message edited by: radiorahim ]

quote:

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Originally posted by radiorahim:
....such as this one involving 10,000 workers at the Japanese owned Uniden Corporation in Shenzen on May 3rd.

---

quote:

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Fuck maybe then you could move on to the poststructuralists and learn something new besides this elitist vanguardists garbage.[/QB]

---

quote:

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Originally posted by radiorahim:

I beg to differ. There are trade unions in Honduras, El Salvador and Honduras. Being a trade unionist can be a very dangerous occupation mind you, but yes they do exist.

As a matter of fact in El Salvador, despite the conditions of repression the banks have been unionized for a very long time. The banks for the most part aren't organized in Canada.

---

Yes, and dodging right-wing death squads must be tedious work. I think there are few other regions in the world where forming a union could be as dangerous to one's health. Thousands of union officials and organizers have disappeared all over Latin America in the last few decades. Bob White used to say that there wasn't a week went by that the CLC had to bail somebody out of a Mexican jail.

Walmart can't say no to unions in China. They know it and so do the Chinese. They're buying billions of US dollars worth of "stuff" from the mainland every year. Good on them.

But back to IBM, INTEL and other high-techs setting up R&D in China; what's so unattractive about Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador or Puerto Rico... besides all that creeping socialism in those nations where leaders and military are graduates of the SOA ?. Can we imagine Paul Martin or the son of a Bush regime demanding controlling interest or large minority share in GE or Walmart ?. Dream on, you say?. For decades, just this kind of economic arrangement was doomed to failure by the best minds on the right.

Owing to a great deal of capitalism's innovation in the USA is the fact that the Yanks lead the world in science and technology. Science and technology in America seemed to take off in Post-New Deal(socialism) and cold war period when capitalism had a raison d'etre and ob la dee to put on the dog.

China is currently building 12 new M.I.T.-style engineering universities with an eye on the future. How many new universities have we built in Canada in the last 15 years with our modest economic expansion in this frozen Puerto Rico of the North ?. How many new private and publically funded gulags have the Yanks built in comparison ?. The Chinese are now producing about twice as many academic research papers as the American's. And this is raising some alarm in the U.S., that last bastion of right-wing conservatism in the world and its several pauperized third world nation-friends to show for it all.

I think it's still the forest over individuals in China, believe it or not. But one thing can't be denied and that's that China's economy is on fire. I don't like the competitive nature of the approach to economy either. Who do are they're trying to impress ?. I think the CP knows that consumption-based economies cannot last forever. So why do they do it ?.

quote:

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Wherever workers are treated like crap...they'll organize!

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Viva la revolucion!

[ 05 June 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]

Oh, suddenly it all seems terrible, doesn't it? But it's okay, in the interests of clean drinking water, to focus all efforts on the females.

quote:

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But back to IBM, INTEL and other high-techs setting up R&D in China; what's so unattractive about Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador or Puerto Rico..

---

Sure the high tech companies are operating in China...and they're in India too. But what's moving them there is definitely cheap labour costs.

They might not be "industrial" sweatshops in the traditional sense, but sweatshops nonetheless.

The multinationals would rather pay a computer programmer a tenth of the wage that they'd pay in a more developed country.

quote:

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Walmart can't say no to unions in China. They know it and so do the Chinese. They're buying billions of US dollars worth of "stuff" from the mainland every year. Good on them.

---

Its not that Walmart can't say no to unions in China, its that they can't say no to the ACTU.

Uniden...and therefore defacto Walmart (because of the heavily integrated relationship between Walmart's suppliers and the company itself) is definitely able to say "no" to independent unions.

quote:

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I doubt the authorities can crack down all the time, so allowing some strikes is a good release valve. And it's all the better if the target is associated with a much hated former aggressor.

---

Don't know about this. But I suspect that even in China its very difficult to arrest 10,000 workers.

quote:

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Originally posted by anne cameron:
...so, if Fidel will allow ME to become the Supreme ShitHead In Charge of Everything..why not this: a married woman gets pregnant, has her ONE allowed child and her husband is given a vasectomy. !!

---

I'm all for allowing women to control their bodies in China, Anne. No one here is claiming that China is a social democracy. However, during Mao's time, China's infant mortality rates did drop below the current infant death rate in India. I think that whatever is happening now in China, it's a direct result of relatively recent change ie. since 1949 when China was a fourth world basket case. Worker's then gave birth in the rice paddies and die at the ripe old age of 35... in the rice paddies. The label given China, "Sick man of East Asia," is gone but not forgotten.

I think that's a remarkable achievement given that an estimated 30 000 children continue to die from malnutrition, diarrhea and curable diseases around the capitalist third world, everyday.

[ 05 June 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]

Why don't you elaborate for us on how China could have been better off under Chiang Kai Shek or Europe prospering under Nazism ?.

[ 05 June 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Vigilante:
Let me refrase the question. Due to a given material reality, do you excuse Mao controlling womyns bodies?

---

I'll answer that when you remember suggesting to me that Chiang and Hitler weren't so bad. How about Franco, Somoza, Pinochet and Batista ?. ha ha

[ 05 June 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]

In the case of Chek I like to say perhaps less worse as opposed to better. Perhaps a great leap could have been either avoided or not as bad. Also the non human ecocide thing. Individual lives matter to me Fidel, and I put that ahead of ideology. You live on these false alternatives so when I say that one might have been somewhat more preferable then the other that for you means that I must love that person. If that's your view then fine. I could not give two bowl movements. I reject all fascism, red(yours which you don't awknoledge) brown, and molecular fascism that is in all of us.

quote:

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I'll answer that when you remember suggesting to me that Chiang and Hitler weren't so bad. How about Franco, Somoza, Pinochet and Batista ?. ha ha

---

Fidel You know I didn't say that. I remember the context of coversation a bit more now. I was pointing out that Stalin killed more people then Hitler(a kind of important fact) Some people were saying that Hitler was worse then stalin because of his core racism. However I saw that as moralistic and ignoring the material reality that more people suffered and died under the big Ss rule. I am not one to believe that moralism should sidetrack this. There's also the fact that there is eurocentric positivist based racism inherent in vanguardist ideology as well. Now because I don't moralize what Hitler did DOES NOT MEAN THAT I FEEL HE IS NOT SO BAD!

As for the other examples. I made the point about Franco that Anarchists fought against him and when they actually set up a short lived anarchist experiment STALIN ACTUALLY COLLABORATED WITH FRANCO TO QUELL IT!!! He didn't like the fact that the people in Catolonia weren't busy industrializing(when the masses are actually making communism a reality industrialization does not enter peoples minds. It's always been forced from the top). Of course the anarchists there had themselves to blame too. Big formal organization and anti-fascist ideology lead to stupid decisions such as assuming state positions.

Cuba, as I've made the point before, the anarchists played a huge part of kicking Batista out. Problem is they and perhaps the majority of the cuban population wanted communism right off the bat(like russia) problem was Fidel disagreed and snuck his way in.

And Fidel "sneaked in" to Cuba at a time when organized crime and fascism ruled Havana. Gambling and drug trafficking was the attraction for wealthy people from around the world. And they bought Cuban children, and many of them dying from TB, for the price of a sandwich as their parents broke their fucking backs in the cane fields, from sun-up to sun-down.

The old man and Che are heroes in Cuba, Vigilante. As I've suggested before, I think you, your dum and mad, should all take a diversion from Walt Disney World one spring vacation and do the two or three day excursion thing to El Salvador or Honduras. Bring a camera, and don't make too many jerky movements when the soldiers stop you on some deserted part of the PAN-AM fucking highway.

[ 05 June 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

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STALIN ACTUALLY COLLABORATED WITH FRANCO TO QUELL IT!!! He didn't like the fact that the people in Catolonia weren't busy industrializing

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Franco's Spain was an early hideout for the Nazis. Franco tried to coverup the Nazi bombing of Guernica as part of his fascist plan to purge Spain of socialists and communists. And Spain would become a waypoint for Nazis fleeing justice to Latin America and the Middle East.

Franco was so far up Hitler's ass he couldn't breathe. If shoes were clues, you'd be barefoot.

[ 06 June 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

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So you accept Mao controlling womens bodies along with many other things.

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Ummm...Mao ZeDong has been dead since 1976. The "one child policy" became state policy in 1979 under Deng Xiaoping.

quote:

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However, during Mao's time, China's infant mortality rates did drop below the current infant death rate in India.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Fidel:
Franco was so far up Hitler's ass he couldn't breathe. If shoes were clues, you'd be barefoot.

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quote:

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Originally posted by kurichina:
And don't even get me started on the (extreme lack of) reproductive rights in that country!

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Hey, I wanna get you started!!! *grin*

quote:

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Originally posted by DrConway:

Actually, Franco was so obstinately obtuse about noninvolvement in World War 2 that Hitler gave up trying to draw Spain into the war and was heard to remark that he would rather have a tooth drilled out than go through the nine hours of pointless arguing and bargaining with Franco ever again.

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Yes, and Spanish troops(not Franco's) were a part of the 14 fascist nation excursion into Russia to put down the revolution in the 1920's.

Franco lied to Spaniards about who was responsible for the bombing of Guernica in 1937. It was the luftwaffe, not the socialist Basques as Franco tried to claim. And neither were the socialist Basques responsible for 3-11-03 train bombing as the right wing have attempted to coverup in modern times.

Franco, like Hitler, had a big hate-on for socialists everywhere. Franco made at least one back-door visit to Hitler to offer his services. Hitler gave the wannabe dictator a cold shoulder.

Spain enjoyed approximately 40 years of fascism.

Franco ordered the murder of hundreds of striking coal miners and communists. Perhaps not nearly to the extent that the Nazis committed mass murder, but Franco was definitely not a lefty as someone else on this thread has had the audacity to imply.
Just thought someone should make make that perfectly clear, right Vigilante?.

[ 06 June 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

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Originally posted by anne cameron:
Why does "population control" seem to focus almost exclusively on control of women's bodies? A married woman gets pregnant, has her ONE allowed child and should she get pregnant again she is, what, imprisoned, forcibly aborted, then sterilized...so, if Fidel will allow ME to become the Supreme ShitHead In Charge of Everything..why not this: a married woman gets pregnant, has her ONE allowed child and her husband is given a vasectomy. I'd go further, in a nation where boy babies are wanted and girl babies either aborted or abandoned I'd arbitrarily decide that every second boy baby born would be vasectomized.

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Anne, I understand your outrage, though evolution arranged that the woman is the childbearer, and no amount of discussion will change that fact. You want to turn the tables for a change, and have the man go through sterilization, instead of the woman going through forced abortion and sterilization. I wish neither would be necessary, though perhaps sterilization should be performed on both husband and wife if a second pregnancy occurs.

China is in a lot of trouble. Without any state interference, the population would increase even faster than it already does, and the result would surely be epidemics and starvation. Given the alternatives, what is happening right now is probably fairly tame, just not in comparison to what we are used to here in the west.

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China is in a lot of trouble. Without any state interference, the population would increase even faster than it already does, and the result would surely be epidemics and starvation. Given the alternatives, what is happening right now is probably fairly tame, just not in comparison to what we are used to here in the west.

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So with increased literacy come smaller families. The real reason poor African's and Asian's were encouraged to have many children was due to the fact that there was no social security in old age under imperialism and colonialist regimes. Under near-perfect imperialist/colonialist arrangements, grandchildren would look after their aging elders. High infant mortality was the rule though and the poor came to expect the loss of half their family members or more.

From a modern point of view, the poor don't need to overshoot the mark for a large family anymore. At least, this is the theory. The U.S. and other first world nations achieved zero population growth, which is about 2.1 babies per child-bearing age couples, in about 1970.

[ 07 June 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]

In poorer countries your children are your "old age pension". The more children you have, the more of them will be around when you get old and can no longer look after yourself.

The other thing is that in developed countries we tend to think of children as an "expense". In the third world children start becoming net income earners at a much earlier age and aren't necessarily considered a liability.

My understanding is that a country like Cuba, despite being part of the "third world" has a declining birth rate and an aging population much like many developed countries because of the relative degree of economic security of the population. They might be poor by our standards but they are secure...don't have to worry about healthcare, education or unemployment.

I suspect there might be declining birthrates in urban areas on China...without the "one child policy", but probably not so much in rural China.

[ 07 June 2005: Message edited by: radiorahim ]

[ 07 June 2005: Message edited by: Cueball ]