socialism??

Originally posted by echelon

the soviet communist nations had large militaries only to protect themselves from the west, and to preserve their form of democracy.

You are lucky, because without the new " Taking back ATS " policy, my answer was a simple : BWWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.....

So, I'll not post this simple : BWWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.... and I'll ask you something.

When they went to Hungaria in 1956, to Czekoslovakia in 1968 and Afghanistan in 1979, it was just to protect their.... eer, how did you say ? " Form of democracy " ?

Greeting comrads ! We are living in a democracy ! And if you don't believe it, you'll have to go 20 years in a gulag !

Your vision on democracy is weird !

And for the first part : " the soviet communist nations had large militaries only to protect themselves from the west ", it' so....so..., no, I'll stay polite and I'll try to be a gentleman. I'll just give you some data.

- The Warsaw pact had more than 3 MBT where NATO had 1.

- The Warsaw pact had more than 2.5 military aircrafts where NATO had 1.

- The Warsaw pact had more than 4 soldiers where NATO had 1.

- The Warsaw pact had more than 4 artillery piece where NATO had 1.

- The Warsaw pact had more than 2.3 ICBM where NATO had 1., and I don't count the ICBM who have been builded for a secont strike ( 1175 ), when NATO had ZERO ICBM for a second strike !!!!!!!!

- The Warsaw pact had more than 3 IRBM/MRBM/IRBM where NATO had 1.

- The Warsaw pact nation were spending 12 to 15 % of their GDP, where NATO nation were spending 3.5 to 5 %.

Ok, I stop here. It's enough I think. So, who was looking to attack the other ? NATO or Warsaw Pact ?????

Anyone who uses 'if you don't have a job the government will give you enough money to live on' argument..wow, real impressive. That is horrible. If you don't have a job- GET A FREAKING JOB YOU LAZY BUM. What incentive..what motivation is there to want to even live and not kill yourself out of misery if you know from the start you won't have a chance to do something great with your life because you know the gov't will take at least half of what you earn..keep everyone the same. How boring. I sure am glad to be an American!

ultra_phoenix, i said 'their form of democracy' to represent the soviets' type of thinking. at the time, they believed that they lived in a true democracy, while the u.s. was a delusional tyranny. and the americans thought they were in a democracy, while the soviet gov't was tyrant... in a situation like that, you can't really determine who's right and who's wrong.
and i've stated many times that i didn't approve of the entire outcome of 'soviet communism'

Shady...
'if you don't have a job the government will give you enough money to live on'... that type of policy is in no way applied.
everyone is obligated in contributing to society in a socialist nation... in fact, you only get paid based on how much work you do... this was self-evident in the ussr... and everyone has a job because the gov't is in control of production, instead of the common, incompetent bourgeois.
under a communist gov't, you are still entitled to serving society... you are paid based on the maximun necessities, while you're still able to spend money on luxury.
(i don't get where people come up with these ideas)

src: www.newyouth.com...

Originally posted by echelon
in a situation like that, you can't really determine who's right and who's wrong.

Pretty easy Echelon.Just look who has a gulag system, and who hasn't one. Just look who's free to leave his country, with his familly, and who can't do it.

Do you see what I mean or not ?

Echelon you're delusional, no Soviet I have ever met has ever thought that the Soviet Union was a true democracy.

Anyone who could record events in time, through writing, or video, could see that they were living in a completely controlled world, and that they had NO say in it what-so-ever.

Again I think anyone who believes in communism//socialism should see the movie "Anna" (Just type in Anna russian doccumentary online, not sure who exactly made it anymore) and have the $hit scared out of them.

Sincerely,
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And a few things about the rest of your post Echelon.

First off, you don't have spare money to purchase luxuries, because there ARE NO LUXURIES!.

Everything in a Communist//socialist society, is purely FUNCTIONAL, you have toilet paper, bread, a propoganda box listening, and a propoganda box watching (radio//tv) and you have an appartment (Houses are reserved for the supreme gods of communism, the polit-buro) and you have a bus that you can take every morning and evening with the rest of "���“� �Ӓ��˘�".

Communist societies fail to produce and thus fail to distribute, because of a lack of distribution their production only grows worse...China, is the only successful Communist nation, because we bought their stuff and they are becoming capitalists...

In a socialist this degredation is less evident, but still there, all those living in socialist nations, next time you see a store that has been out of business, ask yourselves, how long has it been borded up?

In America, a store goes out of business, and the land owner there has dozens of potential buyers, as soon as the store closes out, 1week later a "grand opening" sign is back up, and you have a new store.

In the soviet union you'd have no buildings unused, because there is no growth, and thus no over-growth.

In socialism, you have unused buildings everywhere, boarded up, because you have growth, but no RE-growth...it's much too slow, and it too stagnates.

��� �Ӓ��˘�! Ú ����̚ ���ڸ ҒӷӔ� � ��· � ��������� ������!!! �“Ӕ̝ ��̸ Ϛ �ӕ��ҝ ���������!

Sincerely,
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[Edited on 14-2-2003 by FreeMason]

Hey Ultra phoenix, you're making bad publicity for Belgium. People on this board will start to think that we are no better then the former ussr.
Sure we (i'm from Belgium to) have to pay alot of taxes but dont you like the fact that we have: a cheap healthcare system, free schools, welfare,...
Offcourse we have to watch out for freeloaders, leachers and all of those lazy immigrants.
And I also know for a fact that on some points Belgium is more democratic then for example the Usa.
Here we have no censorship (censuur) in the media for example bad language etc, you are treated as an adult from the age of 16 (nightclub entrance) and official from the age of 18.
People will not look angry at you becausse you smoke a cigarette in public.
etc, etc ....
Is Belgium a paradise?
No i dont like the royalty, the french side, and the current government.

Nah dude, you just haven't experienced true Freedom....American's fail to appreciate it because they don't understand that they are in as free a society as you can get without swinging from trees.

We are Federalism and while most forget this, and so allow the government to pass stupid laws, in the end Federalism will win, and we stay free...you guys, your government dangles a carrot above your nose and tells you to jump.

Think about it this way, if the government said there was mandatory enlistment in the army at age 18 for everyone, women too, and that anyone who didn't comply would NOT get social services, how many of YOU would complain?

Probably none, you'd all go march off like robots.

Sincerely,
no signature

Originally posted by FreeMason
Echelon you're delusional, no Soviet I have ever met has ever thought that the Soviet Union was a true democracy.

that's funny, because all the russians i know actually want their old system back... even some chinese.

Hey freemason
Obviously you've never been to Belgium before.
We are a democratic country but with certain federal "services" that you can call socialistic.
Life over here is not so bad. Sure we have to pay alot of taxes (a little to much actually, lol).
But if the people would trully be unhappy with the way things were going overhere they would simply elect a political party who would lower taxes considerably end throw out al the social benifits. But there is no current party nor has there ever been one who wanted to do this.
As far as being robots and slaves to ower socialistic services...
I dont think that alot of people would tolerate that kind of blackmail.
Telling people who have worked their entire life and never abused the system (by freeloading welfare) that they can kiss their retirement and cheap medicins goodbye!
We would hang those politicians so fast....
The only possibility that mandatory enlistment is reactivated in this country would be when a third world war starts.

Hey Echelon, you're right.
Alot of people who live in former communist countries would like to go back to the old days.
Well not necessarily if democracy would work for them as it works for the west. Which is inpossible in a short time frame.
Look at Russia!
At least everybody had a more or less "normal" life, now they have to starve to dead or wait six months before they get there pay check of 100$.
Oh well, i quess they can always amuse themselves by looking out their window and see how the organised crime syndicats take over the country.

Hah Look at Russia?

Do you know why the Soviet Union fell?

Let me tell you...it all began on what August? Yeah I think that was when, of '91, when the entire soviet union had NO bread, AT ALL!

I repeat, NO BREAD, they were plumb out, people everywhere were starving in the streets, and the hardlined communists blamed the already unpopular Gorbechev (He was unpopular because he let doccuments speaking of what the country was doing be made available for the people, and people thought this "opening" up was too foriegn and scary)

So they were in the streets rioting over bread...wow, how funny, a communist nation can't even feed its own people! ESPECIALLY WHEN IT IS SO LARGE

So because cooler heads prevailed, the Union was saved, for the moment, then in october I think it was, hardline communists for no real known reason, took over the government, and the people said they had enough and stopped paying attention to the Soviet Union (Soviet Union was just that, a Union of seperate nations, soviet being a "congregation")

So they simply said, we're not in your stupid union anymore, Russia is russia, latvia is latvia, shut the hell up and go away.

Only one of the 15 republics is still communist, Uzbekhistan, and it is horribly oppressed.

Sincerely,
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Yes you're right freemason.
But I didnt say that communism is perfect.
There has been a time of stability in the soviet union but that was before the 90's.
So it is safe to say that things are messed up over there for a long time now.
Why is the soviet union dead now?
Becausse it was like a big whale stranded on the beach. Dying under its own wheight.
I think it was the cold war that slowly sucked up al economical resources out of the country.
The inefficient long term planning also did its part.
The soviet union didnt just change into a democracy, it was dying and they had to build a democracy onto the ruins of a bankrupt country.
That this transformation wasn't that quiet is only normal I think.
But there are people who want to go back to the old communist system, that is a fact.

Well the collapse of the Soviet Union is far more involved then the "cold war", it is mainly to do with economics, and while I think Kynesian economics is full of crap, I think that most economists are pretty correct in the general problems that comes with ALL communism, which is the problem of Distribution.

And that can only be fixed through capitalistic societies, free economies, which produce and as they say..."Production is its own Distributor".

Socialism has the same adverse effects but it's far slower due to its less zealous form.

But that's even worse, for the frog doesn't jump out of the cold water, coming to a boil.

Sincerely,
no signature

FreeMason... before, you mentioned that stalin was possibly the best thing to happen to the soviet union.
but was it not the system of stalinism that slowly led to the degeneration of the ussr, instead of 'communism'?

the original concern of the thread was based on the theory of socialism and the contradiction with how it was applied.
even if your argument is that communism can never be applied due to human interests... that basically means it was never applied... therefore, no valid model of past 'communist' governments exist.
so the definition of 'soviet communism' cannot abide by marx's theory of communism.

No, it's been applied it just never worked, Marx's views fall apart into totalitarian dictatorships.

Sincerely,
no signature

Originally posted by FreeMason
No, it's been applied it just never worked, Marx's views fall apart into totalitarian dictatorships.

and that was marx's intention?
there was no totalitarian dictatorship before stalin.


[Edited on 2-15-2003 by echelon]

Originally posted by shadow1

1) Hey Ultra phoenix, you're making bad publicity for Belgium. People on this board will start to think that we are no better then the former ussr.

2)Sure we (i'm from Belgium to) have to pay alot of taxes

3) but dont you like the fact that we have: a cheap healthcare system, free schools, welfare,...

4) Offcourse we have to watch out for freeloaders, leachers and all of those lazy immigrants.

5) And I also know for a fact that on some points Belgium is more democratic then for example the Usa.

6) Here we have no censorship (censuur) in the media for example bad language etc, you are treated as an adult from the age of 16 (nightclub entrance) and official from the age of 18.

7) People will not look angry at you becausse you smoke a cigarette in public.

8) Is Belgium a paradise?
No i dont like the royalty, the french side, and the current government.

1) I don't do bad ad's for Belgium. Facts are facts. But living in Belgium is much better than livng in USSR, sure.

2) A lot of taxes ? For me, a lot of taxes it's 25%. But when the gov is STEALING more than 50% of your incomes, I don't call this " a lot of taxes " anymore !!! I call this a communist policy ! I earn 1000� ? The gov " takes " ( steal) me 520�. With the rest ( 480� ), I have to live. And when I spend these 480�, I have to give, ONE MORE TIME, 21% to the gov ( BTW ). So, from my 1000�, I have really for myself +/- 400 � !!!!!!!!!!!!!

3) Yeah, let's talk about our so-called " cheap healthcare system ". Good idea ! It's so " cheap " and " so wonderfull " that I have to have a private healthcare insurance + another private insurance for the case where I'll go to the hospital !

The free school ? Let me laugh........ When I see what I have to pay for my daughter, I don't think that school is still free.

Wellfare ? What are you talking about ? Oh yeah, I remember. Last year, I lost my job. I was earning more than 3000�/month. I went to the VDAB , and they told me that I would receive +/- 600�/month. ARE U KIDDING ??????????????????? 600�/month ???? What do you want to do with 600�/month ???? Hopefully, I found another job. Wellfare system, my eye !

4) Man, these " lazy immigrants " are NOT responsible. The gov IS responsible. The gov don't do anything against them. They are giving them all what they are asking for. The gov don't want to stop the immigration ? Then, the gov IS responsible, but these immigrants are NOT responsible.They do what they have to do, and if the gov don't take some measures against them, it's not the immigrant fault, but the gov fault !

5) Yes, Belgium is soooo democratic, when you say something who's not " politically correct ", you're sued ! What a democratic nation ! And I don't speak about our so-many union who are controlling almost everything in this country.

6) No censorship ? Yes, no censorship. Until you DON'T say that you're pro-USA, pro-Israel, anti-palestinian, anti-socialism, anti-political correct matters, pro-Belgium,pro-occident,pro-church, pro-life ( I mean anti-abortion ), anti-EU and so on...If it's not a censorship, I don't know what censorship is meaning. It's unbelievable how the TV news ( and the other news ) are all left-biased.

18 ? Because you think that you are an adult when you are 18 years old ? HA HA HA HA HA

7) In Belgium, smoking in public area ( train station, bus station... ) is illegal.

8) " No i dont like the royalty, the french side, and the current government. " I bet that you live in Antwerpen and your vote is going to the Vlaams Blok,right ?

You don't like the french part of Belgium ? Hey man, I'm Walloon !

But I know why you don't like them, and I can understand you. I understand you so much that if the country was splitted in 3 parts, and Wallonia had to join France, I would go live in the Flemmish part.

Anyway, I'll leave this country. I'm saving money for this.

Originally posted by echelon

and that was marx's intention?
there was no totalitarian dictatorship before stalin.

You don't know your history echelon. Marx and Lenin, before Stalin, were already speaking about the proletarian dictatorship. Communism/socialism = DICTATORSHIP. You can write what you want, we know all what is the communism and what is the socialism. No more freedom, no more liberties, no more political rights,nothing. NADA ! When you live in a communist country, you have just 2 rights.

1) Say amen to the official point of view.
2) Heu ? Damn it, there is no second right. Sorry.

While communism can never work because of human greed and imperfections the dream of a classless society is a sweet one

This user is "Freemason" and has been banned.

[Edited on 21-2-2003 by William]