11/26

[lecholas 2]

I don't have time or strenght to argue with vilas, but I only want to say that I live in one of the poorest if not the poorest regions of the European Union and I know that to say that even some of things considering economy (macro or micro) were better during the communism than they are now you must be completely out of you mind. It's nice to say that before '89 everyone had right to medical care but in fact you had only a right to it. Practice was totally different. There were no homeless before the '89? Don't make me laugh. You just couldn't hear about it from the official TV (and there were no independen ones), sociologists couldn't research the scale of homelessnes because they worked on the state's universities (there were almost no other ones) which didn't allow them for that (as with a lot of historical research from modern history). If we base our knowledge on the official verison, then yes, People's Republic of Poland, as any other country from Eastern Block, was a paradise.

I'm not saying that the current Euro-socialistic system of Poland is the ideal one but it's much better than the old one.

[maturin 12]

Vilas is delusional if he thinks that the United States is structurally so distinct from Western Europe, and that they do not share most of the drawbacks of capitalism. To fanatically denounce one and praise the other is like calling Francoist Spain utopia and Mussolini's Italy hell.

[vilas 477]

I don't have time or strenght to argue with vilas

with me or with facts ???

lecholas - i remember some of your posts about WW2 issue and how "wonderful" was life of people in Poland before WW2, maybe you are descendant of some rich/owners or very very religious so you see it other way than my grandparents

but when you about evil of Poland before 1989, than:

- where your parents get apartment ?

- have you payed single money for education, medical care (your parents?)

- how much homeless or begging for food you seen in your city before 1989 ?

you were there 7 years old, am i right ?

i was over 12 but i don't remember gangs on streets, homeless, old ladies begging for food

what i remember are 3 economical suicides in my block , it was not from TV, it was mother of my friend from childhood , it was other lady that borrowed a lot of money from people and couldn't give back cause was looking for job (her factory was privatised and liquidated or people were replaced by machine)

my parents were members of Solidarity and they were not blind , walking streets, so they simply not noticed what i see every day in Warsaw

those homeless number is caused also by unemployment and problems with ownership of homes (block bought by new "owner" that fires people cause want open "office" there)

MONAR counts homeless number for 300 000, was it like this before 1989 ??? of course there were some homeless drunkards before 1989, but there were no people from category "i was too old to get any job" (all those 50+ who are not "young fine blonde with nice legs, diploma and 3 languages and PC usage in one finger" or those who had offers of job for "minimalna" 200 EU payment while cost of flat,electicity, food, etc. would be 400 )

more official stats say 100 000, but hard to count (MONAR as organisation of helping people probably have better resources)

my friend from job has problem

his block was bought, new owner raised payment 4 times !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

he works mostly to pay for flat and we borrow him money for food

guy had 300 payment before and now 1200 !!!!!!!!!!!!

new owner wants to fire all locators and change block into "company bureau" :/

a lot of such cases are in Poland according to people who help poor without legal help (i hope you know prices for hire advocate)

people can live without car, PC, freedom of speech, but need roof over head to protect them from rain and cold, need food, need dentist

20 000 people commited suicide because of economic reasons (lack of job etc.) and you should care about those Poles much more than "few" 91 who died in Jaruzelski Martial Law, Balcerowicz, Soros, Sachs, Lewandowski -caused death of more people than Jaruzelski, Kiszczak, caused hunger and starvation and homeless of many people

they also caused that many of us do not have any chance for own flat, even small 30-40 meters is out of my dreams, cause people who earn 400 EU won't pay 100 000 EU credit and won't get this credit (if you lack "hipoteca" guarantee )

current Euro-socialistic system of Poland

you are out of your mind, cause we have very liberal law, much more liberal in some "employee" and "locators" law than France, Germany etc, not saying about Scandinavia

saying that we live in socialistic system is total bullshit , total bullshit, only mad Korwin-Mikke voters (1-2%of population) tell such words

if for you we are in socialism , than what is NOT socialism ?

jungle law ? lack of any employee rights ? lack of locators rights ? lack of ambulance and police ???

or maybe you are among 1-2% of Poles who are strong supporters of Korwin Mikke

if you represent 1% of Poles and 99% is against than shut up and don't lie here about "current Euro-socialistic system of Poland"

cause we live in liberal country without employee protection like Sweden has or France or Germany

cause liberals say as much "truth" about reality, as those owners of transportation "nowhere in the world" semitrailers issue

Edited February 15, 2010 by vilas

[Baff1 0]

As much as anyone could said to have done it, Poland killed Communism. There was nothing even close to Solidarity anywhere in Eastern Europe. When the proletariat is anti-Communist, you know something has gone wrong.

Was that "communism specific" then?

Or was that anti their specific government/state.

You see, I see many many countries where the workers are anti their state. Communist and Republican alike.

In truth you recognise that the governmental systems of Europe are very similar to the governmental systems of the U.S., but you fail to recognise that the governmental systems of communist countries aren't much different either.

The big idealogical leap doesn't exist. That's just the propaganda from the Cold War. A way of demonising our enemies in the prelude to a war that never occoured.

Having a bad government doesn't mean the idealogical sytem is universally bad, just that the specific government is.

In my opinion it makes no odds which system you use, it's the quality of the leadership that counts. A good tyranny is better than a bad democracy.

---------- Post added at 12:02 AM ---------- Previous post was Yesterday at 11:37 PM ----------

Totally comparable to the Gulag, the purges, Katyn and starving half of Ukraine.

The people who went after domestic communists never did a good day's work in their lives. But if you want to bring up the "USA is bad too" subject, at least choose something credible, like massacring the population of Cambodia.

Or the massacring, starving and reservations for the "native" Americans.

Slavery.

3+ civil wars. (Independance, Civil War, Indian Wars)

You don't have to go to Cambodia to find those sorts of comparisons.

All of our countries have the same old histories. We've all done it. America's history as as ripe with domestic genocides as the next country's.

(Although slavery isn't!! Yay bragging rights!!!).

One of the things you might want to consider about the Gulags, is that the other countries at that time (Those starving Ukrainians for example) had a different solution.

They called it "The Final Solution".

The gulags were positively humane by comparison. They had human rights. Workers rights.

The human rights movement started in Russia at this time. People living in gulags were subject to them. Regular/prescibed working hours. Breaks. All that kind of stuff that wasn't found anywhere else in the world.

The workers in gulags had greater civil rights than the workers in my country or yours back then.

(That's not to say they volunteered to be shipped out of their homes to build and live in work camps on the otherside of the world....but you get my point I hope, they weren't slaves and had the otherside won, that was what they were offering, slavery and systematic murder.

So if you are going to judge the gulags might I offer that you do so in the context of the world at that time.

And it's not like these things can't still happen today. Imagine all those Rwandans that were killed. All those Croats. Dharfur. As bad as Gulags might have been they are obviously a massive improvement from the more commonly occouring alternatives.

(LMAO funny to be defending gulags but there you have it. They were immensely humane given the alternatives).

Gulags of course are the standard tactics for fighting insurgencies.

We still use them to day. (Although we don't call them Gulags of course).

We remove the population bases from the region entirely. Seperating the insugency from their support base.

We don't call them Gulags we call them refugee centres, transit camps etc.

It's Stalins tactic and it works. We call it "Hearts and Minds", it won us the wars in Borneo and Malaya. Not to mention South Africa.

Edited February 16, 2010 by Baff1

[vilas 477]

wow, Baff you told so many true and objective wise words that i am surprised (indians, and etc)

i agree with many things you said, but i must also clear some about Solidarity and Poland vs. communism specific:

- my family was Solidarity activists - it was trade union and they wanted more benefits and less work, cause people worked than on Saturdas also, and wanted work 5 days only, not 6, simply wanted work less and have more of it , i prescribed "21 demands"(which now are very politically not correct and silently hiden by old ex-Solidarity politicians to not show how they betrayed), they wanted more "social benefits" and "less work" cause they felt too much money went to army for example (Gierek First secretary since 1970 was "army lover" and pushing many many sources for army)

Maturin words "proletariat is anti-communist" is not true and without knowledge of real reasons prescribed by me many times, simply this sentence should sound "proletariat wanted more goods without work" (in fact too big demands killed social state)

method was simple - you shout and throw stones - you get more from government (the same now do mine workers when they want more money, they go and throw some stones to get more money)

- catholics - it is also our Polish issue, many people here still believe that sex is something evil and wrong, many here believe that "church is most important, priest is always right, Marry is queen of Poland"

because pre-1989 state was atheistic, than ... Polish "talibs" hated it

can you believe that according to statistics 30% Poles do not accept sex before marriage "sinful" (totally insane and irrational how to promise and live with woman if she not be good in bed ?) , 50-70% take oral sex as "evil" ???

i know it sounds sick, i know, but if we are so sick in 2010, imagine 1970, 1980...

it was also cause for this communism fall, reason was also religious and first steps of first governments (post 1990) decisions were: learning religion in school, putting cross anywhere, abortion forbidden, some support to "fight condoms and porno" issues :(

sad, it makes normal people like Czechs or Germans to laugh at Poles , but it also was serious factor of some opposition, in other countries people are not that "religious"

"normal people" (i don't count anti-sex people to normal) love to enjoy life , cause live only once and want fun, joy, fun, nice moments :D but i cannot be born again , cause than i would prefer to be Czech (if i could have to be born here in Central Europe not as son of sheik with harem, hehehe)

-----

shame that trade union movement that wanted us to be "closer to Sweden" turned us "closer to Latin America"

Edited February 16, 2010 by vilas

[lecholas 2]

with me or with facts ???

lecholas - i remember some of your posts about WW2 issue and how "wonderful" was life of people in Poland before WW2, maybe you are descendant of some rich/owners or very very religious so you see it other way than my grandparents

but when you about evil of Poland before 1989, than:

- where your parents get apartment ?

- have you payed single money for education, medical care (your parents?)

- how much homeless or begging for food you seen in your city before 1989 ?

you were there 7 years old, am i right ?

That's why I don't see a point in arguing with you. Because you know better who I am (and constantly misinterpret my, or anyone else's, words) and draw very far-reaching conclusions from that fact.

Just to answer some of your questions.

- I didn't say that pre-war Poland was a paradise. I said that compared to its eastern neighbours it was not a bad country to live in (especially if you remember that it was a very young country, after being occupied for the last hundred of years by three occupants). If compared to western countries from that period of time it was a poor country.

- My family in pre-war Poland was a very poor family living in the country. I understand that you are a supporter of marxist view that an economical situation of a person determines her views completely, but I'm not a marxist. I think that you can be poor and not be a socialist. And I have an empiric evidence supporting that claim ;)

- before 1989 my family didn't have a flat of their own, of course, it wasn't so easy to get a flat, you must know that?

- my parents of course payed a lot of money for medical care. Where do you think medical care comes from in socialistc countries? From the heaven above? No. From the taxes, and from low salaries for state-workers. And you pay no matter if you're ill or not. And I remember clearly that the level of medical care was below all the norms. Doctors and nurses treated patients as trashes (why? because their clinics didn't have to compete with the other clinics for the patients - they had to come anyway), the medical equipment was all rubish etc. (Of course it was not the case if it comes to hospitals and clinics for the members of the party or the interior ministry workers - police, security services etc., and for soldiers and their families or members of selected proesions such as miners; of course the latter clinics and hospitals were also much below the level of similar Western clinics and hospitals but still much better than the clinics and hospitals for the 'true rulers of the country' - the working class).

- Yes, I was only seven when the Eastern block collapsed. But I still remember some things and I r e a d a lot about it and t h i n k about it for m y s e l f. I remember for example that before the '89 it was very hard to buy a vacuum cleaner (not a specific model, any one) or furniture or... almost anything. I remember how hard it sometimes was to buy some toilet paper. What can be said more? A paradise in which people queue for several hours (for Westerners - it's not a joke) to buy ten rolls of toilet paper (the seller couldn't sell you more, it was ten rolls for one person)?

if you represent 1% of Poles and 99% is against than shut up and don't lie here about "current Euro-socialistic system of Poland"

cause we live in liberal country without employee protection like Sweden has or France or Germany

I love that way of thinking. It's simply beautiful. "If you're not in the majority, then shut up". Of course, only if your views aren't politically correct.

But one thing, you know vilas, the most of Poles are catholics, so you're in the minority, so maybe you should shut up? (I bet that you will misinterpret that bit too ;) ).

Anyway, yes I'm a liberal one. So I agree that the Polish system is a bit less socialistic than that of the Western Europe. So what? But I'm convinced that even so, it's much too socialistic.

or maybe you are among 1-2% of Poles who are strong supporters of Korwin Mikke

For those not familiar with the Polish political scene I explain. Janusz Korwin-Mikke is a Polish devil in himself with views similar to the American devil in himself Ron Paul, or Britsh devil in h e r self Margaret Tatcher. He is a supporter of such a devil in himself as a Noble price winner Milton Friedman.

(in fact too big demands killed social state)

I can't help myself quoting this. Yes, too big demands. People demanded toilet paper! How did they dare!

(if i could have to be born here in Central Europe not as son of sheik with harem, hehehe)

:j:

I wonder what all those Modern Europeans fighting for women rights (especially in middle-eastern countries) think about that joke(?). I, as a liberal and conservatist, find if quite unfunny.

Having a bad government doesn't mean the idealogical sytem is universally bad, just that the specific government is.

That's of course right. I don't want to start a discussion about the fact here, but you may argue that some of the political/ecconomical systems aren't suited for human nature. E.g. I could say that communism is not suited for humans because people are egoistic and they don't care for the property that is not theirs. So the workers won't care for the enterprise they work in. So won't their directors. Subsequently, if every property is the common property (noones property) noone cares for it. So you don't produce much goods. So the state don't have goods to take from you to redistribue them equally to everyone. So the system collapses. Others, of course, may say that egoistic nature of people leads to even more problems in capitalistic systems or that people are angels and will care for the common property.

Of course you may also argue that there's no such thing as unchangable human nature and you can make people grow up to live in e.g. communism (Pol Pot seemed to be a strong supporter of that view). But as I said it's a different and not easy discussion.

All of our countries have the same old histories. We've all done it. America's history as as ripe with domestic genocides as the next country's.

(Although slavery isn't!! Yay bragging rights!!!).

Generally, it's true. But some countries have better and some have worse history. If you don't agree with that, you won't be able to condemn Nazi Germany more than the US, so then, e.g. you should treat the US symbols the same way you treat the Nazi ones. If you treat them differently you implicitly agree that some countries have a 'better' history than the others.

One of the things you might want to consider about the Gulags, is that the other countries at that time (Those starving Ukrainians for example) had a different solution.

They called it "The Final Solution".

The gulags were positively humane by comparison. They had human rights. Workers rights.

Sorry, but AFAIK this generally is historically incorrect. There were no human rights in gulags. People in gulags were slaves and their life even didn't mean anything to the gulag's commanders (because they were not the commander's slaves). Maybe there were some gulags with lighter discipline or more human commander. But that was generally not the case. I don't know, maybe the official propaganda ditribued some bills of rights of gulag workers but it doesn't mean they were respected in the reality.

(LMAO funny to be defending gulags but there you have it. They were immensely humane given the alternatives).

The alternative for gulags was not only 'the final solution'. It was 'no gulags at all' or at least 'much, much, much, much less gulags'. So you I would initially agree for:

the final solution < many gulags < few gulags

Edited February 16, 2010 by lecholas

[vilas 477]

1) you are poor and liberal and europe is too socialistic ?

something in this must be lie or schizophrenic

if you are poor, than supporting liberals - you dig your own grave

cause liberals want you to work without rights of employee, work more for lower money (no minimal etc.)

if you are poor and want "less socialism" than how you want educate yourself or family ?

if you are poor and someone of your family will break leg in accident, than what ?

"do you have insurance ? noo, than lie down and die" ?

2) gulags, slavery and "chłopi pańszczyźniani" (in Poland we had slaved farmer workers till second half of XIX century, they belonged to aristocrats and 10% must been giving to the church "dziesięcina" )

and what were employer human rights of British worker in 1887, 1902 ?

3) about lack of goods , if first you could not buy washing machine and now you have no money for washing machine, does it change final effect ?

what is difference for man between "there is no vacuum cleaner in shop" or "i have no money for vacuum cleaner"

all cause Vietnam War, later Reagan politics forced our governments to produce "more tanks" instead of "vacuum cleaners" , industry was "working for army machine" MiGs 29, T72, T80 etc.

big crisis in 1980 ??

as whole country was under strike, all were "protesting" , 90% were not working, than WHO would produce paper ???

if people sit and streik, who produce goods ??? cats ? birds ? monkeys ?

if people not work, than WHO will make this goddamn vacuum cleaner ???

working style in socialism was also other, people from West may not know, but... in bureau you were eating cake, drinking coffee and reading book :D it looked more like social club than place of work (except those miners and some plant/manufacture professions)

state wanted people to work harder, people wanted "more free flats, more free that, not go to work on Saturdays" and ... it ended like it ended , some workers (factories) were simply drunk at work, it was normal, society had a lot of Garfield (the cat) work philosophy...

i remember stories of parents/neighbors/friends parents what they were trying to do, to not be bored during "waiting till 4 P.M." , they were "present in job" but not "working", a lot of funny stories like: "we were going to scale, than went to toilet, than back to scale , than type results on paper and we checked "shit leader of the week" between friends ", great, when i heard it i rotfled :D monty python life :D or stories (maybe sadistic) from MPWIK (city water and canalization) workers what they were doing with cats to "spend some 8 hours" etc. a lot of people simply read novels in work - result... your vacuum cleaners lack

Edited February 16, 2010 by vilas

[topas 1]

Before 1989 it was not seen 'proper' to discuss politics in public..One and the only-one point of view to be accepted and praised; same like you don't argue with religious dogmas...

And now have a look at yourselves Gentlemen; discussing all aspects of it with no censorship on an international message board ;)

Switch to third-person-view and simply enjoy ;)

[lecholas 2]

1) you are poor and liberal and europe is too socialistic ?

something in this must be lie or schizophrenic

if you are poor, than supporting liberals - you dig your own grave

cause liberals want you to work without rights of employee, work more for lower money (no minimal etc.)

if you are poor and want "less socialism" than how you want educate yourself or family ?

if you are poor and someone of your family will break leg in accident, than what ?

"do you have insurance ? noo, than lie down and die" ?

Well, should I understand that you have no idea about what is liberalism about? Liberalism (in its economic aspect) is a recipe for state's welfare. Not guaranted by the law (which is commonly not backed up by reality) but the actual welfare. You think that social security is the only recipe for a broken leg? The answer is, if you don't pay the social security every month, you can save the money for an emergency. It's your call if you do it, and your responsibility (thats the moral aspect of liberalism). And look, I haven't broken my leg (and haven't been ill) for a long time, so all my money for social security form the last several years went for nothing (from my point of view). I could have saved the money for a flat, you know? The supposition here is this, that I should know better what is good for me, than the state's clerks.

If I'm poor and want to educate my family I don't want to pay more for it's education by paying the civil servants who collect the taxes, distriubue them, invent more and more stupid reforms of education system and taking for it a lot of my money. Is that really that hard to understand?

I just want to earn my money not to receive them for nothing (from the other people's work) and decide what to spend them for myself. You can call it a schizophrenia if you wish. I know that's an uncommon desire.

On a side note, of course you know that when there are a lot of worker's rights employees don't want to hire people because they won't be able to fire them? Or will have to pay them for not-working? I have a friend who was a socialist a few years ago. Now she opens her own business and she knows how difficult and risky it is. She becomes more liberal than I sometimes. If running your own business is difficult (and the state gives the businessmen more and more obstacles) less people care to risk their money to run a business and there are less offers of job (so the unemployment is bigger).

Another thing is the quality of products and services. In a centrally controlled state there are civil servants who are to take care for the quality of products. So you have the quality guaranteed. But only on a paper. In the countries of Eastern Block there were clerks responsible for the control of quality. Did it work? No. What mechanism is much better to force the quality? Free market.

And should I add that the human race didn't have social security and 'free' education for the most of its existence and... it survived and progressed? And when it comes to education it progressed a lot. Was Copernicus educated by the state? Columbus? Newton?

about lack of goods , if first you could not buy washing machine and now you have no money for washing machine, does it change final effect ?

what is difference for man between "there is no paper in shop" or "i have no money for paper"

Well, it's simply not true that people don't have money for washing machines. In the relatively free market we have if people don't have money for some products the products are not produced by owners of factory who are egoistic and want profit (no sells = no profit). So if there are washing machines in the shops, people have money to buy them (it allways puzzles me where do they take them from, but that is the fact).

Are there now people who don't have money for toilet paper?

as whole country was under strike, all were "protesting" , 90% were not working, than WHO would produce paper ???

I'm not talking about 1980. Im talking about late '80. It wasn't dependant on the strikes, you surely know that?

[vilas 477]

thats why many ex-Solidarity people don't like those who changed Poland using this Solidarity name

cause in first lines you write like typical egoist, you not broken leg

yeah, than think about someone who for example had accident and cannot work for some months - he must be secured somehow

everyone must eat, everyone has stomach, everyone must live somewhere, everyone need roof over head etc.

although i am not catholic, there are for me "saint" words of Pope "mater of humanity is how you treat weak and poor" , by this fact liberals are not human, thats all

idea of Solidarity in 80's was "solidarity state" like Sweden

shame that people THAN not know how it would turn in 90s

cause it would look other way, completely other way

[Deadfast 43]

There is nothing egoistic about what Lecholas wrote. It makes perfect sense, in fact.

Instead of sending a mandatory monthly payment to a 3rd party (heath insurance company) you can add it to your savings. Then, if you ever get sick, you use your savings to pay for your bills. If you don't, great, you can use whatever you saved up to buy a new car, for example.

[vilas 477]

but what for example when:

- father died or was killed (nevermind) and no house left

- only mother had to work for home and she was ill some time (lets say spine problems appeared) than what with child ???

in 1984 we get flat , state helped, if then we were living in "free Poland" today i would be dead homeless ,

thanx to "evil communism" i am MSc and now i earn and help my mother

if i was living in country leaded by f*** souless liberals - we would be dead with my mother

there are weak and poor people that need help of society, in US (acording to SICKO movie, they die)

here they have chance to live and work and pay in future to help others

[Deadfast 43]

If you can't manage your funds yourself you can still close a deal with an insurance company. Nobody bans these, you just get to choose.

[GRS 10]

How can you call us "westerners" ignorant when you paint us "westerners" with one big brush?

You, sir, are the one who is ignorant.

^this^

I'm quite honestly sick of people saying crap about us. People who hate us are bias against us the same way we are for us. I'd rather be in the woods loaded up in a revolution than be a socialist. If you want to be socialist, fine by me, I don't care that's your choice. Either respect other people's views or shut up. This is like two kids fighting. Its just a bunch of "no you are stupid" countered by "no you are stupid" and so on.

This is the only post I'll be making in this thread and I've lost respect for many people here. "easterners" need to look in a god damn mirror every now and then before they throw around insults. Same thing often applies to "westerners". Everyone needs to just get off everyone else's case.

[mosh 0]

in US (acording to SICKO movie, they die)

So your opinions of the US are based on a movie by Michael Moore? I hope you didn't see the South Park movie then...

EDIT - I read most of your posts, and I could care less that you hate the USA. But I found the reference to that movie, several times, amusing. There was no offense intended towards you at all... you can hate whoever you want.

Edited February 16, 2010 by Mosh
more

[derk yall 0]

If you can't manage your funds yourself you can still close a deal with an insurance company. Nobody bans these, you just get to choose.

Thats mostly an dead end wich end with the execution of your propriety and sending you to prison for to big bills. A natural catastrofe, dead of a member of family, sick children, or when you are cheated, is a easy way to get into big bill without your faults.

About the not enougth of toilet paper problem. If I recall it corectly, it was because the factory wich produced the paper burned, and the ex-west bloc was not willing to sell it to the ex-east bloc.

But sometime funny, things were done illegaly by the state itself. When my mother served in the army, they were asked to make a temporary shopping society, and buy some swiss computers from an exposition. They had to do that, because the army wasnt alowed to decide on itself what to buy (it's in today legislative to, you must make trials, trials and more trials before the army buy something) that's the way how ÄŒSLA got first computers :)

[lecholas 2]

To be called schizophrenic, egoistic from your mouth (fingers) it's a privilage to me. I'm really considering stopping smiling to my neighbours and starting to eat babies' blood and so on, just to fullfill your expectations concerning the liberals.

I only once again say, I'm talking about the system here. If a state doesn't have some bonus compared to other states around (it can be natural resources, it can be good condition after the war like Sweeden), in longer term socialism (or welfare state) will ruin its economy and the state won't be able to help the poor. I agree that it would be nice if everyone was happy, healthy etc. but no state can guarantee it, welfare state it's not the way to go. End of story. The attempts to make such a state will end in a failure. It would be similar if you ordered everyone to be happy by the law. It just won't do.

About the not enougth of toilet paper problem. If I recall it corectly, it was because the factory wich produced the paper burned, and the ex-west bloc was not willing to sell it to the ex-east bloc.

No, it wasnt. It was permanent. (I'm talking about Poland here.) (And what kind of explanation would be burning down of a factory? Do you imagine that burning down of one factory producing toilet paper can be a problem for a let's say 35 milion citizens country? And for several years?)

EDIT

Sorry, but I was looking for the sources in English and came across this:

Cuba runs out of lavatory paper

Indeed, strange coincidence...

EDIT1

If anyone has heard about a capitalistic country ever had a problem with toilet paper. I'm not saying there wasn't such case, I don't know, I've never heard about it. If anyone knows please share it. (I think we should exlude the periods of exhausting wars, but if you wish please ignore that rule, just note that it's from the period of war).

Edited February 16, 2010 by lecholas

[derk yall 0]

Well I dont know how it was in Poland, but in CS it hapened I think only once and it was the matter with that burned factory.

[Baff1 0]

The alternative for gulags was not only 'the final solution'. It was 'no gulags at all' or at least 'much, much, much, much less gulags'. So you I would initially agree for:

the final solution < many gulags < few gulags

Utter bollocks I'm afraid.

by 1945 the Germans had enslaved 10 million people and murdered another 6 million in death camps.

That's about 10 times the amount Stalin had imprisoned by this time.

The death camps alone killed more in one year than Stalin had detained in over 10.

(Hitler had promised to enslave every adult male in my country, another 25 million).

This isn't a numbers game, but if it was...Stalin was a long way short of getting a high score.

And the people who did this? Stalin put them in Gulags. Bloody good job Joe Stalin. They were lucky he was a nice one. They deserved worse.

For your historical record.

Gulag occupents had state prescribed working hours and days off, prescribed pay and prescibed food rations. Something which Nazi slaves and holocaust victims did not enjoy. In fact something which workers anywhere else in the world didn't enjoy I'm thinking. Not that I would wish to imply that gulag workers were all enjoying themselves. I think this is anything but the case.

Generally, it's true. But some countries have better and some have worse history. If you don't agree with that, you won't be able to condemn Nazi Germany more than the US, so then, e.g. you should treat the US symbols the same way you treat the Nazi ones. If you treat them differently you implicitly agree that some countries have a 'better' history than the others.

I treat them differently depending on whether they are allied to me or not. The U.S. fought with us.

My country has done plenty of stuff like the Nazi's did in our time.

No one went to war with Germany because of what they did to the Jews mate.

For what it's worth I treat U.S. symbols exactly the same way I treat Nazi ones. They tell me what side I am playing in Company of Heroes.

Edited February 16, 2010 by Baff1

[maturin 12]

Of course Stalin also put you in a gulag if you shared a birthday with Trotsky, you potential class enemy, you.

[lecholas 2]

Utter bollocks I'm afraid.

by 1945 the Germans had enslaved 10 million people and murdered another 6 million in death camps.

That's about 10 times the amount Stalin had imprisoned by this time.

The death camps alone killed 3 or four times as many as Stalin detained.

(Hitler had promised to enslave every adult male in my country, another 25 million).

This isn't a numbers game, but if it was...Stalin was a long way short of getting a high score.

That's strange because AFIK UK soldiers captured by the Germans were held in uncomparbly better conditions than gulag's prisoners (citizens of Soviet Union, of Eastern Europe countries, German POWs etc). And I'm not sure where do you take the numbers of Stalin's victims from, but they seem to me much too low. One quick look at wikipedia (I'm, not saying it's a very reliable source; it's from the Polish version) tells that according to Solzhenisyn about 60 million people died in gulags. And according to Robert Conquest 42 million people are confirmed by gulags documents to die in gulags, and guesses that about 10 to 30 million people died in the transports to the gulags, in effect of illness and exhaustion after leaving the camps. The number (according go Conquest) of people who were prisoners of gulags during the period 1942-53 was about 10-12 millions which amounts to about 5% of the whole USSR's population. The year death rate was about 10 to 20%. I can only agree: "Bloody good job Joe Stalin."

Edit:

Of course that's only gulags. No mass executions counted. No NKVD local prisons victims. And so on and so on.

Anyway, I don't understand why you won't agree with what I wrote. You don't agree that 'the final solution' was worse than 'many gulags' which were worse than 'few gulags'. Or you're saying that the UK and the USA were as bad (or as good) as the USSR, and only the Germany was worse?

For your historical record.

Gulag occupents had state prescribed working hours and days off, prescribed pay and prescibed food rations. Something which Nazi slaves and holocaust victims did not enjoy. In fact something which workers anywhere else in the world didn't enjoy I'm thinking. Not that I would wish to imply that gulag workers were all enjoying themselves. I think this is anything but the case.

Well, I can only quote you on this: "Utter bollocks I'm afraid."

No one went to war with Germany because of what they did to the Jews mate.

I didn't write that the UK or the USA went to war because of Jews. I know that the UK and the USA didn't want to believe in the raports from e.g. the Polish underground about what was happening the concetration camps.

Edited February 16, 2010 by lecholas

[maturin 12]

Was that "communism specific" then?

Or was that anti their specific government/state.

You see, I see many many countries where the workers are anti their state. Communist and Republican alike.

It was anti-Communist because it showed that the Party's ideology, which is the underpinning of the entire, abstract system, was dead and that no one believed in it. Poland was a state where the workers was the fount of all virtue and the means of reaching utopia, so it's a pretty fundamental rejection of the state. In that, Communist states are quite unique because they rest on an extraordinary ideological claim that isn't backed up law. And the ex-bloc is unique because the Party couldn't hold power without the deterrent of Soviet intervention.

And as I recall, I was arguing with Vilas that Poland under Communism wasn't for or by the people and did not, according to them, benefit them. As I mentioned before, Poles voted for a mixed economy in a post-war referendum, and voting for anything moderate is pretty impressive after losing a fifth of your population.

Really, I don't recall arguing against socialism as an idea in all cases, although I'm not likely to tolerate authoritarianism of any kind, and Communism has had that unfortunate association.

Having a bad government doesn't mean the idealogical sytem is universally bad, just that the specific government is.

In my opinion it makes no odds which system you use, it's the quality of the leadership that counts. A good tyranny is better than a bad democracy.

[/color]

Let me know if you see a good tyranny that isn't justified by the low standards of the past, bloody national liberation, or defense against a great external threat.

Or the massacring, starving and reservations for the "native" Americans.

Slavery.

3+ civil wars. (Independance, Civil War, Indian Wars)

You don't have to go to Cambodia to find those sorts of comparisons.

With Cambodia I was searching for something more contemporary. And Cambodia was driven by great power politics and nationalism and ideology gone wild 20th century style, which is what Stalin's crimes were. The genocide of the natives was gradual, sporadic, and not a consistent government program, so it's better compared to the Belgians in (sorry, I forget where) Africa or the famines and massacres of Tsarists in WWI Turkistan.

All of our countries have the same old histories. We've all done it. America's history as as ripe with domestic genocides as the next country's.

(Although slavery isn't!! Yay bragging rights!!!).

And that's relevant why? No one here is justifying slavery and genocide, there is just one person fondly remembering its good old days.

(LMAO funny to be defending gulags but there you have it. They were immensely humane given the alternatives).

It's Stalins tactic and it works. We call it "Hearts and Minds", it won us the wars in Borneo and Malaya. Not to mention South Africa.

Yeah, but Stalin tried most of the alternative too. He killed more of his own people than Hitler, although Hitler was planning to outdo him. Like starving 50 million people in Ukraine, Belarus and Poland for German living space. Another Second World War, really.

Reading the commonly accepted definition of terrorism alongside the US Army Manual on Counterinsurgency is indeed an interesting experience.

[vilas 477]

So your opinions of the US are based on a movie by Michael Moore? I

than facts shown on Sicko are not true ?

than why Obama make reform if it was not true ?

i know one thing, if we lived in stayed like it is today, we would found ourselves "under bridge" and only to socialism state remains i own that half-orphant with ill mother could finish university without problems and even get scholarship for good learning results without gaining in debts and homeless people get flat to live

[Baff1 0]

That's strange because AFIK UK soldiers captured by the Germans were held in uncomparbly better conditions than gulag's prisoners (citizens of Soviet Union, of Eastern Europe countries, German POWs etc). And I'm not sure where do you take the numbers of Stalin's victims from, but they seem to me much too low. One quick look at wikipedia (I'm, not saying it's a very reliable source; it's from the Polish version) tells that according to Solzhenisyn about 60 million people died in gulags. And according to Robert Conquest 42 million people are confirmed by gulags documents to die in gulags, and guesses that about 10 to 30 million people died in the transports to the gulags, in effect of illness and exhaustion after leaving the camps. The number (according go Conquest) of people who were prisoners of gulags during the period 1942-53 was about 10-12 millions which amounts to about 5% of the whole USSR's population. The year death rate was about 10 to 20%. I can only agree: "Bloody good job Joe Stalin."

Edit:

Of course that's only gulags. No mass executions counted. No NKVD local prisons victims. And so on and so on.

Anyway, I don't understand why you won't agree with what I wrote. You don't agree that 'the final solution' was worse than 'many gulags' which were worse than 'few gulags'. Or you're saying that the UK and the USA were as bad (or as good) as the USSR, and only the Germany was worse?

Well, I can only quote you on this: "Utter bollocks I'm afraid."

I didn't write that the UK or the USA went to war because of Jews. I know that the UK and the USA didn't want to believe in the raports from e.g. the Polish underground about what was happening the concetration camps.

There is a difference between "not believing" and not caring.

With specific regards to Poland there is an even bigger difference between "not caring" and not being able to do anything about it. In case you hadn't noticed we tried coming to your defence but we got annihilated in about 6 days flat same you did. You could send reports all day and night if you liked. They were beyond our capabilities to respond to.

By 1953 the gulags had surpassed the Nazis' slavery and death toll.

But then the Nazi's had been rudely interupted in 1945 hadn't they?

Those same problems Stalin was having would have been the Germans problems if they had won.

Would their ways of dealing with it have been kinder or harsher do you think? More or less humane?

While 60 million people may have died in gulags, is it not more correct to say 60 million people lived and died in gulags.

Over a period of 72 years people will die.

This does not mean they were systematically murdered or even worked to death (although Im sure many were). People get old. They die.

When you wrote this

the final solution < many gulags < few gulags

I took it that you meant the final solution was less than many gulags which were less than few gulags.

I assumed you were talking about the numbers of people.

I am now thinking I must have misinterpreted you.

I'm not saying that the historical actions of the UK, The U.S. the U.S.S.R. or Germany were any worse than each other. (In the eyes of God or whatever).

I don't look at history that way.

The U.K. the U.S. and Russia were all allies with a common enemy Germany. Since I'm from the U.K. Axis = bad. Allies = good.

As far as I'm concerned they have all commited evil acts aplenty. It goes with the territory for any great nation.

UK prisoners were indeed not placed in death camps. Although the entire male population was promised slave labour in foreign lands upon our defeat.

Our populations were indiscriminately bombed from the air daily.

We died by the million.

Make no mistake killing us and enslaving us was their purpose.

---------- Post added at 07:15 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:50 PM ----------

It was anti-Communist because it showed that the Party's ideology, which is the underpinning of the entire, abstract system, was dead and that no one believed in it. .

Nonsense. It was a workers union revolt.

How much more Communist can you get?

I don't agree that Stalin killed his own people. Clearly they were the people who were anti-Stalin. His enemies.

The Jews Hitler killed likewise were equally Hitlers own people. Despite that Hitler and the average German clearly didn't agree.

Hitler had already killed about 100 times more of "his own people" than Stalin had done before Stalin stopped him.

The mention of Slavery and our bragging rights for not having done it when other countries had is because in my opinion that is the core of this subject. American's wanting pissing rights on Russia. Brits wanting pissing rights on Germany etc etc etc.

Nothing more.

Everyone wants to show how their own country is so much "better/nicer/more moral/less evil than other peoples.

How their system of government is superior etc etc.

It's just a pissing contest where people are willing to believe all sorts of crap about other nations as long as they can use it to paint their own in a superior light.

Sorry but Stalin wasn't more evil than Hitler. He wasn't more evil than George Washington or Queen Victoria either. Communism isn't superior to capitalism or inferior, or democracy or Christianity to Islam etc etc etc.

That's all just a biggest dick competiton for bragging rights.

Edited February 16, 2010 by Baff1

[lecholas 2]

I don't agree that Stalin killed his own people. Clearly they were the people who were anti-Stalin. His enemies.

I don't agree either. Even if you narrow the category of 'own people' so much, Stalin killed a lot of his own people who were loyal to him. It was "just in case", as an example that even the slightest suspiction can be a sentence of death, or simply as a mistake in the huge murdering machine which the USSR was.

The Jews Hitler killed likewise were equally Hitlers own people. Despite that Hitler and the average German clearly didn't agree.

Hitler had already killed about 100 times more of "his own people" than Stalin had done before Stalin stopped him.

It's the other way around. If you count great famine at Ukraine and great purge it's the Stalin who killed 100 times more of his own people before Hitler even started his killing. And I remind you that until 1941 Stalin was an allie to Hitler and it would still be the case if the Germans didn't attack the USSR. So I don't really understand why you write that Stalin "stopped" Hitler.

The mention of Slavery and our bragging rights for not haviong been involved in it when other countries had is because in my opinion that is the core of this subject. American's wanting pissing rights on Russia. Brits wanting pissing rights on Germany etc etc etc.

Nothing more.

Everyone wants to show how their own country is so much "better/nicer/more moral/less evil than other peoples.

How their system of government is superior etc etc.

It's just a pissing contest where people are willing to believe all sorts of crap about other nations as long as they can use it to paint their own in a superior light.

Sorry but Stalin wasn't more evil than Hitler. He wasn't more evil than George Washington or Queen Victoria either. Communism isn't superior to capitalism or inferior, or democracy or christianity to Islam etc etc etc.

It's all just a biggest dick competiton for bragging rights.

Ok, so everyone is equally evil. Let's rejoice now!

To quote the classics: "Please! This is supposed to be a happy [FORUM]. Let's not bicker and argue over who killed who."

Edited February 16, 2010 by lecholas