Berlin Wall Hype - Why ?

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Thu, 2009-11-12 02:20

Fidel

Sineed wrote:

Fidel wrote:

I think there is apologism in this thread discussion, which seems to have drifted from talk of East Germany and the wall to a specific period in Ukrainian history. The wall didn't exist in the 1930's to be clear.

Sineed, if you want to call me an apologist for Stalin, that's fine. It's not true but that's besides the point. But I refuse to call you an apologist for western world fascism. Because you have not attempted to apologize for any of the atrocities and deliberate mass murders perpetrated by democratic western world governments both before and after the Ukraine famine and continuing today as in the here and now. No I will not. I don't think you would tolerate that.

I had to go back atya about when you said Keynes found positive things in Stalinist USSR. I totally don't think you're an apologists for Stalin, but if you say there were good things about the USSR under Stalin, people are going to find it hard to take. And before you know it, we'll be neck-deep in Godwins.

Without wanting to be written off as an apologist, I will say that I think there was a difference between the mass starvation that occurred in Ukraine and what happened during the Holocaust in several European countries and Russia. Without intending to make excuses for Stalin, I think there is a difference between deliberate mass murder and a plan to physically eliminate people by insidious planning of mass murder, and that of historical controversy concerning who caused a famine or whether there were avoidable circumstances surrounding one particular famine in Ukraine at a time when famines raged across Asia both before and after 1930. Hunger and malnutrition was nothing new in Asian countries and cut-down millions on an almost routine basis in imperialist Russia and China and especially British occupied India. I don't think Stalin set out to plan a famine as his legacy to the FSU. I think that the Leninist new economic plan giving a green light to farmers to profit from their efforts wasn't working to prevent food shortages in Russia, nor was it working very well for peasant farmers in Ukraine who were taken advantage of by better off farmers namely the Kulaks. There was child labour under the NEP, and Kulaks took advantage of it yes they did. Destroying farm tractors sent from Russia and wobbling to refuse to plant crops also didn't work well in the end for millions of people involved.

However, given 20/20 hindsight of today, there are economists who've done their homework and state that Stalin's farm collectives contributed very little to the 500 percent overall increase in steel production necessary for rebuilding Russia's defences. And as 20-20 hindsight reveals today, Stalin was exactly right about western aggression against Russia part two. But I don't wish to be viewed as an apologist for Stalin's intentional crimes. Ordering 2 million farmers and kulaks be shipped east was plainly a violation of their basic human rights. And everyone has a right to food and water and to exist. Those basic human rights were not guaranteed in the early Stalinist years, and they are still not guaranteed today for far too many millions of people around the world, even in these modern times with advances in agricultural technology. That 56 million human beings starve to death every year today - and that there are now one billion chronically hungry people in the world is a human tragedy of colossal proportions allowed to happen in an age of computers. I think it's more than just bad arithmetic today in an age of unprecedented literacy and world-wide communications with infornation transmitted around the world at near speed of light. We have no alternative but to believe that these famines and this extent of hunger today is deliberate. Ignorance of these terrible things happening today is not a valid excuse for richest country leaders and our capitalist institutions foisting rules for market efficiency and fiscal austerity on poor countries that continue to be unable to feed masses of starving people, even with the luxury of 21st century hindsight.

56, 000, 000 human beings every year! That's like all the organized mass murder during WW II compressed into a one year time frame every trip around the sun as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow and every day that 35,000 innocent children are sacrificed on the altar of a merciless free market god.

It's an insult to humanity. They know things about starvation today that were not known at turn of the last century. It's an agonizing death that no human being should ever have to suffer. Hunger is a sharp thorn for an even an animal. What can we say for ourselves today? Come on baby don't fear the reaper? And I know that you are an educated person, and that that number is especially mind-boggling for you as it would be for any thinking, feeling human being capable of regret and remorse.

If there was anything positive that resulted from the crises of laissez-faire capitalism in the west and first economic plans of the former Soviet Union, it's that governments pledged to subsidize farming on a massive scale. Food production was once considered a national priority for governments until about the 1980s-1990's when globalization of the new liberal financial regime began. Food security is not considered a priority for neoliberal ideologues and their capitalist institutions forcing free market rules on developing countries. For a country to keep food reserves today is considered trade distorting by an illegitimate trade organization of appointed and hand-picked ideologues and thundering nit-wits who've never carried brown paper bags or lunchpails to work in all their lives. 25 years ago there were half a billion chronically hungry human beings. Today the number is estimated to be over one billion. It's a crime against humanity today just as much as it was in 1930's Ukraine except the numbers are much larger today and occurring every year on time every time. Today it really is planned and enforced genocide.

Thu, 2009-11-12 09:46

#53

Sineed

From an account by Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski:

Quote:
Officially the matter presents itself as follows: Moscow had determined the size of the quota each village was obliged to deliver to the state - how much grain, potatoes, meat, and so on, but the quotas were significantly greater than what the land could realistically be expected to yield. Understandably, the peasants were unable to fulfill the plan imposed upon them. So then, by force - usually by military force - the authorities started confiscating everything edible in the villages. The peasants had nothing to eat and nothing to sow. A massive and deadly famine began in 1930, lasting seven years and reaping its grimmest harvest in 1933. The majority of demographers and historians today agree that in those years Stalin starved to death around ten million people.

<snip>

Mrs. Kamielowska (an eyewitness who saw 6 of her 10 children starve to death) says that the worst of it began in the summer of 1932. A law was then passed that the peasant called the Law of the Blade of Grain. Stalin invented it and wrote it himself. It had to do with the protection of kolkhoz property. According to it, one could be sentenced to several years in the camps, or even shot, if one stole as much as a blade of grain or a carrot or a beet.

<snip>

The worst thing was the house searches. The government people would pull up the floorboards, rake up every square inch of the garden, dig in the field. They were making sure there wasn't any food hidden anywhere. If they did find any, they would take it all away and throw the owner into prison.

<snip>

Historians explain the genocide in the Ukraine (and in the northern Caucasus) in various ways...The twenties witness a renaissance of Ukrainian nationalistic ambition, which develops under the slogan "Far from Moscow!" The main repository of the Ukrainian spirit is the peasantry. To break that spirit, Stalin must destroy the peasantry.

I really think there's a qualitative difference between a deliberately perpetrated genocide, and modern economic policies that result in starvation. If there's a commonality, it's that in both cases, monstrous acts are perpetrated in the name of an ideology. Which is why, IMV, the greatest enemy of humanity is dogma.

Thu, 2009-11-12 15:55

#54

Fidel

Sineed wrote:
I really think there's a qualitative difference between a deliberately perpetrated genocide, and modern economic policies that result in starvation. If there's a commonality, it's that in both cases, monstrous acts are perpetrated in the name of an ideology. Which is why, IMV, the greatest enemy of humanity is dogma.

A number of countries have recognized famine in Ukraine as an act of deliberate genocide: USA, Canada, Australia, Italy, Poland, and Ukraine. The EU has acknowledged the famine as a crime against humanity but stopped short of labelling it an act of deliberate genocide targetting Ukrainians as there were several more ethnic grouos and nationalities who died of starvation in the same period as a result of Stalin's misguided and badly planned and enforced collectivization policies. The Russians claim that unlike Nazi policies for extermination of specific ethnic groups, there is no documented evidence that Bolsheviks gave written orders to cleanse Ukrainians specifically and intentionally. In fact, the Nazis murdered more people in a shorter period of time and more efficiently by deliberate blitzkrieg and organized exterminations and would surely have eliminated whole populations of ethnic groups had the Red Army and Russian people not stopped them.

Similarly, there have been US attempts by US scholars to have the Irish famine recognized as a deliberate English policy for genocide of Irish people specifically from 1845 to 1850. English parliament knew that there was famine in Ireland and passed corn laws, which were not actually enacted until a full two years later after millions had already starved to death and too little far too late. Pork and corn continued to be exported to "the market" from 13 Irish sea ports all the while millions perished. No one accused English or Irish landlords of intentionally purging a class of people much less a specific ethnic group. At least, not until today. And surely the burning and razing to the ground of Scottish peasants' homes and farms were acts of intentional and deliberate genocide to physicially eliminate and-or displace a specific ethnic group from crofts and the best of farmlands. Apparently raising sheep was suddenly realized to be more valuable and lucrative than gouging Scottish peasants for rent and stealing their labour. And there were food riots in England at the beginning of enclosure. Thousands starved to death as a direct result of skyrocketing food prices and from being displaced from the land.

And we could go on and on about the deliberately planned and enforced genocides of the free market system. More than 80 percent of chronically hungry nations export food to "the market" today as it was in 1847 Ireland. Hundreds of millions of human beings have starved to death due to genocidal free market rules before and since Black '47 on time every year without fail. On September 11, 2001, the WHO announced that somewhere in the neigborhood of 35, 000 children had died of malnutrition and related diseases. It didn't rate so much as a mention in most western world newzpapers.

Thu, 2009-11-12 16:04

#55

Snert

Quote:
The EU has acknowledged the famine as a crime against humanity but stopped short of labelling it an act of deliberate genocide targetting Ukrainians as there were several more ethnic grouos and nationalities who died of starvation in the same period as a result of Stalin's misguided and badly planned and enforced collectivization policies. The Russians claim that unlike Nazi policies for extermination of specific ethnic groups, there is no documented evidence that Bolsheviks gave written orders to cleanse Ukrainians specifically and intentionally.

Quote:
And we could go on and on about the deliberately planned and enforced genocides of the free market system.

But before we go on about them, you're going to show us the documented evidence that someone gave written orders to to cleanse ethnic groups specifically and intentionally, yes? Or is that standard defunct now, and any time people die it's a "genocide"?

Thu, 2009-11-12 16:17

#56

Fidel

Snert wrote:
But before we go on about them, you're going to show us the documented evidence that someone gave written orders to to cleanse ethnic groups specifically and intentionally, yes? Or is that standard defunct now, and any time people die it's a "genocide"?

It's all there in WTO, international financial instititions, and IMF's free market diktats for hare-brained trade "liberalization" It's well documented and outlined in binding trade deals signed by people who nobody elected to these illegitimate trade organizations and central banking institutions, and some of which have been in existence since they helped the Nazis launder money and gold stolen from plundered European countries during WW II. The heads of these illegitimate capitalist institutions and NATO gangsters should be arraigned on charges of crimes against humanity, lined-up against a cement wall at dawn and shot between the eyes.

Thu, 2009-11-12 16:22

#57

Snert

Okay, that's all well and good.

But if, as you say, the standard for GENOCIDE includes documented evidence of intent, specifying particular ethnic groups specifically, then I guess we're all going to have to be a bit more rigorous about when and how we use the word genocide.

So please go ahead and take the lead. Show us where the free market system documented their intent and their targets. Can you? If not, maybe it wasn't a GENOCIDE after all? Maybe you're just using the word bombastically, perhaps?

Thu, 2009-11-12 16:35

#58

Fidel

Don't take my word for it. You can always ask any one of the millions of anti-globalization protesters worldwide what they think of the IMF and WTO, World Bank and Bank for International Settlements.

Meanwhile the organizers of these illegitimate trade negotitations continue to plan to hold them in ever more remote locations and behind closed doors, and guarded by fascist police and military outfits from public scrutiny.

Thu, 2009-11-12 16:44

#59

Snert

Are you a robot or something?

I'm asking you to provide some kind of documentation that the free market system you describe, had killing as its intent, and targetted some specific ethnic group or groups.

You're the one who clarified what's required for a genocide, and you're the one who chose to then apply the word to free markets. All I'm asking you to do is live up to your own standards. I'm not asking your opinion of NAFTA here. I'm asking for whatever documentation of INTENT leads to to ascribe genocide to free markets. If you can't provide that, it would seem to me that as an honourable man, you need to stop throwing the word genocide around carelessly then.

Thu, 2009-11-12 18:01

#60

Fidel

Snert wrote:

Are you a robot or something?

No, are you?

Snert wrote:
I'm asking you to provide some kind of documentation that the free market system you describe, had killing as its intent, and targetted some specific ethnic group or groups.

It's all there in WTO rules for international trade and "structural adjustment programs" for thirdworld capitalist neardowells exporting food to "the market" cloud every month and every year.

It's there in UNICEF and WHO, and World Bank statistics recorded so meticulously every year like so many records that weren't destroyed at the crematoriums near Kracow before an advancing Red Army was able to capture.

So don't be lazy and look it up for yourself this evidence of written policy for planned and enforced genocide. And report back to us why there are 56 million dying of the capitalist economic long run, and not just once per decade or so far back as a 1932, but each and every year for decades either side of 1930 and continuing at a frenzied pace since 1994.

Snert wrote:
You're the one who clarified what's required for a genocide, and you're the one who chose to then apply the word to free markets. All I'm asking you to do is live up to your own standards.

And the liberal-fascist policies have all been digitized and recorded for posterity's sake in modern times, signed by the illegit heads of the fascist trade institutions and annual results anticipated well ahead of time give or take some error of margin rounded up to the nearest millions of human beings.

Linda McQuaig wrote:
"While laissez-faire economy was the product of deliberate state action, subsequent restrictions on laissez-faire started in a spontaneous way. Laissez-faire was planned; planning was not." Historically, what we have wanted is protection from the market, an institution capable (in Polanyi's words) of "annihilating the human and natural substance of society," and one which, left alone, "would have physically destroyed man and transformed his surroundings into a wilderness" - All You Can Eat

Thu, 2009-11-12 21:40

#61

Snert

Quote:
So don't be lazy and look it up for yourself this evidence of written policy for planned and enforced genocide.

I'm not being lazy. It's YOUR claim, so the onus is on YOU to support it or withdraw it.

And remember, the intent can't be "to encourage investment" or "to lower interest rates", the intent has to be "to kill people" -- specific people. I'm very eager to see this.

Thu, 2009-11-12 22:37

#62

Fidel

Snert wrote:

Quote:
So don't be lazy and look it up for yourself this evidence of written policy for planned and enforced genocide.

I'm not being lazy. It's YOUR claim, so the onus is on YOU to support it or withdraw it.

I don't have to withdraw anything. There was some initial beating around the bush somewhere above that famine in Ukraine was an intentional genocide. I still haven't seenthe the written plan from the 1930's to exterminate Ukrainians and only Ukrainians. So as long as no one is withdrawing anything, we can all not withdraw together. Ice-cold drink anyone?

Quote:
And remember, the intent can't be "to encourage investment" or "to lower interest rates", the intent has to be "to kill people" -- specific people. I'm very eager to see this.

You said it, Snert, and not [url=http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=%22Eric+Walberg%22+Cambridge+OR+Oxfo... Walberg[/url] who is a graduate of economics from Cambridge University. He gives more hints as to who are today's deliberate and colossal fuckups in the 21st century:

Quote:
But you don't have to believe in a "Made it Happen On Purpose" (MHOP) conspiracy for either 9/11 or the food crisis. As political analyst William Blum, famously cited by Osama Bin Laden on one of his video missives, told Al-Ahram Weekly, "we're speaking of men making decisions, based not on people's needs but on pseudo-scientific, amoral mechanisms like supply and demand, commodity exchanges, grain futures, selling short, selling long, and other forms of speculation, all fed and multiplied by the proverbial herd mentality -- a system governed by only two things: fear and greed; not a rational way to feed a world of human beings."

Fear and greed and herd mentality. And the herd insists that we sacrifice tens of millions of human beings on the altar of their merciless free market gods every year. It's called free market voodoo, and the only ones paying lip service to these false Roman gods of prosperity are those who profit by their own abominable trade rules and free market diktats.

Fri, 2009-11-13 01:30

#63

Frmrsldr

Money has more value than human life.

Fri, 2009-11-13 19:21

#64

Fidel

Frmrsldr wrote:

Money has more value than human life.

I regret to say that I have to agree with this. And it dawned on me that when I listed those countries above recognizing the Ukraine famine as a deliberate genocide - at least one of them has since refused to recognize the right to food and other basic human rights declared by UN human rights signatory nations. And they would be our largest trade partners next door. There is no "shoot to kill" order in this case. Their intentions are implied.

Fri, 2009-11-13 23:53

#65

al-Qa'bong

Palestinians symbolically dismantle sections of the wall

Quote:
"Tear down this wall!" then US President Ronald Reagan told Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987, demanding he tear down the infamous Berlin wall. Two years later, on 9 November 1989, media around the world broadcast images of crowds of Germans from both the east and the west climbing atop the barrier and tearing down large sections of the wall. For many, the event was highly symbolic as it was perceived as the end of the Cold War and the start of a period when the world was headed in a more just and peaceful direction, free of walls keeping peoples apart.

However, two decades later, walls of separation still exist throughout the world. Israel's wall in the West Bank is much bigger than the Berlin wall ever was, as it encloses more than two million Palestinians inside the occupied West Bank. This wall separates Palestinians from their families, land, natural resources and communities.

Sat, 2009-11-14 22:37

#66

Kanada2America

I don't agree with everything that Reagan or Gorbachev did. But Gorbachev was the former Soviet Union's first visionary of the modern century. It had nothing to do with Reagan or tearing down walls. He, Gorbachev, was simply someone who believed that his nation was not going to do very well under decades of Communism and secret state surveillance of citizens.

He was watching the rest of the world progress economically and democratically. His nation was crumbling. His nation's economy was nothing more than a facade.

The fall of the Berlin Wall was a precendent for people who did not wish to live under the yolk of the Soviet empire. Just like people did not want to live under the British empire. Every empire collapses eventually.

Kanada2America

Sat, 2009-11-14 22:55

#67

Fidel

Yes, they could have had this from the beginning, an economic system that's falling down around our ears here in the west for the second time since 1929. Now comes the catastroika for good measure. We'll just have to learn to live with less and forget about all those colossal cold war era lies about middle class capitalism based on consumption.

Wed, 2009-11-18 17:45

#68

Kanada2America

Mr. Fidel bring down these walls of paranoia.

The Communist system has collapsed in on itself just like the capitalist system has. But unlike the Communist system, capitalism has found new ways to deal with it.

The problem with capitalism is that it allows people to break the limits of practicality beyond reason. The problem with Communism is that it does not.

Kanada2America

Wed, 2009-11-18 18:03

#69

Fidel

Kanada2America wrote:

Mr. Fidel bring down these walls of paranoia.

The Communist system has collapsed in on itself just like the capitalist system has. But unlike the Communist system, capitalism has found new ways to deal with it.

There are large numbers of people in the former USSR longing for a return to state socialism according to opinion polls. I don't think they want a return to exactly what they had before, but I think there are some valuable lessons learned from both systems. Like markets. It's been acknowledged that markets "create wealth", and markets are useful for distributing goods and services to large numbers of people somewhat efficiently. But now overall consumption has reached unsustainable levels, and there are still a couple of billion people who have next to nothing. I think we need planned economies and much more regulation. I think banking and finance and credit could be made a public utility. As Canada's Leo Panitch quoted a conservative economist in London saying recently, there is no real need for banks to be privately owned and controlled, or bailed out for what amounts to their gambling debts.

Tue, 2009-12-01 02:16

#70

Kanada2America

Well I suppose I come from a generation of watching overpaid Air Canada flight attendants and counter agents treat you like crap (Aeroflot?), while they snivelled and whined about their wages. I remember those years very well and could only wonder, how arrogant you need to be to think that you are providing a service to the taxpayer - and they better like it no matter what.

Well Air Canada collapsed in on itself once discount airlines found the new rubber tire market, called: "I'd rather fly than drive", but that doesn't mean I need to be treated like crap.

canadians should try flying Asiana, KAL, or JAL and see the difference - although I will tell you that those are unique cases unto themselves.

It's the same with canada's cell phone companies and plans. A loosely organized oligopoly which means there are no good deals to be had, other than pay-as-you-go plans. In the US, Europe, Africa and Asia? Completely different. And you don't need government to do it for you.

Banks? I don't care for canadian banks, but they are stable. I would not governmentalize them. That's just a whole new nightmarish bureacracy just waiting to tax you to death. You don't like banking fees and rules now? Wait until government gets a hold of it.

Basically canada is a free market economy. You can't rewind to the time of Marx or Engels and suddenly recreate a socialist economy in a world of capitalist ambitions. People won't stand for it.

Kanada2America

Tue, 2009-12-01 04:41

#71

Fidel

Soviet state socialism lasted 70 years through vicious cold war sanctions waged against them by two-thirds of the rest of the world, dirty wars and economic warfare. Yugoslavia of the 1970's was home to the world's largest middle class as a percent of the population according to World Bank economist Branko Milanovic. Everyone had an apartment or home, jobs whether they wanted one or not, and free higher education under Soviet socialism. Those are the things they remember so fondly today while struggling under economic oppression of debt-driven neoliberal capitalism in those countries today.

Laissez-faire capitalism collapsed in 1929 after just 30 years in near-perfect lab conditions. It collapsed again in Chile after just 16 years.

The new liberal capitalism: 1980-2008 RIP.

Three recessions in three decades. What do they call an L-shaped recession if they can't use the D word?

Capitalism has failed in various experiments around the world since 14th century Italy.

Scientists are saying today that if this model for just the narrow band of population earning true middle class incomes here in the west is exported to the other 85% of humanity, we would strip world resources bare in nothing flat and choke on the pollution.

Tue, 2009-12-01 11:29

#72

Snert

Quote:
Capitalism has failed in various experiments around the world since 14th century Italy.

That explains all those Germans climbing the wall from the West to the East. Brave souls, escaping a failed Capitalism and hitching their wagon to the bright promise of Totalitarianism.

Tue, 2009-12-01 12:31

#73

Sineed

Last summer I watched a neighbour painstakingly remove all the paint from his porch. Using a combination of a heat gun and some nasty chemicals, he scraped and scraped for weeks until all the white paint was removed, the beauty of the natural wood exposed. I thought he might protect it with a couple of coats of urethane to show off the wood's grain. Or maybe a translucent stain.

But no. After spending weeks removing every trace of white paint from his porch, he coated it with.....................white paint.

I liken the people who wish they could have totalitarianism back with my neighbour who would scrape off white paint in order to paint with white paint: it doesn't make any sense, but they don't know what else to do.

Tue, 2009-12-01 12:49

#74

remind

Interesting analogy sineed, much like those who paint rocks......

Tue, 2009-12-01 15:13

#75

Fidel

Snert wrote:

Quote:
Capitalism has failed in various experiments around the world since 14th century Italy.

That explains all those Germans climbing the wall from the West to the East. Brave souls, escaping a failed Capitalism and hitching their wagon to the bright promise of Totalitarianism.

While East Germans shot a few thousand people climbing over a wall, [url=http://www.serendipity.li/cia/death_squads1.htm]Murder Inc.[/url] was busy orchestrating the slaughter and deliberate genocide of well over 100,000 indigenous people in one Central American country alone. CIA-backed rightwing death squads all over Latin America and thirdworld capitalist hellholes. Our largest trade partners are also the world's foremost exporters of terror and torture, and even today while incarcerating blacks at six times the rate that was true of Pic Botha's South Afreeka. And our stooges went right along with their policies of murder and oppression in this same hemisphere for many years with signing trade and other business deals with [url=http://www.funkiness.com/dictators/]rightwing dictatorships[/url] friendly to Uncle Sam and all his minions of doom. I refuse to buy Dole food products, Coca Cola and a lengthy list of items shipped from those countries by of what amounts to slave labour for gringo fruit and trading companies even today.

Tue, 2009-12-01 23:23

#76

Frmrsldr

Notice also, when Uncle Sam's attention is diverted by wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, most Latin American countries have moved politically to left of center governments - except Colombia, which is heavily invested in by the Pentagon?

Wed, 2009-12-02 06:51

#77

Kanada2America

True. Because the puppet regimes that were running them didn't see the long term future of having a balance of public and private interests, although I have to wonder about Chavez' long term viability if his country's economy tanks.

But briefly back to Communism vs Murder Inc. - are we ignoring the millions who died under Stalin's brutal regime from 1924 - 1953? Or Mao's cultural revolution?

Kanada2America

Wed, 2009-12-02 09:56

#78

Sineed

I think the error here is ignoring the root causes of all these massive human rights' abuses, which lies in human nature, IMV. People will behave badly if they can, and they will abuse power if they can: "Power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely," etc. Doesn't matter what the ideology - if you've got a political system that concentrates massive amounts of power in the hands of a few, it always ends badly.

Whether it's the Stasi shooting people trying to get to West Berlin, or the police gunning down a homeless deranged man, or south American death squads funded by the US, all human rights' abuses need to be equally condemned, or we are hypocrites whose asses need a head-ectomy.

Wed, 2009-12-02 18:16

#79

Fidel

Kanada2America wrote:

True. Because the puppet regimes that were running them didn't see the long term future of having a balance of public and private interests, although I have to wonder about Chavez' long term viability if his country's economy tanks.

What the rich and powerful fear of Chavez is that he is offering the poor a better life but not what we have here in North America and Europe, which is an unsustainable cold war era lie of colossal proportions. The US-backed rightwing death squads bombed schools and hospitals built by Marxists and political neutrals all over Central and South America for a reason. And offering education and socialized medicine to the poor are Chavez' greatest crimes as far as the fascists are concerned. Modern capitalism shares many characteristics with old world imperialism in that colonies of cheap labour and raw materials must be maintained as a favour to kapitalist trading companies, fruit and sugar and coffee and mining companies etc. Sir Tony Benn said it himself:

~ A well educated and healthy population is a confident nation. And a nation of confident people is more difficult to govern.

Governments in Europe and Nordic countries are afraid of the people. Here it's the opposite in the last bastions of far right political conservatism. Former anti-communist William Blum said the CIA's dirty wars and support of brutal rightwing dictatorships was/is mainly about killing hope for millions of people. It's harder for the corporatocracy to take advantage of literate, healthy and confident people. This is why the CIA, Brits and other fascist shadow governments understand that they have no chance to win the minds of ordinary Cubans. And it's why 57% of East Germans polled said they prefer life the way it was under Soviet communism,

Kanada2America wrote:
But briefly back to Communism vs Murder Inc. - are we ignoring the millions who died under Stalin's brutal regime from 1924 - 1953? Or Mao's cultural revolution?

Yes the communists in Russia purged a few million hangers-on of the old imperialist regime. There were Russians and other ethnics who openly challenged Stalin's show trials and declared their opposition to the revolution. And yes, they were sent to the gulags and many were lined-up at dawn and shot to death.

What took place in China between 1958 and '61 was nothing less than a tragedy in a country where 80 plus percent of the population was illiterate, a legacy of Chinese imperialism. The modern west considered China a fourth world country in 1949 with mortality rates and social progress behind even democratic capitalist India. By 1976, the year of Mao's death, infant mortality rates were better in China than for the average of all the democratic capitalist thirdworld. Chinese life expectancy was doubled in Mao's time.

Kapitalism has produced, by far, hundreds of millions more skeletons than the early years of Soviet and Chinese communism combined. If a body count for kapitalism was ever undertaken, the estimated numbers would be truly breathtaking. Kapitalism has been the kiss of death for humanity. It's time to move on the next phase of human development.

[url=http://www.monthlyreview.org/598einstein.php]Why Socialism?[/url]

Fri, 2009-12-04 13:36

#80

Snert

Quote:
Kapitalism has produced, by far, hundreds of millions more skeletons than the early years of Soviet and Chinese communism combined. If a body count for kapitalism was ever undertaken, the estimated numbers would be truly breathtaking.

If such a count has never been undertaken, then on what, specifically, are you basing your claim??

That's like saying "there are more trees in the Northern hemisphere than in the Southern, though nobody has ever actually counted.

Also, are you counting as a "Kapitalist" death, pretty much any death that happens in a country whose system is Capitalism? Every soldier of every Capitalist country? That sort of thing? Or are you at least taking the time to factor out deaths that would occur regardless of socioeconomic system? This is a rather extraordinary claim, that, as they say, requires extraordinary proof. What's your proof of this, Fidel?

Fri, 2009-12-04 15:23

#81

Fidel

Snert wrote:
Quote:
Kapitalism has produced, by far, hundreds of millions more skeletons than the early years of Soviet and Chinese communism combined. If a body count for kapitalism was ever undertaken, the estimated numbers would be truly breathtaking.

If such a count has never been undertaken, then on what, specifically, are you basing your claim??

Harvard educated economist Amartya Sen said it himself. Every four or five years, democratic capitalist India produces as many skeletons as communist China did in all its years of shame, 1958 to 1961.

And such a body count should include the last 300 years or so of industrialisation in the west, and with millions of deaths and untold miseries caused since British enclosure period, Locke's private property laws constructed around a false argument for natural rights, and through to perestroika in Russia and the ongoing deaths of tens of millions of poverty-stricken people displaced from the land they've worked for centuries by globalizing capitalism.

Snert wrote:
That's like saying "there are more trees in the Northern hemisphere than in the Southern, though nobody has ever actually counted.

Economic historians have rough ideas of the numbers, and that's why nothing has been published along the lines of a black book of kapitalism. Socialists have known for a long time that predatory kapitalism is a murderous ideology.

Snert wrote:
Also, are you counting as a "Kapitalist" death, pretty much any death that happens in a country whose system is Capitalism? Every soldier of every Capitalist country? That sort of thing? Or are you at least taking the time to factor out deaths that would occur regardless of socioeconomic system?

World wars as a result of crises of capitalism could certainly be included. I think Chomsky says that the tally would be large enough with just including the annual infant mortality rates and adults dying prematurely in thirdworld capitalist countries. All those nations under economic tutelage of the west or occupied militarily, and all those countries in Africa and Latin America, Philippines etc which were simply abandoned to their own devices and transformed into natural resource colonies for corporations to raid at will after cold warriors prevented them from going communist in the last century. Economists use mortality rates as general benchmarks for identifying failed nation states. The World Bank and UN have recorded the appropriate statistics for a number of decades, It's how we know things like longevity being doubled in China in Mao's time, and that infant mortality in China was better than democratic capitalist India's rate today by the time of Mao's death.

Fri, 2009-12-04 16:30

#82

Snert

So then the "proof" of your claim is that others have made the same claim.

Fri, 2009-12-04 21:32

#83

Fidel

Snert wrote:
So then the "proof" of your claim is that others have made the same claim.

Yeah, in this case the "others" are economists themselves and capitalist institutions that have kept fairly detailed records for the last several decades. And I haven't read of anyone on the lunatic rightwing fringe disproving what he's said either. But don't let that discourage you from looking. You have the power of the internet at your fingertips same as anyone.

[url=http://www.spectrezine.org/global/chomsky.htm]Counting the Bodies[/url] Chomsky

Sat, 2009-12-05 19:36

#84

Kanada2America

Okay. So let's get back to basics. You live in a western industrialized capitalist society. You have lived in this society for about 20+ years? You have freedom of speech. So would you have freedom of speech in Stalin's, Castro's or fill_in_the_blank, Soviet Communist leader?

It seems to me, "thou dost prostests too much", Mr. Fidel. You are preaching from a western democracy. If you were actually to live in ohhh, North Korea, Cuba... heck even Venezuala... you would be spouting off like this in those countries right?

Kanada2America

Sat, 2009-12-05 19:52

#85

RosaL

Kanada2America wrote:

Okay. So let's get back to basics. You live in a western industrialized capitalist society. You have lived in this society for about 20+ years? You have freedom of speech. So would you have freedom of speech in Stalin's, Castro's or fill_in_the_blank, Soviet Communist leader?

It seems to me, "thou dost prostests too much", Mr. Fidel. You are preaching from a western democracy. If you were actually to live in ohhh, North Korea, Cuba... heck even Venezuala... you would be spouting off like this in those countries right?

Kanada2America

I'm responding to this against my better judgment and in spite of the fact that you aren't talking to me. I have freedom of speech because what I say is no threat to the rulers. If my freedom of speech ever becomes a perceived threat, I will lose it very quickly.

That aside, there are many freedoms. I'd put food and shelter and health care and education, for example, way ahead of being able to spout off in some chat forum. But that does indeed seem to be the pinnacle of what capitalism has to offer.

Sat, 2009-12-05 20:24

#86

Kanada2America

Do you actually feel that threatened for voicing your opinion?

I will say it again. Say these things in North Korea, Cuba or a number of African nations... including the one I grew up in.

Let's see if you want to live there and voice your freedom of speech. This chat forum? It's based in canada isn't it? I'm not a big fan of canada, but I do know that there is no rabble in North Korea, or Cuba or Africa. At least this western capitalist democracy allows you to do that, doesn't it? As does the USA.

Kanada2America

Sat, 2009-12-05 20:25

#87

Fidel

Kanada2America wrote:

Okay. So let's get back to basics. You live in a western industrialized capitalist society. You have lived in this society for about 20+ years? You have freedom of speech. So would you have freedom of speech in Stalin's, Castro's or fill_in_the_blank, Soviet Communist leader?

We don't live in a country where most of WW I's casualties were suffered. Canada wasn't laid siege to by 25 international armies and mercenaries in order to put a oppressive Tsar back on the throne. 30 million plus Canadians weren't slaughtered willy-nilly by fascist invaders at the time of western aggression against the Russian revolution part two.

And Canada has never been attacked by Cuban gladios and US military. Canadians don't know US-backed terrorism, at least not in these modern times. Canadians have never known what it's like to resist genocidal trade sanctions, or to make a collective stand for noble words, like freedom and democracy, and liberation from US-sponsored tyranny.

Kanada2America wrote:
It seems to me, "thou dost prostests too much", Mr. Fidel. You are preaching from a western democracy. If you were actually to live in ohhh, North Korea, Cuba... heck even Venezuala... you would be spouting off like this in those countries right?

Kanada2America

I am preaching from a country where the CCF/NDP and civil society groups fought tooth and nail for socialized medicine and few more things that have made living here more bearable for millions. This is where my family and friends live. It's not easy to pick up and move to another country and leave all you've ever known behind. Many people in Germany felt the same way during WW II. Fascism wasn't supposed to last. They could not afford to pick up and leave or were too old and frail. And many of their children refused to abandon them for greener pastures.

I think that if you really believe in America, then you should leave your medicare card at the border and move to a red have-not "right-to-work" US state. I doubt you will do that though much less choose to live in any of Uncle Sam's client states in Central America, Haiti, or Dominican Republic etc. I think you have no idea of what you're missing.

Sat, 2009-12-05 20:29

#88

Kanada2America

Uncle Sam's immigrants have done far better than you will ever know. You can keep bringing up the health care boogeyman. That is for people who watch way too much Michael Moore or CBC.

Again. If you love Communism so much, why talk about it from a society that is capitalist? As far as my personal situation? Yeah. I will go to America. I already have been there many times. What did I discover?

America and canada are very similar. Only America is better. Especially for immigrants like me.

Kanada2America

Sat, 2009-12-05 20:43

#89

Fidel

Kanada2America wrote:

Do you actually feel that threatened for voicing your opinion?

I will say it again. Say these things in North Korea, Cuba or a number of African nations... including the one I grew up in.

Cubans complain about the government all the time same as Canadians do here. There is no law against it there either. Ask the average Canadian on the street or coffee shop what they think about the government. You'll get an ear-full.

Kanada2America wrote:
Let's see if you want to live there and voice your freedom of speech. This chat forum? It's based in canada isn't it? I'm not a big fan of canada, but I do know that there is no rabble in North Korea, or Cuba or Africa. At least this western capitalist democracy allows you to do that, doesn't it? As does the USA.

Kanada is a resource colony for corporate Amerika. Our stooges sold out to them long ago. There is no need to destabilize Kanada as our kleptocrats are in full compliance with the korporatocracy.

The US Military has threatened N, Korea with nuclear annihilation dozens of times since the 1950's "UN" war on the peninsula. And the largest threat to peace and security in the region is still the US Military. Koreans want a united Korea same as west Germans desired.

I must refer you to the [url=http://www.rabble.ca/babble/babble-book-lounge/%E2%80%9Cdemocracy-incorp... democracy thread[/url] The US and its telecoms have been spying on Americans for a long time. It's a thing with all the English-speaking countries.

Sat, 2009-12-05 21:50

#90

Frmrsldr

In Canada, health care is a right of the people with the corresponding duty of the government to make it available to the people.

In America, health care is a commodity that is bought and sold (to the highest bidder) on the "free" market.

It's social Darwinism. Survival of the fittest. Where the most "fit" are the most rich. Natural selection: If you can't afford health care, then you are "weeded out". Only the "desirables" (the rich) are left.

That's insane kapitalism run amok. Welcome to the good ol' U.S.A., where if you still believe in the American dream, you need to wake up.

Sat, 2009-12-05 22:38

#91

Fidel

Kanada2America wrote:

Uncle Sam's immigrants have done far better than you will ever know. You can keep bringing up the health care boogeyman. That is for people who watch way too much Michael Moore or CBC.

Very many of Uncle Sam's poor, tired, and huddled masses have fled countries where Uncle Sam and friends have made life a living hell through globalization policies. They've been chucked off prime farming land to make way for mechanized farming. Their corrupted stooges have signed on to IMF and WTO plans to pauperize those nations and paving the way for clear-cutting of forests and strip mining in order that they can run faster and faster on the treadmill of indebtitude to the west.

Kanada2America wrote:
As far as my personal situation? Yeah. I will go to America. I already have been there many times. What did I discover?

Canada isn't quite the same as America yet. Since the traitorous free trade deals, FTA and NAFTA, Canada is slowly being transformed into Bananada , a kind of Northern Panama except with a few Polar bears and lots of moose pasture. Our corrupt stooges told Canadians that we would be better off with opening our doors wide open to US investment and trade. What's happened since then has been nothing short of the rape of Canada and its natural resource wealth while losing hundreds of thousands of good paying jobs in the last few years.

Kanada2America wrote:
America and canada are very similar. Only America is better. Especially for immigrants like me.

And which African nation wasn't worth living in for you?

Sat, 2009-12-05 22:43

#92

Kanada2America

Health care in canada may be a right of the people. But is it accessible? You don't think canada's monopolistic system of health care rationing creates its own social Darwinism? You think everybody in canada gets equal access to public health care? Are you living in 1960's CCF land?

I can't get a family physcian right now. I can't even get my high blood pressure treated. An ambulance call to a location where my car crashed after someone cut in front of me cost me $247 last December! PERSONALLY BILLED TO ME. That was for: checking my blood pressure and saying, "hey you're okay, see ya later".

I have to pay for my own eyeglasses, my teeth are okay but not great - oh yeah, if I work for an employer who has some sort of PRIVATE dental plan, yeah it's covered but otherwise... no.

And you want to talk about how the Calgary Flames jumped the queue for H1N1 shots? Or Toronto Maple Leafs? Or how canadians are actually going to the USA for H1N1 flu shots? Where is your wonderful public health care now? Only three countries keep insisting on this type of system: canada, North Korea and Cuba.

Want to talk about the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver? Crack addicts? They got health care? Social Darwinism is working just great in North America's biggest drug ghetto, right?

Sat, 2009-12-05 22:48

#93

Kanada2America

Mr. Fidel. I was born in East Africa. My country was colonized by England. It adopted the traditions of England and the corruption of England. I was shipped over as a child to canada. Worst decision my family ever made. The years of racism and bigotry that have been my life tell me one thing only about canadians: England-lite, bigots, yob culture, nonsense thinking.

In my life Americans have been the best people. Friendly, outgoing and wonderful to be around. canadians have been miserable bigots, who have tried to make sure they tell me I am not canadian. Hence... I am not canadian. Self fulfilling prophecy.

Kanada2Amerca

Sat, 2009-12-05 22:59

#94

Fidel

Kanada2America wrote:
Health care in canada may be a right of the people. But is it accessible? You don't think canada's monopolistic system of health care rationing creates its own social Darwinism? You think everybody in canada gets equal access to public health care? Are you living in 1960's CCF land?

Is it the CCF or even the NDP's fault today that our two stoogeocratic old line parties couldn't run a lemonade stand without screwing up?

Kanada2America wrote:
I can't get a family physcian right now. I can't even get my high blood pressure treated. An ambulance call to a location where my car crashed after someone cut in front of me cost me $247 last December! PERSONALLY BILLED TO ME. That was for: checking my blood pressure and saying, "hey you're okay, see ya later".

You should have been here in Canada before the CCF's medicare caught on in the rest of Canada. You could be billed more than a day's wages at the mill for your wife's hospital stay. And if you hadn't recovered and were unable to pay the bill, the doctor sent you home anyway. That happened to my mother twice from the late 1940's to 1950's here in Northern Ontario. She had hyperactive thyroid and wasted away to under 100 pounds. She needed help and my father was laid off at the mill again and no blue cross - three month waiting period for which you weren't covered. Lots and lots of bullshit like that.

Kanada2America wrote:
I have to pay for my own eyeglasses, my teeth are okay but not great - oh yeah, if I work for an employer who has some sort of PRIVATE dental plan, yeah it's covered but otherwise... no.

This is not what TC Douglas and CCF had in mind for universal socialized medicine in Canada.

Kanada2America wrote:
And you want to talk about how the Calgary Flames jumped the queue for H1N1 shots? Or Toronto Maple Leafs? Or how canadians are actually going to the USA for H1N1 flu shots? Where is your wonderful public health care now? Only three countries keep insisting on this type of system: canada, North Korea and Cuba.

I suggest you hustle yourself down to a right-to-work/right-to-be-poor US state before you suffer any more such indignance here in the Northern Puerto Rico. And don't forget to leave your provincial health care card at the border, because you'll be paying the whole shot yourself for everything from that point forward. And good luck living the capitalist dream in a country that gave up on laissez-faire capitalism in the 1930's after a majority of Americans rejected leave it to the market ideology. They practice socialism for the rich while preaching free markets to the poor (Gore Vidal)

Sat, 2009-12-05 23:36

#95

Fidel

Kanada2America wrote:

Mr. Fidel. I was born in East Africa. My country was colonized by England. It adopted the traditions of England and the corruption of England. I was shipped over as a child to canada. Worst decision my family ever made. The years of racism and bigotry that have been my life tell me one thing only about canadians: England-lite, bigots, yob culture, nonsense thinking.

Did you know that the British are close allies of America?

Did you know that Uncle Sam supported South African apartheid for many years? Waged proxy wars in Angola and other countries while aiding and abetting UNITA against the ANC during years of dirty war ?

Did you know that the American CIA and Belgians both were responsible for the torture and murder of Patrice Lamumba in 1960's Cpngo?

Which countries' wealthy nationals do you think have re-colonized various African countries by oppressive debt and criminal levels of interest owed to capitalist institutions, unscrupulous bondholders, and banks based in New York and London?

Kanada2America wrote:
In my life Americans have been the best people. Friendly, outgoing and wonderful to be around. canadians have been miserable bigots, who have tried to make sure they tell me I am not canadian. Hence... I am not canadian. Self fulfilling prophecy

They discriminate based on colour in Amerika. Here the bigotry is a little more subtle and sometimes the spelling of your last name could mean the difference in who is hired and not. The Americans have been incarcerating blacks at six times the rate that was true of South Africa during the apartheid years. Best of luck to you just the same. I think you'll be making a mistake though if you choose to live in the US, depending on what your skills and education happen to be. It could be a decent life up to the point where you and your's grow older and need more health care, at which point the insurance companies won't want to insure you once you begin to actually need health care services in the USsA.

Sat, 2009-12-05 23:42

#96

Kanada2America

I am older Mr. Fidel. I am older. I was hired in a wonderful job by Americans in Vancouver and Victoria by an airline that thrives on diversity. That airline and its wonderful American employees proved to me the value of people power.

Contrast that with how I have been treated by canadians in the last six years of my life. Second class garbage.

You really think that a country that has: Condy Rice, Colin Powell, Barack, and numerous other non-whites? Geez, I mean what did kanada do dude? Chretien? Harpie? Mulroney? Trudeau? Turner? Oh my gawd dude. Yours is an exclusive WHITE LIBERAL club. You just play at it. America does it.

You can keep talking about South Africa all you want. America actually stopped apartheid there. Saskatchawen potash was used in South African ammunition. canada supplied ammunition during the Vietnam War to America. Dirty secrets no?

Kanada2America

Sun, 2009-12-06 04:09

#97

Fidel

Kanada2America wrote:
I am older Mr. Fidel. I am older. I was hired in a wonderful job by Americans in Vancouver and Victoria by an airline that thrives on diversity. That airline and its wonderful American employees proved to me the value of people power

I have family in a Northern state and Florida. I have travelled through the states to Texas and headed south from there. And I've seen some of the "backyard." Worked for a company based in Silicon Valley. Walked across the Golden Gate several time, toured the monument to inhumane treatment of human beings known as Alcatraz. And I visited Monterey and Salinas, John Steinbeck's home town. Most Americans are good people. It's the vicious republic most people have real issues with.

Kanada2America wrote:
Contrast that with how I have been treated by canadians in the last six years of my life. Second class garbage.

You wouldn't be the first non-white immigrant to Canada who realized a lack of job and other opportunities in Canada. We've had somewhere over 600, 000 first and second generation Asian emigres to Canada actually return to Asia since the late 1990's and citing every reason from a lack of job opportunities here to issues with discrimination. And very many of them are well educated, and many earning multiple degrees in Asia and North America. They love Canada's wide open spaces but realize they can't eat scenery so to speak. What's up with Canada, you might ask?

Take Colombia as an example. Colombia is now a frontline state in America's war on democracy. Uribe used to be governor of Medellin province. His job was to rubberstamp plane licences for the Colombian-US mafia-CIA drug ring. And the CIA and Cuban/US mafia would dearly love to use Cuba as a conduit for running drugs to the mainland, like they have used Haiti and other island hops for small aircraft and boats hauling drugs. Today Uribe is a respectable crook and US pawn in South America. What does this have to do with Canada besides Harper signing trade deals with Uribe's Colombia as a favour to Uncle Sam? Not a lot. But Colombia is a repressive hellhole that is also mineral and oil-rich, like Canada. The Yanks and their powerful friends in Colombia are sitting on most of Colombia's natural wealth for future US corporate needs, much like they do with Canada's natural resource wealth. Supranational US and other corporations have sought controlling interest in natural resources for a long time, and it works to create monopolies that are international in scope. They are able to manipulate the prices of oil and other mineral wealth. And in times of economic downturns, they sit on our stuff and put Canadians out of work while extracting the same commodities from other countries where labour is cheapest. That is some explanation as to how real capitalism works - and it works largely for capitalists.

Kanada2America wrote:
You really think that a country that has: Condy Rice, Colin Powell, Barack, and numerous other non-whites? Geez, I mean what did kanada do dude? Chretien? Harpie? Mulroney? Trudeau? Turner? Oh my gawd dude. Yours is an exclusive WHITE LIBERAL club. You just play at it. America does it.

Most of these people share the same business interests in places like Africa, and especially the Congo where somewhere between five and six million human beings have been slaughtered by US proxies Rwanda and Uganda since 1998. The only thing some of those powerful and influential people might share with you is the colour of your skin. But don't be fooled into thinking you have common cause. They are not your friends and they could never be mine. They are for themselves and other rich and powerful people, but they wouldn't spit on you or me if we were on fire.

Kanada2America wrote:
You can keep talking about South Africa all you want. America actually stopped apartheid there. Saskatchawen potash was used in South African ammunition. canada supplied ammunition during the Vietnam War to America. Dirty secrets no?

Canadian, US, and Congolese uranium was used in making the Atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki by what I know. I am not defending Canada whatsoever here. Our so-called leaders in Ottawa have been mere toadies to a vicious empire for a long time.

Sun, 2009-12-06 08:20

#98

Sineed

Kanada2America wrote:

Where is your wonderful public health care now? Only three countries keep insisting on this type of system: canada, North Korea and Cuba.

Just debunking this particular bullshit - the US is the only industrialized nation that doesn't have single-payer health care. The US is the odd one out, not Canada. The American health care system is expensive, inefficient, and inhumane.

Anyway, carry on, guys; it's an interesting discussion.

Sun, 2009-12-06 18:30

#99

Kanada2America

Fair enough. I agree with single payer - multiple provider systems such as Sweden, Denmark and Norway. I'm not saying the US system is paradise. But the Canadian system has to change too. It is unsustainable after being around for just over four decades. Having a government monopoly also brings inefficiencies to this system.

Trust me on that one. I worked in hospitals for three years in the early nineties and could tell you stories.

Kanada2America

Sun, 2009-12-06 21:05

#100

Frmrsldr

Kanada2America wrote:

Health care in canada may be a right of the people. But is it accessible? You don't think canada's monopolistic system of health care rationing creates its own social Darwinism? You think everybody in canada gets equal access to public health care? Are you living in 1960's CCF land?

I can't get a family physcian right now. I can't even get my high blood pressure treated. An ambulance call to a location where my car crashed after someone cut in front of me cost me $247 last December! PERSONALLY BILLED TO ME. That was for: checking my blood pressure and saying, "hey you're okay, see ya later".

I have to pay for my own eyeglasses, my teeth are okay but not great - oh yeah, if I work for an employer who has some sort of PRIVATE dental plan, yeah it's covered but otherwise... no.

And you want to talk about how the Calgary Flames jumped the queue for H1N1 shots? Or Toronto Maple Leafs? Or how canadians are actually going to the USA for H1N1 flu shots? Where is your wonderful public health care now? Only three countries keep insisting on this type of system: canada, North Korea and Cuba.

Want to talk about the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver? Crack addicts? They got health care? Social Darwinism is working just great in North America's biggest drug ghetto, right?

You can thank FTA, NAFTA, neoliberal economist Prime Ministers starting from Mulroney. You can thank Harpo for bankrupting the federal treasury with his wasteful and useless Afghan war, 20 years worth of contracts to arms dealers worth close to half a trillion dollars and wasting money on a "Get tough on crime" bullshit for that. What next is our government going to needlessly waste money on? A Canadian nuclear arms arsenal and space program? I agree, our health care system has been eroded. We need people to elect leaders who will spend taxpayers' money on the right things like health care to ensure a healthy population, education and daycare for our children, homes for the homeless, pensions for our elderly, and proper land use and agricultural practices: there is no reason why anyone should go hungry in Canada, a proper unemployment insurance program and strategic planning of the economy: there is no reason why anyone should be jobless or destitute.

The U.S.A. is one of the few countries in the world that has a "free" market based health care system.

Sun, 2009-12-06 21:16

#101

Frmrsldr

Kanada2America wrote:

Mr. Fidel. I was born in East Africa. My country was colonized by England. It adopted the traditions of England and the corruption of England. I was shipped over as a child to canada. Worst decision my family ever made. The years of racism and bigotry that have been my life tell me one thing only about canadians: England-lite, bigots, yob culture, nonsense thinking.

In my life Americans have been the best people. Friendly, outgoing and wonderful to be around. canadians have been miserable bigots, who have tried to make sure they tell me I am not canadian. Hence... I am not canadian. Self fulfilling prophecy.

Kanada2Amerca

You think AmeriKKKa (U.S.A.) is any better? Is it the American dream or is it hypnosis?

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