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I Lost My Past (2017)

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Re: I Lost My Past (2017)

#71

Post by justsomehnguy »

anovikov wrote: post #23
thebradbain wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying "Communism is evil" is no different than saying "Capitalism is evil" with nothing to back it up. Contrary to maybe-current opinion, Communism and Democracy are not diametrically opposed: the former is an economic policy, the latter a system of government. You can have both, one or the other, or neither all at once. Sure, maybe the governments that tried to implement communism failed on the world stage. Some to…

I lived under this regime and i absolutely remember it as evil. Big mistake of 1991 was to let Russia form.

No post body was provided.

Re: I Lost My Past (2017)

#72

Post by trasz »

gigel82 wrote: post #60

I have friends that immigrated from Romania, and I was surprised by their very different stories of living as a teenager in the 80s under communism. One was enjoying vacations abroad, imported goods and generally mostly living a western lifestyle while the other was struggling to survive. Later learned that the former's father was an informant for Ceausescu's secret police (Securitate) - a butcher by profession but a…

No post body was provided.

Re: I Lost My Past (2017)

#73

Post by refurb »

trasz wrote: post #55
refurb wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

South Vietnam was certainly not “fake”. Not any more “fake” than any other country. It wasn’t a democracy but neither was the north. And the North also violated numerous treaties including the one where the US pulled out all troops and North agreed to stop further infiltration. The communists certainly had strong support in the North (they had secured power and purged any opposing elements, including within their par…

This is pure whataboutism.

Are my facts incorrect? If so, please call them out.

OP said the North was “right” because the South was X,Y,Z.

I countered with “the North also did X,Y,Z.”, thus countering their claims that the North was somehow “more pure or righteous”.

Maybe it is whataboutism, but that seems appropriate when someone is trying to claim superiority to another?

Re: I Lost My Past (2017)

#74

Post by galfarragem »

By visiting former Eastern Bloc countries and living there for some years after they joined EU, I believe I understand the author. He misses Idealism and Intellectualism and specially: time to pursue it. I miss it too - and I never lived there during that times.

Everything is a trade-off and this is certainly part of the price we pay to have full shelves.

Re: I Lost My Past (2017)

#75

Post by bidivia »

thebradbain wrote: post #21
anovikov wrote: post #19

[flagged]

Saying "Communism is evil" is no different than saying "Capitalism is evil" with nothing to back it up. Contrary to maybe-current opinion, Communism and Democracy are not diametrically opposed: the former is an economic policy, the latter a system of government. You can have both, one or the other, or neither all at once. Sure, maybe the governments that tried to implement communism failed on the world stage. Some to…

[flagged]

Re: I Lost My Past (2017)

#76

Post by justsomehnguy »

sofixa wrote: post #49
anovikov wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Distribution of people, industry, resources, agriculture is very uneven in Russia, so i don't see many potential subdivisions working well. Furthermore: * self-determination of the people - i didn't hear any part of Russia wanted to be separate * Russians in other countries (there since before the fall of the Soviet Union) are often destabilising and problematic - see Transnistria and Ukraine for good examples * as w…

> A ballkanised Russia

Means the total loss of Russian Army, in the most literal sense.

In 1990s there were anecdotes how you could buy a tank from a corrupted Russian Army personnel. With balkanised Russia that would be a hard reality.

Re: I Lost My Past (2017)

#77

Post by sofixa »

refurb wrote: post #52
sofixa wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Western or Eastern, Japan occupied Indochina for a few years during WW2, and Ho Chi Minh rose as a big resistance leader opposing them. However for the rest you're on point. South Vietnam was a fake regime propped up by the French initially and then the US, had no legitimacy, wasn't democratic ( which could have been a saving grace for it) and was in US-backed violation of the Geneva conference. That's not to say the…

South Vietnam was certainly not “fake”. Not any more “fake” than any other country. It wasn’t a democracy but neither was the north. And the North also violated numerous treaties including the one where the US pulled out all troops and North agreed to stop further infiltration. The communists certainly had strong support in the North (they had secured power and purged any opposing elements, including within their par…

> South Vietnam was certainly not “fake”. Not any more “fake” than any other country

It kind of was though. It was created temporarily until elections are held by a treaty over fears the communists will have control over all of Vietnam ( they would have), and existed solely due to direct and heavy American support. It wasn't a country based on self-determination or anything of the like.

Re: I Lost My Past (2017)

#78

Post by vidarh »

refurb wrote: post #67
jeroenhd wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By extension of this way of telling a narrative, all Americans should fear for their lives the second a police officer stops their car because of the countless innocent black people murdered by the police. Stories of excessive police violence still make it to the news almost every week. However, most Americans don't need to fear for their lives by the police, and most Iraqis aren't Kurds. Most Iraqis weren't gassed o…

You’re really trying hard to draw equivalencies between two very different situations. In the US police kill less than 1,000 per year. Most are white people, many justifiably. So let’s overestimate and say 25% of those are murder. (Clearly not, but work with me). So 250 per year in a country of 350M. When the Kurds were gassed, a singular event, 3,000-5,000 people were killed. Random people, shelled by the Iraqi mili…

Misses the point which is not to justify or downplay either, but that most people lived a very different reality. That doesn't make the brutal mass murder of Kurds any more acceptable. It just underlines that trying to compress the story of those who lived in a given country in any period into just the atrocities is rarely going to be representative of everyone's lives.

Re: I Lost My Past (2017)

#79

Post by PixyMisa »

trasz wrote: post #72
gigel82 wrote: post #60

I have friends that immigrated from Romania, and I was surprised by their very different stories of living as a teenager in the 80s under communism. One was enjoying vacations abroad, imported goods and generally mostly living a western lifestyle while the other was struggling to survive. Later learned that the former's father was an informant for Ceausescu's secret police (Securitate) - a butcher by profession but a…

Quoted post unavailable.

I think you rather missed the point.

Re: I Lost My Past (2017)

#80

Post by tick_tock_tick »

bener wrote: post #40
longtrousers wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Are you saying there have been less executions under other political systems? Communism isn't evil, it's the people doing evil that are evil. Evil doesn't exist without evil people to perpetrate it. The problem with everyone being equal is that nobody really wants to be equal. The guy pushing the communist ideals doesn't want to be the rubbish collecting guy instead of the politician, even if the income was the same.…

So Communism is evil by the transitive property? Your whole argument is just that the idea isn't evil but implementing it, due to human nature, is.
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