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I Lost My Past (2017)

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Re: I Lost My Past (2017)

#111

Post by vidarh »

luckylion wrote: post #108
vidarh wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making the point for me. You're presenting a narrative that the vast majority of Iraqis would also not have experienced. Most did not live in the regions that were gassed. Most did not have family who got tortured. That does not mean Saddam wasn't a psychopath and a brutal oppressor. The fact he did those things are enough to condemn him as the evil dictator he was. There's no need to erase other experiences.

Nobody is "erasing" other experiences, they are just very uncommon. When talking about how "people in a country" live, you look at the average person. You don't say "but the King and his ministers live differently, we shouldn't erase their experiences". The inner circle always lives differently from the masses, but by definition, they are very few. Look at the lives of the many, not the few. And regarding Iraq: durin…

With respect to Saddam's mass murder the uncommon experience for Iraqis is is having been personally affected. That doesn't mean it wasn't an atrocity, or rather a series. And no, most people are not likely to have had someone affected, as most of them were focused on certain groups and areas. If you belonged to those groups you'd be disproportionately affected. If you did not, you might have gone most of your life without being affected without being any part of the.inner circle.

This need to see suffering as universal to be valid is problematic, because very few atrocities affect a large portion of a population. That most don't does not jvalidate them.

Re: I Lost My Past (2017)

#112

Post by justsomehnguy »

sofixa wrote: post #91
justsomehnguy wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> Means the total loss of Russian Army, in the most literal sense Not really, every part would retain the troops and armaments located there, like how Ukraine inherited all long range strategic missile bombers ( Tu-160) of the Soviet Union, and how Transnistria inherited an army which was one of the main factors of them claiming independence and thus blocking Moldova's potential future as a part of Romania

> like how Ukraine inherited all long range strategic missile bombers

Along with hundreds of T-60/72 and all the infantry and vehicle munitions.

But you can't bring Tu-160 to a local mafia dispute. You can bring a tank there if it's only a couple of hundred dollars and nobody /can/ stop you.

> how Transnistria inherited an army

Now imagine various small unaffiliated armies all the way to Ural.

Re: I Lost My Past (2017)

#113

Post by trasz »

shrimpx wrote: post #107
trasz wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

You probably have a decent point to make, if only you bothered to hone in on it. Sure you can say some people won't work for Google because their conscience prevents them, but you can't reasonably compare getting rich by working for Google to getting rich by getting your friend arrested because they read a book or listened to a radio station... If you have a point to make, make it.

Most (almost all) party people back them didn’t get anyone arrested, they just did their jobs in power plants, schools, and cheese factories, just like they would in the west. Same as googlers today.

Sure, some did evil things. Again, just like in the west it’s easy to make money by hurting others.

My point is, the perceived difference between those is really just the narrative, the way they are being described in popular media. West has much better PR.

Re: I Lost My Past (2017)

#114

Post by 0ld »

heh, yeah, right, in the former ussr too there are people who fondly remember a lot of stuff their nomenclature families did have, which the other 99% didnt. and they certainly dont remember any shit the lowly plebs been through

what they are actually missing is the lost great times when they were able to feel being so high above the others

Re: I Lost My Past (2017)

#115

Post by _ugfj »

torginus wrote: post #104
_ugfj wrote: post #18

I grew up in Hungary where the socialist leadership (it is a very interesting fact how much they avoided the word communism and used socialism everywhere but I digress) was hell bent on continuously raising the standard of living because Janos Kadar was afraid of another revolution. (As his deranged last speech in 1989 revealed, he had nightmares for decades of his comrade, Imre Nagy, the prime minister in 1956, whom…

Well, if you want hopelessness I suggest you live in contemporary capitalist Hungary - in many ways, the country's fate is similar to the one described in the article, it has turned into a Western vassal, where nothing worth having, no company with meaningful profits is actually owned by Hungarians. The problems about life you've described in your post are still valid today - we the country has become a nearshore col…

I have spent weeks and months even on and off since 2009 in Hungary. Last visit, albeit just two days long, ended today, actually. I am well versed in the neofeudalism that Orban has wrought. And yet, look at my dates -- Orban is a symptom of much worse.

I do not know where you grew up but the playgrounds were fucking dystopian. Do you remember the ping-pong tables? I do. I remember them all too well. They were raw concrete with a piece of metal for a net, it had holes in , but still. Try to pay ping-pong on a non-at-all smooth surface if you can. I could continue with the slides, the see-saws and all.

As for the schools do not get me started. If you speak Hungarian I wrote down our education journey at https://www.reddit.com/r/hungary/comments/he9c9s/a_mi_t%C3%B... tl;dr: I financed a micro reform school for five long, long years, 2015-2020.

And the hopelessness is no longer valid because you can leave. Also: you should.

Re: I Lost My Past (2017)

#116

Post by _ugfj »

sofixa wrote: post #38
_ugfj wrote: post #18

I grew up in Hungary where the socialist leadership (it is a very interesting fact how much they avoided the word communism and used socialism everywhere but I digress) was hell bent on continuously raising the standard of living because Janos Kadar was afraid of another revolution. (As his deranged last speech in 1989 revealed, he had nightmares for decades of his comrade, Imre Nagy, the prime minister in 1956, whom…

> it is a very interesting fact how much they avoided the word communism and used socialism everywhere but I digress In Bulgaria the official line is that the country and regime are socialist, which is on the path to communism which everyone should work towards. There were even slogans in factories and other public places about this. The rest of your story is tragic. I'm sorry you had to live through such times.

Yes, that was the line. So everything was called socialist this and socialist that.

Re: I Lost My Past (2017)

#117

Post by beerandt »

sofixa wrote: post #37
Findeton wrote: post #34

Well the Soviet Union was imperialism, wasn't it?

It was, in the end, even if it started as direct opposition of imperialism ( to an extent; export of revolution was one of the tenets of Lenin and early Bolshevism, and that might be considered a type of imperialism). However i think the author is talking more about the smaller Eastern European communist countries in general ( Yugoslavia, East Germany are mentioned), not the Soviet Union.

>considered a type of imperialism

Interesting to consider, as sort of a tolerance paradox.

Re: I Lost My Past (2017)

#118

Post by justsomehnguy »

tick_tock_tick wrote: post #80
bener wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> by the transitive

If you bring such qualifications as a measure of 'evilness' of an economic or a government system then you are surely can explain how would you rate England on your scale of evilness.

Hint: Auspicio Regis et Senatus Angliae

Re: I Lost My Past (2017)

#119

Post by refurb »

vidarh wrote: post #54
thaumasiotes wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Self rule, just like you'd think. The CCP's primary claim to legitimacy is that they kicked out the Japanese. They were a little late to get to kick out the Manchus.

To really underline this, one should read the Vietnamese Declaration of Independence. Ho Chi Mihn greatly admired many things about the US and so it starts with a quote from the US Declaration of Independence, before it talks about the French revolution, and then attacks the French colonial rule.

I mean sure, but look at the country today. Apparently they didn’t admire it that much.

Re: I Lost My Past (2017)

#120

Post by inawarminister »

lucian1900 wrote: post #88
Findeton wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mention it because at the end of his blogpost he says: "there will be no wars in Europe in my lifetime, and imperialism has been defeated. " I'll also point out that: - The imperialistic part of the USA is the socialist part of USA (which does exist and gets larger every day). - Empires are not economically profitable as a whole, only a few people profit.

Which part of the US is socialist? There is none. If you mean the army, it’s not socialist. The workers don’t have democratic control over the means of production. It’s just a planned economy, plenty of those exist in dictatorships of the bourgeoisie (like Amazon).

The most ironic part of the whole capitalism vs communism business was that both had exactly the same structure... In different strata of the society. The all-encompassing planned economy of (mega)corporations vs the state. Both the preferred habitat of a certain sort of politicking bureaucrat.

Of course, in properly-functioning capitalist systems, you can and should fight and Ally with the megacorps with start-ups. In socialist countries...

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