Russia tests world's biggest bomb - Page 4

You'll be accused of being anti-American, Carerra.


I would argue that the western european model of democracy bears a closer
resemblance to the definition of true democracy than anywhere else, currently.

Look at the Scandinavian models of democracy....they're enlightened societies with a relatively equal distribution of wealth for all.
To me, democracy is about the even distribution of wealth to all citizens.
The greater the degree of difference, between the "haves" and the "have nots"........the less democratic society is.
It is also based on people having jobs, having the opportunity to get an education, equal rights for all.

If you look at your history, you'll see where there is a uneven distribution of wealth, social upheaval follows......Weimar Republic in Germany, 1917 Revolution in Russia, are examples.



Agreed.

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.."But finally the last thing I’ll say to the people who don’t believe in cycling, the cynics and the sceptics. I'm sorry for you. I’m sorry that you can’t dream big. [I]I'm sorry you don't believe in miracles. You should believe in these athletes, and you should believe in these people. I'll be a fan of the Tour de France for as long as I live. And there are no secrets - this is a hard sporting event and hard work wins it" - Armstrong 2005 TDF
morelike hypocrisy.

I'm not really anti American. In fact, many Americans share my views. For example, Kirk Douglas recently lamented what's been going on in the U.S. over the last decade or so. Other Hollywood stars have followed.
I think the danger is the majority of Americans are told over and over again how they're a free democracy till they automatically assume it must be so. To be fair, this happens over here as well.
9/11 didn't help. Since 9/11 politicians have used the fear of terrorism to carry out an agenda of stifling freedom and creating an overbearing State where individual rights are trampled on too many times.
Of course, it was heartening to see Jesse Jackson and many other civil liberties protesters drawing a red line and marching to Louisiana to shame the powers that be. All that happened was some black kids sat under a tree reserved for whites and nooses were then tied to that tree the following day. Then, some blacks who got into a fight with some white kids were jailed for many years and finally the civil rights moverment got into gear. People marched.
It's not just black people, though. We forget socially poorer whites are also being abused in U.S. chain gangs. It's always the marginalised Americans who are excluded.
It's the same old story - the same situation Muhammad Ali opposed back in the sixties and the black and white folks who protested against Vietnam both had their skulls cracked together.
Do you remember how John Lennon got onto something like this back in the sixties? It was similar to the incident I reported about a housewife facing 10 years in jail for serving some alcohol at a teens party. Well, back then this was a guy who smoked a joint and I think he got a 10 year jail sentence. John Lennon took up his case and rallied a lot of people during concerts in America. It was a turbulent time but back then people were less reluctant to challenge abuses whereas sadly today right wing policies have more support.
Lennon, Muhammad Ali, King were all fighting the same situation as we see today.

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"Everybody has a philosophy. However, what philosophy you have is a matter of choice, and most people don't make a conscious choice with regard to what philosophy they accept."

How's this for an amazing example of Civil rights abuses in the US.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarti...4&ItemID=14094

To summarise, an 18 year old black activist gets railroaded into serving time on a trumped up charge because of the threat of being charged under terror legislation.

It makes me very angry.

Some things never change

OMG. Ala communism. If capital is continually transferred from those who effectively use/invest it to those that squander it, the overall economy will suffer. The pie is not a fixed size thing. It is not independent of overall work ethic or the cumulative decision making of those that hold capital.

Socialism/communism has been tried and tested, and it has failed. It sounds like Xanadu on the surface. But it makes about as much economic sense as a family dividing up all its wealth equally amongst parents and their infant/adolescent children. If you cut the legs off the risk-takers, you end up with what you have in much of Western Europe. In your ideal democracy, with an even distribution of wealth, why work hard or take a risk? Just sit back, relax, and reap the same rewards as everyone else.

But I am not against welfare - I'm for it - for those that genuinely need it.

America's economic success, as much as some in Europe despise it, has been built upon meritocracy and the culture of individual responsibility and hard work. Here is a country that has it all, has every reason to lay back and just enjoy all the fruits, but instead is one of the hardest-working nations in the world.

I have much contempt for alot of American foreign policy, and some of its ills, but am extremely impressed by its constitution and its resilience to pandering to the weak which is the usual end-game of democracies where the people wanting hand-outs usually outnumber those who morally resist it.

Lim, your country has been doing great economically the last 15-20 years. It didn't happen because the governent decided to increase taxes on those that are well-off and distribute it to those with less. The Irish pie is growing fast. And everyone, at every strata of wealth, is benefiting.

Also, the US people are some of the most philanthropic in the world. The level of charitable giving here is staggering.

But I take your point about wealth disparity causing social unrest. It usually ferments into frustration and violence IMO when it gets to the stage of the wealthy having too many advantages over the have-nots (ie away from an egalitarian meritocracy). When smart poor people are hamstrung....look out!

What the US is struggling with since the new administration took power in this millenium is a creep into fascism. Some of the propaganda and spin here is almost Goebbels-like. And the rest of the world can read it better than the average American, who always seems to get hoodwinked by the patriotism mantra and a filtered media, unbeknownst to them.

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http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=S2FGA3Z-oYM

"communism has been tried and tested, and it has failed."

Not really true. First and foremost, the vacuum bomb you see being tested in Russia (a deliverable weapon due to its smaller size) is really just part of the legacy of the USSR years when all this technology was developed. Putin himself admitted modern Russia would be nothing today were it not for the USSR legacy.
Lenin, for all his faults, transformed a backward, peasant/worker community into a superpower - one that by the admission of Hitler was more powerful than Germany (in spite of the purges and blunders). The trouble was much of the USSR advancement was in the military/science field and there was a huge neglect of consumer economics. Having lived there, I can tell you standing in a queue for stringy sausages did tend to fall sour towards the end. This was the problem - education was better than in the west but living standards were too low. Also, Moscow gave away way too much resources to other countries with the idea of making communism global.
Therefore, do I believe we'd all be better off under Soviet Communism? The answer is negative. I think Communism in Russia needed to be reformed and updated since obviously the world was a different one to the times of Dickens when workers were being exploited and inequality was rife in Europe.
Maybe we'd have been looking at some of the ideas used in Sweden and maybe, to a point, Cuba. What Gorbachev hoped for was a kind of softened up communism with a free press and a liberal prosperous society. He failed, of course.
However, the last point is this: Without a plan you cannot have success, especially in cycling. If you don't ride to a structured set of principles and targets, you cannot reach your potential. It's the same in society. Either we continue with wild west markets with recessions, falling currencies and high crime, or we organise society to be run in the best way for the collective good - not just the good of a minority elite.
Let's also remember Einstein backed socialism as opposed capitalism and not only Einstein but possibly Plato as well.

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"Everybody has a philosophy. However, what philosophy you have is a matter of choice, and most people don't make a conscious choice with regard to what philosophy they accept."

Beg to differ. The competitive creation of bombs is hardly a benchmark to measure the success of a system of society/government.
Um...if you focus nearly all the resources of your country of 200+million on engineering, science, rockets, bombs, missiles and other armaments, you are going to do pretty well on the world superpower ratings. America has done OK on this score as well. But it doesn't reflect the worthiness of the system. Time took care of making that ultimate judgment.
I never lived there but consumer economics and living standards weren't just low IMO. They were pitiful. Not even worth comparing to the West. The country had to seal its borders to prevent citizen escape. The people were protected from the truth and spun lies. A high percentage of the country was wallowing in alcoholism.
Um..I think that America was up there on that count with loans to developing countries, the World Bank, The UN etc. Furthermore it is a contradictory argument to say that the USSR's excessive investments in global communism contributed towards the failure of global communism.
You just displayed the whole problem in a nutshell. The supreme "State" couldn't even work out that times had changed between Marx's Dickensonian era and the late part of the 20th century. What chance did they have of crystal balling the future and allocating resources in a so-called "planned" society and future if they couldn't even complete that rudimentary analysis. It seems a classic rationalization to those hooked on the idea of communism in the past that it all failed because of little factors X, Y , or Z. You know, like the people who think that the Iraq war would have gone smashingly if we had have just sent 20,000 more troops initially. Look IMHO it failed because it goes against human nature. Human nature seeks betterment, competition, achievement and respect. In the communist society, this was channelled into hierarchy within the Communist Party. The State became a collection of elites. Its ultimate power on anything and everything corrupted it. Its a nice thought that everyone loves each other, and everyone works for the common good etc etc. It might work in a small commune of 20 like-minded people. But no matter which way you cut it, communism failed because it is not synergynistic with nature. That's the bottom line. And any Society that promotes based on connections and loyalty etc. rather than merit, ends up getting corrupted by a bunch of idiots like the USSR did. Brezhnev's coterie were a bunch of numbskulls.
Unfortunately, a progressive and functioning society, the economy, and predicting the future are much too hard of a task for a roomful of elites to work out. It isn't a training schedule for a simple cycling race season. Just look at all the countries who pumped money into creating their own "Silicon Valleys" in the late 90's. The market place and an open society has proved to be the most effective adaptive system for progress. It just berates some academics that it works better than if they were "controlling" it.

I am not one of those that thinks everything is evil concerning communism/socialism, as was brainwashed into most of the west over the last 60 years. But whilst it is a nice thought that people could all live happily together sharing equally in the fruits of society, it just doesn't work. And China has realized that, and done an about-face on communism, though retaining the undemocratic "State" in power. Communism in China is a joke. Its really just totalitarianism, with whatever system works best underneath, as long as it doesn't threaten those in power.

I believe a democratic, open society, with capitalistic underpinnings, a low safety net for those needing welfare, and a rock-solid constitution and independent judiciary and media are the best of a bad bunch of systems. Time is seemingly on my side here. I do think that government has a role to play as umpire, making sure corporations play by the rules, and protecting against cartels and monopolies. Also taking care of massive collective capital works beyond the scope of corporations as well as defense, and other infrastructure.

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+1

When looking at the USSR you have to look at the opportunity costs that were given up by not using a better economic system. It is not enough to look at the state the population was in before Lenin and point out a few military or space accomplishments.

If I remember right, the USSR was spending about 25% of its GDP on its military. When the USSR finally fell apart CIA analysts were shocked; they had grossly overestimated the size of the country's economy. Life epectancy for Russian males is like sixty years, and the population is declining.

The USSR was run into the ground. It took seventy years to do it, but slowly and surely it was done.

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"You are like the wind and I like the lion. You form the tempest. The sand stings my eyes and the ground is parched. I roar in defiance but you do not hear. But between us there is a difference. I, like the lion, must remain in my place. While you like the wind will never know yours." -- Mulay Hamid El Raisuli, Lord of the Riff, Sultan to the Berbers, Last of the Barbary Pirates

I think your a smart guy Carerra. Also obviously a communist sympathizer, which I don't hold against you. But I think you are using very weird news stories from America, and then assuming that this is normal life here. These news stories are typically aired because they are shocking and usually end up with a majority backlash. To profile the whole country from this paltry anecdotal evidence is fallacious and reeks of cherry-picking to make a point.

Yes there is hypocrisy in the US. Yes it isn't a perfect country. Yes, many of the people can be deluded for awhile. But overall, the mechanisms of free speech, democracy, separation of church and state, liberty, limited presidential reign, etc. keep the cart from falling too far off the tracks. Once these elements are subverted by those in power, the corrupted end-product is guaranteed, as we've seen throughout history, in other fallen nations.

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Well Communism hasn't failed - look at China!
It is still a Communist country and look at it's economic transformation : of course these guys were trading centuries ago and the entreprenurial spirit has always been in the Chinese psyche.

With regard to USSR : I've been fortunate enough to meet a lot of Russian people through business mostly and whenever we chat socially, I am very impressed with their knowledge and their intelligence.
You're correct, the soviet education system was superb.
Their work in the field of engineering, for example, is only matched by the Germans.
And the Russians too have a great entreprenurial talent too : look at how many new former soviet companies have sprung up and are looking to be quoted on FTSE, DOW etc.

I do agree with your point that Gorbachov was a very farsighted guy and he did want to have a more mixed economy.
Unfortunately because the USSR had relied for so long on a centrally planned economy that by the time he got to power any chance of altering the economy and preserving the political policy were doomed.

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.."But finally the last thing I’ll say to the people who don’t believe in cycling, the cynics and the sceptics. I'm sorry for you. I’m sorry that you can’t dream big. [I]I'm sorry you don't believe in miracles. You should believe in these athletes, and you should believe in these people. I'll be a fan of the Tour de France for as long as I live. And there are no secrets - this is a hard sporting event and hard work wins it" - Armstrong 2005 TDF
morelike hypocrisy.

That irritates those old cold war warriors to no end...

But seriously, I don't think neither Russia nor China ran true communism even during their revolutionary heydays. So much of that communism ideal depended on the individual being selfless. As it turn out, there's very few true selfless people on this planet. But being selfish worked in the capitalistic system.
Obviously insufficiently farsighted. In many way, I see him being somewhat naive. As for Yeltson, that was a joke.

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Morphed Bianchi Camaleonte IV 2006, Ridley Damocles 2006, Garmin, Mac

It's not so much I'm a communist sympathiser as I just figure the running of a country needs to be planned just as we plan bike rides every day. Nobody rides without a plan after all, so why do we have all these idealistic, out-of-touch politicians with law degrees running countries? What genuine understanding does someone such as Blair have? He's a lawyer who's been trained to tell lies and make fiction sound like truth. As for Bush, he's somehow way up in the clouds and disconnected.
I suppose I may overdo the knocking of America routine a bit every so often but you should hear me get going on Europe too. To be honest, I'm far from happy about how Europe is being managed as well but will spare you all the details.
There is hope for the U.S., though, if Schwarzenegger gets in. I see him as being a good bet for sensible changes. He seems like he's got some understanding of politics and a common sense grasp of his profession as a public servant.

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"Everybody has a philosophy. However, what philosophy you have is a matter of choice, and most people don't make a conscious choice with regard to what philosophy they accept."

"To profile the whole country from this paltry anecdotal evidence is fallacious and reeks of cherry-picking to make a point."

There are lots of things about America I like: The people are polite and generally valued in Europe as tourists as they don't drink and shout in the streets as some Europeans do. The girls are attractive and bubbly in certain zones of the country. I do notice there's a huge wave of patriotism flowing since 9/11 as the terrorism incident caused a lot of shock and disbelief. I think Bush knew how to exploit such a situation and but now I see the pole ratings are going against him.
I think Schwarzenegger would be a far better option.

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"Everybody has a philosophy. However, what philosophy you have is a matter of choice, and most people don't make a conscious choice with regard to what philosophy they accept."

What part of today's China is communist? The fact that it is run by the Communist Party. China has privatised most of its state-owned industries, has thriving stock markets in Shanghai and Hong Kong, and has some of the world's richest businesspeople within it. As you said, China has a history of global trade before the communist takeover, and over the last 20 years has been slowly edging back towards a full market economy.

Lim, do you think that you were meeting a normal Russian when you conversed with your Russian international business connections? In any case, the USSR may have done really well in educating their children in math and engineering. It would have been a little easier for them because they wouldn't have learned much else about the outside world at school. Your points about the education system are missing the big point. The communist socio-economic system was/is a complete disaster. The people were probably really nice and smart, and the countryside was probably beautiful in summer, and there were probably some really cool rockets made, but the economic system was a down-spiralling lead-hulled sinking ship.
Entrepreneurial spirit and a system where everyone gets the same piece of the pie irrespective of risk or effort are mutually exclusive. You can't have your cake and eat it. Where was this entrepreneurial spirit in the 50's, 60's and 70's? ........Downtrodden.

Um ....Centrally planned economy is the central thesis of communism....Move political policy away from that and you are not a communist country aymore.

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Those aging Yank cold warriors will still call them communists.

The fact is, the communist party was able to rebuild the country from a weakling (in early 20th century) to that of a world power house. The fact that communism suited the early phase of country's development and was able to transition appropriately in recent decades is worth quite something.

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Morphed Bianchi Camaleonte IV 2006, Ridley Damocles 2006, Garmin, Mac