Yes, but the standard of living is higher in China. And more than that, the cost of living is considerably lower than China than in America for example.

And furthermore, China is a fucking disaster state that is about as communist today as America.

China is not at all close to a "true" communist nation because it as entirely abandoned Marxist economics and did so in the early 80s.

Cuba is probably the closest to a communist state at the mo, and it's finally started the economic diversification that Che Guevara advocated in the 1960s since the wall of the Soviet Union, as Russia used to buy shitloads of sugar from them at an inflated price, and also in exchange for oil and so forth. I'd suggest Cuba today is a better place in general than at any time since the 60s actually. And as for Cuba, I'm not even convinced that much will neccessarily change with Fidel dies. Or even Raul. They learnt from the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, and made sure that the youth got promotion opportunities, which did not happen in post-Kruschev USSR, and so the next generation of Cuban leaders are on the whole invested in the regime. It may change, but it will most likely still be socialist on the whole after the Castro brothers are dead, I mean most of Latin America has socialist leaders in some shape outwith Mexico and Colombia, Kirchner in Argentina, Lula in Brazil, Chavez in Venezula, Evo Morales in Bolivia, Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua. You also cannot ignore the patriotic and nationalist strength of the Cuban government. The revolution was the first moment that Cuba was truely independent, for a while at least, and the regime is firmly attached to nationalist icons like Marti. Originally under Spanish dominance, and then controlled by America like Puerto Rico after the 1898 war with Spain, and then dominated by US industrial interests, Cuba today has a fair (and justified) anger towards the USA and it's not really likely to stop wanting to put two fingers up at you. Alot of the Cuban exiles in America favour Cuba becoming effectively annexed by America, and there is no way that would be tolerated by the majority of people still on the island.

And son, history tells us that ultimately people have been quite tolerant of dictatorships, I mean human civilisation is accepted as having risen about 5-6000 years ago, and democracy, aside from a brief spell in Athens which was certainly not democracy in a form you would recognise today, didn't come into the scene until about 250 years ago. And even then not in every country. The idea that democracy is the natural state of governance is just blinkered by circumstance, the idea that what we have today is right because we have it today.

And today's US political situation still carries the burden of this irrational fear of all things socialist - the throwing around of completely misappropriated -isms and evocations of Soviet society and other communist tropes. And somehow it is being wielded as a defence against "progress". Because apparently everything in America at the time of the constitution, was some Promised Land that has only been perverted by ideas such as abolishing slavery, and trying to put even basic regulation around ownership of firearms...

It's half the people looking forward, the other half looking back like Janus, and they're pulling in different directions, and so nothing goes anywhere. I'm a big proponent of change. Why not try something new? Ultimately, nobody really knows what's going to happen, rather there be some movement forward in pursuit of improvement, than shrinking back to minimise the risk of failure. And if it fails, you keep moving until you get it right.

I think this applies culturally as well. People always think of classical music, your Beethovens and your Mozarts, as being some immutable pure creation, so perfectly realised as to border on the divine. People always think of classical Greek and Roman architecture as being so much more real, more perfectly conceived. People think of the renaissance painters, and so on, as if they were magical perfect beings with a perfect insight into form, composition and expression. So people think of the Founding Fathers of the USA as being tasked by God directly, to create this perfect nation that was only perfect in its conception, and that ever since it has been poisoned and twisted and defiled. Given the number of amendments made, over half of them having been enacted by the 20th Century, it seems clear to any rational mind that improvements can be made, and in fact should be made, continuously, as an ongoing progressive process. Yet to hear the far right talk about it, the constitution and its second amendment may as well be the stone tablets Moses carried down the mountain.

And to hear them tell it, it might as well just say "No taxes. Keep your guns."

Edited by user 29 October 2010 02:00:28(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

I still don't believe in any possible way of thriving under a totalitarian regime, but w/e. I'm just happy to express my opinions and see the opposing views on mine to put a better perspective on my own as well as enjoying a conversation about it.

But, I'd rather prefer to get back onto my original topic.

I know that a balance between liberalism and conservatism makes a thriving democratic nation, but lately, i've just been wanting to line up all of the republican in one line and shoot them all straight through.

It's so funny watching them mock the ruling party that rightfully won that honor because of the republicans' stupidity to have had Bush. And fuck all the republicans who say they didn't support Bush, because almost all of them said so, so they could've done something about their presidential nominee in 2004. Even Glenn Beck (fuck, i know, he's awful but I was at a friend's house and his dad is like a shi-ot red) hates Bush. He was talking about which party we should elect these next coming days. He had a clip of Obama for the democratic party choice, and FUCKIN REAGAN FOR THE REPUBLICAN CHOICE!!!!! Why not Palin? Why not Bush? Why not Cheney? Why not Rumsfeld? Why not McCain? Why not Rice? WHY NOT SOMEBODY WHO IS FUCKIN RELEVANT!!!! Of course, the answer is because everybody, even the most conservative asshole on fox news hated the bush administration, and now, just because two years, not even, passed by since Bush left office, they can all of the sudden act so mighty and righteous towards the democrats?

hmm, that's weird, cuz i don't see Ancient Rome, Ancient Egypt, Sparta, Persia, or Colonial Spain still in existance......

well, the democratic system I believe will succeed beyond the failed empires because its citizens don't base lives around a certain religion and fight other nearby empires simply because they argue over perhaps the smallest principle of life. Democratic systems are free from the social classes based on cultural backgrounds, which is the entire reason for their existance, and the citizens are more motivated to thrive if the conditions of their life are fair, rather than forced.