[rangerone314]

Lets see. China endured the Long March under Mao and with Soviet support and is now a valued memebr of the rational community of nations.

Afghanistan on the other hand is a psych ward of unwashed, pyjama clad [edit: aid dependant, refugee infested, fundamentalist] buffoons.

Yeah. I can see how smart your reading of history is. Keep it up.

Sept 11 was a walk in the park compared to the venom with which the CIA funded Mujaheddin (now the Jihad freakos tearing Pakistan apart) went at the Afghan Socialists and their Soviet comrades. Najibullah, the socialist leader, was strung up and hung, then cut down disembowelled and finally hacked to pieces. Bit excessive, huh

Socialists across Afghanistan experienced the most brutal forms of attack as these barbaric elitists sought to impose their addled notion of privilege on the largely stupified populace.
Google Afghan "Socialism in the 80's" and learn a lesson or two.

And that probably had nothing to do with the shooting of Afghan livestock, carpetbombing of villages and farms, the poisoning of wells, the clusterbombs & other shiny munitions designed to blow the hands off of children, or the million or so civilians that died.

Afghanistan is not real country, it is an artificial entity drawn on a map of tribal areas by Brits eager to keep the Russians as far from British India as they could. The Soviets poked their noses into Afghanistan to support their communist clients and got a bloody nose.

The socialists in Kabul were the elitists trying to impose THEIR way on the country.

Since you had difficulty reading what *I* posted:
Afghanistan is not real country, it is an artificial entity drawn on a map of tribal areas by Brits eager to keep the Russians as far from British India as they could. The Soviets poked their noses into Afghanistan to support their communist clients and got a bloody nose.

No doubt the Afghans run around in pyjamas today because the Soviets decended like angels from heaven to help them.

China has been a country for many centuries and has ALWAYS endured. It is even surviving communism. Their success and being a valuable member of the rational world has something to do with abandoning isolationalism. (and Marxism)

[americandream]

I could not care a whit for your interpretation of history.

Afghanistan is as much a figment of history as is America or any other recent invention. The fact of the matter is the Afghans threw out the narrow elites who ruled that particular piece of earthly territory and America consequently conspired to remove its progressive and popular movement for change by first inventing and then foisting the barbarian jihadists on those progressive forces. What you choose to believe does not alter the historical fact that America bit off more than it could chew in allying with Islamic fundamentalism and you now get the fiasco of your elites at war with these former allies, with your tax revenues, whilst you poor slobs fester in unemployment and chrconic debt back home.

China's prowess as a country owes itself in large part to the eforts of Mao and its Soviet allies in instilling a sense of modernity in what was an otherwise fragmented and indisciplined nation, at the time. If it weren't for the command structure of Chinese government, many of these achievements would have not have been as swift in the realisation.

It sometimes takes revolutionary drive to achieve progressive change of that magnitude in socieites otherwise bogged down by superstition, poverty and backwardness. Of course, the American Revolutionary wars are a dream and Britain graciously handed the country to its raggedy band of cast-offs.

Lets see. China endured the Long March under Mao and with Soviet support and is now a valued memebr of the rational community of nations.

Afghanistan on the other hand is a psych ward of unwashed, pyjama clad [edit: aid dependant, refugee infested, fundamentalist] buffoons.

Yeah. I can see how smart your reading of history is. Keep it up.

Sept 11 was a walk in the park compared to the venom with which the CIA funded Mujaheddin (now the Jihad freakos tearing Pakistan apart) went at the Afghan Socialists and their Soviet comrades. Najibullah, the socialist leader, was strung up and hung, then cut down disembowelled and finally hacked to pieces. Bit excessive, huh

Socialists across Afghanistan experienced the most brutal forms of attack as these barbaric elitists sought to impose their addled notion of privilege on the largely stupified populace.
Google Afghan "Socialism in the 80's" and learn a lesson or two.

And that probably had nothing to do with the shooting of Afghan livestock, carpetbombing of villages and farms, the poisoning of wells, the clusterbombs & other shiny munitions designed to blow the hands off of children, or the million or so civilians that died.

Afghanistan is not real country, it is an artificial entity drawn on a map of tribal areas by Brits eager to keep the Russians as far from British India as they could. The Soviets poked their noses into Afghanistan to support their communist clients and got a bloody nose.

The socialists in Kabul were the elitists trying to impose THEIR way on the country.

Since you had difficulty reading what *I* posted:
Afghanistan is not real country, it is an artificial entity drawn on a map of tribal areas by Brits eager to keep the Russians as far from British India as they could. The Soviets poked their noses into Afghanistan to support their communist clients and got a bloody nose.

No doubt the Afghans run around in pyjamas today because the Soviets decended like angels from heaven to help them.

China has been a country for many centuries and has ALWAYS endured. It is even surviving communism. Their success and being a valuable member of the rational world has something to do with abandoning isolationalism. (and Marxism)

[evgeny]

Taghaye

I am sorry to burst your bubble but the primitive muslim mind would simply not grasp the fundamentals of complex capitalist forms and its substance. Lets be blunt here.

Iran resides in a pre-capitalist feudalism and has yet to make the transition to the next stage of that development.

Russia on the other hand attempted to pole vault to mature socialism and failed.

Both are grappling with the complexities of making the transition to capital and have no choice but to turn to the US for the lead.

The failed bourse is only one example of Iran's socio-economic immaturity. The list is endless but a society successfully transitioning to fully integrated captalism which is what Japan, Germany and France are in the process of concluding, with China and India embarking on that road, is distinguishable by the emergence of complex financial markets.

Memphis: A War Zone That Even Iraqi Vets Are Afraid To Come Home To
By Tal Sutsa

Memphis—or Memfrica, as we call it—is a city where all that is fucked up about America is taken to the extreme. I recently fled this festering dung heap of a ghetto for Russia, where I’ll be getting educated and properly laid, and the more I think back to my hometown, the more I realize how truly screwed we are as a nation. I talk to people around here a lot about how ugly and sexless Stateside women are and mock the proud slave mindset of working class middle America. I tell them about how we have more prisoners than authoritarian China could ever dream off, with about a fifth of the globe”s prison population. Sometimes, I start to wonder though. Am I the crazy one because I think America sucks ass? This is home, after all.

http://exiledonline.com/memphis-a-war-zone-that-even-iraqi-vets-are-afraid-to-come-home-to/

[rangerone314]

Afghanistan MORE a figment of history than America or any other recent invention.

There actually IS an American people (for the most part).

There is not really such a thing as an Afghan people. There are Pashtuns, Tadziks etc. The people's loyalty is pretty exclusively tied to their tribe, not their "country". If that was not the case, Afghanistan would be more easily "ruled".

This is not historical "interpretation". This is a fact .

There have been a lot of Marxist-oriented countries with strong command structures. Apart from China (and I'm not so sure about China), I'm not sure I'd want to live in most of them (North Korea comes to mind).

And none of China's recent progress has anything to do with American and western investment & expertise or successful imitation (like Japan did in 60s/70s)?

For the country that invented paper, the compass and gunpowder centuries before Marxism, you are giving that ilk and philosophy a lot of credit where only some is due.

It is ironic you make the same mistake of "success attribution due to ideology" that market capitalists make in proclaming why America has been so successful. (As if vast natural resources, militarily weak native indigenous population, favorable international economic system, and being the only industrialized country left intact after WWII had nothing to do with it)

[americandream]

OK...very simple explanation here seeing as you are evidently challenged by the obvious.

Ask yourself who is it that funded the transformation, a mere 30 years ago, of bare Chinese dirt run by agrarian Maoists standing in nothing but their Mao suits, into a top notch global factory. Then observe the casualisation of US manufacturing labour, once paid profit sapping premium wages, as those jobs migrate Eastward to the Chinese factory with its massive labour discount. Finally, ask yourself, who is drawing down on the profits from this Chinese factory. Oh yes, whilst we are discussing dividends, lets not forget that large pools of Western money have transplanted themselves to places like Shangai.

It shoud be obvious to someone with your ability that something does not add up un this equation? It's not rocket science you know.

Afghanistan MORE a figment of history than America or any other recent invention.

There actually IS an American people (for the most part).

There is not really such a thing as an Afghan people. There are Pashtuns, Tadziks etc. The people's loyalty is pretty exclusively tied to their tribe, not their "country". If that was not the case, Afghanistan would be more easily "ruled".

This is not historical "interpretation". This is a fact .

There have been a lot of Marxist-oriented countries with strong command structures. Apart from China (and I'm not so sure about China), I'm not sure I'd want to live in most of them (North Korea comes to mind).

And none of China's recent progress has anything to do with American and western investment & expertise or successful imitation (like Japan did in 60s/70s)?

For the country that invented paper, the compass and gunpowder centuries before Marxism, you are giving that ilk and philosophy a lot of credit where only some is due.

It is ironic you make the same mistake of "success attribution due to ideology" that market capitalists make in proclaming why America has been so successful. (As if vast natural resources, militarily weak native indigenous population, favorable international economic system, and being the only industrialized country left intact after WWII had nothing to do with it)

[rangerone314]

OK...very simple explanation here seeing as you are evidently challenged by the obvious.

Ask yourself who is it that funded the transformation, a mere 30 years ago, of bare Chinese dirt run by agrarian Maoists standing in nothing but their Mao suits, into a top notch global factory. Then observe the casualisation of US manufacturing labour, once paid profit sapping premium wages, as those jobs migrate Eastward to the Chinese factory with its massive labour discount. Finally, ask yourself, who is drawing down on the profits from this Chinese factory. Oh yes, whilst we are discussing dividends, lets not forget that large pools of Western money have transplanted themselves to places like Shangai.

It shoud be obvious to someone with your ability that something does not add up un this equation? It's not rocket science you know.

The USSR underwent a similar transformation, going from a nation of peasants, to a country with huge steel and industrial output. And the USSR still had a crappy economy to boot, characterized by a poor trucking system that badly distributed agricultural products, poor consumer goods production, a large black market, and corruption.

The major difference was the economic rapprochment between US and China. The USSR never benefited to the same extent from a cheap labor pool to be utilized by the west or large pools of western money.

Even during the latter part of the Cold War, we were friendlier to China than to USSR.

I wouldn't not dispute with you that the Chinese seem to be better long-term strategists than the Russians or have made better decisions, but is more cultural than ideological. I think culture has been a more important factor in a society's success than ideology. That is one reason why different cultures attempting to employ the same ideology get different results.

[americandream]

You are missing my point. I am not discussing the cultural abilities or adaptabalities of this or that group.

My premise has been that China is the preferred investment vehicle for global capital, that its so called sovereign development is in fact a front for global capital and that all the surrounding issues we find such as the labour pauperisation in the US and elsewhere, the preferential treatment accorded China in securing access to world comodities (Iraqi oil for example), the blind eye that the US apparently turns to China's commercial ascendency; all belie the fact that China is a front for global capital.

It unnecessarily muddies the water to argue that the Maoist's opportunistic sharing of a bed with capital (and its penchant for profit by any means) is a cultural ability in contrast to say the ex-USSR's ambivalent engagement to date. As you can see in my paraphrasing of your reasoning, it is absurd.

There are a whole raft of reasons why one country of a similar ilk may choose to fully engage with the West whilst another chooses not to. In the ME we have examples in Saudi, a close ally of the US in contrast with Libya. Both trade with the US. The degree of engagement varies however for political reasons beyond the scope of this discussion. So do the economic consequences.

[evgeny]

On Wednesday at the Reception Hall on Vozdvizhenka Vladimir Putin hosted German businessmen. It later said the chairman of the Eastern Committee of Germany's economy Klaus Mangold, the negotiations with Russia's Prime Minister flew most representative business delegation that has ever traveled abroad together. The Germans, of course, very warmly relate to Putin for the fact that he is fluent in their native language, but they come from a purely pragmatic reasons, this really is a nation ...

- The privatization program, which was announced by the Government a few weeks ago, provides important new opportunities for cooperation between Russia and Germany - confessed to Putin Klaus Mangold.

During the crisis the government had to buy bundles of loss-making enterprises, to save them from bankruptcy. But now comes the time when the plants, banks, factories will need to be given to private hands. It turns out that German businessmen are not even buy himself against Russia's business and earn a restoration of our developing economy.

To be a profitable proposal by all parties, Mangold said that in return Russia will receive new technology.

Vladimir Putin was very friendly with businessmen, joking and smiling like old friends.

- Even in the crisis year of Russo-German trade has not declined. Moreover, and I was very surprised - said the prime minister - from January to April the volume of German investments grew by 36%!

It turns out that none of the 6 thousand German companies operating in Russia, not closed because of the crisis. The Prime Minister noted that this has happened, in particular, due to the fact that our countries have long-standing relationship and excellent understanding.

- The work of German business in Russia is very active, and sometimes it seems that we do not need you, - said Putin and withstood a long pause. - I mean the administrative resources - cleared the air, and Putin himself razulybalsya, and even the Germans decided to laugh.

Klaus Mangold said that the country "has every chance of cooperation to overcome the crisis and the need to continue cooperation in the energy sector, in particular, and further expand the network of gas pipelines.

Putin said that the country has a major joint projects - for example, on Tuesday by Prime personally opened a factory Volkswagen in Kaluga.

- And this leads to the creation of additional jobs, as we do, and in Germany. And this is important in a crisis, which we all experience, - said Putin. - The fall in GDP in Russia will be noticeable, but probably not as dramatic as we thought at the beginning of the year.

The negotiations were held for several hours, and the Germans were very satisfied with their result.

- We agreed to discuss a long list of 5,5 thousand companies that require upgrading in the context of privatization, - shared joy Klaus Mangold. - It is about the automotive industry. On privatization, we are sharp discussion. Germany wants to support, but not in a form that is present now (credit and lending. - Ed.), And in the form of acquisitions.

[americandream]

My long term prognosis for Russia is that, like China, it will be a useful low wage investment and manufacturing hub. Russians also have exceptional skills at developing trading platforms and technology so I also see Moscow becoming a sort of trading server for global trading. Germany is headed for service status like the US. New technology, cleantech, etc etc, development. It will migrate it's heavy industries out of the West EU high wage zone into the East EU, Eastern Europe and Asia. There are huge profits yet to be made. I have heard rumours that there are moves afoot to popularise digital trading with the masses. There will be a brave new world of undreamt of profits to be made by an astute few. The majority as usual will be fleeced.

On Wednesday at the Reception Hall on Vozdvizhenka Vladimir Putin hosted German businessmen. It later said the chairman of the Eastern Committee of Germany's economy Klaus Mangold, the negotiations with Russia's Prime Minister flew most representative business delegation that has ever traveled abroad together. The Germans, of course, very warmly relate to Putin for the fact that he is fluent in their native language, but they come from a purely pragmatic reasons, this really is a nation ...

- The privatization program, which was announced by the Government a few weeks ago, provides important new opportunities for cooperation between Russia and Germany - confessed to Putin Klaus Mangold.

During the crisis the government had to buy bundles of loss-making enterprises, to save them from bankruptcy. But now comes the time when the plants, banks, factories will need to be given to private hands. It turns out that German businessmen are not even buy himself against Russia's business and earn a restoration of our developing economy.

To be a profitable proposal by all parties, Mangold said that in return Russia will receive new technology.

Vladimir Putin was very friendly with businessmen, joking and smiling like old friends.

- Even in the crisis year of Russo-German trade has not declined. Moreover, and I was very surprised - said the prime minister - from January to April the volume of German investments grew by 36%!

It turns out that none of the 6 thousand German companies operating in Russia, not closed because of the crisis. The Prime Minister noted that this has happened, in particular, due to the fact that our countries have long-standing relationship and excellent understanding.

- The work of German business in Russia is very active, and sometimes it seems that we do not need you, - said Putin and withstood a long pause. - I mean the administrative resources - cleared the air, and Putin himself razulybalsya, and even the Germans decided to laugh.

Klaus Mangold said that the country "has every chance of cooperation to overcome the crisis and the need to continue cooperation in the energy sector, in particular, and further expand the network of gas pipelines.

Putin said that the country has a major joint projects - for example, on Tuesday by Prime personally opened a factory Volkswagen in Kaluga.

- And this leads to the creation of additional jobs, as we do, and in Germany. And this is important in a crisis, which we all experience, - said Putin. - The fall in GDP in Russia will be noticeable, but probably not as dramatic as we thought at the beginning of the year.

The negotiations were held for several hours, and the Germans were very satisfied with their result.

- We agreed to discuss a long list of 5,5 thousand companies that require upgrading in the context of privatization, - shared joy Klaus Mangold. - It is about the automotive industry. On privatization, we are sharp discussion. Germany wants to support, but not in a form that is present now (credit and lending. - Ed.), And in the form of acquisitions.

[evgeny]

Taghaye

I am sorry to burst your bubble but the primitive muslim mind would simply not grasp the fundamentals of complex capitalist forms and its substance. Lets be blunt here.

Iran resides in a pre-capitalist feudalism and has yet to make the transition to the next stage of that development.

Russia on the other hand attempted to pole vault to mature socialism and failed.

Both are grappling with the complexities of making the transition to capital and have no choice but to turn to the US for the lead.

The failed bourse is only one example of Iran's socio-economic immaturity. The list is endless but a society successfully transitioning to fully integrated captalism which is what Japan, Germany and France are in the process of concluding, with China and India embarking on that road, is distinguishable by the emergence of complex financial markets.

Nobody is interested in the America, U.S. would turn into "ass of geography"
In the future, everything will have settled in Eurasia and in the Asian part.

For the development of production and capitalism we need huge capital, coming from or easily earned, for example, the sale of slaves and the plunder of the colonies. We need a super-cheap labor, not objecting to use. WE need open markets.
Model of capitalism, which emerged in 16-17 centuries, has exhausted itself. In 1990 Russia jumped in the last car of a train, this train coming down the slope. Indeed, neither slaves nor colonies or markets for expansion is left ...
So, we again face a challenge: to understand how to reform capitalism, instilling in him the best of socialism. Probably only 2 country capable to do this: China or Russia they have experience with both systems.

[rangerone314]

Taghaye

I am sorry to burst your bubble but the primitive muslim mind would simply not grasp the fundamentals of complex capitalist forms and its substance. Lets be blunt here.

Iran resides in a pre-capitalist feudalism and has yet to make the transition to the next stage of that development.

Russia on the other hand attempted to pole vault to mature socialism and failed.

Both are grappling with the complexities of making the transition to capital and have no choice but to turn to the US for the lead.

The failed bourse is only one example of Iran's socio-economic immaturity. The list is endless but a society successfully transitioning to fully integrated captalism which is what Japan, Germany and France are in the process of concluding, with China and India embarking on that road, is distinguishable by the emergence of complex financial markets.

Nobody is interested in the America, U.S. would turn into "ass of geography"
In the future, everything will have settled in Eurasia and in the Asian part.

Crudely put, but accurate nonetheless.

I believe Mackinder would have describe it more clinically as Americans being victims of geography (ie being on the Outer Crescent geographically, like South America, Africa, Southeast Asia and Australia)

[americandream]

The US and UK outwitted the architects of socialism in both the USSR and China. Both in undercover intrigue and propaganda. It's evident. You actually believe this "sovereign" China and Russia bs.!!

Taghaye

I am sorry to burst your bubble but the primitive muslim mind would simply not grasp the fundamentals of complex capitalist forms and its substance. Lets be blunt here.

Iran resides in a pre-capitalist feudalism and has yet to make the transition to the next stage of that development.

Russia on the other hand attempted to pole vault to mature socialism and failed.

Both are grappling with the complexities of making the transition to capital and have no choice but to turn to the US for the lead.

The failed bourse is only one example of Iran's socio-economic immaturity. The list is endless but a society successfully transitioning to fully integrated captalism which is what Japan, Germany and France are in the process of concluding, with China and India embarking on that road, is distinguishable by the emergence of complex financial markets.

Nobody is interested in the America, U.S. would turn into "ass of geography"
In the future, everything will have settled in Eurasia and in the Asian part.

For the development of production and capitalism we need huge capital, coming from or easily earned, for example, the sale of slaves and the plunder of the colonies. We need a super-cheap labor, not objecting to use. WE need open markets.
Model of capitalism, which emerged in 16-17 centuries, has exhausted itself. In 1990 Russia jumped in the last car of a train, this train coming down the slope. Indeed, neither slaves nor colonies or markets for expansion is left ...
So, we again face a challenge: to understand how to reform capitalism, instilling in him the best of socialism. Probably only 2 country capable to do this: China or Russia they have experience with both systems.

[dissident]

If Russia was not sovereign you would not have Cold War Part II being blasted from the NATO MSM. There was a gap in the 1990s were Khodorkovsky, Berezovsky, Gusinsky and other oligarchs were doing the standard banana republic routine but thanks to "Stalin re-incarnate" Putin these maggots got slapped down. Other oligarchs who decided to remain loyal to the country instead of licking foreign colonialist boots have done quite well in the last 10 years. Anglosphere propaganda was only effective when it had a real latch onto problems in the USSR. Neither the USSR nor these latch points exist anymore (MSM wishful thinking and comical analysis notwithstanding).

I also think you dismiss China way too easily. It has taken advantage of western greed and imported the west's manufacturing base. Profits can keep flowing to the west and keep the western oligarchs happy but at the end of the day there is a net benefit for China. China's only failure is to be caught in an obsolete fossil fuel driven economic paradigm. But then the rest of the planet is in the same boat anyway.

[americandream]

The Soviet infrastructue is gone,and global capitalists are intent on divvying up the Russian Federation between the EU and China, both compliant stooges in the international order of money making. China was always intent on emulating the Japanese export driven model of development which was constrained into a state of compliant poodledom because of the nature of that model. I expect nothing more from the Chinese other than vacant posturing as the new Chinese elite push and shove for a slice of the action.

[evgeny]

The US and UK outwitted the architects of socialism in both the USSR and China. Both in undercover intrigue and propaganda. It's evident. You actually believe this "sovereign" China and Russia bs.!!

Increasing number of Eastern Europeans believe that under the Communists it was better ( "Rebelion", Spain)

The fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago marked the rise to power of democratic regimes in Eastern Europe and the disintegration of the Soviet Union. After two decades of East Europeans continue to support democracy, but with much less enthusiasm than in 1991.
These are some of the results of the study "The long-awaited end of communism, but with reservations", conducted by Pew Research Center in Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Lithuania, Russia, Bulgaria and Ukraine.


In general, all of the above countries, support the transition from socialism to democracy had declined, particularly in the Ukraine (from 72% in 1991 to 30% currently) in Bulgaria (from 76 to 52%), Lithuania (from 75 to 55% ) and Hungary (from 74 to 56%). In contrast, 85% of East Germans ( Majority of Eastern Germans Feel Life Better under Communism http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,634122,00.html), 80% of Czechs and Slovaks 71% expressed satisfaction with provedennnymi transformations.
With regard to the transition to capitalism, then traced the same trend. The most striking voices in support of this process declined in Hungary (from 80 to 46%), Lithuania (from 76 to 50%), Bulgaria (s73 to 53%) and Ukraine (from 52 to 36%). In other countries, the support of more than 60%, and among the inhabitants of the former GDR it reaches 82%.


On the other hand, the study also noted a growing nationalist sentiment among the citizens of Russia. Thus 58% agreed with the statement that "a great pity that the Soviet Union no longer exists", and 54% supported the slogan "Russia for the Russian" (in 1991 there were 26%), and 47% "consider it quite natural, that Russia should be an empire "(Twenty years ago there were 37%). Another of the key questions of the questionnaire developed by the American center, was an East European evaluation of its current life. The number of satisfied not exceeded 50%.

[rangerone314]

If Russia was not sovereign you would not have Cold War Part II being blasted from the NATO MSM. There was a gap in the 1990s were Khodorkovsky, Berezovsky, Gusinsky and other oligarchs were doing the standard banana republic routine but thanks to "Stalin re-incarnate" Putin these maggots got slapped down. Other oligarchs who decided to remain loyal to the country instead of licking foreign colonialist boots have done quite well in the last 10 years. Anglosphere propaganda was only effective when it had a real latch onto problems in the USSR. Neither the USSR nor these latch points exist anymore (MSM wishful thinking and comical analysis notwithstanding).

I also think you dismiss China way too easily. It has taken advantage of western greed and imported the west's manufacturing base. Profits can keep flowing to the west and keep the western oligarchs happy but at the end of the day there is a net benefit for China. China's only failure is to be caught in an obsolete fossil fuel driven economic paradigm. But then the rest of the planet is in the same boat anyway.

+1 good analysis

[rangerone314]

The US and UK outwitted the architects of socialism in both the USSR and China. Both in undercover intrigue and propaganda. It's evident. You actually believe this "sovereign" China and Russia bs.!!

Increasing number of Eastern Europeans believe that under the Communists it was better ( "Rebelion", Spain)
The fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago marked the rise to power of democratic regimes in Eastern Europe and the disintegration of the Soviet Union. After two decades of East Europeans continue to support democracy, but with much less enthusiasm than in 1991. --snip-- Another of the key questions of the questionnaire developed by the American center, was an East European evaluation of its current life. The number of satisfied not exceeded 50%.

I wonder if the West Germans or Japanese would be more than 50% content under communism... something tells me NOT. Its not the fittest that survive... but the most adaptable.

[bshirt]

China population 1.5 bl. prisoners 2 ml.
U.S population 350 ml. prisoners 2,5 ml.
• The US population accounts for approximately 5 percent
of the world population, but its prison population ac-
counts for 25 percent of the world total.
• The US incarceration rate is 3.4 times higher than that of
Iran and 6.3 times higher than that of China – both coun-
tries about whose ‘human rights record’ the imperialist
media (and their liberal hangers-on) bang on incessantly.

So very sad but so very true. This is disgusting to say the very least.

[rangerone314]

So very sad but so very true. This is disgusting to say the very least.

Alternate interpretation is that fewer Chinese (like Japanese) are criminals.

[bshirt]

So very sad but so very true. This is disgusting to say the very least.

Alternate interpretation is that fewer Chinese (like Japanese) are criminals.

Yes, I admit that is possible. But such a huge difference.....wow.....