The Everlasting CCCP !

[Pandemoniak]

Merry sunny demonstration to everyone !

[GeneralTacticus]

You mean those demonstrations against the war on Iraq? I saw one of them here on my way home from school yesterday. Apparently there were at least 100 000 people there - the biggest peace rally since Vietnam, at the very least. A big to everyone taking part, wherever they are.

[Pandemoniak]

Glad to see we can agree on something, GT. You're not totally insane after all.
Let the sun shine on you

[GeneralTacticus]

Being a capitalist doesn't force you to support military aggression and the murder of innocent civilians, Pan

[Pandemoniak]

Thats what all capitalists says, but when it comes to business, their crimes of war arent fewer than those of the USSR...

[GeneralTacticus]

Okay, let's examine the total Soviet body count: 20-30 million. Total US body count: 8-9 million, tops. I'd say you've been caught in a factual error there, Pan.

[Main_Brain]

Thou should add those who died because of your Embargos too...
and while we're at it lets add those who dies because US supported the 'other' side and those who died because US didnt save them..

[Cedayon]

Originally posted by Archaic
YEC = Young Earth Creationist.

Ohhhh, so that's what it means, k.

*imagines an Archaic v. YEC encounter*

YEC:
...
Archaic: ... ...
...
YEC: ... ...
...
Archaic: ... ...
...
YEC: ...
...
Archaic:
...
Both:
...
(further degeneration).

*shudders*

That must have been ugly

I once fought the YEC fight... that lasted about 2 days before I let the age thing go, then I fought the C fight for about a month... then the point-by-point refutation of 100-some-odd "scientific" arguments for my position, combined with the lack of any definitive scriptural backing, led me to just move on to more productive things.

But I don't want this thread to drift into something that's actually more inflammatory than where it's heading, so I'll just shut up now

[Maniac]

You have forgotten this smilie.

[Cedayon]

Originally posted by Maniac

You have forgotten this smilie.

That (and others) are implied in the "further degeneration" part... but that is worth pointing out

[GeneralTacticus]

Thou should add those who died because of your Embargos too...
and while we're at it lets add those who dies because US supported the 'other' side and those who died because US didnt save them..

Already included.

[Pandemoniak]

Originally posted by Pandemoniak
Thats what all capitalists says, but when it comes to business, their crimes of war arent fewer than those of the USSR...

Please note that I didnt specify US war crimes only, but all those made by capitalists for business. So we also have to count the eradication of the Human Beings (Amerindians) by the spanish, the slaughter of algerians by french, of indians by the english, of palestinians by the israeli, etc... etc... We should also count the victims of all the wars started by an imperialist capitalist system, etc... These are uncountable, and so are the USSR war crimes.
Moreover, I doubt that even if we can find a precise number for each, we can simply compare the horror of the two by comparing two numbers.
All I am saying is that the Soviet Union is not less humanitarian than the western "democracies". New ways to kill, to censor, to enslave, etc... Thats all.

[GeneralTacticus]

Spanish crimes against the Amerindians don't count, as they were precapitalist. Even is we indlude aboslutely everything else, we still don't get anywhere near the 20-30 million figure for the USSR, without even going into Mao and Pol Pot.

Of course, you're right that one can't compare two systems by examining their respective death tolls - by that standard, one would be better off living in Pol Pot's Cambodia than the USA, which is patently ridiculous. However... You must remember that I'm not particularly fond of the USA and the systems it imposed either, because they weren't a whole lot better than the Soviet ones (I'd much rather live in East Germany than Guatemala, for example), but there's nothing about capitalism which compels you to spray pesticides on the heads of peasants, just as there's nothing about communism that compels you to arrest people for complaining about the price of bread.

[Pandemoniak]

So we both agree on the fact that both systems have been corrupted by the murders they commited, I think.

But you said I was caught on a factual error, and I still dont think that. If you compare, like you did when comparing Guatemala and East Germany, the influence of these two blocks, you can see that one has nothing to envy to the other. Again, taking simple numbers wont solve anything to this question, but I think we have to consider the scale of the USSR block and the US block, which will show that you cannot deny that the war crimes of the two blocks are about the same by simply taking in account numbers. The question is IMHO much more complicated, and should encompass freedom of politic expression (think of the McCarhysm and the Stalinian Trials), censorship (censorship by deleting in the USSR, censorship by huge amount of uncheckable informations in the US block), etc...

I perfectly know you're not a supporter of the american system, but I wish to point that all the crimes that USSR and/or its satellites committed has also be committed by the USA and/or its satellites.

[GeneralTacticus]

Again, taking simple numbers wont solve anything to this question, but I think we have to consider the scale of the USSR block and the US block, which will show that you cannot deny that the war crimes of the two blocks are about the same by simply taking in account numbers.

Why not? Given that the US block contained far more of the world than the USSR's did, and they still killed less people, I don't know how you can make such a claim.

The question is IMHO much more complicated, and should encompass freedom of politic expression (think of the McCarhysm and the Stalinian Trials), censorship (censorship by deleting in the USSR, censorship by huge amount of uncheckable informations in the US block), etc...

The thing about political repression in both blocks was that it was far more overt and violent in the USSR than the US. In the US, people were never forbidden from mentioning something upon pain fo death - they might be studiously ignored if they mentinoed something inconvenient, but that didn't stop them fro speaking.

I perfectly know you're not a supporter of the american system, but I wish to point that all the crimes that USSR and/or its satellites committed has also be committed by the USA and/or its satellites.

The US, throughout it's whole bloody history, would be hard-pressed to find an example of barabarism committed by it or it's proxies to match Stalin's genocide in the Ukraine - and that was just one of many Soviet crimes. The Americans committed many crimes, but they enver managed to match the Soviets in their sheer scale.