Communist Education?

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Most industries are competitive, where the profit on each unit is very small. Bigger companies make much more money (of course) because they can make more, but smaller companies can still compete.

For example, the pen industry has small profits and there ain't anything you can do about that.

Most industries are NOT competitive. In most industries at least 1 company has the power to make its price. Even in the pen industry there is a company that can make its price.

[GePap]

The pen industry is competative becuase you can't possibly monopolize it..a pen is a pan.you can't make a pen hat is substantially better, or cheaper either.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by GePap
The pen industry is competative becuase you can't possibly monopolize it..a pen is a pan.you can't make a pen hat is substantially better, or cheaper either.

You could monopolize it if it were legal. Still its not perfectly competative, because some of the producers can set their price.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Agathon
The CPA's list of future candidates for "re-education" gulags.

Ned
MrFun
Ogie

uh . . . . .

[Ned]

Originally posted by Ramo
I don't want to interrupt your hallucinations Ned, but Cambodia is a capitalist society nowadays. In fact, it's a [constitutional] monarchy.

Hah! Since when has anyone other than a communist government been in power?

[Ramo]

Geez you're ignorant. Ever since the Vietnamese withdrew from Cambodia 13 or so years ago, capitalists have been in power.

[Ned]

Ramo, one of us is wrong. Who is going to blink first and provide a link?

[joncha]

I'll do it.

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/cb.html

"multiparty democracy under a constitutional monarchy established in September 1993"

From the CIA, no less.

jon.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by JohnT

Looks like I'm gonna be lined up and just shot.

Just shot?

In your dreams....

You'll be sexually violated with a Josef Stalin bobblehead by an ex east german female shot putter for starters.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Hey Aggie:

Why do you leave me off the list of those who need to face commie re-education? are Canadians somehow exempt?

You're a Christian, you shouldn't find it too hard to do the right thing.

As for all the other moral cretins, well....

[Ned]

ELEANOR HALL: While counting is still continuing, a fairly clear picture is now emerging out of the results of Sunday's elections in Cambodia.

The ruling Cambodian People's Party, led by Prime Minister Hun Sen, will remain the Party of government, with around 52 per cent of the vote, but it may not have secured enough seats in Parliament to govern on its own, and the other leading parties are so far refusing to join it in coalition.

The royalist Funcinpec Party, which was the junior coalition party in the previous government, is refusing to commit to another partnership with the Peoples' Party, and the leaders of the Sam Rainsy Party, which appears to have won about 20 per cent of the vote, are refusing to be part of any administration in which Hun Sen is prime minister.

International election monitors though, say they're "reasonably satisfied" that the poll was free and fair and that there was far less intimidation and violence than during previous elections.

But as Hamish Robertson reports, not all observers of the Cambodian political scene are so upbeat, and some deny that Cambodia is actually a democracy in any meaningful sense.

HAMISH ROBERTSON: Despite the efforts of the United Nations and the international community, the attempts to encourage the growth of democracy in Cambodia over the past 10 years haven't inspired much confidence.

And although last Sunday's poll was the third election held in Cambodia since the 1991 Paris Peace Agreement, human rights agencies claim that even this one was held against a background of continuing abuses by the ruling Cambodian People's Party which, they say, is determined to hang onto power.

According to Human Rights Watch, intimidation and coercion remain widespread, especially in the countryside, with elections conducted in a climate of fear. Despite widespread public revulsion at the culture of corruption amongst government officials, many Cambodians are simply too frightened to vote against the ruling party, as well as lacking sufficient knowledge of the alternatives, since the ruling CPP has almost complete control of the media.

Brad Adams is Asia Director for Human Rights Watch, and knows Cambodia well, having worked for the United Nations Human Rights office in Phnom Penh between 1993 and 1998.

So was he convinced by the positive reaction from the international election monitors, who reported less violence and intimidation than in previous polls, and who claimed that there had been greater access to the media for opposition parties?

BRAD ADAMS: No, actually I think that's nonsense. The fact that there have been fewer killings is of course welcome, although one shouldn't congratulate the Cambodian Government for killing fewer people now than it has killed in the past, because it is of course the Cambodian Government that's been responsible for the violence both in the 1993 and 1998 elections.

As to access to the media, the opposition parties have had only formal access to the media, in the sense that they've all been given an equal amount of time in large blocks of time on State TV and radio. So if a voter wanted to learn about the opposition parties, they would get short glimpses of each party in some relation to the amount of seats there have in Parliament, but of course the CPP controls the newscasts and controls all the private stations, and in fact launched vicious attacks against the opposition during the campaign, when the opposition brought up things like the coup in 1997 and other violence.

And in terms of intimidation, we've seen virtually the exact same story as in 1993 and 1998, which is that at the village level the CPP has used its control of the population to threaten them that if they didn't vote the proper way that they would lose benefits, they would not get rice distributed, that there would be violence against them and their family.

So, you know, it's not right to say that things are better and that this represents a reasonable outcome.

HAMISH ROBERTSON: So have the election observers been duped?

Even though the European Union Election Observation Mission has employed what it calls "long term observers" to monitor the campaign as well as the election itself, is it possible that the Cambodian Government has carefully orchestrated events by toning down its policy of intimidation in order to present the best possible face to the outside world?

Well, according to Brad Adams, Cambodia is not a democracy in any meaningful sense, even though it does have periodic elections, because real democracies are based on the rule of law and an independent judiciary, and fundamental principles such as free speech and freedom of assembly. And he's not optimistic that there'll be international pressure to encourage a genuine democratic environment, in which real democracy will be allowed to flourish.

BRAD ADAMS: International law requires genuine and periodic elections. Cambodia has periodic elections, but it doesn't have genuine elections.

Cambodia still are quite vulnerable to international pressure, because more than 50 per cent of the Cambodian budget is financed by the international community. The economy of Cambodia would collapse if the international community took a strong line on these issues. But, actually, I don't expect much to change.

The international community has been content to walk away from Cambodia since the UN mission ended in 1993, and essentially as long as Cambodia doesn't have armed fighting and doesn't have armed clashes that threaten to spill into regional problems, the international community seems disinclined to interfere in Cambodia in the way that it has in other countries, where democracy has failed to take root. And so Cambodians are really left to their own devices, which is a very sad state of affairs because the Cambodian Government under Hun Sen rules by fear and by force.

ELEANOR HALL: Brad Adams from the Asia Division of Human Rights Watch speaking there to Hamish Robertson.

http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2003/s913605.htm

[Ramo]

1. The CPP is a social-democratic party.
2. I never disputed that Cambodia's politics are thuggish. That's unfortunately generally the case in extremely poor countries. This is an entirely different concept from communism.
3. The CPP per se isn't ruling. Cambodia requires a coalition to have a 2/3 majority to govern. The CPP has a majority but not a 2/3 majory, and none of the other parties are willing to form a coalition with it. Thus, there's a political deadlock.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Ahhh, I see another its not true communism counterarguement.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Agathon
The CPA's list of future candidates for "re-education" gulags.

Ned
MrFun
Ogie

Whip me, beat me, make me sleep with bad czechs.

[Arrian]

Awww. I didn't make the list. I'm so disappointed.

-Arrian