All Hail the People's Revolution in Nepal!

[Ramo]

*Shrug*

I have moral objections to a corporation too, but I'm willing to work in one.

I'm not one for abstract high-minded ideological masturbation when it comes to getting by.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Goingonit
If someone points a gun at you and says, "give me food and a place to hide", what do you do?

Well, in theory that seems like a way for an armed group to survive in the face of popular hostility. In reality it doesn't work that way. If you're hiding, then you don't have an effective way of keeping people from ratting you out. The only way you can be secure is if the locals are on your side. That's how successful guerillas operate. Unsuccessful guerilla groups do what you suggest, and they get destroyed when those they prey upon help the government find and destroy them (unless those groups are getting outside help).

[Imran Siddiqui]

All Hail the Counter-Revolution in Nepal!!

[chequita guevara]

Quiet, you!

[Imran Siddiqui]

Help, Help, I'm being repressed!

[chequita guevara]

And so Imran went back to dreaming his dreamy dream, unware of what dangers where about, for in the next room lurked the Insideous International Chinese Communist Conspiracy.

We'll use this set of teeth to represent countries. Communism is like a cavity, and when one goes, they all go. This is known as the dominao theory. That's why nine out of ten countries chose American brand foreign policy. Or new Crealm toothpaste!

[Imran Siddiqui]

Ah Crealm toothpaste... it'll stop those commies dead in their tracks!

Only good commie is a dead commie .

[Adam Smith]

Pass the Crealm Toothpaste, Please

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
And so Imran went back to dreaming his dreamy dream, unware of what dangers where about, for in the next room lurked the Insideous International Chinese Communist Conspiracy.

We'll use this set of teeth to represent countries. Communism is like a cavity, and when one goes, they all go. This is known as the dominao theory. That's why nine out of ten countries chose American brand foreign policy. Or new Crealm toothpaste!

Originally posted by Adam Smith
A BBC correspondent, interveiwing one of the Maoist rebel leaders reported that:

He said the current ceasefire between Nepali Government forces and the rebels was not an obstacle to the Maoists' intention to take over the entire country.

Indeed he said this would just be a precursor to spreading the Maoist movement throughout the world.

When I accused Comrade Sizal of being slightly over-ambitious, he countered that this was a movement on the move.

[Arrian]

Though the domino theory got out of hand, it did have a basis in fact, as well-presented by Adam Smith above. After all, just about any communist movement I've heard of has stated worldwide revolution ("workers of the world unite!") as a goal.

One of my professors, in explaining the Cold War domino mentality in the US gov't, put it thus: you see, if you let Vietnam fall, then it will be Indonesia (wild eyes now), and then Australia (practically frothing at the mouth) and then... and then... OREGON!

So ya gotta stop those reds! By any means necessary! Ah, there's the rub. And so you slide down the slope to undeclared wars, CIA coups, financial and military aid to bloodthirsty despots, etc.

-Arrian

[chequita guevara]

The Domino Theory is rather valid, but not exactly the way it was formulated. Successful revolutions in one country often inpsire people in other countries (not necessarily nieghboring ones) to take up their own struggle for freedom. So, when Vietnam successfully tossed out the Americans, there were revolutions in Cambodia, Laos, Portugal, Mozabique, Angola, Ethiopia, etc. which in turn sponsored successful revolutions in Grenada, Nicaragua, and Iran, which in turn, spawned more revolutions. (That last wave of revolutions met up with the heavy hand of Ronald Reagan.) Then there were the Velvet Revolutions.

Freedom is a virus. If one group of people catch it, it tends to spread.

[Arrian]

"Freedom is a virus" As if communism was freedom! Che, you kill me.

-Arrian

[chequita guevara]

Freedom from want is a freedom. Freedom from homelessness, from unemployment, from not being able to get medical attention.

Sure, the so-called Communist countries weren't real good at delivering on the freedoms we in the West take for granted, but they were under a state of seige, which tends to cause states to act paranoid and repressive.

Anyway, it doesn't matter so much what the states became. It matters what people thought they were creating when they overthrew their former masters. If the people of Nicaragua can overthrown Somoza, then the people of El Salvador can overthrow the junta, and so on.

[lord of the mark]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Nuts, server ate my response.

SnowFire, Karl Marx said that communism was the extension of democracy into every sphere of life.

Quoting Marx on what Communism represents is anachronistic. While Marx and Engels did use the term "communist", by the time of the second(?) international the term socialist or social democrat was preferred by Marxists. Communism was revived as a term by the Leninists, and since 1917 is used in English to refer to the ideology of Lenin and his followers.

It would be correct to say that socialism is the extension of democracy into every sphere of life. It is consistent with that to acknowledge that Lenin's "democratic centralism" involves the extension of dictatorship into every sphere of life.

And if you think that Soviet oppression began under Stalin, you have a lot of learning to do. I suggest starting with the Gulag Archipelago.

LOTM

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
The Domino Theory is rather valid, but not exactly the way it was formulated. Successful revolutions in one country often inpsire people in other countries (not necessarily nieghboring ones) to take up their own struggle for freedom. So, when Vietnam successfully tossed out the Americans, there were revolutions in Cambodia, Laos, Portugal, Mozabique, Angola, Ethiopia, etc. which in turn sponsored successful revolutions in Grenada, Nicaragua, and Iran, which in turn, spawned more revolutions. (That last wave of revolutions met up with the heavy hand of Ronald Reagan.) Then there were the Velvet Revolutions.

Freedom is a virus. If one group of people catch it, it tends to spread.

Actually Cambodia fell before South VietNam. Laos had massive NVA intervention. Portugals revolution came precisely because the govt was mired in Angola and Mozambique. Portugal eventually avoided the Communist danger and made it to freedom. Something Angola and Mozambique are still in the process of doing. As is Ethiopia, once it overthrew the dictatorship that came to power in the '70's. Nicaragua has become a free democratic state, in which the Sandinistas have to compete, and usually lose , AFAIK.

LOTM

[chequita guevara]

That may be partially true, but the 2nd International also abandoned Marxism at the start of WWI when the various parties voted for war credits.

LotM, I suggest you aren't in a position to teach me much about the USSR, especially on the basis of Solzhenitsyn.