Good riddance to bad rubbish - 15 years since USSR dissolved!

[Saras]

FREEDOM! Woohoo!

[Imran Siddiqui]

[Aro]

Hurrah, no more commies...

Now, instead, the mob. The separatists. Chechenia. Terrorism. Radioactive poison.
And last but not least, Putin.


Edited: And I think I made a mistake posting it here... Please, don't bash me!

[Ned]

Aro, I think Sara was more concerned about Lithuania's freedom than what is going on Russia.

In general, down with Imperialism!

[LordShiva]

Serb

[Eli]

[Aro]

Originally posted by Ned
Aro, I think Sara was more concerned about Lithuania's freedom than what is going on Russia.

In general, down with Imperialism!

Agreed, Ned... In general!

Seriously, get rid of oppression is always a good thing!

@ Lituania!

[Bosh]

On Lenin's grave

[LordShiva]

Lenin doesn't have a grave

[Bosh]

Originally posted by LordShiva
Lenin doesn't have a grave

on his very creepily-embalmed body in the masoleum then.

[Pekka]

Well, I think it was a good thing. It was one important factor why Finland went straight to recession that was devastating though.. we had lots of business with SU. Well we still do.

But for the Russian people, not living in satellite states.. don't know. Time will tell. A step needed to be made, was it handled well, I guess not. But how would one contain the situation around the collapse anyway? At least there weren't massive otubreaks of fighting. Quite peaceful.

Now, of course if the old style woudl have continued, communism, and assume the cold war would have died down, we'd still have a problem of very very centralized power system of one party, and that just creates and sustains the elite, and those are guaranteed grounds for corruption and therefore oppression of those who would be against it.

Woudl that be better? I don't think so, any modern country just can not go that route, at least not in that style.

Is it better now though? You'd have to ask from the common man, and opinions will be varying a lot. They would of course measure the change in terms of their own well being, stability etc.

Seems to me that there has been some form of hijacking of the power, because the government still uses lots of power, it projects it heavily. But at least there is some more variety in that stage. However you have a new form of elite, the super rich. Seems to me the common man is still left with not much to themselves. So that can't be good.

Who knows what to do.

[Cort Haus]

It's funny how people still celebrate the freedoms from the USSR at a time where freedoms in the west are being drained away.

Instead of free speech we have laws about hate speech.
Instead of freedom of travel we have increasingly shrill demands that travel is evil, and increasing levels of taxation on it.
Instead of freedom to choose in the market we have the arm-twisting of 'informed choice' and the fad for 'ethical consumerism'.

At least the Soviet Union gave us in the west something to be proud of wrt freedom. Now the bogey man has gone we seem to be surrendering those cherished freedoms too easily.

[Pekka]

CH, agreed. And every single time something new comes up, we bash the civil rights groups for it. I mean, when they go and argue against implenetating new rules of 'crap', they are actually defending all of our rights. I don't care, they don't have the power to do anything stupid, they only have the power to stop stupid things. Why should I be worried about what THEY do?

Also, every time, we go 'ohh.. well that's too bad. But let's remember we are still very free' blaa blaa blaa 'this is to price to pay for freedom' blaa blaa blaa.. it seems like an interesting concept where the price of freedom is to give it away.

[Nubclear]

Freedom
Freedom to starve
Freedom to be poisoned
Freedom to oppress others

[Aro]

Originally posted by Tassi
Freedom
Freedom to starve
Freedom to be poisoned
Freedom to oppress others

Speaking "in general", it's exactly my point...

@ Tassi