It should be possible to ungive the Noble Prize

[molly bloom]

Not only is the ANC run by crooks and tribalists, but they've been effectively propping up Mugabe too. If South Africa wanted it could have him gone tomorrow. But he is a fellow freedom fighter against colonialism! or some other such bull**** so he stays.

Are H.C. and veggie the same person ? Or is it just veggie's turn to borrow the uninformed rant about Southern Africa today ?

And no use of 'moron', '******', 'Islamo-fascism' by dear ol' veggie either. Perhaps H.C. is using those words even as I write.....

[molly bloom]

Having relatively harmless opinions on gay rights

You are a monumental d!ckhead.

"They have to know that they are a minority and adjust to smaller things, and not rise to the greatest heights," he told the private broadcaster TVN during a discussion of gay rights. "A minority should not impose itself on the majority"

Substitute 'black', 'Jew' or 'Roma' for gay and what you have is just good old-fashioned prejudice, not a contribution to social democracy. I fail to see how his views on a sexual minority in Poland distinguish him from racists in the Czech Republic or Slovakia or Hungary who want to discriminate against the Roma:

A few moments before, I had sounded out the opinions of the young policemen and women.

"In my experience, 70 or 80% of crimes are committed by Roma," said one. "So what do I say if I stop a man, in my routine police work, and he accuses me of picking on him because of his ethnic origin?"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22295064

[molly bloom]

I would much rather have a world without communism and no gay rights than a world with gay rights and communism. .

In case it had escaped your attention, what we have at the moment is a world with both gay rights and Communism.

he doesn't have to be a 100% saint to be a good person.

So if he discriminated against Jews in Poland that would be okay, because he fought against Communism....

. At least only some people would be second class citizens, instead of starving factory workers and collective farmers.

Oh, so not only were gay men and lesbians not collective farmers or factory workers, but just so long as it was only them that were suffering and had no civil rights that would be fine, so long as Communism wasn't around.

How exactly do you completely eradicate an idea or political philosophy, you dimwit ?

[Fake Boris]

Holy ****, Boris is actually pro-Soviet?

I'm reminded of how I used to hang out in an IRC channel for another forum with a lot of Europeans, and the Estonian guy was always the most staunchly pro-American, more than pretty much any of the Americans in the channel. He was about 45 years old 5 years ago I guess, and he always talked about how as an Estonian he had been saved from the Soviets by Ronald Reagan.

I am impressed by the breadth of your historical sources.

[Fake Boris]

Holy ****, Boris is actually pro-Soviet?

I'm reminded of how I used to hang out in an IRC channel for another forum with a lot of Europeans, and the Estonian guy was always the most staunchly pro-American, more than pretty much any of the Americans in the channel. He was about 45 years old 5 years ago I guess, and he always talked about how as an Estonian he had been saved from the Soviets by Ronald Reagan.

I am impressed by the breadth of your historical sources.

[giblets]

Whose expectancy of life has gone down since the fall of communism

http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=sp_dyn_le00_in&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=region&idim=country:POL:LTU:LVA:EST:UKR:DEU&ifdim=region&ind=false

I don't have data for East Germany in particular but it looks like every country he mentioned by name now has a higher life expectancy than it did under Communism... it is true that a number of Communist countries had a temporary dip in life expectancy after the collapse of Communism (but not Poland, the country Walesa was responsible for...).

[Fake Boris]

Thanks.

I was aware of this (temporary dip + recovery), but had no idea that Poland was an exception.

[Dr Strangelove]

How about all of the awards given to those responsible for the League of Nations, the Locarno Treaty and the Kellogg-Briand Pact? Arguably they set the stage for WW II.

[Hauldren Collider]

I don't think it's really fair to blame world war II on anyone but Hitler. The consequences of the League of Nations and the Treaty of Versailles and so on were so distant and so unpredictable that it's pointless to assign blame.

[giblets]

They didn't cause WWII but they were such abysmal failures that they don't deserve peace prizes.

[regexcellent]

Wow, that is harsh.

[Ben Kenobi]

Damn skippy. This is how a lot of Soviet emigres are.

Yeah, no kidding. I went to a Russian Mennonite church back when I was a protestant. Some of their stories.. And yes - more pro- American than the Americans!

It left me wondering because at the time I'd never been to the United States.

Then I came and I found out that America is awesome!

[Hauldren Collider]

Wow, that is harsh.

[molly bloom]

3. Mandela. South Africa's a terrible ****hole right now.

So Mandela should be deprived of his because of what his successors have or haven't done ? Why is that ?

As for the usual uninformed 'South Africa's a ... now' statement, when was the golden age of South Africa ?

When black South African children suffered kwashiorkor and pellagra in a two year drought and the then apartheid government sold surplus maize abroad at a price lower than the Maize Board's domestic price and threw away surplus milk ?

Apartheid South Africa repeatedly destroyed surplus fruit and milk so that government control boards could artificially keep up prices.

Hint : one third of a pint of milk a day is enough to prevent a child from contracting kwashiorkor. What is kwashiorkor ?

Kwashiorkor is a form of malnutrition most often found in children. It is caused by not eating enough protein, despite a reasonable intake of calories.

Like other forms of malnutrition, kwashiorkor initially causes:

•fatigue
•irritability
•drowsiness
If the person continues to be deprived of protein, they will typically:

•fail to put on weight and fail to grow in height
•lose muscle mass
•develop swelling under the skin (oedema)
•develop a 'pot belly'
•have an enlarged fatty liver
•be vulnerable to infections because of a failing immune system
•develop red, inflamed patches of skin that darken and peel or split open ('crazy pavement dermatosis')
•develop dry, sparse, brittle hair that may turn reddish yellow or white
•develop ridged nails

How well the person does after treatment depends on their stage of malnutrition when treatment began.

If treatment was started early, the person usually recovers well, although children will never reach their full growth potential.

If treatment was started in the later stages of malnutrition, the person may be left with physical and intellectual disabilities.

If kwashiorkor is not treated or treatment is delayed, it can result in death.

http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/kwashiorkor/Pages/Introduction.aspx

Pellagra :

Presentation

Classically described as '3 Ds':
•D ementia
•D iarrhoea
•D ermatitis

Some add a fourth D - D eath.

Early symptoms include:
•Loss of appetite
•Generalised weakness
•Irritability and aggression
•Abdominal pain
•Vomiting

Continued deficiency leads to epithelial changes leading to:
•Stomatitis.
•Bright red glossitis.
•Vaginitis.
•Oesophagitis.
•Dermatitis - classically, a pigmented, scaly rash prominent in sun-exposed skin, eg the back of the hand, called 'gauntlet of pellagra' or on the neck where it can form a ring called 'Casal's necklace'. The rash begins as itchy erythema and then looks similar to a tan and may vesiculate.[3][4]

Other features include:
•Diarrhoea - due to a combination of proctitis and malabsorption.
•Dementia - may present as depression, followed by memory deficits and hallucinations or psychosis may occur.
•Seizures.
•Paraesthesia may occur.
•Malabsorption.

http://www.patient.co.uk/doctor/Pellagra.htm

The cost of treatment for kwashiorkor during the same period, at the King Edward VIII hospital in Durban, say- R 700, 000 over ten years.

'The curative cost of treatment for one surviving child for a 30 day period is about R 143, while the preventive cost for the same period is about 80 cents.'

Rand Daily Mail 1968

That 80 cents was the cost of one third of a pint of milk a day.

Please let me know when you think South Africa was a great place to live and why, and for whom. And what the true cost of that golden lifestyle was.

[Ben Kenobi]

So Mandela should be deprived of his because of what his successors have or haven't done ? Why is that ?

Mandela should be deprived for several reasons.

One, he's a terrorist. He killed people to further his ambitions and goals. He achieved his goals which was power. How he was considered peaceable when he was the one making the threats to other people that unless they did what he wanted there would be more violence.

Two, yes, South Africa is a ****hole. It used to be a decent place. Why is it not decent now? Because of Mandela and his 'plan'. I really don't see how apartheid for blacks is somehow inferior to apartheid for whites - where White South Africans can suffer and die and be killed just because they happen to live in South Africa. Why did the white people leave the country that they'd been born in because black people came from somewhere else and decided that they liked living there? Why should they leave?

I look at it this way. Would South Africa be better off if there never was a Mandela? Absolutely. Klerk was right - but because of Mandela - dropping apartheid did not make black folks better off in South Africa - it did not give them the tools that they needed to better themselves or the training to make use of what was there. Punishing the white folks has not made the black folks better off.

The solution would be to protect everyone in South Africa - white or black. But, that's not what has happened is it? Mandela should suffer the same way the people who've lived in South Africa have had to suffer because of his moronic 'cause'. But, again - he doesn't care because it's always been about power and not about peace since day one with Mandela.

As for the usual uninformed 'South Africa's a ... now' statement, when was the golden age of South Africa ?

Prior to the dissolution of Apartheid. Sad to say but the killing of white people, confiscation of their property hasn't made black people better off.

Apartheid South Africa repeatedly destroyed surplus fruit and milk so that government control boards could artificially keep up prices.

And apartheid Black South Africa today - you can be killed just for living in the wrong place at the wrong time, for nothing more than living. Will they be punished for it? No.