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: : Your still in the dark as to what happened in Nicaragua. : No, you seem to still be refusing to accept that they had a free and fair election there in 1984, and the Sandinistas won.
I do accept that. What you don't seem to grasp is that those who went to the barricades with the Ortega boys were cut out of the loop after Samoza was thrown out. That was the origin of the Contras; former Sandanistas.
: :The Sandanistas, the ones that made it to power, used the Fidel Castro model;
: Evidently not; they held free elections immediately, they took the side of religion, and they didn't execute anyone after taking power; in fact, they issued an amnesty for ex-National Guard members who hadn't been guilty of individual crimes, saying 'we won't punish anyone for belonging to a criminal organization'.
Yeah, that's why former Contras are being wacked today. Castro probably made the same offer to his former colleages too.
: : use whoever will support you until you gain power, then liquidate them to consolidate that power.
: Your self-delusion amazes me. The Sandinistas didn't 'liquidate' anyone, if by 'liquidate' you mean 'kill'. It's typical of your conservative doublespeak to use euphemisims like 'liquidate'. Why not just say 'kill'?
I was trying to be ironic. 'Liquidate' was a favorite Soviet euphemism to mean murder. Read 'Darkness at Noon'.
: The Sandinistas didn't 'kill' or 'repress' anyone after seixzing pwoer in 1979, nor after winning the elections in 1984.
Whatever you say boss.
: :Where do you think the Contra's came from? The Contra's were led by former Sandanistas.
: Wrong again. They were led by former National Guard members. The National Guard, in case you haven't read any Nicaraguan history, was the army and secret police of the dictator Somoza, infamous throughout the world for their horrible tortures and indiscriminate murder of dissidents.
Not really any more or less infamous than most of the current and past leaders in that part of the world. That's how politics is played there.
Remember Che? He was glorified by the Liberals here.
: : Only thing is they didn't wait around to get a slug in the back of the neck.
: Yeah, like all those 30,000 murdered by the Contras, most of them innocent women and children.....too bad.
LLLLOOOOOOLLLLLLL!!!! And you tell me, ahhh, forget it.
: : India; Is that a socialist success story? Hmmmm. To bad their oppressing the Tamils.
: Try reading up on a little geography. The Tamils are being 'oppressed' over in Sri Lanka, across teh Palk Strait- and even there, teh discrimination is afirly minor, used mostly as an excuse for teh LTTE terrorists to fuel their war against the Socialist Republic. The Tamils are one of the largest ethnolinguistic groups in India, totalling 60 or 70 million, and our state is one of the most developed. The state is ruled by a "Tamil Pride" type party, which is one of India's most influential regional parties. My ethnicity is Tamil. SO you would do well to read up a bit before discussing this with me.
OK, I admit it, I took a shot in the dark. Let me read up on that.
: :And the Pakistanis may also have a differing opinion from yours.
: YEs, so do the Sikh terrorists who make a hobby out of blowing up planes and buses.
: :But at least they've got nukes, which they can afford becuase the per capita income is a whopping $1,491.00 per year. I imagine when the literacy rate climbs above it's present 52% though the citizens of that country may have some questions about that sort of spending.
: They have questions right now- incidentally the Communists were the only major party to condemn the nuclear testing. Indians may not be on avergae as literate as Americans, but they certainly care more about their government and politics; electiosn over there actually attract more than half the electorate. Teh difference is that over there they actually have a choice as to who to vote for- religious fundamentalists, liberals, communists, Stalinists, socialists, social democrats, etc.
That may be true, but if the result is a fragmented parliment that can't get anything done (think Italy here) what has been accomplished?
: Incidentally, literacy in one of India's three Communist-ruled states is higher than America's. You just can't win, can you.
I can't find anything when I do a search on Kerala and India. Why is that?
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: : Burkina Faso; per capita income; $700.00 per year.
: Look at what it was before the communist revolution of 1983?
: : Sufferage; none.
: They had a multiparty election there last year, Frenchy.
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: : Life expectancy; females-48, males-45.
: Look at what it was in '83.
: :"Most people engage in subsistence farming or livestock raising, and industrialization is minimal."
: Oh, so now you're passing judgments on their culture? Real sensitive of you there.
I never claimed to be 'sensitive' about any culture. I'd rather just tell the truth.
: : Rand McNally World Facts and Maps, '99 edition.
: :
: : : Still, I believe that for all their sins and faults, the North Vietnamese were still better than the alternative- the governments of Diem, Thieu, and Air Vice Marshal Ky. They were very far from being perfect- but they were better than the alternative, and now that they are the legitimate rulers of the land, their positive acheivements as well as their unfortunate excesses should be recorginzed. i believe that;s all I've said in favor of the VC- that, and the fact that the refugee exodus, while tragic, was dwarfed by the exodus fleeing the American revolution. Capitalist revolutions produce as many rfeugees as socialist ones, and in the main have resulted in more suffering.
: : The pertinent question is; "Under what conditions are revolutions justified?"
: When the situation needs rectification, and when nothing else works.
So how do you get anything to work when you've got a guy like Mao who promised his people the moon? Not only Mao, all the other Communist/Socialists; Castro, etc, etc. The best policy is not to trust socialist pie in the sky schemes.
: : : To ask me to answer for the criems of 'socialist' regimes is a bit silly, don't you think, when you have yet to apologize for the crimes of Ronald Reagan, a man you claim to admire. During Reagan's tenure, massive numbers of innocent people were killed by death squads, terrorist armies, and governments that received heavy financial, diplomatic, advisory, moral, and military support from Reagan. A million killed by the right-wing RENAMO terrorists in Mozambique; a quarter million killed by the Guatemalan army, often with American Green Berets beside them on the firing line; seventy-five thousand killed by the Republican Alliance in El Salvador; thirty thousand killed by teh Contras in Nicaragua. Can you honestly argue that reagan DIDN"T support these peopel and abet them in their killings? And that on occasion, he went even further, sending actual American soldiers to kill innocent villagers in Guatemala?
: :
: : Again, this all really goes back to sovereignty, doesn't it? Does a sovereign nation have the right to defend itself from those who advocate its violent overthrow?
: In the same vein, doesn't Nicaragua have the right to defend itself against American aggression? Is Nicaragua our 'property', that we should defend it from Soviet influence? How dare we presume to force our own system on another sovereign country, rcushing their own right to self-expression?
And that brings up the further question of exporting revolutions and wars by proxy. If it's OK for Castro to send his boys to Nic., certainly we can provide material to counter that threat, don't you think? I think your still sore because your guys blew it in Nic. Sorry.
: : The answer of course is 'yes'. Does that nation have the right to ask for aid from foreign countries?
: ?
: : The answer is again 'yes'. I think that your just sore because your guys took a shellacking in Guatamala and El Salvador.
: : Another important point worth remembering is that these countries have no idea what 'democracy' means or is. Most of these countries are ruled not by the people, the indiginous peole, but by the descendants of the Conquistadors; that's right folks, Europeans. Before you throw your weight behind the likes of the Ortegas, you ought to research the intra-family ties. Can you say 'oligarchy'? The rulers are not interested in Communism or Capitalism, their interested in keeping power.
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: Yeah, look at all the rich families who dominate politics over here. Bush, Gore, Kennedy, that Nazi named Steve Forbes....
Oh yeah, you got a point there. The Forbes family goes back to the Forbes dynasty and the Kennedy's, well, they were well known by all the Kings and Queens of Europe in the Sixteenth Century.
Envy is so unbecoming.
: Your codnescension is just disgusting Frenchy. I wish I could sum it all up in one nasty phrase, but I can't.
Then your not trying hard enough.
