The responses to this diatribe were quite interesting. I'd like to put in my two cents' worth, as well--with thanks to my partner for the use of her account at WebTV.The conflation of socialist ideals with East Bloc politics seems to be a common one. It's encouraged by the corporate-owned news media and by triumphalist politicians in the capitalist West. Like most good lies, it has elements of truth. The step to constructive criticism of socialist regimes is a minor intellectual step, but it is prevented in many by the juggernaut of intimidation and propaganda against the concept of socialism. And it occurs to me that even my last sentence will leave many people scratching their heads, since our consumer culture makes little or no reference to gigantic historic events like Haymarket, the Palmer Raids, the imprisonment of Debs, HUAC, COINTELPRO, etc.
So it is that Capitalist Defender can swoop onto the scene with his cape flapping in the breeze, and claim that Russia is embracing captialism with passion. Our monopoly chain dailies and multinational-owned TV news broadcasts make little mention of the devastation and desperation in Russia, where armed criminals terrorize the streets, soldiers beg in the streets for food and whole sectors of the government infrastructure go for months without pay. The US government, using its own resources and those of Paul Weyrich's National Endowment for Democracy, is attempting to stabilize a brutal comprador system using $50,000.00 payoffs to its selected stooges. It's a weird situation, but you'd have to turn to international shortwave broadcasts to find mention of it. (Or you could look at back issues of Covert Action Quarterly, available on the Net.)
The resurgence of socialism and other egalitarian ideologies has already begun in Poland and other 'capitalist miracle' countries, and it will catch Capitalist Defenders by surprise as its shots are heard 'round the world. Already we have seen the ludicrous yet instructive sight of the mighty Stock Market trembling as a few dozen Zapatistas occupied tiny burgs in impoverished Chiapas, Mexico. End of History? I don't think so.
