: Thank you for publicizing the information, MDG, and I mean that sincerely. I still continue to interpret the information you provided as more indicative of success than failure, however. I especially like the line "Burkina Faso was not a representative democracy, but a participatory one.'Don: Failure is success! Very 1984.
: You've just made my case for me, thanks. Tom Hayden, one of my personal heroes, talked a lot about participatory democracy. That's what we all want isn't it? REAL democracy, not representative democracy. Screw representative democracy, partciipatory democracy is the only system worthy of the name.
Don: Participatory democracy. Comrade, as long as you participate, does it matter who runs the Party?
: As you correctly pointed out, I was referring only to the period 1983 to 1987, not to the reactionary Compaore regime which succeeded it. Sankara's mass immunization campaigns, environmenatl campaigns, advanmces in the fields of education, alnd reform, gender equality, and wage equalization,a s well as his impeccable personal ethics, set and example for every leader in the world.
Don: Paper improvements in several areas during something less than a four year period . . . if education was pathetic before communism it wouldn't take much to improve it.
: By the way, just a note- I wouldn't exactly call Sankara's regime 'Marxist', he was too much of an idnependent maverick thinker for that. Sankara was an example of non-Marxist communism. Of course you get the Trotskyists and Maoists todaty who argue that taht's the precise reason he failed. Screw that. I don't think he did fail. I think he succeeded, although it cost him his life.
Don: By this standard, Hitler and Franco were great success stories.
