emphryio

Echidna, I strongly suggest you read Killing Hope by William Blum.
Yes, I understand it's very hard to believe. (BTW, did you read that first link I gave about the CIA timeline of interventions?)
There are so many fantastic unbelievable things in Killing Hope that are TRUE.

Another important reason to not believe what I say is that you've managed to make it through however many decades without hearing about it. This suggests yet a second conspiracy concerning the mass media.
Try Manufacturing Consent by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky to understand how come you didn't know.

BTW,
I don't lightly recommend books. I understand life is short. I humbly suggest Manufacturing Consent is the most important book I've ever read. (And I'd like to think I've read more books than most.)

Also in comparing all these countries people must realize you can't look at them in a vacuum.

For instance East vs West Germany.

Stalin basically said to hell with East Germany, (he didn't likethe Germans after they attacked his country).

America had an interest in West Germany performing well economically.

Same with Taiwan.

On the other hand the ruling elite of America REALLY DO have an interest in ensuring that socialist countries don't work out.
As fantastic as it sounds that's exactly what they accomplished primarily by nipping them in the bud.

It sure as hell has, but if you pour billions of dollars and bombs, etc, and keep what's going on mostly out of the media, it certainly can be accomplished and was.

There are actually tons of books and resources on this. The best two I've found are the two books I've already mentioned here.

emphryio

Yes, please tell me more. (But I'd rather you didn't start with Hitler.)

echidna

Emphryio, if America is truly so internationally skilled and omniscient as to be able to thwart the spectre of socialism across the entire face of the globe for a century, does Chomsky explain why :

The U.S. lost Vietnam ?
The U.S. lost Laos ?
The U.S. lost Cambodia ?
The U.S. lost North Korea ?
The U.S. failed in Cuba ?
The U.S. failed to keep Eastern Europe from the Soviets ?
The U.S. is so impotent in the Middle East ?

Truly to accomplish such a feat as to fight off such great idea for a century must require magnificent insight, the most skilled diplomacy, brilliant foresight, and overwhelming military might such as to be utterly unresistable.

And yet there would easily be a page-long list of U.S. failures, in fact I daresay that Chomsky himself probably is far better than myself at listing U.S. failures.

So again, with such a damn good idea as socialism, how does Chomsky explain that such an inept and bungling rhinoceros as America was able to be so all-conquering ?

Dollars and bombs is a feeble answer. Exactly how did they win Indochina for the U.S. ? Surely that was the military great lesson from the Vietnam Conflict.

Face it. If the idea were truly so great. If socialism truly gave social equality & harmony. If socialism truly gave economic prosperity and individual affluence. If socialism truly created economic independence and self-sufficiency. If socialism truly improved living standards. If socialism truly built GDP faster than capitalism. Don�t you think somewhere, just somewhere on the planet might have been able to get it going is the last 100 years ?

emphryio

Impotent in the Middle East? Where is there socialism in the Middle East? (Excepting the kibbutz's that I guess are small enough to overlook.)

America has the Middle East exactly how it wants it except for Iraq. (Which there working on ) They don't give a whoop that the countries are dictatorships as long as the money keeps coming back to America.

It was agreed upon that Stalin would have Eastern Europe. Literally. Actually when a bordering country could have turned communist that USSR/US had agreed would be capitalists, Stalin actually got pissed and was worried the US would think he was trying to break the deal. Eisenhower thought Stalin was a good man because he kept to his agreement.

Well they did manage to kill Che Gurreuro (sp?) who I've heard might have turned Cuba into something other than a dictatorship.
(shrug?)

Concerning Asia, they didn't stop communism but they didn't exactly leave these countries in very good shape did they? Do you think they may have weakened some of these countries enough to allow dictatorships to take over? But truthfully I don't know the situation well enough there.

Echidna, if you read the link I gave you can at least say that:
American action has certainly GREATLY reduced the likelihood that there would be any successful socialist state.

Beyond that I would say that authoritarian leaders may prefer a twisted form of socialism because it gives them more control.

Why did all American failures happen to lead to communist dictatorships? I'm not sure. Bad luck?
(Possibly, there's not that many American failures compared to successes.)

Absolutely disagree. Why not go back 200 years and say the same of any kind of democracy?

Or a ways further and say the same of monarchies?

How about really far back and say the same of slave societies of the Greeks, Romans, etc?

Maybe humanity is slowly making a progression upwards, from slave societies to feudalism to monarchies to capitalist democracies to true democracies. (economic democracy included.)

Of course the kings weren't pushed aside very easily and the corporations certainly haven't been either.

moon

LOL!

Skeptictank

Half right. Not on Poland, that's for sure. The Brits were PISSED when Stalin took that one, after all its why they went to war in the first place!!! Oh, and Ike wasn't President when this happened, it was Truman and he hated Stalin.

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Well they did manage to kill Che Gurreuro (sp?) who I've heard might have turned Cuba into something other than a dictatorship. (shrug?)

They killed Che in Bolivia while he was working with rebels there. At that point he had left Cuba to Castro's tender mercies.

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Concerning Asia, they didn't stop communism but they didn't exactly leave these countries in very good shape did they? Do you think they may have weakened some of these countries enough to allow dictatorships to take over? But truthfully I don't know the situation well enough there.

The communist states WERE dictatorships, just not OUR dictatorships.

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Beyond that I would say that authoritarian leaders may prefer a twisted form of socialism because it gives them more control.

Then why haven't you made the connection that ALL socialist states have devolved to dictatorship in short order? What does that say about your beloved system?

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Why did all American failures happen to lead to communist dictatorships? I'm not sure. Bad luck? (Possibly, there's not that many American failures compared to successes.)

They don't. See Iran.

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Maybe humanity is slowly making a progression upwards, from slave societies to feudalism to monarchies to capitalist democracies to true democracies. (economic democracy included.) Of course the kings weren't pushed aside very easily and the corporations certainly haven't been either.

We have economic democracy, that's the very essense of the market. People vote with their dollars on what goods and services are provided. And corporations are pushed aside all the time in various ways. They also aren't some manical autonomous entities, they act on the will of the shareholder who could be you or me.

August Spies

uh what are you talking about? Where is there socialism in Middle east?

most of your other examples I think dont' really count. Eastern europe was taken over by the USSR when we were still friends. Yes, believe it or not the U.S. was friends with the USSR for several years after WWII. Due to domestic politics truman was forced to go anti-communist and the two countries split apart. Too bad Rosevelt died, things could have been at least somewhat better.

The U.S. did not really get too powerful until years after WWII. Countries like Korea "went communist" before we had the power to stop them.

were laos and cambodia really communist?

Skeptictank

Just going back to one point for a second....
Meiji Restoration Japan.
No natural resources to start with, completely cut-off from the world prior to Admiral Perry's arrival, technologically backward operating under an ancient feudal system.
Managed the fastest industrialization and modernization program in history. Did it better than the USSR with better results even though the USSR had almost infinite natural resources of every stripe (timber, coal, oil etc), the 'Breadbasket of Europe" (Ukraine) and population more familiar with advanced industrial techniques.

Just pointing out there is at lease one nation in world history that compares and did a damn good job.

beyelzu

how did we kill china, north korea and russia.

they have all either turned to capitalism or are starving, so what does the imperialism of america have to do with them, I mean besides stopping n korea from conquering s korea.

Loren Pechtel

ONe big difference--size! Communism works fine in small groups that want to be communist. It doesn't work for big groups, period.