Edward Snowden: Living in Russia Is 'Great'

[DFF]

NO there were not. There were socialists that called themselves communists.

There were a lot here in Michigan.. The American Communist party was widespread. (none of them were actually communist)
I doubt that even one was actually communist. They owned property and were wealthy. (Two clues that they were in fact NOT Communist)

aside from some communes (small scale,, short lived) communism does not work.. It can not work.. It is a greater failure than socialism. (and that's saying something)

When I find myself doing something over and over again, I typically try and find a way to automate the process.

So since you've made this same post maybe, I dunno, fifty times already, perhaps you should consider making it your signature?

 

[DFF]

From Russia with love...ouch!

 

[jmdrake]

Who on this site defends McCarthy?

Frankrep used to all the time. I've seen others. Alex Jones kind of defends McCarthy. The argument goes like this. When the Soviet Union fell, the archives were opened and low and behold some of the people McCarthy called "communist" actually were. http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/h/herman-mccarthy.html

 

[pcosmar]

Frankrep used to all the time. I've seen others. Alex Jones kind of defends McCarthy. The argument goes like this. When the Soviet Union fell, the archives were opened and low and behold some of the people McCarthy called "communist" actually were. http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/h/herman-mccarthy.html

They may have been soviet agents.. However.. The USSR was an Oligarchy.. a socialist Dictatorship.
(as opposed to democratic socialism like most of Europe and the US)
Cuba is a Dictatorship, N Korea is a Dictatorship.. It is brutal and authoritarian but is not and never has been communist.

Too many people repeat propaganda and catch phrases without ever thinking about them.

Communism is an overused word,, used by people who have no idea what it means.

It is rather a nice fantasy,, but one that will never exist.. Not among humans..

 

[dannno]

Has Snowden changed his mind? http://www.techtimes.com/articles/1...o-jail-time-if-u-s-lets-me-come-back-home.htm

No, as the article states, his Visa is running out. Apparently questioning Putin on Russian citizen surveillance didn't help his case.

 

[osan]

I have to disagree. He was Ahab,, on a crusade against the biggest Red Herring ever.

Communism has never and will never exist beyond philosophical fantasy. (Paper tiger was an accurate descriptor)

THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A Communist country. Ever.
There never will be.
There was never a communist "Leader". (communism has no leaders)
Communism,, as defined by the lazy madman that invented it,, is so contrary to Human Nature that it would be impossible to institute.


and while McCarthy was destroying lives and wasting resources and expanding the MIC,, Socialism was being instituted here.

Methinks we are talk past each other and it is probably my fault. By "accusations", I meant in the sense that everyone he accused of being Kremlin property, in fact, was. The record of the Venona decrypts confirms most, if not all of it.

I will not argue against your position regarding how he went about things - on that issue I see both sides and can empathize with each. But I would reiterate that second-guessing McCarthy while simultaneously not having been of adult age in those days and having the brand of benefit that hindsight affords, is not a particularly good practice in general, though there are exceptions, among which I might include Mao's "cultural revolution".

 

[osan]

Listen, I didn't say Russia was perfect nor even better than here in the USA. However, it's not the Wendy's commercial either. And BTW you should see the wacky stereotypes that those overseas have about us.

At the time that ad was produced, the SU was PRECISELY like the depiction. I've been in those countries - Hungary, Romania, Ukraine, Czechoslovakia. Hungary was by a vast margin the best of them. Romania was a fookin' wasteland... still is for the most part in many ways (I believe it is rated as the poorest nation in Europe) and the Ukraine made Romania look like a prosperous place. Everywhere you went the air was pure stench from the industrial pollution. Water was tinged brown and, to my palate, undrinkable... probably with good cause. People wore the same 4-5 different styles of clothing. One of the things I remembered from when I was a child were the shoes. They were all the same - this was largely true even in Hungary, whose markets were far and away better developed than those in the SU.

Last time I was visiting grandma in a Hungary that was still in the bloc, ca. '88 or '89, they were having about 3-4 suicides per month of Soviet air force pilots. They came to Hungary on 2-year billets and basically when they arrived, they needed about a month to crank their jaws off the floor because the wealth of that meager nation was so vast in comparison with any place in the SU that were simply in utter shock. Several weeks before they were due to return to the mammy-land, the pattern was to kill their spouses, then their children, and then themselves. THAT is how dreadful a prospect it was to return to the bread lines. And I'd seen it all with my own eyes. If you had to live in that place at that time, you might also consider eating a bullet.

It's not like that now, of course, but the central government is still a mafia-KGB command bloc and many people suffer, though nothing like in the old days, that is for sure. Whether it is worse than the USA, I would bet that it depends on the specific aspect of life to which one is referring. I'd bet it is indeed better in some ways, but that is only because they have not caught up to the USA yet in terms of tuning the police state apparatus. They may have not interest in doing so... only time will tell, I suppose.

 

[specsaregood]

No, as the article states, his Visa is running out. Apparently questioning Putin on Russian citizen surveillance didn't help his case.

No, that article was already a week late as his visa was extended for 3 more years a week before that.
http://guardianlv.com/2014/08/edward-snowden-gets-three-years/

 

[RJB]

At the time that ad was produced, the SU was PRECISELY like the depiction. I've been in those countries - Hungary, Romania, Ukraine, Czechoslovakia.

I appreciate the first hand account.

 

[AngryCanadian]

I have to disagree. He was Ahab,, on a crusade against the biggest Red Herring ever.

Communism has never and will never exist beyond philosophical fantasy. (Paper tiger was an accurate descriptor)

THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A Communist country. Ever.
There never will be.
There was never a communist "Leader". (communism has no leaders)
Communism,, as defined by the lazy madman that invented it,, is so contrary to Human Nature that it would be impossible to institute.


and while McCarthy was destroying lives and wasting resources and expanding the MIC,, Socialism was being instituted here.

THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A Communist country. Ever.

Neither will a capitalist country.

 

[osan]

Neither will a capitalist country.

Never will what?

 

[jmdrake]

They may have been soviet agents.. However.. The USSR was an Oligarchy.. a socialist Dictatorship.
(as opposed to democratic socialism like most of Europe and the US)
Cuba is a Dictatorship, N Korea is a Dictatorship.. It is brutal and authoritarian but is not and never has been communist.

Too many people repeat propaganda and catch phrases without ever thinking about them.

Communism is an overused word,, used by people who have no idea what it means.

It is rather a nice fantasy,, but one that will never exist.. Not among humans..

Yeah....I get all of that. But none of that really matters because Russia isn't even communist in name let alone reality. Yes Putin is a former KGB agent. But he's not going around nationalizing all means of production, creating collective farms or anything like that. Really we are at the end of Animal Farm as George Orwell predicted. The animals are being more like "humans" and the "humans" are being more like "animals" and the rest of us cattle look back and forth between the two and can barely tell the difference.

 

[TheCount]

No, as the article states, his Visa is running out. Apparently questioning Putin on Russian citizen surveillance didn't help his case.

I would have a lot more respect for him if he'd accept the Swiss citizenship offer and leave Russia.

 

[surf]

I would have a lot more respect for him if he'd accept the Swiss citizenship offer and leave Russia.

i'd have a lot more respect for Switzerland if they offered to let him hang out there.

as far as Snowden goes - he's a hero. he doesn't need your respect.

 

[jmdrake]

Frankrep used to all the time. I've seen others. Alex Jones kind of defends McCarthy. The argument goes like this. When the Soviet Union fell, the archives were opened and low and behold some of the people McCarthy called "communist" actually were. http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/h/herman-mccarthy.html

And ^this pulled a neg rep from our resident national socialist racist troll DFF for no explicable reason other than his own douchiness.

 

[TheCount]

i'd have a lot more respect for Switzerland if they offered to let him hang out there.

They did.

as far as Snowden goes - he's a hero. he doesn't need your respect.

I must have missed the vote for official declaration of objective heroism. When did that happen?

 

[Ender]

I would have a lot more respect for him if he'd accept the Swiss citizenship offer and leave Russia.

And how would he get there?

Any flights stopping in the UK would have been dangerous for Snowdon.

 

[Ender]

And ^this pulled a neg rep from our resident national socialist racist troll DFF for no explicable reason other than his own douchiness.

Just +repped ya!

 

[pcosmar]

Neither will a capitalist country.

Every country is a capitalist country,, and none is..

Capitalism is the human state,, From reacquiring the simplest necessities,, to improving creature comforts. It is human nature.

Countries are run by people.. the State is neutral. People are Capitalists.

 

[PaleoPaul]

No, as the article states, his Visa is running out. Apparently questioning Putin on Russian citizen surveillance didn't help his case.

He should have gone to Iceland from the start...they let in pretty much anybody...