1984
- Thread starter fall
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Which era you are talking about? 1920s? Noone starved to death after the WW2. Everybody was equally poor, but everybody had enough money for basic food (but it was really basic and meet was not always available). The worst "hungry" years in Russia after WW2 was early 1990s when the economy collapsed and there were no more government help. But they were the most democratic years too. But it was true - the standard of living in USSR was much worse then in any western country, but USSR was a "socialist" country in the sense that noone was actually hungry (although standard of living was much worse than the one can afford in Canada on welfare). The "good" news: people were happy because the communist propaganda shows lots of hungry and homeless people in the U.S.A. and most Russians (especially children) believed they were living in the best country ever. This is the power of media control
Cambodia, my friend's dad's first family had to run into the jungles, both first wife and first child died from exposure, his dad survived and remarried.
If you need an example of they took everything, then my family experienced that. To me that is water under the bridge, it is not right to bring old world grievances into the new world, but now I see the right trying to draw lines to redefine "public square" that is private property and it makes me think about the communists taking everything.
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My personal opinion is that Canada should remove hate speech laws, if not for the spirit of free speech then for more practical reasons like we now have many more ways to speak our mind so the amount of hate speech cases must be a huge burden to process. But I am more concerned about the economy, about C19, like most people.
You seem sort of confused.
Nobody today is being punished for thinking, behaving or believing differently. Those being seemingly punished are being punished for being identifiable.
Your position is like believing Facebook to have caused all of your woes.
Facebook, an inanimate entity, did no such thing.
You are conflating random ideas with what at its core is no more than ones own stupidity.
And since the dawn of time humans have been effectively punished for their own stupidity.
Sorry about your family. I was talking about USSR. Cambodia is a different story, not the communist regime in its pure sense, but more like a "war communism", something that Russia experienced in 1918-1921. Maybe even a mix of "war communism" with plain criminal -run state.This is why I said about a different era.
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I guess, I am too stupid to understand what you wanted to say after the second line. But you are right, people are not punished for thinking differently or having different beliefs if noone knows what they think or belief. They do get punished when their thoughts or beliefs become known or for behaving differently from the mainstream acceptable behaviour. For example, I doubt any CBC news reporter will be able to get a promotion or even keep his job if he openly announces (e.g. on Facebook) that he thinks that homosexuality is a disease even though he would never express his opinion on air unless asked.
What is happening now is now is not 1984, not even remotely close. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley is a closer metaphor.
What happened in Cambodia was runaway Maoism, loosely resembling The Great Leap Forward. The Khmer Rouge were even more brutal than the Red Army. That's the problem with Communism, Karl Marx was naive. When he wrote The Communist Manifesto, he didn't take into account human nature, he was so preoccupied with laying out the groundwork that he forgot that humans have a problem being egalitarian. True Communism has never been attempted, Lenin wanted it but knew implementing it would lead to anarchy. The Communists attempted two coups in Russia in 1991 and 1993 both failed miserably. President Clinton didn't intervene when the Ruble crashed in 98, that's why we have Putin today.
What happened in Cambodia was runaway Maoism, loosely resembling The Great Leap Forward. The Khmer Rouge were even more brutal than the Red Army. That's the problem with Communism, Karl Marx was naive. When he wrote The Communist Manifesto, he didn't take into account human nature, he was so preoccupied with laying out the groundwork that he forgot that humans have a problem being egalitarian. True Communism has never been attempted, Lenin wanted it but knew implementing it would lead to anarchy. The Communists attempted two coups in Russia in 1991 and 1993 both failed miserably. President Clinton didn't intervene when the Ruble crashed in 98, that's why we have Putin today.
I recently watched Capone, still scratching my head over it.
Was Tom Hardy playing Al Capone or Adolf Hitler? That's exactly the fate that awaited Hitler had he lived.
Was Tom Hardy playing Al Capone or Adolf Hitler? That's exactly the fate that awaited Hitler had he lived.
It takes time to achieve it. 1984 describes a society completely evolved into the totalitarian madness. What it takes to achieve it and the first step has been made in the West- FEAR. Little fears first- fear of being unpopular, fear of being perceived as less educated, less intelligent, fear of being left out of the group. The most important step has been made this year. Fear with real consequences. Disagree with the statistics about the "systemic racism" and there goes your job. Question the historical interpretation- there goes your livelihood. Say "all lives matter"- you're a racist, never to be heard from again. By design, this is squarely aimed at the journalists and the political class because once you manage to silence them, you silence all other voices. In the end you get cowardly politicos fervently supported by the sycophantic media whose aim is not to speak the truth to power, but to ensure employment and roofs over their heads. The people in the West think that some of us, who experienced this in real life and color, are alarmists and that such things cannot happen here. Well, they're happening as we speak. Oh, btw, the next step is this- you will tell lies, you will know that you're telling lies and you will hate yourself for it. But, you will continue to do so because, if you don't, your overseers will cancel your ass. And if you're lucky, it will only be to the unemployment line. Happy 4th of July!
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Guess what? I'm agreeing w you jc. I've always been skeptical of words creating thoughts...I think it's thoughts creating words. If we have a concept, we'll figure a way to represent it, be it noble or malevolent. Thus terms like moron, imbecile, retarded used to be medical terms, they are now insults. Punish people for calling someone retarded doesn't make the concept go away. But it empowers the thought totalitarians. Negro and coloured used to be acceptable even preferred. Now they are insults. In a famous case in the Washington dc city govt a bloke appropriately used the word "niggardly" (meaning cheap) but because it is similar to a racial insult he was fired, even though the word was an ancient norse word that hit the english language before the norse even knew african people existed. And the gay community took all the power out of "queer", which used to be a hostile insult.
Upshot is we have to judge people on what they mean, and try to understand what they mean. Change the idea, not punish the unfortunate choice of words.
Upshot is we have to judge people on what they mean, and try to understand what they mean. Change the idea, not punish the unfortunate choice of words.
TY for the condolences.
As far as media and propaganda, if Canada starts to mass arrest journalists then that would trigger me and I would take part in protests.
