2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumThe Thomas Peterffy commercial: “I grew up in a socialist country”.....
....has been airing almost non-stop where I live in Alabama. It is a clear endorsement of Romney, basically claiming a win by the President will cause the US to slide toward "socialism". He claims he paid for the ad himself.
Here's the link to a Politico article discussing the ad and Petterffy's potential links to Karl Rove and the Koch brothers:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1112/83243.html
I have a few comments of my own, and it has to do with his comments about growing up in a "socialist country".
Petterffy was born in 1944 in Hungary during the last full year of WWII. Hungary was an ally of Nazi Germany and had participated in the invasion of the old Soviet Union in 1941. Needless to say, the Soviet Union was VERY unhappy with the Nazis and their allies and installed Soviet-style communist governments in each of those countries (except Italy) in 1945 at the end of WWII. What Petterffy experienced wasn't just "socialism", but a very repressive communist police-state. In 1956, Hungary attempted to revolt but the action was brutally suppressed, making things even tougher for the Hungarians. He fled to the US in 1965 and apparently did quite well for himself.
Based on the facts above, this ad is total bullshit.
kalli007
(683 posts)It annoys the shit out of me.
jenw2
(374 posts)Why do CONservatives always seem to confuse the two?
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)Quite opposite ends of the political spectrum, although both under authoritative oppressive govts. Since he hated the communists, he probably was a fascist.
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)It's why I always roll my eyes when people trot it out as an example of the "evils of leftism." Yes, the militaristic, expansionist police state where business and government were the same thing that did its best to exploit regional and ethnic differences in order to maintain central control, that sounds so much like leftism...
The Magistrate
(95,257 posts)He has no more seen socialism than he has seen anarchy....
Enrique
(27,461 posts)it's 15 seconds long, and it plays repeatedly during their breaks, sometimes ten times duriing a single break, I'm not exaggerating.
I think I know it by heart: "I grew up in a socialist country, I know vut it does to people. There is no hope, no freedom, no pride in achievement. When I was a boy I fantasized about going to America, the American dream."
flamingdem
(39,332 posts)and hope that he blew all his cash on it!
bayareamike
(602 posts)He's a billionaire Wall Street guy. Being born in a country that became apart of the USSR makes him no more qualified to endorse a candidate. Just like most billionaires (yes, I'm generalizing), the guy is not out to help the 99%.
nakocal
(557 posts)theinquisitivechad
(322 posts)In my mind it's not at all applicable to our society even when we take our society to the most liberal extreme possible within our system.
pnwmom
(109,009 posts)Lecturing to us about socialism -- as if the socialists in Sweden are like the communists in China or Russia. As if any of OUR Democratic candidates are socialist at all.
There's no way that he could have afforded all those commercials all over the country -- and yet no one's ever heard of him before. He's a front.
And thanks for the background info. I was talking to a young Russian friend of mine about him, and she said he had a really bad (fake) accent. I guess it would sound that way if you thought, as we did, that he was supposed to be Russian.
liberal N proud
(60,347 posts)Vincardog
(20,234 posts)Brothers started the DLC.
Faith9326
(304 posts)So freaking annoying.
JiminyJominy
(340 posts)is an idiot.
nobody is asking for Socialism here. especially the President.
its going to feel good knowing post election this ass wasted all his money on his stupid ass commercials.
OldDem2012
(3,526 posts)...."Other People's Money".