My wife just said the most profound thing.

[GGJohn]

She said that while growing up, she was taught to hate and distrust the USSR, and why that was?
She stated that we should be solid allies in the fight against radical terrorists, they threaten both nations, and the world at large.
I couldn't really answer her as I was raised the same way.

[GP6971]

1. I think many of us growing

up in the 50s & 60s were raised the same way

[GGJohn]

2. Yes, we were.

We were raised to fear the "Red Menace", which, it now turns out to be, pure bullshit.

[cwydro]

48. I know, I heard the same crap, but

my mom refused to let me believe it.

That being said, I do not like nor trust Putin.

[Fumesucker]

3. Better Dead than Red

Funny how red states these says are so very proud of being red.

[GGJohn]

5. Well, yeah, but I think that " better dead than Red" had a different meaning

back then.

[postulater]

4. The nuns told us that the Russians were going to bomb us in 1960.

So I spent every night watching out my bedroom window listening and watching for the Russian planes.

When they didn't come by the end of 1960, I was horrified when I suspected they might have meant 'the 1960's. So for the next nine years I always had the fear in the back of my mind that the Russians were on their way.

Finally 1970 came and I realized the nuns were scamming me all along. Of course by then I had other reasons to think the entire religion thing was a scam.

[GGJohn]

6. I bought into the "Red Scare" unfortunately

and voluntarily joined the Army as a helicopter pilot in Vietnam.
While I would like to re-visit my decision, I don't regret my 2 tours in that sad chapter in my military career.

[postulater]

9. I was young enough to be of draft age just as the war was winding down, so didn't go.

By then the anti-war movement had become influential. I was in Madison the day after the Army Math Research Center bombing.

Weird timesfor everybody.

[brush]

38. I was in college then (Univ of Ariz) and actually got drafted

My student deferment was cancelled because I got kicked out of Rotc.

Me an a friend from the hood both had to travel up to Phoenix on the bus to take the physical and be inducted. We shared a room at the Y that night. There was an urban rumor about at that time that if you had sugar in your urine you would flunk the physical so we found the nearest 7/11 and bought every Hostess Cupcake package we could find.

We spent the night gorging ourselves on those things (I couldn't eat another one for years afterwards).

Did it work? I don't know because I had another rabbit up my sleeve. My brother lived in San Francisco and his wife had previously hooked me up with a draft counseling service there that interviewed me (I basically told them what Muhammed Ali used to say, "I have no quarrel with the Vietcong especially since there's racism here, which was true).

They gave me a letter on their letterhed that stated that I would not be a good candidate for a drafting.

To make along story short, I presented the letter to the colonel when asked to step forward and be sworn in. He read the letter, his face turned red with anger and he yelled out to me "DISQUALIFIED."

I never found out the results from the urine test as I got the hell out of there.

[WinkyDink]

51. I suppose you don't recall Cuba, 1962, then.

[myohmy2]

7. "...taught to hate and distrust the USSR, and why that was?"

....because the 1% wished to remain the 1%....same reason we're supposed to distrust the darker races while loving perpetual war....

....just the greedy 1% doing what they do best; brainwashing and hogging it all....

[calimary]

45. Welcome to DU, myohmy2!

Glad you're here! Well, isn't there that saying about how children have to be taught to hate, because they tend not to come by it naturally?

[Hekate]

8. You don't have to be stuck in the past to look at the Russian psyche as a continuum from ...

...the Tsarist regimes through the USSR through the present day. They treat their own people like crap and people have to manipulate the corruption to hope to survive. I recommend more than a century of Russian literature for an insider's view, though that's not the only source for my opinion.

I'm also of the generation that read "My Weekly Reader" in school, with the world maps that showed a monolithic red for China and the USSR, and I also grew up to question what we were told and re-evaluate everything.

But here is a thing: Stalin killed and disappeared millions of Soviet citizens. Stalin manufactured a famine in the Ukraine, the breadbasket of the empire, by gathering up and shipping away all their wheat while the Ukranians quite literally starved to death.

Modern post-Soviet Russia has yet to deal with that, as they recreate an oligarchy of Tsarist proportions. And the person at the head of this state? Former KGB head Vladimir Putin.

Revisit history and how we were taught it, by all means. Just don't mistake modern Russia for a friend of Uncle Sam's.

[moondust]

11. Tsars? Oligarchs?

In pictures: Inside the palace Yanukovych didn't want Ukraine to see

The Kremlin's man in Ukraine.

Putin does seem to have some of the old familiar expansionist totalitarian tendencies of the Soviet era.

[Hekate]

12. Expansionist indeed. I think his comfort zone was the old Cold War, as well.

As for the palace -- certainly a gorgeous piece of architecture.

[ND-Dem]

15. Because that's so much more decadent than this:

http://www2.pictures.zimbio.com/pc/Al+Tipper+Gore+new+9+million+ocean+view+villa+_PgKyXjbmF-l.jpg


Which is supposedly al gore's *third* home.

[moondust]

42. "For most of [Yanukovych's] career he was a public servant

or parliament deputy, where his salary never exceeded 2000 US dollars per month."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Yanukovych#Early_life_and_career

[ND-Dem]

91. and for most of gore's career he was also a government employee.

(don't mean to pick on gore especially, btw.)

[Hekate]

69. You just really have so much truthiness to spread around, don't you.

[Lurks Often]

87. Russia has been expansionist since the Tsars

Russian in all it's forms is complicated. They have been invaded from both west and east numerous times, which makes them a bit paranoid, although they may not consciously recognize the paranoia. Russia has been invaded by the Mongols, China, Japan, France, Germany, Poland, England, United States, Finland & Sweden.

Of course they've done their share of invading as well, nothing I post is meant to diminish Russia's own actions.

One of the drivers has been that both the Tsars and the Soviets have wanted a warm water port that has access to an ocean, something the Black Sea ports do not have. All other Russia ports are blocked by ice at least part of the year.

Another driver has been the desire to have a buffer zone of countries under their control to help prevent an invading force from reaching Russia itself.

[ND-Dem]

14. "Stalin manufactured a famine" = so did england, in both ireland and india. yet she's a friend of

uncle sam!

[Hekate]

17. The subject was Russia

[ND-Dem]

22. My subject was how we pretend Russia is historically unique when we wrote the book

[Hekate]

27. I don't. I majored in history and read lit. for a reason; it gives me a certain perspective.

But the current subject was Russia. I don't trust Russia under the current leadership -- they're not Communist; they've reverted to type. And what is that type? The masses are oppressed in every conceivable way, and the oligarchs have the money and power.

And no, the US is not like that at the present time, nor in the past. The future I can't foretell.

[ND-Dem]

59. in the us the masses aren't oppressed, and the oligarchs don't have the money and power?

[Hekate]

67. Your point of view is severely skewed, ND-D. I've read your posts in other threads besides this...

...and don't care to try to educate one whose mind is already made up.

[ND-Dem]

90. Well, we have the highest number of people in jail, both absolute and per capita. And the richest

people in the world are mostly from here.

[treestar]

100. That's irrelevant

At least people here are in jail under some semblance of the rule of law. Maybe it is handled in a racist way and that's bad, but there was still a trial and opportunities for appeal and you cannot be jailed for political opinion.

Whatever its faults, this country had a better legal system than most others, certainly better than any system Russia has ever had.

[ND-Dem]

104. they're in jail in russia under 'some semblance of the rule of law' as well.

[Jesus Malverde]

89. Lulz

Irony meter pegged at 20 minute drum solo.

[sabrina 1]

29. WE treat our own people like crap. Ask an African American eg. If that was the reason for

'hating' the Russians, then what do we do about US?

There's an old saying about cleaning up your own back yard before pointing at your neighbor's.

And ask Latin America about THEIR 'disappeareds' and who supported their dictators??

I remember Ronald Reagan's funeral and all the pomp and circumstance here, which frankly was nauseating.

So I went to Central American news reports to see how his victims felt about our glorification of the man who helped to disappear so many of their loved ones.

They, naturally, had a very different view of our 'hero'.

[Hekate]

32. Sabrina, I was not advocating "hating" the Russians, nor can I imagine you think I glorify Ronnie.

There's an old saying (I just made it up) about gaining some perspective on the rest of the world before sallying forth to change it or to claim all glory for one's own country.

Yeesh.

[sabrina 1]

37. It wouldn't matter to me if you were advocating hatred for Russians. I hate no people of any country

I have had the privilege of meeting people from many different countries and they are not my enemies, including people from Russia, Iraq, Iran, Syria and though I have not been to Libya, my cousin used to go to shop and found the people to be exceptionally welcoming. Nor do they view the American people as their enemies. They are smart enough to know, too bad Americans are not generally as smart, that the leaders of countries do not necessarily represent the people.

This country is extremely insulated from the rest of the world. If I had the power to do so, I would make it a requirement for American high school students to do what European students do, spend a year in other countries before going to college.

But that would mean they might become less likely to willingly view the people of whatever country is our latest 'enemy' as THEIR enemy.

I don't care about the government of Russia, the people there are perfectly capable of doing what we did here if the government is not representing them. Unless we interfere, as we did so often in Iraq when Saddam was our buddy.

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

102. Wearing rose colored glasses

"If I had the power to do so, I would make it a requirement for American high school students to do what European students do, spend a year in other countries before going to college."

It's mostly affluent young adults who can afford to take a gap year traveling the world before going on to college, and of course, that assumes one is actually going to college, and many still don't.

[sabrina 1]

115. Which is why I said 'IF I had the power to do so, I would make it a requirement, with government

sponsorship if needed, for every high school student to spend time abroad.

President Kennedy's administration started the Peace Corps eg.

My nieces have traveled all over Africa and parts of S. America eg. They have totally different perspective of the world than others their age. They do not see 'enemies' everywhere, on the contrary, they are very comfortable with people from all over the world.

We are very insulated here. So it's easy to create 'enemies' when everything outside our borders is so strange.

The people of Iraq were never my enemies. They were Cheney/Bushes chosen enemies. I knew Iraqis and they harbored no enmity towards this country. Same thing with Iranian women I came to know. Indian and Pakistani people also.

It is the LEADERS who are looking for enemies and then they want us to follow their lead. Sorry, no think you. Cheney DOES have enemies, he created them. But he does not represent me.

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

117. Ive travelled more than most Americans, as well

I've also lived in another country and travelled to several countries, so I agree very much that travel changes one's perception. (And I don't mean travel on a tour bus with other Americans. )

But travel also does open one's eyes to statements like ""If I had the power to do so, I would make it a requirement for American high school students to do what European students do, spend a year in other countries before going to college."

You wrote that as if most European students can afford to do that. They can't. The thing about traveling is that it's a two sided coin: you come to wish certain things about your country were different, but you also learn to very much appreciate other things, as well. And, of course, the same goes about other countries. You learn to see the good and the bad, as well.

[sabrina 1]

125. It is easier for European students to travel around Europe, and even further, than for American

students without a lot of money. There are exchange programs eg, and always have been, for students to spend a year or so in another country. I know that students generally don't have enough money to just travel, but exchange programs have allowed many Europeans to spend time, earning some money, in other countries in Europe..

I agree with your last paragraph. Just because people see things about their own country that could use improvement doesn't mean they don't love their country. On the contrary, it is BECAUSE they lover their countries, whichever country it may be, that want to make it better.

One thing travel does is remove the 'fear of unknown people' that is often used here to get support for wars we never needed to fight.

In fact, countries that are in conflicts often use exchange programs for children, see the North of Ireland, and at one time there was such an effort between Israel and the the Palestinians, so they could get to know each other better as people, rather than always as 'the enemy'.

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

71. Im been to Russia 4 times

I don't think people realize how bad it was. The flat that our friend lived in was so small, old, and falling apart that I was shocked. I would say it was a hovel, but she tried her best to keep it clean and neat.

Oh, did I mention that she was a university English professor? This was in the early 2000's. The standard of living was no better than many poor living in our inner cities.

[sabrina 1]

79. Why wasn't it better? What happened after the fall of the Soviet Union?

I know Americans, btw, who are living on the street, they are educated also. Well, not quite on the street, in tents.

Why are one in six American children going to bed hungry every night? We are a wealthy country, so, can you explain all this poverty?

Again, America worrying about OTHER countries while apparently incapable of seeing what is right in front of them.

In California I saw so many homeless Veterans too. Support the Troops appears to be nothing more than a jingoistic slogan.

I know, look over there at Russia, (don't bother with the Congo though) and look at Libya (well no, do not look there anymore, we 'fixed' everything there didn't we??)

US veterans committing suicide at rates of up to 22 per day. Stop, what the hell is going on in Ukraine?? We need to fix that!!

US cops gunning down its own citizens, with impunity! Wait, look how Syria treats its own people!!!

Is there some reason why Americans appear to feel they need to 'fix' the rest of the world despite the evidence that all our hugely expensive fixes have only made things hundreds of times WORSE after those fixes?

How about, again, as I said, we worry about THIS country and let other people worry about theirs?

I know, what a concept.

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

80. Yep, we need to fix this country

but I wouldn't be looking to to a top down, authoritarian model of socialism to fix anything.

As for me, I'm pretty much anti-interventionist. We need to get the hell out of the Middle East, and stop acting like the world's policeman.

[ND-Dem]

93. The mass poverty in russia began simultaneous to the transition to capitalism.

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

112. The people lived in poverty BEFORE the transition to capitalism

They were almost all poor!

What is different now is the vast income equality and the fact that people are homeless, now, but that's because the government isn't stuffing two or three families into one small flat.

[sabrina 1]

95. Thank you, we agree, on everything you said in this comment.

[ND-Dem]

92. Yes, people were generally better off before the collapse of the ussr.

The move from communism to capitalism in Russia after 1991 was supposed to bring unprecedented prosperity. It did not. By the time of the rouble crisis of August 1998, output had fallen by almost half and poverty had increased from 2% of the population to over 40%.

Russia's performance since then has been impressive, yet its gross domestic product remains almost 30% below what it was in 1990. At 4% growth per annum, it will take Russia's economy another decade to get back to where it was when communism collapsed.

A transition that lasts two decades, during which poverty and inequality increase enormously as a few become wealthy, cannot be called a victory for capitalism or democracy...

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/apr/09/russia.artsandhumanities

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

99. "Better off" was still awful

The flat she owned was the same flat that she had lived in for many years; she just had an opportunity to purchase it and become a homeowner after the fall.

I can assure you that more than 2% of the country lived in poverty. Practically, the whole damn country lived in poverty. What else do you call two families sharing a 700 square foot flat with never enough nutritious food to eat? That was how the majority of folks lived under communism. Anything else is just propaganda.

I actually visited Yugoslavia while it was still "communist," and their standard of living seemed a "bit" better, but I shudder to think that just a few years later there was a war.

[treestar]

101. What AA would prefer to be in Russia than here?

In spite of the problems, African Americans still face our system with its right to counsel and the exclusionary rule for the 4th amendment, etc. Many AA defendants were behind the cases that made it to the Supreme Court, questioning the actions of government, and sometimes the courts find in favor of excluding evidence obtained in violation of the Bill of Rights. It's not perfect, but you can't in any way claim we are as bad as the Russians. They can be put in jail for political opinion and there is no First Amendment - no guarantee they can't be jailed for saying something.

[sabrina 1]

116. And what African Russian would prefer to be here? And why is it OUR business what other

countries are doing? But only the ones we want to start wars with, no? We don't worry too much about the people in Darfur, or the Congo eg.

Leave them alone, Russians, Iraqis, Afhgans, Pakistanis, Venezuelans, all these people have been around way, way longer than we have. They've had good times and bad times. Like we have. They've sorted them out before we even existed.

The truth is we don't care about them. Our warmongers NEED us to feel we 'must go help them' so they can start wars and profit from them.

Not one of those wars have benefited the American people, or the people whose countries we've invaded and destroyed.

No other nation acts like they are so perfect they can point fingers at other people?

It's interesting you didn't consider African Russians and how they feel about leaving their country. Or Russian Gays, who told us to mind our own business as we are doing them great harm.

They are not rushing over here either. Because they LOVE their country. They were born there, they belong there and they are working to make THEIR country better.

Why don't WE follow their example? Why don't we do something about the plight of many of our own people, before we go running around the world, interfering in other people's business, ignoring our own problems, making things WORSE for the countries we invade??

[Hekate]

109. Ask any LGBT American or African American if they would prefer Putin's Russia to the US...

...even with all our problems.

[sabrina 1]

114. But that is my point. Why are we always interfering in the business of other countries when

we have so many problems of our own?

I doubt African Russians would want to leave their country either, regardless of whatever problems they may have. Better to focus on what needs to be done to make their own country a better one.

I have rarely heard people from other countries so focused on other people's business as we are in this country.'

Iraqis, eg, that I have known, LOVE their country despite the problems they've had and not one of them wanted to leave, until we invaded it, turned it into a dangerous place for all Iraqis.

While AA may not want to leave, although some have, I know one family eg, who have moved to Brazil where, the father told me, 'we are accepted as equal citizens', they sure don't want things to continue the way they are.

So all this pointing of fingers at other nations when WE are no shining beacon when it comes to the very same things we criticize others for, puzzles me. This is not true of other nations.

The ONLY reason for this phenomenon here is we are a country that is involved in forever war and we NEED a Villain in order to justify these needless and cruel wars.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

34. You forgot the Katyn Forest Massacre

Stalin's cynical alliance with Hitler.

My favorite is when FDR offered Stalin mine sweeps and Uncle Joe told him we have human beings for that.

[Hekate]

36. A capsule history of necessity can only hit the highlights. Fill in as much more as you like...

...Sadly, certain persons are not receptive to that information.

[oldandhappy]

10. All of us of an age had the same cultural upbringing.

Our parents and teachers did the best they could with the books they were given. I know some tried to think outside the box. But our boxes were limited. Now we have cell phone camera images immediately from most all places. That fact makes me wonder why so many are still frozen inside their limited boxes. Smile.

I lived in Asia for awhile. I remember on one of my early trips back to see my parents that I said to my mother, 'I took World History, why do I not know this and this.' Her comment was that at the time no one knew and the information was decades coming out.

Today it is hard for us to grasp that time of no instant communication.

[Hekate]

13. My undergrad major was Asian and Pacific History; that was during the Vietnam War and I wanted...

..to know as much as I could. I have to say my professors at the University of Hawai'i were top-notch in that regard and knew a great deal.

But that doesn't reach down to the high school level, where history texts are closely regulated by narrow-minded school boards who want to make sure high schools turn out loyal little Americans who only know so much. High school is also where so many are turned off to what they think is "history."

I've always gone beyond the history textbooks to read literature in translation. They are really a great source for how other cultures view the world we share. When Alexander Solzhenytsin's books started appearing in the West, I read them. No Soviets were allowed to. Now there is so much more from around the world: Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Iraq. Books of literature aren't instantaneous like a cell phone, but they are and always will be a valuable resource.

[oldandhappy]

97. Yes. And Hawaii is unique.

Lady living next to me studied at the east west center. Great resource.

[kwassa]

16. Oh, it was this little thing called the Cold War.

Nuclear missiles pointed at us. Our missiles pointed at them.

[Hekate]

19. Shh. They don't want to discuss that part. But I really think it's Putin's comfort zone. nt

[JI7]

18. the Cold War was one of the reasons places like Afghanistan, Somalia,Iran etc got so fucked up

with both sides supporting some shitty ass people and policies for their own benefit without a care for the people of the nations.

[Hekate]

20. And that's a point. Proxy wars. nt

[former9thward]

21. No offense but your wife did not say anything profound.

It was a statement based on ignorance of history. We were taught to distrust the USSR because it was the most murderous regime in human history. The communists murdered tens of millions in Russia and spread their ideology to Asia where China murdered about 100 million (so far) and millions were murdered in other communist Asian counties.

[ND-Dem]

24. according to who?

[former9thward]

25. According to history.

Is that you Mr. Putin?

[ND-Dem]

26. what history? you think there's one monolithic history? tell me the source of your figures.

[former9thward]

28. If you are truly that ignorant of communist executions

you should not be on a sane discussion board. I will give you this link but I am sure you will denounce it as capitalist lies. Have a good night.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Book_of_Communism

[Hekate]

33. Kind of boggles the mind to encounter that much ignorance, doesn't it? nt

[ND-Dem]

46. Well, given that even your link contains criticism of the book, I don't need to denounce anything.

Last edited Sun Feb 15, 2015, 04:26 AM - Edit history (1)

I can just copy from your link.

The authors of the book have been criticized for historical inaccuracies. Concerning Nicolas Werth's section about Russia, Professor Peter Kenez of the University of California, Santa Cruz wrote about what he says are historical inaccurate statements[11]

Werth can also be an extremely careless historian. He gives the number of Bolsheviks in October 1917 as 2,000, which is a ridiculous underestimate. He quotes from a letter of Lenin to Aleksandr Shliapnikov and gives the date as 17 October 1917; the letter could hardly have originated at that time, since in it Lenin talks about the need to defeat the Tsarist government, and turn the war into a civil conflict. He gives credit to the Austro-Hungarian rather than the German army for the conquest of Poland in 1915. He describes the Provisional Government as "elected."

(Then Werth himself (the sloppy historian of the Russian section) disavowed the editor of the book

Two of the Black Book's contributors, Nicolas Werth and Jean-Louis Margolin, sparked a debate in France when they publicly disassociated themselves from Courtois's statements in the introduction about the scale of Communist terror. They felt that he was being obsessed with arriving at a total of 100 million killed...Werth and Margolin rejected the equation of Soviet repression with Nazi genocide. Werth said there was still a qualitative difference between Nazism and Communism. He told Le Monde, "Death camps did not exist in the Soviet Union",[20] and "The more you compare Communism and Nazism, the more the differences are obvious.

In his review of the book, historian Jean-Jacques Becker also criticized Courtois' numbers as rather arbitrary and as having "zero historical value" (Fr. "La valeur historique est nulle&quot for adding up deaths due to disparate phenomena (Fr. "additionner des carottes et des navets", i.e. adding apples and oranges). Becker went further and accused Courtois of being an activist (Fr. "combattant&quot .[16]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Book_of_Communism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Livre_noir_du_colonialisme

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Livre_noir_du_capitalisme

[DemocratSinceBirth]

39. I believe it's pretty well established that over 100,000,000 died between...

Stalin's forced collectivization and Mao's Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution.


I remember learning about the Cultural Revolution and thinking that Mao was more ruthless than a Mafia don. He began a Hundred Flowers campaign, i.e. that free speech should spring up like flowers to encourage intellectuals and dissidents to speak up. That sounds laudable except it was a ruse to get them to inculpate themselves so they could be exiled or killed.

[ND-Dem]

47. "Pretty well established" only if you don't know much about the folks who did the research and

what they counted to get those totals.

RJ Rummel is a political scientist best known for his contribution to the "democratic peace theory". He is also the author of the book Death by Government where he claims that states in the 20th century were responsible for killing around 174 million people. Interestingly this figure is frequently quoted by libertarians who are dismissive of the rest of his output...It can be quickly shown his work on "calculating" the number of victims of governments calls for the same treatment.

We can ignore the fact his "most probable estimate" of deaths the responsibility of the Soviet Union presupposes 40 million deaths in the gulag, which happens to be twice the number of people who passed through the camps. We can also ignore his "high estimate" of the number of people killed by the USSR presupposes the murder of a fantastic 115 million Soviet citizens — a number of deaths sufficient to demographically break a far more populous nation than the Soviet Union (148 million people in 1926). Ignore also his having "calculated" that Soviet Union extinguished 2.38 million lives in the gulag between 1961 and 1982, and an additional 200,000 lives between 1983 and 1987. Ignore, because there is an even better way to showcase the level of his scholarship than debunking any of these. Better because it is made by Rummel himself.

In Death by Government Rummel claimed 174 million killed by government, but has since revised the figure to 262 million. This is partly the outcome of his changing his estimate of the number of people killed by colonial regimes from 870,000 to 50,870,000! Rummel explains this revision became necessary when, having read a book on Belgian colonialism in Congo, he realized he had been ignorant of a huge state-caused loss of life in that African territory. That seems like an honest explanation, but should he really be left of the hook this easily?

To begin with, the enormous loss of life in colonial Congo is hardly new (or obscure) information that was not available before. Rummel himself gives examples of sources (including Encyclopedia Britannica) that speak about it and were published well before Death by Government:

•"Britannica, 'Congo Free State' claims that the population declined from 20 or 30 million to 8 million..."

In other words, Rummel admits that at the time of writing Death by Government he was ignorant of the true nature of colonialism, but in a manner of a dilettante gave the 870,000 figure anyway. Professor Rummel can be commended that having learned something new he admitted to his delusion and revised his claim. However, if an author is going to make errors of this magnitude he probably should not be merely "reevaluating" estimates, he should be reevaluating whether he has any business writing books on the topic.

http://www.crappytown.com/2011/12/why-rj-rummel-shouldnt-be-taken.html

[sabrina 1]

35. Is it possible for DU to refrain from that old right wing personal attack on

liberals? You know, the one where if someone even dares to ask a question that threatens to veer from the 'approved message' they are 'Saddam lovers' or 'Putin Lovers'??

You were asked a legitimate question. Your response was to attack the questioner. Does that mean, and this is how I have always viewed this particular right wing tactic, that you cannot answer the question?

I have been in Europe, which was far closer to the threat from the Soviet Union, yet no one I have met there had the same view of history as many Americans? They certainly had reason to fear the Soviet Union, yet they did not live in the same state of fear that many Americans do.

Are you aware there are 7 billion people on this planet and only approx. 300,000 of them are Americans?

[brush]

43. I'm a fan but just a small correction — there are over 300,000,000 Americans . . .

not 300,000.

[sabrina 1]

81. Oops, thank you for pointing out the error!

[WinkyDink]

57. Really? You met Hungarians who were alive in 1956? How about Czechs from 1968? E. Germans?

THERE ARE ONLY 300,000 AMERICANS?

[former9thward]

62. Are you saying there were no communist executions?

In the Soviet Union? China? N. Korea? Vietnam? Cambodia? Eastern Europe?

I am not going to try and teach history in posts on a discussion board. That should have happened in school. It did not with that poster. That scores of millions died under communist repression is an accepted fact in Europe ( and in Russia) not just the U.S. Next I will be asked to prove the Holocaust happened and how many people died in that.

[sabrina 1]

73. Was that post intended for me?

[former9thward]

78. Yes.

You said I was asked a legitimate question. I was not. Is asking to prove the Holocaust happened a legitimate question? The two are equivalent. You are saying it is right wing to accept the fact communist repression existed. It is not.

[sabrina 1]

83. If somone said any of what you just posted, then you need to address your comments to THEM.

MY comment pointed out the use of a right wing smear against Liberals being used on this Democratic forum where Democrats expect to be free of Right Wing talking points and anti-Liberal smears.

Since you failed to address that point, it appears you are addressing the wrong person.

[former9thward]

84. It is not right wing.

The only smear is you calling me right wing.

[WinkyDink]

54. WTH?! REALITY, that's "who."

[ND-Dem]

56. People, with specific interests, come up with numbers. An entity called "reality" doesn't.

I want a citation to show where those numbers came from, as I would with any scholarship.

[MattBaggins]

23. Canadian Bacon

[NBachers]

30. "In Russia, they don't have a free press. The newspapers tell the people what to think"

[WinkyDink]

53. "What is the difference between Pravda and Izvestia?"

"What is the difference between Pravda [Truth] and Izvestia [The News]?"

"There is no truth in Izvestia, , and no news in Pravda."

[Hekate]

70. For those who don't know, that was a Russian joke back in the day, not something from the US.

[WinkyDink]

96. I am not amongst those. :-)

[DemocratSinceBirth]

31. I don't remember being taught to hate them, fear them maybe...

They had 20,000 nukes at the peak of their empire. They weren't pointed at themselves.

[GGJohn]

40. Not taught by our teachers, but by our parents. eom.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

41. My grandparents are from Byelorussia.

They didn't have fond memories of the place but they left before the Bolshevik Revolution.

But as I said I feared them as much as someone can fear a threat as amorphous as the Soviet threat.

[WinkyDink]

55. Really? Speak for yourself.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

61. We are talking in broad generalizations but I don't think most folks hated the USSR,

I do believe folks have a visceral dislike of totalitarianism but that's different than hating the USSR.

I believe folks were weary of them and their 20,000 nukes.

[Hekate]

82. I wasn't taught to hate the Russians, Chinese, East Germans. Definitely was taught to pity their...

...existence under totalitarianism. What I was taught was that our people had a chance to change our lives, and their people didn't. The Civil Rights movement was going on, and the blowback was ugly, but eventually it worked. Meanwhile protesters and writers of all types in Russia/the USSR were under constant threat for deviating from the party line. Independent presses were severely quashed.

The fact that I now take a less optimistic view of my native land simply means I am an adult and not a child. The dislike of totalitarianism remains intact.

You're right about the nukes, too.

This is an eye-opening thread, a combination of none so blind as they who will not see and those with a rigid agenda.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

86. I have an African American friend.

He's eighty one.He was from Alabama so you know he felt the full sting of Jim Crow, He joined the military at seventeen and earned Bronze Stars from Korea and Viet Nam. I asked him how he could fight for a country that treated him and his people so shabbily. He said it was for its ideals. Liberal democracy is better than totalitarianism.

As I said up thread my grandparent left Byelorussia's after the 1905 Revolution, probably one step ahead of the latest pogrom. But my parents never instructed me to hate them.


------

I'm trying to remember a book I read about Stalin. It was written by the son or maybe grandson of one of the great Russian writers. It wasn't as deep as the Gulag Archipelago but it was a fun read... I can't remember the name.

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

118. Excellent post

I agree with you.

[calimary]

44. Yeah, we all were.

I can remember the books I had in school - "the Communists... " (did this or that) and I always wondered "who are these Communists and why are they so bad?" I can remember wondering what that meant - and feeling as though I was being sold something. Sometimes it was "why do you want me to think they're bad?"

[Jesus Malverde]

49. The duck and cover generation

Traumatized with the specter of nuclear annihilation. Taught to hate those they didn't know.

[Hekate]

68. My peers were sent to Vietnam and learned not to blindly trust Uncle Sam.

[Jesus Malverde]

72. 50k dead for nothing

Went to Vietnam a couple years ago. Beautiful country and people.

Hate is manufactured by the state and just as easily dismissed. Vietnam is now a partner with the U.S. and corporations are investing there like nothing happened. It's a strange world.

[Hekate]

76. A rather broad brush was applied in your earlier post, though. The "duck and cover generation"?

Really. How about the "protest in the streets generation"?

[Jesus Malverde]

77. 50k dead for nothing

Have you been to Vietnam beautiful country and people.

Deal with it.

[ND-Dem]

94. More in my generation ducked and covered than ever protested.

[Hekate]

105. Speak for yourself.

[ND-Dem]

110. If I were speaking for myself, I wouldn't be talking about the generation. Are you saying more

protested than ducked and covered?

Nuclear drills were pretty universal. Anti-war or other protests, not so much.

If you want to claim the opposite, please provide some evidence.

[Hekate]

113. Evidence? How about your own assertions?

[WinkyDink]

50. Hello? The Berlin Wall and shooting people trying to escape E. Germany? The Gulag? Maybe Cuba, 1962?

[Hekate]

74. The Truthiness Squad is out and about.

The US is teh evil. False equivalencies abound. The USSR never did nothing. The duck and cover generation was traumatized into hating everyone (I love that one).

I wonder if any of the Truthiness Squad ever read even one word of Solzhenytsin's Gulag Archipelago, or talked to even one refugee or emigre. Naaah. Because the US doesn't have pristine clean hands, ipso facto the USSR/Russia never did anything bad at all.

[Jesus Malverde]

75. .

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

103. I can't believe that people here don't realize

how bad things were in the Soviet Union. Bad. The lifestyle of a professional in Russia was no better than anyone working at Burger King today for minimum wage. Except that they did get free, crappy healthcare, and had free public transportation..if it was actually running that day.

[Hekate]

106. Nice to meet you, Texas Momma

I have my opinions about the source of some of the statements here, but based on past history here at DU, I'd be willing to bet money that at least one is being paid. Others are blinded by their disappointment/disgust with the manifest faults of the US into thinking that's all we are or ever were, and yet others are blissfully ignorant.

And yet you seem to be the only respondent who has ever stayed in Russia, and in someone's actual home.

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

111. Yes, I have been in homes in two different cities in Russia (one being in Moscow)

and one home in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, and another home in a little village outside of Dubrovnik. In fact, I loved the city of Dubrovnik best of all my excursions into soviet or former soviet territory. Since it served as a tourist destination, the city was delightful and not so drab as everywhere else.

And nice to meet you, too!

[WinkyDink]

52. So because we weren't actually attacked, there was no threat? Pretty specious reasoning, to me.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

58. Regarding Rummel and his numbers...

May I quote the end of Schindler's List?
"He who saves one life, saves the world entire. He who destroys one life, destroys the world entire."

Isn't quibbling over numbers a good way to derail an argument? When bad stuff happens and people are murdered or imprisoned, why is there such a big diff in the amount of outrage over one million or one hundred million? Are these not tragedies, whether one person or a few million?

Besides, the USSR would always say their population was ten or twenty million than the U.S. had population. I noticed that when I was a kid. They always seemed to give numbers that said they had more people than we did to intimidate us. And I believe Arthur C. Clarke went over there and came back and said, "I just don't think they have as many people as they say they do." For whatever that is worth.

[merrily]

60. The "Red Menace" was the PTB's collective horror of the aristocracy having to flee Russia after the

revolution, leaving behind all they owned in many cases (currently being recalled as PBS airs this season's episodes of Downton Abbey).

After the stock market crash of 1929, only a short time after the Russian Revolution, FDR recruited one of the market's biggest manipulators, Joe Kennedy, to work on reforming the stock market--so people would be confident enough to invest with Wall Street again.

After Franklin Roosevelt called Joe to Washington, D.C. to clean up the securities industry, somebody asked FDR why he had tapped such a crook. "Takes one to catch one," replied Roosevelt.[31]

The senior Kennedy reportedly said: "I would gladly give half of all I own in order to be able to keep the other half in peace." (I read or heard this somewhere, but a quick google did not lead me to it, so maybe it's apochyphal?) However, JFK did describe his father as to the right of Hoover. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_P._Kennedy,_Sr. So, Joe was much more a wheeler dealer than he was a New Dealer.

On the 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination, MTP aired a video clip from a MTP program featuring JFK, then running for President, A member of the press panel asked JFK why Americans should trust Democrats with the economy, or something to that effect. Instantly, JFK replied that Democrats had saved capitalism in America. So, that is how the Kennedys apparently saw the New Deal.


IOW, hating Russians and the Cold War, like so much else in the world, seems to have been about protecting the rich and their assets.


IOW, we spent a lot of blood, treasure, time and energy making sure Americans hated income re-distribution from the rich to the less rich. With a few blips that may or may not have helped the poor, like the French Revolution and the Russian Revolution, income redistribution has been from the everyone else to the rich since people lived in caves. The rich and powerful would very much like it to stay that way.

[Albertoo]

63. With all due respect, your wife did not say something profound.

She said that while growing up, she was taught to hate and distrust the USSR, and why that was?

Why? Could it be because of the Holomodor where 10 million Ukrainians died due to ideology?

Why? Could it be because of the "Gulag Archipelago" and "Darkness at Noon"?

Why? Could it be because "1984" was Soviet Russia?


The Islamist Neanderthals are not an excuse for the USSR collective madness.

[GGJohn]

64. With all due respect,

it was profound to me.

[Albertoo]

65. Love is blind ;)

joking

[GGJohn]

66. LOL, yes it is. eom.

[fadedrose]

85. I wasn't, but..

learned about hating Russia from the news and Catholic school because Russia was an atheist country, and we were told to pray for Russia to be converted.

What I leaned at home was that the Russians loved children and drank good booze and ate good foot. Their music unsurpassed, and the soldiers did those fantastic dances you've seen on TV, kicking while stooping, etc....

My dad was in WWI, which didn't involve Hitler and concentration camps, the Berlin Wall, or any of that stuff. Germany marched into Slovakia and forced all men and boys to fight in their army against America, Europe and Russia, all 3 which they learned to love. They met up with troops, not as allies, but as captured enemies, and he thought they were all okay or better

Communism started to take a foothold in 1917 and its effects were not felt till after WWI.

I agree with your wife. For the most part the people of Russia are not radical terrorists. They deserve better than the governments they've had.

[Jesus Malverde]

107. Nice post...nt

[handmade34]

88. just this morning on VPR...

BackStory... very interesting and enlightening!!

"Stars & Tsars: A History of US/Russia Relations"

In the past few years, the White House and the Kremlin have sparred over Syria, the Winter Olympics, and now, the crisis in Ukraine. It can be tempting to view these events through the familiar lens of the Cold War, but in this episode, the History Guys probe the deeper history of our relationship with Russia — and discover moments of comity as well as conflict. From Civil War-era analogies between freeing American slaves and freeing Russian serfs, to early 20th-century debates over women’s suffrage, Americans have often looked to Russia as a counterpart, if sometimes a cautionary one.

http://backstoryradio.org/shows/stars-tsars/

[treestar]

98. When did she grow up?

When I grew up they were the other superpower and had bombs aimed at us and we had bombs aimed at them. All nuclear and could blow up the world.

We were taught they were communists and wanted to force that on us.

When the uSSR fell, it was amazing to me. I had never dreamed we would be free of that threat.

[Hekate]

108. It was amazing, wasn't it? Sadly, those folks never had a democratic tradition to go to...

...and ended up, in short order, back with a totalitarian ruler. Chaos is scary and hungry -- it is said, Better the devil you know than the devil you don't.

The nukes were real, and the threats were real. We'll be forever cleaning them up out of the Ukraine.

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

119. Yeah, some need a history lesson in the Cuban missile crisis, I'm afraid

Hint: The Soviet Union was involved.

[GGJohn]

121. We are children of the 50's and 60's,

We were taught much the same way as you were.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

120. I too support building a strong alliance with the USSR.

Also the Ottoman Empire, the Holy Roman Empire, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia.

But not the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Screw those guys.

[cleanhippie]

122. I don't think you're using that word correctly.

pro·found
prəˈfound/
adjective
adjective: profound; comparative adjective: profounder; superlative adjective: profoundest

1. (of a state, quality, or emotion) very great or intense.
"profound social changes"
synonyms: heartfelt, intense, keen, great, extreme, acute, severe, sincere, earnest, deep, deep-seated, overpowering, overwhelming, fervent, ardent More
"profound relief"
far-reaching, radical, extensive, sweeping, exhaustive, thoroughgoing
"a profound change"
antonyms: superficial, mild, slight
(of a disease or disability) very severe; deep-seated.
"a case of profound liver failure"
2. (of a person or statement) having or showing great knowledge or insight.
"a profound philosopher"
synonyms: wise, learned, clever, intelligent, scholarly, sage, erudite, discerning, penetrating, perceptive, astute, thoughtful, insightful, percipient, perspicacious;
raresapient
"a profound analysis"

[Baitball Blogger]

123. One show changed my mind about the Soviet Union.

It was a transatlantic show where east met west. Our side was hosted by Phil Donahue. For the first time I saw the Russian people for who they were. What we learned was that it was our governments that were standing in the way of a mutual respect for one another.

[GGJohn]

124. Some of my fondest memories in the Army were meeting Russian soldiers

after the fall of the Soviet Union, they pretty much wanted the same thing as us, prosperity, peace, a chance to make a good life for themselves and their families back home.