From: knguyen@emr1.emr.ca (Kim Nguyen)
Subject: Re: Castro and other despots (was Re: Merits of the Free Press)
Organization: Energy, Mines, and Resources, Ottawa
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 02:07:35 GMT

In article <1992Oct14.161002.2418@vexcel.com> dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:
>In article <1992Oct14.025704.26808@emr1.emr.ca> knguyen@emr1.emr.ca (Kim Nguyen) writes:
>>In article <1992Oct12.145634.10936@vexcel.com> dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) 
>>wri
>>tes:
>>>In article <1992Oct11.154658.1@violet.ccit.arizona.edu> 
>>f67700241@violet.ccit.a
>>rizona.edu (Greg Franklin) writes:
>>>>In article <BvvKqu.4y7@news.orst.edu>, Monte Olsen <olsenm@ccmail.orst.edu> 
>>wr
>>ites:
>>>>>In article <1992Oct9.164131.3571@vexcel.com> dean@vexcel.com writes:
>>>>>>such an enemy to deflect opposition.  The US provided
>>>>> such an enemy,
>>>>>>and continues to do so, at a lesser level, for other
>>>>> despots like
>>>>>>Castro.
>>>>>
>>>>> And, so what are you saying. That we need to ignore
>>>>> Castro, and like a good little dog he'll go away? Don't
>>>>> think so. That's an incredibly short-sighted view.
>>>>
>>>Is he going away now?  The "my country, right or wrong" attitude is not
>>>unique to any country.  To the extent it exists in communist countries,
>>>Us trade embargoes and similar policies help the dictators in those
>>>countries.  Is it a coincidence that the stalinist regimes of
>>>eastern Europe (that had relations with the west) fell just about as
>>>soon as the Soviet Union stopped enforcing its authority but the more
>>>distant communists countries that were the target of US containment
>>>policies are still going strong?  China is an exception because it is
>>>so big.
>>>
>>-----------
>[Various stuff about economic conditions in Cuba and Vietnam deleted but
> agreed to.
>Maybe they aren't going strong, but they are stronger than communists leaders
>in eastern europe.
>
>>Again, we must understand that free markets only
>>for goods and services, not for ideas.
>Its hard to separate the two.  Wasn't Tienanmen Square the result of the
>failure of the Chinese to do so?
--------------------


-If you don't agree with "going weak" I can say they are trying to survive.
Industrial-based Eastern Europe countries which are good candidates for
socialism cannot flourish their wealth as basic requirement for that
goal. The whole region where the idea of communism appears first is where that 
idea  first disappears.
Without help, agricultural communist countries cannot be better and find 
themselves further behind the goal.
To see what they are doing now, look at China. Deng often says " Poverty is 
not socialism" or "Being rich is glorious". To us, it means that capitalism is 
okay but not democracy, or we can say a sort of free-market controlled 
by state.
-Yes, you are right when saying it's hard to separate the two because they
are doing something called reform. It aims at making the populace's life
better in order to avoiding unrest, and at the same time, still abiding with 
Marxist and Maoist thought.
-Tiananmen Square in 1989 was the result of that reform. This time
they did correct by making the party congress perform a bit more
democratic than theatrical, by avoiding causes of rebellion.
-To see causes of rebellion, look at two types of demonstrators, workers
and students. It demonstrates that there are at least two causes :
economy and democracy.
Students are the fore front of ideal. Studying in mainland and abroad
shows them more human ways to modernize China.
Workers feel threatened by the reform of enterprise. Being a communist
workers means housing, education and health care for the whole family.
The reform before 1989 was going to reduce state enterprises which
drained huge money. Fearing lost of jobs (= lost of everything), workers
joined the students.
-The last cause is related to the top core of the apparatus. The free-maket
enterprise would sink hardliners' fortune.
I think with the same tone and same theme, they have to go ahead with
capitalism without democracy, totalitarianism without freedom.