Isidingo - The Need

Glen Beck from CNN sez dat Stalin killed something like 160 million people. Maybe he sez, like da yankees like to do, "he kiled his OWN people". It doesn't matter me. What does matter me is dat he sez dis when he talks of Hillary Clinton's idea of pulling back American bizniz, like she's a commie facist. So his idea is that commies kilt loads of people. I tink da gangsta Tzar Valerie is not shooting his mouth about dis. My question to Mr Beck is how many people has America killed to stay capitalist?
And I aint no commie neither but his words are unfair. When I tink about China, I can see how many people were killed by da commies. But also I did my history and so I know dat many more people died before da commies come in, and loads are being killed now.

Labels: capitalism, Communism, Glen Beck, Hillary Clinton

So da bubble's finally burst for the US. You can tell how bad things are when you walk into like Armani and da only peoples buying is like da gangsta - euro trash, or my homies. It looks like da Americans have finally learned that ya can't be living on credit for all yours life and dat it's a freaking stupid thing to mortgage ya house to pay for the plastic man. It seems dat's what's been happening. Talk about a country sucking up da happy gas.
Now dat China officialy owns America here are a few tings dat should happen.
First off, put your children in school and make em freaking learn ta read and write. A bit of geography, some history and some dress sense would be good too.
Second, ban American idol and execute Simon Scowl, Poora Abdullah and Randy Jackoff in Tienaman scare.
Third, expense accounts have all been cancelled and yous are now gonna work like da brothers to get anywhere.
Fourth, learn to use chopsticks, it's two pieces of wood, how freaking hard can it be?
Fifth, Da screechy Star Spangled Banner is gone. Yous all better learn Arise! All who refuse to be slaves! in Chinese, dudes.
Altogether now Qilái! Búyuàn zuò núlì de rénmen ...

Labels: American Idol, China, Communism, US

Okay I will tell you what I know and what I think about the whole British Council row.
Firstly, it is possible that this is linked to the Litvinenko death but it is much more than just that. The British seem to be confused by the idea that Russia will not hand over Lugovoi for trial. There is no confusion. Russia's constitution does not allow it to do this. Therefore, Russia cannot hand over anyone for trial in Britain. The second point to this, that I have written before, is why should Russia hand over Lugovoi when Britain does not hand over Boris Berezofsky, wanted for corruption, and Akmad Zakayef, wanted on charges of terrorism. Do they think because they are Britain that they can do one thing and expect Russia to do another?
On to the British Council itself. It has long had problems in Russia, and obviously now the Kremlin is no longer prepared to turn blind eyes. The BC offers English classes to the public which are far more expensive than those of other schools. And yet it is classified as a charity. Being classified as a charity means it pays no income tax. This is hardly fair on all the other English schools that abide by the tax laws. If it does not want to pay the tax then it must fall under the cover of diplomatic missions - for Britain, consulates general. If the BC chooses diplomatic cover then it had no right to operate in St Petersburg of Yekaterinburg.
When Downing Street says that the council is operating legally under international law it is fantasizing. There is a hole in the agreements between the government and council which still has to be closed. This has not happened because of the Litvinenko row. So that is why the foreign affairs ministry of Russia has pointed to Litvinenko as the cause, not because it is any "tit for tat" response.
There is an opinion that the British Council activity “does not fully comply with the Russian government resolution “On the Establishment and Terms of Operation of Foreign Cultural and Information Centers on the Territory of the Russian Federation”,” Chairman of the Federation Council International Affairs Committee Mikhail Margelov said.
For instance, the resolution compels the centres to receive permission from Russian authorities before opening. The Vienna Consular Convention says that all entities enjoying privileges and immunities must respect laws and rules of the host state, he said.
Chairman of the State Duma International Affairs Committee Konstantin Kosachyov said: “The United Kingdom is the only member state of the European Union and, probably, the only foreign partner of Russia, which is trying to thrust its own lifestyle on us and establish the rules, which may be convenient for the UK but have not been discussed and are hardly equally convenient for us,” he said.

Other EU member countries that have their cultural offices in Russia, including Germany, France, Italy and Spain, “are acting in a totally different way. They fully comply with Russian laws and intergovernmental agreements,” Kosachyov said.

“We will insist that the UK must bring the British Council activity in correspondence with international laws, EU traditions and, what is the most important, Russian laws,” he said.
Furthermore it is an open secret that the BC is used as a front for MI6. Not only that but there have been reports of Russian students using the council's tuition being recruited for the British Intelligence services. This is again, not something new and only to be expected under such circumstance.
However, the UK's blatant meddling in the last Russian election in its bid to unseat Putin did not go down well with citizens. It's fanatical acceptance and promotion of "the other Russia" calling it a "democratic opposition movement" was duly noted. The fact that pre-election the British Ambassador Anthony S. Brenton spoke at one of this party's meetings was also duly noted, as was his call to crack down on freedom of expression when young Russians held an anti-facist rally outside his home. The ambassador is supposed to be a diplomat not a political campaigner. How many people in the UK would welcome Russian interference in their elections?
The British media failed to note that about 95% of the members of "the other Russia" are ultranationalists and cranks from the National Bolshevik Party. Its portrayal of Garry Kasparov as "the voice of the citizens" was a joke. The man could not even scrape together enough support to make a run for the presidency.
The constant rumblings against Putin taking a third term are again, complete double standards. When Kazakhstan’s Nursultan Nazarbayev did that, and held deeply flawed elections in May which saw only a single party represented, the American Embassy described it as “a good move for democracy”.
The constant whining about Russian elections being "rigged" is nothing more than lies. Putin enjoys a huge popularity among Russian people and the results of the elections went just the way they said it would. They voted as expected.
It is interesting to note the UK's double standards when it comes to Russia. It will whine about "human rights abuses" in Russia but has no voice when it comes to the suffering of ethnic Russians in Estonia and Latvia.
Britain stands isolated from the rest of the world in this row, as it did in the Litvinenko row. Its childish petulance has distanced it from Europe and is a testimony to its own diplomatic failure to deal with the confident and stronger Russia. When Russia was struggling under the Yeltsin puppet government the UKUS kicked it like a cur and that will not be forgotten so easily by Russia's people or government. The UK bends at the knee to Syria and Iran and even to its own Islamic extremists at home. It harbours Russian criminals.
The reality is that Britian is now paying for its ridiculously hostile policies to Russia and its dog-like devotion to the United States. If Britain was more co-operative with Europe and Russia this kind of thing would not be happening.
Russia has been provoked and humiliated at every turn with Britain. The UK continues to poke the bear, and if you poke the bear you will get the claws. How can the UK be so arrogant as to say that it will continue operating these councils in the face of their illegality?

Labels: berezofsky, British Council, Communism, kosovo, putin, Russia, UK Litvinenko, US, zakayef

In Communism's ideal the government governs the people and protects them from the greed of the businessmen. In Capitalism's ideal, businessmen and greed rule and the left-over crumbs may fall down to the poverty-stricken below. Communism believes that basically man needs to be protected from this avarice and Capitalism forces it upon him. Communism says "man can be better" and Capitalism says "man's a greedy bugger anyway so let's play to that".
Many western societies today enjoy the benefits of this Communist ideal and indeed so does Hong Kong. No, it's not the form of Maoist doctrine that was used on the mainland China but a very watered-down version of social responsibility in certain areas of its governance, as provided by the British.
Hong Kong is the land of millionaires. Yet it provides for those who cannot provide for themselves with a comprehensive social insurance scheme, free education up to a certain level, and heavily subsidised housing.
Where it does not protect people is in the market place, and this needs to be urgently addressed. There needs to be an enforced minimum wage to stop the exploitation of workers.
Unions need to be organised and recognised and rules set for the process of collective bargaining. This is not happening because of the government's reluctance to interfere in business.
This means that people are working 10 to 12 hours, seven days a week for a pittance while the captains of industry buy private planes for themselves and their friends.
This reluctance to interfere in business is taking its toll on Hongkonger's health too, in that while pollutant spewing factories have been hounded out of the territory there is nothing to stop them springing up across the border and poisoning our air. And I really mean poisoning our air. People with young children are leaving Hong Kong for cleaner air.
This is hurting the territory as there is a huge talent gap in the service industry sector. But I expect it won't be long until that gap is filled by enterprising locals. One thing I really admire about Chinese is their ability to look and learn. There is no doubt that this century will be China's.
What struck me about the differences between the communist system and that of capitalism was my recent trip to India. Tsarval always says to me that when I look at systems I need to see where they started, and where they are now. So India started out colonised and inherited a capitalistic system. Driving through the streets of New Delhi is an amazing experience but at the same time it is horrifying. The streets are filled with stray animals and beggars. This is the detritus of human society. Children are sold into slavery, girls into sexual slavery and marriage where they are passed around from husband to male in laws because of the shortage of men.
There is an interesting parallel here between China's one child policy and India's attempts to curb its rampant population growth. But that deserves a posting all on its own.
It is abundantly clear that the imperialist society of Britain left little in the way of social infrastructure for the Indians, more or less like in South Africa, only with much worse effect. This in turn means no education and the continuation of practices such as the primitive caste system. Under a communist government this caste system would have been destroyed. The inequality between men and women would have been wiped out to a large degree. How much potential and how many lives have been wasted because of the simple greed and arrogance of a capitalist ideal?

Labels: China, Communism, hong kong, India

There are two kinds of Communism, there is the ideal and then there is the reality. And sadly the two are not the same thing. There is Xtreme Communism and Communism lite, which we call socialism. It is often that people who denigrate Communism only seem to look at the X-Communism and hold up its faults as a reason to fight against the whole system and eradicate it from the earth. But they conveniently forget the follies of capitalism and royalism and turn a blind eye to the misery those two systems have wrought. They also fail to look at communist countries in context of the unbridled interference of capitalist countries, as I pointed out in the Cuban story.
The ideal of communism is equality of all men. Underpinning this is the idea of "to each according to his needs, from each according to his abilities".
This is a noble and worthy ideal which scares many capitalists for the simple reason that they are greedy. They don't like the idea of a janitor earning as much as a doctor. Why? Simply because they want material things, better cars, bigger televisions, they are greedy. They will argue that if the doctor has no better pay than the janitor, no one would aspire to being a doctor. This is simply not true. (I haven't seen any video games out there that allows you to "be the janitor" and for good reason.) And, in fact, I would argue is exactly the opposite of the reality. Few people, when choosing a career, decide on that career based on what they are going to earn. They choose a path that follows their interests.
But for a vast majority of people, not all the paths are open - in the capitalist world where education is for the rich. How can a peasant farmer become an astronaut in a capitalist society? Simple answer is he can't, not unless he's some outrageous genius who gets lucky and gets noticed. So those people who really want to become doctors, who have the dedication and interest and drive to become doctors, will do so in a communist society because they have access to the education. These are the people who will put their patient before their bank balance, and that is the kind of doctor I would prefer to go to. And it is the same for any career. In a communist society people have far more choice becase access to each career path is more accessible. They also have far more choice because they know that whatever career path they choose they will still be able to have wife and children and raise a family, along with getting a reasonable standard of living, healthcare and education.

Labels: China, Communism, cuba, Russia, Taiwan