{"article":{"id":135369,"heading":"Blown Away","author":"John Horvath","created":"2005-09-15 19:25:23","modified":"2005-09-15 22:59:50","last_modified":"Fri, 16 Sep 2005 05:59:50","article":"<p>John Horvath's article published in the German-English cyber-journal Telepolis is available at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.heise.de\/tp\/r4\/artikel\/20\/20906\/1.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">http:\/\/www.heise.de\/tp\/r4\/artikel\/20\/20906\/1.html<\/a><\/p>\n","contact":"mbatko@lycos.com","link":"http:\/\/www.mbtranslations.com","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/plain","summary":"It's ironic how much politicians and the mass media in the US and its cloient states resemble that of the former Soviet Union.","numcomment":2,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/","filesize":null,"article_url":"\/news\/2005\/09\/135369.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[{"id":135372,"heading":"Comparison: USA v. USSR","article":"How right you are....\r\n\r\nIs life today in the USA like life yesterday in the USSR? The inexorable conflict between the totalitarian government\u2019s need for repression and man\u2019s desire for freedom can only be resolved by revolution.\r\n\r\nThe centralization of political power in the hands of the federal government has allowed it to create a totalitarian state that in many ways is reminiscent of the old Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.\r\n\r\nYes, there still are significant differences between the USA and the former USSR. Consumer goods are readily available in the USA (although our gigantic trade deficits indicate they are not produced here.) Some of our Constitutional rights remain intact, albeit eroded.\r\n\r\nBut let\u2019s look at the similarities. Quotations about the USSR are from USC Professor Rodger Swearingen\u2019s book - \u201cThe World of Communism\u201d (1962).\r\n\r\nConstitution, Government, Political Parties\r\n\r\nUSSR:\r\n\r\n\u201cIn theory, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is a federally organized constitutional democracy [...] in practice, the constitution is relatively unimportant. [...] The various republics have little actual power [...] The Soviets have a \u201cone-party system of government\u201d [...] No other political parties are deemed necessary [...] The nature of the Communist system makes voting in the Soviet Union a meaningless gesture, an exercise in rubber-stamping the party\u2019s choice.\u201d\r\n\r\nUSA:\r\n\r\nThe USA claims to be a Constitutional Union of States, but the federal government routinely disregards the Constitution. The fifty State governments have little actual power. We are continually told that we have a \u201ctwo party system.\u201d In practice, the two nominal parties function as one party, having no significant areas of disagreement. Third parties are legal, but deemed unnecessary. Only two of the 535 members of Congress are independents.\r\n\r\nAs a result of the one-party system, voting is a meaningless gesture. The reelection rate for Congressional incumbents is 95 - 98%.\r\n\r\nPoliticians\r\n\r\nUSSR:\r\n\r\n\u201cThere are fundamental differences between professional politicians in other systems and in the Communist system. [...] In communist system, he who grabs power grabs privileges and indirectly grabs property. Consequently in Communism, power or politics as a profession is the ideal of those who have the the desire or the prospect of living as parasites at the expense of others.\u201d\r\n\r\nUSA:\r\n\r\nFederal judges and Congressmen are paid a minimum salary range of $145,000 to $158,000. These salaries place them in the top 5% of all income earners - public or private.\r\n\r\nYet federal judges complain constantly that they are underpaid, and Congress automatically grants itself a pay raise every year.\r\n\r\nIn the event that tax revenues become insufficient to pay these salaries, federal judges decided in Kelo v. City of New London that private property can be grabbed and sold in order to generate more taxes.\r\n\r\nMany would agree that the federal government has an essentially parasitic nature.\r\n\r\nForeign Policy\r\n\r\nUSSR:\r\n\r\n\u201cThe fundamental attitude of the United States toward other peoples is that they should have the right to determine their fate themselves, without any other nation telling them what they can or cannot do. [...] our policy generally has been \u201chands off\u201d [...] we have not adopted a policy of wholesale intervention in all countries of the world for the purpose of imposing American-style regimes on people everywhere.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThe Soviet policy has been the opposite. While paying lip service to the principle of self-determination, the Russians have repeatedly, as a matter of policy, interfered with the affairs of other states whenever they thought it to their advantage, and whenever they thought they could get away with it.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThe United States finds it difficult to combat such a ruthless foe by traditional, peaceful means. The Communists have no reluctance about using force. [...] If the Soviet threat were removed, we could, no doubt, move more quickly to abolish such unbecoming means altogether.\u201d\r\n\r\nUSA:\r\n\r\nRegardless of what it might say, the federal government does not believe that other nations have a right to self-determination. The federal government currently stations troops on over 6,000 military bases in 146 different countries.\r\n\r\nThat government routinely deploys those troops to enforce UN resolutions or impose what it calls \u201cdemocracy.\u201d\r\n\r\nContrary to Professor Swearingen\u2019s prediction, the fall of the USSR did not result in the federal government curtailing the \u201cunbecoming means\u201d of force. On the contrary, it occasioned a binge of warmongering. Since the fall of the USSR, the federal government launched wars in Panama, Iraq (twice) Somalia, Bosnia, Yugoslavia and Afghanistan.\r\n\r\nThe \u201cBush doctrine\u201d claims that the federal government has the right as the \u201cworld\u2019s sole remaining superpower\u201d to launch \u201cpreemptive wars\u201d against other countries.\r\n\r\nReligion\r\n\r\nUSSR:\r\n\r\n\u201cThe current phase [...] is one of rampant propaganda against religion. Mandatory public schools teach atheism as a regular part of the program.\u201d \u201cFrom the first grade, the child learns that \u201cthere is no God.\u201d \u201cThe government press maintains a constant campaign against religion.\u201d [...] This takes the form of making jokes about the \u201cold-fashioned people\u201d who still believe the \u201cnonsense about God.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhy, then does the Soviet government permit some churches to remain open? Isn\u2019t this freedom of religion? [...] Religious freedom is more than an open church building. It has to do with attitudes, laws, policies and goals. True, there are a number of of Protestant, Catholic and Russian Orthodox churches open throughout Russia. So long as the churches remain open, the men in Moscow can use this fact to convince the uninformed that there is religious freedom. After all, the churches are open!\u201d\r\n\r\nUSA:\r\n\r\nIn theory, the Constitution guarantees the free exercise of religion. In practice, federal judges have ordered a \u201cseparation of church and state\u201d that finds no mention in the Constitution.\r\n\r\nGovernment schools or government funded organizations are ordered to make no reference to religion. For example, federal judges banned public school students from reciting the pledge of allegiance because it contains the words \u201cunder God.\u201d The whole point of the phony \u201cseparation of church and state\u201d is to ensure that the Christian religion never affects \u201cattitudes, laws, policies and goals.\u201d\r\n\r\nBut the Churches are open.\r\n\r\nEducation\r\n\r\nUSSR:\r\n\r\n\u201cThe search for genuine truth has no place in Communist education. Students are not allowed to hear both sides of a question in courses in the social sciences and humanities. Much of his education turns out to be indoctrination and propaganda. His education is specialized, limited and slanted. If he is bright, he will have been well prepared to be a cog in the Soviet machine.\u201d\r\n\r\nUSA:\r\n\r\n\u201cPolitically correct\u201d curricula in the social sciences and humanities amount to propaganda and indoctrination. State and local public schools operate under the direction of federal authorities - the \u201cNo Child Left Behind Act\u201d (a\/k\/a the \u201cNo Child Moves Ahead Act\u201d)\r\n\r\nLocal school boards lack authority to prescribe their own curriculum. For example, a federal judge ordered that Georgia schools must teach evolution as a fact, not just a theory.\r\n\r\nThe federal government\u2019s educational system is designed to achieve mass indoctrination and produce a politically uniform, tractable citizenry.\r\n\r\nPress\r\n\r\nUSSR:\r\n\r\n\u201cThe Soviet Press ... has no freedom, no life of its own. There are 10,000 newspapers in the Soviet Union, but not one dares express an opinion which differs in the slightest degree from the official Party view on any major issue\u201d [...] On the other hand, the \u201cpress of the Free World represents a wide range of differing political viewpoints and purposes.\u201d\r\n\r\nUSA:\r\n\r\nNominally, there are thousands of newspapers and radio stations and hundreds of television channels. But the FCC and the Department of Justice (sic) allow most of them to be owned and controlled by a few media conglomerates.\r\n\r\nAccording to media expert Tom Wolzien, 80% of the prime time TV audience is watching channels owned by media conglomerates such as Viacom, Disney, Time-Warner, News Corp. and NBC\/Universal. For example, he notes that of the top 25 cable channels, 20 are now owned by one of the big five media companies.\r\n\r\nIn exchange for the federal government granting them an oligopoly, the media conglomerates refrain from criticizing its policies or exposing its corruption. Paul Craig Roberts notes that the media\u2019s historical role as government watchdog has diminished as a result of media consolidation.\r\n\r\nThe media conglomerates permit a narrow range of political viewpoints that more or less correspond to those of the Republicrat Party. The voices of independent journalists like Nat Hentoff, Joseph Sobran or the late Samuel Francis are not heard.\r\n\r\nFamily Life\r\n\r\nUSSR:\r\n\r\n\u201cMany of the jobs customarily held by men in America are done by women in the Soviet Union\u201d The USSR boasts: \u201cwe have eliminated discrimination based on sex.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cFrom the Soviet government\u2019s point of view, it is in fact essential that as many women as possible work [...] The great majority of families in the Soviet Union would find it difficult to exist on the wages of the husband alone. Salaries are too low [...] Sunday is almost always taken up by shopping. [...] Recreation in leisure time, as we know it in the United States, is not part of the average Soviet citizen\u2019s daily life.\u201d\r\n\r\nDivorce is legal for almost any reason. \u201cThe old quip was \u201cJust marriage is grounds for divorce in Russia\u201d The early revolutionaries prided themselves on the contempt with which they held the marriage relationship\u201d\r\n\r\nUSA:\r\n\r\nThrough various trade, monetary, immigration and tax policies, the federal government has depressed the value of its citizens\u2019 labor. According to the federal government\u2019s own statistics, the average private sector hourly wage, adjusted for inflation and before taxes, declined from over $9.00 in 1973 to $7.50 in 1996.\r\n\r\nDuring this period, families found it difficult to exist on the wages of the husband alone. Women were pressured to enter the workforce in order to maintain their family\u2019s standard of living. This hardship to family life was sold as \u201cwomen's liberation.\u201d\r\n\r\nSince most women are employed outside the home during the week, weekends are filled with household chores, errands and shopping. Many families lack time for recreation. Paid vacations of two weeks or more, which used to be standard for America\u2019s middle class, are becoming a rarity.\r\n\r\nAlso, as America\u2019s culture has become less Christian and more materialistic, Sundays are often spent at the shopping mall.\r\n\r\nDivorce and cohabitation have become rampant. As a result, 37% of America\u2019s children grow up apart from one or both of their biological parents - the highest percentage among Western nations.\r\n\r\nPossibility of Reform\r\n\r\nUSSR:\r\n\r\n\u201cWhy don\u2019t people in the Communist countries rebel against the system, or leave, if it\u2019s a bad as we hear it is?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cRebellion is never an easy task. It is especially difficult in a totalitarian police state [...] we find an extensive system of surveillance [...] All Soviet citizens must carry identification papers.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cEconomic and social pressures are now the favorite means of enforcing the party\u2019s demands for strict conformity. [...] Punitive unemployment can be the equivalent of a death sentence in the Soviet Union today. Not only does the individual lose his job and housing; no one will hire him.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThe fact that people who conform get ahead and live more happily also promotes acceptance of the Soviet system.\u201d\r\n\r\nUSA:\r\n\r\nIn order to identify and eventually suppress political dissent, which it calls \u201cextremism,\u201d the federal government is increasing surveillance of its own citizens.\r\n\r\nThe Patriot Act (sic) allows warrantless seizures of private records without probable cause and \u201csneak and peek\u201d searches of private residences.\r\n\r\nFor years, the federal government has been using the Social Security Number and Drivers\u2019 License to identify and track its citizens. The government\u2019s use of surveillance cameras is expected to rise sharply.\r\n\r\nAgain, due to federal government policies, good jobs are hard to find, and once secured, people are reluctant to jeopardize their employment by engaging in dissent or resistance.\r\n\r\nMany Americans subscribe to \u201cpolitically correct\u201d conformist views in order to \u201cget ahead,\u201d or out of a reasonable fear that an honest expression of their views will lead to reprisals, such as getting fired.\r\n\r\nConclusion: USA v. USSR\r\n\r\nA \u201ctotalitarian\u201d government is defined as one in which an \u201cauthoritarian government tolerates only one political party, to which all other institutions are subordinated and which demands the complete subservience of the individual to the state.\u201d [OED]\r\n\r\nSuch a government will centralize all political power at the federal level, in order to impose its policies universally and uniformly. The centralized government will feature only one political party (either nominally or in practice) in order to limit the scope of political debate and marginalize dissent. Anything that can limit the authority or discretion of government officials, like a written Constitution, is routinely dispensed with. The members of the ruling political party enjoy lavish salaries and privileges. Private property is subject to heavy taxation and the threat of confiscation.\r\n\r\nRandolph Bourne observed that for totalitarian governments, \u201cWar is the Health of the State.\u201d Such governments respect the sovereignty of other nations as little as that of their own citizenry.\r\n\r\nTotalitarian governments insist that all other human institutions - Church, School, Press and Family - must obediently serve their purposes. No institution may rival their power or stand in their way. No person, even the divine Person, may stand above or apart from totalitarian governments. Their subjects are not allowed to pledge allegiance to the State\u2019s being \u201cunder God.\u201d\r\n\r\nIf any person reserves to himself the autonomy to think or act freely, to form his own beliefs and purposes, the totalitarian government will seek his destruction. The complete subservience of individuals to the State means that individuals cannot be free to serve anything or anyone else. The totalitarian State permits no rivalries.\r\n\r\nSince totalitarian governments repress human freedom to the point of denying human nature, their own citizens will eventually seek to overthrow them. Totalitarian governments know this, and try to quash incipient rebellion through the use of surveillance and other police-state tactics.\r\n\r\nThe inexorable conflict between the totalitarian government\u2019s need for repression and man\u2019s desire for freedom can only be resolved by revolution.\r\n\r\nNext: Part 2 of 2\r\n\r\nComparison: USA v. USSR\r\nIs the federal government poised for a \u201cSoviet-style\u201d collapse?\r\n\r\nX - In Hoc Signo Vinces\r\n\r\nLuke Exilarch - luke@eXilemm.com\r\nAugust 16, 2005","author":"Signo Vinces","parent_id":135369,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2005-09-15 20:07:53","modified":"2013-11-11 00:35:26","fileurl":""},{"id":135381,"heading":"decent comparison, but based on dated material and stereotypes","article":"The comparison's above would be more persuasive if they were based on a text about the USSR that wasn't so dated (1962).  Of course, it is interesting that many of the qualities (or lack of) in the US today are similar to Russia in the early sixties, but then I would still be suspicious of a book written in 1962 amid the peak of the Cold War--HELLO!  Its called historical context.\r\n\r\nAlso, the comparison seems to promote some falsehoods of its own about the US, such as \r\n[\u201cPolitically correct\u201d curricula in the social sciences and humanities amount to propaganda and indoctrination.] which clearly indicates the white liberal or conservative slant of its author.  The debate over political correctness on college campuses is a red herring use by people who don't like the fact that they can't be racist, sexist, and homophobic.  Most universities are run by elites who are merely indoctrinating youths into elitist, HELLO!   \r\n\r\nNice try, but this post comes off like the rantings of a young David Horowitz before he lost his mind and sold out his soul to the  devil, opps, I mean the fascist right wing. amen...","author":"bush out now","parent_id":135369,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2005-09-15 22:59:51","modified":"2013-11-11 00:35:26","fileurl":""}]}