I am by no means a communist or socialist, but this looks like
propaganda-sriven tunnel vision to me. Comments follow.
----- Original Message -----
From: Harry Pollard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Ray E. Harrell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; Harry Pollard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: Steve Kurtz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>;
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: January 25, 2000 12:45 PM
Subject: Re: FW: Breeding, was: Re: FW: The structure of future work...
[snip]
> It was the job of the State to support the Bolshoi, the Kirov, the two
> Moscow companies (three if you include the Kremlin) and the rest of them -
> and they did very well. The people they trained at great expense were
often
> superior - and they had every reason to be so, for the competition for
> these plum positions must have been great.
>
> A very good ballet dancer would be treated like royalty. But, not so the
> bulk of the Russian people. The peasants who suffered under the Czar
> suffered equally under the Soviets - at least those who were left after
the
> massacre of the millions.
>
> The Soviet was the country of the very rich and a poor that suffered
> deprivation that makes our inner cities look like heaven. As soon as they
> were allowed, the Republics got away. As soon as they could, the more able
> people dodged around the barbed wire at the borders.
There were most certainly inequities with high party officials living in
luxury and ordinary people living very humbly in crowded apartments. (By the
way what's the difference in life-style between a US senator and your
average Washington, DC resident?) However, medical care was universally
available and pensioners could live without financial anxiety. This is not
the case after a decade of US-driven free enterprise in Russia. For another
communist country, Cuba, I read recently that the infant mortality rates are
less than in the USA.
>
[snip]
> Any able person worth his salt heads for the US. My nephew - an
> anesthesiologist - now in Virginia told me with amazement the change.
While
> back in England the doctors over coffee would discuss football results,
> here they discuss their investments.
Good God! I'd far rather have a doctor who discussed football results than
investments. I'd fear the latter's main preoccupation would be operating on
my wallet rather than healing me. In fact the US health care system is a
mess. Nine years ago in a study in the New England Journal of Medicine it
was pointed out that one private insurer (Massachusetts Blue Cross/Blue
Shield) with subscribers equal to about 10% of the population of Canada (2.6
million) needed more employees than all ten provincial health plans
combined! Presumably this army of free enterprise gnomes is needed to prove
that subscribers are not entitled to the treatments they thought they were.
