Victor Milne wrote:
>
> I am by no means a communist or socialist, but this looks like
> propaganda-sriven tunnel vision to me. Comments follow.
I once had a manager who, after being sentenced to third shift for
his opinions, told me: "I have no evil thoughts." (the poor
guy had quit the army after 20 minus 1 years to take the job!).
>
> ----- 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]
[snip]
> 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]
There was an article in Sunday 23 Jan 2000 New York Times Sunday Magazine
about Russia's top new novelist: he said most Russians had it
better under the Soviet regime (obviously, he meant: *less worse*).
>
> > Any able person worth his salt heads for the US. My nephew - an
> > anesthesiologist - now in Virginia told me with amazement the change.
Yes, skim off the cream and then say what's left isn't very substantial
stuff.
I would like to repeat my contention that, whatever the intrinsic
propensities to badness of Communist
regimes, the "West", via its relentless
policy of strangling these regimes from the get-go (the late 1910s)
has unquestionably contributed to exacerbating these negative
qualities and minimizing the chances for the regimes' better
qualities to flower.
I believe this certainly happened with
Cuba. Maybe in Vietnam. (The rest I'm even less
up-to-date on -- and then there was Tito, who surely ws the
very worst thing that ever happened to the Balkans -- right?)
I say: Shame on the West!
Talk about "free competition"! You
bet! We did everything we were free to do to crush "the specter which
haunt[ed/s] Europe". Note that I am not saying Stalin was
as noble a statesman and as great a benefactor of the
weak and downtrodden as Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher. I
am simply asking whether even at only isolated places and times
the peoples "behind the Iron Curtain" would have had better lives
had the West not done everything it could to squeeze these
governments (oops! sorry! none of them were legitimate governments!
--For starters, read D.F. Fleming's _The Cold War and its Origins_,
on the issue of America's legitimizing of anti-Communist puppet
regimes, etc.).
> 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.
You know what I'd rather have? A doctor who discusses the existential
meaning of medicine, and who *cares* about this as a primary issue
in his or her daily life. A doctor who strives for technical
excellence and effective bedside rapport will do -- whatever he or
she thinks about. But my ideal would be a real "doc-tor": one
who (etymologically) guides ["teaches"] persons to have richer lives --
where part of the work of enrichment is through technical medical
and chirurgical propaedeutics.
I certainly would not want a doctor who *plays* "football (i.e.,
soccer) -- for I would worry that his avocation had caused brain
damage from hitting the ball with his head!
[snip]
\brad mccormick
--
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua NY 10514-3403 USA
-------------------------------------------------------
<![%THINK;[XML]]> Visit my website: http://www.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
