Warren Ockrassa wrote: > > So Perestroika and Glasnost and so on, and eventually Communism in > Russia went away (for now!). The same will *probably* happen in China > and North Korea, but I'll say again that it doesn't magically happen. > There must be competition from other societies, if for no other reason > than to get the oppressed thinking in terms of their own rights and > liberties (as being at least as valid as those of the Great Leader). > I think exactly the _opposite_: a totalitarian regime can only survive for a long time if there is an external competition. The external competition is the stabilizing factor that prevents the minions of the Evil Overlord to fight among themselves to become the next Evil Overlord.
Of course this does not prevent the worst-case-scenario of 1984, with three competing totalitarian regimes. Could we become this, with China, the USA and someone else [Europe? The Muslim World? An Arab-Europe coalition?] turned into totalitarian regimes and oppressing the world? Alberto Monteiro _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
