hypo

[redemption]

"Go get some fresh air kid! Envy and spite has you in a chokehold."


What does that mean?  I am for affirmative action, I just disagree with common assumptions that both sides share about what forms the basis for affirmative action.  I have said that in all my posts about affirmative action-go see my thread what drives AA for my views.

Can I ask you - did you major in Engineering in UG?

[redemption]

I'm actually interested, tho.

[redemption]

Ah, thanks.

[philibusters]

"Can I ask you - did you major in Engineering in UG?"

I did not, but both of my brothers did major in Engineering though.  I was always the slacker in my family and lacked the discipline needed for engineering or a hard science because I didn't like to put long hours of studying in, plus the humanities and social sciences are just more interesting.

However, until I was in highschool, everybody thought I would do Engineering or a hard science because I was skipped four grades ahead in math and was always in special math programs, but was pretty avg. in the rest of my classes.

[Freak]

This whole conversation is mindboggling.  Never once was there equality of pay in the USSR.  Managers made significantly more than their workers, but the differences were determined by the government, not by the owners of capital.

No one is saying that pay was equal among all levels of the work force.

And yes, there were many arrests without real evidence, but not much hate was directed toward the government. Even my family that was a victim of Stalin's regime became actively involved in the party.Like I have said before, people just learned to live with the fact that there is a chance of getting arrested randomly. The majority of people were not terrorized, it was only a  minority of intellectuals, who were educated enough to speak against the government, was taken care of.

You mean a minority after Stalin? I was under the distinct impression he killed many millions. Though I suppose that's still a minority.

I can't comprehend supporting a party that has killed members of the family w/o evidence. I guess I should've taken pschology in UG.

[philibusters]

Freak you make it sound like its easy to be a rebel.  Ummm no- people want peace and tranquilty-if that means accepting the norms and going to party meetings than thats what most people will do.  People want families and they want to raise their kids in peace, why wouldn't you support the government, if to not support it meant to live in fear.  Like he said only a small % of being were arrested and detained after Stalin died.  Put yourself in their position, you have a wife and two kids.  Say you came from a family with intellectual background, and the party killed your brother or something for saying something defameatory about the regime.  Are you then yourself going to criticize the government and leave your wife a widow and children fatherless and shamed or will learn to accept the party and just become apolitical.  You live in teh United States and you take it for granted that politics is a right-in a lot of countries its not. 

Also, if you lived in the 1970's or 1980's I doubt you felt that it was still the same government of Stalin, Stalin got repudiated in 1958 by the Party leaders don't forget, its not like the party was like Stalin was a great guy-they were doing to opposite they exposed his crimes. 

[Ilovecheese]

You mean a minority after Stalin? I was under the distinct impression he killed many millions. Though I suppose that's still a minority.

I can't comprehend supporting a party that has killed members of the family w/o evidence. I guess I should've taken pschology in UG.

The thing is that most people did not want to rebel. Life was better than in the monarchial Russian empire; most people actually had food on their tables with the same type of government policies and I think that people prefer good living over democracy.
Also, many of those who were executed and jailed had a choice to run away. Most of my family ran to France and Germany, the rest remained because they were patriots. It is very hard to flee a country where your family lived for hundreds of years.

[Freak]

I didn't realize "support" was only doing the necessary actions to avoid suspicion. I thought support meant going above and beyond the norm. If by "support" you mean your family only did the normal activities expected of citizens then I completely understand.

[philibusters]

"support" is a little ambigious, it can be to actively support or passively support by doing nothing.  It would be odd to actively support a gov't who attacked your family, however, I don't think it would be that rare cause unlike here, where poltics is not directly tied to jobs (in that to get a good job in a business without being a solid republican or democrat), my guess is that in the Soviet Union ambition, whatever your particular ambition was, meant going through the party.

I just read a good novel that takes place in 1980's Soviet Union about a Soviet art critic called The Dream Life of Sukhanov, by Olga Grushin, its her first novel, but it was a very enteraining story to read and fairly thoughtful.

LSD needs a book board where people recommend books.

[Freak]

There is a book board, but it's mostly about people are currently reading.