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[hubei_canuk]

" And I haven't heard anyone use the expression "commie" for years. I teach some senior party members,and they're as communist as Alan Greenspan. Communism is an economic system,not a political one,and China gave up the pretence years ago." - Minhang Oz
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I think this deserves it's own thread.
Commie, commie, where's the commie? Old China Hands and Newcomers alike look about and say there's no commies here. It's just business!
So what say you all?
Where did the commies go? Did Mao take them all to The Big Workers Paradise in the Sky?
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I don't think so. And i never stop to use the word "commies" to try to break through the illusion to break through that wall of seeing-nothing that people here might keep in mind they are living in a Dictatorship, A Totalitarian State, a repressive and nasty system that daily wears down it's citizens crippling their mental function.
.......
Allow me to start with an anecdote;
(stop groaning)
In november 1988. i sat in Tiantan Park, Beijing listening to the local musicians. Along came a foreign camera crew. They set up the camera and interviewed an old man who spoke fairly decent English. They asked him what he thought of the New China and the New Changes.
He stunned them. He said China was still the same. "The more things change the more they stay the same". He said there was no New China.
The camera crew didn't like that at all. It wasn't their "copy", they went looking elsewhere.
And the next June the government massacred Beijingers as well as protesters in Tiananmen Square (for the second time in a decade), closed their doors and declared that "nothing had happened". They burned the students bodies in the square, and secretly disposed of them. The parents seeking their children, never found out for sure what happened to them and didn't dare ask the government. However many notices seeking the "lost" went up around Beijing.
Then a year or two later many hundred or a thousands of TIMES more died in the Xinjiang uprising.
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So those are significant events, but how about daily life?
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For instance, does everybody here know that all teachers report back to school 2 weeks early from the summer vacatiion for "political education"?
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And then again, daily lives of which classes of people and which locality?
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So are the commies really only Uncle Henry and Aunt Jane studying English and getting down to business or is there something here that maybe some of us are missing?
Do they take chinese people who talk like me to the funny farm or to the Gulag?
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Well, i'll be back later. I have to go find a fine Chianti to go with my kidneys.

[Minhang Oz]

Congratulations HC on a much better crafted and more readable posting.Of course I disagree, but that's why I wanted you back. You are describing totalitarianism,pure and simple. Communism was an economic theory, born during the misery and exploitation of 19th century Europe,given a trial run,and found not to be any match for the realities of human ambition. I'm sure you've read "Animal Farm". I don't have,and I don't think any poster here has,any rosy illusions about the present government's willingness to tolerate dissent. But because they're called the CCP doesn't mean they are communist. The present government of Australia is the Liberal Party, and a less liberal,more myopic collection of fossils would be hard to find anywhere.England has the Labour Party,whose leader has never had a socialist thought in his life. You have a remarkable memory,as illustrated by your anecdote. Fortunately,the old man spoke in cliches,which are easy to remember.So,when you say "commie",if you actually mean "totalitarian",or "undemocratic" we could have some common ground.It may just be semantics to you,but it's English to me.

[MW]

I CONCUR - WELL DONE MATE!

Do not agree with hardly anything you say but defend your right to say it!

[Dragon]

Dear Comrade,
Yes, we must uphold the individuals right to express themselves. You are exactly right. Keep positing your positions.
DRAGON

[chinasyndrome]

[quote="Minhang Oz"]

[Roger]

Communism is a religion, not a form of government! It still is widely believed in here in China, to be sure, and I know that workers in many state-owned enterprises still have to undergo weekly political lessons. Witnessed it myself in Xinjiang - bank "open" but teller not available because sitting with a tea mug in the meeting-room with her colleagues and a man from the local CP office for two hours. Must change my foreign currency next day!

As a religion, it is neither good nor bad. It is a system of beliefs and values, and these can be arbitrarily exchanged for new ones. Don't believe me?
My partner has taken "Karl Marx Economics" at a state-run training centre recently. What did she learn there?
"Karl Marx invented the stock exchange. All people can be rich if they invest their savings in shares..."

I am not so sure if China would be a better place to live in if it was NOT socialist or communist! It's the people that make a country what it is, not the system.
Communism does no harm. It's that it gives rulers pseudo-legitimate powers that they can use against anyone, especially against their own people. But we should also acknowledge that the CP has worked as much in the interest of the nation at large as it has against it.

[Minhang Oz]

MW Your exquisite double negative,which you qualify as well,and your unwillingness to say who you're talking to are a worry,even though I know this is your idea of a bit of a laugh. If I thought you were serious about any of the new topics you've posted I'd have a look at some. At the moment watching CCTV 10 seems far more appealing.

[chastenosferatu]

Roger has hit it right on the head, when my partner asked her two girls she tutors what religion they were their response was "We are Mao, Lenin, and Marx". It is a religion to the common person and an excuse to legitimacy for the ruling class of this place. And it is the people who make China what it is, hence the fact the system with its graft and corruption hasn't changed for 5000 years.

[hubei_canuk]

com�mie also Com�mie
n. Informal
A Communist. - dictionary
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"It may just be semantics to you,but it's English to me."
- Minhang oz
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Commies don't speak your english. A commie is a communist.
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The word commie does bring up reminders of unpleasantness and evil because of it's historical usage.
That's what many people want to avoid and forget about.
That's why i use it.

[Minhang Oz]

Yes HC,I know all that,studied Modern World History,taught it for many years etc. Look up any dictionary,see "Communism"...do ANY of the definitions describe China now? Authoritarian, Totalitarian,yes of course.But look at the economic goals of a "commie" government. State controlled? SOE's are hanging on by a thread. Banks,insurance,telecommunications will follow. Dictatorship of the proletariat