>I lived there as well, but wld not agree with this standpoint of us being well & free. Middle class paradise life that we enjoyed back in 70ies, that you are refering to, was all part of Tito's Ferry-YU-topia movie project.
>It was all funded/maintained by western finance/aid money being spent (in)directly on good life rather then viable investments/developments.
The downside of the system was that the politicians were holding the string of the purse. So we got huge failed investments, monuments to failed politicians, money being milked out of enterprises which were doing well to help those who were just sitting there doing nothing. There's that.
>And life was realy good. We could go/travel anywhere, money was easy comming, streets secure, schools good & free etc. It was just to damn good to be true.
We had a chance in 1990, under the govt of Ante Markovich. His plan has started building true middle class from the roof (the first small enterprises were what - bookstores and little shops on the corner), but with the momentum it gained it would have built the walls and the foundation really soon. And I've had customers of both kinds (private entrepreneurs and society-owned self-managed enterprises) which were getting organized really well and would have been quite successful in any peacetime economy. But The Party wouldn't let go - they rather split the country, each one of them trying to be the Caesars of their little parochy instead of being maybe second in the big one.
> Was good while it lasted, but hell no - it was not real
>and it was NOT freedom.
>People were loosing their jobs for any dissobedience and back in 50ies their heads as well.
So how is it worse than losing job here for nothing? Or losing your head just because you parked your car in the wrong neighborhood?
>Reality of the whole thing was, painfully/bloody visible to our grandparents between 1945-1965, and then to menu of us later 1985-2005.
>We all know how it ended.
The flaw in the system was The Party, and the way they allowed the scum in their ranks to rise, while refusing to relax their grip on everything.
>Twenty years of ignorance by entire nation(s) having good time/life
>['Ignorance is bliss!' - 'Matrix' ] does not mean that we were free and everything was fine.
Of course everything wasn't fine, and we were just as free as anyone here. Just replace the number of things you couldn't do because of The Party with the number of things you can't do here because of The Corporations, and the score is pretty even. Man, you can't even stand on the corner and chat with your friends for a couple of hours, because that's called loitering and someone will call the police.
> Internal workings of this *software* (you know them very well) were such, that total crush was simply enevitable.
>Eventually, numerous bills of all that borowed money being spent
>recklessly - had to be paid.
That part I agree with. There were too many politicians with our money in their pockets, including our future money. But that's not so specific of that system - it's actually quite ordinary.
>Somewhere in the same timespan (70-ies) , America/Europe capitalists, being afraid of *communist* expansion westwards, were rewarding their labourers left and right turning them almost overnight into self-content middle class.
>[Hence, Nixon showing Hruschov 'American kitchen' on one of their summits ]
And our guys showing Çeauşescu how Romanian minority peasants in Uzdin all have their own tractors and combine harvesters. It was the time when capitalism had what it likes the best: competition. So both systems were trying their best to be good to their workers and to prove the grass isn't greener on the other side. Now that there's no other side, screw the people, forget the middle class.
>So if you put it this way, there was vivid simillarity between Tito's Ferry-YU-topia back then, and America's BushFreedomTopia yesterday/today. It is(was) freedom to own house, full fridge, bunch of remote controls (and keyboards) to play with, and talk lot of BS along the way.
I find more similarity with Sloba's fuq-topia - destruction of middle class, inventing wars, cronyism, media control, and yes you can get in debt all you want and have a full fridge etc, doesn't matter, in the end all your base are belong to us. Let's choose weapons - do you want a million percent inflation, or revocation of bankruptcy laws so you're in debt forever (unless you're a corporation, that is). And on TV you'll see a virtual reality where real issues never come up, any mass demonstrations against the regime are ignored or downplayed, patriotism spinning and search for internal enemies never stops.
>BUT(!) if you by any mean come in a way or obstruct some serious material/political interest, then God help you. Boink! - there comes an *agent* connecting IronHammer & TopOfYourHead and you effectively disqualified.
Iron hammer is physically instantiated as a lawyer much more expensive than your lawyer. You're equally disqualified.
>Goin' on the funny side ;
>Regarding puppet regimes, I heard some people believe that that America is rulled by puppet regime, remotely controled by HeadImplanted Microchips
>and hence controling signal is comming - somewhere from the middle east!
>Must be some Aliens for sure!
>So I figured, only way to free up America would be, If all of us
>CouchPotatoes arround the world join our forces, point our TV/VCR RemoteControls twds sky, and press together 'Mute'!
>Bang-Bang-Bang and finish - That will make all damn Aliens melt down into piles of green jelly - and America will be finally free!
You think they don't know that? That's why most of the remotes now operate on ultrasound, so they can't reach beyond atmosphere, and the others are infrared, but then they can't reach far because the planet is being warmed up. Gotcha!
