May 1

For a while now I haven't been active on this blog, and being taken by family and personal challenges somehow I wanted to believe the problem of communism is winding down and going away. Right? Wrong!!
Maybe Capitalism as we know it is not functioning anymore and the human tendency is to jump from one extreme to the other. When is really cold out we want to get into a hot fireplace if possible, if we suffer from hunger we tend to over eat....
But Capitalism is not dead yet, therefore is no reason to even think about communism. I'm looking at this girl and I wish I could offer her a glimpse of what communism is. Between Wisconsin and Libya there's a half of Europe where communism killed in the name of this ideology. I still remember  long lines for basic food, the cold apartments and strings of lies on television. I know that is not what communism is about and  the rulers of these countries twisted everything and that's the reason everything end up bad. But where is no freedom - this is going to happen.
I also know the very freedom we live in now give these innocent souls the right to hold these signs.
I refuse to believe that anyone who knows enough about the life in a communist country and about communism in general can have a desire to live in such place.
I believe this poor girl is just holding the sign because she wants to be "cool" and against something.
May 1 - the international worker's day? In a normal society we are all workers, there's no distinction between a business owner and an employee and the employer often works a lot longer and harder than its employees. The whole concept of May 1 is based on a false idea meant to split people between "us" and "them". Maybe 100 years ago it had value because the gap between the "bourgeoisie" and the workers was immense. But now - virtually any healthy able body can have a normal life and is up to each of us to make as much money we want. Yes, there are that 1% from Wall Street making millions overnight and no matter how hard we work we won't make that much of money - but is happiness hinged on money?
 

Happy Birthday Mr. President

February 6th 2011 President Ronald Reagan would be 100 years old.

Like all presidents Reagan has his admirers and his detractors.
Was he a good president? Depends who you ask.
Enough to say that at the end of his administration, the Nation was enjoying its longest recorded period of peacetime prosperity without recession or depression. In foreign policy, Reagan sought to achieve "peace through strength."

I still remember the news of the Russian President Michail Gorbachev visiting US and I saw (as much it was publicized at the time) on television Reagan's visit to Moscow. We will probably never really know the extent of his contribution at the end of communism, but for sure he was very important in pushing this change. (Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!).

The word goes that during the Gorbachev's first visit to Washington, something unexpected happen. As we all know, this kind of visits are planned ahead of time by the second: how many minutes we sit, how many minutes we talk or shake hands, etc. During this meeting, suddenly Reagan stood up and started to walk towards Gorbachev. Everyone was wondering what happen as this move wasn't on the schedule. Reagan took Gorbachev out on the White House lawn and they talked. Probably very few people in the world know what they talked about, but this was the beginning of the end for the whole communist system.


If for nothing else, from the perspective of someone who lived in one of the Eastern European countries, Ronald Reagan is one of the best American Presidents during my lifetime.


Thank you Mr. President, and Happy Birthday !!!

The Long Lines For Groceries - From the Reality of communism to a Board Game

How much time and energy are we dedicating today to something so benign as buying milk or bread? Maybe less than one percent of our daily errands. Once a week we fill up our trunk with all we need, carry everything in the pantry and forget about it.
This simple fact was very different in all eastern countries before 1989 . All grocery stores were packed with people lining up for hours just to get a loaf of bread or a liter of milk.
Every day!!!!!
Close friends and neighbors were calling each other or knocking on the doors to spread the news: At the corner store they have cooking oil, or sugar, or toilet paper ..... the first thing to ask was: "How long is the line?" ... well .. not bad, one hour, maybe two .... and that was good news !!!

Now remembering I feel like that was only a bad movie I saw long time ago, or a story someone told me.
The long lines were places were we socialize with our neighbors, meet new people, see a little altercation or be part of one. But always be careful what kind of jokes you tell and who can hear you. Often political jokes about the president or communism made people disappear overnight.

I was part of this daily horror for many years with my parents and millions of people unfortunate enough to be born and live in a communist country, without even dreaming that all will end someday.

In the movie "Moscow on the Hudson" (1984) Vladimir Ivanoff (brilliantly played by Robin Williams) in his first day in NY is going out to buy coffee. Just few people in the store. Knowing that in Russia such item is available only on the black market, he went to the clerk asking where is the line for coffee.
When I first settle down in my new life here, I went to one of the big chain grocery stores and I filled up a large cart, just the way I saw only in the movies, and I was taking pictures of myself with long full shelves behind me.

Fast forward 2011.
A new board game in Poland hopes to recreate the black market and long lines of communist times. Players try to buy basic goods but supplies run out before they reach the counter or someone with connections pushes in. Karol Madaj, the creator of this game was only nine years old in 1989 and this is part of a initiative of the National Remembrance Institute.
My first reaction was not a good one. "How dare they to .... ". But then I realized that today's games bring back all past times, good and bad. From ancient and roman persecution to the classical "Monopoly" (which by the way was banned in communist countries before 1989), and the main purpose is to remember and/or learn about how we use to live .... once upon a time, and perhaps to avoid the mistakes of the past.
Now I try to imagine a bunch of kids playing this game and getting excited about it when a parent is coming into the room to send the little Billy to the grocery store on the corner to get some butter for the cake ...... how ironic .....

P.S. Thank you to my friend Crista for sending me all the interesting news and links.

Don't Give Up Vasily Pik

Half of all deaths of Russians ages 15 through 54 are caused by alcohol-related diseases. This is a fact, and the Russian president is taking action against it.

The whole international media made Vasily Pik a kind of "Joe the plumber" of Russia, and for the regular Russian citizen is just normal to see people drinking in the middle of the day all over the place, empty bottles by the side oft he road, and alcohol related businesses doing so well.

I know, you may ask what the hell this has to do with communism?

I had a professor in school explaining us what "systemic thinking" is. And to make us understand he give us a good example. Think about walking on the street in a town, where you see garbage all over the streets. What is your first thought? Who is in charge with cleaning the streets? Of course the Mayor. Well, that's not such a good Mayor if is so dirty. Maybe a new Mayor would do a better job. But if you put this in a larger perspective, and ask yourself: Is this the only problem in this town? What is the situation in the country? Now try to imagine yourself only visiting Russia and hunting for a Mc Donald's not because you miss the old Mac, but because there's the only decent bathroom where the smell of piss is not killing you, and where if you are not carefully, you can step in a pile of crap. And in the end of the trip you can't wait to go home where you can see people smiling to you on the street.

In Russia unfortunately nothing really works well now, and nothing REALLY worked well for as much they can remember, and in times like this, is well known that people are looking for a valve. And the easiest one is grabbing that cheap bottle and numb yourself.

Where is the communism's role in this story? I don't believe that the Russians people are any better or worst than any other nation. But when you are born and grow up in a perpetual depressed society, of course you feel like this is the norm.

The Russians had a very hard life under the czar and his family for hundreds of years. When the communists arrived, everyone thought (and hoped) for a better life. As we know, communism was probably the biggest failure in the whole history of human kind. Needless to say that after 1989 the Russian's life had not improved.

Now I am going back to our subject. Is drinking a problem? I don't think so. I think there's a "cause effect" relation, and drinking is only one side effect of hundreds of years of failing social experiments, only the last one being the communism.

I am sincerely sorry for the Russians. Definitely they deserve a better life and is only up to whoever is in charge there to lead the country out of trouble. Is this program going to be successfully? Maybe for a short time, but the alcohol consumption will bounce right back, and the only accomplishment will be even less money in people's pocket, but a little more taxes collected for the government.

Yet, I wish good luck to Mr. Medvedev, for the sake of Russian people.

Davai Ceas

Growing up in a country where as a child I remember looking around and seeing men walking with a wooden leg as we can see today only in pirate movies, I learned that most of these men lost their limbs in the war. Then little by little I learned what the war was, against who, and all stories around this event.

One of the somehow strange stories was about how the soviet soldiers behaved when they encountered almost any other inhabitants of other countries between Russia and Germany. The first words they address the strangers were : "Davai ceas". And very often they were asking this with a gun pointed to people's chest.

For whoever doesn't know what I am talking about: "Davai ceas" means "Give me your watch".

Looking from the perspective of our time, that is hard to understand. But let me explain this. At that time when the whole Europe was in a stage where keeping time was normal. Yet, the soviets most of the time had no idea what a watch is and how that works. It was a miracle for them. The most desirable object for the russians became a watch, and they were doing everything to get it, from snatching to killing innocent people.

I heard about some soldiers wearing very proud a big round clock with a piece of rope around their necks.

An old uncle of mine, every time our conversation was about the russians, he had a little smile, and was saying ... "yes ... the russians ... davai ceas ... this is all they knew."

Fast forward in time, I left my country and I almost forgot these words, when my old Hungarian friend Frank, talking about the soviets, he said the very same words: "Davai ceas". I was stunned. I really thought this was somehow part of my country folklore. Asking questions, Frank had the same memories and stories about the watches and clocks my countrymen had.

I was keep thinking about how odd is to hear these stories from someone from another country. Just few months later, I meet an older Polish guy Voytec, who served me the same words when we were talking about the soviet army. His own father was almost executed because he did not wanted to give up his Omega pocket watch.

It is absolutely impossible that the same soldier (or small group) to travel during the World War through three countries leaving the same story behind. This behavior was quasi general in the glorious red army. And remember, we are talking about russian soldiers against civilians. Always bullying the ones against whom they knew will win the confrontation.

I am wondering how many completely innocent people were killed just for a watch ... ? and ... even after 70 years their general attitude didn't changed much. They will do anything, including murder to get their little shiny toy.

The perfect analogy - Why say no to communism

The following story is from one of the emails people send around, and often hit delete without really reading and/or trying to understand. I think is a really great analogy, and maybe some people will understand the danger of socializing the society, or going back to communism. Sadly, exactly like in this story, in all the factories, or any group working towards a goal, when individuals can't or don't want to take responsibility, the outcome is a disaster. That is the disaster all the ex communist countries experienced, and even now after twenty years they still trying to recover and join the free world.

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A College economics professor said he had never failed a single student before but had, once, failed an entire class. The class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer. The professor then said OK, we will have an experiment in this class on socialism.

All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A. After the first test the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. But, as the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too; so they studied little... The second test average was a D! No one was happy. When the third test rolled around the average was an F.

The scores never increased as bickering, blame, name calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great; but when government takes all the reward away; no one will try or want to succeed.

Communist simbols revived?

I have to say that I don't have enough words to express my astonishment learning about the new Adidas decision to come on the market with a design with the hammer and the sickle. They wants us to show our love for the former USSR? How purely stupid is this?
I understand how the market works, and the freedom of expression, but I really believe this is off limits. We live in a country where the Nazi symbol is quasi banned, and wherever a piece of history has the swastika on, is covered in respect for the victims and to avoid possible offense. At the same time, another evil symbol of a totalitarian regime which killed millions all over the world is on a baseball hat? And we suppose to show our love for the former USSR? They never had the notion of love for anyone!!!!! How the Vietnam veterans should feel about this? What about the other Army veterans from the seventies and eighties?
For any normal person who knows a little bit of history that symbol is equal with the much hated Nazi swastika.
Let me remind all of you who found a good match for your Che shirt, that in a time when here in the US people had everything in excess, and could travel wherever they want, in all those communist countries, including USSR, people spent winters in dark, cold moldy apartments, line up for hours outside of a grocery store until couldn't feel their feet, and traveling outside of their country wasn't even expressed out loud because someone could turn you in and sleep in a concrete cell for next week (if you were lucky). This is what the USSR did to their own citizens and forced upon the other small countries around. Whoever will tell you otherwise is either an idiot or was part of a family taking advantage of the regime.
Since the internet information is at your fingertips. Instead wasting time watching silly videos on Youtube, educate yourself and learn the truth before making a statement wearing a symbol of death.
Are you upset about the economy? Oh, yes you weren't able to get a bigger TV set to watch your football game or to upgrade your three year old car because it doesn't have a GPS built in? If you are buying a hat with the communist symbol and bitching about the economy, you should be sent in the USSR or any other ex communist country to see how people live there. The communism is gone for almost twenty years and their economy is still far from recovery. People struggle every day in the same concrete apartments but decorated with Chinese kitsch. The shelves are not empty in grocery stores anymore, but now is hard to make the money you need to buy that milk or the diapers for your new born baby. All because the communism.
Few generations were wasted there in the name of this ideal. Millions died , and whoever survived has dark memories resurfacing in their dreams time to time.
How far can someone go in the need of uniqueness? How bad do you need to make a fashion statement? And why?
For me, wearing this symbol is celebrating death, starvation and lack of freedom of any kind.