On 5/31/2010 12:17 PM, harry wrote:
On May 31, 5:18�pm, Douglas wrote:
wrote:
Don't fall into their propaganda trap. �The Chinese gov. is truely
evil. �When they were a communist society, every person in China was
entitled to a job, a house, education and free medical treatment.
It was of course a repressive society but people had rights.

That was the theory, but the practice was very different. �In practice, Chinese
of that era were slaves. �You lived where you were told, worked at the job you
were told, paid what you were told, in many cases, married who you were told.

All could be taken away at the whim of a bureaucrat. � While the constitution
promised rights, there was no effective mechanism to enforce �them, so they
didn't exist. �While the current government is no model of western democracy, it
is far better than the pre-1985 government. �Ask anyone who has lived through
both.

You should visit China. �It is a fascinating place. �

I think the pre 85 gov. was better than what preceeded that, Medieval
serfdom.
The problem with communism is that people are not ants.
I have visited a few communist countries. Nobody seemed oppressed or
very poor. Nobody was rich. Few were happy. But that was because
they'd never seen the truely awful places.



China is on my list. I like to travel around on my own on the buses
the places I go. That might be a problem due to language. I also
like to get myself in touch with a few locals& if possible stay with
them (reciprocally if possible)& get the insider's view, again
possibly a problem with China. I might end up on some blasted tour.
Dunno if I could stand that :-)

It would be interesting to hear from some of our Chinese cousins in
this newsgroup. I don't know if The Great Internet Wall of China
includes Usenet. The ancient cultures of the East are quite fascinating.

TDD