h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

America is a small island off the west coast of Europe, i agree with Jeromy Clarkson in the view that the whole northern continent should be peeled off and stuck in the bin. This argument lasts until wednesday night when i switch on and realise my weekly installment of ally mcbeal no longer exists, then i walk outside and realise that the global economy has collapsed and i can no longer eat at MaccyDs, we need them, it sucks

We may have more than our share of obnoxious people but there are quite a few nice ones as well. Anyway, if you got rid of North America, you'd lose Canada in the process.

It will be a small loss, believe me!

i believe you

I think this is the perfect chance for me to raise a question i've always wanted to ask an american-

What's wrong with communism?

i wouldn't know i'm not america

Ah, Communism.My favorite American punching bag. Quite seriously, the problem with it is that it doesn't capture the imagination without boring us with starchy military outfits and displays of militarism from the state.Who needs all of that pompous "We'll show you" mentality? The American way is far better, we keep the military where it belongs, on military bases and drag it out for the Independence day parades, then neatly tuck it back into the closet where it belongs which is mostly out of sight.
When it comes to Capitalism, well, as we say in our midwest "alrighty then!" The system is the greatest on the earth because it gives one the ability to provide through incentive.Communism provides little incentive.Being told that the people's republic of this or the good group of statists on this side are giving you all of these great blahdy blah things- that doesn't work! Who gives a flipping flying fart about that, how about me and what I can do? Capitalism frees one to create and imagine and provide and build and how much more can one go on talking about the best use of greed any system ever built?I mean, Communism has its greed too, but its reserved for the elite few who eat the finest chocolates imported from Switzerland and America.Hell, in America, my kids can go to A&P and themselves purchase the best chocolates from the Swiss or Germany or America.We can't get Russian chocolates but then I'm told we don't want it.That's why Communism really sucks, they can't even make chocolates anybody wants,let alone get to them.Oh, and don't go on about "well, Russia's not Communist anymore." That may be true but their system was Communist for all these years and you don't just suddenly learn how to make good chocolate on your own over a few years.
Enough said.

One of the worst things Americans do is put every conceivable thought they have ever contained in their heads onto the bumperstickers of their cars.However, on the subject of "nice people in America" there is a bumper sticker that addresses this problem of niceness vs. meanness. It reads "Mean People Suck".Now, it doesn't necessarily follow that the driver of the car with this sentiment plastered on it will be a nice person.In fact, I have never personally known anyone who drove a car with this sticker pasted onto it.But I can definitely agree with the sentiment and the fact that Americans are taking such notice of the quota of mean people around them must mean that at least some proportion of Americans realize that there are mean people around them. I have been in the American work place for over twenty years now and I can attest to the fact that there are plenty of mean people here. I have been one when my kids disobeyed but in the workplace I find there to be more people who are seized with ambition and fear than are outright mean. Of course, these tend to be egged on by their (our) bosses , who often pretend not to be mean but are not fooling anyone when they spend so much of their time firing people.And if you met those being fired you might determine them to be genuinely "nice" people.

Right, That's it.
You, you capitalist swine, have just touched my button.

Right. For a start, You people are afraid of communism, because it makes everyone equal, and you cannot stand that.
From the beginning, in your sweet valley high wannabe high schools, you have a ruling class, of the most 'popular' kids, and the 'nerds' are shit upon.
You have to be able to judge people, to stereotype people, so that you can place yourself above or below them in the hierarchy instantly, whether dependent on their clothes, their appearance, their job, whatever. This is because it is easier than being nice to people, and getting to know them.
Communism acknowledges that everyone in a given state is a fundamental partof that state, and should be treated accordingly. It eradicates a ruling class, or a working class, and recognises that a street cleaner or a telephone sanitiser does as valuable a job as a lawyer, or a corporate chairman, and therefore, neither should have mor priveliges, or should be able to consider themselves superior, instantly, without understanding who this person is.

Most importantly, STALIN WAS NOT A COMMUNIST!!! NEITHER IS MAO TSE TUNG!!! They were all merely masquerading as communists. In Karl Mark's theory, the wealth is brough up from the fields in raw materials, food, ,etc, by the people, the workers, and processed, and brought through the system, through the companies, etc, to the consumer, who provides the money to buy it, and through this, the wealth goes to the government, and is then distributed evenly among the people. The people.
In Stalin's version of things, the wealth goes up from the fields by the people, and then stays in the government, without being given back to the people. He saw it as a way to effect total control over the people in russia.
Haven't you people read Animal Farm, for christ's sake?

What do you thing happened at Tianmen Square? The chinese government is a dictatorship. It involved a military coup, and a power hungry general ruthlessly taking power. This is not communism. The people did not vote in this government.

Lenin was alright. He had Karl Mark's ideas in action, just as Fidel Castro does. Cuba. Now, Cuba is the essence of communism. It is the only true example of it that i know of, although i have heard that lenin wasn't bad, and some guys in Poland and Yugoslavia were pretty good too.
Karl Mark most definetely would not have approved of all the things we got masquerading as communism. People lost his ideas in the fuss.
And you know the most important thing? Cuba is democratic. Not only do the people get back the wealth they work to cultivate, but they have the power to decide what is done with it (nationalised health, education, etc. so that everyone is entitled to equal healthcare, and an equal education, regardless of family wealth, on anything else.)
Because, after all, a government, especially a democratic one, is not some tyrant who tells everyone what to do so the little people don't feel lost. It is a reprasentative of the people, and it is obliged, by defenition, to carry out the people's wishes, and distibute the wealth for the people's benefit, not its own.
When i went to cuba, i found no racism between blacks and latinos, little crime, extreme frendliness and eagerness to help a bewildered tourist. There is a strong pride in being cuba, and little bitterness towards the Imperialists, except in a lighthearted way, in the anti imperialist pro independent cuba posters all over the place (Venceremos: we shall conquer, Hasta La Victoria Siempre: Until Victory Forever, and one which, translated, read:
200,000 children sleep on the streets in the world every night. Not one of them is cuban.)
The military shows you speak of are irrelevant. They have nothing to do with communism, merely with the dictatorship of a corrupt, power hungry general turned 'Chairman'.

Your remark on 'what do i care about everyone else? i want to know what's in it for me.' sums up Capitalism perfectly. Make the rich richer and the poor poorer. Why don't the homeless just get a job and stop whining? We live in the greatest country in the world, even though our population consumes twenty five percent of the worlds resources, and holds eighty per cent of the world's wealth, and there are still thopusands upon thousand of our citizens living on the streets. The rich are there because they've worked to get there, damn everyone else, why shouldn't they be allowed to enjoy it? Even if it's an inheritance they haven't worked a day for. Or if they're corrupt. Hospital bills? If they can't afford to pay them why do theyy get into these gang wars over crack? If they want their kids to get a good education, they should have thought about that before they had unprotected sex at sixteen.

Capitalism is dog eat dog. Communism recognises that every dog is part of this kennel, and should all have equal access to al the dog food. Nobody should be left out.

The Cold War was just you being afraid of Communism. That wasn't even true communism with stalin, and you turned that into a stereotypical image, so that you knew how to approach communism next time you came across it, just like the six year old laughing at the fat kid with glasses.
You were afraid, so what did you do? you slaughtered all the fat kids. You strolled into Vietnam and Korea, ,like you had some god given right to interfere, and slaughtered the whole population. Be honest, now, Vietnam was a shambles. What was the plan, go in and shoot everything that looks like vietcong? you can't see peoplee's belief in a political philosophy right away, like you can see braces on teeth, or glasses on a face. So you napalmed whoever took your fancy. rape, pillage, murder, all's fair in love and war.

You invaded the bay of pigs, because you saw a fat kid, and decided he was your mortal enemy. your fat cats were afraid that communism would gain power in america, and they would lose their power, and, be honest, it's the bill gates' and man who owns general Motors's of the world who rule america, isn't it? You didn't stop for a second to think Hey, this fat kid's actuallly doing quite good for himself. He's quite a nice guy, quite intelligent. No. you saw a strenght of his, and couldn't stand for anybody to think that he had any, so you said 'no, fat kids are evil!' your fat cats told you that communism was evil and you idiots are so blind you still believe it.

Evil? I bet that's to do with Charlie Marx's 'Religion is the opiate of the masses' line. Well here's a nmewsflash, america, he was right. Religio is all about being told what's what by somebody who claims to have divine connections, who claims to be superior to you, and paying them tithes (if you doon't know what they are, find out - medieval europe, Martin Luther, and the birth of the Protestant Church) and blindly obeying. Don't you see? That's exactly whatb the fat cats, the people in power, want! They want you lot to obey them blindly, and believe everything you see on television, and worry about trivial matters, instead of looking up and saying 'wait a minute, these guys are ruling us, but they're kicking us when we're down, and they're invading other people because they want to. What the hell are they doing?' That is where their power lies!

You don't know a thing about communism. Evil? You know what the first thing Fidel Castro did after they kicked out Batista? Gave freedom of religion back to the people. Batista, like Henry the eighth and his various children, in england, had enforced christianity upon the cuban people, because it pleased the Americans, who liked to see that all that throwing their weight around was paying off. Fidel said that the people could choose their own beliefs, and most of them, al most all of them went back to the africn gods. Their gods. Their beliefs. That's freedom. That's democracy.

If only you could see the suffering that the embargo your leaders have put on cuba is doing. They can't get school equipment, or medicine, or anything they need. We saw some school books, that were in use there, that we, in britain, would throw away. It's heartbreaking. Cuba doesn't want to take over the world. It wants to improve cuba, and make life better for the cuban people.


Read Animal Farm, and read this entry again, and again, without anger, or prejudice (pre judice - pre = before judice = judgement, prejudice = judging something from what it is, rather than what you expect it to be, like pablo picasso said, if only we could pull, out our brain, and use only our eyes.) and with an open mind. Read it until it gets through to you, and do not dismiss it with a smarmy scoff. It might just change the way you look at the world. And I hope, for your sake, my friend, that it does.

Yours faithfully

Joe (a fourteen year old from London.)

I also have done quite a bit of research into communism and socialism, due to my disillusion in my fair country. Well, my conclusion has led me to believe that communism is a rather good system, fair and ethical, DEPENDING on who's employing it. Like the reason I fear it in America is that it would likely go corrupt into dictatorship. With our habit with leaders, I would doubt we'd have a strong, efficient and fair leader that could properly employ it here. Communism is good, as long as it is controlled and enforced by those working for the good of the people. When greed enters the picture, it's all over.

America is a good country. It's just gotten out of control. Too much and greed and the self, not enough helping everyone and looking ahead to the future. Still, I am content.

Joe hits the nail on the head (well he did use a rather big hammer )

But you do miss one point about why Americans fear communism. I think it's something to with exactly what they always say in response to 'Why is communism wrong?' and that is 'Because people are only motivated by greed'.

It's hardly surprising that when Americans wish to believe everyone is like the majority of them (motivated only by money) that they get a bit cheesed of when people go 'What about kibbutzes? Those people do it together, for the love of each other'. Of course it's unpleasant to realise that other people can be selfless and more aware of the other people in their society, and, sure, this would piss me off too, if I were American.

It's Like eddie izzard says :

'Jesus, i think, did exist. I think he was a person, who had some interesting ideas, in the gandhi type area, nelson mandela type area, you know - relaxed and groovy. And the Romans thought 'relaxed and groovy? oh no no no no!' '

Sorry, i don't know why that was relevant, it just seemed appropriate, with the 'relaxed and groovy' theme.

Sorry, my hammers do tend to come in 'one size hits all', especially when it's something i feel so strongly about.

I think the greed of each individual american spawns from the same place as their allowance of the entry into vietnam, etc. It's the small mindedness. The 'Belgium? is that near Canada?' mentality. I saw a film once about a futuristic america, where everyone wore these things on their heads that made them stupid, so all they did was watch tv and never ask questions. They'd made everything like it was in the fifties. I've never forgotten that film. I wish i knew what it was called, so i could buy it.

I mean, i know some wonderful americans. The girl i'm in love with is american, but inside every american, sometimes not very far inside, is the bratty, tracksuit and baseball cap with the top cut out and the visor of see through plastic wearing, non stop tv watching, pie eating small minded visitor to Nantucket, or the clueless esque mall rat, or the bratty, racist six year old who hates fat kids, or the conglomerate ceo faty cat, or the little person who believes everything they're told. And yes, thaty's probably why communism wouldn't work in america. They wouldn't even let clinton abolish guns, for christ's sake. And the news paid more attention to lewionsky than the war we were all in.

Sheesh, you guys make it seem like Americans are the only greedy and bad people in the world. I think I may jump outta this conversation for my sanity.

The film's called Harrison Bergeron, and yes, it's brilliant!

I'm gonna go out and buy it right now, ben. Cheers.

That's okay.

It's really nice when these things work and the person that wants to know meets the person that does.

Glad I could help!

Well, if you're going to define communism as its ideal version as envisioned by Marx, then my only problem with it is that it's never been successfully implemented (except possibly by the very early Christian church).

Explain.

Simple. According to the book of Acts, the early Christians in Jerusalem threw all their possessions into a communal pool. The excess was sold off to help support poorer members. There is one documented case of a married couple (Ananias and Sapphira) who held back and then died under suspicious circumstances at the feet of the apostle Peter. But overall, this approach worked, at least for the survivors.

Unfortunately, the Christian Church in Jerusalem disappeared, about when the Romans sacked Jerusalem for the second or third time. And its communal practices never quite caught on in wealthy Greek churches, several of which had to subsidize Jerusalem (according to the letters of the apostle Paul, who was quite big into fundraising).

I've got a long speech on christianity somewhere, which you should read. I'll find it, and give you a link.

True, karl's visions never quite got off the ground. Lenin was pretty good, but no elections. Trotsky would have been good, but stalin muscled in and the power kind of, instead of going up, and then down, just went down, as in the dictatorship of the beougoisie masquerading as communist proletariats, and all the money went straight up, and stayed there. Charlie Marx definetely would not have approved, nor would he have approved of mao's version of things. Tianmen square dopesn't appear in The Comunist Manifesto. That's not marxist, that's dictatorship. No elections, either.

I thought cuba was doing pretty good. Fidel's got his head screwed on right. But, curiously, no elections, although, if there had been, he'd never have been able to make all the changes he wanted to make. (sounds like (mass murdering fuckhead) hitler's fuehrer, i know, but it's true nonetheless).

They talk about human rights in cuba (well, the yanks do when interviewing anti castro emigres) But so far as i can see, fidel just put the people who were trying to put counterrevolutionary forces into power into prison, and rightly so, he couldn't let the country go back into the hands of the americans. That was what all those people had given their lives to drive out.

To be honest, i've begun to see that cuba, and the cuban revolution, were not technically as marxist as i thought. Not so much the dictatorship of an opressed proletariat, but the work of an underground on behalf of an opressed proletariat.
And it wasn't so much about marxism, or communism, but about cuban nationalist freedom from the grip of the americans who had been crushing them for so long, and the cuban nationalistic writings of Jose Marti, of the first revolution.

Fidel was driven into the hands of the soviet union by the US. His system, don't get me wrong, is extremely marxist in the details. Things like freedom of choice of religion, no homelessness, independence and individuality, etc. However, nowadays, the economic troubles (only increased by the embargo, and clinton's foolish decision in signing the helms burton bill) forced fidel to allow cubans to poseess dollars, and this has reopened the gap between classes, those who have dollars and those who don't. Even the emigres are treated like kings for the dollars in their wallets.

We have yet to see a marxist revolution because the opressed proletariat in the form that marx saw it at his time, no lomger exists. When it did, Stalin and Mao stepped in. According to him, though, history will lead capitalism to this stage, and that will be the 'decisive hour'.

Lastly, i'll say that the primary reason for any american fear of communism is the innate greed incorporated into the culture, the foreign policy, and the national, and nationalistic attitude. (anyone see Killing Zoe? - 'Hey, be reasonable, you frog bank robbers can't kill me, i'm an american. You idiots understan english, A-mer-i-can!. If it wasn't for my country, all you guys'd be speaking german!' (Bang!)