Colin Grabow: If You Think Communism is Bad For People, Check Out What it Did To The Environment:
When the Berlin Wall came down and the Iron Curtain was finally lifted to expose the inner workings of communism to Western eyes, one of the more shocking discoveries was the nightmarish scale of environmental destruction. The statistics for East Germany alone tell a horrific tale: at the time of its reunification with West Germany an estimated 42 percent of moving water and 24 percent of still waters were so polluted that they could not be used to process drinking water, almost half of the country’s lakes were considered dead or dying and unable to sustain fish or other forms of life, and only one-third of industrial sewage along with half of domestic sewage received treatment.
Do yourself a favour and read the whole thing.
h/t Bernie
That’s only because they were not doing communism properly.
This ideological and bogus debate of pure capitalism vs pure socialism is a mugs game.
I am not aware of any form of successful capitalism that doesn’t contain at least an element of socialism. The hard part is getting the blend right, the greatest challenge after that, keeping it there. The US may be the finest example of this currently but the struggle rages across the free world. No doubt, socialism unchecked is a destructive force as Europe is very painfully learning for itself.
There is an element of this particular left vs right ideological battle though that I rarely hear highlighted or addressed in any forum.
Other than a handful of mean-spirited curmudgeons that infest this site, I have no doubt the vast majority of regulars here recognize the fact there are members of our society that need our support. I am also well aware that who belongs on that list is an entire debate in itself. I have never understood the conservative movement not taking this point head-on, for you see, the tax and spend and big government mantras exposes a rather unpleasant truth for the “left”. One they would be witless to counter once fully dragged into the light.
Government, by leaps and bounds, is the least efficient way to apply money to any problem. Concurrently, heavy taxation leaves little in the pockets of the individual to act on their own. I don’t believe either of these points can be challenged, yet they are never discussed in the same context. Dumping problems on government and thus absolving ourselves of the responsibility to take individual actions seems to me to be a rather disgustingly selfish and uncaring way to approach society.
As with the environmental movement, social activists seem more than content to be merely seen to act, as opposed to taking effective action itself. The fact western societies, with ALL the wealth we have created, have not solved a single social ill in my lifetime should be more than enough evidence of that.
Based on this reality, I believe the progressive(I detest that term)movement’s catch phrase should be “If it feels good, appear to do it!”
Anyways, I detest looooong posts as much as the next guy so I will stop here even though there are many more points to be made on the topic.
Several years ago I toured the former Eastern Bloc and the effects of rampant pollution for miles around defunct Communist factories was appalling. Thousands of dead trees, blighted farmland and general waste caused by acid rain brought home the results of rampant industrialization without safeguards for the environment and the people living there.
Communism works in only two places. Heaven , where they don’t need it and in hell where they all ready got it!
For every “starving African” that I saved by contributing to various charities,
there’s now 100 of his grandchildren who are starving.
The guilt of making a sad condition 100 times worse,
thus weighs heavily upon my conscience.
I am not aware of any form of successful capitalism that doesn’t contain at least an element of socialism. The hard part is getting the blend right, the greatest challenge after that, keeping it there.
Heh, the great Canadian pastime, compromise. Mostly to the benefit of the parasites.
The closet socialists are a lot more open and bold nowadays…
P. J. O’Rourke wrote quite entertainingly about this in his book Holidays in Hell, which I highly recommend.
Canadian Observer, did you read the whole thing. The issue is the appalling environmental degradation that took place under communism. The Aral Sea now occupies an area of 10% of its formal glory.
I wonder if some read the whole thing. The ISSUE is the appalling environmental degradation that took place under communism. The Aral Sea now occupies 10% of its former glory.
I recall a CBC documentary on just this subject shortly after the wall fell. Focussing on a city about 110kms from Berlin, the whole area was covered in a thick soot. Industrial smoke was so prevalent that the city’s crest/coat of arms was three smoke stacks.
Cripes, for those with reading comprehension difficulties….
My ultimate point is that there are flaws in the ideologies of those who believe capitalism is evil so deep that they need to be constantly barraged with reality, challenged, and when they run and hide from the facts, dragged back into the light again. This article accomplishes that rather well.
The environmental atrocities committed by many communist regimes are an “inconvenient truth” to the socialist-driven enviro-machine selling the story that business is evil and big government is good. Again, this article dispels that myth rather effectively.
If you consider the context, my points are 100% valid to the point of this thread. As I previously clearly stated, if I had no respect for the readers here, I would have filled this page to bring my argument full circle in my original post. However, I have to wonder about the depth of intellect of someone who’s only concern seems to be scoring partisan points. What is the point of this information if you don’t care about using it to re-educate those sucked in by the marketing pitch of saving mother earth?
Let me guess, you believe these “leftards” are too stupid to change their ways. What an immensely convenient excuse for not even trying.
And yeah, I read it all. That’s why I am not blind to all the implications that arrive from the startling info contained.
“Climate collapse” – someone should ask him to explain that term. Climate cannot collapse, it is something that exists no matter if it’s an Ice Age or a total tropical paradise.
As to the greatest genocide, I know the total # of deaths attributable to climate/weather is nowhere near the 10,000,000 Ukrainians starved to death or the 6,000,000 Jews slaughtered before & during WW2. In fact, The 2,000,000 snuffed out by Pol Pot is probably, conservatively, 10 to 20 times the amount killed by “climate collapse”. But as we all know, socialists never kill anyone.
nold – give Can Obs a break. He had an anti-communist rant in him that he needed to get off his chest.
I too despise the term progressive. It implies that they’re superior when in fact everything they propound is digressive, ie the education system.
“absolving ourselves of the responsibility to take individual actions seems to me to be a rather disgustingly selfish and uncaring way to approach society.”
Various governments and big charity has elbowed most of us out of the helping game if we were ever in it. Most of us have now come to understand that charity is a suckers game. If you build it they will come .. and they will keep coming and the line will get longer until there is nothing left and no one left to dole it out, Then the mugs (recipients of the largess and misplaced compassion) get violent because they are now being deprived of their RIGHT to have your charity and your obligation to cough it up.
Dependency has become a profession nowadays. It is a growth industry on both sides of the equation There appears to be no shame or embarrassment about any of it on the part of the self-professed victims of capitalism who have given up on personal responsibility. I call most of them ‘losers’ by their own doing. Lazy by nature, stupid by choice. Nor on the part of the ever growing governments who win elections on the backs of these bottom feeders.
seems to me to be a rather disgustingly selfish and uncaring way to approach society
I have no doubt the vast majority of regulars here recognize the fact there are members of our society that need our support.
Anyone who sees reality knows that there are, and always have been, some people who find themselves in circumstances which prevent them from helping themselves.
I am also well aware that who belongs on that list is an entire debate in itself. I have never understood the conservative movement not taking this point head-on
Conservatives have lost that battle. Consider the 1947 movie Miracle on 34th Street. At one point in the movie the camera pans across a wall with a sign on it which reads, “give to the deserving poor”. Any movie made today would not include the qualifier in the text of the sign, but clearly in 1947 there was a recognition of the role that personal behavior plays in the economic plight of some poor people. For a couple of centuries at least, the Protestant world understood the moral hazards of charity and enforced a harsh, uncompromising morality that intensely shamed the recipient.
Today, how a person became mired in poverty is not discussed. The condition of poverty is all that is required in order to “deserve” a govt handout. So much so that, when denied a handout, recipients get belligerent and even violent. It takes some fortitude, but the only way to break the cycle is to just say no to further handouts and send in the riot police to maintain civil order.
Also, public charity crowds out private charity, diminution of faith-based charity goes hand-in-hand with the effort to de-Christianize society, liberals only trust compulsory govt charity because they project their own unwillingness to contribute to voluntary charity onto others, yadda, yadda.
I visited West and East Berlin right after the Wall fell. East Berlin was filthy. They were burning a lot of brown coal for fuel, and the coal dust was everywhere. We were also informed how horrible the Allies were for firebombing Dresden, but East Germany had done little to nothing to restore it. It was practically like WWII had just ended.
Communist China is an “Environmental Utopia” according to western eco-fascists, and Chernobyl helped bring in new definitions for Organic reclamation.
RGB >
Yes but according to western Liberal Eco-nuts you’re talking about killing off “eaters”.
That’s why Mao is worshipped for the +60 million eaters he is supposed to have “purged” from mother earth.
In October 1993 I flew by helicopter from Bad Frankenhausen (former DDR) to Kassel (former FRG). We spent 45 minutes flying at an altitude of 3000 ft over an uninterrupted industrial wasteland consisting of open pit mines, lakes covered by a rainbow film, rusted and abandoned factories…the list was endless (this after visiting a former East Bloc military live fire range where the safety trace for the impact area – i.e., where stray bullets tended to go – was over a nearby city). And then we crossed the former fence line (the fence had only recently come down) and we were back to green forests, neat towns, beautiful watercourses…
The German colonel who squired us around Bad Frankenhausen pointed out what he considered to be the defining fact of communism: all of the city’s roads had been paved under the Nazis, but all of the potholes since 1945 had been repaired with cobblestones rather than asphalt. P.J. O’Rourke said it best: noting that East Germany was “just a screwed-up poor country with a dictatorship”, he added, “how the Commies managed to make a poor country out of a nation full of Germans is a mystery.” It’s not a mystery at all; asked and answered, counselor.
No one who has not themselves seen what communism does to the natural world can possibly imagine what it looks like. Every time I hear some idiot like Suzuki or Neil Young beaking off about the oil sands, I’d like to plunk them down in the putrescent moonscape that communist governance makes of the environment and let them enjoy the delights of their preferred socioeconomic system. That goes double for Justin Trudeau and his mindless rhapsodies to the glories of Chinese dictatorship; I suggest he google “Chinese cancer city” or maybe do a little research into what China’s rare earth minerals processing facilities look like. Maybe then he’ll consider clamming his yapper until he educates himself and stops talking like a complete idiot.
Both of your posts are very good. You are entirely right about your main themes of which 1. is that there must always be some government structure to undertake those tasks which cannot be done in any other way, and 2. that some members of society will always need support from the rest.
Those indeed are two topics worthy of debate. But until such intelligent debate happens, social issues will remain the possession of the progressives however unworthy they are to own them.
Entirely true. I was on a corporate tour in Leipzig in February (?) 1991 just after Siemens had acquired a former East German low voltage switchgear manufacturer. The pollution endemic to that region of western Saxony cannot be meaningfully described to anyone who has ever lived anywhere in Canada. Just one statistic will illustrate: Leipzig prior to 1992 had a fatal birth defect rate nearly ten times the European Union average. Living in Leipzig was like literally living inside a Javex bottle, thanks to the Bittenberg chemical complex. And that was only a part of the pestilent stew in the atmosphere.
Thanks for that. What you say and what RGB said is so true. Socialism is a death cult and a crime against humanity.
The conditions in the rest of eastern Europe are much the same as in the former GDR.
Most of my relatives that lived in the Soviet Union relocated to the Kassel area of Germany around 1990, but those who still live there in the villages for what ever reason still contend with outdoor toilets, communal shower buildings, internet access in the schools only, village water pumps, and other similar third world amenities. Some of these villages have thousands of people living in them.
Most of the environmental destruction, abandoned industrial is still there as well.
However, from what we saw on two occasions, now that Russia, Ukraine, Poland are free(?) market states much has improved. It will take decades to erase the devastation that socialism brings.
My apology to Can Ob but I took his first line to be a criticism of the article:
“This ideological and bogus debate of pure capitalism vs pure socialism is a mugs game.”
I thought the author’s 3 reasons for the degradations and his denouement neatly summed up the situation:
“There is no society, nor has one ever existed, which featured zero pollution or harm to the environment. The only question is how best to manage it, and which system is best positioned to accomplish this. On that question the answer is surely capitalism, home to the world’s richest countries and cleanest environments.”
No worries, nold.
I’m probably guilty of trying to communicate to much at once, anyways. I do appreciate your effort at trying to understand my points. I regret accusing you in return of being a typical partisan blind man, something you have demonstrated you are not.
My reason for opening with that line was a speech I remember from a conservative economist a few years back. How many people here truly realize that the US was well on it’s way to socialism long before O’bam bam ever came on the seen? I am guessing very few.
Check out this list if you dare….it should only take you a few hours.
http://funding-programs.idilogic.aidpage.com/
cgh, Regarding your point about “intelligent debate”, I hope you will allow me to repeat a point I made recently on another thread, ha, admittedly frustrated at the time…..
“Reading the back and forth rantings of partisan hacks is like watching a never-ending game of catch where everyone loves to throw the ball but no one gives a sh*t about catching it.”
Alexander Solzhenitsyn noted that before the 1917 Boshevik Revolution, Russia was a net exporter of wheat.
Afterwards, not so; and of course by the 1950s they were one of Canada’s largest customers for wheat.
On the topic of environmental degradation, here is more information about the Aral Sea: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea
A command economy is something like a large computer program written without subroutines where every part
of the program interacts with every other part. It won’t work!
A command economy is something like a large computer program written without subroutines where every part of the program interacts with every other part. It won’t work!
And yet you take forcibly extracted wealth under such a system. Luckily there are still more makers than takers.
Canadian Observer and your link; the extent and reach of the US government has become so staggering and encompassing that many of those programs work at cross purposes. Since 2006 when that list was made and the election of BO twice it has only gotten worse.