Cyprus becomes a communist state?

[allix]

Dimitris Christofias has won the second round votes today.

various sources :
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7261195.stm
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/24/ ... cyprus.php
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... fer=europe
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5i3S7 ... wD8V0Q2C80
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/24/cyprus


It will be interesting to watch what happens.......

[Wally Balljacker]

Eh, according to one of the articles, he has no plans of tampering with the existing free market economy, which is a good thing. It seems like it's becoming harder and harder to define what a "communist state" even is. What are the qualifiers? Nonetheless it'll probably turn into an oppressive dictatorship like every other past attempt at communism.

[allix]

It does seem to surreal to be a real communist state like Russia in 1917. Especially that they won through voting...
I found this interesting piece from a forum that gives a clue to what this means for the people of cyprus.

I lived in Cyprus as a teenager (on the RAF base there with my parents), back in the late 1960s. The 'Turkish' population was quite obviously suffering blockades and oppression from the 'Greek' majority. There was de facto partition of towns and villages all over the island -- we British kids were about the only people who could travel freely anywhere they wanted. We'd cycle through the blue-and-white road blocks, through the ruins of no-mans land, and then get waved through the red-and-white road blocks. We'd see proper brick houses -- then cycle through ruins -- then arrive at suburbs or areas of mud brick houses, often without glass window panes. Lorries carrying proper baked clay bricks and glass were simply not allowed through the road blocks.

Things came to a head when nationalist Greeks sought union with Greece. The Turks invaded, as was their right under international treaties (for what that's worth). That's why the Brits stood by and watched. The invasion was a disaster for many Greek families. And at the same time a kind of liberation for the oppressed minority of Turks.

In all the time I was there, I think I met just the one person (a police officer) who considered himself a Cypriot. Everyone else described themselves as either "Greek" or "Turkish". But (again for what it's worth) they were in a sense quite wrong. Cypriots are ethnically distinct from both Greeks and Turks. The division along religious and language lines is similar to that in Bosnia. A hangover from the Ottoman Empire, when some folks adopted the language and religion of the Ottoman ruling class.

It's sentimental, I guess, but I'd be very happy if the people of Cyprus can reunite and live in peace and equality.

[Tsuroerusu]

It does seem to surreal to be a real communist state like Russia in 1917. Especially that they won through voting...

Are you saying that communism, or other forms of socialism (In my opinion, less-extreme ones that actually work, are preferable), cannot be introduced through peaceful and democratic means? And why should it even be introduced if the majority of the population was against it (This is not specific to any country) ? Socialism advocates ordinary people being in charge of the decision-making process, rather than a political elite, and if a group of people manage to do a revolution to gain power, and thereafter introduce socialism, and the majority of the people being against it, then that's a big contradiction of the ideology itself. Now if the majority of the people want socialism, fine, if it absolutely cannot be done through peaceful means (Which was not the case with the tzar of Russia). I don't believe in violence as a way to solve problems, I believe in the methods of the likes of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, and in case anyone don't know, these are the ideas of "resistance to evil through active, non-violent resistance" which that led India to independence and freedom from the largest empire in the world, the British empire. Similar peaceful means, such as strikes, ended up liberating Poland from the totalitarian grip of the Soviet Union. I'm not a pacifist, but I don't see violence as a "real" way to solve a problem, it may be a way out of a blind-alley, as was the case when the tzar of Russia was overthrown, but not a solution to a bigger problem.

[allix]

Are you saying that communism, or other forms of socialism (In my opinion, less-extreme ones that actually work, are preferable), cannot be introduced through peaceful and democratic means?

yep, because through the present "democratic" means voting simply means choosing who to "run" the country. Whenever there are real issues, the public do not get any votes on it. I give a few different examples, as this is a technology forum we can look at adoption of free software.
When was there a vote on this on? simple answer Microsoft buy out any chance of it happening .
All you and me vote for is some business figure head that can provide universally free education,healthcare with the huge benefit to corporations and the continuation of capitalism.
You need to start from a fresh foundation which is a revolution not national elections. Thats the main reason i put a question mark at the end of the forum post topic, if it was really communism , the USA would have launched ballistic missiles already

Real change does not have to be violent, but do you honestly think those capitalist pigs are going let socialism blossom?

And why should it even be introduced if the majority of the population was against it (This is not specific to any country) ? Socialism advocates ordinary people being in charge of the decision-making process, rather than a political elite, and if a group of people manage to do a revolution to gain power, and thereafter introduce socialism, and the majority of the people being against it, then that's a big contradiction of the ideology itself.

The majority of people simply don;t care, they just accept it and do the best they can for themselves to survive.
The majority of people will be involved once the revolution begins, until then dedicated members will overthrow the empire.

Now if the majority of the people want socialism, fine, if it absolutely cannot be done through peaceful means (Which was not the case with the tzar of Russia). I don't believe in violence as a way to solve problems, I believe in the methods of the likes of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, and in case anyone don't know, these are the ideas of "resistance to evil through active, non-violent resistance" which that led India to independence and freedom from the largest empire in the world, the British empire. Similar peaceful means, such as strikes, ended up liberating Poland from the totalitarian grip of the Soviet Union. I'm not a pacifist, but I don't see violence as a "real" way to solve a problem, it may be a way out of a blind-alley, as was the case when the tzar of Russia was overthrown, but not a solution to a bigger problem.

Those are two very different cases, Since Gandhi, other attempts of peaceful resistance have failed. The enemy has weapons, which is how they maintain power. I would love to see a non-violent revolution, but its not realistic.
Poland had a puppet communist party that ran from the cccp so when it collapsed , the puppet regime went with it.
In all eastern european countries the change from stalinism to capitalism was pretty much non-violent. In fact a big bulk of the jokes amongst people of eastern europe, especially early on in the transition was "we have communism , now we got capitalism with worse problems to come"
I will have to cut a scene from a Slovakian comedy to show you what i mean.

[Wally Balljacker]

I'm as critical as anyone of capitalism, but I can't believe people still think communism can work. Give me one example of a communist state that hasn't collapsed under it's own weight or turned into an oppressive, brutal, totalitarian dictatorship.

[Tsuroerusu]

Are you saying that communism, or other forms of socialism (In my opinion, less-extreme ones that actually work, are preferable), cannot be introduced through peaceful and democratic means?

yep, because through the present "democratic" means voting simply means choosing who to "run" the country. Whenever there are real issues, the public do not get any votes on it.

That which you are referring to, is called a representative democracy, in other words, the people in parliament are elected to act in the interest of the voters' interests. I don't believe this is a fundamentally bad or broken system, and for a very specific reason. If everything done in parliament had to be sent through a referendum, or had to be discussed with every voter in the country, nothing would get done! Direct democracy is not that efficient, especially in these days when everything changes all the time. This is one of the reasons why it'd be very hard to put "more democracy" into the European Union legislative process, because the current system is already stretched to it's limits, and if you had to hold referrendums for the smallest things, nothing would get done, and a legislation already takes like 3 - 5 years to get through the system. I'm all for holding referrendums for biggers things, for example Norway did that about whether to enter the EU, the population voted no, so Norway is not part of the European Union.

I give a few different examples, as this is a technology forum we can look at adoption of free software.
When was there a vote on this on? simple answer Microsoft buy out any chance of it happening .

When the hell does people have to vote about free software? Where the <bleep> do you get this non-sense from?

All you and me vote for is some business figure head that can provide universally free education,healthcare with the huge benefit to corporations and the continuation of capitalism.

Please explain to me how free (As in free software) access to health care, education, student support programmes, unemployment support etc. etc. is not benefitting individuals more than corporations.

You need to start from a fresh foundation which is a revolution not national elections. Thats the main reason i put a question mark at the end of the forum post topic, if it was really communism , the USA would have launched ballistic missiles already

I think that's just fundamentally stupid, there is no legitimate reason as to why you need to do a revolution in England, or why I need to do one in Denmark and I could go on. Both are free nations, both are democratic nations, if you believe in changing the country, get into politics and get into parliament etc. etc.

Real change does not have to be violent, but do you honestly think those capitalist pigs are going let socialism blossom?

Well, if the people of a free democratic nation, wants a socialist society, then a socialist party is simply going to get the majority of the votes, and thereby get into government, and then when in power, they could start trying to push through reforms etc. etc.
In my opinion, that's the way you do things.

And why should it even be introduced if the majority of the population was against it (This is not specific to any country) ? Socialism advocates ordinary people being in charge of the decision-making process, rather than a political elite, and if a group of people manage to do a revolution to gain power, and thereafter introduce socialism, and the majority of the people being against it, then that's a big contradiction of the ideology itself.

The majority of people simply don;t care, they just accept it and do the best they can for themselves to survive.

Well, then you're not gonna get anywhere, you have free speech, use it! You have freedom of the press, use it! If the majority of people agreed with you, then they would probably vote for you.

The majority of people will be involved once the revolution begins, until then dedicated members will overthrow the empire.

Which [really bad] history book did you just jump out of?

Now if the majority of the people want socialism, fine, if it absolutely cannot be done through peaceful means (Which was not the case with the tzar of Russia). I don't believe in violence as a way to solve problems, I believe in the methods of the likes of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, and in case anyone don't know, these are the ideas of "resistance to evil through active, non-violent resistance" which that led India to independence and freedom from the largest empire in the world, the British empire. Similar peaceful means, such as strikes, ended up liberating Poland from the totalitarian grip of the Soviet Union. I'm not a pacifist, but I don't see violence as a "real" way to solve a problem, it may be a way out of a blind-alley, as was the case when the tzar of Russia was overthrown, but not a solution to a bigger problem.

Those are two very different cases, Since Gandhi, other attempts of peaceful resistance have failed.

That is true, but

The enemy has weapons, which is how they maintain power. I would love to see a non-violent revolution, but its not realistic.

OK, go fight Vladimir Putin with guns, I'm sure that'll get you very very far in terms of improving Russia as a country.

Poland had a puppet communist party that ran from the cccp so when it collapsed , the puppet regime went with it.
In all eastern european countries the change from stalinism to capitalism was pretty much non-violent. In fact a big bulk of the jokes amongst people of eastern europe, especially early on in the transition was "we have communism , now we got capitalism with worse problems to come"
I will have to cut a scene from a Slovakian comedy to show you what i mean.

I assume you do know that when Lech Walenza's Solidarity movement was starting up, the movement was surrounded by 200.000 Red Army troops armed to the teeth! Good luck pulling off a "violent revolution" against odds like that! And guess what they did not, they used strikes and peaceful means to slowly start to wrestle off the totalitarian grip of the Soviet Union, which then eventually collapsed, good riddance!

I'm as critical as anyone of capitalism, but I can't believe people still think communism can work.

I agree, communism is a broken concept that IMO, actually even goes against the very nature of human beings. It might work for some alien species in another galaxy, but it does not work for us, and it never will, that's just reality, we need to move on and find some other way to fix our problems.

Also, communism seems to advocate dictatorship and centralization of power, in order to keep power to itself, so that "some liberal ain't gonna come around and rise to power and abolish communism. Now talk about not being democratic!

[allix]

That which you are referring to, is called a representative democracy, in other words, the people in parliament are elected to act in the interest of the voters' interests. I don't believe this is a fundamentally bad or broken system, and for a very specific reason. If everything done in parliament had to be sent through a referendum, or had to be discussed with every voter in the country, nothing would get done! Direct democracy is not that efficient, especially in these days when everything changes all the time. This is one of the reasons why it'd be very hard to put "more democracy" into the European Union legislative process, because the current system is already stretched to it's limits, and if you had to hold referrendums for the smallest things, nothing would get done, and a legislation already takes like 3 - 5 years to get through the system. I'm all for holding referrendums for biggers things, for example Norway did that about whether to enter the EU, the population voted no, so Norway is not part of the European Union.

Excuses, excuses, its so damn slow because its bureaucratic, you think ooxml is a huge ass document , wait to you see what the EU legislative process has in store.

Please explain to me how free (As in free software) access to health care, education, student support programmes, unemployment support etc. etc. is not benefitting individuals more than corporations..

What I meant was, although all the free benfits are clear, there are other things going on that are no beneficial. "the people have free services, that will keep them quite while we run the country as we want"

Well, then you're not gonna get anywhere, you have free speech, use it! You have freedom of the press, use it! If the majority of people agreed with you, then they would probably vote for you.

Freedom of speech is not absolute, most activist are just ignored, making freedom of speech ineffective.
However What happened in Denmark with those crazy Islamic fundamentalist over those cartoons is worth defending.

[Tsuroerusu]

That which you are referring to, is called a representative democracy, in other words, the people in parliament are elected to act in the interest of the voters' interests. I don't believe this is a fundamentally bad or broken system, and for a very specific reason. If everything done in parliament had to be sent through a referendum, or had to be discussed with every voter in the country, nothing would get done! Direct democracy is not that efficient, especially in these days when everything changes all the time. This is one of the reasons why it'd be very hard to put "more democracy" into the European Union legislative process, because the current system is already stretched to it's limits, and if you had to hold referrendums for the smallest things, nothing would get done, and a legislation already takes like 3 - 5 years to get through the system. I'm all for holding referrendums for biggers things, for example Norway did that about whether to enter the EU, the population voted no, so Norway is not part of the European Union.

Excuses, excuses, its so damn slow because its bureaucratic, you think ooxml is a huge ass document , wait to you see what the EU legislative process has in store.

Lawyer work is extremely complex, yes. But if you want to create a system of government where it takes 20 years to pass a change to a law, because you have to have debates constantly, go ahead, I personally think it makes democracy inefficient, sure it's more democratic, but is that necessarily better than what we, or rather, what some of us have (Hint: Denmark) ? I love democracy, and I love the freedom that it brings, but it's not that useful if it is not efficient. I personally don't mind the system we have in my country, it's not quite as black and white as this, but take the party that I voted for as an example, Red-Green Alliance, they got 74,982 votes, while Venstre (The liberal party) got 908,472 votes. However, this does not mean that R-G A does not get any influence, because they do have people in parliament, and those people can influence the processes there, obviously being a small party they have less "power" than others, but that's fair, the voters decided on that.

Please explain to me how free (As in free software) access to health care, education, student support programmes, unemployment support etc. etc. is not benefitting individuals more than corporations..

What I meant was, although all the free benfits are clear, there are other things going on that are no beneficial. "the people have free services, that will keep them quite while we run the country as we want"

That's f!cking bullshit! Our welfare system is not intended to keep people quiet, it's intended to make sure people doesn't have to live on the streets, are guaranteed education (Whick makes them able to think for themselves), and health care. I can guarantee you, that if the liberal party wanted to introduce reforms that turned out welfare system into a clone of what the United States currently has, the voters would slaughter them, completely! The leader of the liberal party wrote a book titled Fra socialstat til minimalstat (From social state to minimal state), which is one reason to not trust him!
And no, the government would not get away with everything simply because a) that we have a representative democracy and b) because we have a very sophisticated welfare state.
Maybe that's how it is in your country, but it certain is not like that here.

Well, then you're not gonna get anywhere, you have free speech, use it! You have freedom of the press, use it! If the majority of people agreed with you, then they would probably vote for you.

Freedom of speech is not absolute, most activist are just ignored, making freedom of speech ineffective.

You're fundamentally misunderstanding the purpose of freedom of speech. First of all, freedom of speech is not "absolute", for a very specific reason, if it was absolute that would make making death threats legal, which impedes other civil rights. So there a restriction on the absolutism of free speech is necessary to prevent that large freedom, from "lowering" other freedoms. With the exception of that Denmark has any restrictions on freedom of speech.

Also, like I said, you're misunderstanding what it's for. It's not the ability for activists to be heard, it's the ability to being able to speak freely, without censorship and fear of being interned or killed by the government. And it's absolutely effective, you and I are using it right now! It's being used by people, how can you say it's not effective, when it's used all the time! That's complete non-sense. Freedom of speech is absolutely effective, and serves it's purpose extremely well, it's something much bigger than a tool for people to use to advocate a certain view point, it's a civil liberty! Freedom of speech is the core dependency of a free society, saying it's inefficient or irrelevant is, in my opinion, misunderstanding either what it is or what it's purpose is.

However What happened in Denmark with those crazy Islamic fundamentalist over those cartoons is worth defending.

I am tired of these bastards man! No wondering there's so much damn war in Sudan with pigs like these guys all over the place.