I wish communism could work, but frankly I've lost hope. There are so many idiots in the world (particularly in the USA) that put up with all the bullshit inequality the rich throw at them simply because they believe that communism is evil for no apparent reason. (I'm not talking about the highly educated population that exists on this forum, I'm talking about people that don't even know what communism is, other than it's evil because it ruins democracy.) Because communism can be ruined by just 1 uneducated person who doesn't understand how it benefits them to work hard, it would be rather difficult for a revolution to happen with millions of said people. And we can't rely on capitalism to educate its population correctly either, because that's simply not profitable. (or they don't understand it's not profitable because they got a shit education too)

I aslo don't like this statement:
"Here in California, a minimum of 60% of the state budget is dedicated to education by law. We have the highest paid teachers in the country, yet the LA Unified School District has a 50% dropout rate. Lack of investment (well, monetary investment at least) is obviously not the problem."

I would like to point out that expenditure on something does not always give results. It is quite easy for most of that money to be pocketed by the people in charge of the schools. I'm not saying it is being wasted, only that you should be focused on output of the system rather than input. Costs shouldn't be bragged about unless its low with high yields. In any case, the dropout rate a testimony to how much money is being wasted on people who don't care.

On a side note this thread reminds me of a pro-communist guy that states how and why communism works with sufficient evidence to back it up while a bunch of people simply say "communism doesn't work" with little to no evidence and think they've won the argument. It doesn't matter to them whether or not their examples actually support what they're saying, to them communism is always wrong.

"In my view the urge to label them of the left or the right tells us more about those who wish to impose the labels than it informs any dispassionate study of history.''

Let's take the case of Stalin, we have the persecuation of the Kulaks (men, women and children), the Ukranian famine, Katyn, the ethnic cleansing of groups suspected of being sympathetic to the Germans during WW2 (men, women and children), the appalling behaviour of much of the Soviet army in the taking of Germany, the appaling treatment of ethnic Germans in the late 40s and the Doctor's plot. Just a few examples here, but you get the point. The death toll was certainly in the millions and, most likely, well into the tens of millions. In any event it was of the same order of magnitude as that resultant from the actions of Hitler and the Third Reich.

And yet Putin has to see good and bad guys, by imposing a false comparison. His desire to apply labels is rather touching really. It reminds me of my visits to the Saturday morning pictures where you good always tell the good from the bad guys by the colour of the hats they wore, all rather sweet and endearing!

Fulhmaish, however, says that both Hitler and Stalin were totallatarian monsters and, to say otherwise, is to besmirch the memory of their victims. This desecretion of memory, of course, applies on the level of a particular single victim and on that of tens of millions. On this point he does ''fucking care''.

Putin wrote in direct response to my first posting in this thread:

''On a side point what's with the growing trend of disinterested spectators jumping in a thread just to announce that they don't care? If you don't care then don't read and don't comment.''

I trust that I have now made my position clear, and have rebuffed his accusatory implication that I am playing the role of a ''disinterested spectator".