White Supremecists Slay 49 in NZ Mosques

[Dill]

(03-22-2019, 11:21 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: I agree as well.  I also think the exact same argument can be made about communism and socialism.  As the people who suffered under those systems fade into the past as well a new generation take up the old flag because this time will be different. 

Looks like I won't get a chance for a substantive answer before the mods shut us down for the weekend.

But I do have a quick comment about this.

Communism is re-attracting youth in the former East Block. But many there who lived/suffered under Communism look back fondly on those times. And they don't want it to be "different": they want what they had under communism--jobs and secure homes, plus the feeling they were citizens of a superpower.

Vladimir Putin’s Red Scare? Inside Russia’s Resurgent Communist Party
https://www.newsweek.com/2016/08/12/putin-russia-economy-communist-party-485630.html
In May, the Moscow-based Levada Center polling organization, widely regarded as the most accurate indicator of the public mood in Russia, reported a 6 percent increase of support for the Communist Party—up from 15 percent to 21 percent from the previous month. In February, the same pollster found that more than 50 percent of Russians favored a return to a Soviet-style planned economy.

Though Westerners might be more familiar with Boris Nemtsov, the Kremlin critic who was gunned down last year, or Alexei Navalny, the charismatic anti-corruption activist, the Communists are the second largest group in parliament. For millions of Russians, the party represents the genuine opposition to Putin and United Russia. This especially holds true outside big cities, in the provinces, where anti-Putin activists such as Navalny often struggle to get their pro-democracy message across. The Communist Party, with its massive resources, including $22 million in annual funding from the federal budget, has few such problems.

Putin’s supporters may laud the country’s longtime leader for “raising Russia up from its knees,” as they often put it. But in Volzhsk, and elsewhere in Mari El, it’s difficult, if not impossible, to square those grandiose claims with the gritty reality. “Over the past 15 years, Russia has seen factories close, roads fall into disrepair, and many people are unable to purchase homes,” says Sergei Kazankov, another Communist Party candidate in Mari El. “People still remember the Soviet Union, when apartments were provided by the state and when there were jobs for everyone. People don’t forget these things so easily.”

That was 2016. This is more recent:

United Russia loses ground, as the Communist Party gains it. Here are the main results of Sunday's regional elections.https://meduza.io/en/feature/2018/09/10/united-russia-loses-ground-as-the-communist-party-gains-it-here-are-the-main-results-of-sunday-s-regional-elections

“A new political situation is ripening that must be reckoned with,” said 74-year-old Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, noting that it was “fundamentally important that a strong team enter the Irkutsk legislative assembly, in order to help Governor Sergey Levchenko realize the five-year plan that he’s presented to the people of the region.”

The Communists also outdid United Russia in Khakassia (31 percent to 25.5 percent) and in the Ulyanovsk region (36.3 percent to 34 percent).

“If we said before that the Communist Party firmly holds the position of Russia’s second political force, we can now say that these elections showed that a qualitatively new level of competition with United Russia has emerged,” said the Communist Party Central Committee’s first deputy chairman, Ivan Melnikov, commenting on Sunday’s results.