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Politics : About that Cuban boy, Elian

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To: nealm who wrote (7894)6/29/2000 6:40:00 PM
From: Dayuhan  Read Replies (1) of 9127
 
Was Marcos good, of course not. But I wonder where the Cory Aquinos of the Philippines would have gone had the communist taken over? Probably she and were compatriots would have been forced into to exile.

She was forced into exile under Marcos. Her husband came back without permission, and had his brains blown out on the runway. She was allowed back because she was female, and therefore presumed harmless.

Marcos' suppression of all legitimate opposition was a huge boon to the communists, and made it easy for them to recruit people with talent and leadership potential. It was the brutality and corruption of Marcos that created the communist threat - without him the communists would never have been more than a fringe movement.

No communist insurrection has ever toppled a democratic government. Dictators are much easier.

In fairness, the American habit of supporting third-world dictators and colonial regimes starter way back before Reagan, and was a major contributing factor to the rise of anti-American regimes in Cuba, Nicaragua, and Iran, and the rise of anti-American movements in many other countries. But Reagan continued it long after its dumbness was plain to see, and a lot of people suffered greatly because of it.

My own belief is that the collapse of communism had much more to do with the inherent ineficiency of communist economics than with anything the US did. People who credit Reagan with the fall of the Soviet Union, or who credit any politician for our current prosperity, have far too much faith in politics and far to little awareness of economics.
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