Ted,
Are you honestly suggesting that the Austrians do not understand the background? You expect me to believe you over of them. That's hilarious! LOL.
If you were paying attention instead of LOL, you would understand. I am giving you a lesson in English language, and how things can get lost in translation.
Just read your article, which partially explains the confusion of Austrian historians with in use of certain words in English language:
Schwarzenegger "confuses a free country with a Socialist one," said Polaschek, referring to East European Communist officials' routine descriptions of their countries as Socialist.
Message 20486175
Do you need me to translate this to you to simpler English, or can you handle it on your own? Read it a few times if you have any problems, call for help.
It is routine for people who speak the language of the right (in economic terms) to call countries like Austria Socialist, because of large number of people and economic activity working as part of the government, either providing services that could very well be done by private sector, or in ever growing administration, or working in state owned enterprises (nationalized or otherwise).
Here is an example I just came across:
OLD EUROPE ON THE BRINK: Will Hutton rightly observes the slide toward steep decline in France and Germany. But he's wrong about Europe as a whole. Britain, unshackled by Thatcher from socialist economics, is as vibrant as it's ever been in the past fifty years - culturally and economically. Hutton, of course, frets that this coud mean the end of the EU as a viable institution. Man, I hope so.
andrewsullivan.com
Joe |
