Care to discuss Castro?
:o)
Pinochet took out Allende who was a Marxist. The problem was Pino was as bloody as Saddam.
Neither is a reasonable solution for mankind.
And a good morning to you.
These sentences are, of course, off the point. The point was whether the term "totalitarian" is only a term to characterize "communist" regimes. My point is that it covers sins of the left and right.
There is also, in this literature, a distinction between "authoritarian" and "totalitarian." I've forgotten the exact terms of that distinction but kholt's rendering of it as something like "totalitarian is authoritarian with an attitude," fits.
As for Pinochet and Allende, Allende was elected to office; Pinochet, obviously, was not. We don't know what sort of political institutions Allende would have fostered; we have no doubts as to what Pinochet fostered.
As for Castro, he is certainly "authoritarian" in terms of these distinctions; I don't think he's all the way to totalitarian, though that judgment would wait on a clearer reading of the distinction.
I think I asked in a previous message, mike, certainly I meant to do so, whether you still live in Idaho. |
