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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dayuhan who wrote (26362)	11/29/1998 10:21:00 AM
From: Grainne	Respond to of 108807

<Would never say that the Europeans didn't oppress their own, but the fabulously luxurious lifestyles of the European aristocracies were founded on money generated by the colonies.> Didn't the fabulously luxurious lifestyles of the European aristocracies begin with brutal and usurious taxation of the poor peasant classes by the early kings? Didn't an extremely rigid class structure have something to do with holding the poor down and keeping the middle class very small, so that nothing and no one got in the way of amassing great wealth? Would you consider countries like Ireland colonies? The British took away land and made everyone into tenant farmers, at ridiculous rents, so they native Irish could not even feed their families. You could only own a horse if you gave up your Catholic religion. All the crops like oats and wheat, and meat animals, were shipped out while the Irish subsisted on potatoes and starved to death during the Potato Famine in the 1840's. I would agree that the colonies pumped up the volume or something for the European aristocracies, but they were quite brutal all over Europe, as well.

To: Dayuhan who wrote (26362)	11/29/1998 11:52:00 AM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

Most of the educated and intelligent Chinese (who remained alive) do not revere Mao. Of course those are the people whose books were burned, and who were "reducated" and who were marched through the streets with placards about their necks and beaten in the public squares. I have read a dozen or so books, biographies, on people who lived through the revolution, or by the children of those who did. one of the best is "Wild Swans, three daughters of China." Based on my reading of those books I have formed the conclusion that while life was uncertain for the Chinese in the anarchy before Mao- or rather the shifting governments- as in one province I remember reading about there were in quick succession first a warlord, then the Japanese, then the Kuomintang and finally the communists. But Mao was not content to merely rule China. He crushed it. His minions destroyed all the art and old books they could find (all you can see now in Chinese museums are reproductions- ironic that they complain about what was smuggled to Taiwan when it is pretty clear that whatever antiques had remained in China would have been destroyed.) The peasants idolized Mao, I'll grant you that. But I do not think highly of pandering to the ignorant and boorish. Have you been to China?