"Dictatorship is good"

[CosmoLady]

Potemkinism occurs in a lot of regimes. Even South Africa and the Southern USA gave special passes to African students in order to access the restaurants, hotels etc. usually forbidden to Blacks. And I know a woman originally from El Salvador who went to study in the USSR and loved it. (Her story afterwards was quite tragic: she returned back to El Salvador not long after the new military junta had come into power in the 80's - seeing in her passport that she'd come from the USSR, the passport officers forbade her from coming into the country even while her family were waiting for her at the airport, and she had to go to the Sandinistas' Nicaragua instead).

Yes there were 'honourary whites' in South Africa, visiting minorities or expatriates who had all the privileges of whites.
But my stepdad was white, from Sweden,
and received no privileges above the typical white person in South Africa when he moved there as a young man.

But the USSR was notorious for generously supporting foreigners to give them an unrealistic positive impression.
Foreigners had access to special stores and many privileges that the AVERAGE Soviet citizen did not have.
Of course foreigners would not usually see the conditions in Siberia, except for Potemkin villages, with a minder.

Who goes to the study in the USSR in the 1980s from El Salvador except a current or prospective communist agent?

I'm sorry that she was separated from her family, but I think that she knew the risks of what she was doing.

[Tooting Carmen]

Yes there were 'honourary whites' in South Africa, visiting minorities or expatriates who had all the privileges of whites.

Which proves that, deep down, the South African regime at least up to a point knew that Apartheid was nonsensical and maladaptive.

But the USSR was notorious for generously supporting foreigners to give them an unrealistic positive impression.
Foreigners had access to special stores and many privileges that the AVERAGE Soviet citizen did not have.
Of course foreigners would not usually see the conditions in Siberia, except for Potemkin villages, with a minder.

Yes I know all that, which is what I was saying. That said, the USSR wasn't generally that open or hospitable to foreigners really, since they had to undergo really arduous visa application processes even to visit for just a few days and had to be constantly accompanied/monitored while there. Quite apart from the notoriously surly service there. (North Korea is still like that even today, although I believe that foreigners who stay specifically in Pyongyang are given a bit more freedom nowadays).

Who goes to the study in the USSR in the 1980s from El Salvador except a current or prospective communist agent?

I'm sorry that she was separated from her family, but I think that she knew the risks of what she was doing.

She was very left-leaning, but the regime in El Salvador changed and became much more hardline between her departure and attempted return to the country.

[CosmoLady]

Which proves that, deep down, the South African regime at least up to a point knew that Apartheid was nonsensical and maladaptive.

Yes I agree, apartheid was not designed properly. Others had different, better ideas, but they were not adopted.

She was very left-leaning, but the regime in El Salvador changed and became much more hardline between her departure and attempted return to the country.

So was she a fellow traveller or sympathiser?
Probably a sympathiser if she travels all the way from El Salvador to Moscow in the 1980s. Probably she went to cadre school.
Sympathisers would often become subversive agents in their home countries after some time in the USSR.
Maybe she was even already recruited in El Salvador, who knows.
She sounds like a commie to me, not judging her personally of course.

There was a reason that the regime changed and became hardline, probably due to the communist threat.
El Salvador was an anti-leftist country for most of its history (unlike Mexico or Venezuela), pro-US military regimes were common.
I think she knew exactly what she was doing, she knew the risks of playing Sandinista in El Salvador.

I wanted to visit Israel, I was close to visiting a few times, but I did not want any problems with visiting Arab countries,
which are more important to me financially. I know that there is a work-around for this, but I still did not want a potential problem.

[Tooting Carmen]

Yes I agree, apartheid was not designed properly. Others had different, better ideas, but they were not listened to.

What do you mean? My point is that, if the Apartheid regime already had its "honorary White" policy towards East Asians (it needed their money), Maoris (so they could continue playing rugby against New Zealand) and even African-Americans and certain African students (just to make a good impression), then it ultimately must have realised that its ideology was unsustainable and would isolate and stigmatise SA in the eyes of the world.

So was she a fellow traveller or sympathiser?
Probably a sympathiser if she travels all the way from El Salvador to Moscow in the 1980s. Probably she went to cadre school.
Maybe she was even already an agent, who knows. Sympathisers would often become agents after some time in the USSR.
She sounds like a commie to me, not judging her personally of course.

There was a reason that the regime changed and became hardline, probably due to the communist threat.
El Salvador was an anti-leftist country for most of its history (unlike Mexico or Venezuela), pro-US military regimes were common.
I think she knew exactly what she was doing, she knew the risks of playing Sandinista in El Salvador.

If she was a Communist then (which I don't think she was), she certainly isn't now, even if still quite left-wing. And the fact that a very right-wing military coup occurred in 1979 while she was already in the USSR studying at one of its universities was totally beyond her control.

I wanted to visit Israel, I was close to visiting a few times, but I did not want any problems with visiting Arab countries,
which are more important to me financially. I know that there is a work-around for this, but I still did not want a potential problem.

Although I haven't applied for it, potentially I could obtain a Colombian passport because of my mother, and Israel does allow visa-free access to Colombian citizens, thus I could use a Colombian passport to visit Israel and my British passport to visit the Arab countries.

[CosmoLady]

What do you mean? My point is that, if the Apartheid regime already had its "honorary White" policy towards East Asians (it needed their money), Maoris (so they could continue playing rugby against New Zealand) and even African-Americans and certain African students (just to make a good impression), then it ultimately must have realised that its ideology was unsustainable and would isolate and stigmatise SA in the eyes of the world.

Wikipedia:
When the National Party came to power in 1948, there were factional differences in the party about the implementation of systemic racial segregation. The "baasskap" (white domination or supremacist) faction, which was the dominant faction in the NP, and state institutions, favoured systematic segregation, but also favoured the participation of black Africans in the economy with black labour controlled to advance the economic gains of Afrikaners. A second faction were the "purists", who believed in "vertical segregation", in which blacks and whites would be entirely separated, with blacks living in native reserves, with separate political and economic structures, which, they believed, would entail severe short-term pain, but would also lead to independence of white South Africa from black labour in the long term.

If she was a Communist then (which I don't think she was), she certainly isn't now, even if still quite left-wing. And the fact that a very right-wing military coup occurred in 1979 while she was already in the USSR studying at one of its universities was totally beyond her control.

El Salvador was a military state since 1931, there were occasionally coups within the military.
Obviously this was a longtime right-wing/pro-US environment. She knew what she was doing, she was a subversive agent.
Again, not judging her personally, she was probably an idealist, sympathiser, or true believer.
Moving to the USSR of all places from El Salvador, in the 1970s, is a BIG step, probably for a strong sympathiser or believer.

[Anglo-Celtic]

You could say this is true of Northern Europe or Central Europe as well, but most countries were very strict.
Sweden trusts its people and the expertise of its virologists.
The consensus has ALWAYS been to allow people to live as normally as possible, even in a deadly pandemic like smallpox.

Japan also trusted its people, and allowed its people to live normally with minimal restrictions (masking was not imposed by law but was culturally widespread).

Singapore turned out to be very strict for no reason, because everyone else was doing it.
So I became disillusioned with Singapore.

Our state had a mandatory curfew for a while. I willfully disobeyed it each night.

[Anglo-Celtic]

I agree that China is strong as a civilisation, stronger than the US in many/most ways,
and their economy is doing better than is reported by Western propaganda media.

But I watched the videos of zero covid lockdown in Shanghai, it was horrible,
not to mention the vast covid quarantine camps.

I don't remember if this was in Shanghai, but people were also walled in their homes.
An entire apartment building burned and everyone burned alive because they were walled in by the state.
This was all filmed by helpless witnesses.

Supposedly every aspect of (urban) life is electronic and monitored,
and everyone has smartphones, which are de-facto required for every aspect of life.
People are monitored daily through their smartphones and can be denied access to any transaction or service or detained if they were even in PROXIMITY to a "bad person", such as someone who may have been exposed to Covid.

The Chinese urban surveillance state is total, unlike anything in this world. I don't know about the countryside though.

Even buying a kitchen knife is closely regulated and controlled by the government.
The level of control is unbelievable.

That's what Trudeau and his comrades want for English-speaking countries. Hopefully, Canada will have their own 1776 soon!

[CosmoLady]

Our state had a mandatory curfew for a while. I willfully disobeyed it each night.

What did you do? Did the police ever catch you?

Throughout Canada, and also throughout California and in Melbourne, Australia for my friends,
I had neighbours who repeatedly ratted me or my friends to the police because we were having too much fun,
and they suspected that there were too many people in the house.
Soon it became clear that this was a form of harassment, false witness and attempted persecution.

The 'normies' became hysterical and irrational, became totalitarians overnight, because of a flu with a 99.8% survival rate.

Within every progressive is a totalitarian screaming to get out!

[oszkar07]

That's nasty. He personally did not encounter it.

Australia which is a liberal democracy has very draconian measures for example.

In general Australia does not really have very draconian measures, although during the first few years of Covid between
2020 to 2022 for some of that time it had some strict lockdown rules - such as you could get fines for not wearing a mask in public or not
staying at home whilst isolating with Covid. These measures didnt last long and Australia soon transitioned to taking an approach to covid more on par with most of rest western world.

[CosmoLady]

In general Australia does not really have very draconian measures, although during the first few years of Covid between
2020 to 2022 for some of that time it had some strict lockdown rules - such as you could get fines for not wearing a mask in public or not
staying at home whilst isolating with Covid. These measures didnt last long and Australia soon transitioned to taking an approach to covid more on par with most of rest western world.

There were repeated lockdowns (mass imprisonment of the people in their own homes),
whenever new cases would appear, which was often despite everything.
There were involuntary quarantine camps in Queensland I remember,
nobody was allowed to enter or leave the country for years,
there was no freedom of movement between provinces,
of course there was total censorship and legal and professional reprisals against any dissent, including from doctors,
and the police (and military) were brutal against average harmless nonviolent people, including children.
The country became an oppressive prison.

Of course businesses were closed and failed,
livelihoods and lives were destroyed,
people became destitute,
and succumbed to sickness and despair, drugs, alcohol, suicide, violence.

Of course masks were mandatory like in most other countries,
which was oppressive and nonsensical as well.
And then of course vaccination and boosting were required to participate in society,
leading to widespread vaccine-related injury and death among the population,
both in the short-term and well into the future.

Australia had some quite extreme Zero Covid policies, which were doomed to fail.
Eventually the country opened and covid quickly spread throughout the country,
but the media was not covering covid much anymore in 2022.