From: George Sherwood 

On Tue, 14 Mar 2006 15:51:09 +0100, Phil Payne wrote:

>> So?  You saw mere tokens left to impress tourist rubes about the
>> freedom of the wonderful USSR.
>
> I had lots of long conversations with Russians and other nationalities
> in which trhey were HIGHLY critical of theis state.  In the Asian parts
> especially about the agricultural programmes that were (and have) ruined
> their ecology.
>
> A guided tour, at one point, of hundreds of tons of cotton rotting
> because its quality was too poor for the world market - followed by a
> discussion of how the diversion of rivers to irrigate that crop had
> started the destruction of the Aral Sea.
>
> You believe too much of what you're spoonfed by the US' propaganda
> machine. You really ought to get out there and see for yourself.  The
> USSR was a sad disaster in many ways, 'but it was nothing like your
> picture of it.
>
> (Or my father's.  He referred to it as "the worker's
paradise" up to the
> day he died.  Riiight.)

I think you are the one being fed the propaganda here.  If I recall
correctly Gary W. went to school in Russia and speaks fluently.  I will
take his opinion about events there over the show you were given.

You don't talk at all of the more then 500 churches that were ripped down
in Moscow. They kept a few for show and used them to store tractors and at
times animals.  I explained to my Russian teacher today your statements and
she also says you are full of shit.  Of course in a much nicer Russian way.
 As she told me, you got to see exactly what they wanted you to see.

George

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