From: "Phil Payne" 

> 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.)

--- BBBS/NT v4.01 Flag-5