News Flash: Communist Toilets Win

Communist Toilets are Better Than Capitalist Toilets


endnote added 23 May 2012


From 1996 to 2008 I spent most of my time in formerly "communist" countries---Slovakia, and (briefly) the Czech Republic.

During that time, I used many different toilets in buildings of different vintages.  I live in a panelaky (pre-fab high rise) and I lived in older buildings as well.  You might as well say that panelaks are communist buildings since they were built during communism.

But never once did I have the problems with toilets that I have experienced in the USA in the past three years.  I do not wish to go into the gruesome details, but the toilets in the USA just don't work very well.

I draw the conclusion that communist toilets are superior.

Indeed, given the increased surveillance of ordinary citizens, the increasingly militaristic role of the police in the USA, and the complete absence of job security and the scarcity of health care, it seems to me not at all an unreasonable proposition to suggest that communism in Eastern Europe gave many people a better life than is currently available to many people in the USA.  The current residents of the USA may say that, despite the features I have cited, they are "freer".  I don't know what that comes to.  The mass media in the USA is full of propaganda, and if you don't have time to read non-commercial media, then your thoughts are not your own, but were planted in your head by someone else.  I suppose that some citizens might point to their new "smart" phone, their large truck, or their new computer.  Resisting an urge to laugh (or throw up), I would say that those items do not, by themselves, make your life better.  The quality of your life depends upon what you do.  Do you have independence and make decisions at work---or, must you simply follow orders?  Do you have time for your family and friends?   When was the last time you actually read a book?  (Was it a piece of militaristic political propaganda provided by a "history book club"?) How much time do you spend worrying about whether you will lose your job?  How much time do you spend worrying about whether you can pay your bills?

Of course, it is to be expected that what I am saying will seem outrageous to many people.  As a historian might point out, the USA was unique among countries in the world in the "hysterical" reaction to the Soviet Union and its version of communism during the "Cold War', and such hysteria lingers among many citizens of the USA.  Plainly, that sort of fear-mongering is useful to the political class. It is an easy entry point by which to manipulate citizens.  (In the future I shall add a reference to the thus far unnamed historian, who, by the way, points out that the hysteria was completely unjustified.  The USSR was in no position to invade the USA, and, in any case, took a mostly defensive posture.)

Endnote:
The historian in question is Eric Hobsbawm, in his The Age of Extremes;  A History of the World 1914-1991, Random House, 1994; Chapter Eight, "Cold War".