Posted on 01/01/2013 4:46:39 PM PST by MinorityRepublican
Edited on 01/01/2013 4:56:50 PM PST by Sidebar Moderator. [history]
Hard times: Eighteen-year-old prostitute Katya scours the street for work as a police car drives past in Moscow in 1991 shortly before the collapse of the USSR
These shocking pictures may look like something out of the Great Depression - but in fact they show life in the last years of the Soviet Union, less than three decades ago.
Shop shelves were often bare, it was normal to have to join a long queue if you wanted to buy groceries and many of the people looked ground down after a century of desperate poverty.
The dismal state of the USSR's economy, during a time of rapidly improving living standards in the West, was a result of its dogmatic Communist political system, which stifled free enterprise and stopped the country moving on from its feudal past.
As these images show, by the 1980s that system was close to collapse, as Mikhail Gorbachev's liberalising reforms did little more than open the door to ever louder clamours for change - and on Boxing Day 1991, just a few years after these photos were taken, the Soviet Union was finally dissolved.
She is fine dang what a cutie. Also this is coming soon to Main Street USA
Coming to a country near you soon.
Things weren’t much better in the soviet union in he best of times.
That cop car sure aint a Crown Vic
and we’re allowing this to happen here
they’re doing everything they can to transfer the country’s wealth to asia as fast as they can... while making us a debtor nation for decades
The Russians have always been ruled by Thugs and gangsters. And so it is again.
Some very good pictures/photographs there. Faces of brave people is what I see. Orderly, too. They’ve lived this way their whole lives. I hope they fared well and are doing better now.
The softies in this country are in for a wake up call like no other when that stuff starts here.
There is much to learn and study about the collapse of the Soviet Union. There are clues there to our future.
One point to consider is that NO ONE wanted to put the USSR back together again. NO ONE will want to put the USA back together either..............................
Back in the ‘90s I worked with a gal just over from Russia (striking blonde). She told of the following:
1) Home deliveries of milk were uncertain - it depended upon whther the milkman/company paid off the mafia to allow them to deliver.
2) When you bought broccoli, half of it was dirt - no squeaky clean stuff like you see here.
3) Stand alone drink dispensers of sweet tea had a tin cup on a chain. You used part of your drink to rinse out the cup before you drank - no cups dispensed, only the tea.
4) Her mom came with her. The first time they entered a supermarket, her mom started screaming. Manager, et al came over to see what was the matter. Mom was overwhelmed at all the food available and freaked out..
How long before we are there?
Mark
An accurate and very important point, to which I will add that quite a few rich Rat opportunists (Soros, Clintons) sprung into action with plans to loot Russia and Eastern Europe, for what was left.
They will do the same to America.
A great read on this is David Remnick’s “Lenin’s Tomb. The Last Days Of The Soviet Empire’’.
I know someone who used to go to the former USSR in the 90s. He brought back such stories.......of...
treating diphtheria for the 1st time (he’s a doctor)
old women who had to choose between heat/rent and food
hot water coming from 1 central source in a big city
people not knowing what Tylenol was
people never having seen Band aids but knowing what they were
big cities with dirt roads
...and on and on.
Ask the guy wearing the 1997 t-shirt, he knows what’s gonna happen
Interesting observation, something I had never thought about. Do you suppose our States would become countries?
Reminds me of the movie, ‘Moscow On The Hudson.” Robin Williams’ character goes into the supermarket, asks the manager where’s the line for coffee. Manager says, ‘no line, coffee’s in aisle three.” Williams, in disbelief, starts reading off all the coffee brands, finally collapsing on the floor in an anxiety attack.
Why did even the hardest-core liberal in America think that was a system that "worked"?
Yes most leftists that believe this crap were from middle and upper clases, but didn't they SEE how the average Soviet lived?
Even during our great depression you didn't see people like this. And this was the Soviet Union "heyday". Not like things looked any different in 1971 or 1951.
long lines and empty shelves in the worker’s paradise of the ussr? impossible.
next thing we’ll hear is that the north korean communists are having problems.
The Daily Mail is perpetuating a very subtle but big journalistic lie with this article, that this was the tail end of the failing Soviet Union, but otherwise it was okay. No. Things sucked there bad for seventy years, and the new Brit version of centralized government/collectivism won’t be any better.
The same is true for most of the younger Obama voters in America. For the most part those under 30 have never accomplished anything and never had much ambition or so it seems. But, what the heck - they've got an Iphone 5 and a new tattoo, Kim Kardasian is pregnant and Obama is hanging out with a new trainer named "Physical Cliff".
I know a young pregnant woman in that position (here) at this very moment. One long block away from me. We help but can't finance her whole life. She is a good person and not an abuser in any way. She also is chronically ill and can't work. There are tough stories everywhere. She gets a very small amount of help from the state but most of it was cut off until the divorce is complete (husband lied on TANF applications and so forth -- she has to wait until it gets straightened out). Oh, and the clothes washer just quit.
“All them cornfields and ballet in the evening.”
Peter Sellers - “I’m Alright, Jack”
But hey, at least they made the “rich” pay their “fair share.” /sarc /obastard
Karpov vs. Kasparov
I believe our Great Depression was worse.
As far as I know, standing in line with baskets hoping
for a shot at some dwindling, poorly distributed cornucopia of “goods” had been going on through ALL regimes prior to Gorbachev’s.
Remember, The Soviet Union had reached the end of its rope,
and a reformer named Gorbachev was soon in power.
While this probably didn’t revolutionize productivity, it
did give Russians a sense of new possibilities.
Our Depression virtually BEGAN with a statist BIG Gov President who
stayed in power for a 12 full years.
And OUR Depression was in black and white!
question for the military frees:
look at the tank picture, with the guy standing on it. by his left leg are four tubes pointing upward. what are they?
question for the military freeps:
look at the tank picture, with the guy standing on it. by his left leg are four tubes pointing upward. what are they?
Regardless, but with regards,
They were and are an admirable foe.
I fear that we will not fare as well, as we have become a nation of pu***’s.
I was in Moscow in 1991 (just in time for the Revolution) and saw first-hand how awful things were.
“Her mom came with her. The first time they entered a supermarket, her mom started screaming. Manager, et al came over to see what was the matter. Mom was overwhelmed at all the food available and freaked out..”
I saw this same thing with two Polish guys the first time they entered a supermarket over here in the mid 80’s. They stood in shock at the front door and had to compose themselves before entering. One started to weep. Then they were like two kids in a candy store.
launchers for smoke grenades.
The people were cool. The government not so cool.
On the lighter brighter side the USSR showed us how well income redistribution works - how 'from each according to his ability, to each according to his need...' really rocks.
Communists even had an early version of "ObamaCare" and totally disarmed their citizens. Progressives before our time... CNN would of loved them - the old New York Times really did... won a prize for covering their brilliant farming techniques that killed millions of Russians.
Of course Russian leaders did have to build walls to keep citizens in because everyone grew to hat the place... A cautionary tale to our 'leaders'....
On the lighter brighter side the USSR showed us how well income redistribution works - how 'from each according to his ability, to each according to his need...' really rocks.
Communists even had an early version of "ObamaCare" and totally disarmed their citizens. Progressives before our time... CNN would of loved them - the old New York Times really did... won a prize for covering their brilliant farming techniques that killed millions of Russians.
Of course Russian leaders did have to build walls to keep citizens in because everyone grew to hate the place... A cautionary tale to our 'leaders'....
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As has been played out in Marxist regimes time and again: As individuals, Marxists never believe that they will be rendered expendable in the new People’s Paradise. They will never catch a bullet in the head. They will remain among the unassailable elite. It will always be the enemy, the opposition, the other guy; what they fail to understand is that as the criteria for acceptable thought and speech narrows, they become the other guy.
The delusion that it will never happen to them is simply narcissism, a quality Marxists possess in spades.
ping
US depression began with gov money printing to fund WWI. This falsely jacked up farm, crop, industrial labor wages and more causing a false boom. European agriculture recovered and food exports, prices, farm land collapses in early 1920’s, not recovering until WWII. Coolidge clearly saw Depression commingle. Hoover started near every FDR big gov intervention program. FDR ran against Hoover big gov. Until he got in office, then in best bucket of warm spits difference, FDR carried on Hoover’s central planning.
A former colleague of mine with an MBA made several trips to one of the former soviet republics. He found it necessary to explain in detail just what "capitalism" is. They hadn't a clue.
Although I see parallels between what happened to the Soviet Union and what will happen to us, I see a key difference. There will be a very large proportion of the population which has seen how good things can be. Some of these people are ignorant liberals today. They just might lose some of their ignorance when it is THEIR dinner which is at issue.
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As has been played out in Marxist regimes time and again: As individuals, Marxists never believe that they will be rendered expendable in the new People’s Paradise. They will never catch a bullet in the head. They will remain among the unassailable elite. It will always be the enemy, the opposition, the other guy; what they fail to understand is that as the criteria for acceptable thought and speech narrows, they become the other guy.
The delusion that it will never happen to them is simply narcissism, a quality Marxists possess in spades.
Of course Russian leaders did have to build walls to keep citizens in because everyone grew to hate the place... A cautionary tale to our ‘leaders’....
Yet whenever we talk about a border fence the left compares it to the Berlin wall. They say the same thing about Israels defenses.
They know they’re dishonest, they just don’t give a rip.
Coming soon to your town! And the lines won’t be anywhere near as calm or the people standing in them near as patient.
Look what is happening right before your eyes and take heed. There’s a Great Storm coming you can feel it.
Listen to what the bible says: A prudent man sees danger and takes refuge, but the simple keep going and suffer for it. NIV Proverbs 22:3
The fact is that many will not accept that a breakdown is occurring even as they watch it happening before their eyes. Why don’t they realize it? It’s caused by a condition called ‘Normalcy Bias’ a mental state people enter when facing a disaster.
It causes people to underestimate both the possibility of a disaster occurring and its possible effects. This often results in situations where people fail to adequately prepare for a disaster, and on a larger scale, the failure of governments to include the populace in its disaster preparations. The assumption that is made in the case of the normalcy bias is that since a disaster never has occurred then it never will occur. It also results in the inability of people to cope with a disaster once it occurs. People with a normalcy bias have difficulties reacting to something they have not experienced before. People also tend to interpret warnings in the most optimistic way possible, seizing on any ambiguities to infer a less serious situation.
A good article on ‘Normalcy Bias’ is on our own ChocChipCookies Blog The Survival Mom:
http://thesurvivalmom.com/2010/12/29/normalcy-bias/
And as I posted the people in these pictures have be conditioned to their plight. Standing in endless lines to in the end find little or nothing left was a way of life with them. They where a controlled people in a controlled environment and had been for decades. This is NOT true when it starts happening here. Just look at the ‘Black Friday’ violence or the brawls that break out the day of a new released basketball shoe! And this is in a land of plenty!
This was in a news story about hurricane Sandy (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2953537/posts?page=33) In darkened neighborhoods, people walked around with miner’s lamps on their foreheads and bicycle lights clipped to shoulder bags and, in at least one case, to a dog’s collar. A Manhattan handyman opened a fire hydrant so people could collect water to flush toilets. “You can clearly tell at the office, or even walking down the street, who has power and who doesn’t,” said Jordan Spiro, who lives in the blackout zone. “New Yorkers may not be known as the friendliest bunch, but take away their ability to shower and communicate and you’ll see how disgruntled they can get.”
Sound familiar? Yes it’s petty much that favorite quote of mine that some have complained about:”Let me tell you something about humans, nephew: They’re a wonderful, friendly people - as long as their bellies are full and their holosuites are working.” “But take away their creature comforts, deprive them of food, sleep, sonic showers, put their lives in jeopardy over an extended period of time and those friendly, intelligent, wonderful people...will become as nasty and as violent as the most blood-thirsty klingon.” Quark from: The Siege of AR-558 (#7.8)” (1998)
You either prepare and stand on your own beholden to no one or you become dependent on others to provide your basic needs and become their ‘serf’. Me I don’t want to be beholden to anyone for providing what is needed for me and mine. I certainly don’t want to have to kiss some ‘gubberment’ third class bureaucratic to try and coax some help from them, I don’t want some ‘jack booted’ thug herding me in line and telling me where to stand, sit, eat or sleep. And last but not least I don’t want to be shut up in with a bunch of ‘zombies’ and have to worry about not only trying to get basic necessities but having to fight to keep what I manage to get.
Its your choice you can prep or you can stand around on a bridge waiting for FEMA to bring you a bottle of water, a MRE, a warm blanket and a kiss for your boo-boo and maybe you can even get your picture as you stand there on the national news.
For those who are just starting or are old hands at prepping you may find my Preparedness Manual helpful. You can download it at:
http://tomeaker.com/kart/Preparedness1j.pdf NOTE! THIS IS A FREE DOWNLOAD. I DO NOT MAKE ONE CENT OFF MY PREPAREDNESS MANUAL!
For those of you who haven’t started already it’s time to prepare almost past time maybe. You needed to be stocking up on food guns, ammo, basic household supplies like soap, papergoods, cleaning supplies, good sturdy clothes including extra socks, underwear and extra shoes and boots, a extra couple changes of oil and filters for your car, tools, things you buy everyday start buying two and put one up.
As the LDS say “When the emergency is upon us the time for preparedness has past.”
Again I like to recomend FReeper’s ChocoChipCookie Blog The Survival Mom (Please Blog Police let this one slide!) Where you can get lots of useful information like:
http://thesurvivalmom.com/2011/11/20/8-morale-boosters-for-any-worst-case-scenario/
http://thesurvivalmom.com/2010/02/02/survival-priorities-the-rule-of-three/
And More
Also there is Ferfal’s Blog a survivor of Argentina’s first collapse:
And there is Selco’s Blog a Bosnian War survivor at:
“There is no greater disaster than to underestimate danger. Underestimation can be fatal.”
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