[=“times new roman”]I lived in Bosnia for 3 ½ years and never had a problem.  My wife is from there and we are going back to visit in May.[/]
[=“times new roman”] [/]
[=“times new roman”]I would go and spend some time there.  Great people and lots of history.  [/]
[=“times new roman”] [/]
[=“times new roman”]I would drop Belgrade and spend more time in Bosnia and Croatia.  [/]
[=“times new roman”]In Bosnia:[/]
[=“times new roman”] [/]
[=“times new roman”]Sarajevo is a big thing.  The old town is great and don’t miss the big park area called Vrelo Bosne.  Great hotel called Hotel Hollywood.[/]
[=“times new roman”] [/]
[=“times new roman”]http://www.hotel-hollywood.ba/index_en.htm[/]
[=“times new roman”] [/]
[=“times new roman”]Mostar:  The Bridge is the main item, but there are lots shops and restaurants. [/]
[=“times new roman”] [/]
[=“times new roman”]Tuzla:  Nice town with lots of local color.  This was the site of the 73 kids being killed during the war.  They have a memorial at the site.    Hotel Tuzla is an ok hotel.  You can look at the grand hotel it once was, rooms are ok.  [/]
[=“times new roman”] [/]
[=“times new roman”]In Croatia the best to see is Dubrovnik for the old city.  [/]

Far as I know Serbs don’t have any beef with Canadians.  Just make sure your Canadianism is known. 
 
I dont know what kind of passport stamp or visa you get from Kosovo now, but before you got your stamp on a seperate piece of paper, which they take back after you leave.  If they give stamps/visas that stay on your passport, you might not want to be crossing any Serb borders with that on it (same goes for Albania). 

I’ve always wanted to see the coast of Croatia myself… someday…

I’m from Croatia, so I could say that I’m on “the spot” [], and regarding Croatia and Bosnia (my husband is originally from Bosnia and Herzegovina, and he visited his parents few days ago) I can say that everything is ok – but if you’d visit Belgrade, I don’t know, maybe when things calm down a bit. We’ve been thrugh war ten years ago, and again, when I saw pictures from Belgrade I felt shocked.
Croatia has many nice places to see – not only the coast, and if you want official information about it visit Croatian Tourist Board,

or this

http://gettoknowcroatia.blogspot.com/

You know, Balkan is trying to live and lead normal life, and this included progress of tourism, so I hope you will find nice places to see here.

Good luck

Is it still dangerous to go off into the woods? I remember there being landmine warnings for years….I wouldn’t imagine they’d have got them all even after 10+ years…

My Let’s Go Eastern Europe advises against straying off trails…the hills above Dubrovnik, deep woods in Bosnia…I guess it makes sense, landmines littered that whole area for a long time.  Word is, they have nat’l park trails 100% cleared.  I guess one + is that for some people, this wouldn’t be safe enough, and it’ll keep those beautiful Balkan cities from being overrun by tourists—at least for a few more years!

 
he he Yes, there are land mines everywhere and the country is very unsafe!  Please no one go there! 

I knew it!!!!
 
[]

yeah the landmines don’t scare me too much, i was just concerned about what’s happening with Kosovo. If i go in Europe this summer, it’ll definitely be in the balkans anyway, but i guess i’ll wait and see how things go in the next few weeks before i decide if i go to belgrade or not…

I dunno… I’ve never been to Serbia or anything, but I’ve found by and large through my travels that people in other countries are a lot better at separating the “people” from the “country” if you know what I mean. You’d be hard pressed to find anyone over there that adores America, but everyone I met anyway seem to know that it’s the goverment that does the bullshit, not the people.

 
Serbia is VERY different, most of Europe dislikes the US because of foreign policy, Serbia dislikes because the US bombed them for trying to reclaim their own land (albeit in a somewhat genocideal way).  I didn’t find a lot of strong resentment, but there was definately some feelings of resentment there.  It has to be a lot worse now.  If I were doing a Balkans tour, as an American, I would be very cautious about Serbia. 

Is it really that bad?  I’d figure that a respective American traveler would be a pretty refreshing alternative on the “typical” foreigner’s view of Americans.  It’s not like I pulled the trigger on the Howitzers…I don’t hold grudges against Brits for 15th century treatment of my native people…yes, the Irish haha.
 
It seems that anyone with Belgrade on their itinerary could probably do OK to cut it out…but other than that, it’s not like there are mass killings across the forests of Bosnia and landmine orchards popping up anymore.  It’s too bad, I’m sure it’s a great city.  Dismanrc says it’s fine except for Belgrade, and to be honest I trust his opinion a lot more than that of destruction-crazed media sources haha.

Unfortunately, mines are still present in certian parts of Croatia and Bosnia – but I guess that’s the price we must pay for participating in war (that we didn’t choose []). As far as I was reading about that problem, and listening on the news, Croatia has “cleaned” areas of National Parks (here I’m reffering on some parts in eastern Croatia, and Dalmatian hinterland). Bosnia has bigger problems because of war circumstances and the area cought with war. Well, as I mentioned earlier, both countries are trying to get back to normal life – people are just people, everywhere in the world.
I just hope that whoever may come to this area will discover beautiful and good side of these countries, and not just political side.

Exactly—and usually, people are pretty interested in eachother.  No need to get politics involved!  That’s one thing I’m happy to leave behind for three months haha.  I figured Bosnia had more trouble with mines, if for no other reason than that’s a lot of unpopulated area to clean up.  As far as I’m concerned, an important part of getting back to “normal life” for the citizens of once-turbulent Balkan countries is having people no longer afraid to visit.  I’m happy to help pave the way!  Maybe in 30 years when East/West Europe distinctions no longer come loaded with political assumptions I can get all nostalgic about how awesome it was to be among the first wave of intrepid travelers to re-realize the beauty of the Balkans
 
Though I expect I’ll be happy to have some of that beauty all to myself!  Haha

Yes, exactly.

Worse comes to worse, you may find people curiously asking you if you voted for Bush, how was it possible for him to get elected, do people actualy believe what he says, what do you think of the Iraq war, and so on, as well as mundane non-political questions: is Jerry Springer real? a common question I got asked in the 1990s because I’m from Chicago “have you met Michael Jordan?”.  People that have never been to the US ask: “are all Americans good looking?” (because we have the tendency to put attractive people on TV and in films, rather than a more accurate cross-section of society). “Can you tell me what they’re saying?” about some unintelligible hip hop lyrics.  And then, each country has its own stereotypes, negative or positive, of what Americans and America are like.

As rob_co2 mentioned, Serbia, however, is a bit different from the rest of Europe, because they were literally bombed by the US in 1999.  This should not affect drnaud, not only because he’s a Canadian, but also because he’s French-Canadian, thus unlike English-Canadians (whose English is almost identical to that of most Americans), it’s harder for French-Canadians to be confused for Americans.

And one very important thing: whether you’re American or Canadian…people do not assume right of the bat that you’re American.  This is a common false assumption.  Some Americans do stand out, like a group I saw in Italy wearing “remember 9/11” hats and tshirts (please don’t any of you do that)…or wearing a stars-and-stripes bathing suit at the beach …or less subtle things: dressing in baggy clothes…in many countries: wearing shorts after sundown…buying and wearing a beret that says “Paris” (yes, some Yanks actually do this)…unless you do things like that, you will not stand out as an American, unless someone sees your passport.  Most tourists in Europe are Europeans visiting each other’s countries, so there’s no reason for people to assume you’re American, unless you give them a reason.  So if someone gets mad at you, or comes off as rude, please don’t assume that they’re singling you out for being American.  Most likely, they don’t know nor assumed that you’re American.  They’re probably just having a bad day, or it could be a case of culture shock (you misinterpreting their behaviour as “rude”).

Very true. Speaking of your “stereotypical US clothing” thing though… that reminds me… when I was in Rothenburg this tour bus rolls up with all these obviously American tourists, which I was just as annoyed by as I’m sure all the locals were. Then I saw this one guy who was wearing his navy hat (the ones that say “U.S.S. _______” on the front) and a shirt that (and I WISH I was making this up) had a huge picture of GW Bush, and the text “Yeah I voted for him? Why didn’t you?”
 
I could not believe someone would wear a shirt like that period….. but what the hell was this guy doing? Scouting new bombing targets for the US government?!?? I hope some pickpocket nabbed his wallet… which I’m sure was tucked nice and loosely into his back pocket. OR maybe it was in his fanny-pack []

Some people just feel the need to be nationalist assholes when they go abroad.  It’s one thing if you supported Bush back when he was still popular amongst Americans, and you genuinely believed what he was telling you….but knowing that he’s a controversial (or widely disliked) figure in Europe, and deliberately wearing that shirt in Europe…that really is a deliberate act of provocation.  This man knew what he was doing: he was going to Europe with a tour group, so he decided to pack that tshirt with him, and wear it so he can stick it to to the European public for overwhelmingly opposing the American-led invasion of Iraq.

Its true that people around the world often don’t hold travelers accountable for the actions of their country/leaders.  But then again, the US embassy in Belgrade didn’t make the decision to drop bombs or to recognize Kosovo’s independence, but Serbs still threw stones at it and tried to burn it down. 
 
And just because you are breaking boundries/stereotypes by traveling to another country, that doesnt mean you automatically respected.  Americans (because we are so isolated and illiterate about the ways of others) tend to have the most trouble letting go of their preconceptions.  For instance, one might travel ex-communist countries with the idea that the fall of communism was a good thing, while actually many people (especially Serbs) think life was much better under the USSR.  Americans are often though of as traveling with their camera shutters open, and their minds closed. 

And I think It’ll do much more for the face of American tourism if we backpackers, who are usually very respective of the places we visit, first let the people like us, then tell them we’re American.  By the time they know, they’ll be thinking, “Hey, he’s a pretty decent guy.  Maybe not ALL Americans suck as bad at life as Rosie O’Donnell…”



To be honest, I still support him today (as the&nbsposition of President).  Do I think he’s screwed some stuff up, and sent a huge blow to conservative politics? (I’d never lump myself into the Republican label…if anything, Libertarian, but I digress)  Yes…but in a lot of countries in this world, it’s considered tacky and rude to bash the country’s leader so hard.  Bush is terrible at giving speeches…but because of this, do people actually think he’s mentally retarded?  And I mean truly mentally retarded…?  That shows about as much ignorance as anything.  I’m sure as hell not gonna stroll the streets of St. Tropez in a stars-n-stripes thong, but it would be nice to see a little more legitimacy when people talk politics in this country (in general, not saying you guys aren’t!  Haha).

And rob_co2, you made several good points throughout.  I think it’s funny that all across the globe we’re all so ignorant of each other’s countries and ways of life.  A Serb might hate me for the shelling that took place nearly 10 years ago, and that’s ignorance.  I might walk around with a shirt that says “W: takin’ names and kickin’ ass!”…..and that’s ignorance lol.  It is really refreshing to see so many people on this website who, in the course of their travels, live out the noble ambition of bridging culture gaps and helping us to know eachother, not just hate eachother for what the TV says.  I think Americans especially (and people all over the planet) would do really well to get outside their comfort zone and try to learn a little about the world.

I don’t think he’s mentally retarded at all… however, I do think he has been suffering from early stages of dementia the last several years. I’m not a Republican by any stretch of the imagination… but if you watch some of Bush’s speeches from 10-15 years ago, you might be struck by how sharp the man was. I mean, I saw a video one time of him speaking freakin’ Spanish! So it’s not like he’s an idiot. Silver spoon hypocrite, most likely… but retarded? Not by a long shot. Just shows how much stress someone can be under being the “leader of the free world.” Especially when they screw up so much []… Actually, I wonder if a lot of the blame shouldn’t even be placed on him, but with those around him for taking advantage of the situation and using him as a puppet for their own purposes. Ugh, the mind boggles….
 
 
Anyway… [] @ Rob, I know what you mean about the Communist thing. Actually my personal views are a lot closer to theirs anyway so I didn’t have much of a problem, but I was a bit surprised to hear people in Eastern Germany say things like that, with like this nostalgia for the Communist period. I mean, living in America, we’re basically brought up all along believing how evil and wrong Communism is, without ever really listening to the people who lived under it. If you notice too, the parts that we think are bad, are the same parts they did… i.e., the fact that they were really living in a police state that claimed to be Communist. Kind of like how we live in a capitalist state that swears up and down it’s “democratic” []….. But yeah. I’ll never forget when this guy in his 30s I met in Dresden said to me “Yeah well… put it this way…. 20 years ago, everyone had a job.”

Communism: people miss the economic security of those days: free education, free reliable health care, affordable food, subsidized utilities, no unemployment, job security, low crime, etc.  But at that time, they wanted to do away with the one-party rule, lack of free speech, lack of press freedoms, lack of other freedoms, etc.  So, in places like Ukraine, people are torn between the good aspects of the past, and the good aspects of the present, and very many people are willing to go back to the past.  I think that here in the US we tend to misunderstand the revolutions across Eastern Europe in the late 1980s and early 1990s.  It was an uprising against the Communist Party’s authoritarian rule, yes, but not against the only economic system they had known (whose quick destruction brought millions of people into hard times).  And as outsiders, we fail to distinguish between the two.  We also tend to misappropriate the dissolution of the USSR to the fall of communism; in reality, while the two occurred hand in hand, they ocurred for entirely different reasons.

Serbia: Serbia is different from the rest of Europe where people simply have negative views on American foreign policy.  Serbia was actually bombed by the US within very recent history (a war few Americans paid attention to)…someone who was a teenager then is only in his 20s now, so people remember that war very well.  And then the US recognized Kosovo’s sovereignty.  We can’t guess how all Serbs are feeling, but my point is that: Serbs don’t represent the average European regarding how they view the US, because Serbia’s recent history with the US is very different from, say, Spain or Sweden where people simply dislike US foreign policy (and perhaps regret any indirect influence the US might have on their country) but they don’t blame ordinary Americans (that doesn’t necessarily mean they jump for joy for Americans. You’ll get varied reactions from people who are fascinated with Americans, to people who view Americans as stupid/arrogant/gullible/stuck-up/etc, etc).

Bush: I don’t think people see him as retarded.  I think the general consensus in Europe is that Bush isn’t the one running things; there’s invisible higher interests pulling the strings, while Bush himself is someone who was made a puppet out of an ordinary man.  Americans vote for someone they can have a beer with; Europeans vote for someone with qualifications.  IMO, it’s partly a difference in culture, and it’s partly a difference in political systems (the selection process for a PM candidate within European political systems is quite different from the more populist way that American political parties chose their presidential candidates.)  There’s also a cultural difference in the way we view politics: in America even despite the scandals that erupt every year, every decade a position in political office is something that’s very prestigious, while in Europe, it’s just a mundane&nbsposition held by imperfect people whose job is to micromanage everyday life.  And that’s why Clinton’s affair was such a big deal, whereas if such a thing happened in Europe: the tabloids might gossip about it, but no one would really give a rat’s ass.

I’m sure that is a weird situation.  To go from a government so all-encompassing that everything was already planned and taken care of for people, and then to have that crash all at once?  Private industries can move in and take over (and are, slowly), but for any country that has ever had a Communist regime collapse, the ensuing period is about as unstable as could happen.  I’d miss parts of those days too: you work a job provided for you, and so is practically everything else.  I definitely wouldn’t miss other parts: zero job mobility, extremely limited opportunity, government-run everything (I think Webster defines “government” as “an organization that performs tasks as poorly as possible”).  On paper I think Communism looks pretty awesome, so it’s no surprise a lot of people pine for it.  It even starts off pretty nice.  Unfortunately, human nature doesn’t agree with being under constant control, and it ultimately fails.  Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think the longest-running Communist state in history was the USSR actually?  Systems like that just hemmorage money, as evident from how long it’s taking some of them to pull out of depression.  It’s really too bad!
 
Anyway, that was enough of a tangent haha.  The point, aside from me hating Karl Marx, is that I can easily see how people would miss the security of Socialistic living.  When it all of a sudden disappears, must be like having the floor drop out from underneath you.
 
Hearing all of this about the average Serbian’s views of Americans is a little surprising.  It was a NATO-wide decision to commence bombing, and in fact, each target had to be approved by all nineteen members.  Granted, the vast majority of bombing was done by the US, because most NATO countries were significantly lacking in the armory department at that point, but each missle fired was sanctioned by every NATO nation.  So, do Serbs harbor ill-will toward citizens of all those countries?
 
For that matter, I’d imagine Albanians would fall on the polar opposite of the spectrum, being quite grateful.  Under Milosevic’s communist rule, Kosovo (majority Albanian) was neglected and became extremely poor (per capita income 1/5th that of the national average), while northern Yugoslavia (majority Serbian)…well, I can’t say they grew richer, cuz the whole country was declining, but they were richer by comparison.  Ethnic Albanians demand sovereignty to pull themselves out, and Belgrade issues it’s refusal.  I’m not surprised they rebelled…what people group, when repressed that much, doesn’t rebel?  Now I’m not saying NATO actions were perfect by any means, but ethnic cleansing of an estimated 13,627 Albanian civilians does demand some international action.
 
My point is, it wasn’t anti-Serbian action.  It was anti-Milosevic action, and he was given ample opportunity to avoid it.  Any Serbian casualties are a sad and extremely unfortunate side-effect, but why would they feel resentment toward only Americans (and at that, American citizens—not politicians who are now out of power) and not other NATO countries?  I’m posing this question in case the answer to the previous one is, “Yes, it is only Americans they’re mad at.”
 
I know a good deal about the war, but admit I’m quite ignorant of the situation today: Serbian sentiments, and why…Albanian sentiments…current state of Kosovo (daily life, not political).  I’m very interested.  I’d love to extend my time in the Balkans this summer to experience this unique situation, but while I’ll probably avoid Belgrade altogether, I’m just not sure what the reaction would be to an American backpacker in Bosnia, Montenegro (more Serbs than Albanians…), or Kosovo, Albania, and Macedonia? (more Albanians than Serbs…)
 
Some input would be really helpful, maybe if Dismanrc is still perusing this thread?

Regancannon,

I’ll try to answer your questions as best I can.

Socialism and communism: it’s not only communism that failed.  The thing that failed in the 20th century was running a country by pure ideology, be that ideology communism, fascism, theocracy (like in Iran), or even capitalism.  All of these ideologies proved to be massive failures in the 20th century.  If you don’t believe me: you can look at Brazil and Mexico to see how capitalism in its purest form failed, and you can look at the USA of the early 20th century to see the same thing: capitalism in a very pure form was proven to be a failure and believe it or not a small dose of socialist elements (ranging from Keynesian economics, to labour unions, market regulations, and public services such as public schools, public libraries,&nbspublic transportation, municipal water, and public broadcasting like PBS and NPR) were introduced from the 1930s to the 1960s, and together with the free market helped raise the American standard of living to what we know today.  This is an often neglected part of American history, and the neo-libs wrongly use the failure of communism to justify their efforts to move the economy further towards pure capitalism.  So, don’t disdain Karl Marx just because some authoritarian regimes took him too literally; we can easily do the same for Adam Smith and the undemocratic regimes that took him too literally.  And for the definition of “government” in Webster: your argument that government “controlled” things always tend to be inefficient can be easily countered with the argument that government in a heavily capitalist system tends to look out only for the interests of those who have the money to buy off politicians and have laws written in their favour.  Perhaps it’s ineffecient because private interests see to it that it stays that way?  Like Amtrak, for example, we complain about this “socialist” entity, yet we tend to ignore the billions of dollars of public money that goes into airports and roads, making air travel and automobiles far more competitive thanks to public investment.  Private interests decry the government’s inefficiencies, but in secret, they milk the government for money.  Meanwhile, people in France, Germany, and Spain are zooming around in high-speed trains, built by&nbspublic-private cooperation.

Now this is a European travel forum, so how does this tie into European travel?  The American and European paradigms on this very issue vary greatly: while Americans continue to see capitalism and socialism as competing ideologies in 20th century fashion, this is not the case in Europe where most people don’t see the two as contradictory.  People in Europe cherish their free market, but they would never agree to doing away with universal health care and labour unions, and there is a genuine fear in Europe that European governments would cave in to&nbsprivate interests [as well as pressure from Washington] to create a more “American” socioeconomic system.  The Germans refer to this as “Amerikanische Verhältnisse”, meaning “American conditions”, and it’s something they fear and dread.  Socialism and capitalism complement each other, according to the European philosophy.  The terms “socialist” “socialism” or “social” are not a bad word in Europe, and are used by a lot of mainstream political parties that are either centrist or moderate-left (while in America, that term implies the far-left).  Even in Britain, which is often cited as the most capitalist country in Europe, it’s far more socialist than Americans would think.

Serbia: Well, I can’t speak for the Serbians, but from what I understand, there is some resentment in Serbia towards the “major powers” in general, so this mildly includes, say, France and Germany and Britain.  But resentment is more heavily focused on the United States, not only because the US did most of the bombing, but also because Washington was criticized by NATO allies of going overboard.  Whether this is fair or not (and I believe it is), the USA is seen as the one who pretty much&nbspulls the strings behind NATO, being the dominant member of an organization that is essentially made up of a dominant player and less-influential allies, rather than an alliance of equal partners.  Seeing the alliance’s irrelevance in the post-Cold War world, a number of European NATO members in the 1990s attempted to create an alternative military alliance called the Western European Union, which still exists on paper, I believe.  This was not done in defiance of America, as Europe definitely wants to keep its good relations with the USA (as well as its close economic ties with America), however NATO was seen as too US-centric and obsolete.  Washington, however, managed to convince [or pressure rather] these nations to abandon the WEU in favour of reinfocing NATO.  And newer former communist bloc countries are lining up to join NATO solely because of the financial aid Washington provides to modernize their militaries and because NATO membership is an effective way to attract foreign firect investment from private investors who will now regard that country as stable, and not because of a genuine belief that NATO has any relevance today…we’ve already seen in Iraq and Afghanistan how much the other NATO members actually believe the “collective security arrangement” diplomatic rhetoric.

Albanians and Milosevic: Milosevic was a communist only because: in those days in Eastern Europe, the only way you can run for office was to be a member of the Communist Party.  Best case scenario in 1980s Eastern Europe: in Yugoslavia or the USSR, there was a one-party oligarchy, and the only way to run for office was to join the Communist&nbsparty and try to climb up the party ladder.  Worst-case scenario: Romania had a hard-line dictatorship (Nicolae Ceausescu) who saw to it that things ran his way.  Boris Yeltsin, for example, Russia’s first democratically-elected president: he was first elected as president of Russia during the final years of the Soviet Union when free elections were finally allowed..Yeltsin was originally a member of the Communist Party the only way you can get a career in&nbspublic policy yet he was instrumental in disolving the USSR (he declared Russia independent from the USSR in 1991, a few weeks before Gorbachev’s resignation which was the final nail in the coffin for the Soviet state).  When multiparty elections were first allowed in the USSR, during its dying days, droves of politicians left the Communist Party.  And many current politicians in the region today, ranging from moderate-left to far-right, began their political careers in the Communist Party.  Regarding Yugoslavia: communism was not the cause of Milosevic’s madness (he would have been a madman regardless), as Kosovo enjoyed autonomy under Josep Tito’s rule from 1945 to 1980.  Kosovo was stripped of its autonomy after Milosevic came to power in 1989, and there had been tensions and violence in the region throughout the 1980s (forcing many Kosovo Serbs to flee the region), receiving little attention in the US media, and prompting many Serbs as well as many Europeans outside Serbia to accuse Washington and NATO of one-sidedness, given that NATO’s anti-Milosevic action was coupled with an alliance with the KLA which many people wil tell you were no less atrocious than Milosevic.  And while Milosevic the madman was overthrown from power by the Serbs in 2000 (who had protested against him as far back as 1990), recognition of Kosovo’s independence by the US in 2008 (8 years after Milosevic was overthrown and handed over to the Hague) reinforced the belief that Washington is being unfair.  The contents of the 1999 NATO-drafted Rambouillet Agreement, which Milosevic did not sign prompting NATO’s campaign in Serbia, have also beeen called into question as being unfair to Serbia.  NATO’s “victory” in ending Milosevic’s genocide in Kosovo came only after the alternative Kumanovo Agreement (not drafted by NATO) which Milosevic signed.

As for the other countries in the region that you mentioned: Montenegro, Macedonia, etc…these are pretty much your typical European countries with regards to how they see America: it’s not like Serbia, with the exception of perhaps the autonomous Republika Srpska inside Bosnia. 

Albania: this is the only country in Europe where a visiting US president will get greeted by droves of people waiving Americans flags.  The norm for a European country is either indifference or especially in the GW Bush era protests.

Hope this gives you more insight. []

Just to add one more tidbit to the socialism thing: I will never understand how Americans working a 40 hour, 5 day week and look forward to social security when they retire can completely condemn socialism.
 
A couple of sad aspects that make you realise why it never completely caught on here (and why it became a bad word):
 
1) Early on, those in power institutionalised the divisions between people. I was just reading a book about the Industrial revolution where it talked about the creation of the “white collar” worker; you have them and “blue collar” workers essentially in the same “class”, but one feels far superior to the other. This is no accident. Right from the start, this was supported from above, with the end result being increased animosity between people that do and don’t get their hands dirty for a living. It’s hard to band together as a “class” when there are a bunch of arbitrary “differences” keeping you apart.
 
and 2) I don’t think it’s any accident that the “Red Scare” coincided so nicely with the “Black Scare” in America. If you go back and read some quotes from the African American Civil Rights leaders of the time, you realise they were all about class levelling, and redistribution of wealth. They were a perfect example of Marx’s class struggle; a completely disenfranchised class who were not allowed to rise any higher than a certain level, because then it would be harder to take advantage of them, for one thing. And obviously they were easily marked out by the colour of their skin. Sure, the Soviet Union was an easy target of fear—afterall, Blacks didn’t have ballistic missiles—but if you dig deeper, you wonder what those in power were really afraid of: was it annihilation by another nationstate, OR more likely, their ousting by a political movement begun to gain simple human rights by 10% of its population.
 
Sad to think that Americans might have the same access to healthcare and education etc as Europeans do if we didn’t have such a disgusting history of racial discrimination. []

Well I can’t say I actually look forward to Social Security…it’s not a solvent system, I’ll be lucky to get a penny when I retire.  I’d rather rely on private investment and responsible financial planning.  I do wish what we pay in Social Security would be invested by the government, instead of spent immediately, on business activities.  That way, once we retire, the time-value of SS payments will adequately reflect inflation and higher cost of living.  Lol but that’ll never stick…
 
I definitely don’t think either Socialism or Capitalism can succeed in their purest forms.  I think a few thousand years of history have shown that the best method of achieving a strong economy and higher standard of living is through very mildly restricted Capitalism.  Obviously antitrust laws and other restrictive legislation aim to help the consumer by limiting the power of corporations, and these are necessary; otherwise you have uncontested monopolies offering necessities at highly inflated prices.  But such things as double-taxation, arbitrary tariffs, and excessive labor laws make it difficult for companies to operate in America without layoffs…and we wonder why so many corporations are cutting local jobs and outsourcing.
 
Things like “redistribution of wealth” sound great in Robin Hood, but they just aren’t functional.  When people spend 10+ years in school to become a doctor, only to have huge chunks of their income taken and “redistributed”, the motivation to stay in that career plummets.  For example, if Doc makes 100K a year, Bob makes 20K, and the government evens them both out to 60K…why should Doc keep working such a demanding job?  He decides to take a job requiring fewer qualifications too and enjoy the same 60K.  Only now, that additional money he created as a doctor is gone.  Both Doc and Bob drop down to 20K.  Interestingly enough, one of my running buddies is a Swede who took his free Swedish education and came to America to work, because he was tired of getting uber-taxed and unable to keep what he worked for.
 
I’m not saying Capitalism is the answer for all countries the world over (some African cultures are inherently collectivist and would never accept it), and I’m certainly not saying it is successful in a pure, unadulterated form.  However, Socialism discourages business activities—this is just fact.  Considering corporations and small businesses account for just under 100% of the US GNP, discouraging them from operating domestically accomplishes one thing: it encourages them to move somewhere else.  The dollar drops, unemployment goes up, and people who really do need temporary government assistance are now shit-outta-luck, because the dropping economy can’t support them. 
 
My comment about government activities being inefficient is largely true.  Private firefighting companies are being used in many American cities, for example.  Government on a local-level sets criteria for safety, responsiveness, and cost, and private companies bid on the contract.  If they fail to measure up, they lose their jobs.  If they go on strike or in any other way “flex their muscles” to show how much people need them, they go to jail.  That can’t be afforded.  In cities that have implemented this, fire-related deaths have gone down by around 1800%.  This is a great example of private industry and government cooperating to achieve the best results—even if governments aren’t the ones doing the work.
 
Anyway, I’ll get off my soap box…I’m a Marketing/Econ Major so I get enough of that in class and I understand we’ll all have our own opinions anyway!  I’d enjoy just talking about travel with everyone more haha.
 
As far as the Serbia stuff goes, I’m not a fan of Clinton anyway—I’m not a fan of this whole American Empire it seems we’ve been trying to build since the mid-90’s.  We hemmorage money going into unstable countries and trying to turn them into some productive bastion of Westernism.  I really don’t like it.  Our founding fathers would slap this whole expansionist policy right out of us.  We really oughta reel it in, tone down the outta-control spending, and focus on making our own country better before policing the rest of the world.  Hence my Libertarian vote haha.
 
Ok, maybe now I’m off the soapbox!  Haha

1) We’ve been building the Empire LONG before the 90’s []
 
2) I get your point about the whole “motivation” thing. But I’d still like to believe that doctors are motivated by something other than making a ton of money [] [] Additionally, remove the initial burden of having to pay back a jillion dollars in college expenses and perhaps overall medical costs decline. Chances are they wouldn’t though, if doctors are as greed-driven as you suggest []
 
3) I see that you major in evil, so I’ll keep it at that [8D] haha
 
 
Back to the subject at hand…. hooray for Balkan Safety!!!
 

Hahaha yeah I’m mostly referring to the recent expansionism BS…I figured we had that stuff tied off for a while there, but nope! 
 
I mean of course there are other things motivating doctors…my best friend is in premed and he plans on going to do missionary work in Africa after his residency, which hardly pays well!  It’s just such an involved career path…11 years to even earn the title “Dr”, and then more time to do something specified like radiology, etc.  I’m sure it’s not an all-greed thing, but doctors are in high demand everywhere so they can kinda choose to move wherever their services will be the best paid. 
 
Haha and yeah I’ve got a big test in the Damnation of Souls tomorrow, so I gotta get my beauty sleep! []
 
And as far as the Balkan stuff, it is kinda nice to hear that 1) ethnic Albanians will be pro-US, and that 2) ethnic Serbs might be pretty ready to meet a decent American for a change.  Hopefully I’ll fit the bill!!  (Then I can sneak in and damn their souls…haha)

Haha yeah, just don’t try to take away their healthcare or education []