Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Yugoslavia was behind the Iron Curtain for 3 years. And it was Communist. Who knows how much influence the Soviets had?
It was behind the Curtain for less than 3 years, well before my time (1945-48). Communism completely wrecked the country's economic base, but otherwise had very little influence on daily life in my childhood, meaning that there was no intense indoctrination, or penalty for not being a communist. Yugoslav communists persecuted only the people who openly wanted to overthrow the government, but if you were a regular civilian going about your business and interests, they didn't pay any attention to you. In the circle in which I grew up, frankly nobody took much notice of communists. Very few people in professions (physicians, lawyers, engineers) were communists, and the only way in which professionals were influenced by communism was that the incomes were very low regardless of the level of education. This was all very different from the Eastern bloc where communism was permeating everything and the ideology was heavily forced on everybody, or else.
Soviets had no influence in Yugoslavia, and were intensely disliked (one ex-Yu ethnic group felt religious identity with Russians, but that was the only connection I am aware of, after living there the first 23 years of my life). Specifically, no Soviet influence in education (eg, as you can see from my example, the foreign language that practically all kids in my home city learned at school was English. As far as I can remember, only one high school (out of 30 or so in my home city) offered Russian as the second foreign language).
Anyway, that is totally not related to this topic. The fact that I am a right-libertarian has absolutely nothing to do with Eastern bloc, except that I probably do have the same knee-jerk reaction as Ayn Rand against the unfair and ineffective welfare-based economic ideas, being that I saw in my childhood how badly they worked, how they resulted in mass poverty.
This is off- off-off topic... okay, not entirely your mistake that you can't guess, since the popular internet sources tend to include my former country In Eastern bloc, but that is simply incorrect. We weren't under Soviet influence, were not a part of Warsaw Pact (which is how Eastern bloc was defined), we had open borders without travel restriction, and we had a limited private economic enterprise (under an overall inept communist government, which was, as its only redeeming quality, actually very firmly anti-Soviet). My home country existed, as a very unfortunate artificial formation of mutually hostile people, between 1918 and 1940 as a kingdom, then between 1945 and approx 1990 as a socialist/communist federation (wery decidedly separate from Russia and other Eastern bloc countries), then in the early 1990s we had a civil war and became seven countries, the most nortwestern of which is where Ms Trump grew up, and I grew up in the one that has the coast, and has a western border with Ms Trump's. But I have had no connection with that world for 30 years. I don't have any other home country now except the US, have not had any other in decades.
This is off- off-off topic... okay, not entirely your mistake that you can't guess, since the popular internet sources tend to include my former country In Eastern bloc, but that is simply incorrect. We weren't under Soviet influence, were not a part of Warsaw Pact (which is how Eastern bloc was defined), we had open borders without travel restriction, and we had a limited private economic enterprise (under an overall inept communist government, which was, as its only redeeming quality, actually very firmly anti-Soviet). My home country existed, as a very unfortunate artificial formation of mutually hostile people, between 1918 and 1940 as a kingdom, then between 1945 and approx 1990 as a socialist/communist federation (wery decidedly separate from Russia and other Eastern bloc countries), then in the early 1990s we had a civil war and became seven countries, the most nortwestern of which is where Ms Trump grew up, and I grew up in the one that has the coast, and has a western border with Ms Trump's. But I have had no connection with that world for 30 years. I don't have any other home country now except the US, have not had any other in decades.
PS- I see that Lagomorfo got the quiz question right (civilized people tend to know all sorts of things :-).
No, it's just humor. I am genuinely impressed that he figured out the country, most people can't.
I know it was an attempt at humor, and it may have been funny if you would had at some point been open to the feedback that you got about the term (you got a lot) rather than dug your heels in and insisted that you were "right".
Your humor isn't funny.
You were genuinely impressed because he is such a "civilized minority"?
I was impressed because he figured it out (you didn't). The reference to "civilized" was a joke on unimportant skirmish previously on this thread. Sorry if you find it as unfunny as I find your "political correctness" tedious, disingenuous, and stretched to absurdity.
I mentioned the civilized poor and minorities in Parkchester because the Bronx is famous in public mind for the poor and minorities who are not civilized (ie, criminals, homeless drug addicts, welfare mothers - people who violate the fair social contract, therefore exhibiting uncivilized behavior). Saying that Parkchesterite minority people are civilized does NOT imply that minorities are usually uncivilized; it implies that Parkchesterite minority people do not conform to the Bronx image of crime and welfare lifestyle. That is all I meant, and cannot understand how anyone could think that my statement about civility of Parkchesterites could ever imply racism.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
