Vacation Education

While taking a vacation in Prague and Amsterdam, from my vacation in Spain, I ran across the unexpected, education, reflection and a dose of humility. During a couple of walking tours listening to different tour directors I became aware of how hard people fought to be free of religious domination. I know I studied this in school, how our founding fathers came here for freedom, especially freedom of religion or from religion. It became a whole lot more meaningful to me in the past few days, hearing the story of those left behind to fight on their home ground. And it became increasing clear to me how important it is that we not allow the churches or religious right to gain a stronghold in or on our government. The Spanish Inquisition is one of many examples of the dangers of allowing religious fanatics to gain power.

The second thing that became more real to me was the Nazi occupation of both of these countries and the effect it had on them, not only at the time of the occupation, but on the generations that came after. I would Prague is believed to have one of the highest percentage of atheists in the world. And Amsterdam can’t be far behind. Despite all the very old and beautiful churches in Europe it seems far less religious than the United States. It is hard for me to believe that some of this is the result of witnessing what happened in Europe with the Nazi’s and during World War II.

Then after the Nazi’s came the communist.  Eileen and I visited the Museum of Communism in Prague, which ironically is next door to McDonalds and in the same building on the same floor as a gambling parlor. One of the first thing that struck me as we walked through this museum is how the communist used the exact same strategy in creating  fear of the United States as the United States used to create fear of Communism, even the same style of printmaking. The same fear mongering that has been building in the United States since 9/11. The Us and Them. We have one asset the Europeans didn’t have when fighting the church, the Nazis and the Communists, we have the internet and social networking and it would probably be a good idea to protect it.

Now to the humility part. Between the Museum of Communism and the information from the tour guides I got a clearer idea of how oppressive communism was under Stalin and Lenin and some of their replacements. And I reflected back on how naïve and arrogant we were (or I was) when spouting Marx and Mao and considering a few hundred thousand lives to be just the cost of a better world. I had already decided that pure communism probably would never work with human beings, because we do better with an incentive. I think they figured this out in China when people were starving because the farmers only produced what they were required to produce under the quota system and there was no incentive to produce more. When China finally allowed them to sell any amount they produced over their quota there started being more food to feed the masses. But I think the ideas behind socialism are better than those behind communism. I always did like Trotsky.

The problem with all the examples we have of communism today is that they were all the result of a violent revolution and in the heat of the revolution the ends justified the means allowing a few individuals to be powerful when the revolution was won. And in each case power and paranoia went to their heads.

 I believe every human beings basic need for food, shelter and health care need to be provided. I hope the Occupy folks study history well and if they succeed they have plans to implement a true democracy. I believe the United Stated and our constitution was a good start, but somewhere along the way it got terribly off track and the present state of the nation is a tad scary. Both Prague and Amsterdam worship freedom. I learned a lot from my visit to these cities.