TheMikh posted... you're missing my point
i'm referring to being sold the ideal of neoliberalism; the national treasury looted by transnational capital; commodification of formerly state./user.php?user=social institutions by private interests; currency devaluation; entire industries falling into the hands of individuals that leverage significant political and economic power and live in their own bubbles isolated from the ground situation; collapse of industrial base; socioeconomic malaise incl. rising real poverty, unemployment, drug abuse, alcoholism, decreasing life expectancy, general air of hopelessness despite believing in some abstract idea of liberal democracy; rising criminality - organized and unorganized - with impunity; state bureaucracies being run like crime syndicates; diminished geopolitical leverage; political fragmentation; ...
While most of this is true, especially the parts related to neoliberalism, we're nowhere near as abject as they were on most of these metrics. Their society damn near disintegrated and many people wished for the Soviet Union back.
I gotta be righteous, I gotta be me, I gotta be conscious, I gotta be free, I gotta be able, I gotta attack, I gotta be stable, I gotta be black.