"One of my biggest eye-opening discoveries after "getting of the boat" was that the US was just like the x-USSR - the same nomenklatura system, the same police state practices, the same claims to ideological superiority, and above all, the same ideology-driven zeal to destroy the real and perceived opponents of the system - the only difference was money."
As one who got off the boat from Romania in 1963, I'd like to add one more major item of difference: propaganda. The propaganda in the US is a million times as effective as what they term "communist propaganda." More toxic, more ubiquitous, more invisible. When I was teaching at UC Berkeley in the early eighties I had many students write essays about how advertising was a public service because it kept consumers informed. Kid you not!
Joanna Bujes