>"The peoples of Eastern Europe believed they were going to keep all the
>social gains they had enjoyed under communism while adding on all the
>consumerism of the West.(...) Expecting to advance from Second World to
>First World status, they have been rammed into the Third World, ending up
>like capitalist Indonesia, Mexico, Zaire, and Turkey. They wanted it all and
>ended up with almost nothing."
>
>IMO they did gain one thing through their ordeal: Poltical consciousness.
I haven't read Parenti. I was just extrapolating from personal experience.
Did they gain political consciousness? That would be a happy ending.
What does IMO mean?
Joanna