An interesting way to subvert democracy.
B the R
Xianity, I mean. Well, I'm referring the american brands of
it, Family values etc. that the religious right is spouting.
What better way to ensure that people vote the way they are
supposed to if they are told how by their evangelical xian
leaders.
That's why I like pagans. They have to think for themselves
since there is no centralized structure of religious
control. Also, the element of religious persecution requires
a certain amount of intelligence to combat.
(Oh Gawd! He's been reading Chomsky again)
And another thing! (oh stop it) Why is the US *still*
harassing Cuba? They are no longer a bastion of the evil
empire in the western hemisphere. That empire no longer
exists. Could it be that they are an embarrassing example of
how a country can be (very moderately) successful and not be
in the US sphere of influence.
Maybe that is why I can enjoy a good Cuban cigar legally and
you in the states cannot. You'd think that ATF would have
better things to do.
Buboe the Rat (hello to all you NSA and CIE lurkers)
--
"They have made the people so arrogant and so curious that
they no longer have the humility to submit to a civil rule"
~attributed to critics of the press during the English Civil
War
Endymion
B the R <fbr...@gtn.net> wrote
> Xianity, I mean. Well, I'm referring the american brands of
> it, Family values etc. that the religious right is spouting.
> What better way to ensure that people vote the way they are
> supposed to if they are told how by their evangelical xian
> leaders.
Oh yeah, the American Christian Right invented this idea. Lots of
people in Iran would be interested to know that.
> That's why I like pagans. They have to think for themselves
*snort*
> since there is no centralized structure of religious control.
Just an even more conformist massive pop culture which is where 90%
of the "pagans" I've met (the ones who don't know dick about it
except how cool and gawth it is to be one) get their ideas.
> Also, the element of religious persecution
Which does not exist legally in this country
> requires a certain amount of intelligence to combat.
Well then Christianity, having suffered amazing levels of persecution
in its first three centuries, and especially Protestantism, must have
been developed by very intelligent people.
> And another thing! (oh stop it) Why is the US *still* harassing
Cuba?
Because there is a large Cuban exile population in southern Florida
which will ream any politician who goes "soft" on Cuba, and Florida
is a very important swing state in US Presidential elections.
> Could it be that they are an embarrassing example of
> how a country can be (very moderately) successful and not be
> in the US sphere of influence.
I doubt it, seeing as how the Cuban economy is about as much a
success as Haitian democracy. The only thing holding the country
together all those years was the massive Soviet aid program.
> Maybe that is why I can enjoy a good Cuban cigar legally and
> you in the states cannot. You'd think that ATF would have
> better things to do.
True enough, but then the BATF is a pretty useless organization all
around.
--
Endymion disintegration@ SPAMTRAP mindspring.com
"A thing of beauty is a joy forever;
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness..."
TSM
In article <35171842...@gtn.net>, B the R <fbr...@gtn.net> wrote:
<church=state snipped>
> That's why I like pagans. They have to think for themselves
> since there is no centralized structure of religious
> control. Also, the element of religious persecution requires
> a certain amount of intelligence to combat.
Sorry, but that's complete crap.
Conceivably,
any faith-oriented social structure
where one person can convince others that they
have some sort of power-base that is very real,
but inevident to conventional methods of perception
can be used to manipulate people.
Sometimes it doesn't even take that much.
All it really takes is some self-appointed demigouge
to convince enough people that he's Jesus,
<OR the Lord of the Hunt, OR the most powerful Senator, OR. . .>
and you've got massive manipulation going on.
Just because a religion is pagan
doesn't mean that you can't warp it into something evil.
Far more thick-headed is the insinuation that
there are no stupid pagans.
There are -plenty.-
Trust me.
<Cuba snipped.>
> Buboe the Rat (hello to all you NSA and CIE lurkers)
--TSM
=Kiss Kiss Bang Bang=
It is impossible to truly hate your
fellow man until you've worked retail.
ViktorLdov
I agree, its becoming all too hip to rant against the right wing these days and
support paganism/anarchy/anything displeasing to mainstream society. If this
many people are supporting anti-mainstream, I need to readjust my position in
order to counter-act it.
Regards,
Brian
Elocutu...@hotmail.com
> it, Family values etc. that the religious right is spouting.
> What better way to ensure that people vote the way they are
> supposed to if they are told how by their evangelical xian
> leaders.
The real way to subvert the Christian Right is to let them run the country
for a year or two until everybody hates them for something, then get on with
our lives.
>
> That's why I like pagans. They have to think for themselves
> since there is no centralized structure of religious
> control. Also, the element of religious persecution requires
> a certain amount of intelligence to combat.
Yes, we're all different. Except for me.
> And another thing! (oh stop it) Why is the US *still*
> harassing Cuba? They are no longer a bastion of the evil
> empire in the western hemisphere. That empire no longer
> exists. Could it be that they are an embarrassing example of
> how a country can be (very moderately) successful and not be
> in the US sphere of influence.
America is still harassing Cuba because Jesse Helm's spotty, fishbelly-white
ass sits in the Chair of the senate foreign relation committee, smack between
common sense and progress, holding both back.
> Maybe that is why I can enjoy a good Cuban cigar legally and
> you in the states cannot. You'd think that ATF would have
> better things to do.
Actually, one of my favorite restaurants just got busted for selling Cubans
in the city. Stupid, though. Give me a Churchhill any day.
> Buboe the Rat (hello to all you NSA and CIE lurkers)
And, in case you're still listening: kiddie porn strong encryption bomb
intern scientology Amway
--Elocutus
-----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==-----
http://www.dejanews.com/ Now offering spam-free web-based newsreading
Elocutu...@hotmail.com
In article <01bd56b5$da4eab60$3ba945cf@default>,
> > Also, the element of religious persecution
>
> Which does not exist legally in this country
Yeah. That explains why, every month or two, I hear another news story about
another pagan losing custody of her children for "practicing witchcraft."
>
> > requires a certain amount of intelligence to combat.
>
> Well then Christianity, having suffered amazing levels of persecution
> in its first three centuries, and especially Protestantism, must have
> been developed by very intelligent people.
Possibly. It wasn't that tough to be the smartest person in Jerusalem in the
first century CE. That's why you never see two thousand year old Hebrews on
Jeopardy.
Besides, even if they were pretty sharp, that doesn't mean anybody's kept
chlorine in the gene pool since then.
B the R
B the R wrote:
>
> Xianity, I mean. Well, I'm referring the american brands of
> it, Family values etc. that the religious right is spouting.
> What better way to ensure that people vote the way they are
> supposed to if they are told how by their evangelical xian
> leaders.
In support of this, I am going to quote Chomsky, since he
can say much more eloquently than I can and I'd just be
rehashing it anyway:
"You can see that in the polls too. I was just looking at a
study by an American sociologist (published in England) of
comparative
religious attitudes in various countries. The figures are
shocking. Three quarters of the American population
literally believe in
religious miracles. The numbers who believe in the devil, in
resurrection, in God doing this and that -- it's
astonishing.
These numbers aren't duplicated anywhere else in the
industrial world. You'd have to maybe go to mosques in Iran
or do a poll
among old ladies in Sicily to get numbers like this. Yet
this is the American population.
Just a couple of years ago, there was a study of what people
thought of evolution. The percentage of the population that
believed in Darwinian evolution at that point was 9% -- not
all that much above statistical error. About half the
population
believed in divinely-guided evolution, Catholic church
doctrine. About 40% thought the world was created a few
thousand
years ago.
Again, you've got to go back to pre-technological societies,
or devastated peasant societies, before you get numbers like
that.
Those are the kinds of belief systems that show up in things
like the God-and-country rally.
Religious fundamentalism can be a very scary phenomenon. It
could be the mass base for an extremely dangerous popular
movement. These fundamentalist leaders aren't stupid. They
have huge amounts of money, they're organizing, they're
moving the
way they should, beginning to take over local offices where
nobody notices them.
There was a striking phenomenon in the last election -- it
even made the front pages of the national newspapers. It
turned out
that in many parts of the country ultraright fundamentalist
extremists had been running candidates without identifying
them. It
doesn't take a lot of work to get somebody elected to the
school committee. Not too many people pay attention. You
don't
have to say who you are. You just appear with a friendly
face and a smile and say "I'm going to help your kids" and
people will
vote for you.
A lot of people got elected because of these organized
campaigns to take over local structures. If that ties in
with some
charismatic power figure who says, "I'm your leader, follow
me," it could be very ugly. We could move back to real
pre-Enlightenment times."
From "The Prosperous Few and the Restless Many"
Ian Sturrock
In article <oldvenomlips-2...@ts4-4-164.rhsc.cetlink.net>,
TSM <oldven...@geocitiesPOTTEDMEAT.com> writes
>> That's why I like pagans. They have to think for themselves
>> since there is no centralized structure of religious
>> control. Also, the element of religious persecution requires
>> a certain amount of intelligence to combat.
>
> Sorry, but that's complete crap.
>
> Conceivably,
> any faith-oriented social structure
> where one person can convince others that they
> have some sort of power-base that is very real,
> but inevident to conventional methods of perception
> can be used to manipulate people.
> Sometimes it doesn't even take that much.
> All it really takes is some self-appointed demigouge
> to convince enough people that he's Jesus,
> <OR the Lord of the Hunt, OR the most powerful Senator, OR. . .>
> and you've got massive manipulation going on.
>
> Just because a religion is pagan
> doesn't mean that you can't warp it into something evil.
Heh. I agree with most of your points, but I don't think his argument is
*complete* crap. IME there are *enough* independently-minded, ornery
pagans that if anyone attempts to manipulate them, or even claim to
represent them, that person will be stomped (metaphorically speaking).
Your points apply more to closed pagan groups- in those circumstances
there is at least as much potential for manipulation, as there is in a
more mainstream religion.
> Far more thick-headed is the insinuation that
> there are no stupid pagans.
> There are -plenty.-
> Trust me.
<snip>
>
> It is impossible to truly hate your
> fellow man until you've worked retail.
Working in pagan retail, not only have I met a lot of stupid pagans,
I've also learnt to hate my fellow man ;)
--
"The roots of self-reproach and good behaviour tangle deep in the living flesh:
you can't ease them out gently, they have to be torn out, and they bring flesh
with them." (Fay Weldon)
TSM
In article <$+Vy+PAuu...@newaeonbooks.demon.co.uk>, Ian Sturrock
<I...@newaeonbooks.demon.co.ukfnordfnord> wrote:
> In article <oldvenomlips-2...@ts4-4-164.rhsc.cetlink.net>,
> TSM <oldven...@geocitiesPOTTEDMEAT.com> writes
> >In article <35171842...@gtn.net>, B the R <fbr...@gtn.net> wrote:
>
> >> That's why I like pagans. They have to think for themselves
> >> since there is no centralized structure of religious
> >> control. Also, the element of religious persecution requires
> >> a certain amount of intelligence to combat.
> >
> > Sorry, but that's complete crap.
<stuff'n'things>
> > Just because a religion is pagan
> > doesn't mean that you can't warp it into something evil.
>
> Heh. I agree with most of your points, but I don't think his argument is
> *complete* crap. IME there are *enough* independently-minded, ornery
> pagans that if anyone attempts to manipulate them, or even claim to
> represent them, that person will be stomped (metaphorically speaking).
That could be whittled down to the fact that;
A> There are -less- pagans than there are Xtians,
therefore there are less stupid pagans.
B> Paganism of any kind is widely viewed as
a kind of rebellion-thing. No, not all pagans
are pagans simply to rebel against something,
but there is something to be said for the fact that
a larger cross-section of the religion are
going to buck the system due to habit alone.
Whether that comes from rejecting the lifestyle
they were presented in younger years or doing it because
it's their way of getting out from under the establishment's
thumb is really irrelevant when it comes right
down to basic effects.
Pagans are NOT more resistant to manipulation
simply because they are pagans.
> Your points apply more to closed pagan groups- in those circumstances
> there is at least as much potential for manipulation, as there is in a
> more mainstream religion.
It's been said that the very structure
of Xtianity is naturally disposed to the finer
points of swaying the masses.
Of course this is probably doe to the fact
that Xtianity is based on what's in the Bible.
Most of what's in the Bible can be easily
described as "open to interpretation."
Since most religions are based on what
someone wrote down a long-ass time ago,
the same probably holds true for
just about any form of pagan worship
that has texts to go with it.
However,
you're completely right about the small groups bit.
Less people,
all of whom are hand picked by the cult-leader
generally assure that all of them are
stupid, or too open-minded depending on
who the guru chooses to recruit.
> > It is impossible to truly hate your
> > fellow man until you've worked retail.
>
> Working in pagan retail, not only have I met a lot of stupid pagans,
> I've also learnt to hate my fellow man ;)
Will you be my valentine?
--TSM
=Kiss Kiss Bang Bang=
Back off, man. I'm a scientist.
Buboe the Rat
Endymion wrote:
> B the R <fbr...@gtn.net> wrote
>
> > Xianity, I mean. Well, I'm referring the american brands of
> > it, Family values etc. that the religious right is spouting.
> > What better way to ensure that people vote the way they are
> > supposed to if they are told how by their evangelical xian
> > leaders.
>
> Oh yeah, the American Christian Right invented this idea. Lots of
> people in Iran would be interested to know that.
That's an interesting parallel you make between Iran and the US. Refer to
my 2nd post to this thread for why.
> > That's why I like pagans. They have to think for themselves
>
> *snort*
>
I did actually mean this somewhat tongue in cheek.
> > since there is no centralized structure of religious control.
>
> Just an even more conformist massive pop culture which is where 90%
> of the "pagans" I've met (the ones who don't know dick about it
> except how cool and gawth it is to be one) get their ideas.
Judging by the level of dissent in this ng, I'd have to say that the
religious right is a less open-minded community. Also, even a knee-jerk
non-conformist, pseudo-pagan presents more of a control problem than a
fine upstanding moral majorite. This is true even if the the level of
"gawth" is only skin deep, because it might raise the question of why
anyone would want to dress in such a fashion.
> > Also, the element of religious persecution
>
> Which does not exist legally in this country
>
But it does exist nevertheless.
> > requires a certain amount of intelligence to combat.
>
> Well then Christianity, having suffered amazing levels of persecution
> in its first three centuries, and especially Protestantism, must have
> been developed by very intelligent people.
They did, then. Alas, not so much any more since the calvanistic dogma
that passes for the American state religion has become more widespread.
> > And another thing! (oh stop it) Why is the US *still* harassing
> Cuba?
>
> Because there is a large Cuban exile population in southern Florida
> which will ream any politician who goes "soft" on Cuba, and Florida
> is a very important swing state in US Presidential elections.
This poses the interesting question of how a disenfranchised ethinc
community could play such a pivotal role in American foreign policy. Is
this the way the system really works?
> > Could it be that they are an embarrassing example of
> > how a country can be (very moderately) successful and not be
> > in the US sphere of influence.
>
> I doubt it, seeing as how the Cuban economy is about as much a
> success as Haitian democracy. The only thing holding the country
> together all those years was the massive Soviet aid program.
Actually, compare Cuba with Ecuador, Panama, El Salvador, Guatamala, and
Honduras, all within the American Sphere of influence and all not subject
to an ongoing embargo by the richest and most powerful nation on the
planet.
And since you brought up Haiti:
"When Aristide won in December 1990 (he took office in February, 1991),
it was a big surprise. He was swept into power by a
network of popular grassroots organizations, what was called Lavalas --
the flood -- which outside observers just weren't
aware of (since they don't pay attention to what happens among poor
people). There had been very extensive and very
successful organizing, and out of nowhere came this massive popular
organization that managed to sweep their candidate into
power.
The US was willing to support a democratic election, figuring that its
candidate, a former World Bank official named Marc
Bazin, would easily win. He had all the resources and support, and it
looked like a shoe-in. He ended up getting 14% of the
vote, and Aristide got about 67%.
The only question in the mind of anybody who knows a little history
should have been, How is the US going to get rid of
Aristide? The disaster became even worse in the first seven months of
Aristide's office. There were some really amazing
developments.
Haiti is, of course, an extremely impoverished country, with awful
conditions. Aristide was nevertheless beginning to get places.
He was able to reduce corruption extensively, and to trim a highly
bloated state bureaucracy. He won a lot of international
praise for this, even from the international lending institutions, which
were offering him loans and preferential terms because they
liked what he was doing.
Furthermore, he cut back on drug trafficking. The flow of refugees to the
US virtually stopped. Atrocities were reduced to way
below what they had been or would become. There was a considerable degree
of popular engagement in what was going on,
although the contradictions were already beginning to show up, and there
were constraints on what he could do.
All of this made Aristide even more unacceptable from the US point of
view, and we tried to undermine him through what were
called -- naturally -- "democracy-enhancing programs." The US, which had
never cared at all about centralization of power in
Haiti when its own favored dictators were in charge, all of a sudden
began setting up alternative institutions that aimed at
undermining executive power, supposedly in the interests of greater
democracy. A number of these alleged human rights and
labor groups became the governing authorities after the coup, which came
on September 30, 1991.
In response to the coup, the Organization of American States declared an
embargo of Haiti; the US joined it, but with obvious
reluctance. The Bush administration focused attention on Aristide's
alleged atrocities and undemocratic activities, downplaying
the major atrocities which took place right after the coup. The media
went along with Bush's line, of course. While people were
getting slaughtered in the streets of Port-au-Prince [Haiti's capital],
the media concentrated on alleged human rights abuses
under the Aristide government.
Refugees started fleeing again, because the situation was deteriorating
so rapidly. The Bush administration blocked them --
instituted a blockade, in effect -- to send them back. Within a couple of
months, the Bush administration had already
undermined the embargo by allowing a minor exception -- US-owned
companies would be permitted to ignore it. The New
York Times called that "fine-tuning" the embargo to improve the
restoration of democracy!
Meanwhile, the US, which is known to be able to exert pressure when it
feels like it, found no way to influence anyone else to
observe the embargo, including the Dominican Republic next door. The
whole thing was mostly a farce. pretty soon Marc
Bazin, the US candidate, was in power as prime minister, with the ruling
generals behind him. That year -- 1992 -- US trade
with Haiti was not very much below the norm, despite the so-called
embargo (Commerce Department figures showed that, but
I don't think the press ever reported it).
During the 1992 campaign, Clinton bitterly attacked the Bush
administration for its inhuman policy of returning refugees to this
torture chamber -- which is, incidentally, a flat violation of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which we claim to
uphold. Clinton claimed he was going to change all that, but his first
act after being elected, even before he took office, was to
impose even harsher measures to force fleeing refugees back into this
hellhole.
Ever since then, it's simply been a matter of seeing what kind of
finessing will be carried out to ensure that Haiti's popularly
elected government doesn't come back into office. It doesn't have much
longer to run [the next elections are scheduled for
December, 1995], so the US has more or less won that game.
Meanwhile, the terror and atrocities increase. The popular organizations
are getting decimated. Although the so-called embargo
is still in place, US trade continues and, in fact, went up about 50%
under Clinton. Haiti, a starving island, is exporting food to
the US -- about 35 times as much under Clinton as it did under Bush.
Baseballs are coming along nicely. They're produced in US-owned factories
where the women who make them get 10¢ an hour
-- if they meet their quota. Since meeting the quota is virtually
impossible, they actually make something like 5¢ an hour.
Softballs from Haiti are advertised in the US as being unusually good
because they're hand-dipped into some chemical that
makes them hang together properly. The ads don't mention that the
chemical the women hand-dip the balls into is toxic and that,
as a result, the women don't last very long at this work. "
This is another Chomsky quote. I'm sorry for the length, but I don't have
the time to edit it properly.
> > Maybe that is why I can enjoy a good Cuban cigar legally and
> > you in the states cannot. You'd think that ATF would have
> > better things to do.
>
> True enough, but then the BATF is a pretty useless organization all
> around.
>
> --
> Endymion disintegration@ SPAMTRAP mindspring.com
> "A thing of beauty is a joy forever;
> Its loveliness increases; it will never
> Pass into nothingness..."
Sincerely,
Buboe the Rat. (Roger A. Thornhill. The A is for Anarchy)
Axel
Buboe the Rat wrote in message <351AA8E4.3B2B7133@_NOSPAM_gtn.net>...
>
>
>Endymion wrote:
>> Because there is a large Cuban exile population in southern Florida
>> which will ream any politician who goes "soft" on Cuba, and Florida
>> is a very important swing state in US Presidential elections.
>
>This poses the interesting question of how a disenfranchised ethinc
>community could play such a pivotal role in American foreign policy. Is
>this the way the system really works?
>
In the case of Cuban exiles, they will automatically vote against a party who
does not support a hard line stance on Cuba and there is no counter balancing
group so it is not in the interest of the major parties to change their
position on the issue.
Hence, they will determine U.S. policy toward Cuba.
One of the problems of democracy is the ability of small single issue groups to
influence policy.
Axel
Everything is True, Even False Things
- Malaclypse the Younger
<axelmaya@SPAM_IS_NOT_NICEglobalserve.net>
Endymion
Buboe the Rat <fbrown@_NOSPAM_gtn.net> wrote
> That's an interesting parallel you make between Iran and the US.
Refer to
> my 2nd post to this thread for why.
Interesting, yes, but it shouldn't be surprising (and yes, I did mean
to make a parallel). I have found it amusing for years that our
Religious Right and Middle Eastern Islamic fundies despise each other
but have more in common than either does with moderate members of
their own religions.
> > > That's why I like pagans. They have to think for themselves
> >
> > *snort*
> I did actually mean this somewhat tongue in cheek.
Sorry then. :)
> > Just an even more conformist massive pop culture which is where
90%
> > of the "pagans" I've met (the ones who don't know dick about it
> > except how cool and gawth it is to be one) get their ideas.
>
> Judging by the level of dissent in this ng, I'd have to say that
the
> religious right is a less open-minded community.
Only because you're viewing it from the outside, and looking at those
people within their congregations, where they are more defensive. The
99.9% of fundies who don't make the news by bombing clinics and such
get along perfectly well in public schools, universities, etc.
> > > Also, the element of religious persecution
> >
> > Which does not exist legally in this country
> But it does exist nevertheless.
Being illegal makes it *much* less pervasive, which means it's not
going to be much more of an annoyance, and not shape the character of
the "persecuted" in anything like the way it does in a society where
it's a dominant force.
> They did, then. Alas, not so much any more since the calvanistic
dogma
> that passes for the American state religion has become more
widespread.
First, there is no American state religion. Second, the largest
religious group in this country is Roman Catholicism.
> > > And another thing! (oh stop it) Why is the US *still* harassing
> > Cuba?
> >
> > Because there is a large Cuban exile population in southern
Florida
> > which will ream any politician who goes "soft" on Cuba, and
Florida
> > is a very important swing state in US Presidential elections.
>
> This poses the interesting question of how a disenfranchised ethinc
> community could play such a pivotal role in American foreign
policy. Is
> this the way the system really works?
Axel already answered this. Many have become citizens, or, in the
last 40 years, had children who are of voting age, so they're not
disenfranchised.
> Actually, compare Cuba with Ecuador, Panama, El Salvador,
Guatamala, and
> Honduras, all within the American Sphere of influence
Those comparisons are a bit unfair, since those countries are among
the worst economies in the hemisphere and not necessarily
representative of the average - and also, unlike Cuba, they are
mostly historically poor nations that were no better off 40 years
ago. Compare Cuba with Mexico, Costa Rica, or Venezuela instead (all
of them have problems in varying degrees but all are waaay better off
than Cuba). Castro ran a moderately successful export economy into
the ground in a very short time, and only massive Soviet subsidies
kept the place afloat so long. Even Nicaragua, which was embargoed
much more effectively than Cuba, didn't go dizzily downhill like the
latter did.
> and all not subject
> to an ongoing embargo by the richest and most powerful nation on
the
> planet.
Which is ignored by the rest of the western world. Sure, it has an
effect, but it's not like they were blockaded.
(snip long discussion of Haiti)
The US is not responsible for the state of Haitian democracy. Sadly,
Haiti is one of the minority of countries that has always been Fucked
Up, and will always be Fucked Up until the people decide to change.
The US can meddle a little here and there but not change the whole
political culture.
LSWIL6453
>The US is not responsible for the state of Haitian democracy. Sadly,
>Haiti is one of the minority of countries that has always been Fucked
>Up, and will always be Fucked Up until the people decide to change.
I'm sorry, but I would have to disagree. The US used Haiti as a testing ground
for the Marines in the first half of the cuentury, invading every ten or
fifteen years for no particular reason other than to give the military some
experience, and then just leaving the country in shambles. Granted, it has had
and continues to have problems of its own, but the US does bear some of the
responsibility.
>The US can meddle a little here and there but not change the whole
>political culture.
If We hadn't meddled to begin with things wouldn't be this bad there. But now
that they are, I really think we owe it to Haiti to go in and spend the ten or
fifteen years there it would take get all the nation-building done and get them
on their feet.
But then I can be a real idealist sometimes...
- Adric
Buboe the Rat
Endymion wrote:
> Interesting, yes, but it shouldn't be surprising (and yes, I did mean
> to make a parallel). I have found it amusing for years that our
> Religious Right and Middle Eastern Islamic fundies despise each other
> but have more in common than either does with moderate members of
> their own religions.
This almost makes me want to quote Marx; something about 'opiates.' I do
find that view that the common prole is too unintelligent to make
decisions so the elites must do it for him, reprehensible. This attitude
is unfortunately extant on both wings of the political spectrum. This is
the basis for my distrust of fascists, Marxist-Leninists, and "fundies."
> Only because you're viewing it from the outside, and looking at those
> people within their congregations, where they are more defensive. The
> 99.9% of fundies who don't make the news by bombing clinics and such
> get along perfectly well in public schools, universities, etc.
You are correct, my point of view is limited. I'm not suggesting that the
religious right are uniformly religious zealots. I am suggesting that the
level of dissent within those groups is more limited than the level of
dissent in this NG.
> Being illegal makes it *much* less pervasive, which means it's not
> going to be much more of an annoyance, and not shape the character of
> the "persecuted" in anything like the way it does in a society where
> it's a dominant force.
I agree as a general principle.
> > They did, then. Alas, not so much any more since the calvanistic
> dogma
> > that passes for the American state religion has become more
> widespread.
> First, there is no American state religion. Second, the largest
> religious group in this country is Roman Catholicism.
I was writing metaphorically. What I was refering to was the increasingly
common blurring of the lines between church and state in the US. This is
my original point: if you are told to vote a certain way because your
religious leader tells you to and to question that leaders authority is
somehow immoral, then the democratic process is out-flanked by what is
essentially fascism. Also, involvement in religious fundamentalism
removes a person from an *active* role in the political sphere.
Using the size of the Roman Catholic contingent in the US would seem to
suggest a democratic mechanism. If so, it would seem to suggest that you
think that religous groups vote in an "en-bloc" fashion. Also, if
democratic processes are *not* at work then the size of a particular
group is irrelevant as to matters of influence.
> > > > And another thing! (oh stop it) Why is the US *still* harassing
> > > Cuba?
> > >
> > > Because there is a large Cuban exile population in southern
> Florida
> > > which will ream any politician who goes "soft" on Cuba, and
> Florida
> > > is a very important swing state in US Presidential elections.
> >
> > This poses the interesting question of how a disenfranchised ethinc
> > community could play such a pivotal role in American foreign
> policy. Is
> > this the way the system really works?
>
> Axel already answered this. Many have become citizens, or, in the
> last 40 years, had children who are of voting age, so they're not
> disenfranchised.
My question still stands: does a minority group dictate this aspect of US
foreign policy? If so what are the implications for true democracy in the
US?
> > Actually, compare Cuba with Ecuador, Panama, El Salvador,
> Guatamala, and
> > Honduras, all within the American Sphere of influence
>
> Those comparisons are a bit unfair, since those countries are among
> the worst economies in the hemisphere and not necessarily
> representative of the average
Tut, tut. You know better than to use averages. For example: take any
city's population of homeless people and add Bill Gates. What is the
average income? Is it a meaningful number?
> - and also, unlike Cuba, they are
> mostly historically poor nations that were no better off 40 years
> ago.
Due to jingoistic US foreign policy for as long a period.
> Compare Cuba with Mexico, Costa Rica, or Venezuela instead (all
> of them have problems in varying degrees but all are waaay better off
> than Cuba). Castro ran a moderately successful export economy into
> the ground in a very short time, and only massive Soviet subsidies
> kept the place afloat so long. Even Nicaragua, which was embargoed
> much more effectively than Cuba, didn't go dizzily downhill like the
> latter did.
So you are saying that the Socialistic Nicaraguan regime which was
without significant Soviet aid, repeately had its sovreignty violated by
US-backed contras, was tightly embargoed by THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
did better economically than Cuba. Cuba being the same country that you
consider an unfair subject of comparison to El Salavdor, Guatamala,
Panama, etc. That is to say that an admittedly besieged socialist
country, Nicaragua, managed better than a host of Latin American
capitalist countries all of whom are US client states.
> (snip long discussion of Haiti)
Did you bother to read it? If even half of what is written there is true,
and I'm not suggesting that any of it is false, then any thinking reader
should be upset by the implications.
> The US is not responsible for the state of Haitian democracy. Sadly,
> Haiti is one of the minority of countries that has always been Fucked
> Up, and will always be Fucked Up until the people decide to change.
> The US can meddle a little here and there but not change the whole
> political culture.
This is not an argument. Why has Haiti "always been Fucked Up?"
Capitalism, religion, world apathy, colonialism by european powers, US
meddling, martians?
Also, I'd say the US has been meddling more that a little bit. Also, what
right does the US have for meddling in another countries' internal
affairs? Aid Haiti, yes, but don't meddle.
Buboe the RAT.
Axel
Buboe the Rat wrote in message <351FF773.33A4C4F4@_NOSPAM_gtn.net>...
>My question still stands: does a minority group dictate this aspect of US
>foreign policy?
It is inevitable that a minority group that cares about a specific issue will
dominate it if there is no counterbalancing group because politicians will try
to win those votes. In a democracy no politician will choose an unpopular
platform.
>If so what are the implications for true democracy in the US?
When did that happen?
As far as I was aware in the U.S. (and pretty much every other 'democratic'
nation state) the electorate votes for a representative of one of two parties,
which is scarcely the rule of the people.
>Why has Haiti "always been Fucked Up?"
Why is any nation fucked up?
>Capitalism, religion, world apathy, colonialism by european powers, US
>meddling, martians?
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, unprovable.
The world is divided into two groups of nations: the exploiters and the
exploited.
Our wealth is based on the exploitation of other nations.
However, globalisation is changing that and will probably result in the incomes
of the working classes being equalised on a global scale, however the ruling
classes will get way, way richer.
>Also, I'd say the US has been meddling more that a little bit. Also, what
>right does the US have for meddling in another countries' internal
>affairs?.
Historical precedent.
Every other world power has done so, now it's the U.S.'s turn.
Axel, anarchist
Endymion
Buboe the Rat <fbrown@_NOSPAM_gtn.net> wrote
(with massive snippage)
> I was writing metaphorically. What I was refering to was the
increasingly
> common blurring of the lines between church and state in the US.
This is
> my original point: if you are told to vote a certain way because
your
> religious leader tells you to and to question that leaders
authority is
> somehow immoral, then the democratic process is out-flanked
This has always been part of the democratic process. The first
amendment is a restriction on government, not on churches or their
leaders.
>by what is essentially fascism.
You have a very flawed understanding of fascism, a philosophy in
which religion plays little role - not even that of a scapegoat, as
under communism.
> Also, involvement in religious fundamentalism
> removes a person from an *active* role in the political sphere.
Explain?
> Using the size of the Roman Catholic contingent in the US would
seem to
> suggest a democratic mechanism. If so, it would seem to suggest
that you
> think that religous groups vote in an "en-bloc" fashion.
If they don't, then the danger you see is nonexistent.
> My question still stands: does a minority group dictate this aspect
of US
> foreign policy? If so what are the implications for true democracy
in the
> US?
hat it's not perfect, and small interest goups can wield
disproportionate power. As Churchill said, democracy is the worst
possible form of government until you compare it with any other
system.
> > > Actually, compare Cuba with Ecuador, Panama, El Salvador,
> > Guatamala, and
> > > Honduras, all within the American Sphere of influence
> >
> > Those comparisons are a bit unfair, since those countries are
among
> > the worst economies in the hemisphere and not necessarily
> > representative of the average
>
> Tut, tut. You know better than to use averages. For example: take
any
> city's population of homeless people and add Bill Gates. What is
the
> average income? Is it a meaningful number?
I fail to see any relevance of this statement to our discussion.
You've picked some of the worst economies in the hemisphere and
compare Cuba to them (it still loses). I still say, why not compare
it to more ordinary countries?
> > - and also, unlike Cuba, they are
> > mostly historically poor nations that were no better off 40 years
> > ago.
>
> Due to jingoistic US foreign policy for as long a period.
Funny how those policies didn't hurt other countries. Maybe it's more
complex than that? El Salvador has been poor since before there was a
US.
> So you are saying that the Socialistic Nicaraguan regime which was
> without significant Soviet aid, repeately had its sovreignty
violated by
> US-backed contras, was tightly embargoed by THE UNITED STATES OF
AMERICA,
> did better economically than Cuba.
Yes. Its leadership was more moderate and less incompetent than
Castro.
> Cuba being the same country that you
> consider an unfair subject of comparison to El Salavdor, Guatamala,
> Panama, etc. That is to say that an admittedly besieged socialist
> country, Nicaragua, managed better than a host of Latin American
> capitalist countries all of whom are US client states.
No, it is not to say that at all. Stop using sophistry.
> > (snip long discussion of Haiti)
>
> Did you bother to read it? If even half of what is written there is
true,
> and I'm not suggesting that any of it is false, then any thinking
reader
> should be upset by the implications.
Read it, disagree, don't have time to get further off topic.
> This is not an argument. Why has Haiti "always been Fucked Up?"
> Capitalism, religion, world apathy, colonialism by european powers,
US
> meddling, martians?
All of those factors apply equally to Mexico, Morocco, and Malaysia
(well, in those cases the US wasn't the meddling power) and they came
out a lot better. Maybe Haitian culture is just flawed like that. All
in all, I think it's WAY too complex a question to answer here and
now.
> Also, I'd say the US has been meddling more that a little bit.
Also, what
> right does the US have for meddling in another countries' internal
> affairs? Aid Haiti, yes, but don't meddle.
It's the way of the world.
Endymion
Axel <axelmaya@SPAM_is_not_very_NICEglobalserve.net> wrote
> The world is divided into two groups of nations: the exploiters and
the
> exploited.
Agreed.
> Our wealth is based on the exploitation of other nations.
Not so; this idea has been long since refuted. With only a VERY few
exceptions colonies cost more than they bring in and always have. Our
wealth is based on abundant natural resources, a steadily increasing
labor supply, capitalism and flexibility, and the old-fashioned work
ethic. The benefit of fucking with other nations is while we're doing
that they AREN'T over here fucking with us and ruining OUR economy.
> However, globalisation is changing that and will probably result in
the incomes
> of the working classes being equalised on a global scale, however
the ruling
> classes will get way, way richer.
I only hope you're right on the former part. I suspect that they'll
equalize between US and third world wages, which is bad for us.
> >Also, I'd say the US has been meddling more that a little bit.
Also, what
> >right does the US have for meddling in another countries' internal
> >affairs?.
>
> Historical precedent.
> Every other world power has done so, now it's the U.S.'s turn.
Exactly. Soon it will be China's turn, and no one will mourn for us.
And you know hat? No matter how moral we had been, still no one would
mourn.
zoe
Buboe the Rat wrote:
> Also, I'd say the US has been meddling more that a little bit. Also, what
> right does the US have for meddling in another countries' internal
> affairs? Aid Haiti, yes, but don't meddle.
Know how you mentioned globalisation? There's your answer. Major nations
are so intertwined with each other that there's no way not to meddle.
The economy really is one big melting pot.
Zoe
Axel
Endymion wrote in message <01bd5c6e$28afa6c0$19a945cf@default>...
>Axel <axelmaya@SPAM_is_not_very_NICEglobalserve.net> wrote
>> Our wealth is based on the exploitation of other nations.
>
>Not so; this idea has been long since refuted. With only a VERY few
>exceptions colonies cost more than they bring in and always have. Our
>wealth is based on abundant natural resources, a steadily increasing
>labor supply, capitalism and flexibility, and the old-fashioned work
>ethic. The benefit of fucking with other nations is while we're doing
>that they AREN'T over here fucking with us and ruining OUR economy.
The U.K. and France's wealth had a lot to do with using their empires as
captive markets as well as somewhere to exploit for resources (admittedly they
both suffered from rampant jigoism and silly invasions that over extended the
empires.
North America and Australia gained their natural resources by conquering the
native populations and claiming their territory.
Axel
Endymion
Axel <axelmaya@SPAM_is_not_very_NICEglobalserve.net> wrote
> The U.K. and France's wealth had a lot to do with using their empires as
> captive markets as well as somewhere to exploit for resources (admittedly
they
> both suffered from rampant jigoism and silly invasions that over extended
the
> empires.
Again, most analysis I've seen from the last few decades indicate that this
is not true; the colonies were a net drain on the economy. England did have
a few colonies which were net gainers, France less so. As far as captive
markets, this would have been the case anyway as only Europeans had the
technology for intercontinental trade, so exclusive trade agreements would
have been just as profitable and far less trouble than colonization.
> North America and Australia gained their natural resources by conquering
the
> native populations and claiming their territory.
But then this is true of every other existing nation in the world, and even
of most of the ones conquered. Europeans were just the last ones to win,
and thus the only ones blamed today. I can easily give you dozens of
examples of peoples who whine and cry about European exploitation today who
were 10 times crueler to the people they conquered to get where they were
when the Europeans showed up; some of the most egregious are the
Lakota/Sioux, Mohawks, and Inuits in North America, Zulus and Xhosas in
South Africa, and any Islamic people in India/Pakistan (or would anyone
care to explain just *how* the British came to run the place so easily?)
--
Endymion utuckbx@ SPAMTRAP michie.com
"But soon in me shall Loneliness renew
Thoughts hid, but not less cherish'd than of old,
Ere mingling with the herd had penn'd me in their fold."
Axel
Endymion > wrote in message
<01bd5d91$df7882e0$174c...@CMOFFJU.lexis-nexis.com>...
>
>Again, most analysis I've seen from the last few decades indicate that this
>is not true; the colonies were a net drain on the economy.
S'right.
The empires started off as trading outposts and were profitable but as they
expanded they became larger and larger drains as prestige took over from
economics - India being a prime example of this with most of it being conquered
by local field commanders looking for glory while the F.O. kept telling them
not to do it.
However it wasn't the long term consequences of the colonies that paved the way
for economic expansion, it was the initial grabbing that mattered.
>As far as captive markets, this would have been the case anyway as only
>Europeans had the technology for intercontinental trade, so exclusive trade
>agreements would have been just as profitable and far less trouble than
>colonization.
Except that without soldiers on the ground, traders from other European
countries would have got in on the act and driven profits down, and it was the
profits available to private individuals rather than governments that made the
exploitation make.
As an example, if a government needs to maintain a big military to retain
control of a colony it needs to buy guns and uniforms from its citizens, build
ships in its shipyards to transport them, etc.
As long as most of the costs of the colonies are paid to citizens of that
colony the country benefits, even if the economics of it might make it look
like its loss making and will certainly serve to boost the domestic economy.
>> North America and Australia gained their natural resources by conquering
>>the native populations and claiming their territory.
>
>But then this is true of every other existing nation in the world, and even
>of most of the ones conquered. Europeans were just the last ones to win, and
thus the only ones blamed today.
And hence the ones to reap the largest rewards from that exploitation.
Buboe the Rat
Axel wrote:
>
> Buboe the Rat wrote in message <351FF773.33A4C4F4@_NOSPAM_gtn.net>...
>
> >foreign policy?
>
> dominate it if there is no counterbalancing group because politicians will try
> to win those votes. In a democracy no politician will choose an unpopular
> platform.
It just seems to me like the 'tail wagging the dog', and I personally
don't think that the Cuban expatriates in Florida actually have this
say. I think that there is another mechanism at work.
>
> >If so what are the implications for true democracy in the US?
>
> When did that happen?
> As far as I was aware in the U.S. (and pretty much every other 'democratic'
> nation state) the electorate votes for a representative of one of two parties,
> which is scarcely the rule of the people.
I think that we are in agreement here, except for the details.
> >Why has Haiti "always been Fucked Up?"
>
> Why is any nation fucked up?
The use of "fucked up" as a technical term by Endymion suggests that the
point being made is: it has always been that way, will always be that
way, and I don't care, human suffering notwithstanding. Endymion is in
danger of accidentally representing his views as either racist or
american imperialist, and definitely not humanitarian.
I think that Endymion is sidestepping the issue by trying to belittle
its importance.
> >Capitalism, religion, world apathy, colonialism by european powers, US
> >meddling, martians?
>
> Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, unprovable.
>
> The world is divided into two groups of nations: the exploiters and the
> exploited.
> Our wealth is based on the exploitation of other nations.
> However, globalisation is changing that and will probably result in the incomes
> of the working classes being equalised on a global scale, however the ruling
> classes will get way, way richer.
>
> >Also, I'd say the US has been meddling more that a little bit. Also, what
> >right does the US have for meddling in another countries' internal
> >affairs?.
>
> Historical precedent.
> Every other world power has done so, now it's the U.S.'s turn.
Again we agree, except that you play apathy to my raving lunacy.
Buboe the RAT ( apathetic anarchism? )
Buboe the Rat
Endymion wrote:
> Buboe the Rat <fbrown@_NOSPAM_gtn.net> wrote
>
> (with massive snippage)
>
> > I was writing metaphorically. What I was refering to was the
> increasingly
> > common blurring of the lines between church and state in the US.
> This is
> > my original point: if you are told to vote a certain way because
> your
> > religious leader tells you to and to question that leaders
> authority is
> > somehow immoral, then the democratic process is out-flanked
>
> This has always been part of the democratic process. The first
> amendment is a restriction on government, not on churches or their
> leaders.
Are you saying that a religious leader telling followers how to vote and
their compliance with that is somehow inherent to a truly democratic
process? I'm reminded of your (our) parallel between the religious right
in the US and Iranian fundies
> You have a very flawed understanding of fascism, a philosophy in
> which religion plays little role - not even that of a scapegoat, as
> under communism.
My point is that the US religious right is an authoritarian, right-wing,
hierarchical organization that is increasingly involving itself in US
government with a missionary zeal to assume complete control. In essence,
I am calling them fascists. You don't need a swastika to be one. Can you
disagree that they are authoritarian, right-wing, or hierarchical, and
that they have an increasingly political agenda? If so, how? (be
specific, please)
> > Also, involvement in religious fundamentalism
> > removes a person from an *active* role in the political sphere.
>
> Explain?
This occurs when the person is preoccupied with trivialities at the
expense of political activism inspired by free thought. Members of the
religious right, IMO, have their political choices made for them. Also,
they are distracted from exercising the very real influence that they can
have over government by strict adherence to religious doctrine. Sitcoms,
organized sports, and pop culture are also used to this end. It is always
amusing how a sports fan can accurately produce reams of statistics and
other trivia about their favorite spectator sport, but doesn't know
anything about Marxism other than it is "a bad thing." The operant word
is 'spectator'. These people are relegated to the sidelines to watch, but
not really participate in the political governance of their lives.
> > My question still stands: does a minority group dictate this aspect
> of US
> > foreign policy? If so what are the implications for true democracy
> in the
> > US?
>
> hat it's not perfect, and small interest goups can wield
> disproportionate power. As Churchill said, democracy is the worst
> possible form of government until you compare it with any other
> system.
I like that quote and have used it myself. I do, however, disagree with
the implication that a succession of special interests drive US policy in
a random and benign way. In fact the term 'special interests' is often
used to discount groups such as feminists, labour unions, ethnic groups,
environmentalists when they try to exert political power. The right wing
corporate agenda is never called a 'special interest', however. It is
*the* interest.
> > > > Actually, compare Cuba with Ecuador, Panama, El Salvador,
> > > Guatamala, and
> > > > Honduras, all within the American Sphere of influence
> > >
> > > Those comparisons are a bit unfair, since those countries are
> among
> > > the worst economies in the hemisphere and not necessarily
> > > representative of the average
> >
> > Tut, tut. You know better than to use averages. For example: take
> any
> > city's population of homeless people and add Bill Gates. What is
> the
> > average income? Is it a meaningful number?
>
> I fail to see any relevance of this statement to our discussion.
> You've picked some of the worst economies in the hemisphere and
> compare Cuba to them (it still loses). I still say, why not compare
> it to more ordinary countries?
I'm pointing out that your use of the word 'average' might be
meaningless. Also, why should we discount the third world in favour of
the more ordinary first. I'd say that the Third World *is* the more
ordinary state of affairs. You are demonstrating a US-centric world view.
> Funny how those policies didn't hurt other countries. Maybe it's more
> complex than that? El Salvador has been poor since before there was a
> US
If you'd like, we could go into El Salvador at length..
> > So you are saying that the Socialistic Nicaraguan regime which was
> > without significant Soviet aid, repeately had its sovreignty
> violated by
> > US-backed contras, was tightly embargoed by THE UNITED STATES OF
> AMERICA,
> > did better economically than Cuba.
>
> Yes. Its leadership was more moderate and less incompetent than
> Castro.
So you are saying that the Sandinistas were a competent, moderate
regime?
> Read it, disagree, don't have time to get further off topic.
The topic *is* how American style democracy differs from true democracy.
The US involvement in Haiti illustrates the point. Also, with what did
you disagree?
> > This is not an argument. Why has Haiti "always been Fucked Up?"
> > Capitalism, religion, world apathy, colonialism by european powers,
> US
> > meddling, martians?
>
> All of those factors apply equally to Mexico, Morocco, and Malaysia
> (well, in those cases the US wasn't the meddling power) and they came
> out a lot better. Maybe Haitian culture is just flawed like that. All
> in all, I think it's WAY too complex a question to answer here and
> now.
Martians in Mexico? <attempt to diffuse tension with humour>
> > Also, I'd say the US has been meddling more that a little bit.
> Also, what
> > right does the US have for meddling in another countries' internal
> > affairs? Aid Haiti, yes, but don't meddle.
>
> It's the way of the world.
The US-dominated world that is. It is a domination that causes horrible
suffering to millions, including US citizens
Buboe the RAT.( There is no justice, there's just US)
Endymion
Buboe the Rat <fbr...@gtn.net> wrote
> It just seems to me like the 'tail wagging the dog', and I personally
> don't think that the Cuban expatriates in Florida actually have this
> say. I think that there is another mechanism at work.
Care to elaborate? I don't think it's the vast right-wing conspiracy any
more, because they have moved on to other interests. Who else profits from
punishing Cuba? Domestic sugar producers? Dominican cigar makers?
> > >If so what are the implications for true democracy in the US?
> >
> > When did that happen?
> > As far as I was aware in the U.S. (and pretty much every other
'democratic'
> > nation state) the electorate votes for a representative of one of two
parties,
> > which is scarcely the rule of the people.
>
> I think that we are in agreement here, except for the details.
Democracy in modern times has always been understood to be representative
democracy, the only kind that has been practical in states larger than
small cities. That will remain the case until everyone now eligible to vote
has immediate access to instant information and secure two-way
communication - which point may not be too far off, but is not quite here
yet. Democracy Athenian style would be impossible otherwise, as you can't
very well pack the whole population into the Capitol for an assembly.
In fact, modern representative democracy is much more reflective of the
will of the WHOLE people than any other form, when you consider the tiny
minority that had voting rights and could regularly show up to participate
in the ancient style.
> > >Why has Haiti "always been Fucked Up?"
> >
> > Why is any nation fucked up?
>
> The use of "fucked up" as a technical term by Endymion suggests that the
> point being made is:
Actually it was not used as a technical term as much as to end the
discussion; see below.
> it has always been that way,
True enough.
> will always be that way,
True until the people there decide to change things for themselves.
> and I don't care, human suffering notwithstanding.
Or that no matter how much I may feel their pain, there's nothing to be
done about it and no point in wasting valuable resources in vain attempts
to force a change from the outside which has to come from within.
Trying to force democracy on a country that doesn't want it is like trying
to force an alcoholic to reform: it can't be done until they decide for
themselves to change. The most you can do is keep authoritarian regimes
from exporting their abuses, and since Haiti, unlike Cuba, has never done
that, I've never understood why the US bothered intervening there.
Of course, a lot of that historically was business interests, but to me it
seems like corporations doing business with unstable regimes and then
crying for help is like people building houses on floodplains, beaches, or
California hillsides and then crying for a gov't bailout when nature does
the expected.
> Endymion is in
> danger of accidentally representing his views as either racist
Only if you regard it as racist to believe that being of a certain race
does not give anyone an excuse to be a fuckup.
> or american imperialist,
It is a strange world where advocating leaving another country alone is
considered to be an imperialist position.
> and definitely not humanitarian.
I never claimed to be an idealist of any type, and certainly not when it
comes to foreign policy. I feel there are limits to what we should do to
other countries, but the concerns of nations are not the same as those of
individual humans, nor should the motivations be, because nations do not
stand in the same relationship as fellow citizens. The idea of "world
citizenship" and the like is a load of crap; there is no such thing and
trying to act like there is is not humanitarian, it's dangerously
unrealistic.
> I think that Endymion is sidestepping the issue by trying to belittle
> its importance.
Or its relevance. Haiti was a side issue to a side issue to the original
thread.
Axel
Endymion > wrote in message
<01bd5e73$f99feea0$174c...@CMOFFJU.lexis-nexis.com>...
>democracy, the only kind that has been practical in states larger than
>small cities.
Except Switzerland which while substantially smaller than the U.S. manages to
have a lot of democracy packed into it due to the large number of referendums
carried out every year and large scale government decentralisation.
>In fact, modern representative democracy is much more reflective of the
>will of the WHOLE people than any other form
"the public want what the public get"
or to put it another way:
Manufacturing Consent.
The biggest problem with modern democracy (of any flavour) is the apathy of the
populace.
"the price of freedom is eternal vigilance" sums it up I think.
>True until the people there decide to change things for themselves.
Excepting that people with big guns don't stop them from doing so.
e.g. Eire.
And if a small minority of the populace are disenfranchising the bulk of the
poulation then an external peace keeping force can help them to develop a civil
society. However this is a difficult process and it is unlikely that a foreign
intervention would have that objective. More often it wants to establish one
group of bullies to run the place so it can deal with them.
>Of course, a lot of that historically was business interests, but to me it
>seems like corporations doing business with unstable regimes and then
>crying for help is like people building houses on floodplains, beaches, or
>California hillsides and then crying for a gov't bailout when nature does
>the expected.
Except they pay campaign contributions so their politicians want to help them
out with the peoples money.
>The idea of "world citizenship" and the like is a load of crap; there is no
such thing >and trying to act like there is is not humanitarian, it's
dangerously unrealistic.
Transnational corporations are making the concept of the nation state
obsolescent.
Axel
Buboe the Rat wrote in message <35239FEC...@gtn.net>...
>Axel wrote:
>It just seems to me like the 'tail wagging the dog', and I personally
>don't think that the Cuban expatriates in Florida actually have this
>say. I think that there is another mechanism at work.
>
It could be argued that the upper echelons of the American government want a
nearby enemy and Cuba provides that.
But, a small minority can exert power out of all proportion to their numbers in
a democracy (the Ultra-Orthodox religious extremists in Israel being another
good example).
However with regard to the case in point, it is logical for politicians to
pander to Cuban expatriates and, AFAIK, no good reason for them to support
opening relations with Cuba.
>> Why is any nation fucked up?
>
>I think that Endymion is sidestepping the issue by trying to belittle
>its importance.
I wouldn't want to assign any views to another as I do not know them well
enough so I'll say nothing with regard to this.
>Again we agree, except that you play apathy to my raving lunacy.
>
No.
While my replies have come across that way (because I prefer to answer rather
than to posture (not directed at anytone else at all)) I have been a political
activist for a lot of years and am still burning with indignation.
It's just that I can now turn the flame down when I want to :)
Axel
Buboe the Rat wrote in message <3523B07B.3A373FDF@_NOSPAM_gtn.net>...
>So you are saying that the Sandinistas were a competent, moderate
>regime?
Too goddamn moderate if you ask me :)
And as a Nicaraguan government go they were incredibly competent.
Endymion
Buboe the Rat <fbrown@_NOSPAM_gtn.net> wrote
> Are you saying that a religious leader telling followers how to
vote and
> their compliance with that is somehow inherent to a truly
democratic
> process?
I'm saying it is not opposed to the democratic process. Democracy
must include people's right to form their views however they want,
and listen to whomever they want. As long as no one is forced to
listen to that religious leader, democracy is not threatened.
> My point is that the US religious right is an authoritarian,
right-wing,
> hierarchical organization In essence, I am calling them fascists.
That is not a proper definition of fascist. Go back to class. Fascist
is no more a synonym for organized extreme right than communist is
for organized extreme left.
> Can you
> disagree that they are authoritarian, right-wing, or hierarchical,
They are not hierarchical, they are generally Congregationalist;
organization is usually for purposes of exerting political power at a
higher level (bottom up) rather than receiving authority (top down).
> and that they have an increasingly political agenda? If so, how?
(be
> specific, please)
Labor unions are authoritarian, left-wing, and hierarchical, and have
a political agenda; does that make them Stalinist?
> > > Also, involvement in religious fundamentalism
> > > removes a person from an *active* role in the political sphere.
> This occurs when the person is preoccupied with trivialities at the
> expense of political activism inspired by free thought.
*Sometimes* inspired by free thought. And the sort of activism you
seem to espouse - knee-jerk leftism - is the product of an
alternative brainwashing, not free thought.
> Members of the
> religious right, IMO, have their political choices made for them.
They choose to join the religious right, don't they? They then
cooperate for shared goals like any other party.
> Sitcoms,
> organized sports, and pop culture are also used to this end. It is
always
> amusing how a sports fan can accurately produce reams of statistics
and
> other trivia about their favorite spectator sport, but doesn't know
> anything about Marxism other than it is "a bad thing."
So you think moronic drooling sports fans can only be conservative?
How simplistic. The same fan probably can't explain Adam Smith or Ayn
Rand either.
> I like that quote and have used it myself. I do, however, disagree
with
> the implication that a succession of special interests drive US
policy in
> a random and benign way.
I never said it was random or benign, just less harmful than most
alternatives.
> In fact the term 'special interests' is often
> used to discount groups such as feminists, labour unions, ethnic
groups,
> environmentalists when they try to exert political power. The right
wing
> corporate agenda is never called a 'special interest', however. It
is
> *the* interest.
Bullshit. You will see politicians described as "right-wing" in
newspapers more often than any other descriptive epithet.
> > I fail to see any relevance of this statement to our discussion.
> > You've picked some of the worst economies in the hemisphere and
> > compare Cuba to them (it still loses). I still say, why not
compare
> > it to more ordinary countries?
>
> I'm pointing out that your use of the word 'average' might be
> meaningless.
In other words you want to arbitrarily pick the subjects of the
comparison to show only what you want, and you say any other approach
is meaningless. This discussion is getting to the point of having no
purpose whatsoever. You can prove anything if you pick the data you
like and toss out the rest and make statements like "average is
meaningless."
> Also, why should we discount the third world in favour of
> the more ordinary first. I'd say that the Third World *is* the more
> ordinary state of affairs.
I never did that. Since when are Mexico and Costa Rica first word? Do
you read anything I write? Cuba's economy is bad even by third world
standards.
> You are demonstrating a US-centric world view.
No, you are trying to read that into my post. It's called a straw-man
argument and it doesn't fly.
> If you'd like, we could go into El Salvador at length..
I doubt it would be productive, since I can guess what you'd have to
say. If you must though, please start by telling me how US
involvement in the 1980's caused El Salvador to be continuously poor
for the last 300 years.
> > Yes. Its leadership was more moderate and less incompetent than
> > Castro.
>
> So you are saying that the Sandinistas were a competent, moderate
> regime?
Read what I say and stop trying to put words in my mouth. You are not
proving anything by such juvenile word games except your own capacity
for sophomoric, spurious logic. Do you really think I'm that stupid?
I said more moderate and less incompetent. If I had wanted to say
they were moderate and competent I would have said so. They were
somewhere between moderate and far left, and only marginally
incompetent, as compared to Castro, who is a raving revolutionary and
complete incompetent. Hence, the Sandinistas were more moderate and
less incompetent.
> The topic *is* how American style democracy differs from true
democracy.
There is no such thing outside textbooks and tiny groups. What you
mean is how US-style democracy differs from how you'd like to see it
practiced.
> The US-dominated world that is.
I forgive you for displaying ignorance doubtless fostered by modern
public education. Read a little history. Start with the struggle
between Egypt and the Hittites over the Levant in the late 2nd
millennium B.C., and move on from there. The great power game has
been going on for millennia; the US is a latecomer to this game, and
an extremely benign one. America has, despite some lapses, overall
been kinder, fairer, and more honest to both defeated enemies and
conquests/colonies than any other successful power in history.
> It is a domination that causes horrible suffering to millions,
including US citizens
What a crock. What horrible suffering? The horrible suffering of
being fed by US charity, or having economies pumped up by US trade
and loans? The horrible suffering of trying to make an (albeit
minimal, but more than anyone else) effort to discourage ethnic
cleansing in Bosnia or genital mutilation in Africa? If the US
disappeared tomorrow, the world would not be one bit nicer; the power
vacuum would be filled by either much more rapacious (Iraq, Iran,
Russia) or much more inhumane (China) powers. But the world would be
much, much poorer, and no one would fill *that* gap.
Axel
Endymion wrote in message <01bd5ee1$9dcf4120$15a945cf@default>...
>Labor unions are authoritarian, left-wing, and hierarchical, and have
>a political agenda; does that make them Stalinist?
Actually, most aren't authoritarian and none should be 'cos all positions are
elected.
Hierarchical only where necessary to minimise confusion over who should be
doing what.
And all groups of people with a common interest have a political agenda of some
sort.
>as compared to Castro, who is a raving revolutionary and
>complete incompetent
Although, interestingly, he started out as a moderate who just wanted to remove
the thugs running Cuba at the time with a more representative government.
It's interesting how being vilified by the west can turn someone into an enemy.
No opinion as to his competency or otherwise tho'.
Come to think of it tho, he has survived as a dictator much longer than most so
he must be doing something right.
Buboe the Rat
Endymion wrote:
> I'm saying it is not opposed to the democratic process. Democracy
> must include people's right to form their views however they want,
> and listen to whomever they want. As long as no one is forced to
> listen to that religious leader, democracy is not threatened.
I'd say that in some cases there is considerable coercion to follow the
leader's lead. For example people still send money to televangelists
for no very good reason. I know the group you are talking about is in no
way as extreme as these ..ahem.. people (and I use the word loosely)
>
> That is not a proper definition of fascist. Go back to class. Fascist
> is no more a synonym for organized extreme right than communist is
> for organized extreme left.
Actually, in a moment of weakness ;) I went to a dictionary. All those
adjectives, including "right-wing", I pulled from either "fascist" or
"fascism". So I'll restate my question: In what ways are the religious
right not fascist considering that they are an authoritarian,
right-wing, hierarchical, politically motivated organization?
What does your dictionary say?
I'd agree that Stalinism and the forms of communism in China now and in
the past bear more than a passing resemblance to fascism with the
exception of being right-wing. Also, a corporation fits the bill, and
they are right-wing organizations. Totalitarianism takes many forms.
>
> > Can you
> > disagree that they are authoritarian, right-wing, or hierarchical,
>
> They are not hierarchical, they are generally Congregationalist;
> organization is usually for purposes of exerting political power at a
> higher level (bottom up) rather than receiving authority (top down).
Yes they are "grass-roots", and I think that you are right in that they
are not structured or created to facilitate top-down rule. You bring up
a good point, and I must reposition my argument. I would say that the
common belief set leaves them vulnerable to manipulation by a
conservative political elite. This is, of course, true of any democratic
society in general. I'd suggest that the limits of acceptable behavior,
including expression of ideas, in a right-wing fundie congregation, is
much more limited than that exhibited by this NG. I'd also suggest that
this would tend to make the fundie congregation easier to control from
above.
As an example of the process, I'll cite Preston Manning and his Reform
party, here in Canada. (To the other Cannucks: lets not bore the rest of
the world with indulgence in a Canadian pastime. I'm using this as an
illustrative example only) They are a right-wing party founded on a
conglomeration of heterogeneous grass-roots organizations, some of which
are fundie xians.
The basic Reform platform is one of reducing the power and influence of
the federal government. Their grass-roots support comes from promises of
tax reductions and the cutting of red tape. The problem is that there
are bigger fish in the pond, sharks in fact. With a less powerful
federal government, corporations will be freer to pollute, discriminate,
exploit labour, and increase the level of social injustice as they
pursue their only fundamental principle of maximizing profit in the
short term.
The Reform Party is IMO an example of how small, grass-roots
organizations can be manipulated to serve the ends of the corporation,
an inherently fascist type of organization.
> Labor unions are authoritarian, left-wing, and hierarchical, and have
> a political agenda; does that make them Stalinist?
No, I'd say that it makes them fascist if their internal democratic
processes are not operating properly. Also, I find it interesting that
here you make the distinction between Stalinism and fascism, where above
you attempted to lump them together (I agree that they are more or less
the same)
>
> > > > Also, involvement in religious fundamentalism
> > > > removes a person from an *active* role in the political sphere.
> > This occurs when the person is preoccupied with trivialities at the
> > expense of political activism inspired by free thought.
>
> *Sometimes* inspired by free thought. And the sort of activism you
> seem to espouse - knee-jerk leftism - is the product of an
> alternative brainwashing, not free thought.
I'm not all that fond of what passes for Liberal or communist thought
these days. I'm not really sure that your characterization of my
political views is accurate. I might suggest that your reaction to them,
however, might be considered a bit "knee-jerk" itself.
> > Members of the
> > religious right, IMO, have their political choices made for them.
>
> They choose to join the religious right, don't they? They then
> cooperate for shared goals like any other party.
I'd say that indoctrination from earliest childhood, in general
precludes free choice in this matter. There are exceptions, and in the
case of converts, you are correct. I do think that the choice is one of
not choosing self-determination.
>
> > Sitcoms,
> > organized sports, and pop culture are also used to this end. It is
> always
> > amusing how a sports fan can accurately produce reams of statistics
> and
> > other trivia about their favorite spectator sport, but doesn't know
> > anything about Marxism other than it is "a bad thing."
>
> So you think moronic drooling sports fans can only be conservative?
> How simplistic. The same fan probably can't explain Adam Smith or Ayn
> Rand either.
Nope, I merely mean to suggest that these are means of distraction of
people from issues of self-determination. The fact that "moronic
drooling sports fans" can exhibit passion and intelligence when it comes
to sports indicates that they are a force to be reckoned with if they
were ever to participate fully in the political arena. The fact is that
they are relegated to the position of spectator at both sporting events
and their political lives. My reference to Marxism is too suggest that
they are fed a party line about issues that the elites don't want them
to pay attention too. I'd be happy, nay overjoyed if the majority of
spectator sports fans even knew who Adam Smith or Ayn Rand were. (are
you trying to kill this thread? Hitler Sex? ;p)
BTW: have YOU read Adam Smith? I haven't but I understand that he wasn't
quite the proponent of capitalism that he is portrayed as.
> > In fact the term 'special interests' is often
> > used to discount groups such as feminists, labour unions, ethnic
> groups,
> > environmentalists when they try to exert political power. The right
> wing
> > corporate agenda is never called a 'special interest', however. It
> is
> > *the* interest.
>
> Bullshit. You will see politicians described as "right-wing" in
> newspapers more often than any other descriptive epithet.
I'd suggest that labour groups, feminist groups, environmental groups
are portrayed as "Special Interests" <sneer> more often than
right-wingers. Is this use of right wing as a descriptive epithet
negative or positive? What type of politician is it aimed at?
> You can prove anything if you pick the data you
> like and toss out the rest.
My point exactly.
>
> > Also, why should we discount the third world in favour of
> > the more ordinary first. I'd say that the Third World *is* the more
> > ordinary state of affairs.
>
> I never did that. Since when are Mexico and Costa Rica first word? Do
> you read anything I write? Cuba's economy is bad even by third world
> standards.
I got the impression that you implied that the first world was the norm
when you asked why I did not pick more ordinary countries as opposed to
certain third world latin american state. My response was that I didn't
think that the first world was the norm but rather that the third world
was. Your use of the word "ordinary" suggested to me that you thought
that Panama, El Salvador, Honduras, etc. were not ordinary in the world.
I'd say that they are the ordinary state of affairs for most of the
world.
> > You are demonstrating a US-centric world view.
>
> No, you are trying to read that into my post. It's called a straw-man
> argument and it doesn't fly.
I'm not familiar with the term. I will restate that your implication
that the Latin American states were not ordinary in the world seems to
be in keeping with the first world's tendency to discount the conditions
in the third.
>
> > If you'd like, we could go into El Salvador at length..
>
> I doubt it would be productive, since I can guess what you'd have to
> say. If you must though, please start by telling me how US
> involvement in the 1980's caused El Salvador to be continuously poor
> for the last 300 years.
Actually, The US has been involved in El Salvador and other Latin
American countries for some time prior to the '80's. I'd say that
American Jingoism has been around since Commodore Petty (I think) forced
the Japanese to open their ports to American trade in the 1840' (I
think). Also, discussion of US involvement in El Salvador is a bit
difficult when you are describing periods of history prior to the
existence of the American State. I'd say that a more relevant discussion
would be best limited to this century.
The Reagan era was not the only period of US involvement in Latin
America.
>
> > > Yes. Its leadership was more moderate and less incompetent than
> > > Castro.
> >
> > So you are saying that the Sandinistas were a competent, moderate
> > regime?
>
> Read what I say and stop trying to put words in my mouth. You are not
> proving anything by such juvenile word games except your own capacity
> for sophomoric, spurious logic. Do you really think I'm that stupid?
> I said more moderate and less incompetent. If I had wanted to say
> they were moderate and competent I would have said so. They were
> somewhere between moderate and far left, and only marginally
> incompetent, as compared to Castro, who is a raving revolutionary and
> complete incompetent. Hence, the Sandinistas were more moderate and
> less incompetent.
Sorry, I sometimes get carried away. Some of the stuff that you've done
to my arguments might be considered by some to be similarly sophomoric.
>
> > The topic *is* how American style democracy differs from true
> democracy.
>
> There is no such thing outside textbooks and tiny groups. What you
> mean is how US-style democracy differs from how you'd like to see it
> practiced.
Unfortunately yes, and yes.
>
> > The US-dominated world that is.
>
> I forgive you for displaying ignorance doubtless fostered by modern
> public education. Read a little history. Start with the struggle
> between Egypt and the Hittites over the Levant in the late 2nd
> millennium B.C., and move on from there. The great power game has
> been going on for millennia; the US is a latecomer to this game, and
> an extremely benign one. America has, despite some lapses, overall
> been kinder, fairer, and more honest to both defeated enemies and
> conquests/colonies than any other successful power in history.
This is trite, but I need another coffee: "or so you have been told".
History has always been written by the victors.
> > It is a domination that causes horrible suffering to millions,
> including US citizens
>
> What a crock. What horrible suffering? The horrible suffering of
> being fed by US charity, or having economies pumped up by US trade
> and loans? The horrible suffering of trying to make an (albeit
> minimal, but more than anyone else) effort to discourage ethnic
> cleansing in Bosnia or genital mutilation in Africa? If the US
> disappeared tomorrow, the world would not be one bit nicer; the power
> vacuum would be filled by either much more rapacious (Iraq, Iran,
> Russia) or much more inhumane (China) powers. But the world would be
> much, much poorer, and no one would fill *that* gap.
US trade and the actions of the IMF are not benign. Refer back to my
Chomsky quote on Haiti. While people were starving there, exports of
food to the US actually increased. There is a distribution problem here.
Ethnic cleansing in Bosina was restrained by the Soviet totalitarians,
an example of evil doing good. When the Soviet empire collapsed, the
ethnic cleansing was allowed to continue while the free world looked on.
Iran and Iraq were both US client states for a period of time prior to
their current demonization in the West. The Shah was no better than
Saddam, and Saddam was no more an angel in the past when he was under
the US wing than he is today. Even lately, SH has served the US
political agenda WRT the massacre of the Kurds.
The Soviets have always been portrayed as expansionist by western
propaganda. I'd say that the New York Times (all the news that's fit to
print indeed! consider the amount of print that atrocities in East Timor
got compared with those in Cambodia, a human disaster of the same
magnitude: 70 column inches as compared with over 1100 column inches.
That's only because Indonesia is a US client state) and Pravda operated
to the same ends. The NY Times is just better at it.
American investment in China is huge right now. Your human rights
initiatives are pathetic in that country, but Americans reap the
benefits of cheap, exploited labour when they shop at Wal-Mart. Check
the labels. Think about why it doesn't say "Made in the USA"
Buboe the RAT (Roger A. Thornhill, the A is for Anarchist <not
communist>)
"For sae I sat, and sae I sang,
And wist na o'my fate." ~ R.Burns (1759-1796)
Buboe the Rat
Endymion wrote:
<snip>
>
> What a crock. What horrible suffering? The horrible suffering of
> being fed by US charity, or having economies pumped up by US trade
> and loans? The horrible suffering of trying to make an (albeit
> minimal, but more than anyone else) effort to discourage ethnic
> cleansing in Bosnia or genital mutilation in Africa? If the US
> disappeared tomorrow, the world would not be one bit nicer; the power
> vacuum would be filled by either much more rapacious (Iraq, Iran,
> Russia) or much more inhumane (China) powers. But the world would be
> much, much poorer, and no one would fill *that* gap.
>
The US is supporting the "inhumane" Chinese regime by inaction. The
following is from the Amnesty International
Web Site:
"The United States is exaggerating the few positive developments in
China during 1997 and using them as an excuse to avoid censure of
China at the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva later this
week. Expressing regret at the absence of a resolution on China,
Amnesty International USA (AIUSA) today called on the US to ensure
that other avenues at the commission are utilised to criticise
China on its horrific human rights record.
The question now is whether the US will use the forum at Geneva to
raise China's human rights record even if they don't introduce a
resolution," said Curt Goering, Deputy Executive Director, AIUSA
"The arguments that 'dialogue' should replace criticism at the
Commission and that there has been adequate 'progress' in China
this year belie the fact that the 'progress' is only window
dressing. The US must address the gross conditions hiding behind
the curtain."
The organisation referred to China's "progress" as "symbolic steps
which deserve to be mentioned favorably" but emphasised that the
steps must be seen in their full context.
Though the US applauds the release of democracy leader Wei
Jingsheng, the fact is that Wei was expelled from his own country.
During the past year, he was severely beaten by fellow prisoners
under the eyes of Chinese authorities. He was brought to the US
for medical treatment denied to him in the Chinese prison. Also,
behind the curtain are hundreds of thousands of people held in
administrative detention, thousands of political prisoners ,
victims of unfair trials, and those who suffered torture or work
in the unspeakable conditions of China's labor camps.
The promise to sign the UN International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights (ICCPR) is a noteworthy first step in a process
where the US must be vigilant in order to ensure that these rights
are realized in practice. Last year, China agreed to sign the UN
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. As
still awaits that treaty, China must ratify the ICCPR, pass
implementing legislation and dictate enforcement measures. The
true test of China's commitment to human rights will be the
successful completion of this process. Progress will be measured
by improvements in actual practice. Many of the rights in the
Covenant are already guaranteed under Chinese law and severely
restricted. Therefore, the US must make sure that the agreement to
sign the ICCPR is more than a public relations stunt that buys
time for the regime to continue to violate rights with impunity .
"The US cannot be seen to trade away principle for
disproportionate concessions," said Goering. "China must be held
accountable for its record of gross violations. The US must be
objective in its insistance on concrete improvements that can be
universally accepted as real progress."
Yet goods bearing the label "Made in China" still flood into the US
marketplace. The corporate agenda of "importing" cheap labour to the US
is fulfilled while human rights get pushed to the back burner. I'm
suggesting that human rights are merely being given lip service while
the real agenda of profit is pursued with vigor.
Now I expect some sort of reubuttal based on supply-side economics crap.
Buboe the RAT (I should really stick to poetry)
--
Axel
Buboe the Rat wrote in message <35279440.43A553BA@_NOSPAM_gtn.net>...
>Ethnic cleansing in Bosina was restrained by the Soviet totalitarians,
>an example of evil doing good. When the Soviet empire collapsed, the
>ethnic cleansing was allowed to continue while the free world looked on.
Little inaccurate here:
Tito's regime broke from the Soviet bloc before 1955.
While it had an authoritarian government it was a lot more liberal than the
rest of the sector (or Spain prior to 1975).
The ethnic pressures were rekindled by the introduction of elections and
politicians going for the populist nationalist card (always a good bet in a
collapsing economy).
However ethnic cleansing in Bosnia was not connected to the collapse of the
Soviet Bloc because national tensions and pressure for separation started
shortly after Tito's death.
bruce h. nagel
On Sun, 05 Apr 1998 12:37:38 -0400, Buboe the Rat
<fbrown@_NOSPAM_gtn.net> wrote:
I hardly agree with Endymion's position entirely, but I think perhaps
you are merely arguing the opposite position, rather than looking at
the larger picture.
>The US is supporting the "inhumane" Chinese regime by inaction.
There is a difference between supporting something and allowing
something to occur. The United States is not the Police Force to the
World, much as some (here and abroad) would like it to be. The U.S.
is merely one of many nations, and should only have the influence of
one nation, to do otherwise is to insult the sovereignty of other
nations. It is one thing to say that intervening against an evil is a
good act, another entirely to say that it is evil to fail to
intervene. Now, I will grant that the people of the United States
support China economically, giving tacit consent to an unpleasant form
of government, but at what point does our responsibility end? Why is
it that our responsibility to end the inhumane practices ends at
economic sanctions and diplomatic entreaties? Why not simply tear
down a form of government, by assassination and coup, or military
force, that is so dreadful? Don't we have a duty to do that? Perhaps
it isn't our place to make that decision? I don't think this is as
clear-cut as you are presenting it.
<<snip Amnesty International info for brevity>>
>Now I expect some sort of reubuttal based on supply-side economics crap.
Nope, I just want to hear where the other nations of the world are
less morally obligated than the United States to say something to
China about this. Who else has a respoinsibility to make a difference
in the problems of China? I'm also curious as to whether economic
sanctions and diplomatic methods are going to produce the type of
improvements and commitment to human rights that you suggest will
follow from the U.S. pushing China into action. The U.S. has been
accused of bullying smaller nations before. Would the United States
and its citizens take kindly to other pointing out what we should be
doing concerning human rights? I doubt it. Did the U.S. take it well
when other nations looked down upon the institution of slavery? It
certainly did not, or at least a significant portion did not.
Eventually we ended slavery here ourselves.
>Buboe the RAT (I should really stick to poetry)
Perhaps. But I think Endymion's narrow field of view needed something
added. While the U.S. does some good in the world, and I agree that
"nothing would take its place if it was no longer there", that isn't
the whole of it. Neither is your view of U.S. policy regarding China.
I have to wonder if we can even have a significant impact on China's
human rights problems beyond not implicating ourselves through buying
their products.
losthalo
lost...@innocent.comwhileyouarelisteningtothisrecordingyourwi
llingattentionismakingyoumoreandmoreintothepersonyouwanttobec
ome.
Endymion
Buboe the Rat <fbrown@_NOSPAM_gtn.net> wrote
> The US is supporting the "inhumane" Chinese regime by inaction. The
> following is from the Amnesty International
I can't disagree with a single word you sad on US policy towards
China - it stinks, and stinks even more so because our current
President's two biggest foreign policy issues in his first election
were that he would change the policies of his predecessor towards
China and Haiti - policies which if anything have only gotten worse
in the last 6 years.
BUT this is a far cry from saying that the suffering of people in
China is due to US dominance of the world. Yes, we should do more.
But, as a practical matter, there's not but so much we could do,
short of a massive nuclear strike, which would hardly improve
anyones' lives except the cockroaches who would survive. China's
gov't is there to stay, is only marginally dependent on US trade, and
bears 100% of the responsibility for its actions towards its own
citizens. Put it this way: If China's current government had the
position of world dominance, the US now enjoys, do you think China's
oppressed citizens would be better off than they are now?
To recap, this does not address the real thrust of my contention,
which was not that the US causes no one any suffering, but that such
suffering as is caused is much less than would be the case under our
predecessors, rivals, and likely successors for world power, and also
much less than the blessings that the US has given the world - little
things like the enormous loans and bailouts we distribute, the
marvelous technology and pharmaceuticals we provide, and the relative
safety and stability - most notably free trade and freedom of the
seas - we have enforced in much of the world.
Buboe the Rat
Endymion wrote:
> To recap, this does not address the real thrust of my contention,
> which was not that the US causes no one any suffering, but that such
> suffering as is caused is much less than would be the case under our
> predecessors, rivals, and likely successors for world power, and also
> much less than the blessings that the US has given the world - little
> things like the enormous loans and bailouts we distribute, the
> marvelous technology and pharmaceuticals we provide, and the relative
> safety and stability - most notably free trade and freedom of the
> seas - we have enforced in much of the world.
Madame Speaker, I'd like to say that I do not think that the Honourable
Member for Atlanta is truly aware of the suffering caused by US foreign
policy. The Honourable Member makes the point that things might be worse
under another regime, but I'd like to rebut by saying that this is merely
a defense of the status quo. The Honourable Member makes reference to
monitary aid given by the US to the rest of the world, and I do not think
that the Honourable Member is truly aware of the implications of loans
given by the World Bank and the International Monitary Find or IMF. The
Honourable Member also may not be aware of the exact nature of US foriegn
aid. I'd like to quote Chomsky on this issue:
"The same values guide the international financial institutions that the
U.S. largely controls.
The World Bank and the IMF "have been extraordinarily human rights
averse," the
chairperson of the U.N. Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights, Philip Alston,
observed with polite understatement in his submission to the Vienna
counter-session. "As
we have heard so dramatically at this Public Hearing," Nouri Abdul
Razzak of the
Afro-Asian People's Solidarity Organization added, "the policies of
the international
financial institutions are contributing to the impoverishment of the
world's people, the
degradation of the global environment, and the violation of the most
fundamental human
rights," on a mind-numbing scale.
In the face of such direct violations of the principles of the UD,
it is perhaps superfluous to
mention the refusal to take even small steps towards upholding
them. UNICEF estimates
that every hour, 1000 children die from easily preventable disease,
and almost twice that
many women die or suffer serious disability in pregnancy or
childbirth for lack of simple
remedies and care. To ensure universal access to basic social
services, UNICEF
estimates, would require a quarter of the annual military
expenditures of the "developing
countries," about 10% of U.S. military spending noted, the U.S.
actively promotes military
expenditures of the "developing countries"; its own remain at Cold
War levels, increasing
today while social spending is being severely cut. Also sharply
declining in the 1990s is
U.S. foreign aid, already the most miserly among the developed
countries, and virtually
non-existent if we exclude the rich country that is the primary
recipient (Washington's
Israeli client).
In his "Final Report" to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights,
Special Rapporteur
Leandro Despouy cites the World Health Organization's
characterization of "extreme
poverty" as "the world's most ruthless killer and the greatest cause
of suffering on earth":
"No other disaster compared to the devastation of hunger which had
caused more deaths
in the past two years than were killed in the two World Wars
together." The right to a
standard of living adequate for health and well-being is affirmed in
Article 25 of the UD, he
notes, and in the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and
Cultural Rights, "which
places emphasis more particularly on `the fundamental right of
everyone to be free from
hunger'." But from the highly relativist perspective of the West,
these principles of human
rights agreements have no status."
Madame Speaker, the full document, an essay on the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights (UD), is available at the following URL:
http://www.lol.shareworld.com/zmag/articles/chomud.htm
Thank you, Madam Speaker.
Buboe the RAT ( can't sleep, can't eat, OH DAMN IT! )
Endymion
Snipped liberally to keep a manageable length...
Buboe the Rat <fbrown@_NOSPAM_gtn.net> wrote i
> > As long as no one is forced to
> > listen to that religious leader, democracy is not threatened.
>
> I'd say that in some cases there is considerable coercion to follow
the
> leader's lead.
No coercion by government action, which is what our constitution
addresses.
> For example people still send money to televangelists
> for no very good reason.
Whether it's a good reason is for the giver, not you, to judge. If
you give money to Amnesty or the Sierra Club a fundie might see no
good reason, yet that doesn't mean you were coerced.
> > That is not a proper definition of fascist.
> Actually, in a moment of weakness ;) I went to a dictionary. All
those
> adjectives, including "right-wing", I pulled from either "fascist"
or
> "fascism".
While a dictionary is useful, I do not accept it as authoritative on
a complex question of classification of a political movement. Any
acceptable definition of fascism must include one-party rule
generally by a single strongman, state control of all media,
government regulation of the economy for strategic goals, declaration
of a constant state of emergency or war, rejection (or subordination
to the party) of religion or any other possible rival to loyalty to
the state, a dual cult of modernism and primitivism which rejects
Enlightenment-descended European thought, and extreme militarism
which results in subordination of civilian government to the military
rather than the reverse which is a central tenet of American
constitutionalism.
> So I'll restate my question: In what ways are the religious
> right not fascist considering that they are an authoritarian,
> right-wing, hierarchical, politically motivated organization?
I think my above definition answers this. I see no evidence of any of
these in the Religious Right agenda. There are some other elements of
fascism which I will concede are compatible with the R.R., such as
nationalism, censorship of arts and sciences, and enforcement of
"family values", but having a few hallmarks compatible with fascism
does not make a movement fascist, any more than having socialist aims
makes a movement Communist in the Marxist-Leninist tradition.
Fascism is a specific and well-defined movement which is not
synonymous with all far-right thought, although the term has been
widely and incorrectly used as such.
> The basic Reform platform is one of reducing the power and
influence of
> the federal government. Their grass-roots support comes from
promises of
> tax reductions and the cutting of red tape. The problem is that
there
> are bigger fish in the pond, sharks in fact. With a less powerful
> federal government, corporations will be freer to pollute,
discriminate,
> exploit labour, and increase the level of social injustice as they
> pursue their only fundamental principle of maximizing profit in the
> short term.
This puts one in a similar position to 1930's Germans; you have two
equally obnoxious groups each claiming that it is the only one
capable of protecting society from the other; I reject the choice and
choose to believe that there must be an third alternative between
unlimited corporate rule and big-government Big Brotherism.
> I find it interesting that
> here you make the distinction between Stalinism and fascism, where
above
> you attempted to lump them together (I agree that they are more or
less
> the same)
They share many characteristics but fundamentally opposing
philosophies. One difference of many is that Stalinism is
fundamentally internationalist, with no distinction between internal
and external enemies, whereas fascism is fundamentally
hyper-nationalist.
> > > Members of the
> > > religious right, IMO, have their political choices made for
them.
> >
> > They choose to join the religious right, don't they? They then
> > cooperate for shared goals like any other party.
>
> I'd say that indoctrination from earliest childhood, in general
> precludes free choice in this matter. There are exceptions, and in
the
> case of converts, you are correct.
You might be surprised at the number of people who are converts and
not raised as fundies. In any case indoctrination by families during
childhood is not at all the same as political coercion, and not
something appropriately opposed by government action, as it is a
fundamental privacy right to raise one's children how one sees fit
absent physical abuse or neglect.
(on sports fans)
> Nope, I merely mean to suggest that these are means of distraction
of
> people from issues of self-determination.
And I, to suggest that it is not only conservatives who do so.
> My reference to Marxism is too suggest that
> they are fed a party line about issues that the elites don't want
them
> to pay attention too.
But it is ludicrous to suppose that there is a single elite in this
society with a single party line. In fact, two of the most exclusive
and elitist institutions in this society, academia and the press, are
among the last and most dedicated bastions of the old radical left.
> (are you trying to kill this thread? Hitler Sex? ;p)
Is Ayn Rand the equivalent of Hitler as a thread killer? I could get
really bad and ask if capitalism or socialism is more goth!
> BTW: have YOU read Adam Smith?
Only a little, but I have studied his theories both in economics and
history classes in college.
> I haven't but I understand that he wasn't
> quite the proponent of capitalism that he is portrayed as.
It depends on how you define capitalism. His theories provide good
starting points but he failed to foresee certain crucial developments
of the modern economic world, such as the rise to dominance of
joint-stock corporations and the need for a mechanism to avoid the
boom-bust cycle spinning out of control. Still, his formulation of
the laws of supply and demand is much like Newtonian physics; a
system that has been modified and built on but remains intact as the
foundation of economic theory.
> I got the impression that you implied that the first world was the
norm
> when you asked why I did not pick more ordinary countries
>Your use of the word "ordinary" suggested to me that you thought
> that Panama, El Salvador, Honduras, etc. were not ordinary in the
world.
> I'd say that they are the ordinary state of affairs for most of the
> world.
I do not think they are ordinary even for the third world; in any
case I think we've said as much as is advisable on the subject.
> > > You are demonstrating a US-centric world view.
> >
> > No, you are trying to read that into my post. It's called a
straw-man
> > argument and it doesn't fly.
>
> I'm not familiar with the term.
It means taking an opponent's position and twisting, distorting, or
exaggerating it far beyond his actual belief and into a false or
absurd position, then demonstrating the falsity in order to make the
opponent look foolish for espousing it. The Hitler thread-killer is
an extreme example.
> I'd say that
> American Jingoism has been around since Commodore Petty (I think)
forced
> the Japanese to open their ports to American trade in the 1840
Their nasty little habit of executing anyone who came there,
including shipwrecked sailors (not an uncommon occurrence in the
whaling age) was the primary trigger.
> History has always been written by the victors.
When we are discussing trends that have been steady for 3,500 years
and been universally recognized by all historians for 2,500 years
this becomes irrelevant.
> Iran and Iraq were both US client states for a period of time prior
to
> their current demonization in the West.
Wrong. Iraq was never anything remotely like a US client state. If
you attempt to disagree, start by explaining why Saddam's arsenal is
made up exclusively of former Soviet-bloc weapons, and his military
organized and trained on the Soviet model, from top to bottom.
> The Shah was no better than Saddam,
Not true; the Shah was harsh and mildly corrupt (meaning he got rich
off the state but not to the point of impoverishing the state like
many worse dictators), but the real reason for the opposition to his
rule was that he was trying to modernize Iran in ways unacceptable to
the Islamic fundies. Are you aware that one of the main policies that
brought him down was promoting economic opportunity and increased
social equality for women?
> and Saddam was no more an angel in the past when he was under
> the US wing than he is today.
Saddam was never "under the US wing"; we did not provide
*significant* funding or military aid to him during the 1st Gulf War.
His main contact with the US was as an intelligence source.
What support (mostly indirect) the US did provide him was due to a
central and long-standing US policy goal: maintaining a balance of
power in the Gulf so that no one state could threaten the oil trade
and the autonomy of the weaker states (which is why we ended Desert
Storm prematurely; the idea was to end Saddam's threat to Kuwait but
not to destroy Iraq so that Iran would simply step in and take over).
The one big US military contribution to the 1st Gulf War was to
maintain free shipping through the Straits of Hormuz; Iran made the
mistake of threatening the shipping and Iraq did not.
> The Soviets have always been portrayed as expansionist by western
> propaganda.
And rightfully so, at least since WW2.
> I'd say that the New York Times (all the news that's fit to
> print indeed! consider the amount of print that atrocities in East
Timor
> got compared with those in Cambodia, a human disaster of the same
> magnitude:
Sorry, East Timor is nowhere near the same magnitude as Cambodia.
Cambodia also got more press because of the questions as to exactly
how the disaster there was related to US policy in SE Asia and what
we might have done to prevent it. East Timor carries no such
concerns; like Rwanda, it is a situation where other colonial powers
bear what responsibility is to be laid elsewhere than at the
perpetrators' feet.
> That's only because Indonesia is a US client state)
Indonesia is not and has never been a US client state. Some trade
ties and minor aid during the Cold War do not make a client state. I
could see an argument for S. Korea, S. Vietnam (when it existed), or
Batista's Cuba, but not Indonesia.
> Pravda operated to the same ends. The NY Times is just better at
it.
This is a ludicrous comparison which does not even bear discussion.
ka...@freenet.edmonton.ucesucks.ab.ca
On Sun, 05 Apr 1998 10:25:04 -0400, Buboe the Rat
<fbrown@_NOSPAM_gtn.net> wrote:
>Endymion wrote:
>
>> I'm saying it is not opposed to the democratic process. Democracy
>> must include people's right to form their views however they want,
>> and listen to whomever they want. As long as no one is forced to
>> listen to that religious leader, democracy is not threatened.
>
>I'd say that in some cases there is considerable coercion to follow the
>leader's lead. For example people still send money to televangelists
>for no very good reason.
The reason is that they agree with the person's message, and want to
feel like they're a part of it by assisting him in spreading it.
>> They choose to join the religious right, don't they? They then
>> cooperate for shared goals like any other party.
>
>I'd say that indoctrination from earliest childhood, in general
>precludes free choice in this matter. There are exceptions, and in the
>case of converts, you are correct. I do think that the choice is one of
>not choosing self-determination.
The goal of the parent isn't to brainwash the child; it's to raise the
child to be successful and happy.
The "religious right" defines success and happiness according to
certain values, and encourages those values in the child - not to
attain power for some higher-up, but because they feel those values
are right.
Indoctrination would be for the benefit of the beliefs; not the
benefit of the believer.
(Snip)
>The Soviets have always been portrayed as expansionist by western
>propaganda. I'd say that the New York Times (all the news that's fit to
>print indeed! consider the amount of print that atrocities in East Timor
>got compared with those in Cambodia, a human disaster of the same
>magnitude: 70 column inches as compared with over 1100 column inches.
>That's only because Indonesia is a US client state) and Pravda operated
>to the same ends. The NY Times is just better at it.
You mean, perhaps, subtler?
Randomness is not hypocrisy, if done with honesty.
In chaos, all is possible.
(Remove my statement on UCE's to respond.)
Buboe the Rat
Endymion wrote:
> Snipped liberally to keep a manageable length...
You are right, this is getting out of control. :)
> While a dictionary is useful, I do not accept it as authoritative on
> a complex question of classification of a political movement. Any
> acceptable definition of fascism must include one-party rule
> generally by a single strongman,
The US president. (Actually no, he's just a puppet for the oligarchy)
> state control of all media,
Believe me when I say that in the US this is closer to the truth than I
feel comfortable with. It is just done very subtly.
> government regulation of the economy for strategic goals,
The Pentagon system is not working so well since the demise of the USSR.
Saddam has provided a useful "enemy" in this respect, but not on the
scale of the Soviets. I know that this isn't regulation per se, but
rather a use of the other governmental means of controlling the economy:
taxation and incentives.
> declaration
> of a constant state of emergency or war,
Ahem.. There was the Cold War. Again the system is in need of a new
"emergency". The Gulf Crisis provided this for a while and the ludicrous
War on Drugs contributes as well. The WoD is ridiculous considering that
less people die per year from illicit drugs than from gunshot wounds in
your country, almost by an order of magnitude.
> rejection (or subordination
> to the party) of religion or any other possible rival to loyalty to
> the state,
Here is where my hypothesis falls down by strict definition of fascism.
I'd say that the elites use religion as a tool of subjugation. The
particular religion used is the right wing fundamentalism. I know this is
simplistic, but I'm trying to keep it short. This is not a condemnation
of religion, but religious control has been used as a method of political
control through out history. Read _I Claudius_ and you'll get a feel for
what I mean.
> a dual cult of modernism and primitivism which rejects
> Enlightenment-descended European thought,
I'd have to say that the focus on a technology-rich consumerist society
coupled with a decaying educational system and the rise of pop religion
(pop psychology, spectator sports, new-age religion, pagan-wannabe's,
cultism, fundamentalist xianity) fits the bill here.
> and extreme militarism
Who has the largest "defense" budget in the world today?
> which results in subordination of civilian government to the military
> rather than the reverse which is a central tenet of American
> constitutionalism.
I'd say that the Pentagon system and the host of competing government
agencies such as the CIA, DIA, NSA, FBI, DEA, ATF etc. use the American
public as "whitebread." This is not overt subordination, but rather
covert subordination. The bloated "defense" and intelligence communities
use the system to feed on tax dollars. The result is the concentration of
wealth in the hands of the few at the expense of the many.
This doesn't really fit, but it is useful in illustrating my point.
Buboe the RAT.
Felixth...@hotmail.com
In article <01bd6114$30912260$3ba945cf@default>,
"Endymion" <disinte...@SPAMTRAPmindspring.com> wrote:
>...
> > Iran and Iraq were both US client states for a period of time prior
> to
> > their current demonization in the West.
>
> Wrong. Iraq was never anything remotely like a US client state. If
Actually, Iraq received significant assistance from the US during the
Iran-Iraq war, including intelligence, money, some advanced arms sold
indirectly to Iraq, and chemical and biological weapons, and in fact there
were American combat advisors on the ground in Iraq by the end of the war
helping Saddam. Even if US arms were not widely present (there were a couple
of items - helicpter and cluster-bombs), the fact remains that the US was
Saddam's sugar-daddy.
Funny thing - side note - most people in the US have forgotten that Saddam
also pre-cleared his attack on Kuwait with the US Ambassador Glaspie who told
him that the US had "no opinion" on inter-Arab conflicts. The US government
has tried to dismiss that as merely a "diplomatic snafu" but it is rather
suspicious - considering how the US reacted AFTER the attack, you'd think
they'd have SOME opinion about it beforehand.
>
> > The Shah was no better than Saddam,
>
> Not true; the Shah was harsh and mildly corrupt (meaning he got rich
> off the state but not to the point of impoverishing the state like
> many worse dictators), but the real reason for the opposition to his
> rule was that he was trying to modernize Iran in ways unacceptable to
> the Islamic fundies. Are you aware that one of the main policies that
> brought him down was promoting economic opportunity and increased
> social equality for women?
Again this is pure baloney - he was brought down by corruption and massive
class differences between the rich and the poor, and his own totalitarian form
of government (not to mention the widespread use of torture by the CIA and
Mosad trained Iranian SAVAK as documented by Amnesty) and in fact this was the
SECOND time he'd been overthrown, and in fact it was also the THIRD time the
system of absolute monarchy had been overthrown in Iran in the 20th century.
But on all these occasions, foreign super-powers replaced the diposed monarch
onto the thrown. Note that the first Revolution was for a constitutional and
democratic form of government, as was the second one which resulted in a
CIA-sponsored coup in 1953 which reinstalled the Shah into power.
As for the idea that the reason for the downfall of the Shah was that he was
"modernizing" the nation too fast, that's pure rubbish. That myth is
exposed for being merely a justification to try to explain why the US was in
bed with an authoritarian regime in the book "The U.S. Press and Iran :
Foreign Policy and the Journalism of Deference" by William A. Dorman, Mansour
Farhang Hardcover
Published by Univ California Press
Publication date: November 1987
ISBN: 0520059700
> The one big US military contribution to the 1st Gulf War was to
> maintain free shipping through the Straits of Hormuz; Iran made the
> mistake of threatening the shipping and Iraq did not.
Actually, this too is baloney - Iran was busy attacking Kuwaiti ships. Kuwait
was not a "neutral", rather it was legally a "co-belligerent" under
international law since it provided aid and assistance to Iraq. Iran was
therefore LEGALLY entitled to prevent this. US "reflagging" of the Kuwaiti
ships, and assistance to Saddam, was a violation of international law and the
Charter of the United Nations.
Would gladly provide references - and have lots of them - for any of the
above.
Check out some sites on Iran
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/3163
-----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==-----
http://www.dejanews.com/ Now offering spam-free web-based newsreading
Endymion
This argument gets increasingly ridiculous with each post; I don't know why
I even bother. It is obvious that you have not the slightest knowledge of
what fascism and totalitarianism mean, not even the passing acquaintance
one might expect from the week spent on WW2 in 9th grade history. Are you
now trying to claim that the US is a fascist state, rather than that right
wing fundies are fascists? That seems to be the gist of your post.
I hate to resort to personal criticism but in a sense it isn't really
personal; our culture has become so ignorant as a whole that even
intelligent and educated people are utterly lacking in the most basic
knowledge of even recent history. Orwell must be rolling over in his grave;
Newspeak has won out.
Please. Go to any library and read a short, condensed history of Nazi
Germany. Or just go to the Holocaust Museum and get SOME idea of what
fascism means. It's a good starting point, even though what we're really
discussing isn't the effect of the war or specific policies of wartime
Nazis but the earlier period which was more typical of fascist takeovers.
One other thing I will note before replying to specific items: it is absurd
to argue that a regime is totalitarian, and then refute evidence to the
contrary by saying "Well the control exists but it's subtle." Subtle
control and any form of totalitarianism are 100% incompatible; it is a
foundation of totalitarian regimes that ALL information and thought, EVERY
possible expression of opinion, and EVERY citizen's actions must be
controlled. The control must be obvious and the punishments for beaking it
severe and universal enough that no one even thinks it possible, much less
adviseable, to think differently. Anything else cannot by definition be
totalitarian rule.
Buboe the Rat <f...@execulink.com> wrote
> > Any
> > acceptable definition of fascism must include one-party rule
> > generally by a single strongman,
>
> The US president. (Actually no, he's just a puppet for the oligarchy)
Having a titular head of government with broad executive powers is not the
same as one-man rule, and the US president has a tough enough time running
his own party, much less the opposing party, the Congress, and the Supreme
Court. Our president can't even sign a treaty, appoint a lower court judge,
or dispose of $1 without the approval of at least one house of Congress
(before you cite Iran-Contra, remember: Reagan lost that one). In fact,
some would argue that the UK's Prime Minister has more actual power than
the US president because of the party discipline in the parliamentary
system.
> > state control of all media,
>
> Believe me when I say that in the US this is closer to the truth than I
> feel comfortable with. It is just done very subtly.
This and many other of your arguments approach the level of a paranoid
fantasy; it appears that it doesn't occur, and there's no concrete evidence
that it does, but there's this giant seekrut conspiracy involving everyone
but a tiny minority who are nevertheless the only ones who know about it,
and this conspiracy quietly manipulates, well, everything, even though the
effects of the manipulation are so subtle that no one can see it.
Face it. The US has the most free press in the history of mankind. The
press has brought down a president and come close to crippling others. It
is enormously powerful and in the end is anwerable to no one, even its
owners, since the professionals who run it often have very different
opinions.
What thoughts, ideas, or facts are kept out of the US media by government
control? What have we or anyone else expressed here that the seekrut
conspiracy would keep out of the Times or any other paper? Why is it that
despite this "subtle control" I can find copies of _High Times_ and _Mother
Jones_ within 5 blocks of where I'm sitting now, right out in the open? Why
is it that my hometown paper has within the last few months called for the
resignation of both the President and the Speaker of the House? How many
fascist regimes would let that get printed?
> > government regulation of the economy for strategic goals,
>
> The Pentagon system is not working so well since the demise of the USSR.
> Saddam has provided a useful "enemy" in this respect, but not on the
> scale of the Soviets. I know that this isn't regulation per se, but
> rather a use of the other governmental means of controlling the economy:
> taxation and incentives.
You have not provided one shred of evidence for any sort of manipulation,
only the sketchiest innuendo. What Pentagon "system"? What incentives? How
is US tax policy influenced by the Pentagon? We don't even spend 10% of
public funds, or 3% of GNP, on defense any more, when you take into account
Social Security and state and local spending.
When I speak of gov't regulation of the economy I mean 80-90%, not 2.5%.
> > declaration
> > of a constant state of emergency or war,
>
> Ahem.. There was the Cold War.
Which has been over for 10 years, and was not used to justify any
measurable deprivations of liberties for the last 25 years or so, or any
serious ones since the (very brief) McCarthy era.
> Again the system is in need of a new "emergency".
Only if you show that there is a "system". There is none. No one is trying
to create a new enemy on an Orwellian scale.
> The Gulf Crisis provided this for a while
Name one - ONE - civil liberty of any type that was suspended to any extent
on the basis of the Gulf War. The only conceivable thing I can think of is
that airport security was stepped up, but no travel restrictions were
imposed. We had the media broadcasting Saddam's speeches live, for goth's
sake.
> and the ludicrous War on Drugs contributes as well.
I will agree it's ludicrous, but the courts have rejected most of the truly
egregious liberty deprivations proposed by would-be drug warriors.
Seriously now, take a look at the sort of restrictions on personal freedom
instituted by any fascist government upon taking power, and find me any
parallel in US history since WW2 for actions such as dismissing the
legislature, expanding executive powers to include all legislative and
judicial functions, banning opposition parties, instituting absolute
control over all news media, nationalizing strategic industries (not
meaning weapons production but entire fields such as energy, steel,
chemicals, etc.), abolition of labor unions, mass political arrests,
banning assemblies other than Party functions, and total gun control.
Tell me how anyone has declared a false state of emergency here, comparing
if you will steps taken during real crises such as WW2 or the Civil War.
Thiose crises produced steps such as suspension of habeas corpus,
censorship of mail and the press, travel restrictions, internment of enemy
citizens (and some US citizens), rationing of food, gasoline, and other
materials, the draft, declaration of martial law in large areas and for an
indefinite duration, and government control of the economy. Please tell me
which of these have occurred here in the last 25 years.
> > a dual cult of modernism and primitivism which rejects
> > Enlightenment-descended European thought,
>
> I'd have to say that the focus on a technology-rich consumerist society
> coupled with a decaying educational system and the rise of pop religion
> (pop psychology, spectator sports, new-age religion, pagan-wannabe's,
> cultism, fundamentalist xianity) fits the bill here.
This is much more a hallmark of the left than the right in this society,
with the rare exception like Creation Science. I am not so much throwing
blame here as simply saying the modern Right just is not fascist in its
philosophy. Fascism implies a sort of warped Nietzschean (sp?) philosophy
rejecting Christian values in favor of pagan (not to be confused with
neo-pagan) ones while at the same time holding science, not faith, to be
the absolute determinant of truth.
> > and extreme militarism
>
> Who has the largest "defense" budget in the world today?
By percentage of GNP, not the US, not by a long shot.
And in any case, it is clear that you have no idea what militarism means,
which makes it impossible to discuss whether it exists here. Militarism is
a way of ordering an entire society, not a matter of budget priorities.
Look at Prussia or pre-WW2 Japan for examples.
> > which results in subordination of civilian government to the military
> > rather than the reverse which is a central tenet of American
> > constitutionalism.
>
> I'd say that the Pentagon system and the host of competing government
> agencies such as the CIA, DIA, NSA, FBI, DEA, ATF etc. use the American
> public as "whitebread." This is not overt subordination, but rather
> covert subordination. The bloated "defense" and intelligence communities
> use the system to feed on tax dollars. The result is the concentration of
> wealth in the hands of the few at the expense of the many.
A lot of alphabet soup and vague conspiracy theory but what does it all
mean?
Fact: the US President is the Commander-in-Chief, and the heads of all the
services and all the agencies you named answer to the president and are
appointed and dismissed freely by him. Fact: the President is elected by
the people, through an electoral process in which the military has no
influence. Fact: the budgets of all these agencies are controlled 100% by
Congress. Fact: Congress is directly elected by the people.
Hence, civilian control of the military.
Now, compare this to a fascist state, or even to the Imperial Rome you
mentioned before, where the Commander-in-Chief has a status which is not
derived from either popular vote or from civil authority; rather, civil
authority is placed under the leader, whose primary powers derive from
control of the military (it is no accident that in Roman constitutionalism
"Dictator" and "Imperator" both referred to military leaders; the Senate
and magistrates were always the civil authority but after Caesar they bowed
to the Imperator who controlled the troops) or from leadership of the
Party, which is organized on military lines.
Note this crucial distinction: in ancient Rome, Nazi Germany, fascist
Italy, and fascist Argentina (as a S. American example) every soldier and
officer swore a personal oath to serve the leader rather than the state; in
the US, the only oath taken is to the Constitution, and the duty to obey
superior officers up to and including the President exists only insofar as
they are acting within the Constitution and the law. (The situation in the
UK is more complex as the oath is to the Crown, but as I understand it the
sovereign power of the Crown legally resides in Parliament and not the
person of the monarch or the P.M.)
SO as I see it you have failed to show a single aspect of the US government
as it currently exists or as it is conceived by the Religious Right that is
fascist, as opposed to conservative, in nature.
Axel
Endymion wrote...
>Buboe the Rat <fbrown@_NOSPAM_gtn.net> wrote...
>Snipped liberally to keep a manageable length...
>While a dictionary is useful, I do not accept it as authoritative on
>a complex question of classification of a political movement. Any
>acceptable definition of fascism must include one-party rule
>generally by a single strongman, state control of all media,
>government regulation of the economy for strategic goals, declaration
>of a constant state of emergency or war, rejection (or subordination
>to the party) of religion or any other possible rival to loyalty to
>the state, a dual cult of modernism and primitivism which rejects
>Enlightenment-descended European thought, and extreme militarism
>which results in subordination of civilian government to the military
>rather than the reverse which is a central tenet of American
>constitutionalism.
The only problem with this definition is that it does not accurately reflect
the Fascist Movement in Italy, or even the structure of National Socialist
German Workers Party (NSDAP) which had quite different structures.
The contemporary definition of fascism seems to be authoritarian boot boys
trying to suppress freedom through street gangs and gaining political powers,
preferably with some racism thrown in for good measure.
>Fascism is a specific and well-defined movement which is not
>synonymous with all far-right thought, although the term has been
>widely and incorrectly used as such.
However since definitions change through usage (cf. the word 'nice' which has
had at least 40 different meanings, including 'lascivious', which is virtually
the opposite menaing to it's contemporary meaning), it is more useful to go
along with the contemporary use of a word than it's original and technical
meaning.
To distinguish the two, the use of a capital F for the original meaning is
quite effective.
>This puts one in a similar position to 1930's Germans; you have two
>equally obnoxious groups each claiming that it is the only one
>capable of protecting society from the other
No, we have 5 choices, Reform - populist right; Tory, traditional right;
Liberal - right-of-centre (U.S. Democrat or U.K. New Labour); N.D.P. - mixed
economy socialists
(U.K. traditional Labour).
>(on sports fans)
>> Nope, I merely mean to suggest that these are means of distraction
>of
>> people from issues of self-determination.
>
>And I, to suggest that it is not only conservatives who do so.
I would suggest that it is the right who benefit the most from it.
>But it is ludicrous to suppose that there is a single elite in this
>society with a single party line. In fact, two of the most exclusive
>and elitist institutions in this society, academia and the press, are
>among the last and most dedicated bastions of the old radical left.
But, the media is predominantly owned by the right and is squeezing left wing
journalists out (cf. Rupert Murdoch & Conrad Black).
>> The Soviets have always been portrayed as expansionist by western
>> propaganda.
>
>And rightfully so, at least since WW2.
No more so than the U.S.
Especially since they didn't even attempt to stop Yugoslavia from leaving their
sphere of influence even though it remained neutral from the mid '50's.
Buboe the Rat
Felixth...@hotmail.com wrote:
<major snippage>
> Would gladly provide references - and have lots of them - for any of the
> above.
>
> Check out some sites on Iran
>
> http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/3163
>
I have to say this, but YEEEEEEHAAAAAAAAWWW!!!!!!!!!!
I'm glad *somebody* else is using their head and not just following the party
line!
Thank You! You saved me an hour and a half of refutations!
Buboe the RAT ( -use it or lose it folks- )
Buboe the Rat
Endymion wrote:
> This argument gets increasingly ridiculous with each post; I don't know why
> I even bother. It is obvious that you have not the slightest knowledge of
> what fascism and totalitarianism mean, not even the passing acquaintance
> one might expect from the week spent on WW2 in 9th grade history. Are you
> now trying to claim that the US is a fascist state, rather than that right
> wing fundies are fascists? That seems to be the gist of your post.
You are right that my argument was ridiculous because of it's extreme nature. I
did in fact make it because I feel you maintain an unreasonably strict
definition of fascism. As I see it, to you unless the person is a WWII German
Nazi or the like, then the concept of fascism just doesn't apply. I disagree. I
think that this kind of narrow definition is dangerous since it might hide the
growth of fascist tendancies in our society.
In your rebuttal, you raised two separate issues: Fascism and the free press.
As a comment on fascism, I'd like to relate some information on the American
use of Nazi "human resources." My point is this case is that while the US may
not be a fascist state in the strict sense of the word, it has, at times, sunk
to the same moral level. WRT the free press, I'd like to relate some
information regarding this institution and its true role.
My first quote is from Noam Chomsky's _Secrets, Lies and Democracy_, the
chapter is entitled "How the Nazi's won the War". The entire book is available
on line at
http://www.worldmedia.com/archive/sld/sld.html
"In his book Blowback, Chris Simpson described Operation Paper Clip, which
involved the importation of large
numbers of known Nazi war criminals, rocket scientists, camp guards, etc.
There was also an operation involving the Vatican, the US State Department and
British intelligence, which took some of the
worst Nazi criminals and used them, at first in Europe. For example, Klaus
Barbie, the butcher of Lyon [France], was taken
over by US intelligence and put back to work.
Later, when this became an issue, some of his US supervisors didn't understand
what the fuss was all about. After all, we'd
moved in -- we'd replaced the Germans. We needed a guy who would attack the
left-wing resistance, and here was a
specialist. That's what he'd been doing for the Nazis, so who better could we
find to do exactly the same job for us?
When the Americans could no longer protect Barbie, they moved him over to the
Vatican-run "ratline," where Croatian Nazi
priests and others managed to spirit him off to Latin America. There he
continued his career. He became a big drug lord and
narcotrafficker, and was involved in a military coup in Bolivia -- all with US
support.
But Barbie was basically small potatoes. This was a big operation, involving
many top Nazis. We managed to get Walter Rauff,
the guy who created the gas chambers, off to Chile. Others went to fascist
Spain.
General Reinhard Gehlen was the head of German military intelligence on the
eastern front. That's where the real war crimes
were. Now we're talking about Auschwitz and other death camps. Gehlen and his
network of spies and terrorists were taken
over quickly by American intelligence and returned to essentially the same
roles.
If you look at the American army's counterinsurgency literature (a lot of which
is now declassified), it begins with an analysis of
the German experience in Europe, written with the cooperation of Nazi officers.
Everything is described from the point of view
of the Nazis -- which techniques for controlling resistance worked, which ones
didn't. With barely a change, that was
transmuted into American counterinsurgency literature. (This is discussed at
some length by Michael McClintock in Instruments
of Statecraft, a very good book that I've never seen reviewed.)
The US left behind armies the Nazis had established in Eastern Europe, and
continued to support them at least into the early
1950s. By then the Russians had penetrated American intelligence, so the air
drops didn't work very well any more.
You've said that if a real post-World War II history were ever written, this
would be the first chapter.
It would be a part of the first chapter. Recruiting Nazi war criminals and
saving them is bad enough, but imitating their activities
is worse. So the first chapter would primarily describe US -- and some British
-- operations throughout the world that aimed to
destroy the anti-fascist resistance and restore the traditional, essentially
fascist, order to power. (I've also discussed this in an
earlier book in this series, What Uncle Sam Really Wants.)
In Korea (where we ran the operation alone), restoring the traditional order
meant killing about 100,000 people just in the late
1940s, before the Korean War began. In Greece, it meant destroying the peasant
and worker base of the anti-Nazi resistance
and restoring Nazi collaborators to power.
When British and then American troops moved into southern Italy, they simply
reinstated the fascist order -- the industrialists.
But the big problem came when the troops got to the north, which the Italian
resistance had already liberated. The place was
functioning -- industry was running. We had to dismantle all of that and
restore the old order.
Our big criticism of the resistance was that they were displacing the old
owners in favor of workers' and community control.
Britain and the US called this "arbitrary replacement" of the legitimate
owners. The resistance was also giving jobs to more
people than were strictly needed for the greatest economic efficiency (that is,
for maximum profit-making). We called this "hiring excess workers."
In other words, the resistance was trying to democratize the workplace and to
take care of the population. That was
understandable, since many Italians were starving. But starving people were
their problem -- our problem was to eliminate the
hiring of excess workers and the arbitrary dismissal of owners, which we did.
Next we worked on destroying the democratic process. The left was obviously
going to win the elections; it had a lot of prestige
from the resistance, and the traditional conservative order had been
discredited. The US wouldn't tolerate that. At its first
meeting, in 1947, the National Security Council decided to withhold food and
use other sorts of pressure to undermine the
election.
But what if the communists still won? In its first report, NSC 1, the council
made plans for that contingency: the US would
declare a national emergency, put the Sixth Fleet on alert in the Mediterranean
and support paramilitary activities to overthrow
the Italian government.
That's a pattern that's been relived over and over. If you look at France and
Germany and Japan, you get pretty much the same
story. Nicaragua is another case. You strangle them, you starve them, and then
you have an election and everybody talks about
how wonderful democracy is.
The person who opened up this topic (as he did many others) was Gabriel Kolko,
in his classic book Politics of War in 1968.
It was mostly ignored, but it's a terrific piece of work. A lot of the
documents weren't around then, but his picture turns out to
be quite accurate. "
> This and many other of your arguments approach the level of a paranoid
> fantasy; it appears that it doesn't occur, and there's no concrete evidence
> that it does, but there's this giant seekrut conspiracy involving everyone
> but a tiny minority who are nevertheless the only ones who know about it,
> and this conspiracy quietly manipulates, well, everything, even though the
> effects of the manipulation are so subtle that no one can see it.
Much as I like pandering to the X-files fans, the "conspiracy" is not one of
the government, but rather of multi-national corporations. The government is
faceless and inhumane, but it is (at least in theory) accountable to the
public. Corporations are not so easily influenced especially if the are
international in scope. You can organize boycotts, but they are only partially
effective. Try boycotting BASF for instance. The "seekrut conspiracy" model of
the X-files cabal with Cancer Man and the others smoking cigars in the
wainscotted room *is* ridiculous, but the fact remains that corporate control
*has* been, and continues to be concentrated in fewer and fewer numbers of
corporate entities.
Anyway, on to my second quotation which addresses the "free press."
"In the democratic system, the necessary illusions cannot be imposed by force.
Rather, they must be instilled in the public mind
by more subtle means. A totalitarian state can be satisfied with lesser degrees
of allegiance to required truths. It is sufficient that
people obey; what they think is a secondary concern. But in a democratic
political order, there is always the danger that
independent thought might be translated into political action, so it is
important to eliminate the threat at its root.
Debate cannot be stilled, and indeed, in a properly functioning system of
propaganda, it should not be, because it has a
system-reinforcing character if constrained within proper bounds. What is
essential is to set the bounds firmly. Controversy may
rage as long as it adheres to the presuppositions that define the consensus of
elites, and it should furthermore be encouraged
within these bounds, thus helping to establish these doctrines as the very
condition of thinkable thought while reinforcing the
belief that freedom reigns. "
This is from _Nessary Illusions_ availble on line at:
http://www.worldmedia.com/archive/ni/ni.html.
Also:
"Non-Conspiracy Analysis of Propaganda System
October 24, 1986
Barsamian: ... [W]ho are the mandarins, or to use Gramsci's term, the "experts
in legitimation"?
Chomsky: The experts in legitimation, the ones who labor to make what people in
power do seem legitimate, are mainly the
privileged educated elites. The journalists, the academics, the teachers, the
public relations specialists, this whole category of
people have a kind of an institutional task, and that is to create the system
of belief which will ensure the effective engineering of
consent. And again, the more sophisticated of them say that. In the academic
social sciences, for example, there's quite a
tradition of explaining the necessity for the engineering of democratic
consent. There are very few critics of this position. Among
them is a well-known social scientist named Robert Dahl who has pointed out --
as is obviously true -- that if you have a
political system in which you plug in the options from a privileged position,
and that's democracy, it's indistinguishable from
totalitarianism. It's very rare that people point that out.
In the public relations industry, which is a major industry in the United
States and has been for a long time, 60 years or more,
this is very well understood. In fact, that's their purpose. That's one of the
reasons this is such a heavily polled society, so that
business can keep its finger on the popular pulse and recognize that, if
attitudes have to be changed, we'd better work on it.
That's what public relations is for, very conscious, very well understood. When
you get to what these guys call the institutions
responsible for "the indoctrination of the young," the schools and the
universities, at that point it becomes somewhat more subtle.
By and large, in the schools and universities people believe they're telling
the truth. The way that works, with rare exceptions, is
that you cannot make it through these institiutions unless you've accepted the
indoctrination. You're kind of weeded out along
the way. Independent thinking is encouraged in the sciences but discouraged in
these areas. If people do it they're weeded out
as radical or there's something wrong with them. It doesn't have to work 100
percent, in fact, it's even better for the system if
there are a few exceptions here and there. It gives the illusion of debate or
freedom. But overwhelmingly, it works.
In the media, it's still more obvious. The media, after all, are corporations
integrated into some of the major corporations in the
country. The people who own and manage them belong to the same narrow elite of
owners and managwers who control the
private economy and who control the state, so it's a very narrow nexus of
corporate media and state managers and owners.
They share the same perceptions, the same understanding, and so on. That's one
major point. So, naturally, they're going to
perceive issues, suppress, control and shape in the interest of the groups that
they represent: ultimately the interests of private
ownership of the economy -- that's where it's really based. Furthermore, the
media also have a market: advertisers, not the
public. People have to buy newspapers, but the newspapers are designed to get
the public to buy them so that they can raise
their advertising rates. The newspapers are essentially being sold to
advertisers via the public. Since the corporation is selling it
and its market is businesses, that's another respect in which the corporate
system or the business system generally is going to be
able to control the contents of the media. In other words, if by some
unimaginable accident they began to get out of line,
advertising would fall off, and that's a constraint.
State power has the same effect. The media want to maintain their intimate
relation to state power. They want to get leaks, they
want to get invited to the press conferences. They want to rub shoulders with
the Secretary of State, all that kind of business.
To do that, you've got to play the game, and playing the game means telling
their lies, serving as their disinformation apparatus.
Quite apart from the fact that they're going to do it anyway out of their own
interest and their own status in the society, there are
these kinds of pressures that force them into it. It's a very narrow system of
control, ultimately.
Then comes the question of the individual journalist, you know, the young kid
who decides to become an honest journalist.
Well, you try. Pretty soon you are informed by your editor that you're a little
off base, you're a little too emotional, you're too
involved in the story, you've got to be more objective. There's a whole pile of
code words for this, and what those code words
mean is "Get in line, buddy, or you're out." Get in line means follow the party
line. One thing that happens then is that people
drop out. But those who decide to conform usually just begin to believe what
they're saying. In order to progress you have to
say certain things; what the copy editor wants, what the top editor is giving
back to you. You can try saying it and not believing
it, but that's not going to work, people just aren't that dishonest, you can't
live with that, it's a very rare person who can do that.
So you start saying it and pretty soon you're believing it because you're
saying it, and pretty soon you're inside the system.
Furthermore, there are plenty of rewards if you stay inside. For people who
play the game by the rules in a rich society like this,
there are ample rewards. You're well off, you're privileged, you're rich, you
have prestige, you have a share of power if you
want, if you like this kind of stuff you can go off and become the State
Department spokesman on something or other, you're
right near the center of at least privilege, sometimes power, in the richest,
most powerful country in the world. You can go far,
as long as you're very obedient and subservient and disciplined. So there are
many factors, and people who are morwe
independent are just going to drop off or be kicked out. In this case there are
very few exceptions."
This is available in its entirety at:
http://www.worldmedia.com/archive/interviews/dissent-excerpts.html.
I should really condense this down, but I think that it bears a wider
readership than it gets in the US.
Buboe the RAT ( Its bedtime and I'm coming down with a cold)
Endymion
Axel <axelmaya@SPAM_is_not_very_NICEglobalserve.net> wrote
> >Any
> >acceptable definition of fascism must include one-party rule
> >generally by a single strongman, state control of all media,
> >government regulation of the economy for strategic goals,
declaration
> >of a constant state of emergency or war, rejection (or
subordination
> >to the party) of religion or any other possible rival to loyalty
to
> >the state, a dual cult of modernism and primitivism which rejects
> >Enlightenment-descended European thought, and extreme militarism
> >which results in subordination of civilian government to the
military
> >rather than the reverse which is a central tenet of American
> >constitutionalism.
>
> The only problem with this definition is that it does not
accurately reflect
> the Fascist Movement in Italy, or even the structure of National
Socialist
> German Workers Party (NSDAP) which had quite different structures.
How does it fail to describe Italy? One party rule, headed by
Mussolini, sate control of media, regulation of economy, a call for
wars of conquest to recreate the Roman Empire, a cult of modernism,
appeal to pre-Christian Roman roots, militarism... the only element
missing is subversion or suppression of religion, but that was
certainly done in Germany and Spain.
> The contemporary definition of fascism seems to be authoritarian
boot boys
> trying to suppress freedom through street gangs and gaining
political powers,
> preferably with some racism thrown in for good measure.
Neither Italy nor Spain was racist in their fascism.
> >Fascism is a specific and well-defined movement
> However since definitions change through usage it is more useful to
go
> along with the contemporary use of a word than it's original and
technical
> meaning.
We are not talking about a technical term, we are talking about an
attempt to brand a modern movement with a label associated with a
specific historical movement, and, by association, the crimes and
excesses of that movement. In this context I will stick to correct
definitions, thank you.
> >(on sports fans)
> >> Nope, I merely mean to suggest that these are means of
distraction
> >of
> >> people from issues of self-determination.
> >
> >And I, to suggest that it is not only conservatives who do so.
>
> I would suggest that it is the right who benefit the most from it.
There is no basis whatsoever for making this statement.
> >two of the most exclusive
> >and elitist institutions in this society, academia and the press,
are
> >among the last and most dedicated bastions of the old radical
left.
>
> But, the media is predominantly owned by the right and is squeezing
left wing
> journalists out (cf. Rupert Murdoch & Conrad Black).
The writers and editors control what's written as much as the owners,
and they are overwhelmingly left-wing - I have seen surveys
indicating that over 90% of newspaper reporters in the US voted for
Dukakis, who had less than 40% of the general public's vote.
> >> The Soviets have always been portrayed as expansionist by
western
> >> propaganda.
> >
> >And rightfully so, at least since WW2.
>
> No more so than the U.S.
No one said the US wasn't.
> Especially since they didn't even attempt to stop Yugoslavia from
leaving their
> sphere of influence even though it remained neutral from the mid
'50's.
Yugoslavia, no. The Baltic States, Poland, North Korea, South Korea,
Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Angola, Vietnam, Afghanistan, to name a few,
yes.
Endymion
Felixth...@hotmail.com wrote
> > Iraq was never anything remotely like a US client state. If
>
> Actually, Iraq received significant assistance from the US during
the
Bullshit. What comic book or liner notes did you pull this crap out
of?
> Iran-Iraq war, including intelligence, money, some advanced arms
sold
> indirectly to Iraq,
What arms?
> and chemical and biological weapons,
We don't even produce these ourselves, and certainly NEVER
distributed them to Iraq.
> and in fact there
> were American combat advisors on the ground in Iraq by the end of
the war
> helping Saddam.
This is so laughably pathetic I am having trouble wiping the tears
from my eyes as I type this reply. You should write for the X-Files.
> the fact remains that the US was Saddam's sugar-daddy.
Hardly a technical term. I would like you to refer me to the portion
of any defense appropriation bill authorizing aid to Iraq, or the
Congressional hearings at which any of this was revealed.
> Funny thing - side note - most people in the US have forgotten that
Saddam
> also pre-cleared his attack on Kuwait
It was not "pre-cleared" and that is an absurd stretch. It is true
that he was not sufficiently deterred; IIRC that was based on
erroneous intelligence estimates that he would not actually invade
and was just trying to goad us.
> Again this is pure baloney - he was brought down by corruption and
massive
> class differences between the rich and the poor, and his own
totalitarian form
> of government (not to mention the widespread use of torture by the
CIA and
> Mosad trained Iranian SAVAK as documented by Amnesty)
Torture, executions, and political prisoners all increased
drastically after the Khomeini regime assumed power.
> As for the idea that the reason for the downfall of the Shah was
that he was
> "modernizing" the nation too fast, that's pure rubbish.
I see you did not respond to the question of women's' rights in Iran,
this was in fact a huge factor in the revolution. Women in Iran today
have slightly fewer rights than dogs.
> > The one big US military contribution to the 1st Gulf War was to
> > maintain free shipping through the Straits of Hormuz; Iran made
the
> > mistake of threatening the shipping and Iraq did not.
>
> Actually, this too is baloney - Iran was busy attacking Kuwaiti
ships.
So how does this make what I said baloney? Iran was trying to cut off
the oil flow through the straits; we stopped them from cutting it
off.
> US "reflagging" of the Kuwaiti
> ships, and assistance to Saddam, was a violation of international
law and the
> Charter of the United Nations.
Reflagging Kuwaiti ships is not the same as assistance to Saddam. I
was not arguing about the legality of the action, which is another
question, I was discussing the nature and motivation of US
involvement.
Endymion
Buboe the Rat <f...@execulink.com> wrote
> Madame Speaker, I'd like to say that I do not think that the
Honourable
> Member for Atlanta
Charlottesville.
>is truly aware of the suffering caused by US foreign policy.
There is very little to be aware of, comparatively speaking.
> The Honourable Member makes the point that things might be worse
> under another regime, but I'd like to rebut by saying that this is
merely
> a defense of the status quo.
Of course it is. Your job is to show that there's something wrong
with it.
The rest of your argument seems to be that people suffer in the
world, and the US is rich, therefore it all must be our fault.
Nonsense. Saying the US might conceivably prevent some small measure
of the harm, or even showing that we should do more about it, is not
at all the same as proving we cause the harm. You have yet to show
shred one of evidence or make any argument that we cause the harm;
all you've done is said the word is a miserable place, and assumed
that it must be because we want it to be so.
One thing I must respond to:
> its own remain at Cold War levels, increasing
> today while social spending is being severely cut.
This is utter and absolute idiocy. Defense budgets have been slashed
and slashed again while social spending (including entitlements) has
been rising geometrically, Take a look at any budget for the last 6
years. Defense spending is now at its lowest level as a percentage of
both GNP and the total budget since 1939.
But even if it weren't, that still doesn't mean it's OUR fault if
someone in China is beaten or someone in Somalia is poor.
Endymion
Please try to trim your posts a little; this keeps going over 300
lines.
Buboe the Rat <f...@execulink.com> wrote i
> I feel you maintain an unreasonably strict
> definition of fascism. As I see it, to you unless the person is a
WWII German
> Nazi or the like, then the concept of fascism just doesn't apply
I have tried to keep my definition away from purely Nazi crimes; but
I do think a definition of fascism which does not include Nazi
Germany and Fascist Italy, Spain, and Argentina is an incorrect one.
> In your rebuttal, you raised two separate issues: Fascism and the
free press.
> As a comment on fascism, I'd like to relate some information on the
American
> use of Nazi "human resources."
No one has denied this for decades; the Soviets did the same, which
does not excuse it but does question whether it means the US is or
was itself fascist.
> My first quote is from Noam Chomsky's
You are relying way too much on one extremely biased author, and I
suggest you read some other accounts of the period.
> General Reinhard Gehlen was the head of German military
intelligence on the
> eastern front. That's where the real war crimes
> were. Now we're talking about Auschwitz and other death camps.
No we're not. Same front, entirely different organization. Intel was
Wehrmacht, the camps were an SS operation. The Wehrmacht committed
brutal crimes but should not be confused with the SS.
> If you look at the American army's counterinsurgency literature (a
lot of which
> is now declassified), it begins with an analysis of
> the German experience in Europe, written with the cooperation of
Nazi officers.
> Everything is described from the point of view
> of the Nazis -- which techniques for controlling resistance worked,
which ones
> didn't. With barely a change, that was
> transmuted into American counterinsurgency literature.
This is an extreme twisting of what actually happened. To say we
learned from the Nazi's mistakes and incorporated their experience
and mistakes into our manuals is NOT to say we incorporated their
methods. If nothing else, this would have been foolish since one
lesson of WW2 is that Nazi-style coin (counterinsurgency) didn't
work. US coin methods in, say Vietnam, bore no resemblance whatsoever
to the hamhanded Nazi approach.
> The US left behind armies the Nazis had established in Eastern
Europe, and
> continued to support them at least into the early 1950s.
Nonsense. I have never seen a single source for this, and I have read
plenty on postwar Europe. Most of the resistance movements left were
ANTI-Nazi; the pro-Nazi forces outside Yugoslavia were largely
regular forces and were disbanded by the USSR. Many former anti-Nazi
partisans operated against Stalinist occupation after the war,
particularly in the Ukraine where they persisted until 1951.
> So the first chapter would primarily describe US -- and some
British
> -- operations throughout the world that aimed to
> destroy the anti-fascist resistance and restore the traditional,
essentially
> fascist, order to power.
This statement must be seen in light of the author's, or his
sources', evident belief in the international Marxist revolution,
which means any movement opposed to Soviet rule must ipso facto be
"essentially fascist". The traditional order in most places outside a
few states in central Europe was not fascist.
> In Greece, it meant destroying the peasant
> and worker base of the anti-Nazi resistance
"Peasant and worker base?" This crap sounds like something straight
out of Mao's little red book.
Actually it was the communists who attempted and failed to subvert
the peasants by a terror campaign so brutal that even neighboring
communist states such as Yugoslavia and Albania withdrew their
support. Greece is a how-to manual for failed revolution.
> and restoring Nazi collaborators to power.
They were never Nazi collaborators, they were the government that had
fled Nazi rule to Britain in 1941. While it is true that the US
covertly used former Nazis as intel assets, there is not a single
country where former Nazis or Nazi puppets were restored to power.
> When British and then American troops moved into southern Italy,
they simply
> reinstated the fascist order -- the industrialists.
Oh come on. Again, this is true only if you assume capitalism =
fascism.
> Next we worked on destroying the democratic process. The left was
obviously
> going to win the elections; it had a lot of prestige
> from the resistance, and the traditional conservative order had
been
> discredited. The US wouldn't tolerate that. At its first
> meeting, in 1947, the National Security Council decided to withhold
food and
> use other sorts of pressure to undermine the election.
Funny, Mr. Chomsky doesn't seem to have heard of the Marshall plan
under which the US rebuilt half of Europe (and offered aid to the
other half but the Sovs wouldn't allow it).
I also note the lack of mention of any place behind the Iron curtain.
The west had free elections, however Mr. Chomsky tries to twist facts
to show they were influenced by US aid; the east either had none, or,
as in Poland, the results were simply disregarded, the elected
government tossed out, and a Soviet puppet regime installed by their
military.
> That's a pattern that's been relived over and over. If you look at
France
Which was not under US control; civil authority was returned to the
French gov't in 1944.
> Germany
Free elections held in the west; none in the east, which remained
forcibly occupied by Soviet troops and ruled by a hated Soviet puppet
regime until the 1990's. The Berlin Wall was built because the east
was in danger of becoming entirely depopulated by refugees fleeing to
the "fascist" west.
> and Japan
Again, free democratic elections have been held there since the late
1940's; American occupation ended I believe in 1951, while the USSR
seized Japanese territory which Russia still holds since it has never
concluded a peace treaty with Japan.
> Corporations are not so easily influenced especially if the are
> international in scope. You can organize boycotts, but they are
only partially
> effective. Try boycotting BASF for instance. The "seekrut
conspiracy" model of
> the X-files cabal with Cancer Man and the others smoking cigars in
the
> wainscotted room *is* ridiculous, but the fact remains that
corporate control
> *has* been, and continues to be concentrated in fewer and fewer
numbers of
> corporate entities.
I agree corporations can be nasty but I have seen no evidence or
credible arguments that they are engaged in any grand conspiracies
beyond petty price-fixing and the like or that they exert any control
over the government other than by the well-known and public device of
campaign donations.
(snip massive amounts of utter BS from Mr. Chomsky, of whom I grow
increasingly weary)
> if you have a
> political system in which you plug in the options from a privileged
position,
> and that's democracy, it's indistinguishable from
> totalitarianism. It's very rare that people point that out.
Now we're back to a paranoid fantasy. If a capitalist democracy
controls the press, it's totalitarian. If it doesn't, it's subtly
totalitarian. In other words, totalitarianism is defined and detected
not by practice, operation, or structure, but solely by deviance from
Mr. Chomsky's preferred social policy.
None of the facts I listed have been challenged, nor the arguments I
put forward addressed. Instead we have the ravings of a paranoiac
convinced that all aspects of life are controlled by a secret cabal
unknown to anyone but the privileged few.
I ask again, if the press is not free, why is it that major media
frequently espouse views directly contrary to those of the ruling
party, and why is it that materials challenging every conceivable
aspect of the existing order - materials such as Mr. Chomsky's
ravings - are not only available, but widely, easily, and openly
available through corporate-owned mass media? Can you name one point
of view, other than immediate advocacy of assassination or riot, that
is not legally and freely expressed by some media outlet today? Can
you name one authoritarian, totalitarian, fascist, or communist
state, or indeed any nation in the world other than the US, western
Europe, and nations with governments modeled on them, that has such
freedom?
If the US lacks freedom of the press, it is only because Mr. Chomsky
has defined freedom so strictly and narrowly that no society, not
even a theoretical one, could possibly possess it.
Buboe the Rat
Endymion wrote:
> We are not talking about a technical term, we are talking about an
> attempt to brand a modern movement with a label associated with a
> specific historical movement, and, by association, the crimes and
> excesses of that movement. In this context I will stick to correct
> definitions, thank you.
These definitions seem to suit your agenda of denying that the US is not
what it portrays itself to be. Your exceeding narrow definition of
fascism seems to preclude any subsequent regime being labeled as such or
having its actions questioned on the basis that they are worthy of Nazi
Germany. These definitions are "correct" by whose standards?
>
> > >(on sports fans)
> > >> Nope, I merely mean to suggest that these are means of
> distraction
> > >of
> > >> people from issues of self-determination.
>
> The writers and editors control what's written as much as the owners,
> and they are overwhelmingly left-wing - I have seen surveys
> indicating that over 90% of newspaper reporters in the US voted for
> Dukakis, who had less than 40% of the general public's vote.
By comparison, your Democrats are the equivalent to Canadian
conservatives. The "liberal" press in the US only serves to define the
limits of acceptable debate. Anything outside these limits is ignored.
Some of what gets printed in Canada, would prolly not see the light of
day in the US. Furthermore, I'd suggest that the writers and editors of
a particular organ of the press do not rise in influence unless they
prove to the owners that they have internalized the owners' values. A
paper is a corporation. Corporations are totalitarian, not democratic,
in nature. These corporations are owned by business concerns. What gets
printed suits the business agenda. If there is dissent, it exists to
pacify the spectating public into believing that some sort of vital
political process is going on when it is not.
> Yugoslavia, no. The Baltic States, Poland, North Korea, South Korea,
> Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Angola, Vietnam, Afghanistan, to name a few,
> yes.
The Koreas were victims of Chinese influence. Vietnam is seen by some as
an example of American expansionist policies. The Gulf of Tonkin
incident, I think, was later shown to be a hoax. Angola is questionable
as an example of Soviet aggression.
Actually a case can be made that there was a tacit, unspoken agreement
between the USSR and the US. The USSR was allowed to oppress its peoples
and those of neighbouring states, and the US was given free reign to
exploit the rest of the world.
Buboe the RAT.
Buboe the Rat
Endymion wrote:
> Bullshit. What comic book or liner notes did you pull this crap out
> of?
From what "comic book" did you get your impression that this assertion
is untrue?
> > and chemical and biological weapons,
>
> We don't even produce these ourselves, and certainly NEVER
> distributed them to Iraq.
The US is the largest arms broker in the world. Unfortunately Canada is
right up there too!
>
> > and in fact there
> > were American combat advisors on the ground in Iraq by the end of
> the war
> > helping Saddam.
>
> This is so laughably pathetic I am having trouble wiping the tears
> from my eyes as I type this reply. You should write for the X-Files.
Instead of asserting that it is "laughably pathetic" merely because it
does not fit your belief set, you might want to back up your assertions
with some facts.
> > Funny thing - side note - most people in the US have forgotten that
> Saddam
> > also pre-cleared his attack on Kuwait
>
> It was not "pre-cleared" and that is an absurd stretch. It is true
> that he was not sufficiently deterred; IIRC that was based on
> erroneous intelligence estimates that he would not actually invade
> and was just trying to goad us.
More Chomsky:
"Why was a diplomatic resolution so unattractive? Within a few weeks
after the invasion of Kuwait on August 2, the basic outlines for a
possible political settlement were becoming clear. Security Council
resolution 660, calling for Iraq's withdrawalfrom Kuwait, also called
for simultaneous negotiations of border issues. By mid-August, the
National Security Council considered an Iraqi proposal to withdraw from
Kuwait in that context.
There appear to have been two issues: first, Iraqi access to the Gulf,
which would have entailed a lease or other control overtwo uninhabited
mudflats assigned to Kuwait by Britain in its imperial settlement (which
had left Iraq virtually landlocked);second, resolution of a dispute over
an oil field that extended two miles into Kuwait over an unsettled
border.
The US flatly rejected the proposal, or any negotiations. On August 22,
without revealing these facts about the Iraqi initiative(which it
apparently knew), the New York Times reported that the Bush
Administration was determined to block the"diplomatic track" for fear
that it might "defuse the crisis" in very much this manner. (The basic
facts were published a week laterby the Long Island daily Newsday, but
the media largely kept their silence.)
The last known offer before the bombing, released by US officials on
January 2, 1991, called for total Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait. There
were no qualifications about borders, but the offer was made in the
context of unspecified agreements on other "linked" issues: weapons of
mass destruction in the region and the Israel-Arab conflict.
The latter issues include Israel's illegal occupation of southern
Lebanon, in violation of Security Council resolution 425 of March 1978,
which called for its immediate and unconditional withdrawal from the
territory it had invaded. The US response was that there would be no
diplomacy. The media suppressed the facts, Newsday aside, while lauding
Bush's high principles.
The US refused to consider the "linked" issues because it was opposed to
diplomacy on all the "linked" issues. This had been made clear months
before Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, when the US had rejected Iraq's offer
of negotiations over weapons of mass destruction. In the offer, Iraq
proposed to destroy all such chemical and biological weapons, if other
countries in the region also destroyed their weapons of mass
destruction."
The US refused to allow any diplomatic solution because it might
compromise Israel's possesion of nuclear weapons, something which under
American law makes US aid to Israel illegal in the States.
> Torture, executions, and political prisoners all increased
> drastically after the Khomeini regime assumed power.
This is an unsupported statement. I think that this is just your
supposition.
>
> > As for the idea that the reason for the downfall of the Shah was
> that he was
> > "modernizing" the nation too fast, that's pure rubbish.
>
> I see you did not respond to the question of women's' rights in Iran,
> this was in fact a huge factor in the revolution. Women in Iran today
> have slightly fewer rights than dogs.
Is this a clever attempt to demonize the author as anti-feminist? True,
the fundie Islamics do violate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
(UD), but so does the US. Also, did we both not draw a parallel between
the fundies of Islam and the fundies of the US? Women in Iran may have
few rights but women in the US still do not have equality with men, and
I'd suggest that their rights would be reduced under right wing
fundamnetalist rule as opposed to liberal rule.
>
> Reflagging Kuwaiti ships is not the same as assistance to Saddam. I
> was not arguing about the legality of the action, which is another
> question, I was discussing the nature and motivation of US
> involvement.
Since you brought up legalities here, which US president was "condemned
by the World Court for the "unlawful use of force" (in the Court's
condemnation of the US attack against Nicaragua)?" Was it President
Bush?
Buboe the RAT
Endymion
Your latest post hasn't made it past the firewall here yet, so I have to
reply to my own.
Buboe the Rat wrote:
>My first quote is from Noam Chomsky's _Secrets, Lies and >Democracy_, the
chapter is entitled "How the Nazi's won the War". >The entire book is
available on line at >http://www.worldmedia.com/archive/sld/sld.html
I checked out the Noam Chomsky link you supplied.
First off, this isn't a book, it's excerpts from a radio talk show. Have
you ever read a real book? Do you understand the difference and why it's
important? I must say, getting all your info off the web is a very
dangerous practice, and it's no surprise that the reult is a shocking
ignorance of even the most basic facts of recent history.
Second, the interview contains numerous absurd and absolutely incorrect
assertions by Mr. Chomsky. It saddens me that someone I had once considered
a capable if misguided intellectual has sunk to being a purveyor of such
blatant misinformation. This is however only in keeping with the leftist
intelligentsia's increasing state of denial.
By way of example I will deal mostly with WW2 and its aftermath since
that's where I have done the most reading (books, not web sites).
(on German prisoners)
>The prisoners were treated very brutally, starved, etc. Since these >camps
were in gross violation of international conventions, they were >kept
secret. We were afraid that the Germans might retaliate and treat >American
prisoners the same way.
He is basing this on James Bacque's _Other Losses_, a book which is at best
highly controversial and at worst discredited among WW2 historians. The
survivial rate of POWs taken by the US and UK was the highest in the war,
so much so that at the end of the war entire German formations fought like
demons just to make it to the west to surrender to the Allies instead of
the Soviets.
>Furthermore, the camps continued after the war; I forget for how long,
>but I think the US kept German POWs until mid-1946.
In the USSR they were kept until 1955. Of course it took the US a year to
demobilize everyone; 1945-46 were very chaotic years and we couldn't just
dump a couple of million POW's out in the countryside to starve and loot.
(On Yeltsin's reforms)
>These "reforms" are designed to return the former Soviet Union to the
>Third World status it had for the five hundred years before the Bolshevik
>Revolution. The Cold War was largely about the demand that this huge
>region of the world once again become what it had been -- an area of
>resources, markets and cheap labor for the West.
Here is another little lie - Russia was never a source of any of the above
for the west; its economy was largely autonomous. France was just barely
beginning an economic penetration of Russia when WW1 and the Bolsheviks
came along.
>In Korea (where we ran the operation alone), restoring the traditional
>order meant killing about 100,000 people just in the late 1940s, before
>the Korean War began.
Funny how despite this supposed mass atrocity refugees were fleeing fom the
Soviet-controlled North to the US-oppressed South to the tune of half a
million or more.
I notice too that in recounting atrocities, Chomsky fails to note the 30-50
million people murdered under Stalin's rule or the 50-60 million under
Mao's (giving Chairman Mao the dubious honor of being the most
bloody-handed ruler in all history, surpassing Hitler even if we blame the
latter for every European death in WW2). He fails to compare US occupation
policies with those of the USSR, such as in Poland where the Soviets
initially assisted the German takeover, then murdered 50,000 captive Polish
officers in cold blood (the now well-documented Katyn Forest massacre), sat
by (just across the Vistula) and not only refused to help the Polish
resistance when it revolted in 1944, but refused the US flyover rights to
help the resistance with airdrops, thus letting the Nazis slaughter
everyone with the slightest backbone in Warsaw, refused to recognize the
Polish government in exile or the results of the post-war elections and
instead installed a brutal puppet regime.
Could it be that some of the US excesses - which were unbelievably mild in
comparison - were due to the dire necessity of keeping such murderous,
vicious thugs from expanding their power?
>But the big problem came when the troops got to the north, which the
>Italian resistance had already liberated. The place was functioning --
>industry was running. We had to dismantle all of that and restore the >old
order.
Now this is where Chomsky gets into the realm of demonstrable fantasy, I
mean honest-to-goodness alternate history, and I don't even have to go to
the library to prove it. The resistance never liberated urban areas in
Italy. The industrial north - meaning everything from Bologna up, including
Torino, Milan, etc. - was held by Mussolini's puppet gov't and German
troops until late April 1945. The Allied drive to liberate this area
started on the 20th and all German forces south of the Alps surrendered to
General Alexander on April 30th. Any resistance control of the industrial
plant was measured in hours. This info is substantiated by three general
histories of the war I have on hand, by Robert Leckie, J.F.C. Fuller, and
B.H. Liddell Hart.
I don't know where Chomsky gets his version of events but is is plainly a
pack of lies, which calls all of his other "facts" and conclusions into
question. If I were you I would stop reading a bunch of nonsense and
fabrication on the web and go to the library or to a bookstore read a book
or two - preferably by a real historian, or better yet someone who's
actually been out in the world and done something real, and not some
stuffed shirt who trumpets himself as the most important intellectual alive
and thus apparently considers the superior power of his mind to be above
such trivialities as facts or historical reality.
Oh, and lastly
>The interviews this book is based on were broadcast as part of
>Barsamian's Alternative Radio series, which is heard on 100 stations in
>the US, Canada, Europe and Australia.
This sort of explodes the myth that the gov't and corporations control the
media and keep opposing viewpoints from being heard, doesn't it?
Marco Anglesio
On Tue, 07 Apr 1998 07:19:58 -0400, Buboe the Rat <f...@execulink.com> wrote:
>Actually a case can be made that there was a tacit, unspoken agreement
>between the USSR and the US. The USSR was allowed to oppress its peoples
>and those of neighbouring states, and the US was given free reign to
>exploit the rest of the world.
There was, more or less. The Monroe Doctrine allocates the americas to the
American sphere of influence, and has since the late 19th C; the Yalta
conference more-or-less allocated eastern europe to the Soviet sphere of
influence. The Pacific rim is part of the American sphere of influence,
following the theory of A. T. Mahan, except on the asian coast (with the
exception of the Korean peninsula) from the Bering strait to SE Asia and
Polynesia.
Conflicts which involve the major powers (through proxies) occur in
backwater states which belong to neither (Angola), both (Vietnam, Korea),
or are in transition (Indonesia, the Indian subcontinent, the middle
east).
That was an excellent observation, btw.
m.
--
m...@squawk.klue.on.ca Life is like a bad margarita with good tequila,
http://squawk.klue.on.ca I thought, as I poured whiskey onto my granola
Running Debian Linux 2.0 and faced a new day.
Buboe the Rat
Endymion wrote:
>
> > a defense of the status quo.
>
> Of course it is. Your job is to show that there's something wrong
> with it.
Am I right in understanding that the status quo is "innocent until
proven guilty" or so to speak? What about the status quo with regard to
slavery in your own state prior to 1865. I'd say that the status quo
mostly serves those who hold the reins of power and stand the most to
lose if the status quo changes.
>
> The rest of your argument seems to be that people suffer in the
> world, and the US is rich, therefore it all must be our fault.
The US consumes the bulk of the world's natural resources including
food. Third world countries export their natural resources to the US
(and Canada, etc.) for consumption. It is a typical American attitude to
ignore suffering elsewhere, make some perfunctory gestures to appease
world opinion, and then to abandon the rest of the world to its fate.
> But even if it weren't, that still doesn't mean it's OUR fault if
> someone in China is beaten or someone in Somalia is poor.
If you like Heinlein (sigh), then he'd say that the eater of the beef is
on the same moral level as the butcher. The US and Canada get goods
produced by cheap labour in China being exploited under most appalling
conditions.
Endymion
> > > and chemical and biological weapons,
> >
> > We don't even produce these ourselves, and certainly NEVER
> > distributed them to Iraq.
>
> The US is the largest arms broker in the world. Unfortunately
Canada is
> right up there too!
As usual, you answer a direct assertion with a vague statement that
doesn't address the issue. Yes, we are a major arms broker. Yes, we
have sold arms to people we shouldn't have. That is not evidence that
Iraq was a customer, or that the goods have ever in the last 80 years
included chemical or biological weapons. Just what sort of chem and
bio weapons are we being accused of distributing? I suppose next I'll
be hearing that we gave nukes to Israel.
> > > and in fact there
> > > were American combat advisors on the ground in Iraq by the end
of
> > the war
> > > helping Saddam.
> >
> > This is so laughably pathetic I am having trouble wiping the
tears
> > from my eyes as I type this reply. You should write for the
X-Files.
>
> Instead of asserting that it is "laughably pathetic" merely because
it
> does not fit your belief set, you might want to back up your
assertions
> with some facts.
I think when he is making such an incredible assertion, it is his job
to provide references. How do you provide negative proof? There is no
credible source for any assertion of US troops in Iraq, because it
never happened. Evidence of such an assertion never appeared in any
US media, even left-leaning publications which repeated the charge
that Iraq was a US client. It was trouble enough having advisors in
El Salvador, where there was Congressional approval, or paramilitary
operatives in Nicaragua, where there was a major executive
initiative; none of that existed in Iraq.
> More Chomsky:
I have no interest in any further quotes from Mr. Chomsky, who is a
demonstrable liar. See my previous post on his disinformation.
> > Torture, executions, and political prisoners all increased
> > drastically after the Khomeini regime assumed power.
>
> This is an unsupported statement. I think that this is just your
> supposition.
You're the Amnesty fan, look at their numbers. Khomeini was worse.
> > I see you did not respond to the question of women's' rights in
Iran,
> > this was in fact a huge factor in the revolution. Women in Iran
today
> > have slightly fewer rights than dogs.
>
> Is this a clever attempt to demonize the author as anti-feminist?
No, it is an attempt to demonize the Iranian Revolution as
anti-women.
>True,
> the fundie Islamics do violate the Universal Declaration of Human
>Rights (UD), but so does the US.
This is another old and disingenuous tactic, often practiced by WW2
revisionists of all camps. Set up an ideal standard that no one
satisfies, then say, "Well, side A breaks this law by an inch, while
side B laughs at it and breaks it by 1,000 miles, but neither is
perfect, so they must be moral equivalents."
If we reduce this argument to mathematics, it appears thus:
A>0
B>0
Therefore A=B
This is obvious nonsense.
> Also, did we both not draw a parallel between
> the fundies of Islam and the fundies of the US?
A parallel, yes. Equivalence, no.
>Women in Iran may have
> few rights but women in the US still do not have equality with men,
and
They have equal rights in every way, while there is still some
lingering economic disparity; to admit that this needs to be
addressed is not to say it's the same as Iran, which is a thousand
times worse.
> I'd suggest that their rights would be reduced under right wing
> fundamnetalist rule as opposed to liberal rule.
Pure speculation; also, the new left is not really liberal but rather
radical.
> > Reflagging Kuwaiti ships is not the same as assistance to Saddam.
I
> > was not arguing about the legality of the action, which is
another
> > question, I was discussing the nature and motivation of US
> > involvement.
>
> Since you brought up legalities here,
Read again; I did not.
> which US president was "condemned
> by the World Court
Who cares what the World Court says?
Endymion
Buboe the Rat <f...@execulink.com> wrote
> These definitions seem to suit your agenda of denying that the US
is
> not what it portrays itself to be.
Now you are claiming that the US portrays itself is fascist? You are
demented.
> Your exceeding narrow definition of fascism
I could easily say yours is much too broad.
> seems to preclude any subsequent regime being labeled as such or
> having its actions questioned on the basis that they are worthy of
Nazi
> Germany.
Not at all; all a country has to do is emulate the Nazis or other
fascists. You have failed to show me a single way the US does so,
except that it is by your standards right-wing (which is funny
because the real fascists claimed we were secretly run by
Bolsheviks).
For starter, put civil servants and public school students in
MILITARY-style uniforms (not civilian suits in a standard color) and
give them military training. Institute peacetime conscription and
universal military service. Make the head of the armed forces the
head of state, and make the military and other branches of gov't obey
him rather than the constitution. Nationalize all strategic
industries. Put the media under direct gov't control and ban (not
outprint through more spending, BAN) alternative points of view. That
would go a long way towards being fascist.
> These definitions are "correct" by whose standards?
Those of the founders and practitioners of the movement. Read Mein
Kampf. (Well, skimming is allowed; it's long and dreadfully written
and organized.)
> > The writers and editors control what's written as much as the
owners,
> > and they are overwhelmingly left-wing - I have seen surveys
> > indicating that over 90% of newspaper reporters in the US voted
for
> > Dukakis, who had less than 40% of the general public's vote.
>
> By comparison, your Democrats are the equivalent to Canadian
> conservatives.
Your opinion. The fact is the professional workers in the press are
much more left-leaning than the public. I'm not sounding some Rush
theme about a vast left-wing conspiracy, merely saying it's an
unlikely place to look for a vast RIGHT-wing conspiracy.
> Some of what gets printed in Canada, would prolly not see the light
of
> day in the US.
I have said this three times now: if that's so, why can I find copies
of FAR left magazines at any bookstore in this smallish town? Are you
familiar with the content of High Times and Mother Jones? What could
possibly get printed in Canada that would not see the light of day
here, other than kiddie porn? (And that's illegal there too isn't
it?)
> Furthermore, I'd suggest that the writers and editors of
> a particular organ of the press do not rise in influence unless
they
> prove to the owners that they have internalized the owners' values.
That is a nice idea but the evidence says otherwise. Editors and
reporters are more liberal than conservative all the way up.
> paper is a corporation. Corporations are totalitarian, not
democratic,
> in nature. These corporations are owned by business concerns. What
> gets printed suits the business agenda.
This is a factor, I'll admit. It helps balance out the leftist agenda
of the editors and reporters. Believe me, I work for a publisher; the
upper management cannot control every detail that gets printed based
on political content, and if it wants to stay in business, it has to
respect the professionals who work for it to some degree.
> If there is dissent, it exists to
> pacify the spectating public into believing that some sort of vital
> political process is going on when it is not.
Back to paranoia again. "Any evidence which refutes me only proves my
point."
> > Yugoslavia, no. The Baltic States, Poland, North Korea, South >>
Korea,
> > Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Angola, Vietnam, Afghanistan
> The Koreas were victims of Chinese influence.
China was still under heavy Soviet influence in 1950, and N. Korea
was occupied by the Sovs, not the Chinese. The invasion could not
have been undertaken without Soviet support, as all the weapons,
armor, planes, etc. in the extremely modern N.K. forces were Soviet.
There is wide speculation that the Sovs did not actually approve the
invasion in advance, but they supported it fully after it started.
> Vietnam is seen by some as an example of American expansionist
> policies.
Only by the misinformed. Vietnam may have been a mistake in many ways
but it was not expansionist - S. Vietnam was never in the Soviet
sphere of influence, nor was it at any time communist-ruled; our goal
there was not to take new territory from the Sov bloc but to keep the
rest of SE Asia out of it.
> The Gulf of Tonkin incident, I think, was later shown to be a hoax.
True but utterly irrelevant to this discussion; the importance of the
hoax lies in domestic politics as it showed the Pres. and military
lied to Congress.
>Angola is questionable as an example of Soviet aggression.
How so? Because they used Cubans as proxies? There was a clear
agreement; Cuba would use troops as Sov puppets in exchange for
massive aid, a tactic the US used too of course, most notably with S.
Koreans in Vietnam.
Angola was a classic case of a broad-based popular front which
succeeded in throwing out colonial rule but was then subverted by
communist hard-liners who were a small minority but who were more
unified and ruthless in the post-colonial internecine power struggle.
> Actually a case can be made that there was a tacit, unspoken >
agreement between the USSR and the US. The USSR was allowed to >
oppress its peoples and those of neighbouring states, and the US was
> given free reign to exploit the rest of the world.
It was a little more complex than that and not entirely unspoken, but
damn straight there was agreement, and we should all be glad there
was. Most people in both countries realized that it was better to
make a deal with the devil and try to pick away at him guerrilla
style than to risk total nuclear annihilation if a head-to-head
disagreement turned into war.
That's the main reason both sides looked for proxies and only used
its own troops against enemy proxies; that way there was no direct
US-Soviet combat that could quickly escalate out of control.
Buboe the Rat
Endymion wrote:
> You are relying way too much on one extremely biased author, and I
> suggest you read some other accounts of the period.
That may be, but I think that his opinions bear consideration, and wider
exposure. Your use of "extremely biased" has the taint of mudslinging
about it. Let people read and decide for themselves, I say.
> > General Reinhard Gehlen was the head of German military
> intelligence on the
> > eastern front. That's where the real war crimes
> > were. Now we're talking about Auschwitz and other death camps.
>
> No we're not. Same front, entirely different organization. Intel was
> Wehrmacht, the camps were an SS operation. The Wehrmacht committed
> brutal crimes but should not be confused with the SS.
Brutal crimes are brutal crimes none the less. I'm the one who is
supposed to be splitting hairs. Are you agreeing that General Gehlen was
used by the US?
>
> This is an extreme twisting of what actually happened. To say we
> learned from the Nazi's mistakes and incorporated their experience
> and mistakes into our manuals is NOT to say we incorporated their
> methods. If nothing else, this would have been foolish since one
> lesson of WW2 is that Nazi-style coin (counterinsurgency) didn't
> work. US coin methods in, say Vietnam, bore no resemblance whatsoever
> to the hamhanded Nazi approach.
Which is another way of saying that you learned from the Nazi mistakes.
Also, how do you know so much about COIN OPS? You've scrutinized and
dissected my source and yet yours are hidden and not subject to the same
level of scrutiny.
> (snip massive amounts of utter BS from Mr. Chomsky, of whom I grow
> increasingly weary)
Tough! stop reading the thread then. I grow weary of seeing the social
safety net here in Ontario being dismantled by a US-style conservative
government and seeing the level of social injustice rise thereby. You
have many more options regarding this thread than I do regarding my
current provincial government. Furthermore I grow weary of being
confronted with people indoctrinated to believe that the Bible is
literally true, yet I must treat them with the same respect that I treat
others despite the fact that if my nature were truly known to them, then
I would be shunned and reviled. (trust me)
Getting back, in part, to my original argument that started this thread,
I ask how many RW fundies accept goths? How many would tolerate
black-clad pagan non-conformists (to a greater or lesser extent, I
realize that "GOTH" covers a lot of ground) if they, the xian fundies
had power? How much of the narrow-minded persecution that a visible goth
encounters stems from these xian views?
You assert that the current US capitalist system is not totalitarian. I
say that ANY company is a totalitarian regime, complete with an
(implied) uniform. How many Goths have difficulty finding a job because
of clothing style, visible piercings or tattooing? You yourself have a
conservative hair cut (or so my research indicates) as do I. How is the
attitude that requires this different from the attitude of not hiring
visible minorities based on the idea that sales might suffer because the
customers wouldn't understand? Is this not putting profit above basic
human rights? Is this TRUE democracy? This is the basic premise of all
of Chomsky's arguments: The US puts profit above human rights.
> Now we're back to a paranoid fantasy. If a capitalist democracy
> controls the press, it's totalitarian. If it doesn't, it's subtly
> totalitarian. In other words, totalitarianism is defined and detected
> not by practice, operation, or structure, but solely by deviance from
> Mr. Chomsky's preferred social policy.
I'd say that you are correct, but that you are trying to characterize
his arguments as unpopular and therefore untrue. This is typical of how
the US propaganda system works. If the view doesn't suit the status quo,
then it is "paranoid fantasy." I seem to recall that this technique was
also used in the USSR. Dissidents were often characterized as insane.
> None of the facts I listed have been challenged, nor the arguments I
> put forward addressed. Instead we have the ravings of a paranoiac
> convinced that all aspects of life are controlled by a secret cabal
> unknown to anyone but the privileged few.
I detect the taint of an ad hominem argument here in the use of the
phrase "ravings of a paranoid". I did a search on Deja News using
"Endymion" and "Ad hominem" and in no less than four articles you
protest against its use on this NG. I guess that you are owed another
nickel, Yes? In all fairness, I must ask you to refrain from making
them.
Furthermore, I'd say that you have conceded some points, specifically
the failure of the US democratic efforts to further human rights in
China. I find that your use of the word "none" is erroneous.
Buboe the RAT (guns, guns, guns)
Axel
Endymion wrote in message <01bd61e7$1c60fda0$01a945cf@default>...
>Axel <axelmaya@SPAM_is_not_very_NICEglobalserve.net> wrote
>How does it fail to describe Italy? One party rule, headed by
>Mussolini,
Subject to the Council of Fascists.
>state control of media, regulation of economy,
sort of, and attempted.
Being Italy it certainly was not efficiently done.
>a call for wars of conquest to recreate the Roman Empire, a cult of modernism,
true, but modernism links to certain aspects of the Enlightenment.
>appeal to pre-Christian Roman roots,
But not to the same extent as the return to rural living espoused by the
Nazi's.
>militarism... the only element missing is subversion or suppression of
religion,
Shouldn't have used the word _must_ really.
>>>extreme militarism which results in subordination of civilian government to
the
>>>military
It would have been more accurate to describe this as subordination of both
civilian and military hierarchies to the party.
>> The contemporary definition of fascism seems to be...
<snip>
>> preferably with some racism thrown in for good measure.
>
>Neither Italy nor Spain was racist in their fascism.
As I said, this is what appears to be the contemporary definition of fascism.
If you asked the majority of people who call people fascists whether they think
fascists are racists, my experience is that they would say 'yes'.
>We are not talking about a technical term, we are talking about an
>attempt to brand a modern movement with a label associated with a
>specific historical movement, and, by association, the crimes and
>excesses of that movement. In this context I will stick to correct
>definitions, thank you.
I'm talking about your definition of Fascism.
I do not want to engage in a discussion of an American religious movement.
In Europe the modern definition of fascism fits the definition of fascism that
I have used thus making it a correct definition. I do not have enough knowledge
of its contemporary usage in the U.S. to know whether this is the case here, so
I will accept your definition as valid for American English.
Additionally, the historical movement that the term 'fascism' it is linked to,
by most people, is German National Socialism, and while the Fascists and the
Nazis were allies and came from the same political background (except in as
much as Il Duce was a pacifist Communist in WWI), they were very different
movements (for one thing, Fascism has a fairly clearly defined ideology and
naziism has racism and expediency)and should not be confused if you are talking
about 'correct' definitions which, IMHO, invalidates your point.
If you want to combine the two I would suggest 'right wing, authoritarian,
totalitarianism'.
>> >(on sports fans)
>> I would suggest that it is the right who benefit the most from it.
>
>There is no basis whatsoever for making this statement.
Apathy benefits the status quo much more than people seeking to change it.
IMO, the existing ruling classes are not the primary beneficiaries of the
status quo. Most of said ruling classes are right wing therefore the right has
the most to gain from social apathy.
>The writers and editors control what's written as much as the owners,
>and they are overwhelmingly left-wing - I have seen surveys
>indicating that over 90% of newspaper reporters in the US voted for
>Dukakis, who had less than 40% of the general public's vote.
Anecdote: My father-in-law is left wing, as are most of his colleagues.
The newspaper (non-U.S.) that he writes for has a right wing bias due to its
owner.
The reporters (and more importantly the leader writers) do not want to lose
their jobs so they do not promote their personal political agendas.
Now, I do not know whether the same applies in the U.S., but it certainly does
in the U.K. and Canada.
>> No more so than the U.S.
>
>No one said the US wasn't.
I inferred it from the way you wrote.
I assumed you did not intend to imply it so I made the point.
Axel
Endymion wrote in message <01bd61f0$c5e7f3c0$01a945cf@default>...
>Oh come on. Again, this is true only if you assume capitalism =
>fascism.
Krupp, Siemens, VW, Mercedes did pretty well under the Nazi's.
>I agree corporations can be nasty but I have seen no evidence or
>credible arguments that they are engaged in any grand conspiracies
Grand conspiracies are unnecessary when they share a common interest.
On a local level, corporations behave in very similar ways toward unions
without needing to conspire about it.
Buboe the Rat
Before I get into this, I'd like to inform the reader that Endymion has
a particular stance on ad hominem arguments, at least when they are used
against him. If one were to use the power search feature of Dejanews
using the following, one would find four articles in which Endymion
criticizes the use of such arguments:
Author: Endymion
Keyword: ad hominem
Newsgroup: alt.gothic
However, it can be seen that Endymion takes a rather pragmatic view
about this, i.e. the end justifies the means. He is loathe to allow
others to use such arguments against him, but seems to have no
compunction about using them on others when he sees the need.
Endymion wrote:
> I checked out the Noam Chomsky link you supplied.
>
> First off, this isn't a book, it's excerpts from a radio talk show. Have
> you ever read a real book? Do you understand the difference and why it's
> important?
First off, the root site http://www.worldmedia.com/archive contains ten
on-line versions of actual printed books. In particular, I cite
_Detering Democracy_ a copy of which I can produce if need be. It *is* a
book.
Second, the question "have you ever read a real book?" is a rhetorical
one implying that I am uneducated. This is an ad hominem argument an is
therefore invalid.
Third, I'm not really sure that the medium dictates the value of the
content. Radio interviews have been held with many American presidents.
Does this mean that what they said on the radio has any less value than
what has been recorded on other media?
>I must say, getting all your info off the web is a very
> dangerous practice, and it's no surprise that the reult is a shocking
> ignorance of even the most basic facts of recent history.
This somehow implies that web-based content is somehow inherently
inferior. I disagree. I and many others do banking via websites. Is the
information as to account balances somehow less valid since it is not on
paper? I work for an ISP, and we have a website as does Endymion's ISP
and (I'm assuming) does the company that he works for. Because these are
websites, does that mean that the information thereon is somehow
intrinsically flawed?
Admittedly there are websites and then there are websites. There are
books of questionable content too, _Mien Kampf_ is an excellent example.
Just because _Mien Kampf_ is a book doesn't make it any more valid than
a web site. Also, I think that Endymion is again implying that my
intelligence is suspect, thus making another ad hominem, and therefore
invalid argument.
> Second, the interview contains numerous absurd and absolutely incorrect
> assertions by Mr. Chomsky. It saddens me that someone I had once considered
> a capable if misguided intellectual has sunk to being a purveyor of such
> blatant misinformation. This is however only in keeping with the leftist
> intelligentsia's increasing state of denial.
Ad hominem, ad hominem, ad hominem
> By way of example I will deal mostly with WW2 and its aftermath since
> that's where I have done the most reading (books, not web sites).
Refer to my comments above regarding medium and content quality.
> He is basing this on James Bacque's _Other Losses_, a book which is at best
> highly controversial and at worst discredited among WW2 historians. The
> survivial rate of POWs taken by the US and UK was the highest in the war,
> so much so that at the end of the war entire German formations fought like
> demons just to make it to the west to surrender to the Allies instead of
> the Soviets.
I can produce, with difficulty, an eyewitness account of American
mistreatment of German POW's. In part, the US guards threw rotten meat
to the POW's and watched them fight over it. A film of German POW's
being thrown rotten potatoes by Soviet guards exists to illustrate
similar events on the Soviet side. This particular POW, who was Austrian
BTW, learned his first english words at the age of nineteen. They were,
"Fucking German." He was beaten and kept in deplorable conditions by US
guards.
Another (family member) eyewitness, an eight year old boy at the time,
was beaten for stealing apples to stave off starvation. He was
subsequently rescued from the beating by a Canadian soldier. These
events inspired the family to choose Canada as as a home.
>
> >Furthermore, the camps continued after the war; I forget for how long,
> >but I think the US kept German POWs until mid-1946.
>
> In the USSR they were kept until 1955. Of course it took the US a year to
> demobilize everyone; 1945-46 were very chaotic years and we couldn't just
> dump a couple of million POW's out in the countryside to starve and loot.
Did the US have to detain the prisoners, or merely feed and house them?
Of course, the Soviets treated German POW's worse than the US. They
would shoot SS troops out of hand. Actually though not all the German
POW's were kept until 1955. Some were released after the end of
hostilities. Endymion is saying that they were *all* kept until 1955. If
not then I suggest that he qualify his statement. As well some prisoners
were kept until much later by the Americans.
Here Endymion seems to be making an "end justifies the means" argument
in saying that the US had to detain the German POW's beyond the end of
hostilities when they probably has no legal reason to do so. I'd also
like to remind the reader that West Germany was under US occupation
until the de-partitioning of East and West Germany
> Here is another little lie - Russia was never a source of any of the above
> for the west; its economy was largely autonomous. France was just barely
> beginning an economic penetration of Russia when WW1 and the Bolsheviks
> came along.
The point is that after the fall of the Soviets, Russia came under a
capitalist regime and moved from the 2nd world to the 3rd. I've seen
quite a few interviews with older Russians who want the Communists back.
They are of course portrayed as poor brainwashed victims of Soviet rule,
but I think it has more to do with getting the basic necessities of life
which at least the Soviet state provided them. Don't get me wrong, I'm
not advocating communism over capitalism. I am saying that there is a
wrong way and a right way to do it. People are starving in Russia while
the West turns a profit.
>
> >In Korea (where we ran the operation alone), restoring the traditional
> >order meant killing about 100,000 people just in the late 1940s, before
> >the Korean War began.
>
> Funny how despite this supposed mass atrocity refugees were fleeing fom the
> Soviet-controlled North to the US-oppressed South to the tune of half a
> million or more.
Is Endymion denying that these deaths occurred?
> I notice too that in recounting atrocities, Chomsky fails to note the 30-50
> million people murdered under Stalin's rule or the 50-60 million under
> Mao's (giving Chairman Mao the dubious honor of being the most
> bloody-handed ruler in all history, surpassing Hitler even if we blame the
> latter for every European death in WW2). He fails to compare US occupation
> policies with those of the USSR,
I do not think that Mr. Chomsky denies these deaths occurred.
> Could it be that some of the US excesses - which were unbelievably mild in
> comparison - were due to the dire necessity of keeping such murderous,
> vicious thugs from expanding their power?
Here Endymion makes a pragmatic argument: The US "excesses" (the means)
were justified, regardless of their nature, which is being glossed over
here, because the end, containing communism, justified them.
> plant was measured in hours. This info is substantiated by three general
> histories of the war I have on hand, by Robert Leckie, J.F.C. Fuller, and
> B.H. Liddell Hart.
Well at least now, Endymion is revealing some sources here. They are of
course not being subjected to the same rigor that my Chomsky quotes are.
>
> I don't know where Chomsky gets his version of events but is is plainly a
> pack of lies, which calls all of his other "facts" and conclusions into
> question.
By the same train of logic one could cast doubt on all of Endymion's
assertions and arguments based on the ad hominem arguments, the
pragmatic arguments and the lack of support given to his arguments as
compared with my level of quotation. If we hold Endymion to the same
standard that he holds Chomsky then Endymion is just as full of shite
(now he's got me doing it ;) as he claims that Chomsky is.
>If I were you I would stop reading a bunch of nonsense and
> fabrication on the web and go to the library or to a bookstore read a book
> or two - preferably by a real historian, or better yet someone who's
> actually been out in the world and done something real, and not some
> stuffed shirt who trumpets himself as the most important intellectual alive
> and thus apparently considers the superior power of his mind to be above
> such trivialities as facts or historical reality.
Ad hominem, ad hominem, AD HOMINEM!!!!!!
> This sort of explodes the myth that the gov't and corporations control the
> media and keep opposing viewpoints from being heard, doesn't it?
This argument seems to demonstrate Endymion's dichotomous view of
things. It seems that, to him, if the media is not totally and
completely controlled, then it is not controlled at all. I'd say that
there is a measure of control that delimits the arena of "acceptable"
debate. A similar situation existed in the Soviet Union and exists in
communist China today. Debate, within the acceptable limits, does occur.
It is not by any means as wide as that in the US, but the systems are
different. The communists use military force where the Americans use
economic coersion.
Felixth...@hotmail.com
In article <01bd61e8$96674860$01a945cf@default>,
"Endymion" <disinte...@SPAMTRAPmindspring.com> wrote:
> > and chemical and biological weapons,
>
> We don't even produce these ourselves, and certainly NEVER
> distributed them to Iraq.
"CERTAINLY"???? Have you actually bothered to check on this or are you
just so certain because the truth is too hard to bear?
The US provided chemical weapons, intelligence, anthrax and other such lethal
material, and even cluster bombs to Iraq. Check out the following for a start:
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Copyright © 1996 The Seattle Times Company
Nov. 27, 1996
Head of Gulf War illness panel had ties to chemical supplier
by Patrick J. Sloyan
Newsday
WASHINGTON - A Nobel laureate who headed a 1994 Pentagon study that
dismissed links between chemical and biological weapons and Persian Gulf War
illnesses was a director of a U.S. company that had exported anthrax and
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
other lethal materials to Iraq before the 1991 conflict, according to
federal records.
Renowned geneticist Joshua Lederberg of New York served as chairman of
the Defense Science Board Task Force on Persian Gulf War Health Effects. At
the time of the 1994 study, Lederberg was also on the board of directors of
American Type Culture Collection, or ATCC.
The nonprofit Rockville, Md., company made 70 government-approved
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
shipments of anthrax and other disease-causing pathogens to Iraqi
scientists between 1985 and 1989, according to congressional records.
Lederberg became a director, an unpaid position, in 1990, a year after the
shipments were halted by the Bush administration. Lederberg resigned from
ATCC last year.
During and after the 1991 Gulf War, U.S. intelligence became convinced
that the ATCC shipments, along with supplies from other countries, had been
used by Iraqi scientists for an expanded biological weapons program....etc
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Hypocrisy Seen in U.S. Stand on Iraqi Arms
Mideast: Officials say American intelligence aided Baghdad’s use of
chemical weapons against Iran in ’80s.
By ROBIN WRIGHT, Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON—-A decade before the current showdown
over weapons of mass destruction, the United States turned
a blind eye when Iraq used American intelligence for operations
against Iran that made rampant use of chemical weapons and
ballistic missiles, according to senior administration and former
intelligence officials.
The attacks against civilian and military targets during the
Iran-Iraq War included some of the most pervasive uses of
chemical weapons anywhere since World War I.
The combination of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and
American intelligence eventually helped turn the tide of the
eight-year war in Baghdad's favor. The collaboration reached a
peak shortly after a secret U.S. estimate projected for the first time
that Iran could win one of the century's bloodiest wars.
"We knew [the Iraqis] used chemicals in any major campaign,"
said a former U.S. intelligence official familiar with the American
role. "Although we publicly opposed the use of chemical weapons
anywhere in the world, we knew the intelligence we gave the Iraqis
would be used to develop their own operational plans for chemical
weapons."
Now, 10 years later, the United States is trying to rally world
support for the use of military strikes to destroy the same kinds of
Iraqi weapons—on the grounds that Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein should not be allowed to use them in the future.
As the U.S. struggles to assemble a new coalition to force Iraq
to give up such weapons, Clinton administration officials
acknowledge the apparent hypocrisy in U.S. policy. The United
States, under President Reagan, "virtually encouraged" the use of
chemical weapons a decade ago, noted a frustrated senior Clinton
administration official.
...
"By 1986, Iraq had proven itself better at the use of chemical
weapons than any fighting force in the world," said a former senior
U.S. diplomat involved in Iraq. By 1988, Iraq's use of gases had
also repeatedly been documented by U.N. specialists.
"It was all done with a wink and a nod," said a former U.S.
intelligence official. "We knew exactly where this stuff was going,
although we bent over backwards to look the other way."
Washington knew Iraq was "dumping boatloads" of chemical
weapons on Iranian positions, he added.
Missiles were also pivotal in turning the war in Iraq's favor,
especially when Iraq fired Russian-made Scuds on Iranian civilian
areas and major cities, including Tehran. The "war of the cities,"
during which Iran also targeted Iraq, eventually gave
better-equipped Iraq a strong psychological edge in the conflict.
Today, Reagan administration officials contend that they could
not have prevented Hussein's use of weapons of mass destruction.
"Get real. We couldn't have stopped him," (my note: so they provided him with
assistance and intelligence instead?) said a former
National Security Councilstaffer. "The Iraqis were fighting for survival." (my
note: they were the invadeders who invaded Iran in the first place!)
Policy at the time, said another former Reagan official,
recognized that "Hussein is a bastard. But at the time, he was our
bastard."... etc.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
EXCERPT:
"Why would the United States want you to be selling arms and
cluster bombs to Iraq?"
Mr. CARDOEN: "Very simple. Because the United States was helping
Iraq."
=============================================================================
48 Hours
Thursday, July 17, 1997
Profile: Scapegoat?; Ed Johnson is in prison for selling zirconium while
Carlos Cardoen is living a life of luxury and Teledyne Wah Chang pays a $13
million fine
SCAPEGOAT?
(Footage of sign: 'US Department of Justice; Federal Bureau of
Prisons; Federal Correctional Institution'; Libby coloring in
coloring book)
ERIN MORIARTY reporting:
(Voiceover) Now where do you go to see your grandfather?
LIBBY (Ed Johnson's Granddaughter): (Voiceover) Up in FCI.
MORIARTY: What is FCI?
LIBBY: It's prison.
(Footage of Libby; Derek)
MORIARTY: (Voiceover) Ed Johnson's grandchildren, Derek and Libby,
know where their grandfather is.
Where are you going tonight?
DEREK (Ed Johnson's Grandson): To my--to prison to see my papa.
(Footage of Libby)
MORIARTY: (Voiceover) But they don't understand why he's there.
DEREK: The guys thought that he sold a bomb to a person, but he
really didn't.
LIBBY: He has to get out real quick.
Mr. ED JOHNSON: Wait for the visits is really what I do, just
wait for the visits.
(Footage of prison)
MORIARTY: (Voiceover) This is the last place Ed Johnson thought
he'd be spending his retirement.
Do you ever really get used to looking over here and seeing this
razor wire all around you?
Mr. JOHNSON: No, you don't.
(Footage of fence with razor wire; Johnson; machinery; Carlos
Cardoen and Moriarty in helicopter; aerial footage of Chile; golf
course; museum)
Mr. JOHNSON: (Voiceover) You never do.
MORIARTY: (Voiceover) But while he's locked down in federal prison
for selling zirconium, the man who used it to make cluster bombs for
Saddam Hussein is flying high. Carlos Cardoen, still the wealthy
businessman in Chile...
Mr. CARLOS CARDOEN: (Voiceover) You can now see houses being
built around the project.
MORIARTY: (Voiceover) ...today needs a private helicopter to show
even a portion of his holdings...
Mr. CARDOEN: (Voiceover) We are going to overfly the golf course.
MORIARTY: (Voiceover) ...including a golf course and a museum
housing his private collection.
Mr. CARDOEN: This pottery was made 2,000 years ago.
(Footage of Cardoen and Moriarty in museum; artifacts in museum)
MORIARTY: (Voiceover) Many of the priceless artifacts were bought
with profits from his arms sales to Iraq and Saddam Hussein.
(Vintage footage of Saddam Hussein; photo of Hussein and Cardoen
shaking hands)
MORIARTY: (Voiceover) You personally went to Iraq?
Mr. CARDOEN: (Voiceover) Yes, many times.
MORIARTY: (Voiceover) Did you meet with Saddam Hussein?
Mr. CARDOEN: (Voiceover) Yes, I did.
(Footage of Johnson; Cardoen with Moriarty)
MORIARTY: (Voiceover) Along with Ed Johnson, Cardoen was also
charged with conspiracy and violating US export laws.
Mr. CARDOEN: They call me a merchant of death. They call me a
black widow spider.
(Footage of Cardoen; Department of Justice building; Cardoen with
Moriarty)
MORIARTY: (Voiceover) But unlike Ed Johnson, Cardoen hasn't spent
a day in federal prison. US prosecutors haven't even tried to bring
him to trial. Cardoen claims it's because they're afraid of what he
has to say.
Are you saying that the--the reason why you're indicted and Ed
Johnson is in prison is basically to cover up the fact that the
United States government helped to arm Saddam Hussein back in the
'80s?
Mr. CARDOEN: That's exactly what I'm saying.
(Footage of Cardoen with Moriarty; White House)
MORIARTY: (Voiceover) Cardoen says the same US government that
today would prosecute him for illegally obtaining zirconium once
helped him buy it from Ed Johnson and Teledyne Wah Chang.
Why would the United States want you to be selling arms and
cluster bombs to Iraq?
Mr. CARDOEN: Very simple. Because the United States was helping
Iraq.
(Vintage footage of Iran-Iraq war; Saddam Hussein in front of
crowd of people; Ayatollah Khomeini; Hussein kneeling)
MORIARTY: (Voiceover) It's a fact that most US government
officials would like to forget that in the 1980s, during the
Iran-Iraq war, Saddam Hussein was considered not an enemy, but an
ally against Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini. But sending arms directly
to Iraq was out of the question because officially the US was
neutral.
Mr. CARDOEN: If you believe that, I'm going to sell you a--a
parcel of land in the middle of the ocean, huh?
(Footage of Cardoen; people loading bombs on truck)
MORIARTY: (Voiceover) Carlos Cardoen says that's where he fit in:
doing the US government's bidding and doing it with its blessing.
Did Carlos Cardoen make any secret of the fact that he was not
only making cluster bombs but selling them to Iraq?
Mr. WADE MATTHEWS: Not at all. Not at all.
(Footage of Wade Matthews with Moriarty)
MORIARTY: (Voiceover) Wade Matthews was second in command of the
US Embassy in Chile when the bomb sales began.
If the US government had disapproved of those sales of cluster
bombs to Iraq, would you have known it?
Mr. MATTHEWS: Oh, I'm sure I would've. I'm sure I would've
known it.
(Footage of Matthews with Moriarty)
MORIARTY: (Voiceover) He confirms that Washington was well aware
of what Cardoen and his company were doing.
Mr. MATTHEWS: Because the Iraqis were sending in--I think it was
a Boeing 747 cargo plane to load up with cluster bombs about--I
think, about once a month.
(Photo of airplane from newspaper)
Mr. MATTHEWS: (Voiceover) And they would fly them back to Iraq.
We reported all this to the Department of State just routinely.
So we would have definitely gotten instructions or advice, had the
US government disapproved of the export of cluster bombs from Chile
to Iraq at that time.
MORIARTY: And why didn't Wade Matthews receive those instructions?
The answer may be in this document...
(Photo of document with close-up on 'Declaration of Howard
Teicher'; photo of document with photo of Howard Teicher, Central
Intelligence Agency logo and highlighted excerpts; photo of document;
footage of Department of Justice building; footage of Teicher and
other men in building)
MORIARTY: (Voiceover) ...an affidavit from Howard Teicher, a
member of President Reagan's National Security Council. In it, he
claims that in the mid-1980s, the director of the CIA himself,
William Casey, authorized, approved and assisted Carlos Cardoen in
the manufacture and sale of cluster bombs to Iraq. Howard Teicher
later retracted portions of his statement, but a year and a half
later and only after federal prosecutors threatened to indict him for
releasing classified information. He refused our request for an
interview.
CIA officials won't comment on Carlos Cardoen, nor do they want to
talk about this...
(Graphic of Central Intelligence Agency logo with text:
'Confidential Warning' and "'...most likely be used for military
ordnance."')
MORIARTY: (Voiceover) ...one of their own classified documents
issued in January of 1984 warning nearly a dozen government agencies
that the zirconium Ed Johnson was selling would most likely be used
for military ordnance--for weapons.
If I told you that this CIA report went to the Department of
State, went to the Treasury Department, went to the National Security
Council staff, went to the White House situation room, went to the
Department of Commerce, what would you say?
Mr. GERALD HOULIHAN (Johnson's Attorney): I would say that the
government knew just what I have been saying all the way along, is
that they knew exactly what Cardoen was doing, that they agreed with
it, that it was consistent with their foreign policy to assist Iraq.
(Footage of White House; prison viewed through tree branches)
MORIARTY: (Voiceover) But if the US government knew about and
apparently approved of these shipments throughout the 1980s, why did
a jury send Ed Johnson to prison in 1995?
Mr. HOULIHAN: Every piece of evidence that we got that would
substantiate it was ruled out by the court.
(Photo of document with close-up on 'Declaration of Howard
Teicher'; photo of document with close-up on 'CIA Director Casey')
MORIARTY: (Voiceover) That's right. The jury never saw Howard
Teicher's affidavit alleging government authorization as high as the
head of the CIA.
You're saying the jury never saw any of this?
(Footage of Moriarty holding document)
MORIARTY: (Voiceover) Never saw the 1984 CIA document.
Mr. HOULIHAN: The jury never saw any evidence about Cardoen and
the government's assistance of Cardoen to Iraq.
(Footage of Matthews; vintage footage of Saddam Hussein; Iran-Iraq
war; footage of the White House)
MORIARTY: (Voiceover) Never heard from diplomat Wade Matthews.
In fact, the prosecutors convinced the judge to keep out any mention
at all of US policy towards Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war. The
prosecutors say it doesn't matter what the US government knew.
What matters here is whether those export licenses were falsified
or not. And they were. And that's the only issue here.
Mr. HOULIHAN: Well, that's--that's simply false. The government
had an obligation to disclose this information or not prosecute him.
They can't have it both ways.
(Footage of fence with razor wire; Johnson; building with Teledyne
Wah Chang Albany sign; photo of one of Johnson's bosses)
MORIARTY: (Voiceover) Federal prosecutors wouldn't talk about Ed
Johnson's case on camera, but while they went to great lengths to
convict him, they let Teledyne Wah Chang plead guilty and pay a $13
million fine. The company then could continue to work on government
contracts. Many of Ed's bosses who got immunity are now enjoying
retirement.
Mr. CARDOEN: You can see artifacts made out of silver.
(Footage of Cardoen; Cardoen and Moriarty in museum)
MORIARTY: (Voiceover) Carlos Cardoen is still free, fighting his
indictment in luxury from Chile.
Do you have any regrets in retrospect about selling cluster bombs
to Iraq?
Would I have had a crystal ball, yes, I would have--I wouldn't
have sold to Saddam Hussein. You can ask the same question to--to
President Reagan or--or President Bush, and I think they would answer
the same. I mean, would have we known that the guy was going to
turn from a good guy into a bad guy, we wouldn't have helped him, of
course.
(Footage of Johnson)
MORIARTY: (Voiceover) What's the hardest part about being here?
Mr. JOHNSON: Missing the--the grandkids and watching them grow
up. That's--that's the toughest part.
(Footage of Johnson)
MORIARTY: (Voiceover) As for Ed Johnson, he's now appealing his
sentence and so are federal prosecutors. They say Ed Johnson got
off too easy and should spend more time in federal prison for his
crimes against the US.
(Footage of wanted posters of Andrew Cunanan)
RATHER: (Voiceover) The FBI wants this man...
Unidentified Officer: Cunanan is known to be a male prostitute.
(Footage of person with gloves behind police line; marker with
number 6 next to bullet; officer holding wanted poster)
RATHER: (Voiceover) ...an alleged serial killer. Will they catch
him in time?
Ms. KRISTEN McMENAMY (Supermodel): How cunning and wise can this
man be?
(Footage of wanted posters; police line)
RATHER: (Voiceover) Next.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Here's another fact you may have difficulty accepting: Saddam Hussien
pre-cleared his attack on Kuwait with the US and was told by US Ambassador
April Glaspie that the US had "no opinions" on inter-Arab conflicts! Boy, was
that a BIG LIE!
Another BIG LIE: did you know that despite all the talk about Iran developing
nuclear weapons - to date there is NOT ONE SINGLE IOTA OF EVIDENCE supporting
this? NO ONE!!
check out http://www.dejanews.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/3163
> Hardly a technical term. I would like you to refer me to the portion
> of any defense appropriation bill authorizing aid to Iraq, or the
> Congressional hearings at which any of this was revealed.
Fact: Iraq was removed from the US State Department list of "terrorist
nations" to facilitate the transfer of dual-use technology (ostensibly for
"agricultural" purposes) and funding (ever heard of the BNL scandal?)
For details check out the documentation and other info available from the
National Security Archives (based in George Washington University I think) -
their site:
http://www.seas.gwu.edu/nsarchive/nsa/publications/iraqgate/iraqgate.html
> Torture, executions, and political prisoners all increased
> drastically after the Khomeini regime assumed power.
And your point? Regardless of what happened AFTER the revolution, the fact
remains that one reason for the Shah's downfall was torture etc. all assisted
and supported by the US. It wasn't really a case of "modernizing too fast" as
you claimed.
>
> So how does this make what I said baloney? Iran was trying to cut off
> the oil flow through the straits; we stopped them from cutting it
> off.
No _ Iran was NOT attacking ALL oil shipping - just belligerents. Iran
DEPENDS on keeping the Straits open.
I'm not going to bother with the rest - you'd better read up a little on this
first.
Axel
JuJu Ben wrote in message <352ab42c...@news.netins.net>...
>Actually, Kuwait was originally a part of Iran. During British rule,
>the Kuwaiti's cooperated with the British, and were granted
>independence before the rest of Iraq. Technically speaking, Iraq was
>justified.
Not quite.
They were both, along with Jordan, Syria, Israel/Palestine, Arabia, Lebanon,
Kurdistan etc., etc., part of the Ottoman Empire which was split up after WWI.
To use this as a justification for Iraq's invasion of Kuwait is as justified as
arguing that Greece, Albania and Serbia should be part of Turkey.
Axel
Buboe the Rat wrote in message <352AE601...@execulink.com>...
>hostilities when they probably has no legal reason to do so. I'd also
>like to remind the reader that West Germany was under US occupation
>until the de-partitioning of East and West Germany
I have a big problem with this point:
For the vast majority of the post-war period US forces, along with French,
Canadian, British, Dutch & Belgian (sorry if I forgot anybody) troops served in
West Germany because it was the intended battleground for WWIII (had it
happened).
None of the troops there acted as occupying forces.
The same can be said of WarPac forces in East Germany (any attempt at
dissension is East Germany was more than adequately suppressed by the East
German government so they didn't need any direct help from the Russians).
>The point is that after the fall of the Soviets, Russia came under a
>capitalist regime and moved from the 2nd world to the 3rd.
Russia was a capitalist country from the time of the Bolshevik Revolution
('state capitalism' to use Lenin's terminology). It was originally intended to
be a transitionary state on the road to communism, but as with any power
hierarchy it proved remarkably resilient to withering away.
Axel
Endymion wrote in message <01bd627a$ecec8e60$24a945cf@default>...
>Buboe the Rat <f...@execulink.com> wrote
>
>> These definitions seem to suit your agenda of denying that the US
>is
>> not what it portrays itself to be.
>
>Now you are claiming that the US portrays itself is fascist? You are
>demented.
No, just expressing himself unclearly.
He is claiming you are saying that the U.S. is what it claims to be.
Just using a double negative.
>> Your exceeding narrow definition of fascism
>
>I could easily say yours is much too broad.
Problem with definitions of anything non-physical.
Both your definitions have merit in the right context.
>
>> seems to preclude any subsequent regime being labeled as such or
>> having its actions questioned on the basis that they are worthy of
>Nazi
>> Germany.
>
>because the real fascists claimed we were secretly run by
>Bolsheviks).
Well, Ford (and other prominent American's) were buddying up with Stalin at the
time.
>Those of the founders and practitioners of the movement. Read Mein
>Kampf. (Well, skimming is allowed; it's long and dreadfully written
>and organized.)
Mein Kampf may have been written by Naziism's most renowned proponent but at
the time he wrote it he was one of many, not even the most important, and the
range of ideas within the party was very wide.
The only two ideals that A.H. promoted were:
- kill all the Jews.
- make me supreme ruler of everything.
and the latter was by far the most important.
>I have said this three times now: if that's so, why can I find copies
>of FAR left magazines at any bookstore in this smallish town? Are you
>familiar with the content of High Times and Mother Jones? What could
>possibly get printed in Canada that would not see the light of day
>here, other than kiddie porn? (And that's illegal there too isn't
>it?)
If there are only 1 000 readers in a population of 275 million it doesn't
matter what it says.
I think BtR was referring to the mainstream media.
>of the editors and reporters. Believe me, I work for a publisher; the
>upper management cannot control every detail that gets printed based
>on political content, and if it wants to stay in business, it has to
>respect the professionals who work for it to some degree.
Can and can't respectively if they want to.
Ask Rupert Murdoch what he did to the 5 national British newspapers he's owned
(of which 3 were left wing before he took them over).
As I don't read U.S. newspapers I am not saying that U.S. newspaper owners do
or do not, merely that it is within their power.
JuJu Ben
On 7 Apr 1998 05:46:26 GMT, "Endymion"
<disinte...@SPAMTRAPmindspring.com> wrote:
>Felixth...@hotmail.com wrote
>
>> > Iraq was never anything remotely like a US client state. If
Not quite like one, but we did help keep their current system. The
fact is that Iraq under Saddam Hussein isn't run by religious
fundamentallists. It serves as a sort of buffer state between the
Shi'ite Muslims in Iran, and the Sunni in Saudi Arabia. Why else do
you think we left Hussein in power? Without him, one of the sides
would take over in Iraq, and there would be a good chance of a holy
war between them.
>> Actually, Iraq received significant assistance from the US during
>the
>Bullshit. What comic book or liner notes did you pull this crap out
>of?
Any up to date history book. More research. Less knee-jerk.
>> Iran-Iraq war, including intelligence, money, some advanced arms
>sold
>> indirectly to Iraq,
>What arms?
Weapons, supplies, airplanes, etcetera. . . Mainly we gave them these
things to help defeat Iran, who we had been supporting earlier, until
they had a revolution, and pissed off the U.S.
US Foriegn policy tended to screw up very frequently in that period.
>> and chemical and biological weapons,
>We don't even produce these ourselves, and certainly NEVER
>distributed them to Iraq.
I'm I don't think our government supplied him with them, but until the
gulf war started, we turned a blind eye on his independent development
and use of them.
>> and in fact there
>> were American combat advisors on the ground in Iraq by the end of
>the war
>> helping Saddam.
>This is so laughably pathetic I am having trouble wiping the tears
>from my eyes as I type this reply. You should write for the X-Files.
ROTFL.
Have you ever taken a modern history course?
>> the fact remains that the US was Saddam's sugar-daddy.
>Hardly a technical term. I would like you to refer me to the portion
>of any defense appropriation bill authorizing aid to Iraq, or the
>Congressional hearings at which any of this was revealed.
I'm trying to run a library of Congress search in the background right
now, but their cgi scripts are screwing up part of the time, and their
servers are faaaarrrr toooo slooow. . .
I know it's there, as I studied it last semester.
I give up. I can't get anywhere on that site.
http://lcweb.loc.gov
It has a search feature. Good luck.
There was a nasty little war between Iran & Iraq from 1980-1988.
During the 1980's, the US hated Iran because of the whole hostage
affair. We were indifferent to Iraq. We gave Iraq aid because it
would hurt Iran.
>> Funny thing - side note - most people in the US have forgotten that
>Saddam
>> also pre-cleared his attack on Kuwait
>It was not "pre-cleared" and that is an absurd stretch. It is true
>that he was not sufficiently deterred; IIRC that was based on
>erroneous intelligence estimates that he would not actually invade
>and was just trying to goad us.
Actually, Kuwait was originally a part of Iran. During British rule,
the Kuwaiti's cooperated with the British, and were granted
independence before the rest of Iraq. Technically speaking, Iraq was
justified.
Ben Kaiser
juju_ben I hate spam at spam sucks geocities.com
Endymion
Ah, much better, down to 104 lines now :)
> > You are relying way too much on one extremely biased author, and
I
> > suggest you read some other accounts of the period.
>
> That may be, but I think that his opinions bear consideration,
Perhaps, but not when based on "facts" that turn out to be entirely
untrue. He is a liar and shameless propagandist. I base this not on
any preconceived notion but on my perusal of the web site you
provided.
[General Reinhard Gehlen]
> Brutal crimes are brutal crimes none the less. I'm the one who is
> supposed to be splitting hairs.
But it is improper to insinuate that the US is guilty of these crimes
because we used a man who was in the same place, when in fact the
specific crimes spoken of (death camps) were committed by an entirely
different organization, and were orders of magnitude worse than
anything we can assume (without further proof) General Gehlen was
guilty of.
> Are you agreeing that General Gehlen was used by the US?
To tell you the truth, I have no idea, but it wouldn't surprise me.
> Which is another way of saying that you learned from the Nazi >
mistakes.
The FBI learns from serial killers it studies. There's nothing wrong
with learning from your enemy's mistakes; and using his experience to
modify your own methods does not prove you are emulating his methods.
> Also, how do you know so much about COIN OPS?
Nothing first hand; I've read quite a bit.
> You've scrutinized and
> dissected my source and yet yours are hidden and not subject to the
> same level of scrutiny.
A useful starting point: War in Peace, Sir Robert Thompson, ed. - a
primer on endemic combat of the Cold War era. I have read William
Colby's (former head of CIA and head of CIA Vietnam station) account
of the CIA in Vietnam, as well as Stanley Karnow's book on Vietnam (I
forget the title) which is considered definitive by most historians.
I also read much (I haven't the patience for long biographies start
to finish) of a biography of Giap, the top N. Vietnamese general.
Supplement that with umpteen books and articles by Vietnam vets and
historians.
> > (snip massive amounts of utter BS from Mr. Chomsky, of whom I
> >grow increasingly weary)
>
> Tough! stop reading the thread then.
I am discussing this with you, not Mr. Chomsky. He is not even a
professional historian, you know.
> I grow weary of seeing
Then vote, and complain, and preach to others in your country. But
just because you disagree with what's going on doesn't make it
fascist. I don't like Bill Clinton or his policies but that doesn't
make him a communist.
> You assert that the current US capitalist system is not
totalitarian. I
> say that ANY company is a totalitarian regime
They don't have the power to be such. I have asked you to present any
evidence of a general conspiracy among corporations, and you have
not.
The fact is, corporate leadership is simply too dispersed and too
open to constitute a truly totalitarian regime. Look at Bill Gates.
Okay, stop hissing, and look. You may not like the man, but he
started out as an ordinary small businessman just like millions of
others in this country. He did not undergo any ideological
indoctrination or selection to be admitted into the ruling class, yet
now, with no one's approval, he wields enormous power. As it happens,
he is pretty conservative, but he could just as easily be
moderate-liberal like Ted Turner or liberal like Ted Kennedy.
There is no ideological litmus test to be admitted into the ranks of
the wealthy here, if only for one simple reason: they are too
short-sighted, and too single-mindedly focused on profits, to let
concerns like ideological loyalty to affect business decisions.
> How is the
> attitude that requires this different from the attitude of not
hiring
> visible minorities based on the idea that sales might suffer
because the
> customers wouldn't understand? Is this not putting profit above
basic
> human rights?
No. There is no basic human right to have a certain hairstyle, or at
least not to display it on the job. The difference is, discrimination
against ethnic minorities or by sex is based on something the person
was born with and cannot change or be expected to repudiate.
Discrimination based on a conscious choice which negatively impacts
the business of the employer is neither illegal nor immoral.
Besides, what's the point of choosing a rebellious look if there's no
price to be paid socially?
> Is this TRUE democracy?
Yes.
Put it another way: why doesn't an employer have a constitutional
right to hire or fire whomever he chooses, as long as it's not based
on certain inherent protected classes like race? After all it's his
or her own business.
> > Now we're back to a paranoid fantasy. If a capitalist democracy
> > controls the press, it's totalitarian. If it doesn't, it's subtly
> > totalitarian.
> I'd say that you are correct, but that you are trying to
characterize
> his arguments as unpopular and therefore untrue.
Blah blah blah. Back to the straw man. Make an argument for me, which
is not what I said, and then refute it, trying to look clever. It
really is annoying.
Please listen. I said nothing - NOTHING - about popularity. What I
said was that posing a theory and claiming that no matter which way
any evidence points, it all supports the theory, and contrary
evidence only mans there's a big conspiracy to hide the REAL evidence
which only the theorist can see, is characteristic of a paranoid
fantasy. It's also terrible science, whether in physics or the social
sciences.
> > None of the facts I listed have been challenged, nor the
arguments I
> > put forward addressed.
> I detect the taint of an ad hominem argument here in the use of the
> phrase "ravings of a paranoid".
That was not directed at you, it was directed at Noam Chomsky.
> Furthermore, I'd say that you have conceded some points,
specifically
> the failure of the US democratic efforts to further human rights in
> China. I find that your use of the word "none" is erroneous.
I have conceded that some of what you said was true, but it did not
address anything I said or prove any of your points. For instance,
the failure of the US to make more symbolic gestures to protest human
rights abuses in China which are beyond our control may be wrong, but
it does not make those abuses our fault.
Look at how this debate started - you say it's wrong to embargo Cuba,
which is a horrendous human rights abuser, and that we should trade
with them regardless. Yet you also say it's wrong to trade with h.r.
abusers in China. Which way do you want it? Oh, I forgot, whatever
the US does, even if it reverses every single policy 180 degrees, it
only proves that we are fascist.
Endymion
JuJu Ben <juju_ben*SPAM*@geocities.com> wrote
> >>Iraq received significant assistance from the US during
> >Bullshit. What comic book or liner notes did you pull this crap
out
> >of?
> Any up to date history book. More research. Less knee-jerk.
> >> Iran-Iraq war, including intelligence, money, some advanced arms
> >sold indirectly to Iraq,
> >What arms?
> Weapons, supplies, airplanes, etcetera. . .
That's not very helpful - please name one specific weapons system we
supplied to Iraq in any numbers.
All of their airplanes used by Iraq were Soviet-built MiGs and
Sukhois, chiefly MiG-21's and MiG-23's. Their tanks were
Soviet-designed T-54's, T-62's, and T-72's. Their missiles were
Soviet-designed Scuds and SAMs. Their artillery was either Soviet
designed or purchased directly on the arms market from South Africa,
which by then was under an arms embargo from the entire west
including the US (yes, we traded with South Africa, but not weapons,
which is why they developed an extensive domestic arms industry).
Iraqi infantry used AKMs and RPG's, Soviet designs. Their Navy used
Soviet-built missile boats.
The only direct US assistance I can find any record of was the
deployment of AWACS planes to Saudi Arabia to help coordinate defense
of oil fields against Iranian air raids. My source for that (_War in
Peace_, cited in a previous post) indicates that the planes saw
little if any action.
> >> and chemical and biological weapons,
> >We don't even produce these ourselves, and certainly NEVER
> >distributed them to Iraq.
> I'm I don't think our government supplied him with them, but until
the
> gulf war started, we turned a blind eye on his independent
development
> and use of them.
That is an entirely different accusation, and is probably true.
> >> were American combat advisors on the ground in Iraq by the end
of
> >the war helping Saddam.
> >This is so laughably pathetic I am having trouble wiping the tears
> >from my eyes as I type this reply. You should write for the
X-Files.
> ROTFL.
> Have you ever taken a modern history course?
Plenty. None of them mentioned US "combat advisors" on the ground in
Iraq, because there weren't any. Don't listen to your high school
teachers to much.
> Actually, Kuwait was originally a part of Iran. During British
rule,
> the Kuwaiti's cooperated with the British, and were granted
> independence before the rest of Iraq. Technically speaking, Iraq
was
> justified.
Kuwait was never a part of Iraq, unless you are discussing the
medieval caliphates, by which standard most of northern France
belongs to England and most of Asia to the Mongols.
Kuwait and Iraq were both ruled by the Ottoman Empire for over 400
years; immediately after the Empire collapsed in WW1 they were placed
together administratively as a League of Nations Mandate under
British rule, just as Syria and Lebanon were lumped together as a
French Mandate despite being entirely distinct countries with unique
cultures and histories. These mandates were considered temporary
(although there was plenty of foot-dragging by the colonial powers)
measures to prepare the former Ottoman conquests for independence.
Kuwait was indeed granted independence separately. At no time since
at least the year 1500 has any Iraqi government ruled Kuwait, except
the brief conquest in 1990-91.
ka...@freenet.edmonton.ucesucks.ab.ca
On Tue, 07 Apr 1998 18:49:42 -0400, Buboe the Rat <f...@execulink.com>
wrote:
>Endymion wrote:
>>
>> > a defense of the status quo.
>>
>> Of course it is. Your job is to show that there's something wrong
>> with it.
>
>Am I right in understanding that the status quo is "innocent until
>proven guilty" or so to speak?
Sure.
>What about the status quo with regard to
>slavery in your own state prior to 1865.
Proven guilty.
> I'd say that the status quo
>mostly serves those who hold the reins of power and stand the most to
>lose if the status quo changes.
Which is only a problem if those who hold the reins of power are
problems themselves.
I'd still like to tear it all down, but at least I admit that it's not
for any good or moral reasons. Just a sign of my devotion to change
for the sake of change.
>The US consumes the bulk of the world's natural resources including
>food. Third world countries export their natural resources to the US
>(and Canada, etc.) for consumption. It is a typical American attitude to
>ignore suffering elsewhere, make some perfunctory gestures to appease
>world opinion, and then to abandon the rest of the world to its fate.
Replace "American" with "Human" and you'd be more accurate.
Randomness is not hypocrisy, if done with honesty.
In chaos, all is possible.
(Remove my statement on UCE's to respond.)
J Dugan
Endymion wrote:
I've avoided getting involved in all of this thus far since my opinions
fall rather squarely in the middle, and givent he tennor of the argument
thus far, it appears that doing so would merely mean that I'd be
fighting with both of you. However, a number of things in this latest
round, have annoyed me to a degree which bears reply. My major
objection at present is that quite frankly, you seem utterly
disinterested in applying the same rigor to the arguments you wish to
believe, as you do those you wish to disbelieve. I find this
disturbing, especially given the large number of ad hominem arguments,
specious and unfounded conclusions, and missatements of fact youve been
putting forth as of late.
> Buboe the Rat wrote:
>
> >My first quote is from Noam Chomsky's _Secrets, Lies and >Democracy_, the
> chapter is entitled "How the Nazi's won the War". >The entire book is
> available on line at >http://www.worldmedia.com/archive/sld/sld.html
>
> I checked out the Noam Chomsky link you supplied.
>
> First off, this isn't a book, it's excerpts from a radio talk show.
Incorrect. Its a book. It is, as stated rather concisely on its cover,
a book of interviews, the entire contents of which are available on the
website.
Have
> you ever read a real book? Do you understand the difference and why it's
> important? I must say, getting all your info off the web is a very
> dangerous practice, and it's no surprise that the reult is a shocking
> ignorance of even the most basic facts of recent history.
This is an uncalled for, and baseless attack which only serves to
question the validity of your other assertions, made even more tangible
by your false assertion above. A book on a website is still a book.
> Second, the interview contains numerous absurd and absolutely incorrect
> assertions by Mr. Chomsky. It saddens me that someone I had once considered
> a capable if misguided intellectual has sunk to being a purveyor of such
> blatant misinformation. This is however only in keeping with the leftist
> intelligentsia's increasing state of denial.
If you wish to categorize them as absurd, you'll have to do better than
an offhand ad vericundiam appeal to those authorites which *you* happen
to believe. Again the unsupported attack does not further your
argument.
> By way of example I will deal mostly with WW2 and its aftermath since
> that's where I have done the most reading (books, not web sites).
Thus effectively failing to address 90% of the book you just trashed.
> (on German prisoners)
>
> >The prisoners were treated very brutally, starved, etc. Since these >camps
> were in gross violation of international conventions, they were >kept
> secret. We were afraid that the Germans might retaliate and treat >American
> prisoners the same way.
>
> He is basing this on James Bacque's _Other Losses_, a book which is at best
> highly controversial and at worst discredited among WW2 historians.
This is hardly the only possible source for this information, thus
making your conclusion self-serving and specious.
>The survivial rate of POWs taken by the US and UK was the highest in the war,
> so much so that at the end of the war entire German formations fought like
> demons just to make it to the west to surrender to the Allies instead of
> the Soviets.
Yes, and the surviaval rates tend to mirror the casualty rates for *all*
conditions. The Eastern front was *brutal*, to soldiers, citizens, and
POW's on both sides. Look at *all* the numbers, if everyone was
starving and freezing to death, high mortality figures for POW's are
meaningless. Moreover, the fact that the Soviets might have been worse,
is no argument in support of US behavior, especially since you wish to
argue that we're the *good* guys.
> >Furthermore, the camps continued after the war; I forget for how long,
> >but I think the US kept German POWs until mid-1946.
>
> In the USSR they were kept until 1955. Of course it took the US a year to
> demobilize everyone; 1945-46 were very chaotic years and we couldn't just
> dump a couple of million POW's out in the countryside to starve and loot.
Again, your facts are incomplete, and do not in any event support the
conslusion.
> (On Yeltsin's reforms)
> >These "reforms" are designed to return the former Soviet Union to the
> >Third World status it had for the five hundred years before the Bolshevik
> >Revolution. The Cold War was largely about the demand that this huge
> >region of the world once again become what it had been -- an area of
> >resources, markets and cheap labor for the West.
>
> Here is another little lie - Russia was never a source of any of the above
> for the west; its economy was largely autonomous. France was just barely
> beginning an economic penetration of Russia when WW1 and the Bolsheviks
> came along.
Its not a lie at all. You are either uninformed, or being deliberately
obtuse. The Cold War was not about *Russia*, but about the the Soviet
hedgemony in Eastern Europe and the concomitant US hedgemony in
South/Central America. The Eastern Bloc countries, not feudal Russia
are what Chomsky refers to and while I'm not sure that *I'd* wish to
defend the 500 years figure, the idea that the Eastern Bloc countries
were fought over as a source of empirial enrichment by the Western
powers, particularly after the industrial revolution is hardly novel or
unsupportable. Moreover Chmosky's position on all of this is fairly
clearly delinieated in the rest of the book that youve failed to
address.
> >In Korea (where we ran the operation alone), restoring the traditional
> >order meant killing about 100,000 people just in the late 1940s, before
> >the Korean War began.
>
> Funny how despite this supposed mass atrocity refugees were fleeing fom the
> Soviet-controlled North to the US-oppressed South to the tune of half a
> million or more.
You question his figure, but provide no support for your own. Moreover,
none of this excuses the behavior even if your figures are true.
Another "Oh yeah, but theyre worse" argument.
> I notice too that in recounting atrocities, Chomsky fails to note the 30-50
> million people murdered under Stalin's rule or the 50-60 million under
> Mao's (giving Chairman Mao the dubious honor of being the most
> bloody-handed ruler in all history, surpassing Hitler even if we blame the
> latter for every European death in WW2).
Citations please.
>He fails to compare US occupation
> policies with those of the USSR, such as in Poland where the Soviets
> initially assisted the German takeover, then murdered 50,000 captive Polish
> officers in cold blood (the now well-documented Katyn Forest massacre), sat
> by (just across the Vistula) and not only refused to help the Polish
> resistance when it revolted in 1944, but refused the US flyover rights to
> help the resistance with airdrops, thus letting the Nazis slaughter
> everyone with the slightest backbone in Warsaw, refused to recognize the
> Polish government in exile or the results of the post-war elections and
> instead installed a brutal puppet regime.
And I, or any anyone else could easily counter with the US failures to
act relative to the holocaust, the US firebobming of civilian tarrgets
in Tokyo, the British doing the same to Dresden, the internment of the
Japanese, US imperialist policy in South and Central America, British
imperial policy in India, Africa and Ireland, Chamberlains policy of
appeasement, US deference to the Soviets shaping the final days of the
war and so on, and so on. Once again however, comparative attrocities
do not frame an argument.
> Could it be that some of the US excesses - which were unbelievably mild in
> comparison - were due to the dire necessity of keeping such murderous,
> vicious thugs from expanding their power?
Youre joking, right? Are you honestly asserting that US forgeign policy
was concerned with the moral character of those we placed in power,
versus those we fought against? If so, do the names Pahlavi, Somoza,
Hussein, Marcos, Duvalier, Peron or Batista, just to name a few have any
special meaning to you? Installing murderous dictators to keep out
murderous dictators isn't a terribly cogent argument. Or forgeign
policy.
<snip things about the Northern Italian campaign I have no independant
knowledge of>
>
> I don't know where Chomsky gets his version of events but is is plainly a
> pack of lies, which calls all of his other "facts" and conclusions into
> question. If I were you I would stop reading a bunch of nonsense and
> fabrication on the web and go to the library or to a bookstore read a book
> or two - preferably by a real historian, or better yet someone who's
> actually been out in the world and done something real, and not some
> stuffed shirt who trumpets himself as the most important intellectual alive
> and thus apparently considers the superior power of his mind to be above
> such trivialities as facts or historical reality.
If your intent was to discredit Chomsky or Buboe, you've done a piss
poor job of it, and I'll state for the record that I don't even
particularly *like* or agree with Chomsky, especially in the areas youve
addressed. You virulently attack Chomsky despite the fact that its
painfully obvious you havent actually read anything other than what
youve selectively elected to attack, and for all your assertions of
fact, youve not provided anything persuasive, or in a number of cases,
even accurate. Maybe *you* should read some books written by people you
disagree with, so that you actually know what it is you oppose, rather
than rely on the characterizations of those you do agree with.
> Oh, and lastly
>
> >The interviews this book is based on were broadcast as part of
> >Barsamian's Alternative Radio series, which is heard on 100 stations in
> >the US, Canada, Europe and Australia.
>
> This sort of explodes the myth that the gov't and corporations control the
> media and keep opposing viewpoints from being heard, doesn't it?
No, and that embarasingly trite. If you wish to argue against Chomsky's
opinions of the media, do so, but your out of hand dismissals are
pointless.
Jim Dugan
Endymion
Snipping even more, just to try and keep up
Axel <axelmaya@SPAM_is_not_very_NICEglobalserve.net> wrote
> >I have said this three times now: if that's so, why can I find
copies
> >of FAR left magazines at any bookstore in this smallish town?
> >Are you
> >familiar with the content of High Times and Mother Jones?
>
> If there are only 1 000 readers in a population of 275 million it
doesn't
> matter what it says.
The point is that it's not just in print but widely available, which
refutes any notion that the press is controlled. If 200 million
people have easy access to it, it sits right next to Rolling Stone
and People at the newsstand, but only 1,000 people read it, then one
must at least conclude that any thought control going on is through
some other mechanism than regulating the press.
So, for the fourth time, without yet being answered: how can you say
the press is restricted, when ideas as far opposed to the
establishment as anyone can conceive are widely available? And what
thoughts are available in Canada that cannot see print in the US?
cba...@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu
Well, since i've decided to enter this morass, I might as welll take issue
with the other stuff as well.
In article <01bd61e8$96674860$01a945cf@default>,
"Endymion" <disinte...@SPAMTRAPmindspring.com> wrote:
>
> Felixth...@hotmail.com wrote
>
> > > Iraq was never anything remotely like a US client state. If
> >
> > Actually, Iraq received significant assistance from the US during
> the
>
> Bullshit. What comic book or liner notes did you pull this crap out
> of?
Well, lets see, for an overview, lets turn to the Library of Congress.
"Concern about the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran and about the Soviet
invasion of Afghanistan prompted Iraq to reexamine
seriously the nature of its relationship with the United States. This process
led to a gradual warming of relations between the
two countries. In 1981 Iraq and the United States engaged in lowlevel ,
official talks on matters of mutual interest such as trade
and regional security. The following year the United States extended credits
to Iraq for the purchase of American agricultural
commodities, the first time this had been done since 1967. More significant,
in 1983 the Baathist government hosted a United
States special Middle East envoy, the highest-ranking American official to
visit Baghdad in more than sixteen years. In 1984,
when the United States inaugurated "Operation Staunch" to halt shipment of
arms to Iran by third countries, no similar embargo
was attempted against Iraq because Saddam Husayn's government had expressed
its desire to negotiate an end to the war. All
of these initiatives prepared the ground for Iraq and the United States to
reestablish diplomatic relations in November 1984."
Then theres the U.S. military support during the Tanker Wars, but we'll get to
that.
> > Iran-Iraq war, including intelligence, money, some advanced arms
> sold
> > indirectly to Iraq,
>
> What arms?
Actually, not arms, just the money to pay for them, and incentives to France,
Kuwait and Saudi Arabia to supply them. As was fairly clearly established
during Iran/Contra, we don't go directly selling arms to anyone when it might
be embarrassing or illegal.
> > and chemical and biological weapons,
>
> We don't even produce these ourselves, and certainly NEVER
> distributed them to Iraq.
"We" the U.S. or "We" U.S. corporations with the support of the government?
during the Iran/Iraq war. "We" the latter, supplied the expertise and the raw
materials. Its a fact. As for not producing them ourselves, of course not.
We stopped when we had sufficent stockpiles to destroy every mammal on the
face of the earth a couple of dozen times over. The U.S. ratified the CWC
less than a *year* ago, and we were stockpiling chemical weapons via loopholes
in the Geneva convention and the 1972 accord up until about 1990. To give you
an idea of what we've got in storage, the pricipal stumbling block to
ratification of the CWC was the estimated cost of destroying our stockpiles,
which is somewhere in excess of half a billion dollars.
> > and in fact there
> > were American combat advisors on the ground in Iraq by the end of
> the war
> > helping Saddam.
>
> This is so laughably pathetic I am having trouble wiping the tears
> from my eyes as I type this reply. You should write for the X-Files.
Truth is often stranger than fiction. Documents liberated by US backed rebels
(in fact some of the ones were currently trying to deport) indicate that US
military support was far greater than either the US or Iraq previously
admitted. And if you think the US doesn't send troops to places were not
supposed to, you are indeed a babe in the woods. We werent "supposed" to be
training shock troops in Nicaraugua and El Salvador, nor were we "supposed" to
be bombing Cambodia, but we did. Moreover, I can tell you for an absolute
fact that we had troops in the former Yugoslavia, behind Bosnian lines as
early as 1993, and that under the guise of "drug interdiction" We're training
"special police" in South America, Central America and the Carribean in joint
operations between the DEA, the CIA and Army Special Forces, weve just learned
not to call the "Military Advisors" anymore.
> > the fact remains that the US was Saddam's sugar-daddy.
>
> Hardly a technical term. I would like you to refer me to the portion
> of any defense appropriation bill authorizing aid to Iraq, or the
> Congressional hearings at which any of this was revealed.
Sure thing. It was referred to colloquially as the Tanker War. Youve eluded
to it yourself. The U.S. military in late 1987 and 1988 routinely engaged
Iranian forces and civilian aircraft (we shot down an Airbus by "mistake"
remember?) The ostensible reason for this was to protect oil shipments,
however despite this we never detained or engaged Iraqi ships or aircraft. Of
this Sam Nunn said: "It is very difficult to justify the American action when
it supports Iraqi interests which started the war of tankers and which
launches more than 70% of the attacks against vessels." Moreover on 2
separate occasions we attacked Iranian Oil platforms, which the US has
subesequently admitted were not military targets. We also engaged in
convenient disruption of Iranian communications, "coincidentally" concurrent
with major Iraqi airstrikes. This is not to mention admitted violations of
Iranian airspace and waters.
> > Funny thing - side note - most people in the US have forgotten that
> Saddam
> > also pre-cleared his attack on Kuwait
>
> It was not "pre-cleared" and that is an absurd stretch. It is true
> that he was not sufficiently deterred; IIRC that was based on
> erroneous intelligence estimates that he would not actually invade
> and was just trying to goad us.
In 1990 Hussein met with the US Ambassador, April Glaspie who assured him the
US would not get involved. Look it up. If we were disingenuous, thats *our*
fault, not his.
> > Again this is pure baloney - he was brought down by corruption and
> massive
> > class differences between the rich and the poor, and his own
> totalitarian form
> > of government (not to mention the widespread use of torture by the
> CIA and
> > Mosad trained Iranian SAVAK as documented by Amnesty)
>
> Torture, executions, and political prisoners all increased
> drastically after the Khomeini regime assumed power.
According to whom?
> > As for the idea that the reason for the downfall of the Shah was
> that he was
> > "modernizing" the nation too fast, that's pure rubbish.
>
> I see you did not respond to the question of women's' rights in Iran,
> this was in fact a huge factor in the revolution. Women in Iran today
> have slightly fewer rights than dogs.
So do Iranians in the US. Do you happen to know any Iranian women by any
chance? I know several, including one who has been routinely detained without
cause but both British and US customs, strip searched and generally treated as
subhuman for the crime of having an Iranian passport, despite the fact that
she *grew up* in England, and another who is not returning to Iran for her
sisters wedding, because US foreign policy dictates mean that she cannot
gurantee reentry into the US. These are women who grew up with western
standards and ideals, who while they do not support Iranian policies towards
women, also do not see them as the attrocities you paint them to be.
> > > The one big US military contribution to the 1st Gulf War was to
> > > maintain free shipping through the Straits of Hormuz; Iran made
> the
> > > mistake of threatening the shipping and Iraq did not.
> >
> > Actually, this too is baloney - Iran was busy attacking Kuwaiti
> ships.
>
> So how does this make what I said baloney? Iran was trying to cut off
> the oil flow through the straits; we stopped them from cutting it
> off.
And we failed to do so to Iraq (see above) making your statement that "Iraq
did not..." if not "balloney" then rather ignorant of the facts.
> > US "reflagging" of the Kuwaiti
> > ships, and assistance to Saddam, was a violation of international
> law and the
> > Charter of the United Nations.
>
> Reflagging Kuwaiti ships is not the same as assistance to Saddam. I
> was not arguing about the legality of the action, which is another
> question, I was discussing the nature and motivation of US
> involvement.
A major part of which was an attempt to improve relations with Iraq, which
suffered after the revalaion that the US had covertly supplied arms to iran In
1985 and 1986. And name another ostensibly socialist nation and former Soviet
backed regime that was granted favored nation trade status during the Reagan
presidency.
> --
> Endymion disintegration@ SPAMTRAP mindspring.com
Jim Dugan
Endymion
J Dugan <sic...@spam.com> wrote
> > First off, this isn't a book, it's excerpts from a radio talk
show.
>
> Incorrect. Its a book. It is, as stated rather concisely on its
cover,
> a book of interviews, the entire contents of which are available on
the
> website.
If this is true, it's a best a short pamphlet. There are 29 chapters
in the Table of Contents; they seem to average less than a page of
text each. It's a secondary source with few references and those
always to other secondary sources, no footnotes or bibliography, and
nothing to indicate what Mr. Chomsky's qualifications other than the
statement that he is a very intelligent man. I cannot see how this
makes this book any more authoritative than me simply stating "That's
how it was."
> by your false assertion above. A book on a website is still a
book.
And a collection of unsupported assertions is not an authority just
because it's on a web site.
> If you wish to categorize them as absurd, you'll have to do better
than
> an offhand ad vericundiam appeal to those authorites which *you*
Any field of knowledge must have a baseline, at least in regards to
casual inquiries by non-professionals. If someone makes an
unsupported assertion challenging every accepted authority in the
field - for example, an assertion that northern Italy was liberated
by the Resistance rather than US and UK troops - it is up to that
person to supply proof.
> > By way of example I will deal mostly with WW2 and its aftermath
> Thus effectively failing to address 90% of the book you just
trashed.
I have neither time nor inclination to address 30 pages if nonsense
in one post. I think showing that one section is based on flagrant
lies is enough to call Mr. Chomsky's status as a reliable authority
into question.
> > He is basing this on James Bacque's _Other Losses_, a book which
> This is hardly the only possible source for this information, thus
> making your conclusion self-serving and specious.
It's the only source he listed. Even on soc.history.war.world-war-ii
I have seen much more in-depth analysis of this issue going back to
primary sources.
> >The survivial rate of POWs taken by the US and UK was the highest
> Yes, and the surviaval rates tend to mirror the casualty rates for
*all*
> conditions. The Eastern front was *brutal*, to soldiers, citizens,
and
Partly because the participants chose to make it so. For examples of
Soviet cruelty to prisoners I refer you to _Enemy at the Gates_ (I
forget the author) which is an excellent history of the Battle of
Stalingrad containing many first-hand anecdotes.
> Moreover, the fact that the Soviets might have been worse,
> is no argument in support of US behavior, especially since you wish
to
> argue that we're the *good* guys.
It is a perfectly good argument when the discussion is about whether
we're the *bad* guys. If I show that any pain or misery we inflict is
no worse than, and usually much less than, the prevailing standard of
other countries, that refutes the notion that pain and suffering in
the world exist largely because of US dominance.
> > >but I think the US kept German POWs until mid-1946.
> >
> > In the USSR they were kept until 1955. Of course it took the US a
year to
> > demobilize everyone; 1945-46 were very chaotic years and we
couldn't just
> > dump a couple of million POW's out in the countryside to starve
and loot.
>
> Again, your facts are incomplete, and do not in any event support
the
> conslusion.
They are more complete than his. How do they fail to support the
conclusion? Chomsky states that the US & UK were brutal to POWs, and
offers in support that they were kept after the war. I respond that
we let ours go before the other major belligerent and that the delay
was as much as anything due to administrative difficulties. (Do you
know how many refugees there were in Europe in late 1945, how much
general starvation due simply to disruption of markets and
transportation, and how bad off the transportation infrastructure
was? I refuse to be required to site a source for this universally
accepted fact either.) If Mr. Chomsky intends to call US treatment of
POWs brutal he has to show that a feasible alternative existed which
would have caused less suffering.
Can any of you guys read? Go back to the quote from Chomsky's book.
He himself says "DESIGNED TO RETURN THE FORMER SOVIET UNION... THE
COLD WAR WAS ABOUT THE DEMAND THAT THIS REGION..."
Where does he say Eastern Europe or South America? Read it again,
please. Louder! SOVIET......UNION! Not Eastern Europe. His
words, not mine.
> > >In Korea (where we ran the operation alone), restoring the
traditional
> > >order meant killing about 100,000 people just in the late 1940s,
before
> > >the Korean War began.
> >
> > Funny how despite this supposed mass atrocity refugees were
fleeing fom the
> > Soviet-controlled North to the US-oppressed South to the tune of
half a
> > million or more.
>
> You question his figure, but provide no support for your own.
Find where I question his figures. Quote me, please. I doubt his
figures (since again he provides no source at all) but I have no
basis to refute them at this time.
> Moreover,
> none of this excuses the behavior even if your figures are true.
> Another "Oh yeah, but theyre worse" argument.
Why not? Again, the argument was originally that we are worse.
> > I notice too that in recounting atrocities, Chomsky fails to note
the
> > 30-50
> > million people murdered under Stalin's rule or the 50-60 million
under
> > Mao's (giving Chairman Mao the dubious honor of being the most
> > bloody-handed ruler in all history,
>
> Citations please.
Oh, for crying out loud. You can find those figures anywhere, from
the NY Times to the Washington Post to the Economist. Are you going
to deny the well-established and universally accepted fact that
Stalin and Mao were mass murderers on an enormous scale?
> >He fails to compare US occupation
> > policies with those of the USSR, such as in Poland
> And I, or any anyone else could easily counter with the US failures
to
> act relative to the holocaust,
What, pray tell, were we supposed to do about it? By the time it
started (usually accepted as the January 1942 Wannsee Conference) we
were already at war with Germany. An equivalent to Stalin's actions
would have been if we had rolled our tanks right up to the gates of
Bergen-Belsen but politely waited until the SS had finished killing
off all the inmates before interrupting. Of course this never
happened - in the west.
> the US firebobming of civilian tarrgets
> in Tokyo, the British doing the same to Dresden,
Every belligerent did this; some were simply better at it than
others. Whether it's entirely moral or not is a different question,
but an act of war directed at an actively resisting enemy country is
not the same as slaughtering civilians in a country under your
control.
> the internment of the Japanese,
Please. You compare this relatively mild inconvenience during wartime
to killing off up to 20% of your own country's population, much of it
during peacetime?
> Once again however, comparative attrocities do not frame an
argument.
We're repeating ourselves. They do, when the argument is that we are
the bad guys of the world. And we are not talking comparable
atrocities, not by a long shot; we are talking mild excesses measured
against shocking inhumanity.
> > Could it be that some of the US excesses were due to the dire
> > necessity of keeping such murderous, vicious thugs from
> >expanding their power?
>
> Youre joking, right?
Not at all.
> Are you honestly asserting that US forgeign policy
> was concerned with the moral character of those we placed in power,
> versus those we fought against?
Yes, and with the larger picture. Just as in WW2, the idea is that
one must sometimes choose the lesser of two evils; that sitting
piously on one's hands and refusing to choose means the greater evil
might just win by default.
> If so, do the names Pahlavi, Somoza,
> Hussein, Marcos, Duvalier, Peron or Batista,
Most of those were not installed in power by the US; others received
very little assistance from the US and could have easily stayed in
power without it; all of them were mere amateurs compared to Stalin,
Mao, Pol Pot, Kim Il Sung, etc.
> Installing murderous dictators to keep out
> murderous dictators isn't a terribly cogent argument. Or forgeign
> policy.
By this standard I suppose we shouldn't have helped Stalin against
Hitler? It makes sense when you phrase it differently: installing
somewhat corrupt and repressive dictators over whom we can have some
moderating influence, and whom we may later be able to gently push
towards (or push out in favor of) democracy, makes more sense than
letting the countries fall into the hands of much more vicious and
murderous dictators who will never allow the slightest seeds of
democracy to take hold.
Look at the record. Many of the countries whose leaders you've listed
have more democratic governments now than they did when those leaders
came to power. The worst exception is Cuba where our man was replaced
by a much more tyrannical fanatic. How many countries which fell
under Soviet domination achieved democracy before the Soviet system
collapsed under pressure from the US?
> <snip things about the Northern Italian campaign I have no
independant
> knowledge of>
Then concede that Chomsky's book contains distortions and outright
lies.
> You virulently attack Chomsky despite the fact that its
> painfully obvious you havent actually read anything other than what
> youve selectively elected to attack,
I have no time to waste on his nonsense. I will read books by people
I disagree with, see below, but only if they contain original ideas
which have influenced events or people, or if they support their
assertions with any sort of source material. And before you say that
I fail to do so, I expect a lot more from a book than from a casual
discussion on a.g.
> and for all your assertions of
> fact, youve not provided anything persuasive, or in a number of
cases,
> even accurate.
Nor have you pointed out an inaccuracy.
> Maybe *you* should read some books written by people you
> disagree with, so that you actually know what it is you oppose,
rather
> than rely on the characterizations of those you do agree with.
I do, all the time. I have read some of Mao's writings and much of
Marx's. I occasionally read the Post, even the editorials, with which
I often disagree. I disagreed with some of Karnow's conclusions on
Vietnam and some of Colby's (sources I cited before). I disagreed
with many of J.F.C. Fuller's and Len Deighton's criticism of Allied
conduct of WW2 but I read and enjoyed their books. The difference is
that they are respected thinkers or historians and not just rabid
propagandists with no regard for facts or accuracy.
> > >The interviews this book is based on were broadcast as part of
> > >Barsamian's Alternative Radio series, which is heard on 100
stations in
> > >the US, Canada, Europe and Australia.
> >
> > This sort of explodes the myth that the gov't and corporations
control the
> > media and keep opposing viewpoints from being heard, doesn't it?
>
> No, and that embarasingly trite.
Meaning it's obvious and simple and you can't refute it?
Face it; there is no effective or official control of the media in
the west to keep out "politically incorrect" ideas; even as harsh a
critic as Mr. Chomsky has no trouble being widely heard. If he is not
listened to, that is another issue and does not indicate censorship.
When thought control is discussed in places like Iran, China, Cuba,
the former Soviet Union, or Nazi Germany, it does not mean that
certain ideas gained little acceptance (that's inevitable in any
society) but that it was illegal and all but impossible to express
them or disseminate the expression.
--
Endymion disintegration@ SPAMTRAP mindspring.com
Endymion
Axel <axelmaya@SPAM_is_not_very_NICEglobalserve.net> wrote
> Buboe the Rat wrote
also
> >like to remind the reader that West Germany was under US
occupation
> >until the de-partitioning of East and West Germany
>
>
> For the vast majority of the post-war period US forces, along with
French,
> Canadian, British, Dutch & Belgian (sorry if I forgot anybody)
troops served in
> West Germany because it was the intended battleground for WWIII
(had it
> happened).
> None of the troops there acted as occupying forces.
> The same can be said of WarPac forces in East Germany (any attempt
at
> dissension is East Germany was more than adequately suppressed by
the East
> German government so they didn't need any direct help from the
Russians).
Thank you for making this point, and I agree entirely, with one
slight exception: while the Red Army did not act officially as an
occupying force, it must have had an important psychological effect
as such because of the examples of Hungary and Czechoslovakia, which
showed that the Red Army *would* suppress dissent and act as an
occupying force if the local government failed to tow the line.
The same cannot be said for the US forces in the west as there were
no corresponding examples.
Felixth...@hotmail.com
In article <01bd62ae$949eab60$13a945cf@default>,
"Endymion" <disinte...@SPAMTRAPmindspring.com> wrote:
>..
> > >> were American combat advisors on the ground in Iraq by the end
> of
> > >the war helping Saddam.
> > >This is so laughably pathetic I am having trouble wiping the tears
> > >from my eyes as I type this reply. You should write for the
> X-Files.
> > Have you ever taken a modern history course?
>
> Plenty. None of them mentioned US "combat advisors" on the ground in
> Iraq, because there weren't any. Don't listen to your high school
> teachers to much.
I refer you to the Nightline interview of USMC Lt. Col. Charles Rank ( will
check on date and make sure of name) which covered this exact point - and this
was the same interview in which it came out that the Vincennes had illegally
entered iranian territorial waters in order to provoke and Iranian response
before it shot down the Iranian Airbus.
Felixth...@hotmail.com
In article <6geqo2$8...@news1.newsguy.com>,
"Axel" <axelmaya@SPAM_is_not_very_NICEglobalserve.net> wrote:
>
> JuJu Ben wrote in message <352ab42c...@news.netins.net>...
> >the Kuwaiti's cooperated with the British, and were granted
> >independence before the rest of Iraq. Technically speaking, Iraq was
> >justified.
>
> They were both, along with Jordan, Syria, Israel/Palestine, Arabia, Lebanon,
> Kurdistan etc., etc., part of the Ottoman Empire which was split up after
WWI.
You're both wrong - Kuwait was never part of iran (unless you're talking about
the ancient Persian empire - but back them most of the known world was part of
Iran) and the ottomans didn't have iran either. I think the original poster
meant to say "iraq" and typed Iran instead
Endymion
Buboe the Rat <f...@execulink.com> wrote in article
Are you arguing for effect with an audience or discussing this with
me? Perhaps this should go to mail.
> that Endymion has
> a particular stance on ad hominem arguments, at least when they are
used
> against him.
Please learn the difference between an ad hominem argument and a
personal attack appended to a argument - which may be obnoxious but
is not the same.
An ad hominem argument simply insults the opponent without addressing
the issue at all - attacking the opponent's argument only by
insinuating that if an idiot made it, it must be idiotic. It is often
a sign that the attacker has no way to refute the offending argument.
An example of the difference: "You are a useless fuckwit and I don't
need to respond to that" versus "You useless fuckwit, look at the
following facts which disprove your point!"
If you read the articles I posed before you will see that my main
complaint was that the insults were used as an excuse to avoid
addressing the real issue. I don't think I've done that here, given
the length of my replies.
> If one were to use the power search feature of Dejanews
Wasn't there a discussion a few months back about how obnoxious this
is?
> > First off, this isn't a book, it's excerpts from a radio talk
show. Have
> > you ever read a real book? Do you understand the difference and
why it's
> > important?
> the question "have you ever read a real book?" is a rhetorical
> one implying that I am uneducated.
Yes...
> This is an ad hominem argument an is therefore invalid.
It wasn't meant to stand on its own as an argument.
> Third, I'm not really sure that the medium dictates the value of
the
> content.
Dictate, no, indicate, sometimes.
> Radio interviews have been held with many American presidents.
> Does this mean that what they said on the radio has any less value
than
> what has been recorded on other media?
Depends on what for. Radio interviews w/ presidents are fine for
examining that president's views, motivations, policies, etc. As
sources for detailed historical analysis they are questionable.
> This somehow implies that web-based content is somehow inherently
> inferior.
It is much less trustworthy. Ask my ex, the information professional.
Anyone can put anything on the web, and you have no idea who, why, or
what. With print media you at least have a known entity with a track
record.
A good example: look at the recent furor on this group over Rozz
Williams' death. Would anyone accept this as fact without
confirmation, direct or from a known reliable poster, from major
media or a live conversation with someone with direct knowledge? Of
course not, because all sorts of wild rumors get propagated on the
net.
I and many others do banking via websites. Is the
> information as to account balances somehow less valid since it is
not on
> paper?
It damn well better be a secure site with a URL you got in writing
from the bank.
> Admittedly there are websites and then there are websites. There
are
> books of questionable content too, _Mien Kampf_ is an excellent
example.
> Just because _Mien Kampf_ is a book doesn't make it any more valid
than
> a web site.
True, but being a book you know who wrote it and why, and you can
evaluate the author's sources or lack thereof. I wouldn't cite _Mein
Kampf_ for anything other than the beliefs of Hitler and the movement
he founded.
> Also, I think that Endymion is again implying that my
> intelligence is suspect
No, just that you're relying on unreliable sources and incomplete
info.
(snip examples of POW treatment)
All of what you provide simply doesn't rise to the level of national
or institutionalized brutality. Of course guards always taunt and
rough up prisoners, that's just a universal human trait. When we
speak of atrocities something far worse is indicated, deliberate mass
murder, deliberate starvation (not just bad food), torture (not being
kicked into a cell once in a while but real torture), etc.
A good example of the difference is a complaint lodged by Herman
Goering. The man who was personally involved in a system which herded
millions of helpless humans into gas chambers called his own
imprisonment inhumane because the guards kept him up at night with
their singing!
> Did the US have to detain the prisoners, or merely feed and house
them?
They were POW's, after all. And many non-SS prisoners, especially
foreigners (even volunteers) were released starting a few weeks after
the surrender; c.f. Guy Sajer _The Forgotten Soldier_.
> Of course, the Soviets treated German POW's worse than the US. They
> would shoot SS troops out of hand. Actually though not all the
German
> POW's were kept until 1955. Some were released after the end of
> hostilities. Endymion is saying that they were *all* kept until
1955.
Did not. They kept many until the 1950's though. See any book on
Stalingrad.
> As well some prisoners were kept until much later by the Americans.
Only war criminal convicted by a duly constituted court, and I am not
including those in my discussion of Soviet practice.
> Here Endymion seems to be making an "end justifies the means"
argument
Sometimes it does, if the means are not too terrible.
> in saying that the US had to detain the German POW's beyond the end
of
> hostilities when they probably has no legal reason to do so.
There is no legal obligation under the Geneva Convention or
international law to release POW's after a cease-fire but before
peace is concluded. Care to guess when peace with the various Axis
powers was concluded? (Hint: it's a trick question.)
> I'd also
> like to remind the reader that West Germany was under US occupation
> until the de-partitioning of East and West Germany
False, addressed by Axel. And the US tried to have nationwide
elections which were consistently blocked by the Soviets. We wanted
to de-partition decades ago, but who do you think built the Berlin
Wall to keep that from happening? (Well actually to keep everyone
from fleeing west since the partition was kept.)
> I've seen
> quite a few interviews with older Russians who want the Communists
back.
What's stopping them? Yeltsin is elected, you know.
> People are starving in Russia while the West turns a profit.
I suspect we give more in aid to Russia than we make back in profit.
In any case no one forces them to do business with us (there are no
foreign troops there) and the business we do does not cause or
contribute to the starvation.
> > >In Korea (where we ran the operation alone), restoring the
traditional
> > >order meant killing about 100,000 people just in the late 1940s,
before
> > >the Korean War began.
> >
> > Funny how despite this supposed mass atrocity refugees were
fleeing fom the
> > Soviet-controlled North to the US-oppressed South to the tune of
half a
> > million or more.
>
> Is Endymion denying that these deaths occurred?
I'd like to see some proof of the numbers and of any US
responsibility for them. None has been given.
I am denying that the US-controlled regions of Asia were any worse
than the other parts, which might indicate that any problems were
universal and not caused by the occupier.
> > I notice too that in recounting atrocities, Chomsky fails to note
the 30-50
> > million people murdered under Stalin's rule or the 50-60 million
under
> > Mao's
>
> I do not think that Mr. Chomsky denies these deaths occurred.
No, but he doesn't address them when discussing the world situation.
They are highly relevant to any charge that the US is cruel or
inhumane, a standard that can only have meaning relative to the
alternatives.
> > Could it be that some of the US excesses - which were
unbelievably mild in
> > comparison - were due to the dire necessity of keeping such
murderous,
> > vicious thugs from expanding their power?
>
> Here Endymion makes a pragmatic argument: The US "excesses" (the
means)
> were justified, regardless of their nature, which is being glossed
over
> here, because the end, containing communism, justified them.
Close, but not quite. The means, not regardless of their nature but
precisely because they were RELATIVELY benign, were accepted to
prevent an end which would have been far, far worse. I see nothing
wrong with this.
> > plant was measured in hours. This info is substantiated by three
general
> > histories of the war I have on hand, by Robert Leckie, J.F.C.
Fuller, and
> > B.H. Liddell Hart.
>
> Well at least now, Endymion is revealing some sources here. They
are of
> course not being subjected to the same rigor that my Chomsky quotes
are.
Go right ahead and subject them to whatever you want.
> By the same train of logic one could cast doubt on all of
Endymion's
> assertions and arguments
Be my guest. Please, challenge my assertions on WW2 Italy first and
tell me what really happened.
> > This sort of explodes the myth that the gov't and corporations
control the
> > media and keep opposing viewpoints from being heard, doesn't it?
>
> This argument seems to demonstrate Endymion's dichotomous view of
> things. It seems that, to him, if the media is not totally and
> completely controlled, then it is not controlled at all.
I have yet to see evidence of any control at all, other than the fact
that you don't like the majority viewpoint.
> I'd say that
> there is a measure of control that delimits the arena of
"acceptable"
> debate.
Based on what? I still say there is no control when any viewpoint you
can articulate is widely available and can be sold or broadcast
anywhere you choose.
> A similar situation existed in the Soviet Union and exists in
> communist China today.
Not similar in any way. Here, you can say whatever you want, however
you want; the only complaint is that sometimes people don't listen.
There, if you say something the gov't doesn't like, you go to prison
or to exile and your books, films, etc. are banned, and no one gets
to read them except by risking prison.
> Debate, within the acceptable limits, does occur.
Here there are no limits except those of practicality (i.e. you can't
force people to listen to you.) In your examples the limits are
narrowly defined and strictly enforced.
> It is not by any means as wide as that in the US, but the systems
are
> different. The communists use military force where the Americans
use
> economic coersion.
Please, for the fifth time, explain to me why if there is control I
can easily find extreme dissenting viewpoints widely available in a
variety of media? If it's so available (and it is) how are people
kept from reading it? And if people are capable of reading any
viewpoint they want, where's the censorship?
And what views do you get in Canada that I do not get in the US?
Chomsky's? I was just reading his web site, his books are available
at any bookstore in the country, and he's a professor at a well known
university!
I simply will not discuss this any further until you address this
point. You are wrong, dead wrong, about thought control in the US; I
have plainly demonstrated it, and all you have done or can do is to
completely ignore the proof.
cba...@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu
In article <01bd62ae$949eab60$13a945cf@default>,
"Endymion" <disinte...@SPAMTRAPmindspring.com> wrote:
>
>
> > >>Iraq received significant assistance from the US during
> out
> > >of?
> > >sold indirectly to Iraq,
> > >What arms?
>
> That's not very helpful - please name one specific weapons system we
> supplied to Iraq in any numbers.
I've been trying not to snide about this but: Helooooo? Iraqgate? Remember?
The BCCI, the IEB and the BNL lending 5.5 billion dollars in US guranteed
loans for "agriculture" which was "diverted" to arms purchases and nuclear
development? The overt sale of HAWK missiles, attack hellicopters and
targeting computers to Jordan which were then shipped to Iraq (this by both
the Reagan and Bush administrations) The granting of export licences for such
"dual use" items as Troop transports? The fact that the US had been providing
military intelligence to Iraq since 1982, and tactical advice since 1983? All
this despite being aware as early as 1983 the the "Butcher of Bagdad" was
using chemical weapons on Iranian troops, Iranina civilians and Iran-backed
Kurdish rebels. And this is just what been *proved*. Theres a lot that still
not declassified, and the investigation pretty much withered and died when
Bush was voted out.
> All of their airplanes used by Iraq were Soviet-built MiGs and
> Sukhois, chiefly MiG-21's and MiG-23's. Their tanks were
> Soviet-designed T-54's, T-62's, and T-72's. Their missiles were
> Soviet-designed Scuds and SAMs. Their artillery was either Soviet
> designed or purchased directly on the arms market from South Africa,
> which by then was under an arms embargo from the entire west
> including the US (yes, we traded with South Africa, but not weapons,
> which is why they developed an extensive domestic arms industry).
> Iraqi infantry used AKMs and RPG's, Soviet designs. Their Navy used
> Soviet-built missile boats.
Sorry, Mr. Military Historian, but by the start of the Iran Iraq conflict,
Iraq had largely broken from the Soviets, who were increasingly bogged down in
the matters that would lead to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Yes they
used Soviet weapons, but they already had them. By the second year of the
conflict, most of their new Arms were coming from France, and other Arab
states, the latter, largely at the behest of the US. By the mid 1980's the
principal arms supplier was still France, but thanks to creative export
licencing US corporations were supplying Hussein not only with APC's and
hellicopters, but computers and other high tech materials used to develop both
chemical/biological agents, but to advance Iraq's nuclear ambitions.
> The only direct US assistance I can find any record of was the
> deployment of AWACS planes to Saudi Arabia to help coordinate defense
> of oil fields against Iranian air raids. My source for that (_War in
> Peace_, cited in a previous post) indicates that the planes saw
> little if any action.
I know how much you hate the web and all, but humor me, and search
"Iraqgate". You'll find it enlightening, as most of what I've cited is from
FOIA documents and the Congressional record.
> > >> and chemical and biological weapons,
> > >We don't even produce these ourselves, and certainly NEVER
> > >distributed them to Iraq.
> > I'm I don't think our government supplied him with them, but until
> the
> > gulf war started, we turned a blind eye on his independent
> development
> > and use of them.
>
> That is an entirely different accusation, and is probably true.
Please see above and my previous post.
> > >> were American combat advisors on the ground in Iraq by the end
> of
> > >the war helping Saddam.
> > >This is so laughably pathetic I am having trouble wiping the tears
> > >from my eyes as I type this reply. You should write for the
> X-Files.
> > ROTFL.
> > Have you ever taken a modern history course?
>
> Plenty. None of them mentioned US "combat advisors" on the ground in
> Iraq, because there weren't any. Don't listen to your high school
> teachers to much.
Actually Caspar Weiberger called it "battlefield management" and its unclear
as to whether we had troops in Iraq or merely gave strategic advice from the
good old USA. My guess, given they way we do it everywhere else, is both.
> > Actually, Kuwait was originally a part of Iran. During British
> rule,
> > the Kuwaiti's cooperated with the British, and were granted
> > independence before the rest of Iraq. Technically speaking, Iraq
> was
> > justified.
>
> Kuwait was never a part of Iraq, unless you are discussing the
> medieval caliphates, by which standard most of northern France
> belongs to England and most of Asia to the Mongols.
>
<snip the Ottoman Empire>
But the border was, and is in dispute.
Jim Dugan
Buboe the Rat
Endymion wrote:
> Perhaps, but not when based on "facts" that turn out to be entirely
> untrue. He is a liar and shameless propagandist. I base this not on
> any preconceived notion but on my perusal of the web site you
> provided.
Ad hominem. Also, you are either not in full posession of the facts
regarding that website or you are continuing your fallacious "appeal to
the people" that information on websites is inherently questionable. NG.
> Which is another way of saying that you learned from the Nazi >
> mistakes.
>
> The FBI learns from serial killers it studies. There's nothing wrong
> with learning from your enemy's mistakes; and using his experience to
> modify your own methods does not prove you are emulating his methods.
This raises the question of the morality of using data, scientific or
otherwise that the Nazi's gathered (Dr. Mengle, I presume). Furthermore,
the FBI does not seek to emulate the serial killers but rather to stop
them. US COIN forces seek to achieve the same type of military effect
that the Nazi COIN forces did, or worse.
> A useful starting point: War in Peace, Sir Robert Thompson, ed. - a
> primer on endemic combat of the Cold War era. I have read William
> Colby's (former head of CIA and head of CIA Vietnam station) account
> of the CIA in Vietnam, as well as Stanley Karnow's book on Vietnam (I
> forget the title) which is considered definitive by most historians.
> I also read much (I haven't the patience for long biographies start
> to finish) of a biography of Giap, the top N. Vietnamese general.
> Supplement that with umpteen books and articles by Vietnam vets and
> historians.
I'd say that you are citing from authority. NG
> They don't have the power to be such. I have asked you to present any
> evidence of a general conspiracy among corporations, and you have
> not.
Ad lapidem. Also you are making an all or nothing mistake. You are
saying in this and other arguments than unless a perfect conspiracy
exists then no conspiracy exists in any form.
> The fact is, corporate leadership is simply too dispersed and too
> open to constitute a truly totalitarian regime.
My point is that corporations are totalitarian within themselves. As
evidence, try voting against being laid off. Also corporate ownership is
being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. Strawman. NG.
> There is no ideological litmus test to be admitted into the ranks of
> the wealthy here, if only for one simple reason: they are too
> short-sighted, and too single-mindedly focused on profits, to let
> concerns like ideological loyalty to affect business decisions.
You are correct. The next quarter profits are usually the overriding
concern. Such things as safety, environmental concerns, and human rights
are subordinated because they are not the prime directive of a company.
The prime directive of a company is to make a profit. Strawman. NG.
> No. There is no basic human right to have a certain hairstyle, or at
> least not to display it on the job.
Actually the Sikhs in the RCMP wear turbans rather than the traditional
lemon squeezers as hats. This is because the Sikhs do not cut there
hair. This borders on the area of religious freedoms.
> The difference is, discrimination
> against ethnic minorities or by sex is based on something the person
> was born with and cannot change or be expected to repudiate.
> Discrimination based on a conscious choice which negatively impacts
> the business of the employer is neither illegal nor immoral.
Is choice of religion a concious one? In your argument you left out
freedom of religion.
> Put it another way: why doesn't an employer have a constitutional
> right to hire or fire whomever he chooses, as long as it's not based
> on certain inherent protected classes like race? After all it's his
> or her own business.
The right to a livelyhood is in the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, of which the United States is a signatory.
> Blah blah blah. Back to the straw man. Make an argument for me, which
> is not what I said, and then refute it, trying to look clever. It
> really is annoying.
I'm not so sure that you have not been doing the strawman gig to me from
time to time. Considering your stance on ad hominem arguments, It
wouldn't surprise me. (spot the fallacy?)
>
> Please listen. I said nothing - NOTHING - about popularity. What I
> said was that posing a theory and claiming that no matter which way
> any evidence points, it all supports the theory, and contrary
> evidence only mans there's a big conspiracy to hide the REAL evidence
> which only the theorist can see, is characteristic of a paranoid
> fantasy. It's also terrible science, whether in physics or the social
> sciences.
Appeal to numbers fallacy.NFG.
>
> > > None of the facts I listed have been challenged, nor the
> arguments I
> > > put forward addressed.
Wishful thinking fallacy. NFG.
>
> > I detect the taint of an ad hominem argument here in the use of the
> > phrase "ravings of a paranoid".
>
> That was not directed at you, it was directed at Noam Chomsky.
Diversionary. Also still ad hominem since the person using the arguments
of a raving paranoid to support his arguements can't be too swift.NG.NG.
>
> > Furthermore, I'd say that you have conceded some points,
> specifically
> > the failure of the US democratic efforts to further human rights in
> > China. I find that your use of the word "none" is erroneous.
>
> I have conceded that some of what you said was true, but it did not
> address anything I said or prove any of your points. For instance,
> the failure of the US to make more symbolic gestures to protest human
> rights abuses in China which are beyond our control may be wrong, but
> it does not make those abuses our fault.
Self-righteous argument. (and therefore fallacious)NFG.
>
> Look at how this debate started - you say it's wrong to embargo Cuba,
> which is a horrendous human rights abuser, and that we should trade
> with them regardless. Yet you also say it's wrong to trade with h.r.
> abusers in China. Which way do you want it? Oh, I forgot, whatever
> the US does, even if it reverses every single policy 180 degrees, it
> only proves that we are fascist.
Te quoque fallacy.NFG.
Ludovic13
Buboe the RAT wrote:
>The US consumes the bulk of the world's natural resources including
>food.
we are a net food EXPORTER. We produce far more food than we could ever eat.
That said.....we are an enourmous consumer of every other natural
resource...
including land. The population density of the US in the 1990s is
around the population density of europe in the....guesses anyone..
1950s...nope...go back further...
1910s maybe.....uh uh....
1830s...AFAIK. Definitely 19th century. In other words we are
more than 100 years behind the europeans in population
density....we have it really good.
And also, in order to produce as much food as we do, we drain
other couttry's metals, oil, machinery, and especially human capital.
--Ludovic
cba...@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu
In article <01bd633a$7e25c760$22a945cf@default>,
"Endymion" <disinte...@SPAMTRAPmindspring.com> wrote:
>
> J Dugan <sic...@spam.com> wrote
>
> > > First off, this isn't a book, it's excerpts from a radio talk
> show.
> >
> > Incorrect. Its a book. It is, as stated rather concisely on its
> cover, a book of interviews, the entire contents of which are available on
> the website.
>
> If this is true, it's a best a short pamphlet. There are 29 chapters
> in the Table of Contents; they seem to average less than a page of
> text each. It's a secondary source with few references and those
> always to other secondary sources, no footnotes or bibliography, and
> nothing to indicate what Mr. Chomsky's qualifications other than the
> statement that he is a very intelligent man. I cannot see how this
> makes this book any more authoritative than me simply stating "That's
> how it was."
Its a book of interviews, not a scholarly treatise. As for whether "its
true", go back to the site. Look at the reproduction of the cover. Read it.
No "if" about it. Your argument is semantic. Moreover, you openly refuse to
read any of Chomsky's scholarly works, but prefer instead to presume their
content.
> > by your false assertion above. A book on a website is still a
> book.
>
> And a collection of unsupported assertions is not an authority just
> because it's on a web site.
But you said it wasn't a book.
<S>
> > > By way of example I will deal mostly with WW2 and its aftermath
> > Thus effectively failing to address 90% of the book you just
> trashed.
>
> I have neither time nor inclination to address 30 pages if nonsense
> in one post. I think showing that one section is based on flagrant
> lies is enough to call Mr. Chomsky's status as a reliable authority
> into question.
Well, you havent managed to demonstrate to me, who is generally biased against
Chomsky that these "flagrant lies" are anything more than ad hominem
hyperbole.
> > > He is basing this on James Bacque's _Other Losses_, a book which
> > This is hardly the only possible source for this information, thus
> > making your conclusion self-serving and specious.
>
> It's the only source he listed. Even on soc.history.war.world-war-ii
> I have seen much more in-depth analysis of this issue going back to
> primary sources.
I thought you said he didn't name any sources.
<S>
> Partly because the participants chose to make it so. For examples of
> Soviet cruelty to prisoners I refer you to _Enemy at the Gates_ (I
> forget the author) which is an excellent history of the Battle of
> Stalingrad containing many first-hand anecdotes.
And how many civilian casualties were there in the battle of Stalingrad, from
starvation and exposure alone?
> > Moreover, the fact that the Soviets might have been worse,
> > is no argument in support of US behavior, especially since you wish
> to
> > argue that we're the *good* guys.
>
> It is a perfectly good argument when the discussion is about whether
> we're the *bad* guys. If I show that any pain or misery we inflict is
> no worse than, and usually much less than, the prevailing standard of
> other countries, that refutes the notion that pain and suffering in
> the world exist largely because of US dominance.
No the argment is that we do bad things and should stop, especially in light
of our insistance that We're the saviors of the world. Moreover we lie about
it.
<S>
> > Again, your facts are incomplete, and do not in any event support
> the
> > conslusion.
>
> They are more complete than his. How do they fail to support the
> conclusion? Chomsky states that the US & UK were brutal to POWs, and
> offers in support that they were kept after the war. I respond that
> we let ours go before the other major belligerent and that the delay
> was as much as anything due to administrative difficulties. (Do you
> know how many refugees there were in Europe in late 1945, how much
> general starvation due simply to disruption of markets and
> transportation, and how bad off the transportation infrastructure
> was? I refuse to be required to site a source for this universally
> accepted fact either.) If Mr. Chomsky intends to call US treatment of
> POWs brutal he has to show that a feasible alternative existed which
> would have caused less suffering.
Maybe by treating them better? Youve fixated on the time of internment,
because you can point to the Soviets as worse, which BTW is only the case for
*some* POW's. There is far more to Chomsky's point.
> >
> > Its not a lie at all. You are either uninformed, or being
> deliberately
> > obtuse. The Cold War was not about *Russia*, but about the the >
> Soviet
> > hedgemony in Eastern Europe and the concomitant US hedgemony in
> > South/Central America. The Eastern Bloc countries, not feudal
> Russia
> > are what Chomsky refers to
>
> Can any of you guys read? Go back to the quote from Chomsky's book.
> He himself says "DESIGNED TO RETURN THE FORMER SOVIET UNION... THE
> COLD WAR WAS ABOUT THE DEMAND THAT THIS REGION..."
Yes, this *region*, not this country, union or nation, but *region*, referring
to the Soviet sphere of influence. It, and the US sphere of influence is a
major theme in many of Chomsky's books, which you decline to read.
> Where does he say Eastern Europe or South America? Read it again,
> please. Louder! SOVIET......UNION! Not Eastern Europe. His
> words, not mine.
You are taking the phrase out of context, and perverting the syntax. Region
does not refer back to Soviet Union, logically or syntactically, and using
caplitals cant change that.
> > >
> > > Funny how despite this supposed mass atrocity refugees were
> fleeing fom the
> > > Soviet-controlled North to the US-oppressed South to the tune of
> half a
> > > million or more.
> >
> > You question his figure, but provide no support for your own.
>
> Find where I question his figures. Quote me, please.
You wre I suppose *affirming* them by referring to them as "supossed mass
attrocity figures"? Come on.
>
> > Moreover,
> > none of this excuses the behavior even if your figures are true.
> > Another "Oh yeah, but theyre worse" argument.
>
> Why not? Again, the argument was originally that we are worse.
No, it was that we are not as good as we pretend to be.
> > > I notice too that in recounting atrocities, Chomsky fails to note
> the
> > > 30-50
> > > million people murdered under Stalin's rule or the 50-60 million
> under
> > > Mao's (giving Chairman Mao the dubious honor of being the most
> > > bloody-handed ruler in all history,
> >
> > Citations please.
>
> Oh, for crying out loud. You can find those figures anywhere, from
> the NY Times to the Washington Post to the Economist. Are you going
> to deny the well-established and universally accepted fact that
> Stalin and Mao were mass murderers on an enormous scale?
No actually I cant since youre figures are roughly double any reliable number
Ive seen, and I'm not, at this point, inclined to take your word for it.
> > >He fails to compare US occupation
> > > policies with those of the USSR, such as in Poland
> > And I, or any anyone else could easily counter with the US failures
> to
> > act relative to the holocaust,
>
> What, pray tell, were we supposed to do about it? By the time it
> started (usually accepted as the January 1942 Wannsee Conference) we
> were already at war with Germany.
Usually accepted by whom? Kristalnacht? The internement of Polish jews in
slave labor camps in 1939? I'd call that the holocaust, and We knew all about
it.
An equivalent to Stalin's actions
> would have been if we had rolled our tanks right up to the gates of
> Bergen-Belsen but politely waited until the SS had finished killing
> off all the inmates before interrupting. Of course this never
> happened - in the west.
The West? Your gift for hyperbole is astounding. Oliver Cromwell managed to
masacre 2.5 million Irish without the benefit of modern technology. Further,
Germany *is* in the West. What you mean is that the US has never practiced
mechanized genocide. I'm sure thats a great comfort to the Cherokee.
> > the US firebobming of civilian tarrgets
> > in Tokyo, the British doing the same to Dresden,
>
> Every belligerent did this; some were simply better at it than
> others. Whether it's entirely moral or not is a different question,
Yes, its the question initially rasied by this thread.
<S>
> > Once again however, comparative attrocities do not frame an
> argument.
>
> We're repeating ourselves. They do, when the argument is that we are
> the bad guys of the world. And we are not talking comparable
> atrocities, not by a long shot; we are talking mild excesses measured
> against shocking inhumanity.
Only in raw numbers and semantic differences. You compare the treatment of
POW's when it suits you, but lose your bile when you might, say, compare the
treament of hardened troops to the immolation of half a million Japanese
civilians. Your concept of shocking inhumanity seems based on a shifting
scale.
> > Are you honestly asserting that US forgeign policy
> > was concerned with the moral character of those we placed in power,
> > versus those we fought against?
>
> Yes, and with the larger picture. Just as in WW2, the idea is that
> one must sometimes choose the lesser of two evils; that sitting
> piously on one's hands and refusing to choose means the greater evil
> might just win by default.
Greater evil how? By being communist/socialist? Its the only difference.
> > If so, do the names Pahlavi, Somoza,
> > Hussein, Marcos, Duvalier, Peron or Batista,
>
> Most of those were not installed in power by the US; others received
> very little assistance from the US and could have easily stayed in
> power without it;
Thats bullshit. We installed all but Hussien and maybe Peron and given that
*all* of them but Hussein were deposed, even with massive US support betrays
you second argument, and at the very least Iraq would have lost the Iran/Iraq
war with out the conservatively estimated 5.5 billion in US aid.
all of them were mere amateurs compared to Stalin,
> Mao, Pol Pot, Kim Il Sung, etc.
Or alternately, maybe were just better at hiding the numbers. Heard much
about the 15,000 civilian casulties in Panama city *alone* in our "bloodless"
invasion?
> > Installing murderous dictators to keep out
> > murderous dictators isn't a terribly cogent argument. Or forgeign
> > policy.
>
> By this standard I suppose we shouldn't have helped Stalin against
> Hitler? It makes sense when you phrase it differently: installing
> somewhat corrupt and repressive dictators over whom we can have some
> moderating influence, and whom we may later be able to gently push
> towards (or push out in favor of) democracy, makes more sense than
> letting the countries fall into the hands of much more vicious and
> murderous dictators who will never allow the slightest seeds of
> democracy to take hold.
And youre *honestly* asserting that we did that? Your selective idealism is
amusing, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to insist on support for that
whopper. I'm dying to hear how teaching the Contras to extract the eyes of
nuns to "question" them promotes democracy.
> Look at the record. Many of the countries whose leaders you've listed
> have more democratic governments now than they did when those leaders
> came to power.
Yes, after those countries had *revolutions*.
The worst exception is Cuba where our man was replaced
> by a much more tyrannical fanatic.
Yeah, you don't like Castro. Ever been to Cuba?
> > <snip things about the Northern Italian campaign I have no
> independant
> > knowledge of>
>
> Then concede that Chomsky's book contains distortions and outright
> lies.
Huh? I lack the framework to evaluate your claims versus his so I should take
you word for it? Sorry.
<S>
> I have no time to waste on his nonsense. I will read books by people
> I disagree with, see below, but only if they contain original ideas
> which have influenced events or people, or if they support their
> assertions with any sort of source material.
And youve divined all of this without *reading* them. I wish I had your
talent.
>
> > and for all your assertions of
> > fact, youve not provided anything persuasive, or in a number of
> cases,
> > even accurate.
>
> Nor have you pointed out an inaccuracy.
I beieve you are mistaken. Moreover, see my analysis of your assertions about
Iraq in the other post.
<S>
> > > >The interviews this book is based on were broadcast as part of
> > > >Barsamian's Alternative Radio series, which is heard on 100
> stations in
> > > >the US, Canada, Europe and Australia.
> > >
> > > This sort of explodes the myth that the gov't and corporations
> control the
> > > media and keep opposing viewpoints from being heard, doesn't it?
> >
> > No, and that embarasingly trite.
>
> Meaning it's obvious and simple and you can't refute it?
>
> Face it; there is no effective or official control of the media in
> the west to keep out "politically incorrect" ideas; even as harsh a
> critic as Mr. Chomsky has no trouble being widely heard.
Except that is *not* Chomsky's argument, and I have no desire to recount it
for you. The fact is, some ideas and facts get wide distibution, and some
don't. When all the things that don't get reported share universal common
characteristics there is cause for suspicion. Chomsky is not arguing that the
media is controlled by the government, but that the media is a tool of the
status quo, and as such is failing in both its duty and its raison d'etre.
Buboe the Rat
Endymion wrote:
> Are you arguing for effect with an audience or discussing this with
> me? Perhaps this should go to mail.
I'm merely pointing out that your stance on ad hominem arguments, hoping
that since this is a public forum, you will be more reluctant to make
them. Do you deny that you have made ad hominem arguments? Do you deny
your privious stance on them?
> Please learn the difference between an ad hominem argument and a
> personal attack appended to a argument - which may be obnoxious but
> is not the same.
I question the validity of personal attacks in a debate. Ok, if personal
attacks are not ad hominem arguments, and this is a public forum then I
say that personal attacks are equally fallacious because the are an
"appeal to emotion." So you have either been making fallacious ad
hominem arguments or you have been making fallacious "appeal to emotion"
arguments. In either case you have been making fallacious arguments.
Also, why do you feel the need to make personal attacks? I don't. We are
very much the same, you and I. Perhaps we can reach a second order
agreement?
>
> Wasn't there a discussion a few months back about how obnoxious this
> is?
I don't know since I haven't been on AG that long. Also, I find it
"obnoxious" that you are using special pleading WRT ad hominem
arguements.
> Dictate, no, indicate, sometimes.
As a general principle I'd agree, but if you are saying that my source
is less rigorous merely because it is published on the web, I'd say that
you are guilty of a sweeping generalization.
> Depends on what for. Radio interviews w/ presidents are fine for
> examining that president's views, motivations, policies, etc. As
> sources for detailed historical analysis they are questionable.
Again, In general I might agree with you. In the particular, I do not.
> > This somehow implies that web-based content is somehow inherently
> > inferior.
>
> It is much less trustworthy. Ask my ex, the information professional.
> Anyone can put anything on the web, and you have no idea who, why, or
> what. With print media you at least have a known entity with a track
> record.
Again you are making sweeping generalizations. Furthermore you have not
addressed that the web page has ten on-line editions of actual books,
complete with references. One of these I can produce a physical copy of.
The site is at http://www.worldmedia.com/archive for those of you that
missed it the first time.
> A good example: look at the recent furor on this group over Rozz
> Williams' death. Would anyone accept this as fact without
> confirmation, direct or from a known reliable poster, from major
> media or a live conversation with someone with direct knowledge? Of
> course not, because all sorts of wild rumors get propagated on the
> net.
Usenet is not WWW. Wild rumors have been known to be published in the
print media. As an example, when the Titanic went down one of the major
US papers (Titanic buffs help me out here) published a story that the
Carpathian was escorting the damaged Titanic home or some such rot. Even
better..what about the quality of the copy in the National Enquirer?
It's printed on paper just like the NY Times and the Wall Street
Journal.
You have not established that the information on a web site is less
trustworthy merely because it is on a web site.
> It damn well better be a secure site with a URL you got in writing
> from the bank.
It is. The transactions are verifyable. I pay my bills, check my
balances, transfer funds etc. with the same confidence that I do it at
the wicket.
> True, but being a book you know who wrote it and why, and you can
> evaluate the author's sources or lack thereof. I wouldn't cite _Mein
> Kampf_ for anything other than the beliefs of Hitler and the movement
> he founded.
Here, READ this from _Detering Democracy_
"Luzviminda Francisco and Jonathan Fast, Conspiracy for Empire (Quezon
City, 1985), 302, 191.
5 Newsday, Sept. 12, 1991, p. 1. The Boston Globe gave the story a few
lines on p. 79, Sept. 13. The Times ran a tepid
account a few days later; Eric Schmitt, NYT, Sept. 15.
6 NYT, July 7, 1991.
7 Kathy Blair, Toronto Globe and Mail, June 17, 1991; WSJ, July 5, 1991.
"
The above is just a small fraction of the references in that online
version of that BOOK.
Furthermore:
YEAR 501 is another awesome achievement by Noam Chomsky. It is a
devastating array of information about the U.S. role in the world,
placed in the
long historical perspective of the 500 years that followed the
voyages of
Columbus. The result is a wonderful single-volume education in
history and
world politics.
-- Howard Zinn
This book portrays the world born five centuries ago: An immense
supermarket
where value is determined by price tags. What is the price of an
intellectual?
Chomsky's fierce talent proves once more that human beings are not
condemned
to become commodities.
-- Eduardo Galeano
"The great work of subjugation and conquest" has changed little over the
years.
Analyzing Haiti, Latin America, Cuba, Indonesia, and even pockets of the
Third World developing in the United States, Noam
Chomsky draws parallels between the genocide of colonial times and the
murder and exploitation associated with modern-day
imperialism.
Available in print from South End Press ($16 paperback, $30 cloth). To
order by credit card, or for information on quantity
discounts, call 800-533-8478, or write:
South End Press
116 Saint Botolph St.
Boston, MA 02115
Please add $3 shipping for the first book and 75 cents for each
additional book.
Rethinking Camelot
JFK, the Vietnam War, and U.S. Political
Culture
Noam Chomsky
Copyright © 1993
Go to the Table of Contents
Available in print from South End Press ($14 paperback, $30 cloth). To
order by credit
card, or for information on quantity discounts, call 800-533-8478,
or write:
South End Press
116 Saint Botolph St.
Boston, MA 02115
Please add $3 shipping for the first book and 75 cents for each
additional book.
Deterring Democracy
Noam Chomsky
Copyright © 1991, 1992
Go to the Content Overview (brief)
Go to the Table of Contents (detailed)
In this highly praised and widely debated book, Noam Chomsky, America's
leading
dissident intellectual, offers a revelatory portrait of the American
empire and the danger
it poses for democracy, both at home and abroad.
Chomsky details the major shift in global politics that has left the
United States
unchallenged as the preeminent military power even as its economic might
has declined
drastically in the face of competition from Germany and Japan. Deterring
Democracy
points to the potentially catastrophic consequences of this new
imbalance, and reveals a
world in which the United States exploits its advantage ruthlessly to
enforce its national
interests -- from Nicaragua to the Philippines, Panama to the Middle
East. The new
world order (in which the New World gives the orders) has arrived.
Audacious in argument and ambitious in scope, Deterring Democracy is an
essential
guide to democratic prospects in the perilous 1990s.
"Deterring Democracy is a volatile, serious contribution to the
debate
over America's role as the globe's sole remaining superpower."
-- San Francisco Chronicle
"Chomsky is the Left's answer to William F. Buckley."
-- Los Angeles Times
"A compendious and thought-provoking work..."
--The New Statesman
"Noam Chomsky...is a major scholarly resource. Not to have read
[him]...is to court genuine ignorance."
--The Nation
Necessary Illusions
Thought Control in Democratic Societies
Noam Chomsky
Copyright © 1989
Go to the Content Overview
Go to the Table of Contents
What role do the media play in a capitalist democracy? Based on the
Massey Lectures,
delivered in Canada in November 1988, Necessary Illusions argues
that, far from
performing a watchdog role, the "free press" serves the needs of those
in power. With
this book, Chomsky rips away the mask of propaganda that portrays the
media as
advocates of free speech and democracy:
In short, the major media are corporations "selling" privileged
audiences to
other businesses.... Media concentration is high, and increasing.
Furthermore,
those who occupy managerial positions in the media...belong to
the same
privileged elites, and might be expected to share the perceptions,
aspirations, and
attitudes of their associates, reflecting their own class
interests as well. Journalists
entering the system are unlikely to make their way unless they
conform to these
ideological pressures, generally by internalizing the values....
Those who fail to
conform will be weeded out...
-- from the Massey Lectures
This book applies the propaganda model Chomsky has developed with
Edward Herman to media coverage of the diplomatic
process in Central America and the Middle East, human rights issues,
terrorism, and other topics, revealing the crucial function
of the media and educated elites in limiting
democracy in the United States.
Rigorously documented, Necessary Illusions is an invaluable tool for
understanding how democracy functions in the United
States.
Noam Chomsky is Institute Professor of Linguistics at MIT and author
of many books on U.S. foreign policy, including The
Political Economy of Human Rights (with Edward S. Herman), The Fateful
Triangle, On Power and Ideology, and The
Culture of Terrorism.
Available in print from South End Press ($16 paperback, $40 cloth). To
order by credit card, or for information on quantity
discounts, call 800-533-8478, or write:
South End Press
116 Saint Botolph St.
Boston, MA 02115
Please add $3 shipping for the first book and 75 cents
for each additional book.
What Uncle Sam Really Wants
Noam Chomsky
Copyright © 1993
Go to the Table of Contents
Highly recommended. -- Booklist
Noam Chomsky is one of America's most popular speakers,
electrifying
standing-room-only audiences all over the country as he dissects US
foreign policy with
insights like these:
Contrary to what virtually everyone -- left or right -- says,
the United States
achieved its major objectives in Indochina. Vietnam was
demolished. There's no
danger that successful development there will provide a model for
other nations in
te region.
At exactly the moment it invaded Panama...the Bush administration
announced
new high-technology sales to China [and] plans...to lift a ban
on loans to
Iraq...Compared to Bush's buddies in Baghdad and Beijing, Noriega
looked like
Mother Teresa.
Prospects are pretty dim for Eastern Europe. The West has a plan
for it -- they
want to turn large parts of it into a new, easily exploitable part
of the Third Word.
Available in print from Odonian Press ($5 paperback). To order by
credit card, or for information on quantity discounts, call
520 296 4056 or 800 REAL STORY, or fax 520 296
0936, or write:
Odonian Press
Box 32375
Tucson, AZ 85751
What Uncle Sam Really Wants is part of the Real Story Series of books.
The Real Story Series is based on a simple idea --
political books don't have to be boring. Short, well-written and to
the point, Real Story books are meant to be read.
> > Here Endymion seems to be making an "end justifies the means"
> argument
>
> Sometimes it does, if the means are not too terrible.
A self-righteous argument if I ever saw one. Who decides? "Who will
guard the guardians?"
> There is no legal obligation under the Geneva Convention or
> international law to release POW's after a cease-fire but before
> peace is concluded. Care to guess when peace with the various Axis
> powers was concluded? (Hint: it's a trick question.)
And yet, lower down you claim that West Germany was not an occupied
country until just lately.
> > I'd also
> > like to remind the reader that West Germany was under US occupation
> > until the de-partitioning of East and West Germany
> False,
No true. I know some former West Germans who will back me up on this.
> What's stopping them? Yeltsin is elected, you know.
So is Clinton, and yet people still live in cardboard boxes on
Pennsylvania Ave.
> I suspect we give more in aid to Russia than we make back in profit.
Wishful thinking. NG.
> No, but he doesn't address them when discussing the world situation.
> They are highly relevant to any charge that the US is cruel or
> inhumane, a standard that can only have meaning relative to the
> alternatives.
Another self-righteous argument. NG.
> Close, but not quite. The means, not regardless of their nature but
> precisely because they were RELATIVELY benign, were accepted to
> prevent an end which would have been far, far worse. I see nothing
> wrong with this.
Self-righteous and making the fallacy of culture.
> Be my guest. Please, challenge my assertions on WW2 Italy first and
> tell me what really happened.
OK. By your logic, If one make fallacious arguments then all of one's
arguments are invalid. I have shown repeatedly that you have made
fallacious arguments. Therefore, by your logic, your assertions on WW2
Italy are invalid. Q.E.D.
> I have yet to see evidence of any control at all, other than the fact
> that you don't like the majority viewpoint.
Argumentum ad nauseum.
> Based on what? I still say there is no control when any viewpoint you
> can articulate is widely available and can be sold or broadcast
> anywhere you choose.
The media are owned by corporations. Corporations have the mandate to
maximize profit in the short term. Certain information obtained by
consumers can reduce their consumption of goods thus reducing profits.
Therefore the corporations that own the media have an incentive to
control what information is distributed via that media.
> Not similar in any way. Here, you can say whatever you want, however
> you want;
Not true. Threaten the President. Incite a riot. Libel Jerry Faldwell.
(as did Larry Flint. Yes he won the court case, but he still had to
defend himself). Publish kiddy-porn. Photocopy money.
> Here there are no limits except those of practicality (i.e. you can't
> force people to listen to you.) In your examples the limits are
> narrowly defined and strictly enforced.
See above. You are close to being overprecise.
> Please, for the fifth time, explain to me why if there is control I
> can easily find extreme dissenting viewpoints widely available in a
> variety of media? If it's so available (and it is) how are people
> kept from reading it? And if people are capable of reading any
> viewpoint they want, where's the censorship?
Strawman. You, I suspect, are deliberately not getting the point.
> And what views do you get in Canada that I do not get in the US?
> Chomsky's? I was just reading his web site, his books are available
> at any bookstore in the country, and he's a professor at a well known
> university!
Yes the internet does make book-banning that much harder, doesn't it?
You *are* having fun with me. That's OK, I can appreciate the humour. In
your place, I prolly would have done the same thing. Also, it has given
me a much needed opportunity to hone my skills.
Buboe the RAT ( salut! )
Buboe the Rat
Buboe the Rat
Axel
Endymion wrote in message <01bd633b$834ca320$22a945cf@default>...
>Thank you for making this point, and I agree entirely, with one
>slight exception: while the Red Army did not act officially as an
>occupying force, it must have had an important psychological effect
>as such because of the examples of Hungary and Czechoslovakia, which
>showed that the Red Army *would* suppress dissent and act as an
>occupying force if the local government failed to tow the line.
Bear in mind
1) that East Germany was formerly Prussia, the home of German militarism
2) that it was the only country to have a declining population frm the moment
it was founded because the inhabitants all had somewhere much nicer to go (W.
Germany) if they could get out
3) that the ruling class (the C.P.) would be out of a job if there was any kind
of social change
This makes it fairly evident that the C.P. would not allow any kind of
liberalism into their rule (unlike Hungary and Czechoslovakia) without the need
for the Russians to bring any pressure to bear.
Not that they wouldn't have if it had been necessary, but the ruling class
*had* to be hard line to keep their positions.
Axel
Everything is True, Even False Things
- Malaclypse the Younger
<axelmaya@SPAM_IS_NOT_NICEglobalserve.net>
>The same cannot be said for the US forces in the west as there were
>no corresponding examples.
>
David Gerard
On Tue, 07 Apr 1998 22:28:20 -0600, Felixth...@hotmail.com wrote:
:In article <01bd61e8$96674860$01a945cf@default>,
: "Endymion" <disinte...@SPAMTRAPmindspring.com> wrote:
:> > and chemical and biological weapons,
:> We don't even produce these ourselves, and certainly NEVER
:> distributed them to Iraq.
:"CERTAINLY"???? Have you actually bothered to check on this or are you
:just so certain because the truth is too hard to bear?
Don't confuse the American with facts.
--
http://thingy.apana.org.au/~fun/ AGSF Unit 0|4 http://suburbia.net/~fun/
Stop JUNK EMAIL Boycott AMAZON.COM http://mickc.home.mindspring.com/index1.htm
"I care because I don't want to spend my golden years sitting in a sports bar
arguing for or against artificial turf." - Elocutus
Axel
Endymion wrote in message <01bd6345$2155b440$22a945cf@default>...
>True, but being a book you know who wrote it and why, and you can
>evaluate the author's sources or lack thereof. I wouldn't cite _Mein
>Kampf_ for anything other than the beliefs of Hitler and the movement
>he founded.
Hitler didn't found the movement, he just took it over by being a daring and
brutal power politician.
>A good example of the difference is a complaint lodged by Herman
>Goering. The man who was personally involved in a system which herded
>millions of helpless humans into gas chambers called his own
>imprisonment inhumane because the guards kept him up at night with
>their singing!
Goering spent most of the war busy stealing art treasures and being a speed
freak to have had any direct, conscious involvement with the Holocaust.
Still a very nasty piece of work, but definitely one of the least nasty of the
bunch.
>False, addressed by Axel. And the US tried to have nationwide
>elections which were consistently blocked by the Soviets. We wanted
>to de-partition decades ago, but who do you think built the Berlin
>Wall to keep that from happening? (Well actually to keep everyone
>from fleeing west since the partition was kept.)
There was however a degree of support from the British and the French
governments to keep Germany partitioned (which isn't surprising after the
previous two wars), but because there was no way the Soviet Union was going to
allow unification (primarily because of its experiences in said wars) it was
easy to claim the moral high ground by publicly supporting unification.
>What's stopping them? Yeltsin is elected, you know.
Give them a few more elections and it could well happen.
>No, but he doesn't address them when discussing the world situation.
>They are highly relevant to any charge that the US is cruel or
>inhumane, a standard that can only have meaning relative to the
>alternatives.
Not necessarily, Chomsky approaches these issues from the perspective of an
idealist not a realist and so applies an absolute standard not a relative one.
Someone has to do it...
>Close, but not quite. The means, not regardless of their nature but
>precisely because they were RELATIVELY benign, were accepted to
>prevent an end which would have been far, far worse. I see nothing
>wrong with this.
I think this is a major cause for the disagreement, you are arguing from a
practical perspective, and BtR is coming from that of an idealist.
I would say that the U.S. is relatively benign, but could be better, and, as
with all governments must be pressured to become more benign.
Would either of you disagree?
>Please, for the fifth time, explain to me why if there is control I
>can easily find extreme dissenting viewpoints widely available in a
>variety of media? If it's so available (and it is) how are people
>kept from reading it? And if people are capable of reading any
>viewpoint they want, where's the censorship?
But, if most peoples main source of information is 3 T.V. networks, and the
networks choose not to show anything outside of certain boundaries then it
becomes difficult for people to become exposed to non-consensus viewpoints.
Obviously, the main networks aim to show what lots of people want to see, and
most people don't want to hear political debate, so as commercial enterprises
they have no desire to broadcast it.
I am not saying that there is a conspiracy, or an attempt to prevent people
from getting the information, but, to use one of my favourite quotes "the
public wants what the public gets", and as an example I would cite the
difference between British and American mass audience broadcasting.
IMO, this is a problem with a commercial system because people are lazy, and
'the price of freedom is eternal vigilance' which most people don't want to
pay.
To explain myself more fully would take more effort than I am prepared to make
on a news-group :)
To get a more thorough explanation of this theory I would suggest reading
"Manufacturing Consent" by (unfortunately) Chomsky because, while I do not put
much weight into a lot of what he has written, I believe that this book gives a
reasonably good explanation of said theory.
Axel
Buboe the Rat wrote in message <352C309D...@execulink.com>...
>Endymion wrote:
>> There is no legal obligation under the Geneva Convention or
>> international law to release POW's after a cease-fire but before
>> peace is concluded. Care to guess when peace with the various Axis
>> powers was concluded? (Hint: it's a trick question.)
>
>And yet, lower down you claim that West Germany was not an occupied
>country until just lately.
>
No, he was saying that West Germany was not under military occupation following
the installation of a democratically elected civilian government, because your
post stated that it was under military occupation until the other NATO
countries withdrew following the collapse of the Soviet Bloc.
>No true. I know some former West Germans who will back me up on this.
And I'm a West German who won't.
Admittedly I could be biased because I'm also the son of one of the British
troops stationed there.
However I never saw or heard of NATO troops suppressing the ILD riots in Berlin
or any of the many other civil disturbances that have occurred in Germany since
partition.
>> Close, but not quite. The means, not regardless of their nature but
>> precisely because they were RELATIVELY benign, were accepted to
>> prevent an end which would have been far, far worse. I see nothing
>> wrong with this.
>
>Self-righteous and making the fallacy of culture.
>
No, the difference between an idealistic and a realistic perspective.
The U.S. government has been less oppressive than the Soviet and the Chinese
governments, which is a good thing.
However, it could be a lot better which is a bad thing.
Axel
Felixth...@hotmail.com wrote in message
<6gh2kq$cte$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
>In article <6geqo2$8...@news1.newsguy.com>,
>> >the Kuwaiti's cooperated with the British, and were granted
>> >independence before the rest of Iraq. Technically speaking, Iraq was
>> >justified.
<snip>
>You're both wrong - Kuwait was never part of iran (unless you're talking about
>the ancient Persian empire - but back them most of the known world was part of
>Iran) and the ottomans didn't have iran either. I think the original poster
>meant to say "iraq" and typed Iran instead
S'right. But the first typo should have been obvious from the two Iraq's.
I missed that typo meself.
Axel
cba...@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu wrote in message
><snip the Ottoman Empire>
>
>But the border was, and is in dispute.
>
Especially since the British government gave away more of the Ottoman Empire to
assorted allies than actually existed.
Axel
cba...@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu wrote in message
<6gh9r3$ln8$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
>In article <01bd633a$7e25c760$22a945cf@default>,
> "Endymion" <disinte...@SPAMTRAPmindspring.com> wrote:
>> What, pray tell, were we supposed to do about it? By the time it
>> started (usually accepted as the January 1942 Wannsee Conference) we
>> were already at war with Germany.
Something, anything at all, not denying knowledge of it.
Theres a lot the allies could have done to have reduced the scale of the
Holocaust.
As an example, hitting the gas chambers at Auschwitz was perfectly feasible
after air superiority was achieved.
>Usually accepted by whom? Kristalnacht? The internement of Polish jews in
>slave labor camps in 1939? I'd call that the holocaust, and We knew all about
>it.
A great deal more than that was known but the allied governments refused to
even mention that it was happening.
>> > the US firebobming of civilian tarrgets
>> > in Tokyo, the British doing the same to Dresden,
>>
>> Every belligerent did this; some were simply better at it than
>> others. Whether it's entirely moral or not is a different question,
The decision to firebomb Tokyo and later the use of nuclear weapons in Japan
was justified because it would result in less American deaths, even though it
killed a vast number of non-combatants which is contrary to the Hague
Convention (or is it the Geneva one?) to which the U.S. is a signatory.
Since the U.S. claims to support international law this is morally as wrong as
you can get.
Buboe the Rat
Axel wrote:
> No, he was saying that West Germany was not under military occupation following
> the installation of a democratically elected civilian government, because your
> post stated that it was under military occupation until the other NATO
> countries withdrew following the collapse of the Soviet Bloc.
> >No true. I know some former West Germans who will back me up on this.
>
> And I'm a West German who won't.
You may be right, I'll check my facts. My memory isn't that great.
Buboe the RAT.
Endymion
Axel <axelmaya@SPAM_is_not_very_NICEglobalserve.net> wrote
> >> What, pray tell, were we supposed to do about it? By the time it
> >> started (usually accepted as the January 1942 Wannsee
Conference) we
> >> were already at war with Germany.
Empty symbolic gestures, in other words.
> Theres a lot the allies could have done to have reduced the scale
of the
> Holocaust.
I don't see how.
> As an example, hitting the gas chambers at Auschwitz was perfectly
feasible
> after air superiority was achieved.
There is a great deal of dispute about this among both professionals
and amateurs. Bombing was grossly inaccurate at this time, the
targets were more the size of cities than camps, much less individual
buildings. The most likely effect would have been to kill a lot of
inmates and not even hit the gas chambers, which in any event could
be quickly rebuilt.
Also, Auschwitz was at extreme range from the bomber bases in
England; I don't have a map handy which shows its position, but IIRC
it was significantly farther than Berlin, and possibly far enough to
be out of range.
Probably the best way to slow the Holocaust was exactly what was
done, an intensive attack on the German rail net. Unfortunately
Hitler & co. made genocide a transportation priority even over
winning the war.
Endymion
Buboe the Rat <f...@execulink.com>, trying to get smart but succeeding
about as well as Larry, Moe, and Curly, wrote
> > The FBI learns from serial killers it studies. There's nothing
wrong
> > with learning from your enemy's mistakes; and using his
experience to
> > modify your own methods does not prove you are emulating his
methods.
>
> This raises the question of the morality of using data, scientific
or
> otherwise that the Nazi's gathered (Dr. Mengle, I presume).
Furthermore,
> the FBI does not seek to emulate the serial killers but rather to
stop
> them. US COIN forces seek to achieve the same type of military
effect
> that the Nazi COIN forces did, or worse.
All of this is a smokescreen. You and Mr. Chomsky accused the US of
emulating Nazi methods. That is what I was refuting. After I did so,
you change the charge. Clever.
> > A useful starting point: War in Peace, Sir Robert Thompson, ed. -
a
> > primer on endemic combat of the Cold War era. I have read William
> > Colby's (former head of CIA and head of CIA Vietnam station)
account
> > of the CIA in Vietnam, as well as Stanley Karnow's book on
Vietnam (I
> > forget the title) which is considered definitive by most
historians.
> > I also read much (I haven't the patience for long biographies
start
> > to finish) of a biography of Giap, the top N. Vietnamese general.
> > Supplement that with umpteen books and articles by Vietnam vets
and
> > historians.
>
> I'd say that you are citing from authority. NG
Um, only because you demanded that I list them, dipshit. And citing
sources is not argument from authority. You don't even use the right
terminology, much less understand it.
> > I have asked you to present any
> > evidence of a general conspiracy among corporations, and you have
> > not.
>
> Ad lapidem. Also you are making an all or nothing mistake.
Bullshit. As usual you have utterly misstated my position. I said you
have presented no evidence, and you haven't.
> My point is that corporations are totalitarian within themselves.
As
> evidence, try voting against being laid off.
Totalitarian by definition must include power everywhere, outside the
workplace. Try opening your own business. Or just applying elsewhere.
> > There is no ideological litmus test to be admitted into the ranks
of
> > the wealthy here, if only for one simple reason: they are too
> > short-sighted, and too single-mindedly focused on profits, to let
> > concerns like ideological loyalty to affect business decisions.
>
> You are correct. The next quarter profits are usually the
overriding
> concern. Such things as safety, environmental concerns, and human
rights
> are subordinated because they are not the prime directive of a
company.
> The prime directive of a company is to make a profit. Strawman. NG.
Again, you spout the term without understanding. Exactly how have I
misstated your position here?
> > Discrimination based on a conscious choice which negatively
impacts
> > the business of the employer is neither illegal nor immoral.
>
> Is choice of religion a concious one? In your argument you left out
> freedom of religion.
Good point. I suppose I will have to work on my definition, although
I did answer your point of how hair discrimination differs from race.
The US law on this is that certain choices, such as religion and
reproduction, but not most, fall within a zone of privacy within
which the state is obliged not to interfere.
> > Put it another way: why doesn't an employer have a constitutional
> > right to hire or fire whomever he chooses, as long as it's not
based
> > on certain inherent protected classes like race? After all it's
his
> > or her own business.
>
> The right to a livelyhood is in the Universal Declaration of Human
> Rights, of which the United States is a signatory.
But one single employer cannot deny anyone this right.
> > Please listen. I said nothing - NOTHING - about popularity. What
I
> > said was that posing a theory and claiming that no matter which
way
> > any evidence points, it all supports the theory, and contrary
> > evidence only mans there's a big conspiracy to hide the REAL
evidence
> > which only the theorist can see, is characteristic of a paranoid
> > fantasy. It's also terrible science, whether in physics or the
social
> > sciences.
>
> Appeal to numbers fallacy.NFG.
Defective brain fallacy. Read my argument again. There's nothing
about numbers in it. As I said, I call it a paranoid fantasy when
someone says "You are X. If you admit it, that proves it. If you deny
it, that proves you're lying to cover up that you are. If everyone
else supports your denial, that proves that the entire world is
conspiring to cover it up."
> > I have conceded that some of what you said was true, but it did
not
> > address anything I said or prove any of your points. For
instance,
> > the failure of the US to make more symbolic gestures to protest
human
> > rights abuses in China which are beyond our control may be wrong,
but
> > it does not make those abuses our fault.
>
> Self-righteous argument. (and therefore fallacious)NFG.
I think you are adding a few fallacies to Aristotle, here. Care to
explain?
> > Look at how this debate started - you say it's wrong to embargo
Cuba,
> > which is a horrendous human rights abuser, and that we should
trade
> > with them regardless. Yet you also say it's wrong to trade with
h.r.
> > abusers in China. Which way do you want it? Oh, I forgot,
whatever
> > the US does, even if it reverses every single policy 180 degrees,
it
> > only proves that we are fascist.
I note you do not address this. Again, how can you expect me to take
seriously a theory that says the US is fascist based on its actions,
but would still be fascist even if it reversed those actions 180
degrees? It seems that any action the US could conceivably take,
other than appointing Noam Chomsky Supreme Eminence and Grand Poobah,
is evidence that it is fascist
This discussion is no longer amusing or worth my time; it is obvious
that you are badly misinformed, ignorant of any sense of logic, and
either an idiot or determined to be obnoxious.
I almost never do this, but
*PLONK*
Endymion
cba...@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu wrote
None of this establishes the presence of US troops on the ground in
Iraq, or the provision of arms to Iraq by the US government.
Speculate all you wish.
I'm outta here.
--
Endymion disintegration@ SPAMTRAP mindspring.com
Endymion
cba...@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu wrote
A 20-page book?
> > I have neither time nor inclination to address 30 pages if
nonsense
> > in one post. I think showing that one section is based on
flagrant
> > lies is enough to call Mr. Chomsky's status as a reliable
authority
> > into question.
>
> Well, you havent managed to demonstrate to me, who is generally
biased against
> Chomsky that these "flagrant lies" are anything more than ad
hominem
> hyperbole.
Read the part on WW2 Italy again. Refer to any WW2 history for the
sequence of events in N. Italy in April 1945. Chomsky lied.
> > > > He is basing this on James Bacque's _Other Losses_, a book
which
> > > This is hardly the only possible source for this information,
thus
> > > making your conclusion self-serving and specious.
> >
> > It's the only source he listed. Even on
soc.history.war.world-war-ii
> > I have seen much more in-depth analysis of this issue going back
to
> > primary sources.
>
> I thought you said he didn't name any sources.
I said few references, and those to secondary sources. _Other Losses_
is not a primary source.
> > Partly because the participants chose to make it so. For examples
of
> > Soviet cruelty to prisoners I refer you to _Enemy at the Gates_
(I
> > forget the author) which is an excellent history of the Battle of
> > Stalingrad containing many first-hand anecdotes.
>
> And how many civilian casualties were there in the battle of
Stalingrad, from
> starvation and exposure alone?
That was during the battle; I am not blaming the Sovs for German
deaths *in* Stalingrad. POW atrocities continued long after the
battle and after the POWs were removed from the area.
> No the argment is that we do bad things and should stop,
Yours maybe, that wasn't how it started.
> > If Mr. Chomsky intends to call US treatment of
> > POWs brutal he has to show that a feasible alternative existed
which
> > would have caused less suffering.
>
> Maybe by treating them better?
How?
> Youve fixated on the time of internment,
> because you can point to the Soviets as worse, which BTW is only
the case for
> *some* POW's.
Because it's the only objective data he supplied.
> There is far more to Chomsky's point.
Well he doesn't make it. Oh, I forgot. In the US, schoolchildren
taunted the POWs, although they couldn't hit them. ATROCITY!
> > An equivalent to Stalin's actions
> > would have been if we had rolled our tanks right up to the gates
of
> > Bergen-Belsen but politely waited until the SS had finished
killing
> > off all the inmates before interrupting. Of course this never
> > happened - in the west.
>
> The West? Your gift for hyperbole is astounding. Oliver Cromwell
managed to
> masacre 2.5 million Irish without the benefit of modern technology.
Further,
> Germany *is* in the West. What you mean is that the US has never
practiced
> mechanized genocide. I'm sure thats a great comfort to the
Cherokee.
By the west I meant the western Allies. And please restrict your
analysis to the twentieth century; I am not responsible for
Cromwell's actions any more than Gorbachev was responsible for Ivan
the Terrible's.
> > > Once again however, comparative attrocities do not frame an
> > > argument.
> >
> > We're repeating ourselves. They do, when the argument is that we
are
> > the bad guys of the world. And we are not talking comparable
> > atrocities, not by a long shot; we are talking mild excesses
measured
> > against shocking inhumanity.
>
> Only in raw numbers and semantic differences.
Raw numbers aren't important? I'd say they are, when you're speaking
of orders of magnitude.
> You compare the treatment of
> POW's when it suits you, but lose your bile when you might, say,
compare the
> treament of hardened troops to the immolation of half a million
Japanese
> civilians.
An act of war which was acceptable by the morality of the time. Japan
refused to surrender, and got bombed. If they had surrendered, they
wouldn't have gotten bombed. The POWs weren't given this choice.
> > > Are you honestly asserting that US forgeign policy
> > > was concerned with the moral character of those we placed in
power,
> > > versus those we fought against?
> >
> > Yes, and with the larger picture. Just as in WW2, the idea is
that
> > one must sometimes choose the lesser of two evils; that sitting
> > piously on one's hands and refusing to choose means the greater
evil
> > might just win by default.
>
> Greater evil how? By being communist/socialist? Its the only
difference.
By slaughtering entire populations, and perpetuating the system into
eternity.
> > > If so, do the names Pahlavi, Somoza,
> > > Hussein, Marcos, Duvalier, Peron or Batista,
> >
> > Most of those were not installed in power by the US; others
received
> > very little assistance from the US and could have easily stayed
in
> > power without it;
>
> Thats bullshit. We installed all but Hussien and maybe Peron
You stretch the definition of install. We may have favored the system
but didn't pick the man.
> and given that
> *all* of them but Hussein were deposed, even with massive US
support
Marcos did not have US support when he was deposed. The PI are now a
democracy. Duvalier sr. was not deposed; after that the Haitian
picture gets complex but they are closer to democratic now than 50
years ago. So is Argentina. Cuba and Iran are not, because anti-US
revolts installed even worse despots. Nicaragua is, because of
pressure put on Somoza's overthrowers by the US. Lesson: have an
anti-US revolt, and chances are you get a dictator for generations.
Don't, and chances are you eventually move towards democracy.
> > all of them were mere amateurs compared to Stalin,
> > Mao, Pol Pot, Kim Il Sung, etc.
>
> Or alternately, maybe were just better at hiding the numbers.
I think not.
> Heard much
> about the 15,000 civilian casulties in Panama city *alone* in our
"bloodless"
> invasion?
Panama, 15,000. Cambodia, who knows? Over a million anyway. I'd
rather have been in Panama, by far.
> > installing
> > somewhat corrupt and repressive dictators over whom we can have
some
> > moderating influence, and whom we may later be able to gently
push
> > towards (or push out in favor of) democracy, makes more sense
than
> > letting the countries fall into the hands of much more vicious
and
> > murderous dictators who will never allow the slightest seeds of
> > democracy to take hold.
>
> And youre *honestly* asserting that we did that?
Yes.
> I'm afraid I'm going to have to insist on support for that
> whopper. I'm dying to hear how teaching the Contras to extract the
eyes of
> nuns to "question" them promotes democracy.
Nicaragua is now democratic, in part due to pressure put on the
Sandinistas by the US including the Contras effort. North Korea,
Vietnam, and Cuba are, however, still dictatorships.
> > Look at the record. Many of the countries whose leaders you've
listed
> > have more democratic governments now than they did when those
leaders
> > came to power.
>
> Yes, after those countries had *revolutions*.
The ones that had commie revolutions are now dictatorships. Others
like the Philippines had democratic "revolutions" which the US did
not oppose.
> > The worst exception is Cuba where our man was replaced
> > by a much more tyrannical fanatic.
>
> Yeah, you don't like Castro. Ever been to Cuba?
Have you? Several people I know have, mostly as missionaries. My
father has been there many times. It was much better for everyone
except communists under Batista.
Again, I'm outta here.
Endymion
Buboe the Rat <f...@execulink.com> wrote
> > > Here Endymion seems to be making an "end justifies the means"
> > argument
> >
> > Sometimes it does, if the means are not too terrible.
>
> A self-righteous argument if I ever saw one. Who decides? "Who will
> guard the guardians?"
The voters. It's called democracy.
> > There is no legal obligation under the Geneva Convention or
> > international law to release POW's after a cease-fire but before
> > peace is concluded. Care to guess when peace with the various
Axis
> > powers was concluded? (Hint: it's a trick question.)
>
> And yet, lower down you claim that West Germany was not an occupied
> country until just lately.
I said it was not occupied until 1989. It was occupied until, IIRC,
1948 or so.
> > > I'd also
> > > like to remind the reader that West Germany was under US
occupation
> > > until the de-partitioning of East and West Germany
>
> > False,
>
> No true. I know some former West Germans who will back me up on
this.
See Axel's post. Our troops, under NATO command were there by
invitation of the FRD to guard against the Warsaw pact, not as
occupiers. All civil authority was under the FRD gov't.
> > What's stopping them? Yeltsin is elected, you know.
>
> So is Clinton, and yet people still live in cardboard boxes on
> Pennsylvania Ave.
But no one claims that's Russia's fault. Their gov't is their choice.
> > Be my guest. Please, challenge my assertions on WW2 Italy first
and
> > tell me what really happened.
>
> OK. By your logic, If one make fallacious arguments then all of
one's
> arguments are invalid. I have shown repeatedly that you have made
> fallacious arguments. Therefore, by your logic, your assertions on
WW2
> Italy are invalid. Q.E.D.
Not what I said. Mr. Chomsky's fallacious arguments are his own
business, but factual lies are not. My logic is that a book which
contains blatant falsehoods is suspect.
> > Based on what? I still say there is no control when any viewpoint
you
> > can articulate is widely available and can be sold or broadcast
> > anywhere you choose.
>
> The media are owned by corporations. Corporations have the mandate
to
> maximize profit in the short term. Certain information obtained by
> consumers can reduce their consumption of goods thus reducing
profits.
> Therefore the corporations that own the media have an incentive to
> control what information is distributed via that media.
You've explained the incentive, now provide evidence it's done.
> > Not similar in any way. Here, you can say whatever you want,
however
> > you want;
>
> Not true. Threaten the President. Incite a riot. Libel Jerry
Faldwell.
> (as did Larry Flint. Yes he won the court case, but he still had to
> defend himself). Publish kiddy-porn. Photocopy money.
Grow up. Only the first and third are expressions of ideas; the first
is one of the few exceptions, and pretty much universally observed;
the third, yes, he did win.
> > Please, for the fifth time, explain to me why if there is control
I
> > can easily find extreme dissenting viewpoints widely available in
a
> > variety of media? If it's so available (and it is) how are people
> > kept from reading it? And if people are capable of reading any
> > viewpoint they want, where's the censorship?
>
> Strawman. You, I suspect, are deliberately not getting the point.
>
> > And what views do you get in Canada that I do not get in the US?
> > Chomsky's? I was just reading his web site, his books are
available
> > at any bookstore in the country, and he's a professor at a well
known
> > university!
>
> Yes the internet does make book-banning that much harder, doesn't
it?
>
> You *are* having fun with me.
No longer. I note that you did not answer either of my points above.
Have a nice day. Goodbye.
Endymion
Axel <axelmaya@SPAM_is_not_very_NICEglobalserve.net> wrote i
> >I wouldn't cite _Mein
> >Kampf_ for anything other than the beliefs of Hitler and the
movement
> >he founded.
>
daring and
> brutal power politician.
True, but he was, what, Party member # 8 or something? He made it
what it was.
> >A good example of the difference is a complaint lodged by Herman
> >Goering. The man who was personally involved in a system which
herded
> >millions of helpless humans into gas chambers called his own
> >imprisonment inhumane because the guards kept him up at night with
> >their singing!
>
> Goering spent most of the war busy stealing art treasures and being
a speed
> freak to have had any direct, conscious involvement with the
Holocaust.
He was very good at covering his tracks (but not good enough). No one
knows exactly what his involvement was, but the general consensus
among historians seems to be that Goering had his hand in so much of
the total war effort that it would have been impossible to operate
the camps without his knowledge and difficult without his consent.
IIRC also he didn't go into withdrawal from life until after the
failure of the Stalingrad airlift, and even then he kept a little bit
of a foot in the door.
> I think this is a major cause for the disagreement, you are arguing
from a
> practical perspective, and BtR is coming from that of an idealist.
> I would say that the U.S. is relatively benign, but could be
better, and, as
> with all governments must be pressured to become more benign.
> Would either of you disagree?
Not I. I suspect he would disagree with "relatively benign" since
that's been my position all along.
> I am not saying that there is a conspiracy, or an attempt to
prevent people
> from getting the information, but, to use one of my favourite
quotes "the
> public wants what the public gets", and as an example I would cite
the
> difference between British and American mass audience broadcasting.
I agree entirely.
> IMO, this is a problem with a commercial system because people are
lazy, and
> 'the price of freedom is eternal vigilance' which most people don't
want to
> pay.
Exactly. It's not some vast corporate conspiracy, it's people making
the choice to allow corps. to run their lives because it's easier.
Their own fault, and they could stop any time they chose and there's
nothing the corps. could do about it.
Endymion
Felixth...@hotmail.com wrote
(snip)
Nowhere here do I see evidence that the US shipped arms to Iraq. What
we have is weapons going from third countries to Iraq, with the US
winking and not stopping it (a different allegation than that "we
were Saddam's sugar daddy" or ';Saddam was a US client") along with a
felon's attempt to get out of jail by drumming up a conspiracy theory
to make it look like his case was selective prosecution.
> Here's another fact you may have difficulty accepting: Saddam
Hussien
> pre-cleared his attack on Kuwait with the US and was told by US
Ambassador
> April Glaspie that the US had "no opinions" on inter-Arab
conflicts! Boy, was
> that a BIG LIE!
Discussed elsewhere.
> Another BIG LIE: did you know that despite all the talk about Iran
developing
> nuclear weapons - to date there is NOT ONE SINGLE IOTA OF EVIDENCE
supporting
> this? NO ONE!!
Iran or Iraq? I know nothing about Iran & nukes.
> > Hardly a technical term. I would like you to refer me to the
portion
> > of any defense appropriation bill authorizing aid to Iraq, or the
> > Congressional hearings at which any of this was revealed.
>
>
> Fact: Iraq was removed from the US State Department list of
"terrorist
> nations" to facilitate the transfer of dual-use technology
(ostensibly for
> "agricultural" purposes) and funding (ever heard of the BNL
scandal?)
> For details check out the documentation and other info available
from the
> National Security Archives (based in George Washington University I
think) -
> their site:
That's not supplying of arms, that's lifting an embargo. I'm still
looking for provisions of arms *by* the US. None so far.
> > Torture, executions, and political prisoners all increased
> > drastically after the Khomeini regime assumed power.
>
> And your point? Regardless of what happened AFTER the revolution,
the fact
> remains that one reason for the Shah's downfall was torture etc.
all assisted
> and supported by the US. It wasn't really a case of "modernizing
too fast" as
> you claimed.
Obviously torture wasn't the sticking point since his successors had
no problem with it. It didn't help, sure - but the main motivation
was religious fervor, and a big part of that was ending the
secularization of society.
> > So how does this make what I said baloney? Iran was trying to cut
off
> > the oil flow through the straits; we stopped them from cutting it
> > off.
>
> No _ Iran was NOT attacking ALL oil shipping - just belligerents.
Iran
> DEPENDS on keeping the Straits open.
Belligerents who happen to supply the majority of the oil shipped to
US allies in Japan and Western Europe. The fact remains our goal was
not to see Saddam triumph or Iran destroyed but to keep the oil
flowing and keep a balance of power between the two.
fbr...@gtn.net
In article <6ghicv$j...@news1.newsguy.com>,
"Axel" <axelmaya@SPAM_is_not_very_NICEglobalserve.net> wrote:
> I think this is a major cause for the disagreement, you are arguing from a
> practical perspective, and BtR is coming from that of an idealist.
> I would say that the U.S. is relatively benign, but could be better, and, as
> with all governments must be pressured to become more benign.
> Would either of you disagree?
I cannot disagree entirely with your point. I would like to add that the US is
less benign than it allows itself to be portrayed.
> To explain myself more fully would take more effort than I am prepared to
make
> on a news-group :)
To me, at least, you have achieved your aim. Well said!
Buboe the RAT.
cba...@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu
In article <01bd6389$80326e60$07a945cf@default>,
"Endymion" <disinte...@SPAMTRAPmindspring.com> wrote:
>
> cba...@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu wrote
>
> None of this establishes the presence of US troops on the ground in
> Iraq, or the provision of arms to Iraq by the US government.
> Speculate all you wish.
>
> I'm outta here.
>
I think we'll have to call this a "strategic withdrawal". The information you
seek is in my *other* post. I wanted to be sure of my facts before I posted,
something you don't seem interested in. Moreover, felix also posted a couple
of things, I was even unaware of, to wit: the granting of export licences for
60+ shipments of Anthrax to Iraq 6 years after we became aware that Hussein
was using chemical and biological weapons, and the testimony of a USMC Lt. Col
confirming that we indeed had troops on the ground during the Iran Iraq war.
Moreover I notice that youve smugly withdrawn from all your other statements
without noting that you were, despite your derision, utterly wrong.
You said that the US did not provide significant assistance to Iraq. Utterly
wrong, despite your comic book reference. You still insist that the
government did not provide arms to Iraq, ignoring the fact that we most
certainly did, and also licenced US corporations to do so, both in violation
fo our "neutrality". Utterly wrong. With regard to chemical and biological
weapons you said "We don't even produce these ourselves, and certainly NEVER
distributed them to Iraq." Utterly wrong on both counts, despite your
caplitalization. Youbjected to the both the term and concept of "sugar daddy"
despite 5.5 Billion dollars in US backed, unsecured loans. Utterly wrong,
again. You asserted that the US did not promise Iraq that we would not
involve ourselves in the Kuwait conflict. We did. Utterly wrong. You said
that Iraq did not threaten shipping, despite the fact that they *started* the
tankers war, and cunducted 70% of the attacks. Utterly wrong. There were a
couple of other points, too trivial to rehash, but I think I've made my point.
Its a good thing youre "outa here" since, given your take on Chomsky, by your
own opinions we shouldn't listen to a word you say, and for myself, I have no
desire to argue with people who make up facts and then lack the character to
admit theyre wrong.
Jim Dugan
ren
Heh. Felix. You getting bored with religion? Turning to
politics I see.
--
ren @ http://www.netgoths.com (23rd March 1998)
chaos is fun @ chaos is your friend @ chaos for the whole
family
Felixth...@hotmail.com
In article <352D2A07...@netgoths.com>,
ren <r...@netgoths.com> wrote:
>
> Heh. Felix. You getting bored with religion? Turning to
> politics I see.
>
> --
> ren @ http://www.netgoths.com (23rd March 1998)
What's the difference? Hehehehehe....