Can You Imagine World Without Lenin?
Sound of Trumpet
What If Lenin's Stroke Came Five Years Sooner?
Bryan Caplan
In November, 1917, Lenin overthrew the first democratically elected
government in Russian history. In May, 1922, Lenin suffered the first
of three strokes, finally dying in January, 1924. What would have
happened if Lenin had a fatal stroke in mid-1917?
It's a pretty picture. In 1917, even Lenin's fellow Bolsheviks
weren't ready for socialist revolution. As Richard Pipes explains in
The Russian Revolution:
[B]arely four weeks after tsarism had been overthrown, Lenin was
publicly sentencing its successor to death. This proposition ran so
contrary to the sentiments of the majority of his followers, it seemed
so irresponsible and "adventurist," that the remainder of the night...
was spent in tempestuous debate.
When Lenin defended immediate socialist revolution in writing (the
"April Theses"):
Pravda's editorial board refused to print [it] on the pretext of a
mechanical breakdown in its printing press. A meeting of the
Bolshevik Central Committee on April 6 passed a negative resolution on
them...
The Petrograd Committee met on April 8 to discuss Lenin's paper.
Its verdict was also overwhelmingly negative, two voting in favor,
thirteen against, with one abstention. The reaction in the provincial
cities was similar...
Only through great effort did Lenin win his followers over to his
position. If he had been dead, then, it is quite likely that the
Bolsheviks would have cooperated with the "bourgeois- democratic"
government. The ripple effects would have been amazing:
* If Kerensky's government made a separate peace with Germany, as
Lenin did, the Germans would still have been defeated on schedule by
American intervention in 1918. Otherwise the Germans would have been
defeated sooner. Even if the Germans conquered the entirety of
European Russia, the Versailles treaty would almost certainly have
returned the democratically elected government of Russia to power.
* Needless to say, without Lenin's coup there probably wouldn't
have been a Russian Civil War or the horrific War Communism famine.
* Without Lenin's coup, the Bolsheviks would never have ruled
Russia. The Bolsheviks couldn't have won power democratically; they
weren't even able to win the first election after their coup. Under
peaceful conditions, their radicalism would have alienated almost any
electorate. Given Russia's large culturally conservative peasant
majority, the Bolsheviks wouldn't have stood a chance.
* Without the Bolsheviks' example, attempted socialist coups in
Germany, Hungary, and elsewhere probably wouldn't have happened
either. Few Europeans would have yearned for dictators to protect
them from the Red Peril - or scapegoated the whole Jewish people for
the misdeeds of a handful of prominent Bolsheviks of Jewish descent.
* Without the fear of Bolshevism, it's quite likely that Mussolini
wouldn't have taken over Italy - and extremely likely that Hitler
wouldn't have taken over Germany. Indeed, if the Germans hadn't
gotten a foretaste of Bolshevism after World War I, Hitler might never
have entered politics.
* Under moderate economic policies, there's every reason to think
that Russian economic growth would have resumed its very promising pre-
war course. As Gregory and Stuart's 1990 text explains, "Russian
industrial growth was more rapid than its European neighbors after
1880" (and before World War I). Per capita net national product rose
at an annual rate of 1.7% between 1883 and 1913 - despite defeat in
the Russo-Japanese War and the subsequent failed 1905 revolution.
* All the horrors caused by Lenin's imitators around the world
would have been far less likely. A Mao might have arisen in China
without Soviet inspiration, but it's not likely.
Bottom line: If Lenin had died, Russia would have emerged from the
horrors of World War I smelling like a rose. There would have been no
Soviet Union and no Stalinism, just steady progress. Russia would
have been more authoritarian and statist than most countries in
Europe, but it would have been a normal country.
Even better, without the Red Scare and associated anti-Semitism,
Germany would probably have remained a normal country, too. No Nazi
Germany, no Soviet Union, no World War II. Even Japan might have
behaved peaceably if it faced a civilized, prosperous Russia eager to
trade food and resources for manufactures. Without war with Japan,
China, too, could have gotten on the path to prosperity fifty years
earlier. Imagine.
Of course, something else could have gone wrong. Counter-factual
history is never certain. But if a stroke killed Lenin in 1917,
there's good reason to think that the world could have skipped decades
of bloodshed, poverty, terror, and totalitarian dogma. Alas.
Shrikeback
wrote:
> http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2010/05/what_if_lenins.html
>
> What If Lenin's Stroke Came Five Years Sooner?
My understanding is that Lenin didn't have a stroke,
he had syphillitic paresis.
Anyway...
Imagine there's no Lenin,
It's easy if you try--.
No New Economic Policy,
Above us only sky.
DouhetSukd
Wanker, though a good wank would probably do you worlds of good.
bigfl...@gmail.com
Same could be asked of Monet. What if he never took up painting?
Being the proud owner of one, the girl I attracted would not have
shown up.
But fortunately I have discovered now,
"That I Don't Care Too Much For Monet"
"Monet Cant By Me Love".....
BOfL
bigfl...@gmail.com
> Dude, you got nothing better to do? Guess not.
>
> Wanker, though a good wank would probably do you worlds of good.
Does it work for you?
BOfL
Chris Thompson
Alternate history involving changes to Lenin's career must have
been done lots of times, but the one that came to mind first was
George Zebrowski's "Lenin in Odessa".
--
Chris Thompson
Email: ce...@cam.ac.uk
Quadibloc
> Dude, you got nothing better to do?
At least here he is on the side of sweetness and light. If it weren't
for Lenin, Russia would have stayed a democracy. No Cold War, none of
the horrors of Stalin, but instead friendship between Russia and the
democratic world. Mainland China, too, would have been spared its
horrible fate.
John Savard
Cryptoengineer
Imperial Russia a democracy? You have a lot to learn, grasshopper.
Start by reading.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duma#State_Duma_in_Imperial_Russia
pt
Joseph Nebus
>Strumpet almost manages to be on-topic for RASFW !
>Alternate history involving changes to Lenin's career must have
>been done lots of times, but the one that came to mind first was
>George Zebrowski's "Lenin in Odessa".
Oh, come to think of it there's one that I almost remember and
might find worth tossing off as a YASID. It ran, I believe, in
Asimov's Science Fiction magazine around 1991 or 1992, and was a short
story told either in first-person or in pretty near that. It was the
extended confession of a man who hoped to be remembered as the greatest
killer of the 20th Century.
As you might expect, he was a time-traveller from the future
who popped back to somewhere in the early 1910s and somehow --- I think
by accident but I'm not positive --- killed Gavrilo Princip before he
could be anything more than a very minor historical footnote. When his
time-travel pickup fails to arrive he realizes he's just time-rippled
away his whole timeline.
So he figures he may as well go about seeking other potential
troublemakers; I remember him particularly seeking out an obscure
seminary student in Ukraine once he remembered what Stalin's real name
had been, in order to kill *him*. I don't know if Lenin (or Trotsky)
were mentioned, although I'd bet on it given the motif of seeking out
those who in our timeline were trouble and killing them when they were
still innocent of anything.
But there was only the one World War, and it was postponed a
decade or so from our history's Great War, and apparently history was
a generally less bloody affair once he'd gone on his minor serial killer
spree. I think he was confessing after having been caught in the murder
of Lee Harvey Oswald, although it seems improbable that Oswald would be
born in a world that didn't have a recognizable First World War.
--
Joseph Nebus
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lawrence Watt-Evans
> Oh, come to think of it there's one that I almost remember and
>might find worth tossing off as a YASID. It ran, I believe, in
>Asimov's Science Fiction magazine around 1991 or 1992, and was a short
>story told either in first-person or in pretty near that. It was the
>extended confession of a man who hoped to be remembered as the greatest
>killer of the 20th Century.
"The Murderer," by, um... me.
> As you might expect, he was a time-traveller from the future
>who popped back to somewhere in the early 1910s and somehow --- I think
>by accident but I'm not positive --- killed Gavrilo Princip before he
>could be anything more than a very minor historical footnote. When his
>time-travel pickup fails to arrive he realizes he's just time-rippled
>away his whole timeline.
His first killing is William Randolph Hearst; Gavrilo Princip is
later, after he's started doing it intentionally.
> So he figures he may as well go about seeking other potential
>troublemakers; I remember him particularly seeking out an obscure
>seminary student in Ukraine once he remembered what Stalin's real name
>had been, in order to kill *him*. I don't know if Lenin (or Trotsky)
>were mentioned, although I'd bet on it given the motif of seeking out
>those who in our timeline were trouble and killing them when they were
>still innocent of anything.
I don't think I mentioned Lenin or Trotsky specifically, but I'm not
sure.
> But there was only the one World War, and it was postponed a
>decade or so from our history's Great War, and apparently history was
>a generally less bloody affair once he'd gone on his minor serial killer
>spree. I think he was confessing after having been caught in the murder
>of Lee Harvey Oswald, although it seems improbable that Oswald would be
>born in a world that didn't have a recognizable First World War.
No, he's caught after killing Ted Bundy. I agree that it's unlikely
Ted Bundy would exist, but what the heck.
--
My webpage is at http://www.watt-evans.com
I'm selling my comic collection -- see http://www.watt-evans.com/comics.html
I'm serializing a novel at http://www.watt-evans.com/realmsoflight0.html
Nate Edel
I think he's referring to the short lived government between the Tsarist one
and the Bolsheviks (ie under Lvov and Kerensky.) Probably a goner that one,
even sans Lenin, but you never know.
--
Nate Edel http://www.cubiclehermit.com/
preferred email |
is "nate" at the | "I do have a cause, though. It's obscenity. I'm
posting domain | for it."
David DeLaney
>nebusj-@-rpi-.edu (Joseph Nebus) wrote:
>> Oh, come to think of it there's one that I almost remember and
>>might find worth tossing off as a YASID. It ran, I believe, in
>>Asimov's Science Fiction magazine around 1991 or 1992, and was a short
>>story told either in first-person or in pretty near that. It was the
>>extended confession of a man who hoped to be remembered as the greatest
>>killer of the 20th Century.
>
>"The Murderer," by, um... me.
Well, that's certainly ONE way to get YAS IDed...
Dave "can't do this as yet" DeLaney
--
\/David DeLaney posting from d...@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.
Quadibloc
> Well, that's certainly ONE way to get YAS IDed...
Fame is fleeting. Or difficult to obtain. A meditation on the music
career, which apparently has yet to really get started, of one Lenou
Petsilas features in a post where I was inspired to note that the
music industry is as crazy as the film industry, in which two studios
are working on their own different adaptations of 20,000 Leagues Under
the Sea at the same time.
John Savard
Joseph Nebus
>On 17 May 2010 23:06:57 -0400, nebusj-@-rpi-.edu (Joseph Nebus) wrote:
>> Oh, come to think of it there's one that I almost remember and
>>might find worth tossing off as a YASID. It ran, I believe, in
>>Asimov's Science Fiction magazine around 1991 or 1992, and was a short
>>story told either in first-person or in pretty near that. It was the
>>extended confession of a man who hoped to be remembered as the greatest
>>killer of the 20th Century.
>"The Murderer," by, um... me.
Ah! That's the sort of first-rate story identification service
that's going to keep Usenet atop the competition in quality, even if
not in volume.
>> As you might expect, he was a time-traveller from the future
>>who popped back to somewhere in the early 1910s and somehow --- I think
>>by accident but I'm not positive --- killed Gavrilo Princip before he
>>could be anything more than a very minor historical footnote. When his
>>time-travel pickup fails to arrive he realizes he's just time-rippled
>>away his whole timeline.
>His first killing is William Randolph Hearst; Gavrilo Princip is
>later, after he's started doing it intentionally.
I'm mildly surprised that I forgot it started with Hearst [1],
given my general interest in newspapers and student-journalism
pretentions of the time, although how history would change if Princip
weren't around does get a lot more ... er ... press, so that's an
easier historical change to remember.
I'm also pleasantly surprised to find the story as I remembered
it is not unrecognizably far off the story as it really was. It's an
almost tolerable error rate.
[1] Nobody ever does alternate histories around James Bennet,
do they? There must be some story somewhere where he flees to Hong Kong
instead of Paris and establishes the New York Herald over there. Or does
something *really* weird.
--
Joseph Nebus
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Zerkon
> In November, 1917, Lenin overthrew the first democratically elected
> government in Russian history.
Metaphor gone wild. No, Lenin did not overthrow a government. A whole
bunch of people did of which Lenin was a member. So maybe we can take the
rest from there.
One can pick out any person out from the chain of history and so change
all of it. No person including Lenin is such an historical singularity
or if so then many others can be made to be also each becoming an
eradicating agent to the next.
The view here is that history is made by celebrity leaders when it is
really made by all the nameless followers.
*Anarcissie*
That is assuming we know what history _is_, and how
it is made. I rather think of it as one of the arts (it does
have a muse, Clio) than as some sort of solid-rock thing
in the universe. Given that a large number of people are
sycophantic leader-followers, I think it's quite possible
that the quirks and accidents of Great Leaders might
change the course of their experience ("history"?)
profoundly.
Personally, I like to imagine Usenet without Sound of
Trumpet, but the rest of you read her, him or it faithfully
and converse excitedly about what you read, so here
I am.
Cryptoengineer
> Strumpet almost manages to be on-topic for RASFW !
>
> Alternate history involving changes to Lenin's career must have
> been done lots of times, but the one that came to mind first was
> George Zebrowski's "Lenin in Odessa".
I can't imagine "Imagine" without Lennon.
pt
James A. Donald
> On Sun, 16 May 2010 10:13:17 -0700, Sound of Trumpet wrote:
>
> > In November, 1917, Lenin overthrew the first democratically elected
> > government in Russian history.
>
> Metaphor gone wild. No, Lenin did not overthrow a government. A whole
> bunch of people did of which Lenin was a member. So maybe we can take the
> rest from there.
It was a conspiratorial coup - a rather small bunch of members of
the elite led by Lenin. You have no difficulty in saying that
Pinochet overthrew a government, why then not say that Lenin
overthrew a government?
T Guy
You could start by reading the OP - it starts with the transition from
Czar to republic.
T Guy
Quadibloc
> No person including Lenin is such an historical singularity
> or if so then many others can be made to be also each becoming an
> eradicating agent to the next.
And here I thought the only difference between Lenin and the rest of
us is that he has a head start on the Butterfly Effect.
John Savard
Terry Cross
You are just reciting the doctrines of Existentialism, but they are
doctrinally inconsistent. If no one does anything, what is the
purpose of the institutions of justice? And when the processes of
justice are abandoned, why do things get worse?
Anarcissie
<bdo8v5p4r9c2ndbe4...@4ax.com>,
I thought the common understanding was that Pinochet
was originally a figurehead. Nixon and Kissinger were
said to have begun pushing for a coup as soon as
Allende was elected, and there were plenty of people
in Chile who liked the idea, especially among the
military, and P. was the senior general signed on to
the deal. I don't think we have a Lenin type in P.
Incidentally, it is my understanding that Novgorod,
then a sort of state unto itself, was a republic of
sorts back in the 15th century, so it would be the
first "democratically elected government" for the very
broad use of "democratically elected" we are probably
engaging in here.
Default User
"Cryptoengineer" <pete...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:d24033ee-e1fc-4e7d...@a16g2000vbr.googlegroups.com...
> I can't imagine "Imagine" without Lennon.
There was an alt-hist story in one of the magazines 10-15 years back, that
turned on Lennon quitting the Beatles over the issue of doing cover songs.
The Beatles continued on without him, in fact were still around as a
retro-band in "modern" times.
Brian
Default User
"*Anarcissie*" <anarc...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:54ba7b5c-65bf-4b8a...@y12g2000vbr.googlegroups.com...
> Personally, I like to imagine Usenet without Sound of
> Trumpet, but the rest of you read her, him or it faithfully
> and converse excitedly about what you read, so here
> I am.
That's a problem that a newsreader that can filter on cross-posted newsgroup
can solve, by and large. This is driven home to me of late as I am
temporarily confined to using Outlook Express (possibly the worst
widely-available newsreader), which can't do that. At least not that I've
been able to discover.
Brian
Howard Brazee
It's easy if you try
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one
--
"In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found,
than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace
to the legislature, and not to the executive department."
- James Madison
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
> ...
>Imagine no possessions
> I wonder if you can
> No need for greed or hunger
> A brotherhood of man
> Imagine all the people
> Sharing all the world...
> ...
Was it David Brin or someone else who said, roughly, "I can imagine a
world without hate, a world without war. And I can imagine us attacking
that world, because they would never expect it!"?
Unless you can make human beings that aren't human, actually, and do
this all at once, any group which went down that path would almost
certainly quickly end up with nothing as those who DO believe in
possessions took them.
And the line "brotherhood of man" brings to mind:
"We've taken care of everything
The words you hear, the songs you sing
The pictures that give pleasure to your eyes
It's one for all and all for one
We work together, common sons
Never need to wonder how or why
We are the Priests of the Temples of Syrinx
Our great computers fill the hallowed halls
We are the Priests of the Temples of Syrinx
All the gifts of life are held within our walls
Look around at this world we've made
Equality our stock in trade
Come and join the Brotherhood of Man
Oh, what a nice, contented world
Let the banners be unfurled
Hold the Red Star proudly high in hand
We are the Priests of the Temples of Syrinx
Our great computers fill the hallowed halls
We are the Priests of the Temples of Syrinx
All the gifts of life are held within our walls!"
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://seawasp.livejournal.com
Moriarty
<seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
> Howard Brazee wrote:
> > ...
> >Imagine no possessions
> > I wonder if you can
> > No need for greed or hunger
> > A brotherhood of man
> > Imagine all the people
> > Sharing all the world...
> > ...
>
> Was it David Brin or someone else who said, roughly, "I can imagine a
> world without hate, a world without war. And I can imagine us attacking
> that world, because they would never expect it!"?
I thought that was Dave Barry, however Google suggests it was Jack
Handey. Then again, it could also be James Nicoll or Washington
Irving.
-Moriarty
JohnN
wrote:
Yes, without lenin I would have to wear cotton suits this summer.
JohnN
Immortalist
wrote:
> http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2010/05/what_if_lenins.html
>
> What If Lenin's Stroke Came Five Years Sooner?
>
> Bryan Caplan
>
> In November, 1917, Lenin overthrew the first democratically elected
> of three strokes, finally dying in January, 1924. What would have
> happened if Lenin had a fatal stroke in mid-1917?
>
> It's a pretty picture. In 1917, even Lenin's fellow Bolsheviks
A better question would be would labor organizations create as much
social friction if Marx hadn't come around. Lenin is to be credited
with establishing the ways of Soviet Communism but another of Marx's
loyal enthusiasts could have just as easily done the same. Maybe not
if they didn't do so in that small time window of opportunity.
...in 1893, he moved to St Petersburg, and practised revolutionary
propaganda. In 1895, he founded the League of Struggle for the
Emancipation of the Working Class, the consolidation of the city's
Marxist groups; as an embryonic revolutionary party, the League were
active among the Russian labour organisations.
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
Not Mark Twain?
Nic A. Heretic
patched things up for at least one reunion ; )
--
Religion requires Spirituality to simply exist; Spirituality NEEDS NOT *ANY*
religion(s) to simply be...
Got Conscience?
Mike Schilling
> Yeah its been a tough 30 years ... I have no doubt the Beatles would
> have patched things up for at least one reunion ; )
At least he died for a good cause: the inalienable right of the deranged to
have access to firearms.
Rich Horton
Perhaps Ian MacLeod's "Snodgrass"? It wasn't in a magazine, though, it
appeared in the Paul McAuley/Kim Newman original anthology IN DREAMS
in 1992, and was reprinted in Gardner Dozois's 10th YEAR'S BEST
anthology.
Christopher Adams
> Default User wrote:
>
>> There was an alt-hist story in one of the magazines 10-15 years
>> back, that turned on Lennon quitting the Beatles over the issue of
>> doing cover songs. The Beatles continued on without him, in fact
>> were still around as a retro-band in "modern" times.
>
> Perhaps Ian MacLeod's "Snodgrass"? It wasn't in a magazine, though, it
> appeared in the Paul McAuley/Kim Newman original anthology IN DREAMS
> in 1992, and was reprinted in Gardner Dozois's 10th YEAR'S BEST
> anthology.
I nearly cried when I finished that story for the first time.
--
Christopher Adams - Sydney, Australia
Toe to toe
Dancing very close
Barely breathing
Almost comatose
Quadibloc
idealistic, I find it deeply flawed, as encouraging the sort of
harmful thinking that demagogues feed upon.
If people didn't fight and die for religions and ideologies, yes,
_that_ would be a good thing.
At least, if by "ideologies" one meant political systems that denied
freedom. People _should_ want to be free, and be willing to defend
their liberty.
And liberty includes religious freedom as well. If you want to force
everyone to be an atheist, instead of solving the problem of war,
you're going to have to start a war to do that.
Nationalism, racism, and ethnocentricism also cause war and strife.
But that is an argument for respecting other languages and cultures,
not abolishing them by imposing one language and culture on the whole
world.
And is the way to abolish world hunger the abolition of greed,
selfishness, and materialism? Couldn't everyone have enough if we were
just willing to share?
When humans have enough to eat, historically what happens is that
their population keeps growing until that ceases to be true. This is
something we share with other life forms, like bacteria, fungi, aphids
or deer.
The technological progress that does enable humanity to feed itself,
and to control its numbers, comes from the competitive and
materialistic nature of our world.
On the one hand, the religions and ideologies that deny freedom and
justify wars of aggression are a problem. And, as well, better
distribution of what is produced may help to address poverty (although
it is not as if wealth manifests itself chiefly in food consumption;
how one would convert a plant producing luxury sports cars to
producing food of equal dollar value is beyond me - about the only
luxury we could give up that would increase food availability is
eating meat, which will be a hard sell) at least in the short term.
But crushing genuine and legitimate religious belief (especially as
that is one of the few motivators for even caring about the world's
poor people), destroying all political allegiances, including the love
of freedom, obliterating linguistic and cultural diversity, and
removing incentives for working more productively and the surpluses
that permit capital investment and research and development... these
are not things that promote progress and human betterment.
John Savard
Quadibloc
> I thought that was Dave Barry, however Google suggests it was Jack
> Handey. Then again, it could also be James Nicoll or Washington
> Irving.
Yes, the only source I could turn up with Google was Jack Handey, in a
book entitled "Deep Thoughts".
John Savard
Harri Tavaila
- clip -
(Oh - and dropped most of the reply groups too.)
> Was it David Brin or someone else who said, roughly, "I can imagine
> a world without hate, a world without war. And I can imagine us
> attacking that world, because they would never expect it!"?
>
> Unless you can make human beings that aren't human, actually, and do
> this all at once, any group which went down that path would almost
> certainly quickly end up with nothing as those who DO believe in
> possessions took them.
I believe anthropologists were able to examine this question with
practical experiments when they did research on small Pacific Ocean
island communities.
Some islands were large enough to support a well developed feodal states
(e.g. Hawaii) others were so small that only one community could exist.
Some had neighbourgs, others were so far away from others that no
regular contact was possible. Some had plenty of resources others were
unable to sustain the edible plants or animals that original colonists
had brought with them. All these led to different types of societies
some violent others not.
H Tavaila
Default User
"Rich Horton" <rrho...@prodigy.net> wrote in message
news:ovobv51l41dhto6lp...@4ax.com...
Sounds like it. I did read several of those anthologies over the years.
Brian
Rich Horton
<defaul...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>"Rich Horton" <rrho...@prodigy.net> wrote in message
>news:ovobv51l41dhto6lp...@4ax.com...
>> On Thu, 20 May 2010 12:02:44 -0500, "Default User"
>> <defaul...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>>There was an alt-hist story in one of the magazines 10-15 years back, that
>>>turned on Lennon quitting the Beatles over the issue of doing cover songs.
>>>The Beatles continued on without him, in fact were still around as a
>>>retro-band in "modern" times.
>>>
>> Perhaps Ian MacLeod's "Snodgrass"? It wasn't in a magazine, though, it
>> appeared in the Paul McAuley/Kim Newman original anthology IN DREAMS
>> in 1992, and was reprinted in Gardner Dozois's 10th YEAR'S BEST
>> anthology.
>
>Sounds like it. I did read several of those anthologies over the years.
I should have posted the link to where it is available online:
<URL:http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/snodgrass.htm>
Default User
Oh, yeah, I had found that and given it a look before replying. Looks like a
righteous ID.
Brian
j...@xmission.com
Quadibloc
> I'd rather imagine a world without Sound of Trumpet.
He is but a very minor annoyance. Lenin led to the deaths of millions.
John Savard
Wexford
wrote:
> http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2010/05/what_if_lenins.html
>
> What If Lenin's Stroke Came Five Years Sooner?
>
> Bryan Caplan
>
> In November, 1917, Lenin overthrew the first democratically elected
> government in Russian history. In May, 1922, Lenin suffered the first
> of three strokes, finally dying in January, 1924. What would have
> happened if Lenin had a fatal stroke in mid-1917?
>
> It's a pretty picture. In 1917, even Lenin's fellow Bolsheviks
> The Russian Revolution:
Oh, bullshit. Lenin never cared about anyone else's opinion. He had
split the party before and would have split it again, and again. Even
if Lenin had croaked five years earlier, Moscow still would have been
flooded with armed soldiers who had deserted the army and were out for
blood and regime change. They hated Kerensky and the Duma, because
Kerensky had kept them ill-armed, ill-led, and underfed in the
trenches, set up for slaughter. The October uprising was inevitable
and there were plenty of others in the shadows who would have and
could have assumed Red Leadership. Would the policies they pursued
have been the same as Lenin's? Who knows? The Reds were all cracked.
If Stalin or some other in the Party had risen earlier, they might
have been worse. There might have been massive public slaughter of
landowners and "exploiters," just as there was in North Vietnam in the
early stages of Ho's Stalinist dictatorship, or gross starvation and
depravation as under Mao and Stalin.
Perhaps the Trumpet phrased the question incorrectly. Shouldn't the
believers ask "What was God's plan? Why did God take Lenin when He did
and not Five Years Earlier?"
Wexford
> On Wed, 19 May 2010 13:48:14 +0000, Zerkon <Z...@erkonx.net> wrote:
> > On Sun, 16 May 2010 10:13:17 -0700, Sound of Trumpet wrote:
>
> > > government in Russian history.
>
> > bunch of people did of which Lenin was a member. So maybe we can take the
> > rest from there.
>
> It was a conspiratorial coup - a rather small bunch of members of
> the elite led by Lenin. You have no difficulty in saying that
> Pinochet overthrew a government, why then not say that Lenin
> overthrew a government?
I would have problems saying the Pinochet overthrew a government. The
CIA used Chilean right-wingers and militarists to overthrow the
government and murder Allende. It was based on Nixon's hamburger
theory of South American politics. If Cuba is Communist and Chile is
Communist, then all of South America will be like a hamburger patty
between two Communist buns. Based on that Rightaloon theory, a
Government was overthrown, a 100-year old stable democracy was
destroyed and an entire nation emiserated. I detest Communists and
Communism, but our international activity should have been to support
democracy rather than dictatorship and push for election of centrist
ministers and leadership, rather than violent regime change.
James A. Donald
> > It was a conspiratorial coup - a rather small bunch of
> > members of the elite led by Lenin. You have no
> > difficulty in saying that Pinochet overthrew a
> > government, why then not say that Lenin overthrew a
> > government?
Wexford
> I would have problems saying the Pinochet overthrew a
> government. The CIA used Chilean right-wingers and
> militarists to overthrow the government and murder Allende.
You are crazy, you are as much in denial as the guys in the
Darwin thread who say that human races do not exist: The
Chilean parliament called for the military to remove
Allende, because Allende had smashed democracy. Pinochet
was acting on the urging of the majority of parliament.
You might claim that Pinochet was secretly a CIA agent. Do
you also claim that the majority of the Chilean Parliament
were CIA agents?
Here is the declaration of the Chamber of Deputies, the
Chilean Parliament, calling for a coup
August 22, 1973
The Resolution
Considering:
1. That for the Rule of Law to exist, public
authorities must carry out their activities and
discharge their duties within the framework of the
Constitution and the laws of the land, respecting
fully the principle of reciprocal independence to
which they are bound, and that all inhabitants of the
country must be allowed to enjoy the guarantees and
fundamental rights assured them by the Constitution;
2. That the legitimacy of the Chilean State lies with
the people who, over the years, have invested in this
legitimacy with the underlying consensus of their
coexistence, and that an assault on this legitimacy
not only destroys the cultural and political heritage
of our Nation, but also denies, in practice, all
possibility of democratic life;
3. That the values and principles expressed in the
Constitution, according to article 2, indicate that
sovereignty resides essentially in the Nation, and
that authorities may not exercise more powers than
those delegated to them by the Nation; and, in
article 3, it is deduced that any government that
arrogates to itself rights not delegated to it by the
people commits sedition;
4. That the current President of the Republic was
elected by the full Congress, in accordance with a
statute of democratic guarantees incorporated in the
Constitution for the very purpose of assuring that
the actions of his administration would be subject to
the principles and norms of the Rule of Law that he
solemnly agreed to respect;
5. That it is a fact that the current government of
the Republic, from the beginning, has sought to
conquer absolute power with the obvious purpose of
subjecting all citizens to the strictest political
and economic control by the state and, in this
manner, fulfilling the goal of establishing a
totalitarian system: the absolute opposite of the
representative democracy established by the
Constitution;
6. That to achieve this end, the administration has
committed not isolated violations of the Constitution
and the laws of the land, rather it has made such
violations a permanent system of conduct, to such an
extreme that it systematically ignores and breaches
the proper role of the other branches of government,
habitually violating the Constitutional guarantees of
all citizens of the Republic, and allowing and
supporting the creation of illegitimate parallel
powers that constitute an extremely grave danger to
the Nation, by all of which it has destroyed
essential elements of institutional legitimacy and
the Rule of Law;
7. That the administration has committed the
following assaults on the proper role of the National
Congress, seat of legislative power:
a) It has usurped Congress’s principle role of
legislation through the adoption of various measures
of great importance to the country’s social and
economic life that are unquestionably matters of
legislation through special decrees enacted in an
abuse of power, or through simple "administrative
resolutions" using legal loopholes. It is noteworthy
that all of this has been done with the deliberate
and confessed purpose of substituting the country’s
institutional structures, as conceived by current
legislation, with absolute executive authority and
the total elimination of legislative authority;
b) It has consistently mocked the National Congress’s
oversight role by effectively removing its power to
formally accuse Ministers of State who violate the
Constitution or laws of the land, or who commit other
offenses specified by the Constitution, and;
c) Lastly, what is most extraordinarily grave, it has
utterly swept aside the exalted role of Congress as a
duly constituted power by refusing to enact the
Constitutional reform of three areas of the economy
that were approved in strict compliance with the
norms established by the Constitution.
8. That it has committed the following assaults on
the judicial branch:
a) With the goal of undermining the authority of the
courts and compromising their independence, it has
led an infamous campaign of libel and slander against
the Supreme Court, and it has sanctioned very serious
attacks against judges and their authority;
b) It has made a mockery of justice in cases of
delinquents belonging to political parties or groups
affiliated with or close to the administration,
either through the abusive use of pardons or
deliberate noncompliance with detention orders;
c) It has violated express laws and utterly
disregarded the principle of separation of powers by
not carrying out sentences and judicial resolutions
that contravene its objectives and, when so accused
by the Supreme Court, the President of the Republic
has gone to the unheard of extreme of arrogating to
himself a right to judge the merit of judicial
sentences and to determine when they are to be
complied with;
9. That, as concerns the General Comptroller’s
Office—an independent institution essential to
administrative legitimacy—the administration has
systematically violated decrees and activities that
point to the illegality of the actions of the
Executive Branch or of entities dependent on it;
10. That among the administration’s constant assaults
on the guarantees and fundamental rights established
in the Constitution, the following stand out:
a) It has violated the principle of equality before
the law through sectarian and hateful discrimination
in the protection authorities are required to give to
the life, rights, and property of all inhabitants,
through activities related to food and subsistence,
as well as numerous other instances. It is to note
that the President of the Republic himself has made
these discriminations part of the normal course of
his government by proclaiming from the beginning that
he does not consider himself the president of all
Chileans;
b) It has grievously attacked freedom of speech,
applying all manner of economic pressure against
those media organizations that are not unconditional
supporters of the government, illegally closing
newspapers and radio networks; imposing illegal
shackles on the latter; unconstitutionally jailing
opposition journalists; resorting to cunning
maneuvers to acquire a monopoly on newsprint; and
openly violating the legal mandates to which the
National Television Network is subject by handing
over the post of executive director to a public
official not named by the Senate, as is required by
law, and by turning the network into an instrument
for partisan propaganda and defamation of political
adversaries;
c) It has violated the principle of university
autonomy and the constitutionally recognized right of
universities to establish and maintain television
networks, by encouraging the takeover of the
University of Chile’s Channel 9, by assaulting that
university’s new Channel 6 through violence and
illegal detentions, and by obstructing the expansion
to the provinces of the channel owned by Catholic
University of Chile;
d) It has obstructed, impeded, and sometimes
violently suppressed citizens who do not favor the
regime in the exercise of their right to freedom of
association. Meanwhile, it has constantly allowed
groups—frequently armed—to gather and take over
streets and highways, in disregard of pertinent
regulation, in order to intimidate the populace;
e) It has attacked educational freedom by illegally
and surreptitiously implementing the so-called Decree
of the Democratization of Learning, an educational
plan whose goal is Marxist indoctrination;
f) It has systematically violated the constitutional
guarantee of property rights by allowing and
supporting more than 1,500 illegal "takings" of
farms, and by encouraging the "taking" of hundreds of
industrial and commercial establishments in order to
later seize them or illegally place them in
receivership and thereby, through looting, establish
state control over the economy; this has been one of
the determining causes of the unprecedented decline
in production, the scarcity of goods, the black
market and suffocating rise in the cost of living,
the bankruptcy of the national treasury, and
generally of the economic crisis that is sweeping the
country and threatening basic household welfare, and
very seriously compromising national security;
g) It has made frequent politically motivated and
illegal arrests, in addition to those already
mentioned of journalists, and it has tolerated the
whipping and torture of the victims;
h) It has ignored the rights of workers and their
unions, subjecting them, as in the cases of El
Teniente [one of the largest copper mines] and the
transportation union, to illegal means of repression;
i) It has broken its commitment to make amends to
workers who have been unjustly persecuted, such as
those from Sumar, Helvetia, Banco Central, El
Teniente and Chuquicamata; it has followed an
arbitrary policy in the turning over of state-owned
farms to peasants, expressly contravening the
Agrarian Reform Law; it has denied workers meaningful
participation, as guaranteed them by the
Constitution; it has given rise to the end to union
freedom by setting up parallel political
organizations of workers.
j) It has gravely breached the constitutional
guarantee to freely leave the country, establishing
requirements to do so not covered by any law.
11. That it powerfully contributes to the breakdown
of the Rule of Law by providing government protection
and encouragement of the creation and maintenance of
a number of organizations which are subversive [to
the constitutional order] in the exercise of
authority granted to them by neither the Constitution
nor the laws of the land, in open violation of
article 10, number 16 of the Constitution. These
include community commandos, peasant councils,
vigilance committees, the JAP, etc.; all designed to
create a so-called "popular authority" with the goal
of replacing legitimately elected authority and
establishing the foundation of a totalitarian
dictatorship. These facts have been publicly
acknowledged by the President of the Republic in his
last State of the Nation address and by all
government media and strategists;
12. That especially serious is the breakdown of the
Rule of Law by means of the creation and development
of government-protected armed groups which, in
addition to threatening citizens’ security and rights
as well as domestic peace, are headed towards a
confrontation with the Armed Forces. Just as serious
is that the police are prevented from carrying out
their most important responsibilities when dealing
with criminal riots perpetrated by violent groups
devoted to the government. Given the extreme gravity,
one cannot be silent before the public and notorious
attempts to use the Armed and Police Forces for
partisan ends, destroy their institutional hierarchy,
and politically infiltrate their ranks;
13. That the creation of a new ministry, with the
participation of high-level officials of the Armed
and Police Forces, was characterized by the President
of the Republic to be "of national security" and its
mandate "the establishment of political order" and
"the establishment of economic order," and that such
a mandate can only be conceived within the context of
full restoration and validation of the legal and
constitutional norms that make up the institutional
framework of the Republic;
14. That the Armed and Police Forces are and must be,
by their very nature, a guarantee for all Chileans
and not just for one sector of the Nation or for a
political coalition. Consequently, the government
cannot use their backing to cover up a specific
minority partisan policy. Rather their presence must
be directed toward the full restoration of
constitutional rule and of the rule of the laws of
democratic coexistence, which is indispensable to
guaranteeing Chile’s institutional stability, civil
peace, security, and development;
15. Lastly, exercising the role attributed to it by
Article 39 of the Constitution,
The Chamber of Deputies agrees:
First: To present the President of the Republic,
Ministers of State, and members of the Armed and
Police Forces with the grave breakdown of the legal
and constitutional order of the Republic, the facts
and circumstances of which are detailed in sections 5
to 12 above;
Second: To likewise point out that by virtue of their
responsibilities, their pledge of allegiance to the
Constitution and to the laws they have served, and in
the case of the ministers, by virtue of the nature of
the institutions of which they are high-ranking
officials and of Him whose name they invoked upon
taking office, it is their duty to put an immediate
end to all situations herein referred to that breach
the Constitution and the laws of the land with the
goal of redirecting government activity toward the
path of Law and ensuring the constitutional order of
our Nation and the essential underpinnings of
democratic coexistence among Chileans;
Third: To declare that if so done, the presence of
those ministers in the government would render a
valuable service to the Republic. To the contrary,
they would gravely compromise the national and
professional character of the Armed and Police
Forces, openly infringing article 22 of the
Constitution and seriously damaging the prestige of
their institutions; and
Fourth: To communicate this agreement to His
Excellency the President of the Republic, and to the
Ministers of Economy, National Defense, Public Works
and Transportation, and Land and Colonization.
James A. Donald
wrote:
> Oh, bullshit. Lenin never cared about anyone else's opinion. He had
> split the party before and would have split it again, and again. Even
> if Lenin had croaked five years earlier, Moscow still would have been
> flooded with armed soldiers who had deserted the army and were out for
> blood and regime change.
Most regime changes do not lead to the murder of millions. Chances
are, sooner or later another election would have been held, and
another social democratic government elected.
Christopher A. Lee
<jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
>James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
>> > It was a conspiratorial coup - a rather small bunch of
>> > members of the elite led by Lenin. �You have no
>> > difficulty in saying that Pinochet overthrew a
>> > government, why then not say that Lenin overthrew a
>> > government?
>
>Wexford
>> I would have problems saying the Pinochet overthrew a
>> government. The CIA used Chilean right-wingers and
>> militarists to overthrow the government and murder Allende.
>
>You are crazy, you are as much in denial as the guys in the
>Darwin thread who say that human races do not exist: The
>Chilean parliament called for the military to remove
>Allende, because Allende had smashed democracy. Pinochet
>was acting on the urging of the majority of parliament.
More and more red herrings.
All because you keep playing dodge ball to avoid backing up your
stupid accusations after demonstrating that you had no idea what
natural election was. You used Darwin to rationalise your bigotry and
assumed these rationalisations were the truth, the whole truth and
nothing but the truth about natural selection.
Then you invented a paranoid conspiracy between the government (which
government?) and the world's scientists to invent a politically
correct version of evolution.
And when asked to prove it, you asked who else it could be because
only "the government" (which government?) has the power and resources.
As if your lies about natural selection, Darwin, those who object to
the term Darwinism, those who understand exactly what natural
selection is and what it isn't, etc were all granted.
>You might claim that Pinochet was secretly a CIA agent. Do
>you also claim that the majority of the Chilean Parliament
>were CIA agents?
You're a fucking moron.
Quadibloc
> You might claim that Pinochet was secretly a CIA agent. Do
> you also claim that the majority of the Chilean Parliament
> were CIA agents?
The Allende regime in Chile was indeed moving the country towards a
Communist dictatorship, but the Pinochet regime was in fact a
dictatorship.
As for the Chilean Chamber of Deputies - it was *not* a Parliament.
Allende was not a Prime Minister who had lost a vote of non-
confidence, and needed the army to eject him. Rather, the Chamber of
Deputies, with a majority, but _not_ the required supermajority, to
*impeach* Allende, requested the army to overthrow Allende.
Thus, since Chile's governmental system was more like that of the
United States than that of Britain, the coup which deposed Allende was
in violation of Chile's Constitution. Not that this is necessarily a
bad thing, since there was something of an emergency going on, but
this should be kept clear.
John Savard
James A. Donald
> All because you keep playing dodge ball to avoid backing up your
> stupid accusations after demonstrating that you had no idea what
> natural election was. You used Darwin to rationalise your bigotry and
> assumed these rationalisations were the truth, the whole truth and
> nothing but the truth about natural selection.
I quoted the relevant parts of Darwin. You have quoted nothing
Natural selection operates at the level of species, races, and
individuals, which gives a blessing to extinction of endangered
species and genocide of inferior races. Darwin gives particular
emphasis to natural selection operating at the level of genocidal
competition between races.
For example Darwin tells us:
"At some future period, not very distant as
measured by centuries, the civilized races of man
will almost certainly exterminate, and replace,
the savage races throughout the world. At the same
time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor
Schaaffhausen has remarked,* will no doubt be
exterminated. The break between man and his
nearest allies will then be wider, for it will
intervene between man in a more civilized state,
as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some
ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between
the negro or Australian and the gorilla."
So extinction and genocide, while doubtless regrettable, is
natural, in the long run inevitable, and in the long run, it
is for the better.
Darwin also tells us that sexual selection must lead to large
differences between men and women, which differences are
pretty much what "sexist" stereotype would lead us to expect.
Women will never be firefighters, as was demonstrated at
9/11, when the firemen took several hundred casualties, and
the "firefighters" zero casualties.
Darwin also argues that not only our minds, but also our
morality, is a product of evolution by natural selection. He
does not state the disturbing implications of that, but lots
of other people have - that the morality that comes naturally
to men is the egoistic morality of Ayn Rand and the classic
greeks.
> Then you invented a paranoid conspiracy between the
> government (which government?) and the world's scientists
> to invent a politically correct version of evolution.
In 1972, history was abruptly rewritten, and the previous
version of history vanished down the memory hole, with no
mention that history had every been different. The new
history deprecates and minimizes natural selection. I gave
you quotes from the textbooks, and links to numerous
textbooks. All of Academia fell into line without a word of
dissent.
Only the future is certain. The past is always changing.
The Congo was the poster child for the dreadful evils of
colonialism. We were supposed to look at how cruelly the
Belgians treat the poor natives, look at how many natives
colonialism has murdered to maintain its savage rule. In
1961, it got independence. The whites fled rape and murder.
Two or three weeks after independence, the Congo became a
savage hell hole, and has remained that way ever since,
Zimbabwe in fast forward. The whites fled the Congo faster
than they have fled Zimbabwe, so the descent into savagery
was faster. Yet now, the outcome of decolonization has been
forgotten, and the Congo is back to being the poster child of
the evils of colonialism, and we repeat the same disaster
over and over again: Haiti foreshadowed the Congo, the Congo
foreshadowed Zimbabwe and South Africa.
Until the Soviets collapsed, 99% of Academia enthusiastically
agreed that the Soviet Union’s command economy was growing
much faster than the US’s old fashioned semi market economy,
and the remaining 1% agreed that it was growing at least as
fast – or at least that is what they said when anyone was
listening. Since the general consensus outside of Academia
was that the Soviet Union was a festering economic basket
case whose central plan existed only on paper, collapsing
into disorderly pillage in actual practice, one wonders what
happened to any academic inclined to say that the Soviet
Union was a festering economic basket case, whose plans and
statistics were utterly disconnected from the chaotic and
destructive reality.
Before 1972, every historian of science agreed that Darwin’s
big idea was natural selection, and those of them that
addressed the issue of Lamarck and common descent agreed that
Lamarck proposed common descent.
Natural selection, however tends to lead to disturbing
thoughts and disturbing words, for example “Once the
superiority of races with a prevailing aversion to incest had
been established by their survival …” Superior races! Oh the
horror, the horror. Natural selection suggests endangered
species have it coming to them, that women are not naturally
equal to men, that genocide is, if regrettable, nonetheless
natural and in the long run frequently inevitable, and lots
of similarly horrifying stuff like that, and I have left out
the really shocking stuff to avoid offending the readers too
much. So it was progressively de-emphasized to students in
the textbooks. But if you de-emphasize natural selection,
this leaves a mysterious gap. What was Darwin famous for?
So in 1972, history was corrected, Winston Smith style.
Darwin got common descent to fill the gap left by the removal
of natural selection, just as Winston Smith invented comrade
Ogilvy to replace the vaporized unperson Comrade Withers, and
common descent was taken away from Lamarck. The textbook
“Biology today” page 638
… in the Origin of Species. The central claim of that
book can be fairly simply stated. According to the
Darwinian theory, any natural group of similar
species-all the mammal species, for instance-owe their
common mammalian characteristics to a common descent from
a single ancestral mammalian species.
And has for Lamarck, he got the shaft. Page 641
Lamarck’s theory is not a hypothesis of common descent,
which ascribes the common characteristics of a particular
species to their common descent from a single species. …
He claims that … although all mammals are descended from
reptiles, they are not descended from the same reptiles
Somehow, after 1972, no one in Academia was able to mention
that before 1972 everyone thought that Lamarckism is the
doctrine “that all plants and animals are descended from a
common primitive form of life.” (Century Cyclopedia)
Before 1972 After 1972
Just as one wonders what happened to academics before 1980
who were inclined to doubt the great success of central
planning, one wonders what happens to academics after 1972
who remember that before 1972, the history of science was
different.
We have always been at war with Eastasia
Someone in Academia received an order like that given to
Comrade Winston Smith, and all of Academia fell into line,
and remains in line to this day, a thousand megaphones
attached to one microphone.
The reporting of Big Brother’s Order for the Day in The
Times of December 3rd 1983 is extremely unsatisfactory
and makes references to non-existent persons. Rewrite it
in full and submit your draft to higher authority before
filing.
…
… Withers, however, was already an unperson. He did not
exist: he had never existed. …
… To-day he should commemorate Comrade Ogilvy. It was
true that there was no such person as Comrade Ogilvy, but
a few lines of print and a couple of faked photographs
would soon bring him into existence.
James A. Donald
> The Allende regime in Chile was indeed moving the country
> towards a Communist dictatorship, but the Pinochet regime
> was in fact a dictatorship.
People had freedom of speech under Pinochet. They did not
have freedom of speech under Allende.
Allende not only destroyed democracy and the rule of law, but
also destroyed the fragile conditions that make democracy and
the rule of law possible. A time out from democracy and
legality was necessary and unavoidable. The country had to
be run by the laws of war, rather than the laws of peace. If
Pinochet had prematurely attempted to return to legality and
democracy, as Armas did in Guatemala under very similar
circumstances, Pinochet would have been murdered as Armas
was, and civil war would have resumed in Chile, as it had in
Guatemala.
Pinochet restored the fragile conditions that make legality
and democracy workable, and having restored those conditions,
*then* restored democracy and legality.
> Thus, since Chile's governmental system was more like that
> of the United States than that of Britain, the coup which
> deposed Allende was in violation of Chile's Constitution.
Everything about Allende's government was in violation of the
constitution. The Deputies passed a motion complaining that
the constitution was stone dead. Allende was making war on
Chile to subjugate and enslave it, and the time had come for
the army to fight.
Christopher A. Lee
<jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
>On Sat, 29 May 2010 17:58:23 -0400, Christopher A. Lee
>> All because you keep playing dodge ball to avoid backing up your
>> stupid accusations after demonstrating that you had no idea what
>> natural election was. You used Darwin to rationalise your bigotry and
>> assumed these rationalisations were the truth, the whole truth and
>> nothing but the truth about natural selection.
>
>I quoted the relevant parts of Darwin. You have quoted nothing
No, liar. You did not.
You gave context free quotes that merely gave an opinion, not his
reason for that opinion.
And in many cases weren't even his opinion, because you took advantage
of his writing style where he poses apparent problems, difficulties,
what others might say etc and then answers them himself.
And because you left out his own answer you lied that "what a
naturalist might say" was his own position. Even though he gave his
own position in the paragraphs you omitted immediately following what
you quoted.
WHICH I AND MANY OTHERS GAVE YOU, showing
- you were lying when you said I never quoted anything,
- you were lying when you gave that as his view
- you had not read what you lied about others not reading
- you don't care how even an expert reaches his conclusions; the fact
that you imagine he thinks something is good enough for you so by
golly it should be good enough for everybody else too.
>Natural selection operates at the level of species, races, and
>individuals, which gives a blessing to extinction of endangered
>species and genocide of inferior races. Darwin gives particular
>emphasis to natural selection operating at the level of genocidal
>competition between races.
>For example Darwin tells us:
> "At some future period, not very distant as
> measured by centuries, the civilized races of man
> will almost certainly exterminate, and replace,
> the savage races throughout the world. At the same
> time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor
> Schaaffhausen has remarked,* will no doubt be
> exterminated. The break between man and his
> nearest allies will then be wider, for it will
> intervene between man in a more civilized state,
> as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some
> ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between
> the negro or Australian and the gorilla."
Another context free quote where you don't give the source, which
doesn't even mention natural selection, and reflects 19th century
imperial thinking.
>So extinction and genocide, while doubtless regrettable, is
>natural, in the long run inevitable, and in the long run, it
>is for the better.
Which reveals plenty about you.
I suggest you learn to read for comprehension. Not for things between
the lines that you want to find. Without your racist filter.
>Darwin also tells us that sexual selection must lead to large
>differences between men and women, which differences are
>pretty much what "sexist" stereotype would lead us to expect.
>Women will never be firefighters, as was demonstrated at
>9/11, when the firemen took several hundred casualties, and
>the "firefighters" zero casualties.
And we have to take the word of a proven liar for this.
>Darwin also argues that not only our minds, but also our
>morality, is a product of evolution by natural selection. He
>does not state the disturbing implications of that, but lots
>of other people have - that the morality that comes naturally
>to men is the egoistic morality of Ayn Rand and the classic
>greeks.
More lies used as red herrings, liar.
You need to learn the difference between natural selection per se and
what somebody claims is the result of natural selection in a
particular case.
The latter are the "disturbing implications" you lie about.
Morality is a mixture of genetic and memetic. The genetic part is that
humans are a societal species, with societal behaviour including
empathy. The memetic part is taught by parents to children.
And I doubt those parents who even give a thought to Ayn Rand taught
her rationalisations.
Natural selection per se has no "disturbing consequences" no matter
how many liars like you lie about it. It just is.
Do you seriously imagine that human behaviour would be any different
if Darwin hadn't had the idea of natural selection?
It is simply survival and reproductive advantage.
Your "disturbing consequences" are the result of the naturalistic
fallacy.
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/mathew/logic.html#natural
Observing that something "is" in nature does not imply "ought", "leads
to", etc. Especially when we add intelligence to the equation.
Like other 19th century anthropologists Darwin seemed confused between
cultural races and biological races.
Natural selection per se has no disturbing consequences however many
you might lie about
>> Then you invented a paranoid conspiracy between the
>> government (which government?) and the world's scientists
>> to invent a politically correct version of evolution.
>
>In 1972, history was abruptly rewritten, and the previous
>version of history vanished down the memory hole, with no
>mention that history had every been different. The new
>history deprecates and minimizes natural selection. I gave
>you quotes from the textbooks, and links to numerous
>textbooks. All of Academia fell into line without a word of
>dissent.
An outright, paranoid lie.
You know perfectly well that by 1972 genetics had advanced to the
point that the focus for research into evolution was on DNA. The
mechanisms for heredity and mutation were by now well understood.
Natural selection wasn't "relegated" - it remained what it always was,
the filter for the genetic mutations.
If you weren't so dishonest you would address this instead of ignoring
it every time and repeating your crackpot paranoid falsehoods.
>Only the future is certain. The past is always changing.
>
>The Congo was the poster child for the dreadful evils of
>colonialism. We were supposed to look at how cruelly the
>Belgians treat the poor natives, look at how many natives
>colonialism has murdered to maintain its savage rule. In
>1961, it got independence. The whites fled rape and murder.
>Two or three weeks after independence, the Congo became a
>savage hell hole, and has remained that way ever since,
>Zimbabwe in fast forward. The whites fled the Congo faster
>than they have fled Zimbabwe, so the descent into savagery
>was faster. Yet now, the outcome of decolonization has been
>forgotten, and the Congo is back to being the poster child of
>the evils of colonialism, and we repeat the same disaster
>over and over again: Haiti foreshadowed the Congo, the Congo
>foreshadowed Zimbabwe and South Africa.
A red herring.
>Until the Soviets collapsed, 99% of Academia enthusiastically
>agreed that the Soviet Union�s command economy was growing
>much faster than the US�s old fashioned semi market economy,
>and the remaining 1% agreed that it was growing at least as
>fast � or at least that is what they said when anyone was
>listening. Since the general consensus outside of Academia
>was that the Soviet Union was a festering economic basket
>case whose central plan existed only on paper, collapsing
>into disorderly pillage in actual practice, one wonders what
>happened to any academic inclined to say that the Soviet
>Union was a festering economic basket case, whose plans and
>statistics were utterly disconnected from the chaotic and
>destructive reality.
Another red herring.
>Before 1972, every historian of science agreed that Darwin�s
>big idea was natural selection, and those of them that
>addressed the issue of Lamarck and common descent agreed that
>Lamarck proposed common descent.
An outright lie.
>Natural selection, however tends to lead to disturbing
>thoughts and disturbing words, for example �Once the
>superiority of races with a prevailing aversion to incest had
>been established by their survival �� Superior races! Oh the
>horror, the horror. Natural selection suggests endangered
>species have it coming to them, that women are not naturally
>equal to men, that genocide is, if regrettable, nonetheless
>natural and in the long run frequently inevitable, and lots
>of similarly horrifying stuff like that, and I have left out
>the really shocking stuff to avoid offending the readers too
>much. So it was progressively de-emphasized to students in
>the textbooks. But if you de-emphasize natural selection,
>this leaves a mysterious gap. What was Darwin famous for?
An outright lie.
>So in 1972, history was corrected, Winston Smith style.
>Darwin got common descent to fill the gap left by the removal
>of natural selection, just as Winston Smith invented comrade
>Ogilvy to replace the vaporized unperson Comrade Withers, and
>common descent was taken away from Lamarck. The textbook
>�Biology today� page 638
An outright lie.
> � in the Origin of Species. The central claim of that
> book can be fairly simply stated. According to the
> Darwinian theory, any natural group of similar
> species-all the mammal species, for instance-owe their
> common mammalian characteristics to a common descent from
> a single ancestral mammalian species.
>
>And has for Lamarck, he got the shaft. Page 641
>
> Lamarck�s theory is not a hypothesis of common descent,
> which ascribes the common characteristics of a particular
> species to their common descent from a single species. �
> He claims that � although all mammals are descended from
> reptiles, they are not descended from the same reptiles
It's not, imbecile.
IT FOCUSED ON INHERITED ACQUIRED CHARACTERISTICS.
>Somehow, after 1972, no one in Academia was able to mention
>that before 1972 everyone thought that Lamarckism is the
>doctrine �that all plants and animals are descended from a
>common primitive form of life.� (Century Cyclopedia)
[paranoid lies comparing science with Orwell's 1984vb deleted]
Anarcissie
<e80d3981-e570-4a5c...@s1g2000prf.google
groups.com>,
Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
Everything in the universe at a given point in time
"leads to" any subsequent state or possible state of
the universe. Lenin could be completely responsible
for the deaths of millions only if, of his own free
will, he had personally killed them all.
As Wexford points out in a parallel subthread, if Lenin
had died five years earlier worse things might have
happened than those which did.
Anarcissie
<3123061tqtcfbf0oj...@4ax.com>,
James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
Or, Stalin could have gotten better control of things
earlier, so that by 1930, instead of fooling around
with purges, he might have been in total control of a
thoroughly militarized state. When Hitler came to
power in 1933, he could have cut a deal with him to
free him from worry about Poland and Czechoslovakia and
concentrate on his enemies to the west, the price being
that Hitler would have to leave the now quiescent
Communist Party of Germany alone and allow Stalin to
"keep order" in Poland and Czechoslovakia. Hitler, as
yet in a position of relative weakness, might well have
agreed. Of course, a year later, Stalin would invade
still-weak Germany and with the help of his numerous
supporters inside the walls, take over the country and
accept (most of) the Nazis as fresh Communists after
a bloodbath or two. Not much trouble to pick up Nazi-
and Communist-ridden France, Italy, Austria and Spain
after that, nor to acquire much of the French, Dutch
and Italian African territories. All that's left then
is to squeeze the British out of Egypt and Palestine
and the Mediterranean is bagged up, and then the
difficult decision of whether to take over the Middle
East, India or China would be next, all places where
"order" would have to be "restored" with a few, or
maybe not so few, further bloodbaths.
Darn! If only Lenin had lived a little longer he could
have prevented that nasty guy from taking over! No
doubt he would have launched a New Economic Program,
free elections and speech and everything! People would
just be dancing in the streets of Minsk and Pinsk and
Omsk and Tomsk every day!!
James A. Donald
<ca...@optonline.net> wrote:
> On Sun, 30 May 2010 13:35:04 +1000, James A. Donald
> <jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
>
> >On Sat, 29 May 2010 17:58:23 -0400, Christopher A. Lee
> >> All because you keep playing dodge ball to avoid backing up your
> >> stupid accusations after demonstrating that you had no idea what
> >> natural election was. You used Darwin to rationalise your bigotry and
> >> assumed these rationalisations were the truth, the whole truth and
> >> nothing but the truth about natural selection.
> >
> >I quoted the relevant parts of Darwin. You have quoted nothing
>
> No, liar. You did not.
>
> You gave context free quotes that merely gave an opinion, not his
> reason for that opinion.
If you think the reason for Darwin's opinion is something other than
the glaringly obvious, read up. The book is available on the
internet.
> And in many cases weren't even his opinion, because you took advantage
> of his writing style where he poses apparent problems, difficulties,
> what others might say etc and then answers them himself.
>
> And because you left out his own answer you lied that "what a
> naturalist might say" was his own position. Even though he gave his
> own position in the paragraphs you omitted immediately following what
> you quoted.
>
> WHICH I AND MANY OTHERS GAVE YOU, showing
You and many others lied about what Darwin wrote, WITHOUT PROVIDING
RELEVANT QUOTES IN SUPPORT OF YOUR LIES, which I rebutted by more
extensive quotations from Darwin.
James A. Donald
wrote:
> In article
> <3123061tqtcfbf0oj...@4ax.com>,
> James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
>
> > On Sat, 29 May 2010 07:55:29 -0700 (PDT), Wexford <wry...@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > > Oh, bullshit. Lenin never cared about anyone else's opinion. He had
> > > split the party before and would have split it again, and again. Even
> > > if Lenin had croaked five years earlier, Moscow still would have been
> > > flooded with armed soldiers who had deserted the army and were out for
> > > blood and regime change.
> >
> > Most regime changes do not lead to the murder of millions. Chances
> > are, sooner or later another election would have been held, and
> > another social democratic government elected.
>
> Or, Stalin could have gotten better control of things
> earlier, so that by 1930, instead of fooling around
> with purges, he might have been in total control of a
> thoroughly militarized state. When Hitler came to
> power in 1933, he could have cut a deal with him to
> free him from worry about Poland and Czechoslovakia and
> concentrate on his enemies to the west,
In other words, Stalin and Hitler might have done exactly what they
did do?
Christopher A. Lee
<jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
>On Sun, 30 May 2010 06:35:25 -0400, Christopher A. Lee
><ca...@optonline.net> wrote:
>
>> On Sun, 30 May 2010 13:35:04 +1000, James A. Donald
>> <jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
>>
>> >On Sat, 29 May 2010 17:58:23 -0400, Christopher A. Lee
>> >> All because you keep playing dodge ball to avoid backing up your
>> >> stupid accusations after demonstrating that you had no idea what
>> >> natural election was. You used Darwin to rationalise your bigotry and
>> >> assumed these rationalisations were the truth, the whole truth and
>> >> nothing but the truth about natural selection.
>> >
>> >I quoted the relevant parts of Darwin. You have quoted nothing
>>
>> No, liar. You did not.
>>
>> You gave context free quotes that merely gave an opinion, not his
>> reason for that opinion.
>
>If you think the reason for Darwin's opinion is something other than
>the glaringly obvious, read up. The book is available on the
>internet.
Once again, you expect me to do your work for you, and see what YOU
infer by reading between the lines.
>> And in many cases weren't even his opinion, because you took advantage
>> of his writing style where he poses apparent problems, difficulties,
>> what others might say etc and then answers them himself.
>>
>> And because you left out his own answer you lied that "what a
>> naturalist might say" was his own position. Even though he gave his
>> own position in the paragraphs you omitted immediately following what
>> you quoted.
>>
>> WHICH I AND MANY OTHERS GAVE YOU, showing
>
>You and many others lied about what Darwin wrote,
Liar.
> WITHOUT PROVIDING
>RELEVANT QUOTES
*L*I*A*R*
> IN SUPPORT OF YOUR LIES,
*L*I*A*R*
> which I rebutted by more
>extensive quotations from Darwin.
More OUT OF CONTEXT quotes, serial liar.
Where you refused to cite where they came from, or their surrounding
context.
Right from the start you lied both about us to us, and about natural
selection.
Like your accusations that we "hated Darwinism" because "it wasn't
politically correct".
You called Eugenie Scott "he" and said she was trying to come up with
a more politically correct version of evolution for a "Christian left"
which exists only in your deluded imagination.
By which time it was obvious you were a crackpot.
Confirmed when you claimed that in the 1970s evolution and scientific
history were both re-written to de-emphasise Darwin, alleging a
conspiracy between "the government" and the world's scientists. For
the umpteenth time WHICH FUCKING GOVERNMENT?
And when asked to prove it you asked who else had the power and
resources - when you hadn't even backed up your lie about evolution
and scientific history because you expected everybody else to know
about it.
We know you are terminally dishonest because you have never once
addressed the fact that the focus had turned to genetics because that
explained the mutations and heredity that natural selection filtered.
Why do you keep deleting this and repeating the same paranoid lie?
What message do you imagine it sends?
Hint: it ain't a flattering one.
Natural selection hadn't been controversial outside the minds of
religious loonies for a century. What it actually is, not what you
imagine.
Everything else you have said since then has been a red herring.
Anarcissie
<9v0606p5bdm5p6ndv...@4ax.com>,
Sort of, only in my fantasy the Red Army winds up on
the English Channel in 1935 instead of on the Elbe in
1945. And in Gibraltar and Suez and the Persian Gulf
and.... Bozhe* moi! What are we gonna do with all
this stuff?
*Not to be taken literally, of course.
William December Starr
Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> said:
Yeah, but we're talkin' _now_. Trumpet is still active.
-- wds
James A. Donald
wrote:
Hitler would not take too kindly to a red army on the
English channel. If you have a Hitler in Germany and a Stalin Russia
they will act as they did act.
Anarcissie
<u76706popjpjdbn3p...@4ax.com>,
You're not following my story. In 1935, Comrade Hitler
would be _glad_ that the great Soviet Union was
defending Europe from the Anglo-American cabal. He'd
say so at his trial.
Walter Bushell
<cd3adb7a-6c53-4738...@h20g2000prn.googlegroups.com>,
"bigfl...@gmail.com" <bigfl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On May 17, 1:31�am, Shrikeback <shrikeb...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On May 16, 10:13�am, Sound of Trumpet <soundoftrum...@dcemail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > >http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2010/05/what_if_lenins.html
> >
> > > What If Lenin's Stroke Came Five Years Sooner?
> >
> > My understanding is that Lenin didn't have a stroke,
> > he had syphillitic paresis.
> >
> > Anyway...
> >
> > Imagine there's no Lenin,
> > It's easy if you try--.
> > No New Economic Policy,
> > Above us only sky.
>
> Same could be asked of Monet. What if he never took up painting?
>
> Being the proud owner of one, the girl I attracted would not have
> shown up.
>
> But fortunately I have discovered now,
>
> "That I Don't Care Too Much For Monet"
>
> "Monet Cant By Me Love".....
>
> BOfL
Actually a painting or two of his could pay your bills for a long time.
--
A computer without Microsoft is like a chocolate cake without mustard.
James A. Donald
> >If you think the reason for Darwin's opinion is something other than
> >the glaringly obvious, read up. The book is available on the
> >internet.
Christopher A. Lee
> Once again, you expect me to do your work for you, and see what YOU
> infer by reading between the lines.
I provided lengthy quotes from Darwin's books. You claim that maybe
there is something else in the book that changes the plain meaning of
those quotes.
> More OUT OF CONTEXT quotes, serial liar.
How can a multi page quote be "out of context"
> Where you refused to cite where they came from, or their surrounding
> context.
I gave the book and the chapter. The page numbers vary between
editions, but since the electronic texts are available, you can simply
search.
> Like your accusations that we "hated Darwinism" because "it wasn't
> politically correct".
I give multi page disturbing quotes from Darwin, and you certainly
hate the guy who wrote that material - except that you seem to be
trying to argue it was me rather than Darwin. You are arguing that
the post 1972 version of Darwin is the real Darwin, and you love that
Darwin, but you certainly hate the pre 1972 Darwin