Reply to Unconfigured
klo_mc...@mecsys.mec.ohio.gov
UNCONFIGURED (AN APPROPRIATE MONIKER) SAID THE
FOLLOWING ON AUG 3RD REGARDING MY RESPONSE TO BILL OF BROWN UNIV.,
[MY RESPONSE TO UNCONFIGURED FOLLOWS.]
Having now read (in alt.politics.socialism.trotsky) through some 23
segments of interaction between an unrepentent Stalinist for whom the
history of Soviet terror is the history of the necessary periodic
cleansing of society (Klo, our erstwhile skunk) and a thoroughly
civilized but nearly as doctrinaire Trotskyite whom I think I would
probably like in person but who is really a theologian, not a 20th
Century historian (Bill), it is clear that nothing matters to them but
endless debate over DOCTRINE. ("Give me a cite! Give me a cite!") It's
passing silly that the doctrine they choose to chew over ad nauseum,
like medieval monks speculating on the angel capacity of the head of a
pin, is 19th century nonsense which is at the end of the 20th so
thoroughly debunked as to be ridiculous. It is really not marxism which
is worth debate. The question for the 21st Century is the lesson to be
drawn from mankind's 80 year experiment with totalitarian government
worldwide. Whether the terror was mounted and the blood was shed in the
cause of mock romantic racial theories or on behalf of crackpot analyses
of class in society, the result has been catastrophic for hundreds of
millions of innocent people because of the vicious intolerance which
inheres in totalitarian systems.
Klo's profoundly intolerant mindset is thoroughly totalitarian. He
seems to have learned nothing from the bloodiest period of human
history. He revels in the socialist killing fields of Lenin and Stalin
and justifies the worst of the terror. His degree of insensitivity to
human suffering on a level unprecedented in 2,000 years of Western
history is chilling. He openly admits that the system he loves can not
succeed on its merits. It must of necessity resort to violence.
Indicia of this totalitarian mindset include his vigorous admission
that Lenin's ban on factions WITHIN THE PARTY in 1921 was meant to be
permanent because the alternative did not work, i.e., was not consistent
with totalitarian democratic centralism. He suggests that only party
leaders will determine the make up of "policy making bodies". Under him
not even workers will enjoy "maximum freedom to elect and be elected."
The 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia under Brezhnev shouldn't have been
necessary: "When you are a soviet leader and leave Joe's way you can
expect to get stung." Khruschev's mistake was to let people "...do more
of what they wanted." Then there is that masterpiece of Orwellian
newspeak: under Stalin, "The masses...had freedom BECAUSE it was not
extended to the bourgeoise." "Real marxists (read 'totalitarians') don't
allow people to operate unrestricted..."
I am, indeed, one of those bourgeoise types who "...are exceedingly
vocal and use the word 'terror' to describe Lenin and Stalin's rule."
Klo says that insofar as I am concerned terror "should be" applied.
Klo quite clearly is some sort of beast. A skunk, I think.
As to Bill there's hope. Klo says that he is a Trotskyite and
therefore, "...opposes the essence of democratic centralism and, thus,
all but decimates the dictatorship of the proletariat." Tell me it's
true, Bill.
I would like to suggest that all "classes" are made up of pretty
much the same material, i.e., we are all descended from primates of one
sort or another. We are omniverous, aggressive, tribal, territorial,
warlike, narrow, quick to anger, frequently delusional, etc. What we
need in this world are INSTITUTIONS which first and foremost protect us
as individuals one from the other. And our attention, without the use of
terror, coercion and killing, must first be addressed to the most
dangerous apes of all, those infected with the totalitarian pursuasion.
H.W.
MY REPLY:
In virtually every discussion that occurs between spokespersons
on the political left an anarchistic libertarian of some sort always slithers
onto the scene who thinks he is above it all, despite having little
knowledge and even less willingness to learn. You fit that mould
exquisitely H.W. Your are even further from reality than Bill of Brown
Univ. and that is something to write home about, assuming you have
one. Your errors are numerous, your behavior is obstreperous your
language is nauseous, and your prevarications are poisonous.
First, you refer to "unrepentent Stalinist," when the ones in need of
repentance are those who have profaned his memory and befouled
Stalin's magnificent achievements, such as yourself. You are no doubt
among that cretinous crew who view the Russian rot and Soviet sewage
of today as superior to the societal sanity led by Stalin.
Second, your reference to "Soviet terror" is clear evidence that you
ignored virtually everything I said to Bill of Brown Univ. I might as well
have been talking to my cat and I don't even have a cat.
Third, you refer to our dialogue as "endless debate over DOCTRINE"
when it is by no means endless. Even more important, your distaste
for discussions of this kind is no doubt attributable to the fact that you
are incapable of providing a cite for much of anything, Marxist-Leninist
or otherwise. Anarchist/libertarian types don't have enough self-discipline
or fortitude to do the kind of research that is necessary to present a
cogent argument, because they comprise the penultimate crowd of
glittering generalities and vague generalizations. After all, why deal in
facts when you summarize to the jury right off the starting block and forego
all the stress and strain of finding out what really happened. Yelling
"Give me a cite! Give me a cite!' to people of your benightedness would
be nothing more than inciting, since nothing else could be forthcoming.
Fourth, the only silliness involved is that exhibited by someone who
thinks he can tell us where we are going when he doesn't know where
we have been or where we are. Santayana's quote would be most
appropriate at this juncture.
Fifth, your comment that we are concerned with "19th century nonsense
which is at the end of the 20th so thoroughly debunked as to be ridiculous"
only exposes the degree to which you have left reality. I believe that would
be categorized as a surreptitious slam at Karl Marx and for a novice of your
caliber to degrade a titan of his is analogous to my toddler saying he now
fully comprehends the intricacies of nuclear physics.
Sixth, you refer to "mankind's 80 year experiment with totalitarian
government," when anyone with average political awareness should know
that totalitarian government has been the only rule of thumb since
government came onto the world scene. If you can name a government that
is not totalitarian I would be very interested in hearing about it, again
showing you completely ignored what I said to Bill of Brown. Your prior
indoctrination is clearly able to supersede any evidence to the contrary,
which is another way of saying your mind is made up and you don't want to
be confused by facts.
Seventh, you allude to terror being mounted and blood being shed, as
if this wasn't the hallmark of every empire built in history, especially the
American, British, French, German, Japanese and Italian. Just for openers
you might want to count the native Americans still remaining or determine
how many slaves died while being shipped to the new world.
Eighth, your reference to "crackpot analyses of class in society" appears
to imply that either classes don't exist or Lenin and Marx summarized the
scene fallaciously. Which wouldn't matter, because in either case that could
only come from someone who either just emerged from the womb or whose
brain resides in an intellectual tomb. To say a comment of that inanity is
beneath contempt is to render it a compliment. If you can't see a
monumental class struggle dominating everything in modern society, then
you definitely need to visit an objectivist optometrist. Every aspect, every
facet, of today's society simply reeks with class interests and class
concerns.
Political arguments, economic struggles, social disputes, educational
positions and so forth are drenched in class conflict. Indeed, it is almost
impossible to find a societal issue that is not fought from a class
perspective and out of class interest.
Ninth, you allege my "mindset is thoroughly totalitarian" because I
support socialism--the only system that provides the greatest amount
of freedom for the overwhelming majority of the people? Excuse me,
but I think you have reality backwards! Like so many of your indoctrinated
brethren, you only look at the 10% of the capitalist world that lives fairly
well off because, and only because, the other 90% lives in conditions
that aren't fit for human habitation under stooge governments that are
either blatant fascist dictatorships or democratic facades.
Tenth, how could I be "intolerant," as you contend, when I am reading
and responding to the drivel you exude like a tube of toothpaste? If
I were as intolerant as you, I would confine my terminology to words
considerably more poignant than "skunk" and be done with it. But since
awakening people such as yourself from their misapprehensions and
stolidity has a higher priority on my bill of particulars than ego-tripping,
I feel compelled to concentrate on information rather than denigration.
Eleventh, to what era are you referring when you say the "bloodiest
period of human history?" Surely it is not the period from 1917 to 1953
because that would only further expose the number of times you
preferred visiting the pub over a library. Not only have more subjugated
people died directly and indirectly through fighting, murder, imprisonment,
disease, malnutrition and impoverishment because of British and
American rule, but your assertion totally ignores who started what. Are
you concerned about who is responsible for whatever occurred, what
they were trying to do, and with whom they were in cahoots or are you
merely interested in the number of people involved? If all that matters
is the number involved, then from your perspective the United States
must be the greatest instantaneous mass murderer in history in view of
what happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Talk about killing the
innocent!. Incinerating young mothers and their babies in carriages as
they strolled along the streets of those two cities should put the U.S.A.
at the top of your hate list. Hitler at his worst never killed 85,000
people in a matter of seconds.
Twelfth, your allegation that I "revel in the socialist killing fields" is
a
blatant lie, pure and simple. I don't revel in any killing fields. My
thinking
is like that of Stalin prior to WWII. He did everything he could think of to
keep the Soviet people from having to fight Nazi Germany and, as he
said in his March 1939 speech, he wasn't going to allow the Soviet Union
to be used by England and France to pull their chestnuts out of the fire.
No world leader of the 1930's wanted peace more than he did.
Thirteenth, you refer to "insensitivity to human suffering" when
Marxist-Leninists are precisely those individuals most concerned with
human suffering. It is the system which you defend with such vigor
that is responsible for the wars of history, especially the cataclysmic
events known as WWI and WWII, in which millions of people died in
order to determine which of the capitalist nations would prevail in their
never-ending struggle for economic superiority. You dare talk to me
about insensitivity to human suffering when you parrot the platitudes
and propaganda of a system that is responsible for the deaths of
more people than any other system by far. You dare talk to me about
insensitivity when you defend a system that is completely owned by
people who have no intention of improving the lives of hundreds of millions
if that means wealth would no longer be easy to obtain. You dare talk to me
about insensitivity to human suffering when you take no account whatever
of who was killed and why. Apparently you are so blind that you can't
see any difference between killing a man who is trying to murder your
wife and killing a man because he won't let you murder his. You appear
to be one of those superficial critics who looks upon every killing as a
murder, regardless of motive or facts. If you want to be near real
insensitivity, just continue trusting those more informed than yourself
who are fully aware of the holocaust capitalism has imposed on
humanity, but rationalize its atrocities, regardless.
Fourteenth, in referring to me you say, "He openly admits that the
system he loves can not succeed on its merits. It must of necessity resort
to violence." Would you kindly give me the cite for that , unless, of
course, you are referring to proletarian dictatorship versus bourgeois
dictatorship. In the latter instance, kindly refer me to a government in
history that has not maintained control by resorting to force and violence.
Fifteenth, a word to which you obviously have great affinity is
"totalitarian." Would you please give me the name of a government
that is not "totalitarian?" I posed the same question to Bill and have
heard nothing. You know, I am amazed at how little,
how very little, the so-called anti-Stalin leftists throughout the world
have learned from what has happened in the Soviet Union in the last
10 years. When the soviets finally jettisoned the last elements of
Stalin's approach, the nation all but fell off a cliff. Tens of millions
have dropped to a level of poverty that they never dreamed possible,
and never experienced under Stalin, and now they are supposedly
freer. Freer to do what? Die? Remember when I told Bill of Brown Univ:
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A FREE POOR MAN. YOUR FREEDOM
IS DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL TO THE SIZE OF YOUR POCKET BOOK.
IF YOU GOT MONEY, YOU GOT FREEDOM; IF YOU GO NO MONEY
YOU GOT NO FREEDOM. How many times do I have to keep saying it?
For some reason or another it's not registering.
Your conception of the word "FREEDOM" is miles from reality.
Obviously the word needs serious elaboration. In fact, within a day
or two I will put on a separate post to do just that and entitle
it FREEDOM, DEMOCRACY, AND LIBERTY.
Sixteenth, you say of me, "He suggests that only party leaders will
determine the make up of 'policy making bodies'. Under him not
even workers will enjoy 'maximum freedom to elect and be elected'."
This is the first comment you have made that has any merit. When
you say that only party leaders will determine who will be on policy
making bodies, that is true. But when was the last time all the
members of the American republican party, let alone the entire
American population, voted as a block for the national leaders of
that party? In fact, when have they ever voted for the state leaders
of that party? The same is true of the democrat party. So when
you say "Under him not even workers will enjoy "maximum freedom
to elect," you are condemning not only the Soviet system but the
American, British, German, Japanese, and French as well.
On the other hand, when you say, "Under him not even workers
will enjoy "maximum freedom to be elected," you have erred egregiously.
Every worker is free to work his way up through the ranks and run for
any office on which his eyes are set.
Seventeenth, you assert that I said paraphrastically,
"The 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia under Brezhnev shouldn't
have been necessary: When you are a soviet leader and leave Joe's
way you can expect to get stung. Khruschev's mistake was to let
people ...do more of what they wanted."
And then you repeat my assertion that under Stalin, "The
masses...had freedom BECAUSE it was not extended to the bourgeoise.
Real marxists don't allow people to operate unrestricted..." and refer
to it as a masterpiece of Orwellian newspeak.
Your point is somewhat nebulous. Khrushchev did let some people
operate more freely. He allowed bourgeois elements to engage in
more private ownership and hire more individuals. Are you
applauding that? Do you favor extending more freedom to the
bourgeoisie (10% of the population) when it can only result in a
lessening of freedom for the rest of the nation (90%). Remember
when I told Bill that the freedoms of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie
are in inverse ratio to one another? When one goes up the other
goes down.
Following your warped logic, Marxists should allow the Mafia and
drug lords to operate unhindered. After all, you are restricting their
freedom, aren't you? In fact, your perverted thought processes can
only lead to one conclusion: laissez faire capitalism should reign
supreme. Every man for himself should be the law of the land and
volumes of governmental rules, regulations and restrictions should
be abolished. How else under your preposterous conception of
freedom can maximum liberty prevail?
You quote me as having said, "Real marxists don't allow people
to operate unrestricted..." and you conclude from this that Marxists
are therefore "totalitarians." Really? Under that definition every
capitalist system is totalitarian because none of them allow people
to operate unrestricted. What do you think law libraries are filled
with? Shelves and shelves of books telling you all the things you
can do without restrictions? Hardly! Do you have any idea how
narrow-minded and nonsensical that comment was?
Eighteenth, you admit you are a capitalist agent by saying, "I am,
indeed, one of those bourgeoise types." Well! At least there can
be no doubt where you are coming from; so we don't have to
surmount that hurdle and can move on.
Nineteenth, you condemn me for having said terror "should be"
applied. Are you saying it should not be? Are you saying the
Mafia, the drug lords, and other comparable elements should not
fear the government? Are you saying polluters and snake-oil
salesmen should not live in fear of being detected? You don't
want murderers, rapists, thieves, and muggers to live in fear for
their acts? You don't want people like this to live in constant fear
for what they are doing? Whose side are you on, anyway?
Don't tell me, I already know. It's abundantly clear.
Twentieth, you say, "I would like to suggest that all 'classes' are
made up of pretty much the same material." Wrong again! Because
of their relationship to the means of production and distribution,
classes have drastically different views on virtually every subject
under the sun. To put it simply, when you have $1 billion you look
at nearly aspect of life different from someone who has $1.
Twenty-first, you say, "We are all descended from primates of one
sort or another. We are omniverous, aggressive, tribal, territorial,
warlike, narrow, quick to anger, frequently delusional, etc." This is
nothing more than an attempt to inject that capitalist piece of nonsense
known as "human nature" into the equation, when there is no such
animal. People are whatever conditions make them, and if they seem
constantly warlike that is because generation after generation is
raised in an environment of constant struggle. People are not
inherently warlike any more than they are inherently prone to murder
or thievery. Material conditions are primary; ideas are secondary.
People are whatever conditions make them, not vice versa. Change
the material conditions, which primarily refers to environment and
heredity, and people will change accordingly. You need to read
*Materialism and Empirio-Criticism* by Lenin.
Twenty-second, you say, "What we need in this world are
INSTITUTIONS which first and foremost protect us as individuals
one from the other." How naive! First you say you don't want any
restrictions, and now you want some institutions to protect us
which can only be done effectively by restricting freedoms.
In addition, who is going to control the means of production,
distribution and exchange while you are setting up these institutions?
From whence comes the latters' financing? If one man has $1 billion
and another has only $1 to his name, how are going to prevent the
former from taking over these institutions? In fact, how are you going
to prevent him from being the one who creates them? What kind of
enforcement mechanism are these institutions going to have and
how liberally will it be funded? Is it going to have as much money
as the billionaire or is it going to be limited to a buck ninety-eight,
which would be like trying to use a wet noodle to police a rogue
elephant .
And finally, you concluded your litany of capitalist indoctrinations
by saying, "And our attention, without the use of terror, coercion and
killing, must first be addressed to the most dangerous apes of all,
those infected with the totalitarian pursuasion." This is so divorced
from reality it is hardly worthy of a discussion. The capitalists put out
this pap, but they aren't foolish enough to believe it. Every bourgeois
government has police forces, military organizations, and a vast
array of other enforcement mechanisms that haven't hesitated to
employ terror, coercion and killing whenever they deemed necessary.
I asked Bill to provide me with the name of a non-totalitarian
government and am yet to hear a response. Perhaps you would like
to become his proxy? The only real infection involved lies in the
stomach of those so simple as to have swallowed the poison pill
of perverted propaganda from the propertied.
8/9/96
Rob Frantz
I, for one, found Warden Klo McKinsey's "22 Theses (count 'em) on How to
Turn the Entire World into a Maximum Security Prison" quite interesting.
Tedious, but interesting. Klo is an oddity these days, an intellectual
fascist. Oh yes, a red fascist it's true, but a fascist, nevertheless.
To him the entire world is totalitarian, so why not let him and his ilk,
drawing on the accomplishments of his hero Joseph Stalin, show us how
truely efficient HIS worldwide prison camp can function. Of course, he
promises us , after all is said and done, after the sham of bourgeois
democracy is dispensed with, FREEDOM. Yes, yes, ARBEIT MACHT FREI.
Rob Frantz
> you say that only party leaders will determine who will be on policy-
Thomas Gerard Smith Jr.
Rob,
You've got Klo down in a nutshell. But why waste your time? The best we
can do for this guy is try to get him into therapy, so he finally stops
confusing might with right.
On Aug 09, 1996 22:35:27 in article <On Klo Mc Kinsey's 22Theses>, 'Rob
Frantz <rfr...@u.washington.edu>' wrote:
>I, for one, found Warden Klo McKinsey's "22 Theses (count 'em) on How to
>Turn the Entire World into a Maximum Security Prison" quite interesting.
>Tedious, but interesting. Klo is an oddity these days, an intellectual
>fascist. Oh yes, a red fascist it's true, but a fascist, nevertheless.
>To him the entire world is totalitarian, so why not let him and his ilk,
>drawing on the accomplishments of his hero Joseph Stalin, show us how
>truely efficient HIS worldwide prison camp can function. Of course, he
>promises us , after all is said and done, after the sham of bourgeois
>democracy is dispensed with, FREEDOM. Yes, yes, ARBEIT MACHT FREI.
>
>Rob Frantz
Tom