Obama's War

[Plane]

<<That man just needed killin' is a valid defense in many a state. >>

No it is not.  At most it is the rationale of a jury nullification, an example of the system malfunctioning.

Why elese is a jury needed?

If someone kills someone elese , for reasons that are easy to explain and clear to the jury as justifyable the jury will bring the voice of the community to the trial.


Jurys are a sort of pot luck , I am sure that some are better than others , but they are the best way we have at present to involve the real person who has not devoted his life to the arcane study of law.

[Plane]

They were starting from rock bottom - - nobody could have made the condition of the common man in China worse, IMHO.

More Chineese died to produce a Communist society than died to support the "greater east aisia co-prosperity sphere".

If Mao was rougher on them than the Japaneese Imperial Army , what indeed were the improvements that were worthy of such carnage? China is modifying its Communism to make it more practical , and the further they depart from Marx the more they have success.

Why should we suppose that they couldn't have had this success a lot earlyer without the side trip through the extremes of enforcement of Marxism onto the people?


On you origional question I bring up the question of Mao because you seem ready to accept the huge losses Mao was causing , the losses of the Iriqui people being less and the results being sooner and potentially better , I think that the balance you were asking for ,does appear.

[Michael Tee]

<<More Chineese died to produce a Communist society than died to support the "greater east aisia co-prosperity sphere".>>

I assume you mean "than died to oppose the GEACPS."   Well, so what if they did?  All it proves is that the forces of reaction were even stronger than the Japanese Imperial Army.  And still the people under Chairman Mao overcame them.

<<If Mao was rougher on them than the Japaneese Imperial Army , what indeed were the improvements that were worthy of such carnage? >>

Come on, plane, you know that as well as anyone.  Look at China today and look at China as it was a hundred years ago.

<<China is modifying its Communism to make it more practical . . . >>

That's a BAD thing?   If I were to criticize capitalism on the basis of what it was in the 19th century, you'd be the first to cry foul, and protest that capitalism had changed with the times.  Why is it only communism that must be judged on its distant past, and can't be allowed to change?

<< . . . and the further they depart from Marx the more they have success.>>

Yeah.  They adapt and evolve.  Just like you.  And how much adaptation and evolution did they accomplish before Chairman Mao came along and brought them Marx?

Why should we suppose that they couldn't have had this success a lot earlyer without the side trip through the extremes of enforcement of Marxism onto the people?


<<On you origional question I bring up the question of Mao because you seem ready to accept the huge losses Mao was causing , the losses of the Iriqui people being less and the results being sooner and potentially better , I think that the balance you were asking for ,does appear.>>

That's just fantasy posing as history.  The Iraqis under Saddam were a prosperous, educated and highly Westernized society, with the rights of women more fully realized than in any other Arab countries except for Syria and Lebanon, which were at about the same level.  They STILL are much worse off than they were under Saddam, and now they've lost a substantial chunk of their oil revenues to boot.  The Chinese, OTOH, were starting from rock bottom.  You couldn't find one Chinese in a hundred who'd want to return to a pre-1949 world.  I haven't met an Iraqi, Christian or Muslim, who won't admit that things were at least materially better under Saddam, and almost all the ones I know are refugees from Saddam.

[Plane]

<<More Chineese died to produce a Communist society than died to support the "greater east aisia co-prosperity sphere".>>

I assume you mean "than died to oppose the GEACPS."   Well, so what if they did?  All it proves is that the forces of reaction were even stronger than the Japanese Imperial Army.  And still the people under Chairman Mao overcame them.


 

What more than that is needed to prove that Communism was a bad idea for China?

If domination by imperial Japan is less painfull, what could possibly be worthy of that much more pain?

Communism was wastefull and learned the rules of economics from knowing nothing. Now that they know better they are less communist and less hungry, overthrowing the Nationalist Chineese govrnment replaced the corrupt  with the ignorant and corrupt.

Imagine a China that instead suffered the sort of "nation building " or "exploitation" that Japan suffered. There were plenty of Americans willing to help.

They coud be where they are now decades ago , and better off also by a couple of massive famines that Mao caused which would not have ever happened.

[Michael Tee]

<<What more than that is needed to prove that Communism was a bad idea for China?>>

What the hell is wrong with you?  You see where China is 60 years after the Revolution and you see where China was 60 years before.  If Communism was a bad idea, what the hell is a good idea?  Poison Kool-Aid?

<<If domination by imperial Japan is less painfull, what could possibly be worthy of that much more pain?>>

I don't know what you mean by that and I'm not even going to try to figure it out.

<<Communism was wastefull and learned the rules of economics from knowing nothing.>>

So now Karl Marx did not know the rules of economics.   plane are you actually reading this stuff, or is it just the product of some random word-generating program that goes on-line while you sleep?  If you want to tell me that the Communist leaders of China made some mistakes after the Revolution and learned as they went, I'm prepared to listen.  I think they admitted as much themselves.   

<<Now that they know better they are less communist and less hungry . . . >>

They learned as they went along, and improved through experience and pragmatism, yes.

<< . . . overthrowing the Nationalist Chineese govrnment replaced the corrupt  with the ignorant and corrupt.>>

Meaning that plane does not like Communists.  OK plane, we get that.  BTW, speaking of ignorant and corrupt, are you prepared to concede that those words will fit plenty of Western governments as well?

<<Imagine a China that instead suffered the sort of "nation building " or "exploitation" that Japan suffered. There were plenty of Americans willing to help.>>

Ha ha ha, yes there were.  Henry Luce for one.  They did everything in their power to help the KMT keep China in its accustomed subservient role, which was the whole point of the Revolution and the overthrow of the foreigners' puppets.

<<They coud be where they are now decades ago , and better off also by a couple of massive famines that Mao caused which would not have ever happened.>>

Right, plane, sure.  Coulda, shoulda, woulda.  And if my aunt had balls, she'd be my uncle.  The foreign influence on China was dominant since before the days of the Opium Wars, and the Chinese, if not plane himself, had a pretty good idea of what it was doing for them.

[Plane]

<<If domination by imperial Japan is less painfull, what could possibly be worthy of that much more pain?>>

I don't know what you mean by that and I'm not even going to try to figure it out.

It is very simple , the Japaneese did a better job of keeping Chineese people alive than Mao did.


And Yes Marx did not understand economics, he was sophisticated and complex in his understanding , but would you say that the astronimers who postulated an Earth centered universe understod astronomy well? The sophistication and complexity was all in a wrong direction.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Jurys are a sort of pot luck , I am sure that some are better than others , but they are the best way we have at present to involve the real person who has not devoted his life to the arcane study of law.
------------------------------------
After having served on a jury and having been foreman of a jury, I do not think that justice is served as well by the average jury as it would be by a trained, three or five-judge panel with investigative powers, such as Spain uses these days.



The difficulty is that both the prosecution and the defense lawyers are often able to get very gullible people to sit on juries: in lieu of the best possibly qualified jurors, the most easily swayed are often chosen. The classic example has to be the OJ trial. REalluy food juries are possible, but the lawyers are given too much discretion in the selection of jurors by ruling out prospective jurors for no reason or too many silly reasons.



In the case in which I was elected foreman, it was a drug case involving some rather stupid people trying to smuggle cocaine into the US from Colombia inside the tube of a green-screen computer monitor, supposedly being returned for repairs. The most convincing fact, that such a monitor was available new for $80 at the time, and these poor saps had paid $225 to ship it from Bogota to Miami. Neither the prosecution nor the defense said a word about this matter. We of the jury felt that the prosecution and defense lawyers were people we would not hire for even a traffic offense.

[Michael Tee]

<<It is very simple , the Japaneese did a better job of keeping Chineese people alive than Mao did.>>

Yes they did a terrific job of keeping the Chinese people alive.  The Rape of Nanking is just one sterling example of their handiwork.  And this shows today in the way that the Japanese are still worshiped and revered by the Chinese people out of gratutude for keeping them alive, whereas Mao is universally reviled for killing them off like flies.  All over China, people are calling for the Japanese Imperial Army to come back and take care of them.

plane, you live in a fantasy world so crazy and impenetrable that mere fact and logic are powerless to make any impression.  I think we just have to agree to disagree.  I don't even recognize the historical world you have created for yourself.


<<And Yes Marx did not understand economics, he was sophisticated and complex in his understanding , but would you say that the astronimers who postulated an Earth centered universe understod astronomy well? >>

No, I would not.  That's why their theories are not taught in any university that I know of (other than as history) whereas Marxist university professors are still teaching.

<<The sophistication and complexity was all in a wrong direction.>>

Of course, we see how the philosophy and its followers have failed China.

[Amianthus]

No, I would not.  That's why their theories are not taught in any university that I know of (other than as history) whereas Marxist university professors are still teaching.

Teaching Marxist economic principles? As current, rather than historical, theories? Pray tell, please let us know who these professors are.

*No* current economist that I have read considers Marx anything other a curious footnote in history. Most of his theories were invalidated or subsumed within his lifetime.

[Michael Tee]

<<Teaching Marxist economic principles? As current, rather than historical, theories? Pray tell, please let us know who these professors are.>>

Andrew Kliman, of Pace University, is one.  A Google search "Marxist professor of economics" turns up others as well as some very interesting sites.

[Amianthus]

Andrew Kliman, of Pace University, is one.

Read up a bit on him. He's a proponent of the "Temporal single-system interpretation" (TSSI) of Marx's economics. While Kliman admits that Marx's work has internal inconsistencies, the proponents of TSSI say that the inconsistencies can be ignored because Marx was right on his bigger, philosophical issues (ie, communism / humanism is the way to go).

Basically, they take the same tact as many Christians - "sure the Bible has many internal inconsistencies, but we believe it just because
it's what we like / were raised with". In other words, Kliman has turned Marx's writings into a religion.

[Michael Tee]

Well, first you said that there were no professors teaching Marx and now you want to turn this into a critique of Kliman's work.  I'm not an economist and not prepared to argue if Kliman is right or wrong - - basically you denied his existence, I found him and proved you wrong, and that's the end of it.

And BTW, the Google search I referred to shows plenty more like Kliman in the universities and still teaching one form or another of Marxist theory.  To claim as plane did that Marx knew nothing of economics is totally ridiculous nonsensical bullshit.   He knew a helluva lot about the subject, some of which is still being taught today. 

Which was the only point I was trying to make.

[Amianthus]

Well, first you said that there were no professors teaching Marx

Perhaps some reading comprehension is in order. Go back and read what I wrote.

[Plane]

  To claim as plane did that Marx knew nothing of economics is totally ridiculous nonsensical bullshit.   He knew a helluva lot about the subject, some of which is still being taught today. 

Which was the only point I was trying to make.

If you find and agust teacher , teaching students all about the flat Earth on the back of a turtle , would you let me know?

[Michael Tee]

Here is EXACTLY what you wrote:

<<Teaching Marxist economic principles? As current, rather than historical, theories? Pray tell, please let us know who these professors are.

<<*No* current economist that I have read considers Marx anything other a curious footnote in history. Most of his theories were invalidated or subsumed within his lifetime.>>

Pray tell, please let us know what reader of average intelligence would NOT take this as a denial that Marx was still being taught as economic theory today and a challenge to find at least one professor who was doing so.