DebateGate
General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: Christians4LessGvt on October 14, 2008, 09:38:17 PM
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The left logic:
Bill Ayers does some good deeds for education in 2008, but is unrepentent about his terrorism in the 1960's.
So if McCain was associated with a guy that served on some education boards, but
was a KKK member bombing black schools and churches in the 1960's and was unrepentent
about his past bombings of black churches...it's ok because he now does good deeds for education?
LOL
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<<So if McCain was associated with a guy that served on some education boards, but
was a KKK member bombing black schools and churches in the 1960's and was unrepentent
about his past bombings of black churches...it's ok because he now does good deeds for education?>>
I guess the hard thing for you right-wingers to swallow is that a KKK is a lot more reprehensible than a liberal anti-war activist will ever be, even when the liberal planted bombs. The liberal's bombs were planted in a good cause, the KKK's bombs were planted in a bad cause.
Moral relativism is dead. There are distinctions made between good and evil. Ayers is and always was a good guy. The KKK is and always was a bad guy. Racism is bad and war is bad. A guy who bombs for racism will always be a lot worse than a guy who bombs for peace.
Face it, even if you don't like it. It's reality. KKK bad, anti-war good. It's not all that hard to comprehend, really, is it?
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I guess the hard thing for you right-wingers to swallow is that a KKK is a lot more reprehensible than a liberal anti-war activist will ever be, even when the liberal planted bombs.
Bullshit.
Dead victims are dead victims.
The difference between Hitler Stalin and Mao was how they spelled their names.
The difference between McCain and Ayer's is that McCain was good at what he did.
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This should be graven into a great stone somewhere.
" A guy who bombs for racism will always be a lot worse than a guy who bombs for peace."
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Dead victims are dead victims.
Ayers produced zero dead victims, however.
The church bombings were against people. Ayers bombed a statue and the Pentagon, which was basically another symbol, since it was not done in a way that threatened human life.
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Ayers produced zero dead victims, however.
Nonsense. His cell members who blew themselves up were mannequins?
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Bullshit.
Dead victims are dead victims.
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Bullshit yourself. According to your crackpot theories Gen. Curtis LeMay would be as big a war criminal as Hermann Goering.
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Ayers produced zero dead victims, however.
Nonsense. His cell members who blew themselves up were mannequins?
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I suggest that a bomber who blows himself up is his own victim. Ayers did not order them to make bombs. It was an anarchist group. Their decision to make bombs was entirely their own.
Ayers was afflicted with a temporary madness in the 60's. Since then, he has certainly done no one any harm, annd in fact has been preparing university students for productive and useful careers.
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Bullshit yourself. According to your crackpot theories Gen. Curtis LeMay would be as big a war criminal as Hermann Goering
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You will have to explain that. I think one could argue that both of these guys were instrumental in the killing of many innocent civilians.
Is bombing innocent civilians ever a good thing?
The basic difference was that Goering was working for the aggressor.
Goering may have killed himself to avoid hanging, but prior to that, he was responsible for th deaths of thousands.
There is a major difference between the Nazi party and the Weathermen, a puny and disorganized handful of anarchists.
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Bullshit yourself. According to your crackpot theories Gen. Curtis LeMay would be as big a war criminal as Hermann Goering.
If we lost the war he probably would have been tried as one.
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<<Is bombing innocent civilians ever a good thing?>>
Define "innocent." If they're the parents, children, relatives and friends of Nazis and soldiers serving the Nazi cause, then they can't be innocent. In total war, the population supports the war effort by its very existence and when the war effort is aimed at the destruction of innocent civilian life, then the perps and their supporters have no innocence to lose. If, amongst the "innocent" population, there are some anti-Nazi Resistance fighters, it's unavoidable that they too will be killed in the bombing - - that is highly regrettable and tragic, but no more so than the deaths in battle of all who were fighting against the Nazi cause. They are just inevitable battle deaths, and they would be the last ones to call off the operation merely because they themselves might die in it. The greater cause - - the destruction of Nazi Germany - - would be served by the operation going forward.
This whole bullshit line of argument - - "a dead victim is a dead victim" - - completely ignores the moral balance of the conflict, the wider goals of both the attackers and the "victims" and is really an attempt to rehabilitate Nazis and their philosophy as no better or no worse than anyone else. It's typical of and consistent with the general moral anarchy currently prevailing in the U.S.A. and hopefully to be reversed by Obama, that considers torture of prisoners and wars of unprovoked aggression as normal and unexceptional. If equated to Nazi crimes, the approach is either (a) bald-facedly deny any such connection (the sirs approach) or (b) elevate the Nazis to our level by reducing those who fought them to their level (the BT approach.) Neither approach is valid and neither works.
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<<If we lost the war he [LeMay] probably would have been tried [for war crimes]. >>
LeMay himself has apparently said the same thing. On a purely factual level, I'm sure he was right. But also on a purely factual level he would have been tried by a regime which had lost all moral authority to convict anyone of anything. Their courts were completely devoid of moral credibility, their verdicts would have been morally worthless.
I think LeMay also meant that what he had done was a war crime. I'm not sure whether he meant that as a mea culpa or as a dismissive comment on the moral authority of international law as expressed in the Nuremburg War Crimes Trials. His British counterpart, Sir Arthur ("Bomber") Harris, made no such comment and in fact remained convinced to the end of his life that all the German casualties of his air raids "were not worth the bones of one Grenadier."
I think that intention should matter in international law - - the intentions and goals of the attacker and also those of his victims, as expressed in the actions of their national leaders. But I don't think it's an absolute case of the ends justifying the means. Some things, torture for example, can never be justified regardless of the cause they're employed in. There is something in torture that is so degrading to the humanity of both the torturer and his victim that most people instinctively recoil from it and understand instinctively why it is wrong. ("Most people" apparently not including Republicans.)
So getting back to Ayers, he was a Resistance fighter against war and fascism. He's an American hero, and, to paraphrase Fidel Castro, "History will absolve him." Against the war in Viet Nam he was ultimately successful, against fascism at home, unfortunately, that's a dragon that someone else will have to slay.
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Define "innocent." If they're the parents, children, relatives and friends of Nazis and soldiers serving the Nazi cause, then they can't be innocent.
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So German children under the age of twelve, mothers and grandmothers and in laws of a stormtrooper, even one drafted against his will, are all accomplices?
I don't think I am going to buy that.
The basic concept up to WWII is that War is Hell and All's fair in love and war. War is a mental disease not of individual humans, but human society in general, and is contagious to other societies.
In what I would call a justifiable attempt to prevent a reoccurrence of such a disease in Germany, easily the most militaristic society of the mechanized age, they had War Crimes Tribunals at the end of WWII, and it seems to have been successful Germans now make nice with everyone, as do the Italians and the Japanese.
Lamentably, the Soviets and the Americans still have a lingering dose of said disease, and the Chinese at least showed symptoms when they overran Tibet.
I am not going to say that warmongering fools like LeMay should have been tried for war crimes, but I think I'd have done something--bust him down to Captain or something--to send a message that excess in the pursuit of victory is no virture. The bombing of Dresden was really unnecessary, as was the Nagasaki A bomb.
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XO, if you realized the full extent of the evil of the Nazis, you would have no problem with what happened to them, their wives and kids and families. Believe me, the world has lost nothing. The human race has lost nothing.
Anti-fascist "medicine" is strong but it is effective. As you can see, never since the end of WWII have any of the main Axis Powers shown even the faintest interest in war, fascism, racism or militarism. They are cured. They really learned their lesson. It is the U.S.A., OTOH, that is most in danger of catching the disease.
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>>I guess the hard thing for you right-wingers to swallow is that a KKK is a lot more reprehensible than a liberal anti-war activist will ever be, even when the liberal planted bombs. The liberal's bombs were planted in a good cause, the KKK's bombs were planted in a bad cause.<<
Unbelievable.
Of course KKK members consider their cause just. Which puts Mike in there catagory it seems.
Unbelievable.
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>>Define "innocent." If they're the parents, children, relatives and friends of Nazis and soldiers serving the Nazi cause, then they can't be innocent.<<
This is exactly what that piece of shit Ward Churchill said. I'm amazed that this kind of thing is tolerated in here. Simply amazed. Here's hoping somebody blows up your fucking family Mike. This world doesn't need anything related to you in it.
Unfuckingbelievable.
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<<Of course KKK members consider their cause just. >>
So did the fucking Nazis. Don't you guys have any moral backbone at all? If some fucking moron considers his cause just, don't you have a moral compass that lets you say: KKK, your cause is NOT just, Ayers, your cause IS just, Nazi, yours is NOT . . . ?
Do you still not get it? Moral distinctions have to be made.
A just man acting in a just cause is justified in what he does. If the evil he fights is bad enough, he's justified in more extreme measures. The Viet Nam war was horrific in its violence, all against an unoffending country posing no threat whatever to the U.S.A. Many people of conscience, myself and Ayers included, felt that this was a war that had to be stopped by any means necessary. Which is why Ayers is an American hero today. By trying to distance himself from Bill Ayers' attack on the death factory, Obama is actually dishonouring no one but himself.
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XO, if you realized the full extent of the evil of the Nazis, you would have no problem with what happened to them, their wives and kids and families. Believe me, the world has lost nothing. The human race has lost nothing.
Okay, I saw Shoah, the TV series The Holocaust, Schindler's List, Potok and have read Anne Frank, Jerszy Kosinski a whole bunch of other books. I agree that the Nazis deserved what they got. But the bombing of Dresden served no military purpose. It was a war and I am not outraged. But still, I feel that whenever anyone who is not actually involved in committing atrocities is killed, something is lost. What that might have been we shall never know.
The War Crimes trials were a good idea, and the cure to Nazism was effective.
Have you ever read Vonnegut's Mother Night, or seen the excellent film made of it?
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You're the scum of the earth Mike.
Scum.
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<<Here's hoping somebody blows up your fucking family Mike. This world doesn't need anything related to you in it.>>
Nope. The world needs me and my family more than you think. We're the good guys. You're the bad guy. A world without people like me would be hell. A world full of people like you, also hell. People like me are the reason others can hope. People like you would condemn everyone else to a life of misery and fascism.
I hope that, in a perfectly democratic and non-violent way, of course, you and everything you represent will be drowned in a tidal wave, and I think that is what is about to happen in November. The world is sick of your kind, Rich, and now it seems, America is as well. My only suggestion to you is, get some help. You really need it.
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Here's hoping somebody gets all of you. It would be perfect irony wouldn't it? Then we can all sit around and justify it because you justified the Weathermen killing.
Perfect. I'll drink to that. And piss on your grave.
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<<Have you ever read Vonnegut's Mother Night, or seen the excellent film made of it? >>
Mother Night AND Slaughterhouse Five (the bombing of Dresden) and practically everything else Vonnegut ever wrote. He was a genius. After I saw the film of The Sirens of Titan, I resolved never to watch another film made from Vonnegut's works, but I think now I could possibly relent and watch Mother Night.
Vonnegut captured the Zeitgeist of the war and post-war America filtered through a futuristic vision in a way that made me wish his books would never come to an end. He was such an original talent that it's almost impossible to describe what his books are like to someone who doesn't know them, and I usually end up by saying, "Just read the book and we'll talk after." This was the way I was introduced by a friend to his work, and it was really amazing. There were definitely "before" and "after" periods in my POV.
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<<Here's hoping somebody gets all of you. It would be perfect irony wouldn't it? Then we can all sit around and justify it because you justified the Weathermen killing.
<<Perfect. I'll drink to that. And piss on your grave.>>
That's great, Rich. I'll make sure my executors give you the location.
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Apropos de rien, as a reader of Mother Night, did it ever occur to you that I am Rich and Rich is me?
P.S. , Just realized, Crab Walk (Gunter Grass) would have been even more fitting for the concept.
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Mother Night AND Slaughterhouse Five (the bombing of Dresden) and practically everything else Vonnegut ever wrote. He was a genius. After I saw the film of The Sirens of Titan, I resolved never to watch another film made from Vonnegut's works, but I think now I could possibly relent and watch Mother Night.
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Slaughterhouse Five and Mother Night were excellent films. Hocus Pocus, with Jerry Lewis, was pretty awful. Mother Night was the best screen adaptation. I was unaware that anyone tried to make a film version of The Sirens of Titan. It wasn't my favorite book of his.
I think that the best Vonnegut book to read again and again is 'Thank Bless You, Mr. Rosewater.
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The only one I re-read so far was Slaughterhouse Five, but it really stood up to the test of time. It's as good now as it was then. God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater and Cat's Cradle I read about the same time, don't remember them very well. Mother Night and the Sirens of Titan both have unforgettable plots or at least unforgettable plot elements. I am getting ready to re-read all of Vonnegut's books, starting with the earliest ones first, something I've been thinking about since he died. Or went to Trafalmadore.
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You should see Mother Night. Probably in your local library. It's great. H=Nick Nolte plays the main character. Vonnegut himself has a cameo in the film, as a NYC pedestrian.
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<<Of course KKK members consider their cause just. >>
So did the fucking Nazis. Don't you guys have any moral backbone at all? If some fucking moron considers his cause just, don't you have a moral compass that lets you say: KKK, your cause is NOT just, Ayers, your cause IS just, Nazi, yours is NOT . . . ?
Do you still not get it? Moral distinctions have to be made.
A just man acting in a just cause is justified in what he does. If the evil he fights is bad enough, he's justified in more extreme measures. The Viet Nam war was horrific in its violence, all against an unoffending country posing no threat whatever to the U.S.A. Many people of conscience, myself and Ayers included, felt that this was a war that had to be stopped by any means necessary. Which is why Ayers is an American hero today. By trying to distance himself from Bill Ayers' attack on the death factory, Obama is actually dishonouring no one but himself.
Of course , and because objectively Communism was just as bad a Natzism the resistance against its growth in Vietnam was marked by an unwarrented restraint.
If Several Vietnameese Citys had received the treatment we gave Tokio a coupple of decades earlyer the war would have been shorter so much that the total number of innocents killed might have been much less .
Yes I said "Objectively" only a love of Communism as an idea excuses its remarkable excesses and murders , fully ten times the number that the NATZI's ever had to brag on.
Does anyone still doubt that the worlds worst famine raged for nearly five years in a China so closed that it was unknown outside? Or that the number of Chineese Dead represent a holocost sacrificed to communism? Why doubt whatt he Chineese themselves do not doubt?
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If Several Vietnameese Citys had received the treatment we gave Tokio a coupple of decades earlyer the war would have been shorter so much that the total number of innocents killed might have been much less .
Yes, of course. The best way to avoid needless casualties is to carpet-bomb urban areas. How many Vietnamese would have actually died had the US just walked away, allowed the agreed-upon elections and let the Vietnamese run Vietnam unassisted? The US involvement resulted in the less strident South Vietnamese being wiped out in the struggle, allowing the militant factions of North Vietnam to take over. Over 58000 Americans died in Vietnam, millions of Vietnaese, and nearly every person in that sorry place had his life disrupted, all for nothing.
The horrible mess in Cambodia was a direct result of the US deposing Sihanouk, putting Lon Nol in charge, and since no one liked either Lon Nol for the way he consented to the US carpet bombing of his own country, the coming to power of Pol Pot.
Vietnam was a very, very stupid war. There was no reason for the US to get involved whatever, and its participation made everything worse for all concerned.
McCain, demented soul that he is, still thinks it was a noble cause. Bush thought the same, but it was insufficiently noble for him to risk his privileged neck and he played it safe, defending Texas and Alabama from the Great Enchilada Menace South of the Border. Cheney had "other priorities".
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<<If Several Vietnameese Citys had received the treatment we gave Tokio a coupple of decades earlyer the war would have been shorter so much that the total number of innocents killed might have been much less .>>
You can't prove that. It's purely speculative. The population would have dispersed out of the cities and the war would have gone on.
A point would also have come where, if the U.S. abandoned all restraint, so too would the U.S.S.R. The one sore point with me regarding Russian support of Revolutionary Vietnam was the holding back of shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles. Directed against U.S. helicopters, these would have greatly increased the body count and so hastened the end of the war. I think limits were dictated to U.S. policy makers on how far the war could be carried, generated by either fear of the U.S.S.R. or an explicit understanding reached with them in secret as to how far each side could go.
Finally, your argument is just a variation of "Hitler would have done worse." You don't excuse a crime by arguing that an even worse crime could have been committed but wasn't. That's just like making a confession of moral bankruptcy.
<<Yes I said "Objectively" only a love of Communism as an idea excuses its remarkable excesses and murders , fully ten times the number that the NATZI's ever had to brag on.>>
Your numbers are total bullshit. They were fabricated by Nazi collaborators and their apologists to minimize the collaboration as the alleged lesser of two "evils."
<<Does anyone still doubt that the worlds worst famine raged for nearly five years in a China so closed that it was unknown outside? Or that the number of Chineese Dead represent a holocost sacrificed to communism? Why doubt whatt he Chineese themselves do not doubt?>>
That's bullshit too. The Chinese may or may not have admitted to famine. I saw the sources posted here but I'm not knowledgeable enough to evaluate them. China has been plagued by famine for milennia. There's no evidence I've seen that the last famine was the worst in history. In any event, the Chinese Communist Party now seems to have finally eliminated famine in China once and for all - - something never accomplished before in all five thousand years of pre-communist Chinese civilization. A little credit, sir, if you please; the last famine before the one you refer to was in a period of capitalist, pro-American rule, in 1944, and it killed four million people.
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Famine was a major feature of Chinese history, in the same way that market crashes regular feature of capitalism. Ususlaly they were provoked by floods and droughts, but warlords caused more than a few.
Since Mao died, China has not had any famines. It had a variety of political systems, but none of them worked very well.
Mao was a great revolutionary but a horrible economic and societal planner. The Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, his two biggest blunders, were not due to anything written by Marx.
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<<If Several Vietnameese Citys had received the treatment we gave Tokio a coupple of decades earlyer the war would have been shorter so much that the total number of innocents killed might have been much less .>>
You can't prove that. It's purely speculative. The population would have dispersed out of the cities and the war would have gone on.
A point would also have come where, if the U.S. abandoned all restraint, so too would the U.S.S.R. The one sore point with me regarding Russian support of Revolutionary Vietnam was the holding back of shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles. Directed against U.S. helicopters, these would have greatly increased the body count and so hastened the end of the war. I think limits were dictated to U.S. policy makers on how far the war could be carried, generated by either fear of the U.S.S.R. or an explicit understanding reached with them in secret as to how far each side could go.
Finally, your argument is just a variation of "Hitler would have done worse." You don't excuse a crime by arguing that an even worse crime could have been committed but wasn't. That's just like making a confession of moral bankruptcy.
<<Yes I said "Objectively" only a love of Communism as an idea excuses its remarkable excesses and murders , fully ten times the number that the NATZI's ever had to brag on.>>
Your numbers are total bullshit. They were fabricated by Nazi collaborators and their apologists to minimize the collaboration as the alleged lesser of two "evils."
<<Does anyone still doubt that the worlds worst famine raged for nearly five years in a China so closed that it was unknown outside? Or that the number of Chineese Dead represent a holocost sacrificed to communism? Why doubt whatt he Chineese themselves do not doubt?>>
That's bullshit too. The Chinese may or may not have admitted to famine. I saw the sources posted here but I'm not knowledgeable enough to evaluate them. China has been plagued by famine for milennia. There's no evidence I've seen that the last famine was the worst in history. In any event, the Chinese Communist Party now seems to have finally eliminated famine in China once and for all - - something never accomplished before in all five thousand years of pre-communist Chinese civilization. A little credit, sir, if you please; the last famine before the one you refer to was in a period of capitalist, pro-American rule, in 1944, and it killed four million people.
Speculative?
It worked in Japan , but only after quite a bit of it , what did the Jappaneese ever do or plan that was going to be worse than the worst famine in all of human history ?
No two famines of any other occasion amount to half of the 59-63 Chiuneese famine, The Chiuneese are "adapting " Communism into something that can produce enough food for the people who are produceing food to actually eat some , the more they adapt communism and adjust it and make it effective the less it looks like something Marx could claim to have thought of
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Go ahead , undangle my participle.
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<<Speculative?
<<It worked in Japan , but only after quite a bit of it . . . >>
I respectfully beg to differ. Conventional bombing did not destroy Japanese fighting spirit or the Japanese military. They only surrendered when faced with the "new weapon" which threatened the devastation of all life on their islands.
<<what did the Jappaneese ever do or plan that was going to be worse than the worst famine in all of human history ?>>
I dunno how many times they could repeat the Rape of Nanking, how many more prisoners they could torture to death or how many they were going to use for biological warfare experiments. What is your point? Are you trying to argue that they didn't deserve everything they got?
<<No two famines of any other occasion amount to half of the 59-63 Chiuneese famine, The Chiuneese are "adapting " Communism into something that can produce enough food for the people who are produceing food to actually eat some , the more they adapt communism and adjust it and make it effective the less it looks like something Marx could claim to have thought of>>
plane, I am just not going to argue Chinese famines with you for the simple reason I don't know much about them. I have good reason to be extremely skeptical of all anti-communist propaganda, most of it originates from two sources, one being Nazis and Nazi collaborators and apologists and the other being very wealthy and powerful individuals (plutocrats) with a lot to lose if communism ever takes over their homelands, including America. Even if the famine occurred, I'm sure the actual death toll was much less than reported by fascist and crypto-fascist publications and it would have to have been unintentional and due to flawed plans and/or flawed executions of plans.
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<<Speculative?
<<It worked in Japan , but only after quite a bit of it . . . >>
I respectfully beg to differ. Conventional bombing did not destroy Japanese fighting spirit or the Japanese military. They only surrendered when faced with the "new weapon" which threatened the devastation of all life on their islands.
<<what did the Jappaneese ever do or plan that was going to be worse than the worst famine in all of human history ?>>
I dunno how many times they could repeat the Rape of Nanking, how many more prisoners they could torture to death or how many they were going to use for biological warfare experiments. What is your point? Are you trying to argue that they didn't deserve everything they got?
<<No two famines of any other occasion amount to half of the 59-63 Chiuneese famine, The Chiuneese are "adapting " Communism into something that can produce enough food for the people who are produceing food to actually eat some , the more they adapt communism and adjust it and make it effective the less it looks like something Marx could claim to have thought of>>
plane, I am just not going to argue Chinese famines with you for the simple reason I don't know much about them. I have good reason to be extremely skeptical of all anti-communist propaganda, most of it originates from two sources, one being Nazis and Nazi collaborators and apologists and the other being very wealthy and powerful individuals (plutocrats) with a lot to lose if communism ever takes over their homelands, including America. Even if the famine occurred, I'm sure the actual death toll was much less than reported by fascist and crypto-fascist publications and it would have to have been unintentional and due to flawed plans and/or flawed executions of plans.
I wish you had a slight scepticism of proCommunist propaganda , that the Chinese have a hard time denying the truth of the giant famine is because they were so tightly closed that they could indeed hide even such a tremendous atrocity if they had wanted to , that by itself is a serious problem , no government deserves the power to bury its mistakes and a government that establishes this power should be presumed to need it.
Near the end of his account, Mr. Becker tries to estimate the number of people who died unnatural deaths as a result of the policies imposed during the Great Leap, citing one scholar's figure of 30 million to be the most believable. But Mr. Becker says that ''from a moral perspective'' the debate over numbers is ''meaningless.'' China managed to hide the very fact of the famine for 20 years, and even now, its extent and real causes are glossed over in official accounts as part of the effort to protect Mao's already tarnished reputation.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A0CE3D71E3DF936A35751C0A961958260 (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A0CE3D71E3DF936A35751C0A961958260)
There is one point , does it matter whether the famine set a record?
If it matters does it matter that large or small the government of China was able to cover it up for a generation?
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/reprint/294/5/557.pdf (http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/reprint/294/5/557.pdf)
A lingering effect , the prenatal trauma of malnourishment affects the rate of schizophrenia in people now adult but from the cohort born during and soon after the famine.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1083059
Abstract:
Past studies of the Chinese Great Leap Forward famine focus on its causality or the economics effects, but few examine the welfare of the survivors. Thirty million people may have died. Human height, an indicator of nutrition, is used to examine the impact on the survivors of the famine who were born from the late 1950s to the early 1960s. Data are from a survey of 112,000 industrial workers born between the 1940s and 1970s and surveys of children since the 1950s. Trends in average stature for the first time enable us to quantify the impact on the welfare of the survivors.
The thirty million estimate shows up a lot , but estimates higher and lower are just as plauseable from this remove , that the Chineese government can't document the lower estimates makes me suspect the higher ones are likely true , but the efforts of the Government are the reason that nothing is documented for certain in the first place.
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<<Speculative?
<<It worked in Japan , but only after quite a bit of it . . . >>
I respectfully beg to differ. Conventional bombing did not destroy Japanese fighting spirit or the Japanese military. They only surrendered when faced with the "new weapon" which threatened the devastation of all life on their islands.
<<what did the Jappaneese ever do or plan that was going to be worse than the worst famine in all of human history ?>>
I dunno how many times they could repeat the Rape of Nanking, how many more prisoners they could torture to death or how many they were going to use for biological warfare experiments. What is your point? Are you trying to argue that they didn't deserve everything they got?
More people died in the bombing of Tokio than in Heroshima and Nagasaki together.
I would not presdume to say that they did or didn't deserve the misery they suffered and that we caused , but it was necessacery and it worked . The point wasn't that the Japaneese were not harsh on the Chineese and deserved not a harsh return on that , but that the Communists were just as harsh on the Chineese and perhaps even moreso , what should they then deserve?
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It matters less whether China set the record for maximum famine deaths than it matters that China has not had any famines, nor does it seem that China will have a famine now. The past is past. Mistakes were made, and apparently enough was learned from those mistakes that this gruesome history will not be repeated.
Capitalists make mistakes all the time. The current mess is due to their inability to regulate properly.
China will no doubt have an economic crisis at some time in the future, since capitalism produces such things. It will be a net loss for everyone, even those who do not like the Chinese for their political system or whatever reason.
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<<More people died in the bombing of Tokio than in Heroshima and Nagasaki together.>>
That's not the point - - their fighting spirit was not broken by the Tokyo raid, but by the idea of the new weapon. Surrender discussions did not get into high gear until after the bombing of Nagasaki when it was realized that the new weapons made the continuation of the war insane. The A-bomb was a very frightening thing for them and for everyone else.
<<I would not presdume to say that they did or didn't deserve the misery they suffered and that we caused , but it was necessacery and it worked .>>
Fair enough. I lived through those years, albeit as a very young child, but our friends and neighbours have lost immediate family members in Japanese prison camps and I don't expect you to feel the same way about it as I do. Even I have felt different ways about it at times. The suffering of the Japanese was extreme, but so were their crimes.
<< . . the Communists were just as harsh on the Chineese and perhaps even moreso , what should they then deserve?>>
Sorry, plane, that is complete and utter nonsense. Say they were harsh at times and leave it at that. To compare them to the Japanese? No way.
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<< . . the Communists were just as harsh on the Chineese and perhaps even moreso , what should they then deserve?>>
Sorry, plane, that is complete and utter nonsense. Say they were harsh at times and leave it at that. To compare them to the Japanese? No way
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This is like saying that General Sherman was harsher on Americans than General Patton was on the Germans. What is the point?
The Japanese surrendered because they could see from the destruction and the millions of soldiers and sailors who had died that the ti cause was hopeless, and then the Emperor told them that this was true. This was for them like the Word of God, and they surrendered.
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It matters less whether China set the record for maximum famine deaths than it matters that China has not had any famines, nor does it seem that China will have a famine now. The past is past. Mistakes were made, and apparently enough was learned from those mistakes that this gruesome history will not be repeated.
Capitalists make mistakes all the time. The current mess is due to their inability to regulate properly.
China will no doubt have an economic crisis at some time in the future, since capitalism produces such things. It will be a net loss for everyone, even those who do not like the Chinese for their political system or whatever reason.
Capitolism has never made a mistake as deadly as thirty million starved to death , not yet anyway , and if it does it can't be hidden for decades.
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Sorry, plane, that is complete and utter nonsense. Say they were harsh at times and leave it at that. To compare them to the Japanese? No way.
Be objective.
More Chineese die in the care of Communists than in the Japaneese "greater Co-prosperity Sphere" , Objectively by measurement the Communists were not as good at takeing good care of Chineese when compared to Japaneese Imperialists.
Whether they were meaner or nicer is subjective , leave that out.
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Capitolism has never made a mistake as deadly as thirty million starved to death , not yet anyway , and if it does it can't be hidden for decades.
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Surely more than 30 million have died in capitalist countries. They just tend to die here and there over a longer period of time, rather than all at once in a famine.
Even as I write this. people are starving in capitalist countries.
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<<More Chineese die in the care of Communists than in the Japaneese "greater Co-prosperity Sphere" , Objectively by measurement the Communists were not as good at takeing good care of Chineese when compared to Japaneese Imperialists.>>
Where do you get this bullshit from? Why do you believe it? How can you equate deaths by famine, which to a large degree relates to Acts of God, human error, etc., with deaths by deliberately lethal human action designed to kill? That is just nonsense.
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This was not a natural famine , China exported a good bit of foodstuffs each of those years.
I don't think you are researching anything here , I have seen apologists for the Chineese say that the Census was wrong and things like that , or that the weather was bad.
But what about Communism makes the weather worse than ever before , or census mistakes so gross?
The Communists caused this famine in the process of their perfection of communism , not holding them responsible is like not holding the Natzis responsible for conditions in Poland during thier occupation , especially conditions that relate directly to policys enacted.
You may love Communism as an idea , but what does that prove to me?
I don't think that Natziism failed to inspire affection in its admirerers either, in such admirerers it was hard to accept evidences of flaws in that system.
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plane: <<I don't think you are researching anything here , I have seen apologists for the Chineese say that the Census was wrong and things like that , or that the weather was bad.>>
from an earlier post of mine in this thread:
<<plane, I am just not going to argue Chinese famines with you for the simple reason I don't know much about them. I have good reason to be extremely skeptical of all anti-communist propaganda, most of it originates from two sources, one being Nazis and Nazi collaborators and apologists and the other being very wealthy and powerful individuals (plutocrats) with a lot to lose if communism ever takes over their homelands, including America. Even if the famine occurred, I'm sure the actual death toll was much less than reported by fascist and crypto-fascist publications and it would have to have been unintentional and due to flawed plans and/or flawed executions of plans.>>
I guess I got sucked into this discussion despite my better intentions. I'll just leave it at this:
1. I am extremely skeptical of any anti-communist propaganda;
2. I stand by what I said about the Japs - - what they did in China was done with a deliberate attempt to kill and destroy; at WORST, a famine is a mistake or a series of mistakes by the leadership, usually combined with uncontrollable forces of nature. Your logic would say that a cold-blooded killer is a better man than a negligent driver if the driver killed four people by accident and the killer killed only one by design.
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plane: <<I don't think you are researching anything here , I have seen apologists for the Chineese say that the Census was wrong and things like that , or that the weather was bad.>>
from an earlier post of mine in this thread:
<<plane, I am just not going to argue Chinese famines with you for the simple reason I don't know much about them. I have good reason to be extremely skeptical of all anti-communist propaganda, most of it originates from two sources, one being Nazis and Nazi collaborators and apologists and the other being very wealthy and powerful individuals (plutocrats) with a lot to lose if communism ever takes over their homelands, including America. Even if the famine occurred, I'm sure the actual death toll was much less than reported by fascist and crypto-fascist publications and it would have to have been unintentional and due to flawed plans and/or flawed executions of plans.>>
I guess I got sucked into this discussion despite my better intentions. I'll just leave it at this:
1. I am extremely skeptical of any anticommunist propaganda;
2. I stand by what I said about the Japs - - what they did in China was done with a deliberate attempt to kill and destroy; at WORST, a famine is a mistake or a series of mistakes by the leadership, usually combined with uncontrollable forces of nature. Your logic would say that a cold-blooded killer is a better man than a negligent driver if the driver killed four people by accident and the killer killed only one by design.
This is not absolutely unique to Communism Robspierre predated Marx by a century and he killed a lot of Frenchmen for the sake of an improved France .
You are wrong about what could be the worst , Cambodia's killing fields are well documented atrocities but if Pol Pot had been able as Mao was to controll information they would still be a mystery. I did not say that the Famines were accidental and I don't assume anything about them , but if it was not Communism that allowed the famines to get so large and awful it certainly was not communism that did anything to prevent them . In the light of Cambodia and the Chinese government itself allowing the publishing of information in bits at a time , I think the idea of Communists inducing a huge famine quite plausible.
You may not be curious , but I am , it doesn't break my heart to find out the truth about Mao so I don't have your reluctance to look.
According to government statistics, there were 15 million excess deaths in this period. Unofficial estimates vary, but are often considerably higher. Yang Jisheng, a former Xinhua News Agency reporter who spent over ten years gathering information available to no other scholars, estimates a toll of 36 million.
Since the 1980s there has been greater official Chinese recognition of the importance of policy mistakes in causing the disaster, claiming that the disaster was 35% due to natural causes and 65% by mismanagement.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Years_of_Natural_Disasters (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Years_of_Natural_Disasters)
Mismanagement AKA Communism.
Yang Jisheng would summarize the effect of the focus on production targets in 2008:
In Xinyang, people starved at the doors of the grain warehouses. As they died, they shouted, "Communist Party, Chairman Mao, save us". If the granaries of Henan and Hebei had been opened, no one need have died. As people were dying in large numbers around them, officials did not think to save them. Their only concern was how to fulfil the delivery of grain. [3]
Along with collectivisation, the central Government decreed several changes in agricultural techniques based on the ideas of Russian pseudo-scientist Trofim Lysenko. One of these ideas was close planting, whereby the density of seedlings was at first tripled and then doubled again. The theory was that plants of the same species would not compete with each other. In practice they did, which stunted growth and resulted in lower yields. Another policy was based on the ideas of Lysenko's colleague Teventy Maltsev, who encouraged peasants across China to plow deeply into the soil (up to 1 or 2 meters). They believed the most fertile soil was deep in the earth, allowing extra strong root growth. However, useless rocks, soil, and sand were driven up instead, burying the topsoil.
These radical changes in farming organization coincided with adverse weather
Even the worst mistakes of Capitolism combined with war never caused China to suffer the scale of disaster of 59-61 , not even by half.
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1. I am extremely skeptical of any anti-communist propaganda;
Scepticism isn't bad , selective scepticism is , if you were equally sceptical of pro communist reports I would have a lot less fun with you.
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"They only surrendered when faced with the "new weapon" which threatened the devastation of all life on their islands"
BINGO!
Total or believable threats of total annihilation of an enemy works.
I promise you Iran would behave if I was in control.
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Total or believable threats of total annihilation of an enemy works.
I promise you Iran would behave if I was in control.
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If it's that simple, how come no U.S. President including the incumbent has seen it that way? Are they all a bunch of spineless wimps? And you, by contrast to each of them, are the only "real man"?
I kinda suspect it can't be that simple. Would the American people countenance the "total anihilation" of millions of fellow human beings simply because their leadership wouldn't toe the U.S. line? I mean, to be a "believable threat" it has to be carried out. Otherwise there is no way to know if the other side is bluffing or not. The U.S. didn't pose a "believable threat" to the Japs till it anihilated two of their cities.
And then there's the international scene to consider. Regardless of what Russia or China may think of Iran, what they would focus on would be a "mad dog" country with nuclear weapons, determined to enforce its will on others and stopping at nothing to do so. This presents a danger to anyone who does not wish to toe the U.S. line. Kind of like Germany in the 1940s. This presents them with two stark alternatives: either feed the crocodile, as in Winston Churchill's metaphor, "And each one feeds the crocodile, hoping the crocodile will eat him last," or take bold, united action, no matter how costly, to destroy the crocodile and restore some measure of peace and justice to the world. An attack on Iran such as you have described would be a powerful reason for the rest of the world to put aside their differences to slay the crocodile.
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"If it's that simple, how come no U.S. President including the incumbent has seen it that way?
Are they all a bunch of spineless wimps? And you, by contrast to each of them, are the only "real man"?"
Michael do you not read? And just jump to your preconceived conclusions.
I stated "if i was in control".
It would be VERY SIMPLE if I was in control.
Iran would be given a deadline.
It would be their choice.
They would be in control of their own destiny.
If they did not comply bombing of miltary installations would begin.
Then they could decide if they wanted to comply or more bombing.
Again their choice.
If needed all the military installations would be rubble within 6 weeks.
With all of their military destroyed they would stop exporting terror
and have their hands full at home trying to survive.
Bombing would be "stair-stepped" until they comply or are destroyed.
As far as the rest of the world, like they are a bunch of tough guys
France?....LOL.....China?....Yeah what Navy? What Air Force?
Russia isn't capable and would not want to take on the US Air Force in Iran.
See the difference is Michael we can destroy Iran, we have that power.
And Iran doesn't it.
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Suppose someone sank a couple of big tankers in a strategic part of the Strait of Hormuz.
That would cut off oil deliveries from Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, the UAE and most of Saudi Arabia. That is abpout a third of the world supply.
The US does not have the power to destroy Iran, probably not with major quantities of nukes, and certain not without them.
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<<Michael do you not read? And just jump to your preconceived conclusions.>>
Don't worry about me, CU4, I can read very well, thank you.
<<I stated "if i was in control".>>
Yes, I read that, and I asked you how come none of the other presidents including this incumbent saw the thing as clearly as you do? In other words, why don't they act if it's so obvious? Are they all too stupid to see what you see so clearly? Or do they see it, but just lack the balls to do what needs to be done?
<<It would be VERY SIMPLE if I was in control.
<<Iran would be given a deadline.
<<It would be their choice.
<<They would be in control of their own destiny.>>
Well, if I were the President of Iraq at the time, I would wipe my ass with your deadline and tell you to go fuck yourself. What then?
<<If they did not comply bombing of miltary installations would begin.>>
Oh yeah. Like in Viet Nam. THAT worked out real well, didn't it?
<<Then they could decide if they wanted to comply or more bombing.
<<Again their choice.>>
They'd want more bombing. And at the same time, they'd look for U.S. military bases over the Iraq border, up-dating their maps with help from their many friends in Iraq. And send some missiles onto the U.S. bases. And maybe activate a few sleeper cells in the U.S. See what kinda hell they could raise there.
<<If needed all the military installations would be rubble within 6 weeks.
<<With all of their military destroyed they would stop exporting terror
and have their hands full at home trying to survive.
<<Bombing would be "stair-stepped" until they comply or are destroyed.>>
I've seen that movie before. "Viet Nam," wasn't it? It ended with the bad guys running away like whipped dogs and a red flag raised over Saigon. Great ending and boy how I'd love to see a repeat of it.
<<As far as the rest of the world, like they are a bunch of tough guys
<<France?....LOL.....China?....Yeah what Navy? What Air Force?
<<Russia isn't capable and would not want to take on the US Air Force in Iran.>>
Well, you're probably right, CU4. These countries won't take on the US, even in a united front. Primarily because they don't give a shit about Iran. Probably you'll get bogged down in Iran same as you're bogged down in Iraq, only much much worse because there are roughly four times as many people there, and it's a pretty mountainous terrain, the military can disperse and tie you down. If the Iraq war so far has cost you three trillion bucks (and Nobel-Prize-winning Professor John Stieglitz says it has) figure that four times as many people in a more mountainous terrain will cost you roughly four times that amount, or maybe 12 trillion bucks. Plus you are still blowing $10 billion a month in Iraq, which you are not even close to subduing and Afghanistan.
Bottom line, CU4, is for all your tough talking, you're a bunch of gutless wimps and you can't do jack-shit because you're never going to send your soldiers in to fight mano-a-mano with the other side on the ground, so your cowardice forces you to rely on high-tech weapons which are slowly bankrupting you and now, financially, you are at the end of your rope.
<<See the difference is Michael we can destroy Iran, we have that power.>>
The obvious answer to that, CU4, is that if you really could destroy Iran, you would have found some phony pretext and done so long ago. Obviously, if "destroying" Iraq is the answer, a long line of U.S. Presidents would have figured that out long ago and done so if it were possible, because (no disrespect intended, CU4) you can't possibly be smarter than all of them and all of their advisers, and everything else has already been tried.
Not only do you not have the power to destroy Iran, you don't even have the wherewithal to subdue and occupy Iraq, which is why your sorry asses will be hauled out of there in just a few more years. You are broke, my friend, flat busted broke and you don't have the money for any more unprovoked and unnecessary wars of aggression, when even a tiny country like Iraq can whip your ass for five straight years, which incidentally was more than all the time you spent in WWII.
You talk a tough fight, but it's like you're selling 20th century policies in a 21st century world. The days when America ruled the roost are fast coming to an end. Other countries are growing relatively stronger and America is growing relatively weaker. Iraq and its cost should have been a wake-up call. It's a very small country and it cost you $3 trillion. You have little to gain by trying to bend Iran to your will and would be better off focusing on more constructive activities. Your boasting and threats are just immature and self-destructive. You desperately need a new perspective.
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I kinda suspect it can't be that simple. Would the American people countenance the "total anihilation" of millions of fellow human beings simply because their leadership wouldn't toe the U.S. line?
Not lightly , when it was done , there was a reasonable expectation that our victims would kill a lot of Americans and the use of these wepons was accepted widely because this expectation was widely held.
I think that if we had an enemy that was genuinely frightening we would bomb them till we were no longer frightened.
Note that during the Cold War we prepared an array of wepons sufficient to deter a very determined Soviet Union and left it cocked for instant use for two generations , without actually useing it , but the Soviets were sufficently frightening to prompt the creation of this massive , literally Earth shattering wepon , and the aiming and prepareing of it. I don't think we liked it , but we accepted it and tacitly and also purposefully gave permission to the President to fire it on a moments notice.