heard some moron leftist professor excusing terrorist ayers

[Xavier_Onassis]

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.

[Plane]

<<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


.





Go ahead , undangle my participle.

[Michael Tee]

<<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.

[Plane]

<<Speculative?
<<It worked in Japan , but only after quite a bit of it . . . >>

I respectfully beg to differ.&nbsp; Conventional bombing did not destroy Japanese fighting spirit or the Japanese military.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; What is your point?&nbsp; 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&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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

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

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:&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;
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.

[Plane]

<<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?

[Xavier_Onassis]

 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.

[Michael Tee]

<<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.

[Xavier_Onassis]

<< . .  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

=========================================
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.

[Plane]

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.

[Plane]

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.

[Xavier_Onassis]

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.

==================================================
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.

[Michael Tee]

<<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.

[Plane]

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.

[Michael Tee]

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.

[Plane]

plane:&nbsp; <<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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; I'll just leave it at this:
1.&nbsp; I am extremely skeptical of any anticommunist propaganda;
2.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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&nbsp; 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



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.