Bush, Communism, and the County Dem headquarters

[slang]

Originally Posted by richlevy

You will notice that I did not once, ever refer to you as a boneheaded slack-jawed inbred pig-chasing cousin-loving redneck idiot.

Yes Rich, and you have a sense of humor too. Fair enough ( Kerry still lost the election )

[jinx]

Originally Posted by slang

because....we own the night.

...This was the most fun I have ever had at a job that doesnt pay money.

Gosh, that does sound like fun. Really brings back the memories too, we used to do that kind of shit all the time back when I was 12. Didja manage to get any pool hopping in?

[slang]

Originally Posted by jinx

Gosh, that does sound like fun.

It was. You should try it sometime. Are you allowed to stay up past 10?

[slang]

Originally Posted by jinx

Didja manage to get any pool hopping in?

No, no one asked me to pool hop, they asked us to install HUGE Bush signs on their property.

Your version does sound funny, but no, that's not how it worked. This was not a prank for the property owners. It was by request. And the requests were many.

[wolf]

Of course, I can't find the site where I read about this earlier today, but the Sandinistas are making a comeback in Nicaragua.

[Undertoad]

Rich, don't be all backpedaling now. Your original premise was that communism didn't kill 100M people. Now you want to discuss nuances of different kinds of Communism. And put it on some sort of sliding scale with Communism on one end and Capitalism on the other. I find that to be kind of ignorant. What kind of nuanced Communism worked in each of these different approaches to it?



explanation of terms, table

The notion that Capitalism and Communism are in contention for being able to provide for the citizens sorta died in the late 80s/early 90s when we learned that all the worst right-wing rumors about the U.S.S.R. were in fact true. The notion that we kids had when we were in college, that the U.S.S.R. was just a misunderstood grand experiment/hidden utopia? All that shit was wrong. Maybe you haven't been paying attention since college?

The war is over, Capitalism won. In fact the current controversy isn't whether it can provide enough for its people to live on, but whether it actually provides too much and becomes "unsustainable".

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Rich, don't be all backpedaling now. Your original premise was that communism didn't kill 100M people. Now you want to discuss nuances of different kinds of Communism. And put it on some sort of sliding scale with Communism on one end and Capitalism on the other. I find that to be kind of ignorant. What kind of nuanced Communism worked in each of these different approaches to it?

I didn't say that the total deaths by all Communist governments didn't total up to 100 million, I'm saying that not all Communist governments commit democides and not all democides are committed by Communists. The danger in believing that is that by bad things are always or always done by Communists is that this can cause one to assume that Capitalist societies are immune to abuses, that the freedom to buy a Big Mac means that all other freedoms are guaranteed. This kind of blindness is why Marx thought his revolution would occur in England and Jews assumed the worst persecution they would suffer in the 20th century would be in Russia, Poland and France.




Notice that while most of the table lists Communists dictators, almost half are not Communist. The ones who did not make the list, like Pinochet, are significant not for the number of indivduals murdered, but because of their ties to the US.

President Richard M. Nixon and Henry A. Kissinger, who served as his
national security advisor and Secretary of State, supported a right-wing
coup in Chile in the early 1970s, previously declassified documents show.

But many of the actions of the United States during the 1973 coup, and
much of what American leaders and intelligence services did in liaison with
the Pinochet Government after it seized power, remain under the seal of
national security. The secret files on the Pinochet regime are held by the
C.I.A., the Defense Intelligence Agency, the State Department, the
Pentagon, the National Security Council, the National Archives, the
Presidential libraries of Gerald R. Ford and Jimmy Carter, and other
Government agencies. According to Justice Department records, these files
contain a history of human rights abuses and international terrorism:

* In 1975 State Department diplomats in Chile protested the Pinochet
regime's record of killing and torture, filing dissents to American foreign
policy with their superiors in Washington.

* The C.I.A. has files on assassinations by the regime and the Chilean
secret police. The intelligence agency also has records on Chile's attempts
to establish an international right-wing covert-action squad.

* The Ford Library contains many of Mr. Kissinger's secret files on
Chile, which have never been made public. Through a secretary, Mr.
Kissinger declined a request for an interview today.

[Skunks]

Am I really dumb, or does that chart actually say that a particular .106th of a person was killed by Communism?

I mean, if you want to talk about 'nuanced'...

[Undertoad]

The column header (000) says the column is in thousands, so 0.106 indicates 106 killed.

Meanwhile, I'm still seeking details on the Famine of the Great Depression. For some reason this horrible event was not detailed in our history books.

[Undertoad]

Rich, you're backpedaling in your backpedaling. You called the 100M number an "interesting figure" and then casually failed to find evidence to support it. I produced evidence to support it. I'm not sure why the question doesn't end there, except that now we need to discuss the Famine of the Great Depression.

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Rich, you're backpedaling in your backpedaling. You called the 100M number an "interesting figure" and then casually failed to find evidence to support it. I produced evidence to support it. I'm not sure why the question doesn't end there, except that now we need to discuss the Famine of the Great Depression.

I couldn't find evidence to support it, you did. According to your chart, about 110 million 'Communist' deaths and 59 million non-Communist. Considering that the two most populated areas of the world were the USSR and China, communist countries, then on a death per 1000 people chart, the non-Communist regimes might match the Communist.

Which brings me back to my point that noone who is shot cares about the politics behind the bullet.

[elSicomoro]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Rich, you're backpedaling in your backpedaling. You called the 100M number an "interesting figure" and then casually failed to find evidence to support it. I produced evidence to support it. I'm not sure why the question doesn't end there, except that now we need to discuss the Famine of the Great Depression.

It seemed to me that he found the number interesting, then compared Communism to other political systems.

He also noted, "Communism is probably more susceptible to famine than capitalism, but I'm sure there were deaths during the Great Depression in the US due to famine."

Well, there was that Dust Bowl thing during the Great Depression, which could be considered a famine of sorts. And wouldn't ya know it! People did die of starvation during the Great Depression! (Source)

You're welcome.

[Undertoad]

Originally Posted by sycamore

And wouldn't ya know it! People did die of starvation during the Great Depression! (Source)

You're welcome.

Wow, did that take a lotta work? Two-thirds of the way down the massive page:

Although few people died from starvation,

Wow, that makes that 100M figure look ridiculous! Good goin guys, the US IS evil after all! It sure looks like the moral equivalence of herding college professors into the gulags!

I'm sure famine numbers aren't included in the genocide numbers. I'm sure if we included them it would be even more obvious.

As for this:

Considering that the two most populated areas of the world were the USSR and China, communist countries, then on a death per 1000 people chart, the non-Communist regimes might match the Communist.

If I can get these cites you can too. Run the numbers, see what they say.

[elSicomoro]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Wow, did that take a lotta work?

Not at all, actually. You might have been able to find it yourself if you hadn't been so busy taking Rich's comments way out of proportion.

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

If I can get these cites you can too. Run the numbers, see what they say.

I did, and it states that bad people come in all political shapes and sizes, and that numbers 1 and 4 of the world's bloodiest dicatators were at one point US allies.

As for the Great Depression, thanks to the introduction of 'Socialism-lite', widespread famine was averted.

BTW, most of the New Deal was work-fare, not welfare.