If there’s a pop cultural icon in dire need of being revisited—and revised—at this historical moment, it is Bond, James Bond. Now that our leaders’ own fantasies of besting evil supervillains and making the world bend to their fancies have run aground on the reality-based community known as Iraq, surely it is time for Bond—who shares with his real-life state employers… return to article
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Reader Comments (146)Page 1 of 1 pages“Can Bond refuse to be what he is supposed to be: a mindless killer serving at the enjoyment of his masters”
Obviously the author doesn’t “get” Bond at all. But that would never stop him from writing, poor fellow. Obviously a fan of truthiness. :)
Posted by wolf on Dec 29, 2006 at 7:12 PM good god, does the anti-white agit-propaganda ever stop here ? even jfk loved bond.
Posted by hawaii jack on Dec 29, 2006 at 7:44 PM Back several months ago, ITT ran a similar article on 24 Hours and Jack Bauer. You can take this article and the Bauer article, interchange the heros’s names and the titles, and the two articles make equal nonsense.
The Bauer article bemoaned the fact that Conservatives sit around and rejoice at Jack Bauer’s heroics. In fact, I have some friends who enjoy 24 Hours with me, but our favorite recreation is looking for absurdities, of which there are LOTS.
The best one last season was when the bad guy stole the CTU ID card and carried a standard brief case into CTU HQ. Down in the basement, bad guy opened the brief case and extracted a cylinder of poison gas. Cylinder was longer and bigger in diameter than the dimensions of the brief case. Not to mention that Bauer entered and exited various airports in the LA area five different times in 24 hours, and killed various bad guys in his spare time, when in fact one trip to an LA airport is a major expedition.
So this article is politically motivated clap-trap, and is designed to provide cover for real problems. The leftists are going to raise our taxes to damage the economy to justify a big, expensive, worthless bureaucracy, restrict trade to reduce our employment to justify big expensive welfare programs, and push Kyoto as a means of social control, economic disaster and poverty enhancement.
Enjoy.
Posted by scorp on Dec 30, 2006 at 2:10 AM White guys claiming to be persecuted by colored folk.
Posted by Major Major on Dec 30, 2006 at 2:14 AM Aston Martin DB9….........Such a beautiful car and a steal at three hundred thousand dollars.
Posted by texasindependent on Dec 30, 2006 at 2:56 AM scorp is right here. major, are you black ? your low iq prompts this query. texas, got a bridge to sell you…........
Posted by hawaii jack on Dec 30, 2006 at 3:09 AM Right, Tex. There’s nothing like an expensive, beautiful phallic symbol to get you all hard and horny, just like your hero.
Posted by Major Major on Dec 30, 2006 at 4:19 AM MM -
You have a problem with hards, horniness, or heroes? ‘what is YOUR problem, boy?
Posted by scorp on Dec 30, 2006 at 4:26 AM Hey, Tex. If it’s a “steal” at 300 grand, does that make it rape?
And how about that stick shift? Jerk it around a few times and you can make the engine roar.
Posted by Major Major on Dec 30, 2006 at 5:24 AM Haven’t seen the movie yet but my kids did and said it was pretty good. I never had an interest in seeing a James Bond before but I do plan to see this one.
But…James Bond for the focus on December 29th and not the hanging of Saddam Hussein?! This publication must really rock!
Personally, I am saddened by the death of Saddam Hussein but believe that he was an evil man. I do believe in the death penalty but that doesn’t mean I relish in that kind of justice. Celebrating? No. I am thankful that that chapter in history has now closed. I am afraid of what will happen next and deeply concerned for the safety of our troops. All that I am empowered to do is to pray.
Posted by kimberlyausten on Dec 30, 2006 at 9:05 AM I can’t wait to see TNR’s review of “The Good Shephard”. Sure to be a major political spit fit.
Jack, you’re a fine one to disparage another’s IQ. Pot scrub thyself, to coin a phrase.
Posted by luminous beauty on Dec 30, 2006 at 4:53 PM Here’s a good question to pursue for those of a shallow, self-important mind-set (you know who you are): Did Ian Fleming invent product placement?
Posted by luminous beauty on Dec 30, 2006 at 4:59 PM I,to, look forward to seeing THE GOOD SHEPHARD.
Interstingly, not only did Ian Fleming write the James Bonds novels but he wrote Chitty Chitty Bang Bang as well.
Posted by kimberlyausten on Dec 30, 2006 at 7:49 PM All the more reason to read his exciting narratives once again.
Posted by Major Major on Dec 30, 2006 at 11:45 PM Ya know….I always enjoyed watching a Bond movie , when I was a KID…..a kid .....But now unfortunately , Hollywood seems to be a clone for the military industrial complex….Yeah…Major Major….peeny men such as Scorp , TI or HJ , probably find more than just a wishful phallic readjustment…they also find a mythical justification for their misplaced socio / economic / political agendas….
Posted by Redhorse on Dec 31, 2006 at 3:57 AM kimberlyausten, “believing” is not the same as “knowing”, it is much more subjective and not based on actual experience and, therefore, of very little value for humanity. By the way, I “believe” MDW were never found, and Bin Laden is only an invention for you to “believe” he is also an evil man. Where were the righteous Empire leaders when Pinochet and Videla were “disappearing” people in Latin America by the thousands?
Posted by Maria on Dec 31, 2006 at 8:30 PM Yes Maria, I admit what I don’t know. I believe what I suspect. It is of some value to humanity for people to have belief and suspect so that they can speak out, engage in dialogue, and begin to find the truth. Some people may ot believe that Osama Bin Lada ever existed, some believe he exists no more. Due to his health issues, I suspect he may have died.
Regarding Pinochet, we are not the world’s police, that is for the UN to handle. We can intevene for as much as we are able, independently. Why the UN didn’t interven, I do not know. Pinochet was not a perceived threat to the United States as he was not bluffing about having weapons of mass destruction nor was he refusing the UN to gain entry into his country for weapon inspections.
There are numerous tragedies occuring across the world, including Darfur and the Sudan. The Sudan reportedly does not want UN interferece as it would consider it an act of war. There are charitable organizations that you can contribute to to assist in your own small way. You can also check out what is going on with Amnesty International and what they recommend. Some people, actually go into harms way to help in any way that they can. What you choose to do is your own choice and your efforts will be of benefit to humanity.
Posted by kimberlyausten on Dec 31, 2006 at 9:52 PM Allende a Anti Semite Marxist crackpot ruined the economy of Chile. Allende was accused of disregarding the courts, attempting to restrict freedom of speech, and supporting unauthorized seizures of farms and private industry for the purpose of establishing state control of the economy. The Chamber of Deputies also attacked Allende for seeking to “establish a totalitarian system absolutely opposed to the representative system of government established by the Constitution.
Pinochet as General overthrew Allende and rebuilt Chile’s economy. The “disappeared” were 3000 Marxists killed and 30000 “tortured” Pinochet outlawed Communism and rebuilt a strong economy In contrast to most other nations in Latin America, prior to the coup, Chile had a long tradition of democratic civilian rule; military intervention in politics had been rare. Some political scientists have ascribed the relative bloodiness of the coup to the stability of the existing democratic system, which required extreme action to overturn.
In 1980, a new constitution was approved, which prescribed a single-candidate presidential referendum in 1988, and a return to civilian rule in 1990. In May 1983, the opposition and labor movements began to organize demonstrations and strikes against the regime, provoking violent responses from government officials. In 1986, security forces discovered 80 tons of weapons smuggled into the country by the Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front (FPMR), the armed branch of the outlawed Communist Party. The shipment of Carrizal Bajo included C-4 plastic explosives, RPG-7 and M72 LAW rocket launchers as well as more than three thousand M-16 rifles. The operation was overseen by Cuban intelligence, and also involved East Germany and the Soviet Union.
In September, weapons from the same source were used in an unsuccessful assassination attempt against Pinochet by the FPMR. Pinochet suffered only minor injuries, but five of his military bodyguards were killed. The beheading of leftist professor José Manuel Parada, and journalist Manuel Guerrero, and Santiago Nattino by the uniformed police (carabineros) led to the resignation of junta member General César Mendoza in 1985.
Pinochet lost the 1988 referendum, where 57% of the votes rejected the extension of the presidential term, against 43% for “Sí”, this triggered multi-candidate presidential elections in 1989 to choose his replacement. Open presidential elections were held the next year, at the same time as congressional elections that would have taken place in either case. Pinochet left the presidency on March 11, 1990 and transferred power to Patricio Aylwin, the new democratically elected president.
Due to the transitional provisions of the constitution, Pinochet remained as Commander-in-Chief of the Army, until March 1998. He was then sworn in as a senator-for-life, a privilege first granted to former presidents with at least six years in office by the 1980 constitution. His senatorship and consequent immunity from prosecution protected him, and legal challenges began only after Pinochet had been arrested in the United Kingdom.
Pinochet crushed Marxism in Chile and passed a strong industrial economy back to civilian hands in ten years.
Posted by texasindependent on Jan 1, 2007 at 1:58 AM Good, TI.
You might point out that Heritage.org ranks countries as Free, Mostly Free, Mostly Unfree, and Repressed. Chile is the only country in Latin America that is rated as Free, and it has the strongest economy in Latin America. Venezuela and Cuba are rated Repressed, along with NorK, Iran, and Libya.
http://www.heritage.org/research/features/index/downloads/Index05_EconFreedom mMAP.jpg
Similarly, freedomhouse.org has a looser rating system: Free, Partly Free, and Not Free. Chile is rated Free, and is rated 1 (highest) for both political rights and for civil liberties, while Venezuela (Partly Free) is rated 4,4. Cuba (Not Free) is rated 7,7, just like NorK.
http://www.freedomhouse.org/
The Economist runs a Quality of Life Index. In 2005, Chile was rated highest in Latin America, number 31 in the world. Venezuela was 59, and Cuba and NorK were not rated.
http://www.economist.com/media/pdf/QUALITY_OF_LIFE.pdf
Leftists like to point fingers at Chile under Pinochet and South Korea a few years back, but refuse to acknowledge the much worse conditions that are endemic and epidemic in socialist states: mass murders, failing economies, fleeing populations. But rightist thugs are historically less destructive than leftist thugs, and they universally have comparatively excellent final results. But the leftist complaints never cease.
Posted by scorp on Jan 1, 2007 at 5:32 AM Interesting TI and Scorp.
I was wondering what life had been like for Chile before Pinochet. I figured it had to be worse based on my knowledge of Mao Tse tung’s rule and Josef Stalin.
It remeins tragic that so many had to die. I guess it is true, freedom isn’t free.
Posted by kimberlyausten on Jan 1, 2007 at 7:23 AM If freedom is only the freedom to make money, if quality of life is averaged between the handful who experience great wealth against the multitudes who have nothing at all, then, yes, I suppose your right-wing foundation statistics are meaningful, scorpy. Don’t forget that those figures you cite for Chile are under a Socialist government.
State sponsored deaths, political prisoners, torture victims and disappeared under Pinochet: Tens of thousands.
Under Allende and the Socialist governments that have followed Pinochet: 0
Yes, Kimberley, freedom to be richer than anybody else is not free. You should remind yourself everytime you use your computer that five million Congolese have died in recent history so the manufacturers of your PC can get their raw materials at the best market price.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 1, 2007 at 4:15 PM If you are really curious, Kimberley, you might seek to discover why Henry Kissinger can’t travel to much of Europe.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 1, 2007 at 4:29 PM Scorpy and JORGE, sittin’ in a tree,
K-I-S-S-I-N-G
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 1, 2007 at 4:40 PM More FRIENDS of scorp, fighting to keep the world free for right-wing thugs.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 1, 2007 at 4:53 PM Freedoms outlined in our constitution and Bill of Rights…
Our capitalist system is what keeps our economy strong and the benefits that we currently enjoy icluding our public schools, Medicare, the welfare systems, health care systems for the poor, grants for education, etc…SSDI, I can go on, byut you get the picture.
Posted by kimberlyausten on Jan 1, 2007 at 5:03 PM Elected with only 36% of the vote and by a plurality of only 36,000 votes, Allende never enjoyed majority support in the Chilean Congress or broad popular support. Domestic production declined; severe shortages of consumer goods, food, and manufactured products were widespread; and inflation reached 1,000% per annum. Mass demonstrations, recurring strikes, violence by both government supporters and opponents, and widespread rural unrest ensued in response to the general deterioration of the economy and lead to the coup of Pinochet.
While Michelle Bachelet is a nominal socialist she is forbidden by the Constitution from nationalizing industries and redistributing personal wealth or property. Chile now enjoys a stable economy, and a growing foreign investment worth some 7 billion dollars. Banchelet can best be called a socialist on a very short leash. Perhaps the only acceptable kind.
Posted by texasindependent on Jan 1, 2007 at 5:24 PM In Guatemala, apparent US support for heavy-handed tactics used by the Guatemalan army and police in a war against a communist insurgency comes under question.
In a report he presents to the US Department of State, the then deputy chief of mission at the US embassy in Guatemala, Viron Vaky, expresses his concerns about the human rights situation in the country.
Vaky states, “The official squads are guilty of atrocities. Interrogations are brutal, torture is used and bodies are mutilated. ...
“In the minds of many in Latin America, and, tragically, especially in the sensitive, articulate youth, we (the US) are believed to have condoned these tactics, if not actually encouraged them. Therefore our image is being tarnished and the credibility of our claims to want a better and more just world are increasingly placed in doubt. ...
“This leads to an aspect I personally find the most disturbing of all - that we have not been honest with ourselves. We have condoned counter-terror; we may even in effect have encouraged or blessed it. We have been so obsessed with the fear of insurgency that we have rationalised away our qualms and uneasiness.
“This is not only because we have concluded we cannot do anything about it, for we never really tried. Rather we suspected that maybe it is a good tactic, and that as long as communists are being killed it is alright. Murder, torture and mutilation are alright if our side is doing it and the victims are communists. After all hasn’t man been a savage from the beginning of time so let us not be too queasy about terror. I have literally heard these arguments from our people.”
I’m really tired of you using the rubric of nominally ‘socialist’ dictators’ inhumanity to justify inhumanity on the part of the US security state, scorpy.
As Ghandi said, “An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind”.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 1, 2007 at 5:32 PM “The CIA’s Directorate of Operations is currently blocking the release of hundreds of secret records covering the history of U.S. covert intervention in Chile between 1962 and 1975. The CIA issued “CIA Activities in Chile” pursuant to the Hinchey amendment in the 2000 Intelligence Authorization Act—a clause inserted in last year’s legislation by New York Representative Maurice Hinchey calling on the CIA to provide Congress with a full report on its covert action in Chile at the time of the coup, and its relations to General Pinochet’s regime.”
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 1, 2007 at 5:46 PM Hey, Tex. Is that a pistol in your pocket, or have you been dreaming of driving that car again? Never mind. Just curious. What’s even more curious is your nasty little habit of lifting entire articles off the web and passing them off as your own. The case in question is your selective quotation of a Wikipedia rough draft on the coup d’etat in Chile. Unfortunately you failed to include the quotation marks which might have informed your audience that the opinion expressed was not your own. On the other hand, you did manage to include a pair of extraneous quotes around the word “tortured” which were absent in the original article and appear to indicate your whole-hearted concurrence in the proposition that torture undertaken in the name of freedom is a fucking virtue. Evidently you and your moronic cousin Scorp (a card-carrying member of Mensa, no less) actually believe that it was necessary to overthrow a democratically elected government in order to establish a militarilly-imposed democracy. You should apply for position with the current administration. I hear they’re looking for a few good imbeciles. Have fun dreaming about that car. Make sure you wear a condom.
Posted by Major Major on Jan 1, 2007 at 6:03 PM Posted by kimberlyausten on Jan 1, 2007 at 10:03 AM
Yes, Kimberley, I do indeed get the picture. Our capitalist system is so strong it is threatening to destroy the ecological balance of the planet. But what does it matter what kind of world our grandchildren inherit, as long as ‘I get mine!’
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 1, 2007 at 6:12 PM Posted by Major Major on Jan 1, 2007 at 11:03 AM
It is an interesting fact that MENSA is a club for people with second-rate intellects. Their motto could well be, “We’re no Einsteins, but we’re smarter than you. Nyah! Nyah! Nyah!”
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 1, 2007 at 6:21 PM Loony Booty –
To quote myself:
But the leftist complaints never cease.
All wealth is created. A mountain of gold is worthless unless someone mines the ore and processes it. An unplowed field does not produce grain. Trained workers, knowledge, factories, production machinery, and raw materials are forms of capital that are required to produce wealth.
Free trade, including expanded knowledge, is required to increase wealth in poor countries: China and India are prominent current models, but Estonia, Ireland, and Chile have recently undergone radical transformations and upgrades in their ability to create wealth by following free trade capitalist models.
Socialist redistribution of wealth results in the destruction of capital and universal poverty; that is why the Soviet Union collapsed. Never in one hundred million years will you create prosperity by redistributing wealth from producers to non-producers. The only hope for the world’s poor is to expand production, that is, follow a democratic capitalist model.
In 1970, freetheworld rated Chile dead last among the 54 countries evaluated. In 2004, Chile is ranked number 20 in the world, among 130 countries evaluated.
http://www.freetheworld.com/cgi-bin/freetheworld/getinfo.cgi
So I am amused and bemused by your disparaging reference to “right-wing foundation statistics”. The world is becoming more free and more prosperous following democratic, capitalistic models, after the death, destruction, and collapse of socialist models.
State sponsored deaths, political prisoners, torture victims and disappeared under Pinochet: Tens of thousands.
Not only are you exaggerating about the deaths under Pinochet, you are ignoring, as is the wont of socialists, the tens of millions of dead under socialism.
If your observations were not so tragic, they would be mildly amusing. Why don’t you take your rant to the socialistworkers website, where it is appreciated?
Posted by scorp on Jan 1, 2007 at 6:41 PM “Revelations that President Richard Nixon had ordered the CIA to “make the economy scream” in Chile to “prevent Allende from coming to power or to unseat him,” prompted a major scandal in the mid-1970s, and a major investigation by the U.S. Senate. Since the coup, however, few U.S. documents relating to Chile have been actually declassified- -until recently. Through Freedom of Information Act requests, and other avenues of declassification, the National Security Archive has been able to compile a collection of declassified records that shed light on events in Chile between 1970 and 1976.
These documents include:
** Cables written by U.S. Ambassador Edward Korry after Allende’s election, detailing conversations with President Eduardo Frei on how to block the president-elect from being inaugurated. The cables contain detailed descriptions and opinions on the various political forces in Chile, including the Chilean military, the Christian Democrat Party, and the U.S. business community.
** CIA memoranda and reports on “Project FUBELT”—the codename for covert operations to promote a military coup and undermine Allende’s government. The documents, including minutes of meetings between Henry Kissinger and CIA officials, CIA cables to its Santiago station, and summaries of covert action in 1970, provide a clear paper trail to the decisions and operations against Allende’s government
** National Security Council strategy papers which record efforts to “destabilize” Chile economically, and isolate Allende’s government diplomatically, between 1970 and 1973.
** State Department and NSC memoranda and cables after the coup, providing evidence of human rights atrocities under the new military regime led by General Pinochet.
** FBI documents on Operation Condor—the state-sponsored terrorism of the Chilean secret police, DINA. The documents, including summaries of prison letters written by DINA agent Michael Townley, provide evidence on the carbombing assassination of Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt in Washington D.C., and the murder of Chilean General Carlos Prats and his wife in Buenos Aires, among other operations.
These documents, and many thousands of other CIA, NSC, and Defense Department records that are still classified secret, remain relevant to ongoing human rights investigations in Chile, Spain and other countries, and unresolved acts of international terrorism conducted by the Chilean secret police. Eventually, international pressure, and concerted use of the U.S. laws on declassification will force more of the still-buried record into the public domain—providing evidence for future judicial, and historical accountability.”
See, TI. This is how you do it. Quotation marks and links to sources. You don’t want to be thought of as a plagiarist, do you?
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 1, 2007 at 6:43 PM Not only are you exaggerating about the deaths under Pinochet, you are ignoring, as is the wont of socialists, the tens of millions of dead under socialism.
If your observations were not so tragic, they would be mildly amusing. Why don’t you take your rant to the socialistworkers website, where it is appreciated?
United States Posted by scorp on Jan 1, 2007 at 11:41 AMI’m not exaggerating ‘deaths’ under Pinochet. I was giving the cumulative totals of ‘deaths, torture victims, political prisoners, and disappeared’, nor am I ignoring the tens of millions dead under nominally ‘socialist’ dictatorships. They simply are not relevant.
It is a red herring and straw-man fallacy with which you have endeared yourself.
Why are you so intellectually dishonest?
Why don’t you take your rant to FrontPage.com, where it is appreciated?
You do realize ITT is a democratic socialist publication, don’t you?
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 1, 2007 at 7:00 PM Scorpy, I have plenty about which to disagree with the CPUSA, etc., and nearly all revolutionary marxist movements of the past and present.
But I am not a member of those organizations, nor a citizen of those countries. What criticisms I have of them is secondary to my moral obligation to bring my own nation closer to the ideals of justice, liberty, and equality it espouses.
If you think it is somehow a good moral argument to rationalize inhumane brutality on the premise that we aren’t as bad as them, there is little that I can do to convince you otherwise.
If there is a Christian ‘Hell’ perhaps an eternity there will straighten you out. I wouldn’t bet on it.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 1, 2007 at 7:32 PM “Never in one hundred million years will you create prosperity by redistributing wealth from producers to non-producers.”
So, in your opinion, scorpy, wage earners, laborers, mechanics, technicians and subsistence farmers are not producers, only the investment and professional managerial classes produce anything?
I would ask, who should own the means of production? Those who do the actual work of producing, or those who have merely inherited the lion’s share of equity in capital property?
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 1, 2007 at 8:22 PM Why are some of you trying to tell peole to post elsewhere. Anyone can read anything at any time. Anyone can post of the websites mentioned in previous posts despite their position. If the intent of these posts is to provide feedback and ideas, it seems counterproductive. Writing from different perspectives can be enlightening to the reader. If the reader doesn’t like what he reads, he can stop reading it or refute it.
Regarding Henry Kissinger, I don’t really know much about him as that was before my time and my interests are such that I’m not going to research him at this time. My choice.
Posted by kimberlyausten on Jan 1, 2007 at 8:26 PM “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
George Santayana
Of course it is your choice, Kimberly.
Choose wisely is all I ask.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 1, 2007 at 8:56 PM Good grief. The Goober has gone and quoted himself again. That’s definitely symptomatic of a terminal mental dysfunction, probably a premature manifestation of Alzheimer’s. No, Dumbo, wealth is not created. It’s stolen from the people who are forced to create it with half-assed appeals to patriotic self-interest, who themselves stole it from the people who originally possessed it. It’s stolen by the people who kidnapped the people who produced it for them. It’s a chain of theft, murder and dispossession that’s older than the Bible itself, that glorifies the crimes they commit to survive in a world ruled by brute self-interest, one which was marginally more efficient than the predatory natural order they sought to escape. Your free market fundamentalism is just another pathetic attempt to rationalize the crimes we elect our leaders to convince us to commit to ensure our collective survival at the expense of the indigent and to the benefit of the affluent. They don’t call it the human race for the hell of it.
Posted by Major Major on Jan 1, 2007 at 9:01 PM Major,
It’s not just that he quotes hisself, but it is such a banal question-begging quotation. Complaining about other’s complaints, as it were.
Much like blondemike, scorpy, for all his purported native intelligence, has never actually learned how to think.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 1, 2007 at 10:58 PM Considering that I demolished you in every encounter that we had, LB,
if I never learned to think, would does that make you ??????????
You are reducing to recycling Scorp’s lines now ? How pathetic,
you farty old queen. This whole board except for Hawaii Jack,
Kimberly and now myself, reads like a dialogue between inmates
at an asylum for the criminally insane. The raunchiest, cheesiest
right and left extremists.
Scorp, you need to do something other than wank off and listen to
Rush. LB, you need to readjust your girdle because you’re bitchy
crotch rot is getting on everyone’s nerves and your smegma is starting
to rival Shitcago’s in terms of foul odor, Tex, grab another plate of
jumping beans & wipe that grease off your employer’s keyboard,
Buck Private, Buck Private you’re a disgrace to the African race and
you need to get a job, bro.
Wishing you all a happy new year but I realize you have other plans.
Posted by blondemike on Jan 1, 2007 at 11:14 PM Yeah, Mikey,
You completely demolished me when you demonstrated the fact that you have the vaguest notion of what an axiom is.
Another lesson you need to learn; juvenile insults and shallow opinions are not rational nor logical rebuttals.
You need professional help, Bunky.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 2, 2007 at 12:20 AM luminous beauty, it is always a pleasure to read your comments and I wish you a good year. I have ceased giving my opinions because I always find it difficult to do it with a couple of “machos” spreading insults and justifying any atrocity for the sake of the prevailing system and calling anyone who dissents a “a “leftie”, or whatever.
kimberly austen: Kissinger’s influence in world events was important and painful enough and more so in Latin America, which I suppose you must know is part of the American continent and inhabited by human beings just as your part of the American continent (you are not the only Americans, right?). The CIA, Mr. Kissinger and thousands of agents did very nasty things in your name, though you are too young to have met them and their successors keep on doing similar atrocities wherever they feel it necessary for the prevailing of an unjust system. WMD are not our invention, and it doesn’t make me feel any safer to know that your country may have them stacked away somewhere, particularly if I remember Hiroshima.
Posted by Maria on Jan 2, 2007 at 12:32 AM Mil gracias, Maria.
Y tu, tambien; ¡Feliz Año Nuevo!
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 2, 2007 at 12:51 AM Loony Booty -
The capitalist problem of distributing wealth after it is created is quite different from the socialist problem of destroying wealth.
So, in your opinion, scorpy, wage earners, laborers, mechanics, technicians and subsistence farmers are not producers, only the investment and professional managerial classes produce anything?
Well, no. That is not what I said, there is no interpretation of what I said that comes out the way you phrased it, and it is patently stupid of you to say such a thing.
I would ask, who should own the means of production? Those who do the actual work of producing, or those who have merely inherited the lion’s share of equity in capital property?
You have a gross misunderstanding and misapprehension of the modern economy. Many years ago, I recall that it took $30,000 (I’m sure it is more now) to create one new job: a building, tools, equipment, desk and typewriter, whatever. If a worker needs a job, must he wait until he has $30,000 before he can start work? Ummm, no. If you confiscate the capital that the worker uses in his job and give it to the worker, how many more jobs will be created? (Hint: zero.) Are workers, individually or collectively, capable of optimizing financing, logistics, transportation, management, research and development, and the dozens of other functions required in a modern industrial environment? (Hint: no.)
Companies and workers earn money because they satisfy needs. The more revenue a company generates is direct evidence of how well the company satisfies its customers’ needs. If you wish to put General Motors and Exxon Mobil out of business, you can do so in about thirty days. All you have to do is refuse to buy their products. But too many people need cars and gasoline; this includes rich and poor, men and women, laborers and executives, all people. And in fact, even lower income people generally own cars, air conditioners, TVs, etc.
Your observation on “inherited” equity is particularly ludicrous. Bill Gates didn’t inherit anything, but he has satisfied many people’s needs. Glancing through the Fortune 100, many of the largest companies in the USA did not exist thirty years ago, or were very small at that time; ideas are capital also. And a good idea saves much money and labor. At a quick glance, these companies, based on entrepreneurial capital, are recent developments: Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Verizon, Dell, Target, Lowe’s, UPS, Microsoft, Intel, Sprint, and FedEx. That is millions of jobs that would not have been created within a socialist scheme.
You do not say so directly, but you seem to have bought into the left-wind fiction that the poor are getting poorer. That is nonsense, of course. Paul Krugman perpetrates and perpetuates this fiction. All five quintiles of adjusted income improve over time, and an arbitrarily defined middle-class and under-class are both growing smaller as the number and conditions of the better off continue to grow and improve. We are working our way out of poverty, just as China and India are doing. We are just doing it much more rapidly than anyone else. Now if we could just get Congress to use the SS surplus for personal investments, everyone could retire early in comfort.
http://www.madison.com/post/forum/viewtopic.php?p=159235&sid=cd90c598f95a ae64fe48a859bc76d201b
http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=121306A
Income and Wealth, by economist Alan Reynolds
Posted by scorp on Jan 2, 2007 at 3:47 AM Loony Booty -
... nor am I ignoring the tens of millions dead under nominally “socialist” dictatorships. They simply are not relevant.
You leftists universally ignore “the tens of millions dead under nominally “socialist” dictatorships”, but you may be the first person ever to say they are not relevant. So, let’s try to provide a little bit of relevance.Marxist philosophy explicitly stated that the workers’ socialism would develop and evolve, and that capitalism would fade away, just as capitalism arose as feudalism faded away. Lenin initiated the idea that, instead of the workers developing and evolving their socialism, professional agitatiors and criminals would accelerate the process, and lead the workers to a glorious future, whether the workers wanted to be led or not. This was the entire argument between the Bolshevics and the Mensheviks, and the Bolsheviks won(?).
So, under Lenin’s system, the Bolsheviks did not wait for capitalism to fade away. After Lenin and his successors killed emough workers there was no more resistance to Lenin’s philosophy, and the next step was to exterminate the capitalists, whether the capitalists wanted to be exterminated or not. The fatal flaw in Lenin’s Grand Plan was that a system founded by agitators and criminals was corrupt and inefficient, markedly more corrupt and inefficient than more conventional socialism, such as poor old Western Europe now.
I do not know how the Cold War got its name, sometimes it was pretty damn hot. And it was explicitly fought against people who were quite willing to kill us if we did not follow their political and economic philosophy. And, yes, we made some mistakes, but nowhere near the order of tens of millions.
The Vaky quote dates to 1968. Let’s have a quick review of the world at that time:
Much damage was done to Europe and Asia in WWII in defeating the fascists and Japanese militarists. In Europe, the USA offered Marshall Plan aid to Western Europe and to the Soviet Union to help rebuild those countries. The Soviet Union refused the aid, and instead launched an unprecedented peacetime military buildup, including the development of nuclear and strategic weapons.
In 1950, North Korea committed naked aggression against South Korea, and was supported by the Soviet Union and Communist China. Over 33,000 Americans, and many Allied troops, plus tens of thousands of South Korean civilians and troops, died defending South Korea in an inconclusive action.
In 1960, Premier Krushchev stated that, “We will bury you,” which was taken as a very hostile remark, though he subsequently backed off from a hard interpretation of the comment.
In 1962, the Soviets shipped nuclear missiles to Cuba, which was a strategic shift and a direct threat to the USA.
In the early 1960s, North Vietnam committed naked aggression against South Vietnam, and was supported by the Soviet Union and Communist China. Over 58,000 Americans, and many Allied troops, plus tens of thousands of South Vietnamese civilians and troops, died defending South Vietnam in a losing action. The loss was a direct result of the American Congress withdrawing promised aid from the South Vietnamese. About two million South Vietnamese then died in labor and re-education camps under the North Vietnamese.
The Soviet Union consolidated its industrial and military might, and liquidated tens of millions of protesting and/or inconvenient citizens. The SU then launched, at various times, aggressive military and KGB actions, sometimes utilizing Cuban or other proxies, against Greece, the Philippines, Malaya, Vietnam, Guatemala, Laos, Angola, the Domincan Republic, Cambodia, Chile, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Grenada. During this same time frame, the Soviets also formed specifically anti-Western alliances with Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Cuba, and Libya. The Soviets also violently suppressed anti-communist protesters in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland during this period.
If you do not think that tens of millions killed by relatively sane socialists is relevant, you probably do not think that thousands killed by insane Jihadists is relevant, either. The difference is that, while the socialists had nuclear weapons, they were sane enough to realize that a nuclear exchange would be suicidal. But the whole Jihadist philosophy is suicidal, and they will use such weapons if they have the chance.
Enjoy.
Posted by scorp on Jan 2, 2007 at 6:37 AM They aren’t relevant to Chile in 1973. Allende wasn’t Lenin or Stalin or Castro or Mao or Pol Pot. His is a different case. That Cold War mythology is just that, mythology. The Soviet Union was never a real threat to the US on the global stage. The level of support they gave to revolutionary movements was pathetically asymmetrical to the amount we contributed to stop them. There were Soviet spies in Chile, but their own records show that they had virtually no influence on Allende. If he had taken their advice, which was a condition of their support, and taken firmer control of the police and military, he would never have faced a coup.
What a load of horseshit, in any case. You re-write history like it is a cheap novel. Your notions of human motivation are cut from cardboard. And as far as the middle east goes, you aren’t solving problems, you’re creating them.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 2, 2007 at 8:20 AM luminous beauty…...........scorpy doodoo, yes…....Not horseshit….we horses don’t eat that kind of crap to begin with….
Scorpy is well known for attempting to dump the unsatisfactory fallout or blowback , from the industrial military complexes covert / overt , capitalist ventures onto the victims of the aforementioned disingenious economic policies….
See in the Scorpy world , he views issues such as Allende as situations that have to be dealt with in a violent but covert manner….Then hacks like Scorpy…rhetoricalize the issue to the point were the average guy ...could give a damn…...
Scorpies like the trash guy..he comes around once a week and cleans up after the capitalist using shallow socio-historically based ,economic arguements…..
Posted by Redhorse on Jan 2, 2007 at 11:37 AM Loony Booty -
Allende wasn’t Lenin or Stalin or Castro or Mao or Pol Pot. His is a different case.
Of course Allende is a different case. Allende was a useless idiot, just like you, but on a global scale. The history of Allende’s systematic destruction of the Chilean economy is well documented. Who suffered when food shortages developed and inflation hit quadruple digits? The capitalists? Naah. The people suffered, just like the Kulaks suffered under Lenin and Stalin.
The Soviet Union was never a real threat to the US on the global stage.
What a foolish, inconsistent girl you are. You started out saying that, ” ... nor am I ignoring the tens of millions dead under nominally “socialist” dictatorships. They simply are not relevant.” So, a well armed, aggressive, murderous ideology spreading by force and subversion in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and North and South America was not “a real threat” to the USA? At what point would it have become “relevant”? At what point would it have become “a real threat”? Did the Socialists have to take over half the nations in each area and kill 100 million people in each area before they became “a real threat”?
There were Soviet spies in Chile, but their own records show that they had virtually no influence on Allende.
Well, I guess that I am gratified that you acknowledge the presence of the KGB in Chile; most of your fellows do not, despite the historical record. The KGB, and the NKVD before it, were the chief instruments of terror and the primary killers of innocent civilians throughout the Soviet Union. You may think that the KGB became benign in dealing with Allende, but there is absolutely nothing in the record that supports your thesis.
One of the lessons learned the hard way in dealing with Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Saddam was that criminals should be dealt with promptly and decisively; it saves all kinds of lives and property. We learn the same lesson repeatedly, but we are often slow to act on the knowledge, perhaps because a misstep could cause a major war. So, when we do successfully apply this good principle in the case of the Philippines, Chile, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Grenada, you complain? What is your problem, Toots?
Posted by scorp on Jan 2, 2007 at 3:47 PM scorp, as always, your “history"s pure fabrication. our involvement in ww1 to make the world safe for anglo plutocracy turned what would have been a desirable stalemate into a “victory” that produced the bolshevik takeover of russia, the versailles treaty, hitler’s rise in reaction to same, and ww2. ww2 produced the commie takeover of 1/3rd of the plant and a permanent war economy in the usa. our famed warfare-welfare state with govt expanding at all levels every year. the civil war
here produced the radical reconstruction then legal segregation in reaction to that, the 1898 war produced US mass murder of hundreds of thousands in the philippines and the takeover of cuba which eventually produced castro in reaction to 61 years of rightwing misrule. so our attempt to deal with the criminal kaiser produced 40 million dead and hitler, then our attempt to deal with him produced 55 million dead and a huge chunk of the world to the commies which produced tens of millions dead in china alone. we supported saddam hssein first under nixon during his 1969 anti-left coup in iraq and then under carter & reagan in his US sponsored invasion of iran in 1980. as late as 1990 he was getting arms and dual technology and wheat from bush senior.
our attempt to deal with him in 1990-91 produced 200,000 dead in iraq, the tyrants being reinstalled in kuwait, al-sabah family, and eventually another two million iraqis killed under bush 1, clinton and bush 2. now another 700,000 iraqi casualties and 3,000 american casualties. our intervention in russian civil war produced the bolshevik victory and trotsky’s reign of red terror. our intervention in ww2 SAVED stalin. our intervention in nicaragua produced hundreds of thousands of casualties and the reinstallment of fascism in managua. our intervention in grenada killed hundreds of people in a mental hospital and was totally unnecessary as the commie factions were killing each other off. 700 medals were given by congress FOR NOTHING. our intervention in el salvador lead to hundreds of thousands of deaths and a fascist junta like the kind that we usually support. i already dealt with our intervention in the philpippines, it was US genocide pure and simple. our intervention in chile overthrew a democratically elected leftist govt and installed a fascist dictator who killed tens of thousands of chileans and exiled hundreds of thousands and tortured hundreds of thousands including murders in dc itself in may 1976. our intervention in iran in 1953 overthrew another democratic left govt and installed the shah which led to khomeini.
so the USA which killed tens of millions of native indians and possibly 100 million black african slaves has killed AT LEAST 10 million more since ww2. there have been horrible leftwing dictators but many more rightwing ones and always supported by USA. btw, kgb was never in chile nor even eastern europe. only in ussr except for token spies who were killers just like our cia.
that answer your rhetorical question, penis breath ?
Posted by hawaii jack on Jan 2, 2007 at 7:15 PM scorp, the few thousand killed by jihadists pale in comparison with the millions killed by US backed regimes OR the usa directly. war criminal gerald ford and war criminal kissinger gave indonesia the green light to invade east timor in 1975 killing one third (200,000) of the 600,000 population, equivalent to killing 100 million americans, the greatest proportional genocide in world history. and we have a holiday today to celbrate that dirty, genocidal piece of shit named gerald ford.
ergo for lbj in 65 backing the rightist coup in indonesia which killed over a million people from 1965-68. spare us your selective indignation at atrocities, scorp. you phony asshole, you not only greatly exaggerate official enemy killings but totally underplay usa killings, oh they weren’t listed in your cia “world fact” book ? no one but an insane asshole like you would confuse the sandinistas with pol pot or allende with stalin.
i wonder if the commies actually put you up to make the dumbest “arguments” for the right.
the khrushchev quote is a fake, saw it at the time, it only meant economic rivalry. the soviets never used military or aggressive actions AGAINST cuba, dominican republic, nicaragua, chile. laos, guatemala, el salvador, ethiopia, vietnam, cambodia or mozambique. the USA
did in all of those countries except mozambique and we backed the renamo killers there who did. only afghanistan is correctly on your list.
ho chi minh is the george washington of vietnam and he never invaded “south” vietnam because there never was a real country of “south” vitnam, only a usa satrapy set up after geneva in 1954. ike refused to allow 56 elections because he knew ho would win as he admitted in his memoirs. USA killed 2-4 million in indochina, not the soviets.
lb, mikey DID define an axiom, you are the one that apparently did not know what it meant if you reread the thread. you can’t debunk an axiom as you claimed. there was no need to respond to your silly example because it involved the fallacy of the stolen concept, using something you claim to dispute as the basis for your alleged refutation. using reason to discredit reason. you confused axioms with postulates.
as far as professional help goes, psychiatry’s a fraud, you need help in learning basic linear reasoning, aristotelian logic.
Posted by hawaii jack on Jan 2, 2007 at 7:41 PM scorp, your wrong on the jihadists, they are not going to use weapons on israel which has 400-500 nukes or the usa which has 30,000 nukes. islamic pakistan hasn’t even used them on india. in fact we will be better if they DO get nukes because the world will revert to the stalemate of the cold war, the rosenbergs were HEROES, not traitors because by helping the soviets get nukes they PREVENTED a world war by insane unilateral US crazies, chomsky’s right that every us prez since ww2 is a war criminal by the very standards we invented at nuremberg and should be executed after a stacked trial like we had at nuremberg. you are an incredibly stupid neocon fuckface, scorp. part of the Dumb Right. i can see why usa war criminals did not want to sign the international treaty punishing war crimes because they know they will be in the dock.
Posted by hawaii jack on Jan 2, 2007 at 7:48 PM “The history of Allende’s systematic destruction of the Chilean economy is well documented.”
No, it is not. What is well documented is the CIA’s concerted and successful effort to undermine the Chilean economy under Allende.
Nixon said, “Make the economy scream”, and they did.
You just don’t understand that socialism can only work in a democratic society. That is what undermined the Soviet Union. Allende was well aware of this and is why he kept the Soviets at arms length. Which is why all your ranting about the ‘evils of communism’ is not relevant.
Capitalism (or what is called capitalism. It is really more a brand of mercantilism), on the other hand, cannot abide democracy and does whatever it can to limit it to the most superficial and oligarchically controlled exercise thereof.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 2, 2007 at 7:55 PM 90% of the destruction of the chilean economy came as a result of us engineered strikes and economic sabotage. allende MIGHT have made a mess of things but we’ll never know since we criminally intervened to install a fascist mass murderer dictator who leaves 60% of chileans in poverty today after his welcome the other week. we are the ones bent on world domination as D. F. Fleming documented in his 2 volume 1961 work, The Cold War And Its Origins, see Horowitz’s The Free World Colossus, 1965 for a briefer treatment of same, the only good work he ever did. it’s 90% recycled fleming but he does give full credit.
redhorse, you’re being generous towards this buttface scorp, he is just
a knowing liar, deliberately throws up bullshit to see how much sticks
to the wall. removing scorp’s excrement is damn near fulltime work
and most of us do not get a govt stipend to do it as the scorp does.
btw, scorp, adjusted incomes have generally being going down in relation to purchasing power since 1973, see bartlett and steele in several books, jeff madrid and others.
do they have a neoconman lie central where you get this manufactured bullshit ? well, too bad, little scoopie, your lying ass gets nailed every time.
Posted by hawaii jack on Jan 2, 2007 at 8:01 PM we actually agree here about the us in chile, beauty, though i was no allende fan. scorp recycles this neocon monomania shit ad infinitum. like many of the lefties here he reads the same old, same old to reinforce his ignorant prejudices. but you people let him get away with murder here, even much of his anti-soviet posturing is for the wrong reasons or based on lies, fabrications, gross exaggerations, half-truths, ad nauseum.
Posted by hawaii jack on Jan 2, 2007 at 8:09 PM as chomsky correctly pointed out, we have nothing resembling laissez-faire or free market capitalism here in the usa. it’s a state propped up pentagon welfarism (for the rich) cum mercantilism. everything from computers to space to the internet is developed as a state monopoly and then turned over to so-called private sector which is the other cheek
of the same ass as the govt.
Posted by hawaii jack on Jan 2, 2007 at 8:13 PM “mikey DID define an axiom, you are the one that apparently did not know what it meant if you reread the thread. you can’t debunk an axiom as you claimed. there was no need to respond to your silly example because it involved the fallacy of the stolen concept, using something you claim to dispute as the basis for your alleged refutation. using reason to discredit reason. you confused axioms with postulates.”
Jack, you are wrong. There is nothing in what I wrote that denied or disputed existence or reason. What I used to dispute the absurd illogic of the common truism ‘you can’t prove a negative’ was Aristotelian Logic. If anyone was using the ‘fallacy of the stolen concept’ it was Mikey. ‘You can’t prove a negative’ is generally the mantra of theists against atheists. It is not logical nor reasonable, it is absurd on its face. It is a negative. If you can’t prove a negative, then you can’t prove that you can’t prove a negative. Meaningless bullshit.
‘Existence exists’ is not an axiom of logic, nor is it a definition of an axiom. It is a specious philosophical premise at best. It is a naive tautology. Begging the question. Circular reasoning. Ayn Rand on meth.
‘That which you can not go beyond’, is even less a definition of an axiom. Braindead hand-waving is more like it.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 2, 2007 at 8:59 PM lb, are you insane ? basic logic teaches you that you cannot prove a negative, a negative is that which doesn’t exist, so by definition it can’t be “proved.”
existence exists is the basic axiom at the root of everything. if you don’t recognize you need to be hospitalized, don’t waste my further time here.
Posted by hawaii jack on Jan 2, 2007 at 10:12 PM Jack,
In Logic, a negative proposition is one that states that something is not true. E.g. ‘dogs are not cats’, or ‘Batman is not as powerful as Superman’. The fact that neither Batman nor Superman actually exist in a physical sense is immaterial. The proposition exists.
If death means the end of human existence, then according to your reasoning, death cannot exist, since it produces non-existence and non-existence doesn’t exist, only existence exists.
You need to put away the Ayn Rand and take basic courses in logic and philosophy.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 2, 2007 at 11:18 PM Don’t piss him off, LB. He’ll stop taking the meds and create another sock puppet.. MH speaking through BM speaking through HJ is more than we can tolerate as it is.
But, wait! He’s got another hand, two feet and a periodically rampant penis, which means…
LB, say it ain’t so!
Not YOU!!!!!!
Posted by Major Major on Jan 2, 2007 at 11:47 PM lb, you need to take the same basic logic courses or read the books that rand and every sane person did. death means the end of our particular lives, not the end of existence. we gradually disintegrate, go study a pathology textbook if you have any further questions.
if you believe that you do not exist and are unconscious i’ll take you at your word. your propositions never have any referents in objective reality as your two above examples show.
Posted by hawaii jack on Jan 2, 2007 at 11:52 PM major, what are you a major IN ? can’t understand your latest wordsalad, can it be translated into english or ebonics ?
Posted by hawaii jack on Jan 2, 2007 at 11:55 PM Excuse me, but I’m trying to resolve an existential crisis here, and you keep interrupting the process. Give me second to suspend my disbelief.
There. That’s better.
Posted by Major Major on Jan 3, 2007 at 12:53 AM your propositions never have any referents in objective reality as your two above examples show.
United States Posted by hawaii jack on Jan 2, 2007 at 4:52 PMYou mean dogs and cats are not objectively real? That ought to save me lots in pet food expenses.
It’s reassuring that I’ll go on existing while my body rots. Or maybe not.
Major, Shhhh! You’ll be giving Jay Cline more strange ideas.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 3, 2007 at 1:18 AM where did i ever write that animals are not real ? your consciousness goes out when you die but in your case it may not make a cognitive difference….................
sorry, major, are you sitting on the pot trying to free willie ? my apologies for disturbing your non-thought process.
Posted by hawaii jack on Jan 3, 2007 at 1:33 AM Working backwards:
I quote Jack:
“where did i ever write that animals are not real ?”
I quote myself:
“You mean dogs and cats are not objectively real?”
I quote Jack:
“your propositions never have any referents in objective reality as your two above examples show.”
I quote myself:
“In Logic, a negative proposition is one that states that something is not true. E.g., â€dogs are not cats’, or â€Batman is not as powerful as Superman’.”
‘Nuff said?
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 3, 2007 at 1:58 AM “your consciousness goes out when you die”
In your inestimable opinion, Jack, does ‘goes out’ here mean ‘ceases to exist’ or maybe something more like ‘goes out on a date’?
Enquiring minds need to know!
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 3, 2007 at 2:13 AM Thank you kindly, Jack. Aristotle would be so proud!
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 3, 2007 at 2:48 AM Loony Booty -
You just don’t understand that socialism can only work in a democratic society.
Socialism is a flawed idea that works poorly in a democratic society, and terribly in a totalitarian society. The socialist bureaucracy in Europe has stifled growth and has long-term high unemployment for over fifteen years. European natives are dying off and Europe is being infiltrated by millions of Muslims, and the socialist Euros do not have a clue what to do about it. Muslim crimes, riots, and destruction are standing fixtures in France, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, and Sweden. I guarantee you we will have to go back into Europe for the third time in a century and straighten out their incompetent bumbling. Instead of whining about Chile, why don’t you try to figure out how to help Europe?
Chile was basically a cold encounter in the Cold War, unlike, say, the communist aggressive wars in Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan. Given the murder and repression that characterized the Soviet Union, commumist China, North Korea, North Vietnam, and Cambodia, the USA was not welcoming toward an avowed Marxist like Salvadore Allende in the Western Hemisphere.
These are the actions that Allende and his supporters took that destroyed the Chilean economy. The USA had little or no involvement in most of them.
First Allende froze prices and started spending money, some of it to “help” the needy. But there are ways to help the needy without creating inflation, which is what happens when you freeze prices and spend extra money.
(Allende) moved to put more wealth in the hands of common folk by raising wages, freezing prices and creating public works. He initiated a program that gave free milk to children. Common people and small business were offered tax relief, and pensions were raised for the elderly.
The rise in inflation created demands for higher wages with no increase in productivity. On the contrary, Allende began stealing property and turning it over to the inefficient bureaucracy, guaranteeing that falling productivity would be faced with higher wage demands: more inflation.
Allende nationalized the copper industry, without compensating its owners. He nationalized other foreign owned businesses and some Chilean-owned businesses considered monopolies. State run businesses came to control 60 percent of Chile’s Gross National Product. Workers in business that remained privately owned clamored for nationalization of their industry, hoping for the better pay and working conditions they believed were accruing to public-sector employees. Some industrial workers in privately owned companies took over their factories.
As the socialist bureaucracy destroyed productivity and discipline, inflation got worse and social cohesion started to fail.
Worker discipline and productivity in other industries fell. Government owned industries were suffering from political appointments rather than appointments based on expertise. Bad weather and social turmoil was diminishing food production. Allende was pursuing more agrarian reform, and impatient peasants, encouraged by the call for equality and for revolutionary change, were seizing land illegally.
Allende’s inflation was damaging to the people and to the nation, and he took good socialist measures that made matters worse.
Allende’s attempt to control inflation by freezing prices did not work. More money chasing few goods contributed to more inflation, as did the continuing demand from labor for higher wages. The money supply had doubled. The continual rise in prices was hurting people. The Nixon administration had stopped aid to Chile, and investment in Chile from abroad had dried - as was to be expected given the nationalizations and hostilities toward foreign capital within Chile. To the Left it seemed that Allende’s Chile was under attack from hostile forces. There had also been withdrawals from bank deposits and an exodus of capital from Chile.
The social and economic turmoil led to rightist defensive measures, and to Allende’s downfall.
People opposed to Allende marched in the streets. Denunciations abounded. A threat to massacre communists was declared. Incidents of violence by the Right and by the Left increased. Armed anti-Leftists vigilante defense groups appeared in middleclass suburbs. Landowners were defending themselves violently against attempted seizures of their land. The toleration needed for democracy to work was disappearing.
Chile’s independent truckers did not care for threats to create socialist trucking. On July 26, 1973, the truckers began another of their strikes, crippling commerce. Allende was not moving to appease centrists, and, in August, Congress moved against him, declaring that the Allende’s government was in fundamental violation of Chile’s constitution. Chile’s judiciary joined in and asked the military to step in and put an end to infringements on the nation’s constitution and laws. The military responded, believing that they were saving Chile. The military stormed the presidential palace, and Allende died with his machine gun in his hands. (The AK-47 was from Infidel Castro, and had an inscribed plate on the stock showing it to be a gift to Allende.)
Given Allende’s superb capacity for doing all the wrong things, Nixon could have saved himself a lot of trouble by just letting Allende destroy himself. But Nixon was correct that we did not need another crackpot Marxist in a responsible position.
All the above quotes from:
http://www.fsmitha.com/h2/ch24y.htm
Posted by scorp on Jan 3, 2007 at 3:56 AM You don’t give up do you, scorpy. You’d murder commie babies with your bare hands and suck their blood through a straw, for a buck, wouldn’t you?
Back to the subject, have you seen “The Good Shephard?”
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 3, 2007 at 4:22 AM Maria: I consider myself an American as in a legal resident of the United States. To be geographically specific, I live in North America. I do consider both Noth and South American residents to be a people of great and equal value. I do not break Canadians down by provinces but refer to them as Canadians. I refer to Mexicans as those reside in Mexico. I normally refer to South Americans by the country in which they reside. I do have a dear friend who happens to be living in the United States of America illegally as he is waiting for the paperwork to be completed and receive U.S. citizenship. He is a native of Guadalajara. He is married to an Indiana native who has lived in Arizona for the last 10 years. I normally think of her as an Arizonan. They have a beautiful baby girl now and are expecting their second child this summer. He is not able to leave the U.S. without risking the chance he will not get back in. His wife and her parents will be traveling to Guadalajara after the second child is born so that the Guadalajaran grandparents and family will be able to see his precious family. I consider the three of them American but only his wife and chlldren residents of the United States. I hope that he will become legalized soon so that he too is able to travel freely back and forth between the two countries.
LB: I was not aware of the connection between PC’s and the Congo. I guess you feel pretty comfortable about it as you seem to use your PC quite a bit, rather than boycotting the products and refusing to enjoy the technology.I do have a great problem in wearing my wedding ring, however. It is a beautiful gold ring with three diamonds and two rubies. After becoming more aware of what happened to the people in Rwanda, I began to not see my diamonds as so beautiful. I watched a special where some company in Africa cuts off the hands of children whose nails are dirty as it could be an indication of digging in the dirt, looking for diamonds. I saw pictures of a precious little girl who had had her hands cut off. It was so unnerving that I began no longer requesting gifts in diamonds and infact, stopped wearing my wedding as a practice in general.
Regarding Gerald Ford and Henry Kissinger, I will talk to my son in law who happens to teach history in a high school setting. If my interest is sparked, I will read on.
Posted by kimberlyausten on Jan 3, 2007 at 5:07 AM Loony Booty -
You don’t give up do you, scorpy. You’d murder commie babies with your bare hands and suck their blood through a straw, for a buck, wouldn’t you?
That is a pretty stupid statement, even for you.
The left has this romantic, pathetic, mythic, false image of Allende which it actively promotes. Based on what? The most distinguishing feature of Allende’s career was the haste with which he installed failed socialist policies, and the speed of the disastrous results, followed quickly by the reactions of people who feared for their well being and their hard-earned property. Allende’s Chile is a fast-forward of every socialist government everywhere. Even China, Vietnam, and most of the nations of the former Soviet Union are seeking capitalist trade and aid, which we are glad to give, in the belief that prosperity leads to personal well being and personal freedom. Witness Chile.
Let me guess. Movie? Religious movie? I seldom watch movies, certainly not religious movies. Tell me about it.
Posted by scorp on Jan 3, 2007 at 6:24 AM Yeah, scorpy,
You only go after me because I’m so stoopid. Yeah. Right.
You’re a fairly bright guy, but you are obsessively anti-socialist. I have no idea what caused you to adopt such a lop-sided and narrow mental frame, but it does not flatter you. I suspect you are just one of those block-headed Midwestern boyscouts who have attained a certain financial and social standing and consequentially believe the sun shines out of their butts.
Allende started a free milk program. Omigod! That right there is reason enough to round up all the lefties in Chile, beat them, imprison them without any contact with their families or legal representation, torture them most cruelly and murder thousands.
You are all right with that.
You are morally bankrupt. You are exactly the kind of banal, ethically challenged and mindless drone that fits so easily into Nazi Germany’s SS, or the Soviet Kremlin, or resides in the upper floors at Langley.
We’ve been having this conversation for how long now? In all that time you haven’t altered your propagandized political nonsense rant one whit. It is ‘all socialists are the same as Stalin, Europe’s going to hell in a handbasket, the jihadist, islamo-fascist bogeymen are coming to murder us in our beds.’ Oooh! Oooh! Oooo! I’m so scared.
You unceasingly spout bullshit. One small part truth, one large helping of disinformation and sanctimonious nonsense. When caught out, the silence of your blithe disregard is deafening.
I assume you used your MBA to get into middle management and not sales or marketing, because you very obviously have no talent for it.
“The Good Shephard” is a spy movie. If you glance at the film review with which this discussion is supposedly concerned, it is about a spy movie. Unlike the James Bond thriller marketed for adolescents and those like yourself whose moral development is stunted at the adolescent level, “The Good Shephard” is a film for adults.
You should see it. A little culcha might be just what you need to break out of the mindless rut in which you find yourself.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 3, 2007 at 4:27 PM what’s the particular far right wing source that you are quoting from now, scorp ? you pull this shit all the time, long rightist boilerplate rants from ultra-right sources that just happen to coincide with your preconceived prejudices. europe in its western and northern parts is far more prosperous and far better off than the usa. our interventions in ww1, ww2 and the cold war were disasters and no one in europe wants us there again, most people there disdain the mcdonalds’-walmart way of life. your caricature of democratic socialism is a farce, they are plenty of good arguments against it but you never present one. time to hang it up, everyone is getting sick of your hijacking threads to post your illiterate rightist monologues. it’s no coincidence that chile and every place in south amercia but colombia has now elected democratic socialist govts and colombia will next.
lb, he is NOT bright, what the hell’s wrong with you ?
Posted by hawaii jack on Jan 3, 2007 at 5:29 PM lb, shockingly i actually agree with most of your post above on scorp.
he does this hit and run number repeatedly. probably need not to feed
into it but i’m guilty of it because i hate to see his BS unrefuted.
Posted by hawaii jack on Jan 3, 2007 at 7:42 PM Well, shet mah mouth. So, tell me. If we’re all sock puppets, does that mean there’s a Master Puppeteer somewhere out there in Puppetland, the universal set of all puppet sets?
Including the empty puppet set and the universal puppet set itself?
Posted by Major Major on Jan 3, 2007 at 11:14 PM And, finally, if he slips the sock on his cock, does that make him a peckerhead?
Posted by Major Major on Jan 3, 2007 at 11:56 PM Perhaps, a master baiter?
O jeez! I’m sorry. I hate puns. Sometimes one just can’t help oneself.
Don’t forget the imaginary puppet set, the mandelbrot puppet set, or puppet events mapped into hilbert space.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 4, 2007 at 12:38 AM Jack,
Don’t you mean from inside a sock, puppet?
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 4, 2007 at 1:44 AM Loony Booty -
... but you are obsessively anti-socialist.
Well, that is not true, of course. I am anti-murder. I am against corruption. I am against inefficiency. I am anti-bureaucracy. I am against the Soviet nomenclatura and the American “elite liberals” (same thing). So, yes, I can see how a person such as yourself might think that I am “anti-socialist”.
I have absolutely no quarrel with socialist objectives. Children do need milk. People need to have their basic needs met. The Soviet Constitution reads like a human rights document. So, how is it that we follow the road of good intentions and end up in the hellish reality that was the Twentieth Century? More importantly, where do we go now?
I think the first problem is that Marx’s program was adopted wholesale by socialists and, for whatever reason, it closed off all subsequent thought. By adopting Marxist slogans as the answer to all problems, no subsequent thought was required, or appropriate, or appreciated. In this regard, socialists tend to cult-like sameness, and all answers are found in the socialist catechism on class and conflict. The only variation in the socialist theme was whether to follow Bolshevik or Menshevik principles. Bolshevism has a bad name, as you acknowledge, but you follow a bastard Bolshevik-Menshevik hybrid, and it isn’t doing too well, either. Regardless, you keep striving for power in order to install your socialist medicine in a world that gets healthier and healthier without you.
Not only do socialists have a Ninteenth Century take on matters of class and conflict, they are ignorant (and unappreciative) of the very real progress in scientific, economic, and political thought that has taken place in the last one hundred years. Socialists can use modern developments, like a Jihadist can use a cellphone, but where are the socialist scientists and entrepreneurs and thinkers and cellphone inventors? Socialist Europe is an entrepreneurial and innovative wasteland. Even the Google founders have installed one basic idea on a platform invented by someone else. Ben and Jerry produce good ice cream but they did not invent ice cream. Who else?
Another problem is the socialist class system (!). The Soviets had their nomenclatura, who had access to money and to autos and to western goods in stores that were denied to the Proles; the nomenclatura were utterly corrupt. We have our own elite liberals who have, until recently, kept tight control of news sources, and Academia. But Old Media has been caught in too many corrupt lies (Rathergate, fauxtography, Jamil Hussein, hyperinflated Iraqi casualty figures), and they are losing readers, and viewers, and revenue, and profits. Incidentally, Leon Trotsky coined the term “elite liberal” early in the 1900s to describe the lordly ways of the German socialist leaders.
To illustrate how far off base the Bolshevik-Menshevik hybrid is trying to take us, consider the following examples.
Example: We know (WE KNOW!) that lowering taxes in 2001 was the correct thing to do to correct the excesses and turmoil in the economy at that time, and we now see record high employment and markets, and excellent growth, and a falling deficit.
Example: We know (WE KNOW!) that free trade promotes wealth and jobs for everyone, and we know that restrictions on free trade (the Smoot-Hawley Tariffs) prolonged the Great Depression and increased unemployment.
So, the Democrats are in Congress, and their solution to our non-problems include raising taxes and limiting trade. Oh, Boy!
That is just like Allende in Chile whose first official acts included freezing prices and increasing wages. Oh, Boy! These and other similar policies soon drove inflation up like the Wiemar Republic, and the Chilean economy was ruined.
Fortunately, every time the Democrats fuck up the economy, Reagan or George Bush or someRepublican comes along and fixes it. Thank God for democracy, or we would all be stuck in the Soviet Union or a Democratic Administration, poor, abused, and ignorant.
Posted by scorp on Jan 4, 2007 at 4:07 AM Scorpy,
If you are so anti-murder then why can’t you admit that Pinochet was a murderer? Why try to pin all the blame on Allende?
What destroyed the Chilean economy was the bottom falling out of the copper market. Who was in a position to flood the market with copper?
Hint: it wasn’t Allende.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 4, 2007 at 4:36 AM Loony Booty –
If ignorance is bliss, you must be the happiest little girl in Creation. In one short post you have made four erroneous and unjustified assumptions.
… Pinochet was a murderer?
Of course Pinochet was a murderer. That is bad. But it is not as bad as allowing Allende to wreck a country and leave the people poor, abused, and ignorant, like his fellow socialists were doing in the Soviet Union and Asia.
As long as we are condemning torturers and murderers, I haven’t heard your comments on the men Che personally shot or the people who were tortured in Castro’s prisons.
… all the blame on Allende?
I certainly did not place “all the blame on Allende”. Allende was a useless idiot for the Soviets and their Cuban proxies. In referring to Allende at all, it was in his role as figurehead, but he was the one who signed the destructive inflation-producing laws, regardless of who wrote them. Nixon did not write those laws, as you once tried to convince us. But Nixon was well justified in his opposition to the spread of socialism.
What destroyed the Chilean economy was the bottom falling out of the copper market.
Ummm, no. The price of copper was $66/ton in 1970 when Allende took office. Allende promptly nationalized the copper mines and the banks, and the big landed estates. He also froze prices, raised wages, and started printing money to pay for it. By 1971, food production was down and Chile had to start importing food. Copper prices dropped in 1971, and went down to $48/ton in 1972, a drop of about 27%. Meanwhile, the price of a basket of consumer goods rose 120% in the month of August, 1972.
Who was in a position to flood the market with copper?
Hint: it wasn’t Allende.
You make the most ridiculous damn comments. Allende was the single person in the whole world who had the capability to flood the copper markets if he wanted to do so. Chile has more than one-third of the copper reserves in the world, more than any other country. Chile has higher production of copper than any other country, and Allende had just stolen the entire amount from its rightful owners. Who was in a better “position to flood the market with copper”?
My horseback estimate is that the Vietnam War was starting to unwind, and copper demand was falling like a rock. Your unstated assumption that the USA was flooding the market is unwarranted and flaky.
The prices of copper and oil, the subject of your last ridiculous comment on commodity markets, are notoriously volatile. You really ought to read up on commodity markets before embarrassing yourself further.
Posted by scorp on Jan 4, 2007 at 7:04 AM Scorpy,
I am glad you have admitted that Pinochet was a murderer, at long last.
Can you tell me if commodity prices can be manipulated by intentional over-production? (volatility is short term variability, annual or semi-annual. The steady increases in petroleum prices are long term trends on a decadal scale. You do understand the difference?)
There were indeed structural problems that Allende was trying to address prior to the fall of copper prices. Price controls and Keynesian spending were short term emergency measures brought about by the loss of international investment. They were working for about 18 mos. when the shit hit the fan. Allende was most certainly mistaken in believing that he could move as quickly to nationalize industry as he did. He totally misjudged the ferocity with which the oligarchy would turn on him.
None of his mistakes justified the horrors of Pinochet.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 4, 2007 at 5:32 PM scorp, you can produce all the phony rightist think tank figures but at the end of the day Allende was a democratically elected President who tried to help the great majority of less well off people in Chile and Pinochet was a vicious murderer and fascist dictator whose policies to this day have left 60% of Chileans worse off including 40% of the Santiago population. you say maybe Allende would have done this or that and falsely try to connect him to the Soviet bloc but that’s your standard redbaiting hoopla, nobody is fooled. you have never apologized for the 250,000 Guatemalans murdered by the US financed rightwing from 1954-1991, the 200,000 Nicaraguans murdered by the US backed fascist contras, the 300.000 Salavadoreans murdered by the US financed rightists there, the 200,0000 East Timorese murdered by Moron Jerry Ford when he gave the green light to the Indonesian Army to invade in 1975 and the four million civilians the US directly muredred in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia during their CIVIL war.
The one million murdered by the US backed Indonesian junta from 1965-68. Chile has now elected another democratic socialist President and Pinochet died in disgrace exposed as a common thief as well as mass murderer. You should stick to the commodities markets because you know nothing of politics, economics or history. You are as shortchanged in the mental department as you are in that other sensitive area.
Posted by hawaii jack on Jan 4, 2007 at 5:41 PM Scorpy,
What I find most disingenuous is your insistent obliviousness to the concerted efforts, both overt and covert, of the most powerful nation in the world to de-stabilize the Chilean economy, implying they had no effect at all.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 4, 2007 at 6:47 PM “Who was in a better “position to flood the market with copper”?”
Anaconda, Kennecott and ITT had oligopolistic control of international markets and production. Chilean copper producers were limited in who they could sell to and how much they could produce because of Nixon’s economic boycott. Duh!
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 4, 2007 at 7:04 PM One thing, scorpy,
You and the oligarchic ĂĽbermenschen whose collective ass you lick, tend to make these broad general arguments that sound reasonable on the surface, but almost always break down into nonsense once one examines the details and sorts through the feints and misdirection.
I hope you are smart enough to learn from this, as Chavez is obviously smart enough to learn from the mistakes of Allende, the FSLM, et al.
There are many on the left who criticize Chavez for pulling on the tiger’s tail, but he has survived one CIA coup attempt (and the consequent economic destabilization and political delegitimazation efforts), and making loud noises about it is his best insurance against another one.
He has the US by the short hairs, not due to any concerns about the relative pricing of petroleum, but because oil is the material resource without which the entirety of economic activity (not to mention the projection of military force) as it is currently organized would quickly grind to a halt. World-wide, aggressive production methods are stressing oil fields’ future productivity and we can’t afford to alienate ourselves from any source. Especially given the null and negative results of our current escapades in the Middle East.
I speak as one who has spent a large proportion of his working life in the field of logistics. One sometimes has to make what appear to be bad economic decisions just to keep the trucks rolling, so that one is still on the ground when economic factors turn around. So far, Chavez hasn’t been in a position to have to make these kinds of decisions, but he is bright enough to plan for them.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 4, 2007 at 8:29 PM Loony Booty -
Oh, Brother!
I am glad you have admitted that Pinochet was a murderer, at long last.
I’m afraid it did not occur to me to admit the obvious. We were at war, and Pinochet was an ally. Pinochet was not the ideal ally, but a socialist dictatorship, following so close behind the Soviets, the ChiComs, the NorKs, the Cubans, and the North Vietnamese was simply not acceptable. Why do you never complain about the death and repression in Cuba? For that matter, why don’t you complain about the hash Allende made of the Chilean economy? Inflation approaching 1000% had a devastating effect on the Chilean people, and the ones who were hurt most were the poor. And while we are at it, raising taxes and limiting free trade will make a hash of our economy, and that is what the Democrats say they will do.
Can you tell me if commodity prices can be manipulated by intentional over-production?
Intentional over-production now on a global scale would be a very expensive proposition with a very uncertain pay-off. Not only would you have to pay the production costs, but you would probably have to pay transportation and storage costs, and perhaps other costs as well. So, in practical terms the answer is no.
(volatility is short term variability, annual or semi-annual. The steady increases in petroleum prices are long term trends on a decadal scale. You do understand the difference?)
I understand the difference, but you do not. The price of gasoline today, adjusted for inflation, is almost exactly the same as when I started driving, more decades ago than I care to think about. The price of crude peaked at just over $80/bbl last August, which is cheaper, adjusted for inflation, than the peak in the early 1980s, at $39/bbl. Some of the price peak last August was driven by Commodity Fund speculation, and some of the speculators got burned (hee, hee, hee, hee), including Putin and Chavez, who made vast plans with half-assed ideas. There is no “correct” price for anything, but everything is subject to the law of supply and demand, a concept which is seemingly utterly foreign to socialists. We will NEVER run out of energy. If hydrocarbons get too expensive, there are other less polluting alternatives being developed, without the balance of payments problems. I am looking forward to the day Halliburton makes a technological breakthrough that allows you to operate your car for two cents a mile. I expect that you will bitch about it.
Check out this site for a five month running daily record of any commodity you care to track. You might be particularly interested in copper and crude. In a previous post you stated that the “bottom fell out” of the copper market, and that was the cause of Allende’s economic woes. But in virtually all of the graphs you can see a 20 or 30% price swing. It is simply not unusual.
http://www.tfc-charts.w2d.com/
Price controls and Keynesian spending were short term emergency measures brought about by the loss of international investment.
Where do you come up with this crap? Price controls, nationalization of foreign-owned properties, and renunciation of foreign debt were Allende policy while running for office, and he began his term of office by acting on his platform. With their property stolen, no one wanted to make any additional investment. International investors are not stupid. Allende did massive damage to his economy by following his socialist policies. Do you think the international investment community should have continued throwing good money after bad?
Anaconda, Kennecott and ITT had oligopolistic control of international markets and production. Chilean copper producers were limited in who they could sell to and how much they could produce because of Nixon’s economic boycott. Duh!
YEEEAAAAARRRRGH! I hope to hell that didn’t sound like Howard Dean.
Copper is a fungible commodity, with worldwide demand. Nixon, or the USA, could not affect the price of copper more than briefly. That is like the Cuban boycott. Cuba blames the American blockade for their economic troubles. But the Cubans can buy the same goods at the same prices from Europe, Asia or Latin America. The Cubans just need someone to blame for the way that socialism has stunk up their economy.
After stealing over one-third of the known copper in the world, Allende “had oligopolistic control of international markets and production”, except no bank, or copper company, or business would deal with him except on a cash basis.
In point-of-fact, I have personal knowledge of some of the details. After WWII, Anaconda developed a 500-year mining plan. (Sounds like the 1000-year Reich, doesn’t it?) They were going to survey. They were going to explore. They were going to test drill. They were going to evaluate. They were going to develop. They were going to mine. They were going to process. They were going to sell. Then they were going to start over, for half a millennia.
But when Allende nationalized Aconcagua, the world’s biggest copper mine, Anamax suddenly realized that Aconcagua was their cash cow, and Aconcagua was paying for surveying, exploration, test drilling, evaluation, development, mining, and processing projects all over the world. Anaconda had to bail on a lot of properties. The only people who got hurt were the Chilean citizens and the Anaconda owners. And a bunch of communists, of course.
Posted by scorp on Jan 5, 2007 at 7:58 AM We were NOT at war, with either Chile, Cuba or the Soviet Bloc, we had illegally invaded the southern half of Vietnam and were in the welcome process of getting beat. Pinochet was simply another rightist thug of the kind that the US State has routinely supported since 1945. Which is why we are known as the Fourth Reich in the rest of the world (unfair to the Krauts since they were nowhere near as imperialistic as the USA.) The main disruption to the Chilean economy as you well know was the CIA subsidizing the fascists trying to destabilize and overthrow Allende.
Inflation was nowhere near 1000%. It was bad but again you will invent any lie to try to make a cheap point which is invariably fully refuted within twenty fours at most. The rest of you’re psychotic word salad on commodities is out to lunch too. Ninety percent of the people who play that game lose their shirt as Jim Taylor told me in 1980. He was the top dealer in the Chicago Commodities market. It’s a crap shoot and in the long run about as irrational as gambling. I see from earlier posts where you live in a trailer park so don’t try to snow us with what a big entrepeneur you are. Most people abroad do not benefit from the operation of multinationals which is why all the Latin American countries are now closely regulating them. Regulation is better than nationalization because it preserves the good parts of capitalism and avoids the problems of central planning. Read the book “Everything For Sale” by Dr. Robert Kuttner, our best economist. You can’t argue against the mixed economy social democratic model because you are a retarded McCarthyite-Birchite ape. All you can do is redbait. And except foe Shitcago Cabbie I don’t know of any Commies on this board. Chile has elected a former torture victim of Pinochet, an agnostic woman and a democratic socialist and even the Bush White House had nothing good to say about Pinochet upon his death, quite a difference from the Reagan days. The conservative bandwagon you hopped on, Scorp, has turned out to be a hearse and all you can do now is pull your little pod in frustration as the Dems enact their somewhat progressive agenda.
Posted by hawaii jack on Jan 5, 2007 at 5:49 PM scorp - nice posts. I wish that someone here had the background to spar with you, but alas, the lefty readship here seems to be so very lacking, at least intellectually. But they sure are passionate!
Posted by wolf on Jan 6, 2007 at 12:51 AM wolf, you must high again on smack, any dog can whip scorp intellectually as you can see if you were capable of reading comprehension.
Posted by hawaii jack on Jan 6, 2007 at 1:30 AM Thanks, Wolf.
I miss Hardesty. He was so opinionated, so flawed, so inconsistent, so stupid, it was a pleasure to ring his bell. Loony Booty and I go through these intense bouts at widely scattered times. Most of the rest of them are not worth reading, much less writing about.
Posted by scorp on Jan 6, 2007 at 4:21 AM scorpy,
You seem to believe that the denunciation of brutalities of one side in an historical conflict in some way leads to a justification of brutalities by the other side.
Excuse me if I find this thinking limited, disingenuous and effectively useless. I have no desire to either justify or denounce the excesses of either militant socialism or capitalist exploitation. It is only of importance to me that the brutalities of the past be seen as the result of intractable conflict, not as a platform from which to assign blame. I don’t see the world in black/white, either/or terms and it is almost impossible to communicate sensibly with those, like yourself, who do. It is the slim possibility of ‘almost’ that keeps me yet trying to engage in dialogue, in spite of the ingrained habits of dialecticism, whether that of Plato or Aristotle, Marx or Hegel or Popper, in which we have all been inculcated, and of which, I must confess, I am not immune.
Denouncing and justifying, thereby recreating, the ideological struggles of the bloody past is not any part of creating a peaceable future. History used like a fist for justifying one’s own belief and denouncing the beliefs of those who one establishes in one’s mind as ‘the enemy’ is quite useless in trying to understand history comprehensively, even less in the effort to understand where we currently stand and where we are going. If we, as a species, are ever going to live in a reasonable degree of harmony, indeed, if human civilization is to evolve and thrive, then we will, each of us, have to learn to balance our individualistic self-interest against the necessity of living responsibly in a society where the needs and desires of everyone are addressed and respected with equality.
How this will ever be done is as yet a great mystery. A mystery that will most likely never reveal itself if we continue to re-enact the conflicts of the past, clinging to the narrow one-sided arguments of partisanship.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 6, 2007 at 5:14 PM One thing I would like to point out as an indice of your intellectual dishonesty, scorpy, is your use of the peak of wholesale crude prices in 1980 to minimize the current rising trend. In fact, the ‘80 peak was the consequence of the domestic production Hibbert’s Peak in 1972 . It was ameliorated for the most part by increased imports and re-direction of electrical production to coal and natural gas.
If the lead time of 8 years holds, and I am correct in believing world oil production began to plateau about 2003/4, then the current trending rise of prices will not reach a similar level for about 5 more years. At that time the corrective measures available in 1980 will not be there.
It is comforting, I’m sure, to believe that capitalism will find a way beyond this looming problem. It is true, our mercantilist overlords are not stupid and see the writing on the wall. Nearly all the major energy producers are beginning to pour capital into alternative energy resources. I do not see Halliburton leading the charge, however. Nor do I believe mere market driven efforts will be timely nor humanely satisfactory.
My worry is that they are little concerned with the kinds of disruption and suffering that these future market dislocations will inflict on the populations of the world at large, only with preserving their own financial and political leverage.
I am well aware of how you have insulated yourself with bogus statistics from the likes of AEI, the Cato Instutute and the Heritage Foundation to reassure yourself that ‘a rising tide lifts all boats’, but I am certain without a doubt if you were to immerse yourself in the many poor and lower middle-class communities of our nation, and see for yourself the steady erosion of quality-of-life there, and how little it has to do with ‘Nanny-State’ policies of the past or present, you would have your own ‘road to Damascus’ moment.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 6, 2007 at 6:37 PM Loony Booty -
Sin Commentario, indeed. You are cutting a wide peel off a small potato.
Pinochet is the worst example of contemporary right wing extremism you can find, or in fact, exists. That is why you harp on Pinochet. But ALL the socialist regimes were many orders of magnitude worse.
Avoiding the horrors of socialist mass murder, repression, and economic destruction is amply justified in war, hot or cold or in-between, as in Chile’s case.
So, why don’t you Commentario on the tens of millions of dead in the Soviet Union and communist China, and the millions of dead in Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Afghanistan?
Why don’t you Commentario on the savage repression of the Czechs, Hungarians, Poles, East Germans, and Chechnyans when they expressed the desire to be free of socialist tyranny?
Why don’t you Commentario on the mind numbing corruption and incompetence of the socialist states, including socialist Old Europe?
President Kennedy fought against socialism in Cuba and Vietnam, only he did it incompetently and unsuccessfully. Why don’t you Commentario on President Kennedy’s fight against socialism?
You only want to Commentario on President Nixon’s competent and successful and relatively bloodless resistance to socialism. Why?
Posted by scorp on Jan 6, 2007 at 8:29 PM Scorp, ALL the Latin American rightist regimes were far worse than Castro and killed many more people as Hawaii Jack noted above.
Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Guatemala, Somoza’s Nicaragua and the Somocista Contras, El Salvador Juntas, previous rightist Venezuelan & Mexican regimes, Haiti, Stroessner’s Paraguay, Trujillo’s Dominican Republic, Batista’s Cuba, Honduras, various rightist regimes in Panama, the current murderous rightist Colombian government, Garcia’s Peru, etc. Come to think of it Pinochet might be a minor league murderer in this US supported group ! So your rhetorical question to LB
about eastern Europe & Pinochet can be turned against you !
Most of eastern Europe was better than Pinochet except for the USSR which was far worse. US
also killed as many Cambodians from 1971-75, half a million, as Pol Pot did from 1975-78.
And East Timor with 1/3rd killed by US backed Indonesian Junta was the worst proportional genocide in world history.
Posted by blondemike on Jan 6, 2007 at 9:35 PM Let us not forget George Walker Bush and ~650,000 dead Iraqis.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 6, 2007 at 10:01 PM Suharto, Sukharno, Chiang Kai-shek, King Leopold of Belgium or any of THESE GUYS
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 6, 2007 at 10:15 PM I believe the Kuomintang may hold the world’s record for executing approximately 1,000,000 suspected communist prisoners without trial on a single day in 1927.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 6, 2007 at 10:33 PM Good points, LB, not to mention the possible murders of tens of millions of African black slaves and Native American Indians by US capitalism and mercantile imperialism. Scorp assidiously avoids dealing with those horrendous body counts. A real Black Book of Capitalism might total half a billion victims over the last five centuries. JFK’s criminal wars against Vietnam and Cuba are to be condemned, not praised and let us not forget the great extension of those by LBJ and even more so by Nixon. And Chiang Kai-Chek executed over ten million in that year, 1927.
Posted by blondemike on Jan 6, 2007 at 10:36 PM One might think from your rants, scorpy, that never in the history of the world has a socialist ever uttered a word of criticism against the excesses of the Soviet Union.
What I found of particular interest in this essay is the quixotic insouciance with which the capitalist plutocracy will turn on a dime to renounce dictators like Manuel Noriega, Ferdinand Marcos or Saddam Hussein, even Josef Stalin, for whom they erstwhile have displayed their most abject affirmation.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 6, 2007 at 11:58 PM Loony Booty –
You seem to believe that the denunciation of brutalities of one side in an historical conflict in some way leads to a justification of brutalities by the other side.
Now, come on, lady. You are the one-track complainer about relatively innocuous Pinochet. Can you say “projection defense mechanism”?
I have seen more brutality than you ever thought about, and I hate war worse than you are capable of hating. But if you think we ought to roll over and play dead for every socialist terrorist or Jihadist terrorist that wants to kill us, you are on your own.
And I defy you to give me a single international example where “diplomacy” or “dialogue” has ended a major international crisis. Rwanda? Darfur? Srebrenica? The UN is worthless in this regard. If anything needs done, the capitalist democracies do it, or nothing happens.
One thing I would like to point out as an indice of your intellectual dishonesty, scorpy, is your use of the peak of wholesale crude prices in 1980 to minimize the current rising trend. In fact, the ‘80 peak was the consequence of the domestic production Hibbert’s Peak in 1972 . It was ameliorated for the most part by increased imports and re-direction of electrical production to coal and natural gas.
My “intellectual dishonesty”? LADY, THERE HAS BEEN NO RISING TREND IN WHOLESALE CRUDE PRICES FOR OVER TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. THE TREND HAS BEEN DOWN. How about your gross ignorance? The world is not going to stop if we run out of oil. There are dozens of sources of energy, several of which will do nicely to satisfy our energy needs.
There are a number of drawbacks to hydrocarbons-as-energy. The quicker American capitalist technology delivers a cheap, non-polluting, domestic energy source, the better off everyone will be. Now, can you imagine a socialist regime creating such a worthwhile product? Can you even name a single significant innovative original idea that came from a socialist country? Shit no, you can’t do that. The only thing socialism creates is death (at worst) and incomptence (at best). Socialist technical innovation is a mythological beast that does not bear examination or discussion.
The only question in my mind is why do otherwise intelligent people think that there is any advantage or benefit in socialism, in spite of all evidence to the contrary.
Posted by scorp on Jan 7, 2007 at 2:43 AM “Now, come on, lady. You are the one-track complainer about relatively innocuous Pinochet.”
Come on yourself, dude. You are the one justifying the ‘relatively innocuous’ Pinochet’s actual, real and thoroughly documented murder of thousands of human beings against the maybe coulda been deaths that mighta woulda been the result of Allende’s socialist experiment in Chile.
“Can you say ‘projection defense mechanism’?”
Can you say, “I’m beginning to sound like Michael Hardesty?”
“And I defy you to give me a single international example where ‘diplomacy’ or ‘dialogue’ has ended a major international crisis.”
Indian Independence? Nelson Mandela negotiating the end of Apartheid from prison? Gorbachev dissolving the Soviet Union? I can go on…
I’d like you to give me a single example of a peace treaty that wasn’t negotiated.
“My intellectual dishonesty? LADY, THERE HAS BEEN NO RISING TREND IN WHOLESALE CRUDE PRICES FOR OVER TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. THE TREND HAS BEEN DOWN.”
Yes, your intellectual dishonesty. You are comparing the singular absolute maxima of a data stream to the present value. That is not how a trend-line is drawn and you know it. That is seriously intellectually dishonest, dude. Seriously. No kidding.
“The world is not going to stop if we run out of oil.
Our entire physical plant, as it exists, is based on petroleum. Trucks. Trains. Planes. Boats. Not just energy and transportation, but feedstocks for everything from cosmetics to plastics to agricultural fertilizers and pesticides. It is an addiction stronger than heroin, dude.
“There are dozens of sources of energy, several of which will do nicely to satisfy our energy needs.”
I’m all for alternative energy sources. I love alternative energy sources. I am running this computer off of a storage battery connected to solar panels, dude. We’ve had the technology for more than 25 years, but the mega-corps have dithered and delayed its application while trying to figure out how to put a meter on the sun, the wind and the tides. I’m sick of it, dude. Capitalism is very efficient at creating wealth for a relative few. It is not very good at addressing the real needs of the mass of humanity on a timely basis. Fulfilling an artificial simulcrum of human desire?... Maybe.
“Can you even name a single significant innovative original idea that came from a socialist country?”
Actually, if you want to find a sector of society that operates most efficiently on a purely socialist basis, it would be the scientific community.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 7, 2007 at 4:51 PM “The only question in my mind is why do otherwise intelligent people think that there is any advantage or benefit in socialism, in spite of all evidence to the contrary.”
The answer to that, my friend, is in your self. You’ve been skulking on these pages for how many years now, and you are still clueless why intelligent people find a moral and humane purpose in promoting socialist ideals? Or do you just not believe that progressive moral development and humane purpose serves any ‘advantage’ or ‘benefit?
You quite obviously do not come here to learn and observe and increase your personal understanding. You only come here to instruct from your obviously superior knowledge and perfect moral wisdom and set all us stupid, ignorant, misguided socialists straight on the one true path of pure and flawless capitalist reality. Yeah. Right.
And how do I know this? How can I be so certain that you are only skimming through well reasoned posts merely to find flaws and weaknesses that you can attack and crush with your oh so superior logic and reason and knowledge? How?
Because after all these years of back and forth, of personal revelations and relationships built on sharing of biographical detail, you are calling me a lady, dude. Clueless? Thunderingly, painfully, astonishingly clueless.
You must be one unhappy and deeply dissatisfied capitalist puppy if you get your meager pleasures from trying to tear down, destroy and demolish another’s point-of-view.
The psychological term for that isn’t projection. It is transference. Dude.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 7, 2007 at 5:37 PM Scorp here has been a rising trend in crude oil since the late 90s, there
are peaks and valleys but when was it last 50 a barrel ? No wonder you
lost your shirt in commodities.
Posted by blondemike on Jan 7, 2007 at 11:10 PM Loony Booty -
I abjectly apologize for referring to you as a lady. That was clearly a mistake.
Perhaps I let myself become exasperated by your absurd takes on things you know nothing about. As an example, you said:
What destroyed the Chilean economy was the bottom falling out of the copper market.
To which I replied:
Ummm, no. The price of copper was $66/ton in 1970 when Allende took office. Allende promptly nationalized the copper mines and the banks, and the big landed estates. He also froze prices, raised wages, and started printing money to pay for it. By 1971, food production was down and Chile had to start importing food. Copper prices dropped in 1971, and went down to $48/ton in 1972, a drop of about 27%. Meanwhile, the price of a basket of consumer goods rose 120% in the month of August, 1972.
ALL of Allende’s actions would have the effect of increasing inflation, which was pretty damn high when he took office. Inflation got a lot higher fast after he took office. You have still not told us how a 27% drop in copper prices over a two-year period drove a 120% increase in the cost of food and medicine in a one-month period, August 1972. You just let the subject drop, but I would dearly love to try to understand your reasoning on this.
You keep up the nonsense in your latest posts:
ME - “And I defy you to give me a single international example where “diplomacy” or “dialogue” has ended a major international crisis.”
YOU - “Indian Independence? Nelson Mandela negotiating the end of Apartheid from prison? Gorbachev dissolving the Soviet Union? I can go on… “
Before you can “go on”, you have to “commence”.
“Indian Independence?” That was no international crisis. The crisis was over after the Japanese were defeated. The Brits had a large domestic constituency for freeing the British colonies and creating the Commonwealth during and after WWII. There was no particular international effort or support for Indian independence, not much British resistance to the idea, and no international conflict, though there was sectarian violence and extensive intermural skirmishing for position . The British Parliament passed the Indian Independence Act 1947. My examples to you were Rwanda, Srebrenica, and Darfur, each of which involved large numbers of dead people, and each of which was well within the writ of the UN. But the UN clearly ignored its own authority and responsibility in each case.
“Nelson Mandela?” Now you are closer to the context of my question, though one man in prison, however great that man might be, hardly approaches the scale of mass genocide.
“Gorbachev dissolving the Soviet Union?” The Soviet Union collapsed. Gorbachev’s function was to sign the death certificate. The Soviet economy was inefficient and corrupt, and in tatters. No international agency contributed to the Soviet downfall. On the contrary, no one wanted to antagonize the Soviets: not our State Department, not our CIA, not the Euros, not the Euro intel agencies, no one. Ronald Reagan single-handedly recognized that the SU was a house of cards, and he blew on it. Reagan told Gorbachev, “Tear down this wall,” and the people tore it down.
ME - “My intellectual dishonesty? LADY, THERE HAS BEEN NO RISING TREND IN WHOLESALE CRUDE PRICES FOR OVER TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. THE TREND HAS BEEN DOWN.”
YOU - “Yes, your intellectual dishonesty. You are comparing the singular absolute maxima of a data stream to the present value. That is not how a trend-line is drawn and you know it. That is seriously intellectually dishonest, dude. Seriously. No kidding.”
Ma’am, you would not know a trend line from a chi-square distribution. You are trying to treat the Hubbert Theory as fact, while denying the evidence of your own eyes on the actual trend line for oil prices, down for twent-five years. After hitting $39/bbl in the early 1980s (the highest rate ever in constant dollars), the price of crude promptly fell to under $9/bbl. It has mostly stayed in the $20/bbl range except when there is a Mid-East crisis, when it goes somewhat higher. The only thing that drove it near a record earlier this year was commodity fund speculation. Many speculators got burned (!) and that won’t happen again for several years, at least until a new generation of fools comes along. Meanwhile, the USA and other countries are building ethanol and methanol plants at a prodigious rate, and developing efficient hybrid and electrical autos. You will NEVER see oil get this high again, unless it briefly spikes when we take out the Mullahs, which I regard as unlikely (The spike, not the Mullahs. The Mullahs are doomed.)
ME - “Can you even name a single significant innovative original idea that came from a socialist country?”
YOU - “Sputnik.
Actually, if you want to find a sector of society that operates most efficiently on a purely socialist basis, it would be the scientific community.”
Well, maybe. Thank you for the reference to Tsiolkovsky. Tsiolkovsky certainly has a claim on innovation, but it was theoretical; Tsiolkovsky had no working models of his aircraft or his rocketry. Robert Goddard did the same theoretical work, and fired off the world’s first liquid-fueled rocket in 1926. Germany took Goddard’s work and weaponized it, but that was basically nuts and bolts, not scientific innovation. At the end of WWII, the Americans, the Brits, and the Soviets each grabbed off what they could of the hardware, software, and wetware of the German rocket program. The Soviets never acknowledged any German contribution to the Soviet space program, but such contribution certainly existed, and was significant. Perhaps the Soviet rocket program would have accomplished more if Stalin had not sent so many of his experienced rocket hands off to Siberia. Russian mathematicians have historically been innovative, but this is not an activity that lends itself to socialist regimentation and bureaucratization. In this regard, I find Tsiolkovsky’s illness and education significant, much different than the typical Soviet classroom.
http://www.astronautix.com/articles/sovgners.htm
http://www.answers.com/topic/soviet-space-program
In this regard, consider this information for a related technology from the early post-war period, from Wikipedia:
Under Attlee, the British government made immediate efforts to improve relations with Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union. In 1946, Attlee invited a Soviet team of scientists and engineers to the United Kingdom. The Soviet Union had expressed a desire to visit the Rolls-Royce aircraft engine factory and examine the Nene jet engine designed by Frank Whittle (on hearing the proposal from Soviet aircraft design bureau staff, Stalin is said to have replied “What fool will sell us his secrets?”). Against advice from RAF officials, arrangements were made by Sir Stafford Cripps, the far-left Labour Minister of Trade, for the Soviets to acquire details on the design and manufacture of the Nene jet engine. Attlee even approved a gift of 40 Nene engines to the Soviet Union. The Soviets promptly used the Nene jet design as a model to secretly reverse-engineer their own improved jet engine, the Klimov VK-1 (after discovery of the theft, the Soviets refused to pay license fees as well). The Klimov engine was installed in the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15, an advanced jet interceptor that soon appeared over North Korea, forcing American B-29 bombers from the skies and threatening UN control of Korean airspace.
“Actually, if you want to find a sector of society that operates most efficiently on a purely socialist basis, it would be the scientific community.”
You mean they have a nutty economic system, with high unemployment and higher inflation? I. Don’t. Think. So. And the “scientific community”, as you use the term, is notably lacking in innovation; it it, rather, exploitive of the innovations of others. Nicola Tesla, the Wright Brothers, Tsiolkovsky and Goddard, and Henry Ford were innovative; George Westinghouse, Glenn Curtis, von Braun, and Gaston Chevrolet were exploitive. None of them, with the possible exception of Tsiolkovsky, were socialist in outlook.
Posted by scorp on Jan 9, 2007 at 4:44 AM Loony Booty -
You’ve been skulking on these pages for how many years now, and you are still clueless why intelligent people find a moral and humane purpose in promoting socialist ideals? Or do you just not believe that progressive moral development and humane purpose serves any ‘advantage’ or ‘benefit?
Let me tell you what I know about the “moral and humane purpose in promoting socialist ideals”. My brother-in-law has spent most of his life in a mental institution. He was beaten badly by the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution, and it affected his mind. His Grandmother had her house and property stolen, and she starved to death. His Uncle, a doctor, was beaten so badly he decided to commit suicide. He saved up enough string and cord to fashion a noose, but the noose broke. So the Red Guards beat him up some more for trying to commit suicide. Fortunately, Uncle survived and became a surgeon and Professor in London, with a life filled with honors.
There are only two classes of people who have ever tried to kill me, socialist terrorists and Jihadist terrorists. I’m sorry if I do not share your ideas on “progressive moral development” among terrorists of any stripe, particularly considering your abject apologies and justification for the immoral Allende regime, which had as a political platform and operating principle the theft of property and the repudiation of international debts, not to mention wildly inflationary policies which hurt the poor.
The common thread from Lenin before the Revolution, to War Communism, to Collectivization, to the Great Purges, to the Great Proletarian Revolution, to the Cultural Revolution, to Cuba, Vietnam, Korea, and Afghanistan, to Chile, Guatemala, and El Salvador, was dishonesty and the theft of personal property, usually accompanied by mass murder. You sound like a dishonest idiot, talking about traditional “moral” and “humane” values, but you preface those values with “progressive” which gives the game away. You are not talking about “moral “ or “humane” as the world understands the terms or as the dictionary defines them. You are talking about socialist morality and socialist humanity, meaning that you intend to steal my property and kill me.
I absolutely believe that if you could gain the power, I would be dead as a Kulak. So it is my intention that you never gain such power. This is quite apart from the fact that socialist economies produce dreadful results.
And you have radically misapplied the term “transference”, either in the psychoanalytic sense, or the psychological sense.
Posted by scorp on Jan 9, 2007 at 4:53 AM Scorp….the only class of people that ever tryed to kill me were capitalist….I survived to their horror…( I ran into one of the bootjacking bastard in the park one day…walked right up to him…even though he was armed…he looked at me, got bug-eyed and drove off real fast…) So as unfortunate as your family history may be….the bell tolls for all who are powerless , regardless of politics , education or ethnicity…....The neo-cons you trust and love…will kill you too…...Thieves don’t do honor…...
Sounds like at the base of things….your arguments are based on a subjective personal experience , as opposed to logic and compassion.
You can not shame your way out of this.
Posted by Redhorse on Jan 9, 2007 at 5:08 AM Dear Scorp,
I am so sorry for what your family experienced undered a socialist regime. It means so much more having personal accounts to justify what ails these “ideals”. They sound so beautiful and practical on paper but in practice, it is very brutal in implementation.
The United States is not a perfect country but we have our freedoms and our economy (thanks to capitalism) helps to keep our country strong.
In my class the other day, someone suggested the unfair advantage the privileged have and if we were all equal economically, there would be less hatred and prejudice.
I disagreed with him and said that humanity needs a stimulus, an incentive to thrive otherwise we get a complacent people. It is awful that Paris Hilton has all the advantages she has and does little with it. We have Bill Gates, who built an empire and has many charitable organizations he contributes to. We have Warren Buffet, who recently donated 80% of his income to charity and the press criticized him for not leaving more to his children.
We have my parents, from abject poverty, who scrimped and scraped to go to college and ended up retiring very well off. My husband, from a very poor family, and his brother, worked their way up to prosperity.
It all began with sacrifice and a commitment to work hard and grades. Their character was formed in their homes, some were from broken homes, and further developed with honesty, integrity, and good old fashioned values.
Our freedoms exist today because of our government, our military, and ourselves.
Posted by kimberlyausten on Jan 9, 2007 at 5:15 AM Thanks, Kim.
I have been following your thread. I enjoy what you have to say, and I sense that you are making progress in your search.
Posted by scorp on Jan 9, 2007 at 5:58 AM Droll kimberly…so very droll…..After Bushy buckfush suspended all of our Habeus Corpus writ privileges….you ain’t as free as you think you are…....sweetie.
Posted by Redhorse on Jan 9, 2007 at 6:13 AM Horse -
You may have noted that I invariably refer to “democracy, the rule of law, and free-market capitalism”, ideals that I firmly believe in.
But the incident(s) you relate fail to give sufficient information to identify the perps as having or being driven by a capitalist philosophy. Were these common criminals? If so, what makes you think they own a capitalist philosophy, or any philosophy at all?
Somehow, I doubt a worker, a manager, a CEO or CFO, capitalists all, tried to kill you.
Don’t be like Hardesty, who blames everything that happened back five hundred years on capitalism, long before the concept of capitalism even existed.
Tell us what really happened.
Posted by scorp on Jan 9, 2007 at 6:28 AM Scorpy,
I, too, am sorry for the cruel and unnecessary suffering of your family. I am so glad you shared that. It has been a long time in coming. It really makes it clear to me exactly why you hate communism so.
Believe me, I get no joy from your suffering. If I were any kind of thief, that is what I would rob.
Since I am not, all I can offer, that your heart may heal, is these simple verses:
Mind is the forerunner of (all evil) states. Mind is chief; mind-made are they. If one speaks or acts with wicked mind, suffering follows one, even as the wheel follows the hoof of the draught-ox.
Mind is the forerunner of (all good) states. Mind is chief; mind-made are they. If one speaks or acts with pure mind, AFFECTION follows one, even as one’s shadow that never leaves.
``He abused me, he beat me, he defeated me, he robbed me,’’ in those who harbour such thoughts hatred is not appeased.
``He abused me, he beat me, he defeated me, he robbed me,’’ in those who do not harbour such thoughts hatred is appeased.
Hate is not overcome by hate; by Love (Metta) alone is hate appeased. This is an eternal law.
The others know not that in this quarrel we perish; those of them who realise it, have their quarrels calmed thereby.
——the Dhammapada
I can only pray that you read and try to understand.
Be assured that there are many on the other side of the great political quarrel of the 20th Century who have just as perfect reasons to hate someone like you.
My own suffering may not compare. I was beaten once by the jack-booted ones, but as I was attacked from behind, what I witnessed is rather blurred and indistinct. I did get a good concussion, cracked ribs, my mouth split open and one bicuspid lost, though.
What is probably more of a witness thing was having a gun pointed at my head and having to watch a campañero get his ass kicked. But since he wasn’t bound or blindfolded and could try and defend himself, even if it was hopeless, I guess that doesn’t stack up to what the capitalist moral sensibility defines as an atrocity. He got through his beating better than I did mine, anyway, the lucky fuck.
I’ve been on ground where there was lead whistling past my ears, but they weren’t actually shooting at me. Not that the shooters wouldn’t have gladly killed any of my non-gringo compañeros.
You want to know something real? Lead flying through the air doesn’t stop to ask for any ID’s. Being able to look down the barrel of a .45 and see the dull gleam of the bullet sitting in the chamber is a very illuminating experience, in its way. It really puts everything in perspective. Nonetheless, it is not something I would recommend.
I’ve been in villages where the smell of death is still in the air, but never there long enough to see any of the evidence of the atrocities commited there. But I have heard first-hand a lot of the survivors’ stories. A lot. From both sides, the atrocitors and the atrocitees.
Not so much from the shadowy ones, though. Those who, from behind the scenes, pull our strings like we were so many puppets. Just ominous echoes of fear and loathing echoing through the corridors of our collective consciousness, intent on leaving us confused and misled.
It saddens me that you equate me with someone who would kill and rob you. I would deeply appreciate it if you could grant me some small space to convince you I’m not that kind of socialist, if conventional definitions of ‘socialist’ really describe me, at all. Nothing more than something the size of a mustard seed would do.
You are right that ‘transference’ was not the correct psychological term with which to describe you. Although it is not totally inapt, if not in the most common application of the word, what I meant to say was ‘displacement’.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 9, 2007 at 6:41 AM Now Scorpy….why would Redhorse refer to these common criminals as ” bootjacks “...You do know what that term is in relation too….the POLICE…..the police…rollers….5-O….dude
Tryed to kill the Horse when he was a strapping young teenager….no particular reason….guess they just felt like wildin’ that night….you know how it can be under an oppressive regime….You just trying to go to a high school dance…They stop you before you get there…they got their guns drawn…in your face….you get back to their station…And you get KICKS….JUST LIKE THEM RED GAURD BASTARDS YOU WHINE ABOUT…..
.........Ooh…for the sanctimonious hypocrisies the plutocrats live by…such is the lie…..
Scorpy….now you have to at least understand that the police are the enforcers of the Capitalist regime….There to protect profit and property first….then the land owners…..possibly you the citizen , second….....and then folks such as the Horse…we get KICKS…..
Posted by Redhorse on Jan 9, 2007 at 7:21 AM Right on, Horse!
One little thing, though. It’s about the word TOO. Just a pet peeve. I’m not a fan of dangling prepositions, either, but that’s a personal hang-up. Not your problem. You can express yourself however you find natural and comfortable. Like Voltaire, I’ll fight to the death for your right to do so.
Sorry for coming on like the ‘grammar police’.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 9, 2007 at 7:58 AM Scorp, capitalism in the sense of busines and trade has actually existed for thousands of years, see Carl Snyder’s Capitalism The Creator. Mercantile capitalism has existed for about 500 years and industrial capitalism around 200 years. Scorp, I was just writing on another thread here about the probably 100 million killed by Mao and probably half that killed by Stalin but this hardly
exhausts the world murder toll. An intelligent person, not an emotionalistic freak like you, could oppose the hundreds of millions murdered by capitalism as well as communism. You use an anecdoctal story which may be true, Mao was horrible, or you may have pulled it out of your ass, an equal possibility but it does not in any way gainsay the tens of millions of people killed by US supported regimes including Nationalist China, Indonesia, South Vietnam, South Korea, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Zaire, apartheid South Africa, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Somoza’s Nicaragua, Trujillo’s Dominican Republic, Marcos’s Phillippines, Batista’s Cuba, the Brits & French in Africa & Asia, etc. ?????? You have never expressed the slightest remorse for the victims of rightist and capitalist dictatorships or the millions of African blacks and Red Indians killed by the USA. So take your brother-in-law’s story and stick it up your one-sided, hypocritical, selective condemnation of atrocities stinky ass ! Redhorse, you are an illiterate bastard. PERIOD. Even when I agree with you, you can’t express yourself intelligently. And LB you are a typical, condescending white liberal apologist for black racism, you only let redhorse slide on his incredibly poor grammar BECAUSE he’s black. Liberal racists like you are doing no service to the black community.
Posted by hawaii jack on Jan 9, 2007 at 6:44 PM Poor grammar….weren’t you babblin’ about ebonics and making other incoherent statements just the other day….
Yu pompous ass…yu write like a hack….smokin’ crack…..
Posted by Redhorse on Jan 9, 2007 at 6:58 PM Chandra Bose was leading a miltary battle for Indian Independence well before WW2, Scorp. He was the main reason the Brits eventually quit India because they were afraid that his followers would resume it upon his death, they never cared about that faker Gandhi. Bose was supported by Germany and had a huge following in India. In the 30s the Brits acknowledged that there was a serious crisis brewing in their biggest colony, India. Which side of your rectum, Scorp, do you pull your “history” out of ? Excepting Shitcago Cabbie I’ve never seen anyone get so many things wrong. And, yes, the oil companies have been ripping us off big time since the late 90s. That increase has adversely affected most people because it increases the price of everything.
Kimberly, you are profoundly ignorant, see Paul Craig Robert’s piece in yesterday’s rightwing Lew Rockwell.com on how we have never been in any danger since the war of 1812 and whatever the military did in Europe, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, etc., they were NOT defending our freedom in the least, I’d argue they were not defending the freedom of the Germans or Koreans or Viets or Arabs but that’s another matter. You need to take the Dumb Right Reader’s Digest rose-tinted glasses
off, little Kimberly, and learn some real revisionist history. It was stupid asses like you that reelected the Boy Moron. LB, your sad story will cut no ice with Scorp because it was not an atrocity committed by the “Commonists” to paraphrase Ronald McDonald Moron Reagan.
Posted by hawaii jack on Jan 9, 2007 at 6:59 PM I was being TONGUE-IN-CHEEK about ebonics, you illiterate imbecile.
No, I’ve never smoked crack but I bet YOU have.
Posted by hawaii jack on Jan 9, 2007 at 7:02 PM ...............I was being TONGUE-IN-CHEEK…...
Hardesty ( aka hawaii jerkoff ) licking his own ass….hmmmm….acrobatic , but nasty….Then you say , you’ve never smoked a crack…but you just admitted that you had your tongue in a cheek…..
Which is it boy….?
Can’t you ask Nina for assistance…....?
Posted by Redhorse on Jan 9, 2007 at 7:33 PM Jack,
Allow me please to quote again from what has been attributed to that noted condescending white liberal, Voltaire. “I may disagree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
This extends to you, too, my friend. No matter how much you may abuse the privilege.
Rather unfortunately redundant but unfortunately also necessary, I would like to remind you,
“Your mind is on vacation, but your mouth is working overtime.”
—Mose AllisonHow’s the weather on Oahu this morning? Or is it Molokai?
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 9, 2007 at 7:53 PM Redhorse, sorry about your obsession with “Hardesty” but there is a limit to my patience with your repeated public bowel movements. I suppose you are lucky if you even know who you are ! You obviously confuse everyone else. You were traumatized from toilet training. Poor little bro.
LB, it’s my right, not a privilege and you are the last person to be complaining about diarrhea of the mouth as you are the prime example of same on this board. Exceeded only by Scorp and Jay Cline.
It’s just after 8am here in Honululu (Oahu.)
Posted by hawaii jack on Jan 9, 2007 at 8:06 PM Jack,
I see your memory is functioning OK. If only your reading comprehension, reasoning ability, and sense of proportionality were up to snuff.
You could use a humor transplant, too.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 9, 2007 at 8:37 PM LB, they are all more than up to snuff. But thanks for your concern.
Posted by hawaii jack on Jan 9, 2007 at 9:38 PM Loony Booty and All -
Thank you for the expressions of interest. I assure you that this is not True Confessions and that I have no need of Tea and Sympathy. The family is well, strong, and prosperous in spite (because?) of our problems, except brother-in-law, of course.
Posted by scorp on Jan 11, 2007 at 2:49 AM Horse -
Unfortunately, sometimes the police are common criminals, but I fail to see how you link this to capitalism.
My brother was once rousted by the Texas HyPo while on vacation, but this was a simple revenue enhancement scheme. It made the national news a few years back, and there was a big issue at the time; I don’t think this particular caper is still being played.
Incidents like Rodney King and Amadou Diallo brought much attention to this type incident, increased civic and police awareness, and led to corrective action. But it is certainly a never-ending job, given that people are not perfect.
If you bother to study the problem, repression is quite a wide spread phenomenon, and the USA is one of the least repressive societies extant, and improving. We can’t condone what goes on in, for example, Zimbabwe and Darfur, but fortunately we have the UN, which has the responsibility and authority to deal with situations like Zimbabwe and Darfur. Unfortunately, you will grow old and gray before the UN ever does anything but line the pockets of the UN authorities. The UN must think it is the Texas HyPo.
But for sheer mindless destructiveness and hypocrisy, nothing beats a socialist regime. Watch out for those suckers, they will pick your pocket and leave you battered and bleeding, as a matter of national policy. And they do this while proclaiming their virtue, and their promotion of the common welfare. Progressive values, they call it.
Posted by scorp on Jan 11, 2007 at 3:59 AM Scorpy,
glad you’ve recovered from your little emotional outburst. Care to respond to anything I wrote? Or do you intend just to soldier on like Sisyphus?
Forever trapped in an infinite loop of fear and loathing.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 11, 2007 at 5:08 AM Scorpy….now you have to at least understand that the police are the enforcers of the Capitalist regime….There to protect profit and property first….then the land owners…..possibly you the citizen , second….....and then folks such as the Horse…we get KICKS….. Posted by Redhorse on Jan 9, 2007 at 12:21 AM
Horse -
Unfortunately, sometimes the police are common criminals, but I fail to see how you link this to capitalism.
Posted by scorp on Jan 10, 2007 at 8:59 PM
Fail to see, or pretend not to see?
It’s pretty clear to me.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 11, 2007 at 5:28 AM We “fortunately” have the collectivist-statist UN ? They do NOT have the authority to deal with Darfur or Zimbabwe or even Bush’s much greater crimes, Scorp. You really are a Communist posing as a Limbaughite airhead to discredit conservatism. Are you Chinese ? Usually they are brighter than you appear to be. Or did you marry a Chinese gal ? No sane person defends that cannibal Mugabe but you defend much worse rightist criminals like Bush. The USA is one of the repressive societies on earth and the disgraceful thing is that it is mostly voluntarily by the sheeple and NOT state coercion, though that is not absent. Your yardstick of measuring everything by Mao’s massive murders is skewed because by that standard everything looks almost good. Did anyone here catch the Boy Moron’s alcoholic ramblings last night ? Expand the war to Iran and Syria ? Bush needs to impeached and incarcerated. Actually more than that but we have to be careful of the secret police here. I’ve never seen such a lawless dickhead in charge of this govt, whose last decent noncriminal President was Jefferson. USA now means Unilateral Shitheads of Assholia. I’m ashamed to be an American now. And no I’m not leaving.
Posted by hawaii jack on Jan 11, 2007 at 5:52 PM Loony Booty –
Little emotional outburst? Little? Emotional? Outburst? Littleemotionaloutburst? You are projecting again. Knock that crap off. Or not. And I note with interest your abrupt change of attitude:
I, too, am sorry for the cruel and unnecessary suffering of your family. I am so glad you shared that. It has been a long time in coming. It really makes it clear to me exactly why you hate communism so.
Contrast that with your last statement:
glad you’ve recovered from your little emotional outburst. Care to respond to anything I wrote? Or do you intend just to soldier on like Sisyphus?
Forever trapped in an infinite loop of fear and loathing.
Nothing serious, you just go from emotional sympathy and solicitation to cynical deceit without batting an eyelash.
Don’t get mushy. It makes you sound emotional; most inappropriate for a person of your socialist persuasion. And be sure that you understand that I hated, and fought, socialism decades before I met and married the Chinese doctor.
Be assured that there are many on the other side of the great political quarrel of the 20th Century who have just as perfect reasons to hate someone like you.
The “great political quarrel of the 20th Century” is over. Nobody in Russia, China, or Eastern Europe even pretends to follow socialism anymore. Old Europe does, but Old Europe is in dreadful shape, as is Cuba. Chavez is trying to start his own terror state under the cover of socialism, but he will bankrupt Venezuela, with all its oil wealth, just as Allende bankrupted Chile, with all its mineral wealth. Socialist mismangement will do that every time.
The only socialist true believers anywhere are in the USA. In Academia, but the dotty old 1970s leftist professors are retiring and dying off. In Old Media, but Old Media is bankrupting itself through irrelevance and inappropriate values. And in Hollywood, where Streisand and the Dixie Chicks and Michael Moron just piss most people off.
I do find it interesting that Old Media, in particular, has become supportive of the Jihadists in the “great political quarrel of the 21st Century”. Politics really do make strange bedfellows.
Sometimes you are as opaque as Horse. I take it that you were at a demonstration in Mexico. What were you demonstrating for, or against?
Posted by scorp on Jan 11, 2007 at 7:27 PM “The USA is one of the repressive societies on earth and the disgraceful thing is that it is mostly voluntarily by the sheeple and NOT state coercion”
Now that’s funny! Hmmm, maybe i should move somewhere that is “better”. . . Nah!!
Posted by wolf on Jan 11, 2007 at 8:31 PM Scorp, again you are not dealing with the arguments presented against your mono world view. If every country in South America is literally going socialist then obviously the battle is far from over. Who are you trying to kid ? Why should anyone respect you when you are incapable of HONESTLY dealing with opposing views and have to forcefeed everything into one Stalinist stereotype. This is why I have NO sympathy for your in law, assuming that you didn’t concoct that Red Guard story out of whole cloth, because you are a proven liar who will say anything to “win” a debate except you are always wrong.
Wolf, just tore you a new bunghole over on the new Iraq thread about an hour ago. I never said the US was the most LEGALLY repressive society but that we internalize a great deal of establishment propaganda, both “left” and “right.” PC was invented here as well as Make The World Safe For Democracy and other big lies. Turn off Rush and clean out your dirty ears, have your vision checked too. Hey, maybe your mind while you are at it…..........................................
Posted by hawaii jack on Jan 11, 2007 at 8:48 PM Sorry again, scorpy,
I was just trying to give you some space to reassert your macho pose.
In actual fact, everything you write is an emotional outburst, with the merest pseudo-logical veneer of self-serving rationalization.
I wasn’t in Mexico protesting anything. I was pulling refugees from CIA sponsored murder out of Guatemala.
Again, you misconstrue that I am a socialist. I guess it is true, when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
As the joke goes, ‘Franco is still dead’. Likewise Pinochet. Che, however, like Jesus, ‘lives’. Not because I say so, nothing to do with the handful of alleged traitors, spies, or deserters he may have personally executed in the mountains of Granma, or the slightly larger handful of alleged gangsters, recidivists or ‘enemies of the people’ over whose executions he sat in judgement in Habana, of whom some may or may not have been guilty or innocent, but by his words and example as a champion of human dignity.
No matter how many times the capitalist, mercantilist, monarchist or fascist thieves of human dignity pound down the nail of ‘socialism’, as long as injustice, inequality and oppression of the ‘vulgar’ majority by our oligarchic, plutocratic and intrinsically undemocratic rulers persists, like the Phoenix rising from its own ashes, resistance is inevitable.
That is the underlying and unstated historical and psychological engine that drives the so-called ‘jihadists’. Not religious fanaticism, not dreams of world conquest, but the simple and ordinary desire of human beings to be treated with dignity and respect. To have some little but meaningful say in the decisions that affect their lives. No matter how distorted by propaganda and false consciousness those underlying humane values may be suppressed or exploited by disingenuous and megalomanic ‘leaders’ of whatever ideological stamp.
I don’t know if you believe you can indoctrinate your children, and they in turn their children, ad infinitum, with the same degree of venomous hatred and its necessary component of self-loathing with which you are obsessed, but I believe that hatred will eventually exhaust itself in the limitations of its own destructive nature, and have hope some just reconciliation of all nature’s children will someday be achieved. The indestructable and eternal seeds of that eventual peace have persisted, sometimes and in some places flowering and taking root, in various guises under different names, sometimes crushed and apparently vanishing but only receding into dormancy, for thousands of years. Though it takes another 8,000 years, should with good luck the human world so long endure, it will be so, and it is so now, if only one has the heart and mind and eyes to see.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 11, 2007 at 10:01 PM No, LB, if Scorp lived 8,000 years he still couldn’t get ANYTHING right.
Now you lefties really invented him, didn’t you ?
Posted by hawaii jack on Jan 11, 2007 at 10:06 PM No more than you really invented yourself, Jack.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 11, 2007 at 11:07 PM Scorpy,
One thing I do agree with you about Stalin, Mao and Castro is the error of assuming complete state control of the economy. The structural and judgmental mistakes they consequentially made were indeed detrimental to the whole of their nations in a way that the diversity of competitive and sufficiently regulated free markets are not. They were themselves the cause of much more death and suffering than the relatively minor, though still significant, ruthlessness with which they carried out their tyrannies in the name of the so-called ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’. They and their governments also became as much the victims as the purveyors of their respective ‘cults of personality’. As such, they became the betrayers more than the protectors of their revolutionary movements.
Castro, to his credit, showed at least some capacity to learn from his mistakes, if a bit slow to the plate, evinced by the persistence of the Cuban revolution in spite of the destructive isolation and unflagging opposition of the most powerful nation in the history of the world and their terrorist proxies in Miami.
Though I cannot say for certain it is not wishful thinking on my part, Hugo Chavez, his allies, supporters and advisors, at least from my reading, and if one can see beyond the alarmist squawking of the corporate press, have learned from those mistakes and have a strategic and tactical plan to, hopefully, avoid them.
Time will tell, of course. Their enemies, yourself included, are not total idiots, and themselves as ruthless as the worst tyrants history has produced, may yet drive them into untenable situations where the ‘Bolivarian Revolution’ and ‘Socialism for the 21st Century’ do ultimately fail just as you predict. From here, it appears they have a very narrow window for success.
It won’t be their fault for trying, though.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 12, 2007 at 12:43 AM TSUNAMI WARNING !!!!!
Scorp is removing his butt plug tomorrow after six years, watch out for the flood of sheist that will be coming !!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by hawaii jack on Jan 12, 2007 at 1:04 AM Loony Booty -
Sorry again, scorpy, I was just trying to give you some space to reassert your macho pose.
I’m sure it doesn’t make any difference to either one of us, but I take this as an admission that your sympathy for me was faked. But your sympathy for various socialist regimes is obvious, and genuine. Or not?
And you really ought to lay-off the psycho-babble. You don’t have a clue what “transference” is, but not being able to recognize an “emotional outburst” when you don’t see it is ridiculous.
You must realize that the socialist regimes had a fearsome reputation after the deaths and destruction of the early Soviet Union, and that reputation was infinitely worse after the Soviet takeover and repression of Eastern Europe, the rise of communist China, the aggressive war against South Korea, and various other repressive and oppressive depradations by your heroes.
This was a new world, with a new bastardized socialist philosophy with world-wide aggressive intentions and nuclear weapons based on stolen technology. How did you expect the West to react? Even as late as 1980, Jimmi Carter was counseling that the USA economic system had reached stalemate, and accommodation with the Soviet Union was necessary. The shocking inefficiency and corruption of socialism was not evident to old Jimmi, but then old Jimmi always was one of the world’s premier fools.
In this new and hazardous world, we were struggling to find direction, policy, and tools. We definitely made some mistakes along the way, and dealt with allies whose guiding principles did not always include strong democratic, rule of law principles. But almost anything appeared better than socialist tyranny, of which we had so many vivid examples.
Murderous Che, the “champion of human dignity”. That’s rich. It is also a gross contradiction. You need to re-examine your values.
No matter how many times the capitalist, mercantilist, monarchist or fascist thieves of human dignity pound down the nail of “socialism”, as long as injustice, inequality and oppression of the “vulgar” majority by our oligarchic, plutocratic and intrinsically undemocratic rulers persists, like the Phoenix rising from its own ashes, resistance is inevitable.
When Ghandi was asked about his thoughts on Western Civilization, he replied, “I think it would be a very good idea.” He might have said the same of socialism. Marx’s concept of socialism did not include bank robbery by Lenin and Stalin or mass murder as a political tool of socialism. The workers were just going to run their own affairs, and capitalism and the state were going to fade away. But this has never come close to happening. And the “socialist” dictators, militarists, nomenclatura, elite liberals, media bosses, dotty old socialist professors, and vacuous entertainers had no place in Marx’s socialism, so where the hell did they come from? Equality and fairness have a seductive attractiveness, but it has never been demonstrated that these values alone are sufficient as the basis for a political and economic system. Democracy and the rule of law have made major progress toward your ideals, but the best-performing socialist entity is far below Marx’s model and predictions.
Speaking of Chavez, you say:
Time will tell, of course. Their enemies, yourself included, are not total idiots, and themselves as ruthless as the worst tyrants history has produced, may yet drive them into untenable situations where the “Bolivarian Revolution” and “Socialism for the 21st Century” do ultimately fail just as you predict. From here, it appears they have a very narrow window for success.
It won’t be their fault for trying, though.
Oh, Brother!
Chavez is following the very worst examples of the very least successful enunciated political-economic system in history, and you think he has a “very narrow window for success”?
Chavez has eliminated freedom of speech and the press, stolen private property, and has utilized repressive thugs for political objectves.
Chavez’s oil production is down because of lack of maintenance and elimination of technocrats in favor of socialist bureaucrats. When the price of oil was high, Chavez made major commitments to buy Russian fighter aircraft and weapons, buy Russian oil to make up for his shortfalls, buy Argentine bonds, and support socialist politicians in Latin America. He also has used his oil money to buy votes.
Now the price of crude is down 35% in five months, and falling. So, what will he do now? Blame the gringos, of course. Why not?
Posted by scorp on Jan 12, 2007 at 6:12 AM Che was very small scale compared to the Contras, Guatemalan military, Argentina Junta, Pinochet, El Salvador Junta, Brazil Junta, BUSH IN IRAQ, Indonesian Junta, Haitian Govt, Trujillo in Dominican Republic, South Korean Fascist Govt, Mobutu in Zaire and innumerable other rightists that have killed at least 10 million since 1945. Yes, her sympathy for you was faked. Sorry a piece of crap like you is still alive is the universal feeling. Jimmy Carter has written a GREAT book on Israel’s apartheid policies in the Occupied Territories but also to a slightly lesser degree in Israel
itself which Carter is reluctant to admit. Carter got ALL the Iran hostages home safe unlike Reagan in Lebanon and Carter started the limited deregulation that Reagan got credit for, Carter started the HUGE defense increases with social welfare cutbacks and Carter boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics which Comrade Reagan wanted to attend. The price of crude is down, good news, and your only true statement in the above rant. Bush the Moron will queer that as soon as he invades
Iran. Even the Repugs like UGGILY Condi have it yesterday when she was unsuccessfully attempting to rationalize the Boy Imbecile’s war plans. Scorp, if someone shot you right in the brain, NO vital matter would be affected. You are the original PARTYLINE stupidass GOOPER. Another midwest pig farmer with NOTHING between your oversized ears. NOTHING.
Carter did NOT accomodate the USSR and Chavez has NOT “eliminated” free speech yet, he is trying to control it but has not eliminated it and that is typical of your lying exaggerations to try to make a cheap political point. An imbecile like you is put up by the Communists to discredit anti-communism. That’s all you do.
Posted by hawaii jack on Jan 12, 2007 at 6:34 PM “Socialism is a flawed idea that works poorly in a democratic society, and terribly in a totalitarian society.”
Wow, thanks for the update Scorp. I’ll get on the phone and call friends and family in Canada and Norway about that ‘failure of socialism in a democratic society"thing
As a total aside ( yikes!)
I thought this was an interesting and astute article with a witty title…It almost makes me want to spin off on a million tangents about Pinochet, and Allende and the historical plight of Native Americans, and the price of oranges in Russia , eh?
...but not quite.
It was a good reflexive piece on franschised Hollywood icons and how the good people who make movies try to gauge our insanity/reality barometers, and what we’re willing to pay for these days to find art and entertainment, and what the Brothers Grimm were really trying to say anyway
PS: I bet if those old mythologisers were at work these days they would absolutely try to fit the phrase “penis breath” into the whole Hansel and Gretel tragedy/heroes journey,/ultimate escape,eh hawaii jack?
I mean, I wouldn’t mind the ‘penis breath’ invective used (so well known to you and your olfactory sense) if it had one shred of connection to the article at hand.
Sheesh!
Posted by minerva_jones on Feb 2, 2007 at 11:03 AM Minerva, if you were a little brighter you could figure out that the pejoratives are aimed at an ongoing rightist imbecile, Scorpy Doobie AKA Master Bates. Very few posts on most of these threads are in sync with the original topic.
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