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Originally posted by SignyM:
For the most part, we opposed independence from France and Portugal, opposed land reform, opposed nationalization of resources, opposed unionization, and opposed democracy, and initiated a series of long-lived military dictatorships, imposed with as much bloodshed and terror as Stalin could ever muster.

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...the death toll from our MILITARY and INTELLIGENCE activities alone is probably in the realm of five to ten million.

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I'd have to point to Afghanistan. We created a failed state which at one time had women doctors and roadways and functioning airports,

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And where is this starvation currently happening? Not in the so-called communist and socialist states of Russia, China, and Cuba, or in the former communist bloc, or in the current socialist states of Brazil, Venezuela, etc...

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...nations which have been in the tender embrace of colonialism and then capitalism since their inception as nation-states.

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If you look at the legacy of MOST states which are or were "communist": Russia, China, most of Eastern Europe, and Cuba, they currently rank as developed or developing. (I believe the exceptions would be Vietnam and the former Yugoslavia.)

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Compared that to the legacy of capitalism...

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Anyway, I will continue to be very busy... so if I don't post much it's not bc I'm not interested, just tied up with the real world.

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For the most part, we opposed independence from France and Portugal, opposed land reform, opposed nationalization of resources, opposed unionization, and opposed democracy, and initiated a series of long-lived military dictatorships, imposed with as much bloodshed and terror as Stalin could ever muster.-Signy

And as I've shown, in places where the land reform, nationalization, and 'democracy' were allowed or were forced, the democracy lasted through the first election, if that far, and ended up a left-wing military dictatorship; in Eastern Europe, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, North Korea, etc.

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And again, if North Vietnam hadn't attacked the South, if they hadn't provided military muscle to the Pathet Lao, If Cuba hadn't exported violent revolution throughout South America, a lot less folks would also have died. If their system was so good, why not let it win peacefully?

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Or North Korea or Laos or Cambodia? or places with land redistribution ongoing, like Zimbabwe?

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...nations which have been in the tender embrace of colonialism and then capitalism since their inception as nation-states.-Signy

You mean like Canada, the U.S., Australia, New Zealand?-Geezer

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Russia and Eastern Europe were 'developed' before they were communist

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and Eastern Europe went back to free-market as soon as the Soviet Union fell apart.

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In your exception list you left out Laos and North Korea. Not sure if Cuba is any more developed now than it was in 1959.

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signym-

You CAN'T legislate morality?

What a stupid statement!

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0OF COURSE you can legislate morality! First of all, that is exactly what legislation is. And secondly, our laws happen to "legislate" capitalism, which is it's own set of morality. It's a morality you happen to agree with, which makes it "invisible" to you as a non-natural entity, but I assure you capitalism -and all of its underlying assumptions about the law of the jungle etc- is as artificial as the worship of Moloch and the blood sacrifices of the Mayans.

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I will turn your statement around, though, and say that if you REALLY wanted to "look out for yourself" then you BEST bet is socialism. People are SOCIAL animals, and economies are SOCIAL constructs (completely meaningless when applied to an individual) and it is the cooperation of many people and the specialization of labor that makes a good life possible.

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You REAL interest, if you were to think about it, is to have as nice a life as possible in which your future is secure and you have some control over your destiny. And you will not achieve that on your own... unless you want to go live in the forest somewhere, by yourself, at an unimaginably primitive level.

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Originally posted by antimason:
we have no concept of the potential for prosperity, available under a system of volutary, cooperative existence.

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but most people have no respect for freedom. at some level, most people want to tell others how to live

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Originally posted by SignyM:
Geezer, I point (again) to Costa Rica, the ONLY unmolested nation south of the border, as an example of the way things might have evolved had we not "intervened".

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Also, the current socialist democracies of Brazil, etc.

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And finally, Cuba, which is not the bogeyman that you paint.

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Women doctors, and lawyers, in Afghanistan during the Russian occupation. That is why Taliban rule caused so many female suicides... such a drastic reversal for so many women.

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b[And I again counter with Cuba as an example of what happened when we didn't intervene.

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So occupation of a smaller country by a larger world power is a good thing now?

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Originally posted by SignyM:
Okay, some time.

Geezer, I too try not to argue with religious fanatics, of which you are one. Your religion, in this case, happens to be monopoly capitalism and neo-colonialism.

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Not really. I got into this discussion to counter your argument that the U.S. alone caused the majority of deaths in the post-WWII Cold War era.

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I'd note that a lot of the colonialism in Africa and Central and South America occurred before there was much Capitalism, per se,

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I take the point about not being forced to subsidize, but conversely, are we not forced to subsidize corporations and banksters who have been defrauding us all along, and counting on that bailout or a no fault bankruptcy to stick us with the debt all along ?

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Originally posted by SignyM:

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Not really. I got into this discussion to counter your argument that the U.S. alone caused the majority of deaths in the post-WWII Cold War era.

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Did I say that????

Magonsdaughter accused me of exactly the same thing, and I said point blank she was a dick for saying so.

No. YOUR problem, and Magon's, is that you can't bear to see the data which points out that we are NO BETTER than the people we claim to be fighting, and that all of our vaunted goals are so much toilet paper. With a few exceptions (Germany, Japan, and S Korea) our interventions created nations that were poorer, more dependent, less educated, and less free than their socialist predecessors... [snip]
Actually that's not what I said. I said that the US was not comparable to Stalinist Russia or Nazi Germany.

I also said that your arguments were US centric - that is - the US is at the crux of all the problems of the world, which I also disagree, although I think you've been a bloody big part of a lot of them.

The way I see it the US is simply continuing the power dynamics that have existed as long as history records it....powerful counties tend to exploit and dominate weaker ones, regardless of the system of government or structure/philosophy of their society...tribal, monarchy, principalities, democracy, communism. The US does it no worse than a series of countries and empires before you, including the major European colonial powers/

In that mix, you have stand out bastards who really go hell for leather in terms of dominating and suppressing the masses. Stalin, Hitler, old Saddam is up there as well in my book, although with visciousness rather than pure numbers.

And thanks for the dick comment and bringing it back again. I'm disagreeing with you, not throwing rocks at your car. Get some perspective.

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Originally posted by SignyM:
Well, Magon, I could spend a lot of time bashing Stalin, Mao, and Hitler .... but we have our own propaganda machine to do that for us, don't we? Hugo Chavez. Castro. Evo Morales. Hell, we have a roster of "bad guys" that we hear about morning, noon, and night anyway.

So why not bring some NEW information to the table? Data that might inform USA citizens about what our own government is doing, where our tax dollars are going, about a whole nother set of bad guys that we support? It's not a perspective that we hear very much (actually, not at all). Hell, I thought I was informed, and even I was surprised at the length of the list and the sheer number of democratically-elected presidents that we deposed.

So - sure, it makes people uncomfortable. It SHOULD. It's new information, it's hard to process because it's so at odds with the propaganda that we've been fed our whole lives, it offends our sense of self as a righteous freedom-loving nation and runs counter to what we think of as our core national values and our belief in capitalism as a prosperity-machine. But facts can't be wished away, and numbers don't lie. No matter how well we would LIKE to think of our nation and our economic system, the pile of bodies on THIS side is about as big as the pile of bodies on THAT side. And, unlike you, I think we can and SHOULD compare death tallies and living standards between competing systems, because that is the only objective measure to bring to the situation. Otherwise we'll get winkled by propaganda. And I think we've had enough of that on both sides, don't you?

BTW- I called you a "dick" not bc you disagree with me but bc you were dishonest about it. You totally misrepresented my argument. Thanks to Geezer, whose stock in trade is straw-manning, I've developed a VERY short fuse for that kind of bullshit. Normally, you're way more upfront about your position and honest about your arguments, and so I apologize for losing my temper with you.

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Originally posted by Fremdfirma:

Just because, well, cause *I* think it an appropriate bit of humor to the moment, before we start knockin each others heads in...

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LOL> I like that a lot, Frem

How about this view of the world, all you UScentric folk.

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I know you think you are being kind of out there with your information, and maybe for citizens of the US it IS new information, but let me tell you, you've said nothing new that I didn't first hear back in my university days 20 odd years ago.

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US is as bad as Stalinist Russia or Nazi Germany is what I disagree with.

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what an evil, corrupt nation the US is, undermining all attempts at communist utopia in the world.

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With little fanfare, the Defense Department has announced a revolution in military strategy--a transformation in global outlook and combat tactics whose only true precedent is the equally momentous turnaround engineered by Defense Secretary Robert McNamara during the Kennedy administration. Then, as now, an incoming administration inherited a strategy heavily weighted toward high-intensity warfare among well-equipped adversaries, mostly in Europe and Asia; now, as then, the response has been to redirect the Pentagon's attention toward low-intensity combat on the fringes of the developing world. The result back then was Vietnam; today it is Afghanistan and an unknown number of "future Afghanistans."....

Obama seeks to fashion a new military posture that shifts the emphasis from conventional combat to brush-fire wars and counterinsurgency.

"The struggle against violent extremism will not be finished quickly, and it extends well beyond Afghanistan and Pakistan," Obama declared at West Point on December 1. "Unlike the great power conflicts and clear lines of division that defined the twentieth century, our effort will involve disorderly regions, failed states, diffuse enemies." To prevail in these contests, "we'll have to be nimble and precise in our use of military power. Where Al Qaeda and its allies attempt to establish a foothold--whether in Somalia or Yemen or elsewhere--they must be confronted by growing pressure and strong partnerships."

This strategy, first enunciated in a series of speeches by Obama and Gates, has been given formal character in the Quadrennial Defense Review, the Pentagon's Congressionally mandated overhaul of strategy. Released on February 1, the QDR is expected to guide military planning over the next four years and to govern the Pentagon's budget priorities.

Like earlier Pentagon reviews, the 2010 QDR begins by reaffirming America's stature as a global power with global responsibilities--a burden no other country can shoulder. "The strength and influence of the United States are deeply intertwined with the fate of the broader international system," the document asserts. "The U.S. military must therefore be prepared to support broad national goals of promoting stability in key regions, providing assistance to nations in need, and promoting the common good."

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"The United States faces a complex and uncertain security landscape in which the pace of change continues to accelerate," the QDR indicates. "The rise of new powers, the growing influence of non-state actors, the spread of weapons of mass destruction and other destructive enabling technologies

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...pose profound challenges to international order."

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The United States also faces a danger not unlike that envisioned by Kennedy in 1961: the emergence of radical insurgencies in the corrupt and decaying nations of the developing world. "The changing international system will continue to put pressure on the modern state system, likely increasing the frequency and severity of the challenges associated with chronically fragile states," the QDR notes. "These states are often catalysts for the growth of radicalism and extremism."

In this environment, America's traditional advantages in conventional conflict--what the QDR calls "large-scale force-on-force warfare"--can no longer guarantee success. Instead, the US military must be prepared to prevail in any number of conceivable combat scenarios... Within this mandate, no priority is given greater weight than the task of preparing for an unending series of counterinsurgency campaigns in remote corners of the developing world. "The wars we are fighting today and assessments of the future security environment together demand that the United States retain and enhance a whole-of-government capability to succeed in large-scale counterinsurgency (COIN), stability, and counterterrorism (CT) operations in environments ranging from densely populated urban areas and mega-cities, to remote mountains, deserts, jungles, and littoral regions," the QDR explains.The language used here is instructive--both in the degree to which it reveals current Pentagon thinking and the ways it echoes Kennedy's outlook. "Stability operations, large-scale counterinsurgency, and counterterrorism operations are not niche challenges or the responsibility of a single Military Department, but rather require a portfolio of capabilities as well as sufficient capacity from across America's Armed Forces," the QDR states. "Nor are these type of operations a transitory or anomalous phenomenon in the security landscape. On the contrary, we must expect that for the indefinite future, violent extremist groups, with or without state sponsorship, will continue to foment instability and challenge U.S. and allied interests." As a result, "U.S. forces will need to maintain a high level of competency in this mission area for decades to come."

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Originally posted by SignyM:
Well then, seeing as the people here are mostly from the USA, it's entirely appropriate that I post this stuff, isn't it? Sorry of I offend your Ozzie-centric viewpoint!

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C'mon, get real here. You were quoting your stuff to prove that the US is as bad as Stalinist Russia, not to educate your fellow citizens who you seem to regard as ignorant fools who of course swallow every bit of rightest propaganda out there.

US is as bad as Stalinist Russia or Nazi Germany is what I disagree with.

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Can you find me some OBJECTIVE criteria that says it isn't so?

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Clearly not to your satisfaction. I thought I had attempted to outline why I find it so, and have provided some historical data which I believe supports my argument. As for finding objective criteria, I'm not sure that is possible, given the subjective nature of discussions on history.

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See, there you go again. Did I say communism was a utopia? You may not be spouting propaganda, but you're certainly reacting badly to my posts because you're STILL reacting emotionally to my posts and misrepresenting what I've been saying. So I must have hit a sore spot, DESPITE your "superior" knowledge of USA history you still find it uncomfortable to deal with!

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Hey you're the one who called ME a dick. It seems to me that you are reacting emotionally to MY posts. I thought I was just disagreeing with you. So maybe we both are, or both misreading each other. Who knows. Your posts appear lopsided in blaming the US in conflicts involving other nations, and I don't believe I'm the only one who has expressed that view here.

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"The most stunning statistic, however, is that the total number of deaths caused by conventional medicine is an astounding 783,936 per year. It is now evident that the American medical system is the leading cause of death and injury in the US. Using Leape's 1997 medical and drug error rate would add another 216,000 deaths, for a total of 999,936 deaths annually. Our estimated 10-year total of 7.8 million iatrogenic* deaths is more than all the casualties from all the wars fought by the US throughout its entire history. Our considerably higher figure is equivalent to six jumbo jets are falling out of the sky each day."
—Gary Null, PhD; Carolyn Dean MD, ND; Martin Feldman, MD; Debora Rasio, MD; Dorothy Smith, PhD, "Death by Medicine", March 2004 (plus 1-Million annual aborticides in USA)
http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2004/mar2004_awsi_death_01.htm

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Originally posted by SignyM:
No. YOUR problem, and Magon's, is that you can't bear to see the data which points out that we are NO BETTER than the people we claim to be fighting, and that all of our vaunted goals are so much toilet paper.

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Bull. The United States was already moving quite nicely into monopolism right after the Civil War.

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But, as I said before, I'd like to get past all of that. Both systems have their flaws, and both have their strengths. The strength of capitalism is in increasing productivity. It's flaw is the extreme differences in wealth, which eventually cause the economy to grind to a halt, due to lack of demand from widespread impoverishment.

And while socialism's strength is its more even distribution of money, the flaw of centrally-planned economies is their lack of dynamism. And simple re-distribution of wealth without attendant improvement in productivity only causes inflation. What I'm trying to consider is a system which contains the strengths of both without their flaws. It's all about balancing supply and demand in a system that is inherently stable and which creates widespread prosperity. If you can get past your fixation on capitalism, maybe we can have a real discussion.

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Nope, I just consider your 'data' unbalanced and prejudiced. You already have your opinion, and gather your 'information' only from sources which share your preconceptions.

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Originally posted by Kwicko:
Don't you do the same thing though? You have your preconceived notions (capitalism = good, everything else = bad), and your "information" only serves to reinforce those conclusions you already made. Your data is equally unbalanced and prejudiced; you just don't see it because you agree with your data and disagree with Signy's.

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many of the DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED LEADERs she cited as being overthrown were either not democratically elected or not the self-sacrificing freedom fighters she made them out to be.

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I also found that sometimes the connection to the CIA was tenuous at best, and occasionally non-existent.

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It seems to me that when you think of capitalism, you think of nothing but a bunch of greedy men in a room somewhere, gleefully working on figuring out the best way to squeeze the last bit out of the workers.

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I think that these greedy men could, in some cases, be capitalists. They could also be Commissars, or the National People's Congress, or Oligarchs, or the Aristocracy, or the Monarchy, or the tribal elders, or the Church, or the guys who used to be Freedom Fighters.

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Nope, I just consider your 'data' unbalanced and prejudiced. You already have your opinion, and gather your 'information' only from sources which share your preconceptions.

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Originally posted by SignyM:
Well, when the USA invades or otherwise interferes with other nations over a hundred times (MANY OF THEM DEMOCRACIES) I would say the USA IS at fault, at least vis-a-vis those other nations.

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And in addition, we seem not to have learned at all from our militaristic, expansionist past. We seem not to have learned from all of the "blowback" we generated when we gained expedient support at the expense of... well, pretty much everything we say we stand for (democracy, prosperity, stability and all that good stuff). It appears that our DOD, in its never-ending quest for yet another mission, has once again decided that the best way to create peace and prosperity and protect "our" interests is to shoot, kill, and bomb worldwide, anywhere at any conflict level. The habits of imperium die hard.

Yippee.

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