Re: Massive Starvation For World Feared Over Myanmar And Chile Catastrophes

On 2008-05-10 02:35 +0100, John Holmes allegedly wrote:
> 
> 
> On Sat, 10 May 2008, Daniele Futtorovic wrote:
> 
> 
>>>>> Does this have anything to do with your advocacy of mass murder in 
>>>>> another thread?
>>>>>
>>>>> -jh-
>>>>
>>>> No.
>>>>
>>>> -- DF.
>>>>
>>> I certainly did write this. If your advocacy of mass murder of 
>>> "settlers" in another thread was intended as a "joke," it was in the
>>>  worst possible taste, and was reminiscent of similar "jokes" that 
>>> have been imputed to Stalin by his enemies such as Khrushchev.
>>
>> Surreptitious, my dear Watson.
>>
>> Firstly, what I wrote as to "mass-murder" of "settlers" can hardly be
>> called advocacy thereof. I introduced it with a comment, I quote:
>> "since we already are in the business of telling other people what they
>> ought to do with their country, anyway".
>> This comment was meant to be ironical and should be understandable
>> against the background of what Vngelis' wrote. He appeared to been keen
>> on imposing expelling of those "settlers", to which I answered that
>> expelling them would be even worse than shooting them for the interests
>> of the Bolivian people.
> 
> Vangelis has repeatedly called for the expulsion of anyone who he deems 
> to be a "settler" from their country of birth, although he sometimes 
> says that they can stay if they sup****t the Revolution.

Wasn't it rather David who said that?

> You go him one better, and prefer the idea of mass murder. Your only 
> defense is your implication below that perhaps you do not quite agree 
> with him as to who should be designated a "settler," and who not. Irony?

> Your claim to be merely ironical is contradicted by the rest of this 
> posting.

Yeah, whatever. What do you want?


>> greater depth by David --, the issue of what's a "settler" and what's
>> not is an entire problem for itself, making the proposed "solution",
the
>> "mass-murder" even more hypothetical and, at least as I meant it, 
>> ironical.
>> I clearly didn't _advocate_ it. I made it entirely clear what
>> solution I advocated, and if you didn't see it I suggest you read the
>> post again.
> 
> So you think that mass murder is OK morally, but not a wise tactical 
> choice.

No, I think mass murder is morally neutral, because morale itself is not 
neutral. Have a look at Trotsky's masterpiece "Their morale and ours" 
for further elaboration.


> This is indeed reminiscent of Stalin's alleged remark, according to 
> Khrushchev, that "not even I could kill thirty million Ukrainians." 
> However perhaps in Stalin's case there was a smidgin of moral doubt 
> involved, even in the unlikely case that Khrushchev quoted him
accurately.

I told you, I don't care.


>> I must point out, though, that on the other hand I do not at all share
>> the sentiment of horror and pacifist tremor which transpires from your
>> last two posts. I certainly wouldn't mind if the Bolivian latifundia
>> owners where shot as a whole -- firstly because it's not my country and
>> I therefore have no business in telling them what to do, and secondly
>> because I have little sympathy to spare for aristocrats.
> 
> The least one can say about this is that it is against the most 
> elementary principles of Marxism. Members of a class do not labor under 
> a collective guilt due to their particular relation****p to the mode of 
> production. It is the system, not the individuals, which is to blame.

Who said anything about blaming?
Yes, you are right: the system is to blame. But the system "exists" for 
itself only ever in an a-tem****al, abstract way. In reality, the system 
exists through individuals and their relation****ps towards one another. 
For all practical matters, you can only address the system through the 
people who live it. Pray try to make a revolution without "blaming" any 
individual whatsoever, and I guarantee you will find yourself in front 
of a counter-revolutionary shooting squad pretty quickly.


> Moreover clearly Vangelis was not talking merely about latifundia 
> owners, but about anyone in Bolivia with no Indian blood in their veins.

> And you made no effort whatsoever to distinguish yourself from him in 
> this matter in the posting you refer to.

I'm sorry if that's how you percieved it. Since all my posts to the 
subject in question were opposed to Vngelis', since at no point I openly 
agreed to even part of what he wrote, I didn't deem it necessary to 
further distance myself from him. My *****sment of this hasn't changed, 
either.


>> Secondly and much more im****tant is your bringing this subject into
this
>> thread in the first place. Here's the one-hundred dollar question:
>> where, my dear Watson, did I, in this thread, speak of murder or
>> homicide? Hmm? You imply I did and that's clearly malevolent. You're
>> implicitly equating birth-control with murder, and you don't even have
>> the guts to state it openly, unlike the religious s***, which I suggest
>> you turn to for a new group of friends and like-minded people. Unless
>> that was a mistake or misunderstanding on your behalf, in which case I
>> suggest you correct it.
> 
> Nonsense. I sup****t birth control and abortion. For that matter I happen

> to agree that the world population is too large, and that a socialist 
> world government would seek to encourage population reduction, although 
> hopefully not as bureaucratically as the Chinese government does.
> 
> My question was asked for one reason and one reason only--because I 
> wanted to know the answer. If you had answered "yes" you would at any 
> rate have been displaying logical consistency, something absent from 
> this posting.

Err... you are?

Let me see if I get this right. In one post in one thread I speak about 
mass-murder. In another post in another thread I speak about control of 
population through control of births, no part of it approaching the 
subject of mass-murder, even remotely. You ask me whether the two posts 
have anything to do with each other. I say: "no". And you say I would 
have displayed *logical consistency* if I would have said "yes"?!

Hello?

I don't even understand how could would come to think the two issues are 
related -- unless of course you equate abortion and contraception with 
murder, but you claim you don't.

Please elaborate.

-- 
DF.