Re: Massive Starvation For World Feared Over Myanmar And Chile

On Sat, 10 May 2008, Daniele Futtorovic wrote:

> 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?

I think Vangelis on occasion has said this also. Whatever.
>
>> 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?

For you to retract and, ideally, apologize for your disgusting 
posting. Then perhaps I could have a civilized discussion with you in 
this forum.

>
>>> 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.

I am quite familiar with that piece, thank you, and thoroughly agree 
with it. There is of course "collateral damage," as the US government 
so charmingly likes to put it, in all wars, including civil. Killings 
in war, civil or otherwise, are not necessarily the same thing as 
murder, although quite often of course they are. You were 
advocating killing people simply because they were members of the 
wrong social class, not due to any kind of civil war necessity.

There is nothing like that in Trotsky's fine pamphlet.

>
>> 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 do.

>
>
>>> 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.

Or perhaps a "revolutionary" shooting squad, if I should happen to 
be in the wrong country at the time of the Revolution, run by 
"anti-globalist" immigrant-bashers? No thank you!

>
>> 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.

If in fact you disassociate yourself completely and not just partially 
from Vangelis's immigrant-ba****ng, that is a step in the right 
direction. That is not at all clear from your postings, in which you 
have frequently praised Vangelis.

>
>>> 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.

Since you see (perhaps correctly but that is irrelevant here) 
overpopulation as one of the key problems facing the human race, and 
since mass murder is, obviously, the quickest method for population 
reduction on the grand scale, and since you toyed with the idea of 
mass murder on the same day as you posted your posting on 
overpopulation, the question was only natural.

-jh- 
>
> -- 
> DF.
>