To be fair, if you want to go full socialist you end up critiquing hierarchy in all forms. regardless of ownership. No seperate spheres of life, collapsing into one field. I'm not sure I'm prepared to take it that far.
Ah, Mr. Ni Dieu ni maitre?
To be fair, if you want to go full socialist you end up critiquing hierarchy in all forms. regardless of ownership. No seperate spheres of life, collapsing into one field. I'm not sure I'm prepared to take it that far.
Ah, Mr. Ni Dieu ni maitre?
Vitiate Man.
History repeats the old conceits
The glib replies, the same defeats
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I am reposting "Some Puzzles for Libertarians". There isn't anything new here, but I like the formulation.
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Vitiate Man.
History repeats the old conceits
The glib replies, the same defeats
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Communism is the best form of government. Apart from the fact it doesn't work.
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An enemy that wishes to die for their country is the best sort to face - you both have the same aim in mind.
Science flies you to the moon, religion flies you into buildings.
"If you can't trust the local kleptocrat whom you installed by force and prop up with billions of annual dollars, who can you trust?" Lemur
If you're not a liberal when you're 25, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative by the time you're 35, you have no brain.
The best argument against democracy is a five minute talk with the average voter. Winston Churchill
Socialist argument against gun control
https://socialistaction.org/2018/02/...ew-the-issues/
TLDR: Democratic militias, like in Shays' Rebellion or European peasant revolts, are the ideal, authoritarian state polices and professional militaries are teh sux
One also recalls the conservative furor some time ago over a black philosophy professor musing on black political philosophy:
But without getting into further arguments here on the abstract or practical merits and demerits of authority and democracy and gun diffusion, the role of class struggle, and so forth, a quote from the first article attributed to Fidel Castro strikes me for several reasons...White conservatives speak reverently of gun rights, said Curry. “But when we turn the conversation back and say, ‘Does the black community ever need to own guns? Does the black community have a need to protect itself? Does the black individual have a need to protect himself from police officers?’, we don’t have that conversation at all.”
In a Jan. 4, 1990, speech, Fidel Castro stated: “To some of the Western countries that question democracy in Cuba, we can say: There can be no democracy superior to that where the workers, the peasants, and the students have the weapons. They have the weapons. To all those from countries that question democracy in Cuba we can say: Give weapons to the workers, give weapons to the peasants, give weapons to the students, and we’ll see whether tear gas will be hurled against workers on strike, against an organization that struggles for peace, against the students….
Vitiate Man.
History repeats the old conceits
The glib replies, the same defeats
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
That's some weird stuff.
Not only does the Castro thing appear quite wrong given the US have more guns than people and Cuba:
http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/cuba
It's also that if guns are such a great way to solve problems in society, why don't you go live in Afghanistan or Somalia, mister whoever thinks that?The estimated rate of private gun ownership (both licit and illicit) per 100 people in Cuba is 2.0
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"Topic is tired and needs a nap." - Tosa Inu
Interesting post.
"The only way that has ever been discovered to have a lot of people cooperate together voluntarily is through the free market. And that's why it's so essential to preserving individual freedom.” -- Milton Friedman
"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule." -- H. L. Mencken
We could lay this out systematically in each permutation according to parameters, for example:
1. Success to failure of Cuban society (how successful and livable is Cuban society?)
2. Democratic to undemocratic governance (what are the mechanisms of control and governance; how responsive is governance to popular will and needs?)
3. High to low penetration and diffusion of firearms in population and demographic groups (how many guns, where, what kinds?; e.g. are most guns owned by Party elites?)
4. Contemporary or in other periods of history (was ownership very different in one year or decade compared to another?)
But that's too time-consuming, so I would like to point out that basically Castro presented a kind of misleading or deceptive description if you're uncharitable, or if charitable a description that is liable to be misunderstood from non-Marxist perspectives.
Here's the original speech (it was given in 1989, not 1990).
And the Constitution of Cuba:There is something else that is associated with this: I feel that our
concept of defense is unique and that our country has developed in a unique
way, with the total participation of the masses. Do any other countries
have anything like this? I do not deny it--there are other countries. We,
however, believe that we have the right concept, our way of organizing the
defense system with the participation of all the people--workers, students,
men, and women. Millions of people take an active part in our defense
system. There are some capitalist countries that question democracy in
Cuba. There can be no democracy better than a democracy where the workers,
the peasants, the students hold the arms. [applause]
To all the Western countries that question democracy in Cuba, I say: Go
ahead and give the arms to the workers, to the peasants, to the students,
and let us see if you can start hurling tear gas canisters to put down a
strike, or at any organization that struggles for peace [applause], or at
students. We would see if these countries could send out the police,
covered with shields and all that equipment that makes them look like
astronauts. We would see if these countries could attack the masses with
dogs every time there is a strike or a peaceful demonstration or a people's
struggle. I think the litmus test for democracy is to arm the people.
[applause]
When defense becomes the task of the people and arms become the prerogative
of all the people, then there is democracy. Meanwhile, there are
specialized police teams and armies to put down the people when the people
show discontent over the abuses and injustice of a bourgeois system. It is
the same in a Third World country as in a developed capitalist country. We
see this constantly on television newscasts from the United States and
Europe--Europe brags so much about their democratic systems. We see how
the people are run down by specialists in repression and brutality,
something that has never ever been seen in our country in the 30 years of
our revolution. These are not the typical characteristics of our
revolution.
In other words, there is a collective class (as opposed to human or constitutional) right to organize for defense of the Revolution, which does not have to do with guns per se. And it's not clear where the guns are coming from anyway - state arsenals?Originally Posted by Article 3
No supporting details, but from my recollection of the excellent Che Guevara biography by Jon Lee Anderson - the whole middle of which is less a biography and more a detailed military and political history of the Cuban Revolution - in the years between seizing power and the Missile Crisis, Castro did indeed dole out guns to pretty much every peasant in the form of popular militias. The idea was the resist the impending American invasion, so it would make sense to turn the country into an armed camp.
Presumably there have been changes between 1963 and 2018, but I don't know the details and they probably aren't that important. The point is just that Castro was maintaining the distinction between popular self-defense and specialized volunteer forces of repression. Private gun ownership doesn't actually enter into the conversation for either party. But railing against professional militaries is misleading too, since as you might know the Cuban Army and its expeditionary forces was one of the most powerful and accomplished forces in the Western hemisphere (and beyond) during the Cold War. Calling it a people's organization in its actual capacity to achieve military aims is then nothing more than a pretty sophistry.
So it's hard to take seriously vis-a-vis guns and armaments, since if the distribution of arms is managed by the government and bureaucracy, then even from the pro-gun Marxist perspective the people would not be in a position to defend the Revolution if the government happened to betray the Revolution (i.e. Raul Castro becomes a crony of Washington).
And also from Anderson's biography, during the revolution ~1958 in the Sierra Maestra mountains, Castro's partisans primarily armed themselves by raiding Battista's forces and depots (i.e. the arms held by the oppressive state), more like a Leninist "vanguard" than Shays' Rebellion (who were petit bourgeois landowners themselves anyway). So maybe if you expect the people to get their arms by taking them from the state by force, this line from the same 1989 speech makes more sense:
Yet this still has nothing to do with individual or private ownership before the fact of contestation.If the majority of people were counterrevolutionaries, they would only need
to nominate other counterrevolutionaries and most of the representatives
would then be counterrevolutionaries and would go against the revolution
and socialism.
Marx seemed to recognize the distinction that Castro is muddying: guns are nothing more than a tool to resist 'tyranny', and should be retained not as a legal right but as a practical matter.
Ultimately though, I would ask this question: since when in history does an armed rebellion, vanguard or otherwise, produce better results than nonviolent popular resistance? Prior to revolt, when does mere brandishing or possession of guns actually deter and defend against police and soldiers (rather than the opposite)? The history of fascist genocide, dovetailing with something I said in another thread, seems to indicate that the most salutary (or least bad) violence is indeed state-organized mass violence (in combatting other forms of state mass violence). Without some other substance, low-level armed violence seems invariably to lead to warlordism or despotism, because the immediate defining social relation becomes power and coercion, soon cascading and concentrating. Marxists are wrong if they think they can get anywhere with mass gun ownership.To be able forcefully and threateningly to oppose this party, whose betrayal of the workers will begin with the very first hour of victory, the workers must be armed and organized. The whole proletariat must be armed at once with muskets, rifles, cannon and ammunition, and the revival of the old-style citizens’ militia, directed against the workers, must be opposed[...] Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary.
EDIT: Also, pointing out something that's relevant in every sphere: a law is nothing but a fiction without its enforcement. So if the enforcement is the critical part, then whether oppressive capitalist or communist governments technically permit (or refuse to restrict) individual ownership, for individual or collective purposes regardless, it still means nothing if the state retains the means to overwhelm subsets of the population at any given time. Repression is just equivalent to extralegal or laterally-legal enforcement. Ink on paper is irrelevant, and grassroots activism to "awaken" a population to actively provide for collective self-defense at any time is far less likely to succeed (and far more likely to horrify) than just organizing a movement for universal healthcare, demilitarization, welfare, whatever.
EDIT2: Lol-Yugoslavia
Last edited by Montmorency; 03-05-2018 at 03:10.
Vitiate Man.
History repeats the old conceits
The glib replies, the same defeats
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Speaking of war criminals - again - seems like Erik Prince of Blackwate/Xe infamy may be being investigated by the Feds for a number of things, including money laundering, tax evasion, smuggling weapons into Iraq to sell for profit, destroying documentation to conceal criminality from the government, murdering whistleblowers, and being a barbaric paleo wingnut:
To that end, Mr. Prince intentionally deployed to Iraq certain men who shared his vision of Christian supremacy, knowing and wanting these men to take every available opportunity to murder Iraqis. Many of these men used call signs based on the Knights of the Templar, the warriors who fought the Crusades.
Mr. Prince operated his companies in a manner that encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life. For example, Mr. Prince’s executives would openly speak about going over to Iraq to “lay Hajiis out on cardboard.” Going to Iraq to shoot and kill Iraqis was viewed as a sport or game. Mr. Prince’s employees openly and consistently used racist and derogatory terms for Iraqis and other Arabs, such as “ragheads” or “hajiis.”Both individuals allege that Prince and Blackwater deployed individuals to Iraq who, in the words of Doe #1, “were not properly vetted and cleared by the State Department.” Doe #2 adds that “Prince ignored the advice and pleas from certain employees, who sought to stop the unnecessary killing of innocent Iraqis.” Doe #2 further states that some Blackwater officials overseas refused to deploy “unfit men” and sent them back to the US. Among the reasons cited by Doe #2 were “the men making statements about wanting to deploy to Iraq to ‘kill ragheads’ or achieve ‘kills’ or ‘body counts,'” as well as “excessive drinking” and “steroid use.” However, when the men returned to the US, according to Doe #2, “Prince and his executives would send them back to be deployed in Iraq with an express instruction to the concerned employees located overseas that they needed to ‘stop costing the company money.'”
Doe #2 also says Prince “repeatedly ignored the assessments done by mental health professionals, and instead terminated those mental health professionals who were not willing to endorse deployments of unfit men.” He says Prince and then-company president Gary Jackson “hid from Department of State the fact that they were deploying men to Iraq over the objections of mental health professionals and security professionals in the field,” saying they “knew the men being deployed were not suitable candidates for carrying lethal weaponry, but did not care because deployments meant more money.”
Doe #1 states that “Blackwater knew that certain of its personnel intentionally used excessive and unjustified deadly force, and in some instances used unauthorized weapons, to kill or seriously injure innocent Iraqi civilians.” He concludes, “Blackwater did nothing to stop this misconduct.” Doe #1 states that he “personally observed multiple incidents of Blackwater personnel intentionally using unnecessary, excessive and unjustified deadly force.” He then cites several specific examples of Blackwater personnel firing at civilians, killing or “seriously” wounding them, and then failing to report the incidents to the State Department.On the side, he probably definitely committed perjury before the House Intelligence Committee the past December.Doe #2 expands on the issue of unconventional weapons, alleging Prince “made available to his employees in Iraq various weapons not authorized by the United States contracting authorities, such as hand grenades and hand grenade launchers. Mr. Prince’s employees repeatedly used this illegal weaponry in Iraq, unnecessarily killing scores of innocent Iraqis.” Specifically, he alleges that Prince “obtained illegal ammunition from an American company called LeMas. This company sold ammunition designed to explode after penetrating within the human body. Mr. Prince’s employees repeatedly used this illegal ammunition in Iraq to inflict maximum damage on Iraqis.”
@spmetla
Last edited by Montmorency; 03-10-2018 at 06:50.
Vitiate Man.
History repeats the old conceits
The glib replies, the same defeats
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
This is what starts to happen when you deploy mercenaries. Outsourcing is not the best idea in every scenario.
Ja Mata Tosainu Sama.
Unfortunately I messed up. I got to this article from the "Most Popular" feed on The Nation website. But the article is from 2009. That's what I get for not reading bylines.
So that's embarrassing. Weird thing is, it's all over the news for August 2009, but I can't find any follow ups besides investigations for white-collar crimes and an out-of-court settlement with the government for other cases of arms smuggling.
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Vitiate Man.
History repeats the old conceits
The glib replies, the same defeats
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
I'll be happy to see Erik Prince under the microscope, his "Black Water" tactics in Iraq generated plenty of extra ill will that we didn't need. I thought it a sham that he's been allowed to just repeatedly re-brand himself these past few years. With his political views and history of excesses by his organization I'd very much like to keep him as far from the US political process as possible.
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"Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?"
-Abraham Lincoln
Four stage strategy from Yes, Minister:
Stage one we say nothing is going to happen.
Stage two, we say something may be about to happen, but we should do nothing about it.
Stage three, we say that maybe we should do something about it, but there's nothing we can do.
Stage four, we say maybe there was something we could have done, but it's too late now.
Erik Prince and Chris Kyle are cut from the same "Christian warrior" cloth. One day I hope someone will put some research into this phenomenon of white men who were able to convince themselves they were tip of the Christians Gods spear.
There, but for the grace of God, goes John Bradford
My aim, then, was to whip the rebels, to humble their pride, to follow them to their inmost recesses, and make them fear and dread us. Fear is the beginning of wisdom.
I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation.
"The only way that has ever been discovered to have a lot of people cooperate together voluntarily is through the free market. And that's why it's so essential to preserving individual freedom.” -- Milton Friedman
"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule." -- H. L. Mencken
Speaking of war crimes - again, again - a week ago was the 50th anniversary of the My Lai massacre.
Worst America - Best America.
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There must have been other men like this in history - they just probably tended to get shot.
Last edited by Montmorency; 03-25-2018 at 02:37.
Vitiate Man.
History repeats the old conceits
The glib replies, the same defeats
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
War is hell. Most put their survival above everything else. Those that don't will probably get killed by the first lot. For almost the entirety of human existence what happened was never known to the masses - and frankly most wouldn't really have cared what happened to the "enemies".
A long way away, diplomats and lawyers sit in a cozy room and make up rules. But strangely the "weaker" side in any conflict play to win not to the rules.
Frankly the armed forces should either not be sent in - with "paramilitaries" used (up-armed police) or the armed forces are sent in to make the place "safe". In many cases this means everyone has been interned in a POW camp or killed - since the area is a battlefield.
The former has many issues but the police are probably better able to act as a police force whereas the armed forces aren't. Most probably don't even have the mental architecture to do so - the world has friendlies and enemies and the latter are to be eliminated. To send in the armed forces isn't pretty. And lots of bystanders will die.
Whatever the politicians do, the soldiers are trained and accept the risks of being shot in the front by their enemies. They shouldn't have to deal with being stabbed in the back by their supposed countrymen.
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An enemy that wishes to die for their country is the best sort to face - you both have the same aim in mind.
Science flies you to the moon, religion flies you into buildings.
"If you can't trust the local kleptocrat whom you installed by force and prop up with billions of annual dollars, who can you trust?" Lemur
If you're not a liberal when you're 25, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative by the time you're 35, you have no brain.
The best argument against democracy is a five minute talk with the average voter. Winston Churchill
I've always felt the most sympathy for the villagers.
They were in the middle and under threat from all.
Were they manufacturing booby traps and assisting the VC? Very likely. Did they have a lot of choice? Not really, the VC was always willing to shoot those who collaborated or who did not support their efforts.
And then the people on the receiving end of the booby traps. Relatively weakly led, endlessly frustrated by taking so many casualties to an "invisible" enemy, were primed to take vengeance and to do so in an unthinking manner.
And the villagers of My Lai were simply in the cross hairs.
"The only way that has ever been discovered to have a lot of people cooperate together voluntarily is through the free market. And that's why it's so essential to preserving individual freedom.” -- Milton Friedman
"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule." -- H. L. Mencken
You two are too quick to impersonalize these events. Modern soldiers are not barbarians. A doctrine from on high that tolerates and promotes the "killing of anything that moves" must play a large role in conduct on the front line. Whole units don't commit war crimes on autonomous whim.
But as Thompson demonstrates, it's on the men and women behind the gun to know right from wrong*, then the officers, then the politicians.
Since leadership can mitigate - or inflame - atrocities, "war is hell" is the wrong attitude. Better to say 'If you make war hell, we'll make it hell for you'.
*Carrying a copy of the Geneva Convention doesn't cover your ass.
Last edited by Montmorency; 03-27-2018 at 17:50.
Vitiate Man.
History repeats the old conceits
The glib replies, the same defeats
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
That is a poor characterization of what I said. I was commenting that the poor villagers were caught in the middle with little or no choice except to get hurt. The VC strategy worked like a charm, having exactly the effect they sought to evoke. They consistently drove US forces to distraction creating a degree of wastage in personnel and material that was silly -- and even their tactical defeats tended to redound to their strategic success.
And Army leadership, throughout much of the war, screwed up by the numbers playing the fool for NVA/VC strategy. And yes, free fire zones and the like are symptomatic of American military leadership thinking with its frustration rather than thinking objectively and strategically.
"The only way that has ever been discovered to have a lot of people cooperate together voluntarily is through the free market. And that's why it's so essential to preserving individual freedom.” -- Milton Friedman
"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule." -- H. L. Mencken
Ugh
UGH
I just got through reading 10K words on why modern civilization should be demolished and the rightful King Francis II (aka Mr. Franz Bonaventura Adalbert Maria von Wittelsbach) of the ancient Stuart lineage be restored to the English crown and all its proper dominions, including the Lost Colonies (the Bonnie Prince Charles III did not recognize the Treaty of Paris), because only the firm, unifying hand of the Divine hereditary monarch's station can be relied upon to with utmost vitality and conscience prosecute the defense of Law, Land, Church, and Nation.
Palate cleanser:
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Last edited by Montmorency; 03-28-2018 at 23:42.
Vitiate Man.
History repeats the old conceits
The glib replies, the same defeats
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
"The only way that has ever been discovered to have a lot of people cooperate together voluntarily is through the free market. And that's why it's so essential to preserving individual freedom.” -- Milton Friedman
"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule." -- H. L. Mencken
Of course, the duke of Modena.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_V,_Duke_of_Modena
Montmorency wrote:
which I read as "there is a deposed king of England named Francis II who is likely to get his crown back", not Duke or Count or otherwise. That is why, if there is the Second of his name (as a king of England), I would like to know when there was the First of his name.
And as I told you, it's Francis V of Modena and Francis I of the United Kingdom, according to the Jacobites. Don't limit yourself to the title, read the rest of the article as well.
Originally Posted by 4th paragraph
Thompson was very lucky he was a pilot
There, but for the grace of God, goes John Bradford
My aim, then, was to whip the rebels, to humble their pride, to follow them to their inmost recesses, and make them fear and dread us. Fear is the beginning of wisdom.
I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation.
Vitiate Man.
History repeats the old conceits
The glib replies, the same defeats
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
There, but for the grace of God, goes John Bradford
My aim, then, was to whip the rebels, to humble their pride, to follow them to their inmost recesses, and make them fear and dread us. Fear is the beginning of wisdom.
I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation.
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