If I understand correctly, mr. Gort, your argument proceeds in the following logical sequence. 1. Communism killed a lot of people.
2. these deaths were the fault of communism, they typify communism, and similar atrocities could be expecte dfrom communsim in teh future.
3. capitalism has not committed similar atrocities.
4. communism is not superior to capiatlism in the political, economic, or social fields at ensuirng the general happinness.
5. therefore, teh US was right to oppose cpommunism and spread capitalism.
6. the US employed mainly benign means to oppose communism.
7. since American soldiers were courageous and noble, the anti-communist wars in which they served were right and just.
Unfortunately, all of tehse points are flawed. first of all, I seriously doubt that the record of "communism" is all that bloodstained, and wpould say that it is certainly much less bloodstained than the record of capitalism,.
It's worth remembering that 840 million people are starving right now, due to the capitalist economic system. Before you object,. hold on a minute. I have seen your responses before and I vvelieve I can address them.
1. Although the capitalists are not sitting in an ivory tower plotting to kill African children, these deaths are nevertheless a fully preventable outgrowth of the logic of capitalism. Food for these people exists. Under a rational (socialist) economic order, food would be allotted according to need, and therefore the starving people would get food and would not starve to death. Capitalism, hwoever, allots food according to ability to pay, rather than according to need (the communist method) or according to virtue, hard work, etc. (hallmarks of some socialist systems). Since the starving people do not have money to pay for food, capitalism denies tehm the food tehy need. It is for this reason that I think that capitalisnm can be held rresponsible for the deaths of teh 40 million children or whatever teh figure is.
I can defedn this argument in teh following manner. Democratic communism, wherever implemented, has been much more successful at e,limninating famine than capitalism. West Bengal's last famine was in 1944, under the capitalist system. Since its progression from socialism into communsim (1977), bengal has not experienced a famine. Similarly, the Cubans were the best nourished people in the Americas, etc.
2. Secondly, you must play fair here; you can't discount the starvation caused by capitalism yet incldue the deaths caused by famines under "communist" regimes. starvation in "communist" regimes is routinely laid at teh foot of "communism", and is, I believe, included under the rotal of 85 million that you keep throwing at us. The Ethiopian and Cambodian famines, etc.
3. Thirdly, thsi point ahs been made way too often, but here it is again.
Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot et al WERE NOT COMMUNIST. they ruled as one-man autocrats,m which is about as far a system from communsim ans you can imagine. True communism implies total democracy, but even "transitional" communsit ergimes require either parliamentary de,mocracy or the discipline of a broad-based, participatory vanguard party. Neither of tehse existed under stalin, Mao or Pol Pot, since they suppressed aND PURGED TEH PARTY AND ESTABLISHED INDIVIDUAL authority.
3. On a further note, how anyoen can consider Pol Pot a communist is beyond me. He was teh one, after all, who executed old or infirm people who couldn't work effoiciently. Hello? i thought communsim was all about getting RID of rewards for efficient workers? I thought it was supposed to SEPARATE rewards receivced from work! Pol Pot was pretty much the farthest thing from a communist I can imagine.
4. Finally, I will give you teh benefit of the doubt, and restrict teh death toll to those deaths directly caused bu genocide or massacre (discounting deaths by starvation, diesease, deprivation, overwork, etc. since it's clear that capitalism goes unchallemnged on that score).
Of the 4 bloodiest slaughters of the past century,as a percentage of national population exterminated, the top 3 were undertaken by capitalist regimes iudner the banner of spreading capitalism. (Germany against the Hereros, Belgium against the Congolese, and Indonesia againt East Timor.) The slaughters directly carried out in the name of capitalism include 10 million Congolese (fully half the population), a couple of million Vietnamese, a million Indonesians (Communists, Socialists, ethnic Chinese, and animists), a quarter of a million Guatemalan Mayans, thirty thousand Nicaraguans, forty thousand Haitian migrants, 84 percent of Brazil's native population, and that's not considering the millions in india, africa, and otehr places exterminated by the colonization. (Including the ENTIRE POPULATION of Tasmania- 100% genocide!!!)
Given this sordid, bloody record of deaths caused by capitalism (both direct massacres and also detahs by disease, deprivation, and starvation), given the known benefits of social progress, etc. under communist regimes, given that democracy and communism have often been closely associated and that to fight one is to fight the other, amnd given that stalin, mao, and Pol pot weren't communist anyway, I cannot fidn the American anti-Communist Crusade in any way defensivble. this does not mean that I condemn every Ameroican action, nor the men who fought in them. My grandmother was an army doctor in Burma during WWII. The war against Hitler was a spectacular example of ,man's nobility at its highest. The Korean war, too, was a just war and demonstrated noble self sacrifice and restraint. My arguments are with specific US actions. The Vietnam War, the opposition to teh Sandinistas, teh evil Contra affair, the neo-colonial activity in teh Carribean and Central America, etc. Ask Sam how I supported the kosovo war and plenty of other US actions in the past.
None.
