: : Can communism as practiced by the Soviet Union, for instance, be considered evil? Can Christianity as practiced by the Jesuit Missionaries, for example, be considered evil? (Hint: Richard Dawkins not withstanding, the answer is "No.")
: It wasn't communism, no-one in the Soviet Union called it communism, they called it Socialism. A little evidence of knowledge would do your case some good.
: :Do you dispute the body count of communsist governments. For the sake of this argument I will concede that pure marxism was not practiced in the USSR. My point to Sam was that the "Black Book of Communism" has claimed some 85 to 100 million murdered directly by their communist governments.
and how many were killed by capitalism in its bloody 500 years of history?
: Presumably one of those Governments was Cambodia, if so I have to ask the Honourable Gentleman's opinion on the reagan Administrations *support* for the ousted Khmer Rouge, both politically and militarilly? I have to ask the Honourable gentleman's opinion on the Bombing of non-communist Laos and Cambodia. I ahve to ask the Honourable gentlema's opinion on the persistant and total support by the US for the Suharto regime, which *directly* killed over 500,000 people. I have to ask about the ongoing Genocide perpetrated by teh West in Iraq, with 2,000-5000 babies dying of malnutrition every month.
Firt of all, estiamtes of Suharto's victims range up to 1.5 million Indonesians and 200,000 East Timorese, not including all the prisoners of consience who were imprisoned for their beliefs. Indonesia makes it illegal to be a leftist or a communist, and also to practice a religion other than Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, or a certain specific variety of Hinduism. Can you say "mind control"?
The Iraq sanctions are at least justifable in ends if not in means. Totally unjustifiable are teh US sanctions on Cuba, support for some of the world's most repressive regimes in Uruguay and Santo Domingo, involvement with death squads and genocide in El Salvador and Guatemala, and the routine suppression of free elections and democracy everywhere from Vietnam to Nicaragua, from Guyana to Italy.
Remember Allende anyone?
: Perhaps, just perhaps, US military spending isn't as Heroic as it sounds.
: :There isn't much argument being offered to dispute what is in the book. It was prepared by a group of well respected french researchers.
: Perhaps because some people round here think the murder tallies by State Capitalist Regimes aren't that much greater that free market capitalist regimes...and yes, death by neglect is still murder.
plus let's not forget all the millions DIRECTLY killed by capitalism...
: : Communist atrocities have occurred in far, far greater numbers than those American atrocities that occurred because of fringe elements of the anti-communist movement and faulty U.S. policy.
: This includes the illegal bombings of non-cmmbattant nations then?
Or does it include the death-squad atrocities in Brazil and Uruguay, in which US nationals were DIRECTLY involved, going to teh extendt of carrying out the killings themselves?
: Strangely, though, I can't find the Black Book of Communism in our Uni Library... who are the authors?
None.
