: dammint Frenchy, everything you said in thsi post was ludicrously and laughably wrong. I don't knwo why I waste my time, but here goes....: : and 2) the evidence.
: : Nah, that's typical NJ rhetoric.
:
: : After all, we're talking about a guy who
: : : 1) said that India was better off being under imperial subjugation,j
: : Well, yeah, before the Brits got there people were starving despite stumbling over perfectly edible cattle.
: You evidently have no clue. India was wealtheir than England at the time of colonization, particularly in the textile industry.
Oh, I didn't know that. How were these textiles produced? I didn't know that India even had industry. How about some background on that? Apparently your right, I have no clue. Beside a textile industry, what other industry was available in India?
: starvation didn't becoem a problem until the population began to grwo steadily. How come teh worst famines in her history happened to India AFTER the British took power?
Uhh, I dunno. Did the Kings of Old India allow an accurate picture of their reigns to be written? Why is the Indians penchant for creating an excessive population leading to starvation placed at the feet of the Brits? How come, for crying out loud, millions and millions of Indians allowed themselves to be controlled by a handful of Brits who didn't have the sense to remove their colorful red coats in the summer heat? Playing historical quarterback is interesting and pointing fingers is interesting too, but ultimatly the situation is what it is. I like asking the same questions of my former black friends when the topic of slavery comes up.
: Simple; the British imposed a capitalist system, in which access to food was dependent of ability to pay. If you couldn't pay the bucks, you didn't eat.
So before the Brits got there money was not an issue? The peasants had no obligation to pay taxes to their local warlords? Or do you mean that everyone in India engaged in subsistance farming? How did the laborers in the pre-Brit textile industry pay for their food?
: My father was born in Calcutta in 1944, in the midst of a famine which killed 3 million people, mostly destitute workers, due to British callousness. toady India is a socialist society, and there has not been a familne anywhere since independence, while they were common under the British. I don't knowhow many toimes I can make this point. Why don't you address it?
May I remind you of the drubbing I took when I brought up the experiences of my dad?
1944? Wasn't there something going on at that time? Seems I recall there were ill feelings between most people in the world. WWII ring a bell? Think that may have had something to do with that famine? I suspect that there were a hell of a lot of people in the world in '44 who were sucking canal water, not only the Indians under the Brits. The Chinese come to mind, as well as the Russians.
But if you insist that the Brits were to blame, who am I to disagree?
: :The reason that castes no longer survive, according to NJ, is due to the influence of the Brits.
: Are you incapable of paying attention and not misreading what I say? The abolition oif the caste system was due to India's socialism, which was laregly inspired by the Soviet Union.
Thank God the Indians didn't go whole hog and and follow suit with the USSR and install Gulags too around the country.
: The British tolerated the worst abuses of teh caste system.
Well, yeah, of course. The Indians themselves had already subjugated their entire population, if I were a Raj, I would've done the same thing. Wouldn't it have been idiotic of me to run a mercantilistic enterprise and then muck it up by stirring up sentiments of liberty?
: If India's response to teh caste system had been one of British liberalism, tehy woruld never have engaged in the sort oif sweeping, unprecedented affirmative action which they did- affirmative action doesn't exist in Britain.
Affirmative action shouldn't exist anywhere, EXCEPT, in the case of individuals who want to grant school admission, promotion, job, etc. directly to a minority of their choice. Affirmative action = affirmative racism. Death to AA. Affirmatum agerum delenda est.
: :Parlimentary government? Yup, the Brits. Law, you can finish...
: 'Law'? What do you mean, 'law'? Nonsense. Every society on earth ahs had their own system of laws; they don't owe that gift to anywhere.
That's a legitimate claim and a slippery one at the same time. Law, as in individual liberty, a Bill of Rights, private ownership, in short the way we in this country accept law.
I don't think you could say that about a country that created castes.
: Teh British never brought any form of democracy to india, quite the opposite. Was it 'democracy' to herd tpogether 400 peaceful protestors and kill them in one afternoon? Was it 'democracy' to divide up teh country between unelected bureaucrats and unelected monarchs? Give me a break. india, incidentally, had constitutionally democratic cuty states thousands of years ago.
OK, but at the same time, the Brits did leave a legacy, an infrastructure, a path that they made India familiar with, regarding a different kind of society than that in which the average Indian was excluded. Ghandi was educated in England, where he earned his law degree after all. He was able to use British law to attain his ends, in much the same way that Martin Luther King did some decades later. Indian Parliment?
: :
: : : 2) endorsed 'pistol-whipping' a guy who suggested to peasants a philosophy he didn't like (so much for free speech and diversity of opinion)
: : Ahh, you ere once again, to be charitable. I said that about an 'educated' person taking advantage of the ignorance of peasants to lead them by the nose.
: Read the post again, Frenchy. Do you really oppose trying to get peasants to question why they are poor, not to blindly accept taht suffering is teh will fo God?
Suffering sometimes is the will of God. Using Christianity to foment rebellion is extremly repugnant.
: Is it better if they think taht suffering is divinely ordained?
Some suffering is. Some is man made. Some is self-inflicted. Some may even be sought.
: Is it better if they never aspire to a greater position in life? And is it wrong to suggest to them taht tehre might be an alternative?
No, No. It's just the idea of using partial knowledge to motivate people to do your bidding that is repulsive. Here's another example; In many of today's public schools homosexuality is promoted by activist teachers. Youngsters are being indoctrinated that homosexuality and heterosexuality are morally equivilant. Many of these children, trusting their teachers, will experiment with homosexulity, not yet having developed a firm understanding of their own rapidly changing bodies.
A certain percentage of males will die after contracting the AIDS virus. These deaths are in the name of advancing a political belief.
This is also taking advantage of intellectually defenseless people, a betrayal of a trusted position.
Pistol whipping is justifiable in such cases. Unless you don't mind innocent kids being instructed to engage in behavior that is certain to lead to death.
If inspiring peopel and giving them hope is wrong, then Jesus Christ was wroing.
Giving them hope by fomenting revolution, Socialism, Communism, redistribution of wealth, yes.
: If purifying the name of God is wrong, then every religion is wrong.
Nope, only your understanding of religion is wrong. Tell me, how do you square the Seventh Commandment with Communism/Socialism? How do you square the Fourth Commandment with the abolision of a heirarchy? How about the First, Second and Third Commandments with official state atheism?
: And if asking questions is wrong, tehn you don't believe in free speech.
Not quite true, asking questions is fine. Refusing to allow others to give differing answers, or rigging things so that others are not given the chance to voice an opposing point of view, that I have a problem with.
: Freire didn't think he was propagandizing, he was suggesting to peasants- in a very humble, diffident way- that perhaps God wasn't responnsible for their suffering, and that perhaps they didn't have to suffer.
So where is the opposing voice? Only one side of a story is propaganda.
: To him (and to me) that wasn'';t trying to impose anything on them, but rather to help them end their suffering- it was doing the only right thing under the circumstances.
If his intent was to lead these ignorant peasants to Socialism/Communism, that's evil.
: In light fo this, it'fs horrifuying taht you woudl stop peopel from trying to genuinely help otehr peopel, and mroeover would beat tehm up for their efforts.
No, No, No. If you want to help others, fine. Don't hide behind religion though. Don't snooker some poor dupe into believing your personal interpretation of Christianity.
: Perhaps you really do advocate a fascist state.
Yeah, OK NJ, and let's not forget to mention that I'm a NAZI too.
: :That's propaganda, any way you want to slice it. Socialism/Communism isn't just a philosophy that I don't like, it's a philosophy that leads to butchery of innocent people.
: Oh, nonsense. That 'communism is murderous' canard got dated around 1900; wise up and do a little reading. 1) The Stalinist regimes weren't really communist.
Excuse me while I laugh my head off.....HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAH!!!!!HAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA!!!
Thanx, I needed a good laugh. And your one of the brighter bulbs in this veritable chandelier of luminary Commies.
2) plenty fo non-murderous communsit / socialist states have existed. (Kerala? Bengal? Nicaragua? Guyana? Etcetera.)
Nicaugua? Yes, I can see that my post concerning the nepotism of wonderful Nicaraugua wasn't read, at least not read by you. Kerala? Oh, yeah, that's the place where the Indian government subsidizes the entire state. I suppose you could count that as a success. I suppose.
: 3) add up everyone killed by the few 'socialist' regimes that were really murdrtous, and they are still far less murderous than the right-wing capitalist regimes. (Can you say idnonesia? Belgium? Germany? Guatemala? El Salvador?)
Uhh, yeah (snicker, snicker)sure. Whatever you say...
By the way, when you say Capitalist, I always assume that we're talking about Capitalism and a Democratic Republican form of government, individual liberty, right of private ownership, courts to uphold the laws, things like that. I hope you understand my insistance that this is the Capitalism that I'm rooting for, not whatever it is they have in El Salvador, et al.
: : : 3) cares so little for the truth that he still has not recognized any of teh numerous examples of socialist / communist democracy and capitalists tyranny that were provided for him,
See above.
: : Sorry old chap, Zimbabwe is a dud.
: : To me the easiest way to prove what you are saying is to offer the citizens of those success stories you point to an offer to go to any Western country.
: They do. Tehy're free to migrate, freer than citizens of most capiatlsit countries sucha s Guatemala or El Salvador, who are actively prevented from entering this country. If capitalism is so great, hwo coem we get so many Guatemalan refiugees?
Maybe because what they practice there isn't Capitalism. See above.
: :
: : : 4) quoted a Nazi approvingly and said that he had some good points.
: : Not sure here, what quote? What Nazi? Von Braun was a Nazi and he did have some good points.
: Fred Rundle, of course? Don't you ever read what otehr epopel say? oh, i forgot, you're a capitalist, capitalists don't believe in free speech and free debate.
Well, thanx for the compliment, but who the hell is Fred Rundle, and what did he say that I approved of?
:
: : : Given all that I think that such a guy is eminently worthy of Lark's criticism.
LOL! Lark criticizes everybody!
