BS:Mass murder of defenceless civilians-Korea 1951

Subject: RE: BS: Mass murder of defenceless civilians
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Jun 17 - 07:42 AM

Incidentally
Blair made a name for himself by abandoning Labour principles and taking on those of the Tories - New Labour
May's deal with terrorist supporters are an confirmation of how close he got
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Mass murder of defenceless civilians
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Jun 17 - 07:15 AM

"Blair did a deal with terrorist infected politicians"
One deal with terrorists doesn't make another any less wrong
There is no acceptable precedent for dealing with terrorists or protecting murderers and torturers from trail
I consider Blair a war criminal - as I do May
You condemn one and support another
A hypocrite as well as a defender of terrorism - two for the price of one
" Jom "
Two "Joms" in a short posting - how insecure is that?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Mass murder of defenceless civilians
From: Teribus
Date: 28 Jun 17 - 06:49 AM

"May has done a deal with terrorist infected politicians and bunged them with £Billion of taxpayers money to pay the ransom
They have also agreed not to put possible criminals on trial
How low can you sink a country?" - bleats Jom

The precedent:

Blair did a deal with terrorist infected politicians and bunged them taxpayers money to pay the ransom.
Blair also agreed not to put confirmed criminals on trial and released convicted murders from prison.

So you tell me Jom - "How low can you sink a country?" - obviously not as low as Blair sank it.

Subject: RE: BS: Mass murder of defenceless civilians
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Jun 17 - 06:10 AM

"Oh dear Jom, s"
What you mean to say is that you reserve the right of silence for fear it might incriminate you
Predictable response that pops up whenever you are in a corner
May has done a deal with terrorist infected politicians and bunged them with £Billion of taxpayers money to pay the ransom
They have also agreed not to put possible criminals on trial
How low can you sink a country?
Even the Yanks were forced to put Lieutenant Calley on trial
Sick as it gets
The leader of the Party May has done a deal with is under scrutiny the misuse of public money, known over here as "the cash for ash" scandal
Lovely one-line letter in the Iris Times this morning reads; "a fresh stash of cash to wash the ash off The Sash"
May has dragged Britain down to gutter-level with this deal, she has humiliated her supporters (like yourself) and she is now abandoning natural justice and international law by doing a deal with terrorist linked politicians and refusing to try killers
Oh dear indeed
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Mass murder of defenceless civilians
From: Teribus
Date: 28 Jun 17 - 05:23 AM

Oh dear Jom, someone disagrees with your spittle-flecked invective and you automatically reach for your lists of ".........ists" to accuse them of - pathetic.

Subject: RE: BS: Mass murder of defenceless civilians
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 27 Jun 17 - 08:07 PM

"I for one, and am sure many others, would welcome it"
Someone suggests that empty properties can be used to house those who have been made homeless in a horrific fire and the rabid right are up on their chairs telling us it can't be done because of the law
The Government does a deal with a terrorist involved political party which includes a clause which says British soldiers who have co-operated with terrorists, used torture and massacred unarmed civilians should not be aked to answer for their crimes and neither national or International law or human rights conventions aren't worth shit!!!
No need to ask which side you are on Teribus - don't forget to polish your jackboots before you go to bed.
Any State which places its armed forces above national and international law is well along the road to being described as "fascist"
This is the deal Blunderwoman has signed Britain up to and this is what the right-wing dregs are supporting
You're not even good at hiding your hypocrisy
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Mass murder of defenceless civilians
From: Donuel
Date: 27 Jun 17 - 10:38 AM

You are all correct under the criterion that each of you choose/assume.
Who knew that waterboarding makes good dinner guests? Why are we not waterboarding our kids. Its better than spanking.

Being rewarded for the facts you represent is a rare occurrence in theses BS blogs because only your chosen opponents read them, or not.

Respect is not for sale here so owning the glory of winning the BS game awards no Trophy unless you reward yourself, like Trump.

Truth is least rewarded of all. It is to be avoided or we fall silent overwhelmed by the futility and meaninglessness of changing the purpose of the real owners of the world. They do not care about you or defenseless civilians , they just want more. Yes there are token rescues of humanity but everything goes back to owner normalcy in a month or two. The rich do not care about you or trivial mass murder .

They own the lobbyists who write the laws buy the representatives direct the government, turn the playing field into a funnel into their financial stomach and use stupid leaders to do all their bidding.

Government by corporation is fascism and we the people have endured a fascist system by kings, religions and immortal corporations throughout all of history. The US was a great experiment but it is gone now replaced by the loop hole, workarounds and blatant power grabs by the rich owners, who shall not be named.

There were brief exceptions during and after the FDR years but that is over. Watch and remember the next great super disaster that inspires a call to put things right afterwards and how the afflicted victims will get crewed in the end. The owners do not care about them or you. Only illusion of saving the masses is needed to insure the devotion of obedient workers without the knowledge or education to serve the rigged game of the rich. Owners like defenseless citizens who believe that the 2nd amendment gives them a running chance.
Its laughable.

If you do not believe this just look, you have Trump and Putin. The owners are not scared, they are pleased, as reflected in the stock market.

Subject: RE: BS: Mass murder of defenceless civilians
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 27 Jun 17 - 10:16 AM

You really don't get it, do you?
Your consistently moronic attempts to bully and bluster your way past facts you can't deal with in adult terms shows you for the pathetic moron you are
AS for using typos - beyond belief
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Mass murder of defenceless civilians
From: Teribus
Date: 27 Jun 17 - 10:05 AM

What's a "diseher-upper" when it's at home Jom? I'll send the cat over should I? It would appear to know it's way round the keyboard better than you and is honest enough to know that it really does only type shit.

If what you say is true about the conditions of the deal (I have not seen or heard that reported) I for one, and am sure many others, would welcome it - Never could quite work out why it was only the "nationalist" paramilitaries "sins" that could be, or had to be forgiven and forgotten in order for there to be a "Peace Process" - so now it is slate wiped clean - equal treatment under the law for all.

Subject: RE: BS: Mass murder of defenceless civilians
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 27 Jun 17 - 05:44 AM

More Joms - more insecurity
WATERBOARDING is OK then - nice to hear it
Why on earth should they waterboard a ships grease-diseher-upper
Nice twist on Britain's "ruling elite" stye of democracy yesterday.
In order to have an overall majority, the Tory Government had done a deal with the DUP (linked to Loyalist terrorism) where it had committed £Billion of the taxpayers money to Northern Ireland in order to gain a majority - bet they don't declare that on their election expenses
One of the conditions imposed on Britain by the DUP is that the Security Forces do not have to face trials for crimes they are accused of committing
Democratic Britain is now dancing to the tune of a Party implicated in terrorism who is demanding state terrorist ativities are immune from prosecution
Rule Britannia eh?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Mass murder of defenceless civilians
From: Teribus
Date: 27 Jun 17 - 05:03 AM

"So one atrocity cancels another out"???

What atrocity Jom? How many people were picked up, interrogated and released, or arrested, tried, imprisoned and then ultimately released by the Police in Northern Ireland? How many went through the same process at the hands of the paramilitaries? They were not simply released they ended up either maimed and crippled for life or were murdered and "disappeared". Comparing apples to oranges Carroll and you damn well know it.

"Waterboarding"? If you want evidence of that Jom - I was "waterboarded" and subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques on at least three occasions by people I later sat down and ate dinner with, by people in the same service as I was in - it was regarded as an essential part of training. Guess what Jom? I survived it, which should not really come as any great surprise considering that the object of the lesson is to extract information which you cannot get from a corpse. In Mrs Jean McConville's case there was not one shred of evidence against her, she was first beaten up, later beaten once again and abducted. She was then subjected to torture and mutilation (Her fingers cut off to relieve her of four rings - one of which some "hero" stole and probably used as a Christmas present) and then summary execution with her body being hidden and buried in secret in the hope it would never be found (Mrs Jean McConville's remains were uncovered by wind and weather and discovered by chance 31 years after she was murdered).

Rather liked this bit of nonsense from you Jom:

"The ideals of the revolution were to end the divisions in society and build a fairer one
Whether that worked or not is immaterial"

I would have thought that whether it (The revolution") worked or not (In achieving its aims) would be regarded by all as being f**kin' fundamental.

Russia did not catch up with the West as you put it - not by a long shot.

Tell me Jom, how many people in this "work-in-progress" worker's Utopia were allowed to be Communist Party Members?

Tell me Jom, in this "work-in-progress" worker's Utopia did everyone shop in the same stores, or were there special ones only for Party Members? Same with education too wasn't it Jom, the brats of Party members went to special schools didn't they. Preferential treatment from cradle to grave for the Party few - You'll get what we decide to give you for the rest.

Your magnificent revolution in Russia Jom just replaced one tiny ruling elite with another.

Subject: RE: BS: Mass murder of defenceless civilians
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 27 Jun 17 - 02:54 AM

"Hear Here!"
Usually the case when one is brought face-to-face with the crimes and atrocities of their own nation while condemning those of others
Pity
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Mass murder of defenceless civilians
From: robomatic
Date: 26 Jun 17 - 11:26 PM

Hear Here!

Subject: RE: BS: Mass murder of defenceless civilians
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Jun 17 - 07:33 PM

"but you are playing the part of a hog on ice."
Sticks and stones Robo
You are not responding to what I write
All these facts are verifiable - "alternative facts" has become a Trumpist bolt hole to avoid answering questions
If you question anything I have written, have the balls to dispute it rather than throwing stones at it from a safe distance.
What are your "facts"?
I am left with the impression that this discussion is drawing to a close
Pity
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Mass murder of defenceless civilians
From: robomatic
Date: 26 Jun 17 - 05:16 PM

I acknowledge the sheer unreconstructedness of your answer, but you are playing the part of a hog on ice. You are in your own universe and unwilling to deal with anything but your own 'alternative facts'. You are not even paying attention to my posts and my positions. That shows a lack of respect.

THERE ARE NONE SO BLIND AS THOSE WHO WILL NOT SEE, NONE SO DEAF AS THOSE WHO WILL NOT HEAR.

Subject: RE: BS: Mass murder of defenceless civilians
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Jun 17 - 01:54 PM

You vote whether to go back into a murderous war after you have just waked away - don't be daft!!
This was a revolution
The last revolution in Russia was in 1905 when peaceful protests led to mass slaughter
The Germans transported Lenin back to Russia as part of their war effort - nothing to do with politics
You are still skating around the moral right and wrong of this debate
Put simply - Capitalism is based on acquisition and conquest and it led to a World War which in turn led to a revolt by the people who bore the brunt of the consequences of that war
The ideals of the revolution were to end the divisions in society and build a fairer one
Whether that worked or not is immaterial - those divisions remain in our society; the Soviet Union caught up with the west in half a century - from a semi-feudal empite to an advanced economy with a superior education system based on education for all and massive scientific and medical advances for all
It took a semi-socialist government thirty years in Britain to establish a free health service, and that has now been undermined to the point of destruction by right wing governments since
America hasn't even got off the starting blocks in that respect - there, they check your wallet before they feel your pulse.
Neither side comes out with vclean hands as far as injustices and mistakes are concerned, and we are still plundering our way through the third world to keep our home comforts
I'm afraid it is you who is dodging the main points - but if that't the way you want to play it..... fine by me   
From your 'coffee house reference,Ia assume you are in the U.S.
I suggest you examine the political and social implications of the fire in London.... greed and neglect of teh poor in all it's glory
Watch this space
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Mass murder of defenceless civilians
From: robomatic
Date: 26 Jun 17 - 01:15 PM

Jim:

I said some time ago that we'd arrived at our core contretemps. And we are not playing atrocity vs. atrocity, not me, anyway. I'm concerned with how do we deal with human nature. You are deeply enmired in the Gods of Ideology (Book reference: The God That Failed) and your carefully cherry-picked historical recitations. We are not making progress at this point, just trading ripostes. And you are still ignoring what points I've made.
I was talking to some fellow coffee house denizens yesterday and was reminded of the fact that the Bolsheviks, the Communists, named themselves Bolsheviks and labeled the Socialists Mensheviks despite the fact that the Bolsheviks were in theminority and the Mensheviks greatly outnumbered them! Fake facts from the get-go. And the Bolsheviks withdrew from WWI not so much in a bid for peace but as a deal with the Germans who'd enabled Lenin to get into Russia. But with the Bolsheviks leadership and force went hand-in-hand. They didn't bother with things like campaigns and votes, they had a much better target for the Russian military than Germans. Russians!

Subject: RE: BS: Mass murder of defenceless civilians
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Jun 17 - 09:57 AM

So one atrocity cancels out another
Must remember that
As far as I am concerned it puts the British government on par with the terrorists who murdered Jean McConville
As a British citizen, I take seriously what the Government does in my name - you seem to be happy they behave like terrorists
Diff'rent strokes eh?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Mass murder of defenceless civilians
From: Teribus
Date: 26 Jun 17 - 09:22 AM

Great Jom I do hope that Stephen Rea also reads out what happened, detailing the extent of the torture and mutilation endured by Jean McConville and the account of her summary execution at the hands of the Provisional IRA, after his wife Dolores Price drove Mrs McConville to her death.

Subject: RE: BS: Mass murder of defenceless civilians
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Jun 17 - 07:36 AM

"Jom you are a racist, bigoted, biased, Anglophobe - "
'Course I am Teribus - who wouldn't be who refuses to cower to your bluster and bullying
Grow up, for crying out loud - your behaviour has no place on a debating forum
HAVE A NICE DAY NOW
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Mass murder of defenceless civilians
From: Teribus
Date: 26 Jun 17 - 07:12 AM

Jom you are a racist, bigoted, biased, Anglophobe - your comments and track record speak for themselves.

jkm,,8i (That was just typed by the cat - makes more sense than most of Carroll's posts)

Subject: RE: BS: Mass murder of defenceless civilians
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Jun 17 - 06:09 AM

It's not "Anglophobic" to detest a State that uses a natural disaster into mass murder because God told the feller responsible for distributing relife that the Irish were "evil" - anybody with a shred of decency would detest any nation for behaving like that.
I look forward to being accused of the same when we get around to discussing the new evidence that has been uncovered of Britain using waterboarding during the troubles - but not with you, unless you learn to stop behaving like a little Hitler
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Mass murder of defenceless civilians
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Jun 17 - 04:50 AM

"Yes Jom, my little Anglophobic scouser"
Fuck off until yoiu learn to behave like an adult - but thanks for the vivid wexample of what an insecure little twot you are
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Mass murder of defenceless civilians
From: Teribus
Date: 26 Jun 17 - 04:45 AM

"The fact of the Irish Famine is that there was enough food available to feed the Irish people four times over yet a million people starved and immigration was forced on millions of others - all this was adopted as a deliberate policy to solve a political problem."

Yes Jom, my little Anglophobic scouser, we have been over this ad nauseam, and we will continue to bash on with it every single time you dredge up your favourite myths, misrepresentations and half-truths.

Fact: "There was enough food available to feed the Irish people four times over" - very true but that was coupled with a couple of other facts that you and many others have completely and deliberately failed to hoist in.

1 - There was no means of storing that food
2 - There was no means of distributing it

Back in 1845 to 1851 produce was harvested, sold, transported and resold at market. Livestock was reared, sold on the hoof, transported, slaughtered and sold at market. The time it could hang about was extremely limited otherwise it spoiled. Ireland had to sell it's produce otherwise the "famine" would have been all encompassing.

You and others taking the same view point as yourself have never been able to answer the one question I have asked - How could all this food in Ireland have been transported to the places of greatest and most urgent need? You had no roads, no railways, few large ports, no storage facilities, insufficient draught animals and carts (Besides which you hadn't the grain to feed those draught animals)

Non-Fact: "a million people starved"

Simply put they didn't the estimated death toll was roughly 1.5 million the vast majority of which died from disease not starvation. The min killers were diseases that would not know any cure for another forty years.

Fact: "Immigration was forced on millions"

Even sheep will not stay on hillsides that have no grazing Jom. The people had to move or die, they chose to move and it was migration that accounted for the largest percentage of the drop in population not starvation.

Non-Fact: "All this was adopted as a deliberate policy to solve a political problem."

WHAT POLITICAL PROBLEM?? There was no political problem.

Subject: RE: BS: Mass murder of defenceless civilians
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Jun 17 - 03:58 AM

We can do this forever and not get anywhere Robo - throwing Communist-Capitalist atrocities at each other like the 'hand' game - I put my hand down, you put yours on top, then I put my other hand down on yours..... and so ad infinitum
There really doesn't seem much point
As far as I'm concerned, the discussion needs to concentrate on systems, not random flaws.
In 1917, the Russian soldiers walked away from the first and greatest atrocity of the 20th century - WWI - 'The Great Imperial War' as it was then known.
After five months of party-haggling the Bolsheviks took control with their policy of "Bread, Peace and Land" as opposed to the Menshevik's "Go back to the killing fields and we'll sort it out when/if you come home".
Every single problem that the Soviet Union had stems from the fact that Russia was not prepared for a revolution that was thrust on her by the circumstances of a rebellious military refusing to fight, a starving population who was fully prepared to back the soldiers and an Empire ranging from undeveloped Capitalism in the West to Feudalism verging on Nomadism in the East
This was insurmountable enough but was compounded by a hostile Western World which reacted violently to the idea that any major country should adopt a policy based on the philosophy of giving equality of opportunity to all of its people
That was Marx's "Spectre of Communism" exorcised to life.
In my opinion, Russia shouldn't have been the first - it should have been Germany and very nearly was.
Rather than the "your atrocity is bigger than my atrocity" approach we have indulged in so far, that's where I feel we should be going if we are going to get anywhere
As it is so far, you hold up what happened to an American who pulled down a flag - I trump you with seven years of pouring burning petrol on Vietnamese farmers
You put up a bookshop that sold only one book - easily trumpable with centuries of education which taught generation after generation of children that foreigners were inferior, Britannia Ruled the Waves and we should be prepared to roll over and die for the Monarch (who was often believed to have been chosen by God) just like trained dogs - they called it "King and Country".
I'm happy to take this in any direction you wish - all good mental aerobics
It's up to you
Another book for your list if you ever get time 'The Kings Depart' by Richard M Watts - an extremely readable and agenda-less summing up of Europe between the wars
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Mass murder of defenceless civilians
From: robomatic
Date: 25 Jun 17 - 03:50 PM

Jim:

First things first, thanks for your dense response and for 'splaining your comment about who gets to correct what.

Next: Communists didn't have to burn books. In the case of the Soviet Union, they literally shot letters out of their alphabet! (Would that the Irish would now do the same!)

But seriously, the Communists controlled what could be published in the first place. I'll never forget a Western reporter in a Chinese bookstore in the era of Mao. There was only ONE BOOK for sale! I'll bet N. Korea is similar right this very minute.

Nazis and the Soviet Union were VERY COMPARABLE, top-down political control in the solid grip of a despot, practicing major Cult Of Personality. The Nazis based their society on the false science of race. The Communists on the false science of Marxism/ Dialectical materialism. Oh, and the personalities of Hitler and Stalin, respectively. Reality was made subservient to the needs of the state, so that Darwin's survival of the fittest was extended by the Nazis to enable them to select that the fittest must be people who looked like themselves. The Communists actually denied Darwinism because is indicated that humans were not able to perfect themselves, and Stalin advanced an ignoramus named Lysenko who put Soviet biology in the dustbin for years.

Both societies reeked of hubris.

Your comment about Israel is neither here nor there (plenty of Israelis say the same things). But the irony is major: Early Israeli settlements from the days before independence into the 1970s made use of socialist societies, openly proudly and successfully, while only intermittently successful elsewhere in the West. Perhaps because it was small scale, administered from the bottom up, and not disastrously from the top town as was administered by Chavez in Venezuela, which resulted in a kleptocracy and the current disaster.


A lot of your comments about where today's countries are going are similar to my doubts. But they are made worse by false ideology. Take for example Yugoslavia. Tito as strongman kept it together by force, not rule of law. When his grip ended, all the poison in the mud hatched out, to quote Robert Graves. That is not Nazism, not Coummunism, not Democracy. That is the human condition. I think Clinton was right to lead NATO in limiting Serbia's grip on the region, but it took violence. Something that Clinton chose not to do in Africa, and hundreds of thousands of Rwandans and Somalis and Sudanese have perished. (And we're back to the thread topic Movie References: Hotel Rwanda; Beasts of No Nation)

Subject: RE: BS: Mass murder of defenceless civilians
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Jun 17 - 03:38 AM

"As Heine said, "where books are burnt, men also will be burnt"."
I don't remember any Communist books being burned - I remember the (right wing) Nazis actually burning book
On the other hand, restricting access to certain books has been a feature of all societies of all political hues - even the Catholic Church in "Holy Ireland" had (and still has) its somewhat arbitrarily chosen "Index of forbidden books"
"You mentioned being in Czechoslovakia when the Soviets were invading. "
Muy point is exactly what it has been all along - you need to distinguish between the objectives of any system and any anomalies that occur while those objectives are being pursued.
Yes - rightly the Czechs didn't want their 'socialism' imposed on them from outside, but they still wished to continue on that road.
Stalin was the anomaly who went a long way to destroying that objective just as (dare I mention it) various Israeli administrations have destroyed the dream of Israel.
The Soviet Union adopted exactly the same policies as the west is doing and has always done - if the policies of those you have influence over doesn't suit you it has to be controlled,
They interfered in Hungary and Czechoslovakia, we are up tpo our arses in interfering in the policies of countries that don't suit us.... Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Iraq, Afghanistan...... (not mentioning the clandestine interference that is very much a part of the foreign policy of the west)
We also interfere by proxy by supporting, financing and arming some of the world's most oppressive dictators.
How is this in any way different to what the Soviet Union was doing?
Let's look at what happened top what happened to Czechoslovakia after communism, and all the other newly "free" states.
Chechoslovakia divided peacefully and is now ties into European capitalism, which has allowed it to avoid many of the excesses of a declining system
Yugoslavia entered into a bloody ethnic cleansing war between the separate constituent groups which will remain in our memories for some time to come
Tito did much to keep those groups apart for the whole o his leadership
When I was in Yugoslavia there was no sign of what was to come.
Hungary and Rumania have swung, or are in the process of swinging to the extreme right - European fascism is on the march again.
Need one mention Putin?
China is interesting in that it still clings to aspects of the old system while adopting many of the traits of capitalism - and doing quite well out of it.
Nobody can claim that what has replaced the old system in many of these countries has improved the lot of the people as a whole - Rumania and Poland have become nations of migrants dependent on working abroad, life in Russia is as controlled as it ever was and it's leaders have become a threat to world security.
Prague has become the place to go for child sex.
When I visited these countries I left with a feeling that the people I met believed they were working for a brighter future - now I am left with the impression that the future is totally beyond their control
I bet the people of today's Russia wouldn't refer to a war todat as 'The Patriotic War' as they did in the sixties.
You talk of the Nazis and Soviets in the one sentence as if they were comparable - they are not
Nazism was a built in objective - what happened there was decreed to happen
What happened in the Soviet Union under Stalin, happened despite the objectives of communism, not because of them
Nazism was a natural development of Capitalism in crisis and was fully supported and financed by the German industrial Capitalism in the form of Krupps, Essen and Volksagen, who used the Jewish People as slave labour and sent them to their deaths when they were no longer fit to work
"sounds classy but I don't have a clue as to what it means"
Simples - my wife gets to correct my errors - you, a stranger, don't
Drawing attention to typos is all too often a way of avoiding awkward bits of argument on this forum
Teribus
We really have been over this ad nauseum
The fact of the Irish Famine is that there was enough food available to feed the Irish people four times over yet a million people starved and immigration was forced on millions of others - all this was adopted as a deliberate policy to solve a political problem.
I have no intention of taking this any further with you - you have proved yourself ignorant and intransigent as far as Irish history is concerned and racist in your attitude to the Irish people as a whole.
Four "Carrolls" and a "Jom" is indicative enough that you intend to continue with your defensive loutishness - so why should anybody be arsed with someone who tries to overcome their ignorance by talking down and bullying
Go and get some manners and learn to behave like an adult and we might just have something to say to each other
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Mass murder of defenceless civilians
From: robomatic
Date: 24 Jun 17 - 07:26 PM

Jim:

Your 'ungracious' comment reminded me of an episode of The Simpsons (years ago) where Homer quits his job at the nuclear power plant and learns he has to return and beg for it back because he's going to have a third child (Maggie). Mr. Burns and Smithers make him enter their office through a tiny door marked 'Supplicants' which Homer has to get on the floor to get through: "So you've come crawling back" says Mr. Burns. Homer, all innocence, looks up from the floor and says "Seems the classy thing would be not to draw attention to it!"

Anyhow, I want you to know that I've experienced more than one instance of not knowing for sure what you were trying to say and I have not gone to any trouble to call attention to it 'til now. I understand the phenomenon of beating out a riposte with busy fingers but I've learned to take some time, even frame the post offline in Microsoft Word so no internet spasm will kill off my precious thoughts without backup. I also have the additional time of pre-push-send reflection to meditate on whether or not I really want to post my words.

I feel you have paid not enough attention to several of my posts but I accuse you of nothing other than maybe being more concerned with personal invective than thoughtful arguments. You and I seem to have moderated the personal remarks, and I am going to see if I can learn from that for my future correspondence online.

You and I have, I think, found our points of demarcation, where we are not going to agree. I am with Orwell. I am with Reynaldo Arenas. The systems which exert mind control are the worst. What the Nazis and Communists did to their entire populations, is anathema. They made Europe hell on earth and we should learn those lessons and never repeat those sad evil experiences.

As Heine said, "where books are burnt, men also will be burnt".

Among the problems with my position is that we reasonable people live in a world left to us by fanatics, who are willing to sacrifice more for extremist positions.

You mentioned being in Czechoslovakia when the Soviets were invading. But I don't understand your point. I'm sure the Czechs didn't want their country dominated by force from the Soviets, and it was their very seeking of political/ intellectual freedoms that led to their invasions (and the much bloodier invasion of Hungary in '56). I don't care if it is called 'democratic' or 'western' or 'velvet revolution', it is the seeking of freedom from despotism. What's not to like? It is breaking down the Berlin Wall and letting people live and breathe and think and speak what they want It is not necessary to like it.

Let's look at what happened to Czechoslovakia after the fall of Communism. What was Czechoslovakia is now two separate relatively free countries (the velvet divorce). Go back there and see if they want to go back to where they were.

"we are not good enough friends for you to be accurate" sounds classy but I don't have a clue as to what it means. (Maybe the classy thing is not to draw attention to it).

Subject: RE: BS: Mass murder of defenceless civilians
From: Teribus
Date: 24 Jun 17 - 06:39 AM

As for Ireland (also a major interest of mine)
The only difference of what happened in their famine and the one we are discussing is that ours was probably deliberately manipulated to solve political problems - I don't believe this was the case with Stalin."

Even considering the different ages and the technological advances made in the 87 years that separated the two events I would have thought that if what Carroll states is true the British would have succeeded in killing far, far more of the population of Ireland during the seven years of this "supposed" genocide for a great deal less expenditure. I mean Carroll does keep harping on about how deliberate everything was. The facts of the matter are that the whole thing was mismanaged and as much as Carroll might like to go on about it the facts also show that excluding "Trevelyan's Corn" four times as much grain was exported from the UK TO Ireland during the famine years than was imported into England FROM Ireland. The issue which no historian who has written about the event has ever considered or addressed in their works is the problem of distribution and storage. Carroll and others on this forum in the past have been asked about it and they merely ignore the question and the problem in the hope that it just goes away.

The three factors identified in causing the drop in Ireland's population between 1845 and 1851 are as follows:

1: Emigration
2: Death from disease
3: Death from Starvation

Which tallied together number somewhere between 2.5 and 3 million people according to 1841 and 1851 Census figures.

On the emigration side of things, the British organised free passage to Canada, to sail to the USA you had to pay and you had to have goods, tools or cash equivalent of £10 and been in good health (According to Cecil Woodham-Smyth's book). Carroll mentioned "Coffin Ships" yet the vast majority of them did successfully cross the Atlantic, I would have thought that had the aim of the British Government been genocide as Carroll claims then the British would have ensured that none of them did. Similarly had "genocide" been the aim no aid at all, let alone over £10 millions worth, would have been sent to Ireland.

Stalin on the other hand using all the modern means at his disposal did engage in a campaign of genocide and deliberate slaughter and succeeded in killing anything up to eight times the number of people in just one single year.

Sorry Jom the evidence simply does not stack up to support your theory. By all means keep on dredging it up and I will keep hitting you with cold, hard, historical, recorded facts that disprove your myth.

Subject: RE: BS: Mass murder of defenceless civilians
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Jun 17 - 06:38 AM

Speaking of typos
"coworker"
Without the hyphen this appears to refer to someone who does unspeakable things to cows!
Just a thought
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Mass murder of defenceless civilians
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 24 Jun 17 - 04:39 AM

How did prosperous, oil rich Venezuela become a starving basket case?

Subject: RE: BS: Mass murder of defenceless civilians
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Jun 17 - 04:38 AM

Sorry Robo - your posting adds nothing substantial to what has been said - all the first sentence does is set up an aggressive barrier.
I apologise for the typos - can't be bothered to get Deutscher's works down from the shelf to check and my memory isn't what it is
My typos are down to the speed I type - my fingers move faster than my brain nowadays - somewhat ungracious of you to mention it, but there you go.
I read a lot and tend to rely on what I have read rather than anecdotal evidence, though I accept both are important.
I hold no brief for Stalin and what he did, but I think that what the Soviet Union was attempting in the early days was important enough to try and understand.
I was in Czechoslovakia on the morning that the Russians opened the barriers after the invasion and I spent several weeks with people who had taken part in the protests - Velvet Revolutionaries all - I didn't meet one who would wish to swap their system for that in the West - though many envied the material gains.
You choose to use the flaws to attack the system - I would rather understand the flaws so they can be avoided in future
As for Ireland (also a major interest of mine)
The only difference of what happened in their famine and the one we are discussing is that ours was probably deliberately manipulated to solve political problems - I don't believe this was the case with Stalin.
A failure to even consider that makes you a denier of what they refer to here as 'The Irish Holocaust' (which is, quite rightly, illegal when applied to the Jewish one)
If you wish to continue with this, I suggest you do so with the psychoanalyses (or the side use of typos) - we are not good enough friends for you to be accurate.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Mass murder of defenceless civilians
From: robomatic
Date: 23 Jun 17 - 02:57 PM

Jim:
Your post of 22 June kinda broke our disagreements into the open, as I think I made clear in my "Wow" post. I currently understand you as a practiser of major doublethink. You remind me of a coworker of mine, very good at engineering, politically a major climate-change denier and Trump supporter of hugely dogmatic proportions, in other words, you can't even have a conversation about it. On the other hand, he can be funny and the source of good quotes. We go out for coffee and can have a good time only we simply cannot discuss some things because his voice will go strident, his eyes will glaze, and his phrases will be pre-programmed.

I find the Irish famine of the 1850s and the Holodomor of the 1930s to be entirely different events. I don't know much actual history about either one to make intelligent studious conversation in this forum. But I don't think I need to. I understood that the Ukrainians felt so 'hard done by' the Soviets that their WWII German invaders were welcomed as liberators. The Nazis unfortunately were embedded in their racist ideology that Slavs were a lower class of human and their lands were to be forgeit; eventually disabused the Ukrainians that they had been liberated in any way.

There are strong Ukrainian populations in The United States and Canada, and back East I knew some of 'em. In the U.S. there is more concentration on a celebration of Slavic culture and I've seen more Russian/ Ukrainian fellowship than contention because it is based on music and choreography. There is alos a lot of intermarriage. In that sense they have an English/Irish type relationship thing going.

But no one forgets where the axe is buried.

Earlier on you mentioned books by Deuscher. Your postings have many typos and I think you meant to refer to the historian Isaac Deutscher. My mother had a copy of "The Prophet Armed" which I think I inherited, but I've not read his works. Therefore I can't speak with knowledge about him.

When my father courted my mother, he met many of her co-students, and there were many Communists among them. He never forgot the various sects: Stalinists, Trotskyites, and various hyphenated Socialists. They were founts of various sorts of dogma, more concerned with being true to some 'theory' than real issues of human needs and behaviors. And they all hated each other with mortal venom, and did not hesitate to say so.

It is not the "Communism" per se that I have grown up rejecting, but evil CERTAINTY that has no problem crucifying the innocent on the cross of ideology. I think, judging by your posts and what you choose to hang your hat on versus reject, that you have more than your fair share. To quote somebody you probably do not admire (with reason): "I beseech you, by the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken!"

Subject: RE: BS: Mass murder of defenceless civilians
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 23 Jun 17 - 09:53 AM

Didn't see this earlier Robo - the bullshit got in the way
In an earlier post in the thread above the line about Stalin folksongs I believe you referred to Khruschev's revelation of Stalin's crimes. Are you denying that in this thread?"
Denying what - that Stalin committed crimes?
Of course I am not - thought I had made that clear.
I am saying that what happened in the Ukraine was more about dogmatic stupidity than criminality, based on his "You have to break eggs make an ommlette
Plenty of crimes elsewhere
That is why I contrasted it with the outcome of the Irish Famine which I believe was deliberate, based on Sir Charles Trevellion's belief that the Famine was God's punishment on the "evil" Irish
"The judgement of God sent the calamity to teach the Irish a lesson, that calamity must not be too much mitigated. …The real evil with which we have to contend is not the physical evil of the Famine, but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the people.
Charles Trevelyan, head of administration for famine relief, 1840s"
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Mass murder of defenceless civilians
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 23 Jun 17 - 09:01 AM

We've been here a hundred times
"To distribute the corn meal, a practical, business-like plan was developed in which the Relief Commission sold the meal at cost to local relief committees which in turn sold it at cost to the Irish at justTurbulent opening of the store in Cork selling Peel's Indian Corn. one penny per pound. But peasants soon ran out of money and most landowners failed to contribute any money to maintain the relief effort.
Laissez-Faire
In deciding their course of action during the Famine, British government officials and administrators rigidly adhered to the popular theory of the day, known as laissez-faire (meaning let it be), which advocated a hands-off policy in the belief that all problems would eventually be solved on their own through 'natural means.'
Great efforts were thus made to sidestep social problems and avoid any interference with private enterprise or the rights of property owners. Throughout the entire Famine period, the British government would never provide massive food aid to Ireland under the assumption that English landowners and private businesses would have been unfairly harmed by resulting food price fluctuations.
In adhering to laissez-faire, the British government also did not interfere with the English-controlled export business in Irish-grown grains. Throughout the Famine years, large quantities of native-grown wheat, barley, oats and oatmeal sailed out of places such as Limerick and Waterford for England, even though local Irish were dying of starvation. Irish farmers, desperate for cash, routinely sold the grain to the British in order to pay the rent on their farms and thus avoid eviction.
In the first year of the Famine, deaths from starvation were kept down due to the imports of Indian corn and survival of about half the original potato crop. Poor Irish survived the first year by selling off their livestock and pawning their meager possessions whenever necessary to buy food. Some borrowed money at high interest from petty money-lenders, known as gombeen men. They also fell behind on their rents."
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Mass murder of defenceless civilians
From: Teribus
Date: 23 Jun 17 - 06:19 AM

1: Relief corn was not sold

2: "The Russell Government closed all the relief centres and workhouses his previous Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel had opened"

Taking that statement at face value is extremely difficult when confronted with the evidence in the form of recorded fact that there were more relief centres/workhouses in Ireland at the end of the famine than there was at the beginning. But then there were no such places in Ireland at all before the Act of Union, the poor and the destitute simply had to fend for themselves as best they could.

The deliberate starvation of the population of the Ukraine under Stalin is documented fact

Subject: RE: BS: Mass murder of defenceless civilians
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 23 Jun 17 - 03:16 AM

Incidentally
The Kulaks were better off peasants who, when the people needed food the most, slaughtered their livestock rather than share it with those who needed it.
Go look it up
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Mass murder of defenceless civilians
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 23 Jun 17 - 02:12 AM

"WTF are you wittering on about Jom?"
Before we go any further perhaps it's time to sort things out once and for all
Some time ago we were asked to grow up and stop calling each other childish names - all of us more or less took on that suggestion except you, who, in your defence has little to offer other that your contemptuous bullying aggression.
I find this subject interesting, but I'm fucked if I have any intention participating in it with an arrogant twat who can't be arsed to conduct himself in a half-decent adult manner.
Learn to behave as if those who disagree with you aren't no nothing morons to be talked down to and insulted and you might have a smidgen of an idea of the subject in hand and you might have a place here, otherwise, kindly go fuck yourself.
My chosen name on this forum is Jim Carroll - your pathetic attempts to talk be down with bullying and bluster has fucked up far to many threads and it stands to fuck up another one here
Grow up and act like an adult or go away
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Mass murder of defenceless civilians
From: Teribus
Date: 22 Jun 17 - 03:42 PM

"the 14 countries who provided support for those who would re-establish the old order (coincidentally!! the same people who regarded "New Germany as a bulwark against Communism") must share part of the blame for what happened etween the Wars in the Soviet Union

WTF are you wittering on about Jom?

Here is the time line for you:

Russian Civil War 1918 to 1921

Kulak Pogrom 1929 to 1931 - Where Stalin deliberately wiped out the only people in Russia with the knowledge to farm the land efficiently 1.25 million of them. (The USSR never did manage to feed itself)

Holodomor 1932 to 1933

Now then Jom I make that 8 years that Lenin and then Stalin had an entirely free hand to put things right - Why didn't they? Rhetorical question my little scouse tooth-sucker - they didn't because they were ideologically driven fuckwits interested only in themselves and in power, the people of "mother Russia", as far as they were concerned, were just incidental, insignificant pawns on the board that were there to be exploited, abused and disposed off as they saw fit.

Subject: RE: BS: Mass murder of defenceless civilians
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 22 Jun 17 - 03:28 PM

"Aid was sent to Ireland"
And sold at unaffordable market prices while the homegrown food already there was locked in warehouses and guarded by armed soldiers (four times the amount required to feed the starving)
The Russell Government closed all the relief centres and workhouses his previous Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel had opened
Those who couldn't afford to pay their rents were evicted and left to starve on the roadside and the survivors were given the choice "emigrate or die"
This was a deliberate act of genocide.
Stalin couldn't have had that written into his government's policy - too many Communists left
As I said, Stalin's policy was directed by incompetence and the fact that he had an Empire to feed, not a small Island.
There is no comparison whatever with the deliberate act of genocide the Famine was manipulated to be.
By the way - one million died of starvation in Ireland - the number who were forced to emigrate due to the famine continued to rise right through the 19th century and up to independence - the aftershocks were still being felt up to the Celtic Tiger in the mid 1990s when the economy began to pick up thanks to the EU
"So the Ukraine famine was due to potato blight?"
Who said it was"?
It was the result of an attempt to collectivise in order to feed the whole Soviert Union - not artificially created - the scheme failed
Estimates of teh dead trange fro 2 million to 12 depending on your political persuasion
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Mass murder of defenceless civilians
From: Teribus
Date: 22 Jun 17 - 02:02 PM

"the Ukraine famine was no different than the Irish one - both were mismanaged - but even that is a complex issue.
The "democratic nations"
There is evidence that the Irish famine was deliberately mismanaged to solve "The Irish Problem" - the same cannot be said about the Soviet one - no proof exists that it was anything other than a bungled job under extraordinarily difficult circumstances."

1: There is no such "evidence"

2: Differences between the "Holodomor" and the "Great Hunger" were as follows:

Irish Famine - Aid was sent to Ireland
Holodomor - Aid was forbidden

Irish Famine - People from the worst affected areas were encouraged to move
Holodomor - People were not allowed to move

Irish Famine - Lasted from 1845 until 1852 during which 1.5 million people emigrated, 1 million died from diseases that at the time had no known cure and 0.5 million died of starvation.

Holodomor - Lasted from 1932 until 1933 during which somewhere between 2.5 million and 12 million people died of starvation or execution (These numbers do not include the extermination of 1,252,093 "Kulaks" that occurred between 1929 and 1931 whose deaths were a major contributing factor in ensuring the horrific scale of death in the Holodomor)

Yet for some reason Jom doesn't make any mention of the "Kulaks" - wonder why?

Subject: RE: BS: Mass murder of defenceless civilians
From: robomatic
Date: 22 Jun 17 - 01:43 PM

Jim:

Wow- Just. Wow.

So the Ukraine famine was due to potato blight? Just the same? And Ukrainians were able to migrate to America to save a portion of their number?

Jim. You need some time for reflection. No argument from me can save you. You are way down the looking glass. Way Way Down.

I remember being on a Soviet train listening to a story about Stalin being interviewed about the cost of collectivization. Stalin held up ten fingers. Each finger was a million dead. Sure that's just a story. But the casual cruelty of the Soviet system over generations is not undocumented. Your post above is not materially different than denying the Holocaust.

In an earlier post in the thread above the line about Stalin folksongs I believe you referred to Khruschev's revelation of Stalin's crimes. Are you denying that in this thread?

You seem to think that declaring Stalin an enemy of the left will somehow balance things. Stalin had ANYONE who he felt was a threat done away with by one means or another.

Until you make room in your historical closet for monsters, you cannot capture the Kremlin mountaineer nor what he did to his country and his people, and a lot of other countries and their people, including ours.

Subject: RE: BS: Mass murder of defenceless civilians
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 22 Jun 17 - 11:22 AM

"Dyadkin estimated that the USSR suffered 56 to 62 million "unnatural deaths" during that (Stalin's) period, with 34 to 49 million directly linked to Stalin. In "Europe A History," British historian Norman Davies counted 50 million killed between 1924-53, excluding wartime casualties."

Subject: RE: BS: Mass murder of defenceless civilians
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 22 Jun 17 - 09:35 AM

The Gulags, Salt Mines and Siberian work camps were not his - they were an established Russian form of punishment and suppressing offten - fine when the Tsar was running them apparently but condemned under Soviet control
There is no record of how many were sent there because that opposed Stalin or how many were criminals or opponents of the state wishing to bring back the old system... or whatever
Stalin may have used them to dispose of opponents, but to say those opponents surpassed the numbers of the Holocaust was nonsense.
The greatest number of fatalities under Stalin were though incompetence and the mishandling of national crises - certainly not deliberate suppression of opposition.
Stalin regarded the left as much as an enemy as he did the right - he destroyed Socialism, he in no way represented it.
The numbers game is nonsense anyway - the Ukraine famine was no different than the Irish one - both were mismanaged - but even that is a complex issue.
The "democratic nations"
There is evidence that the Irish famine was deliberately mismanaged to solve "The Irish Problem" - the same cannot be said about the Soviet one - no proof exists that it was anything other than a bungled job under extraordinarily difficult circumstances.
I have no doubt that the usual suspect with claim this to be a defence of Stalin - it is not
I detest Stalin for his destruction of teh Socialist dream, but the 14 countries who provided support for those who would re-establish the old order (coincidentally!! the same people who regarded "New Germany as a bulwark against Communism") must share part of the blame for what happened etween the Wars in the Soviet Union
The whole period is incredibly complex and cennot be dealt with by out of context cut-'n-pastes and soundbites)   
Read Deuscher (in context of all his books) or Trotsy (history of teh revolution and biography of Stalin, or Vinagradov's biographies of the manin leader and his "Empire")
A lorra, lorra reading, I'm afraid
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Mass murder of defenceless civilians
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 22 Jun 17 - 08:37 AM

Yes Don, by a considerable margin.

Subject: RE: BS: Mass murder of defenceless civilians
From: Donuel
Date: 22 Jun 17 - 08:33 AM

Reading is a humbling experience for me but I don't want to go down that boring dyslexic road again. If anything I am lucky.

In sheer numbers of victims killed by Stalin's Gulags, Salt Mines and Siberian work camps, is it true he surpassed the holocaust by Germany?

Subject: RE: BS: Mass murder of defenceless civilians
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 22 Jun 17 - 06:18 AM

"Jim unlike you, my reading a book is a very serious associative and strenuous exercise. "
Sorry Don
I didn't realise you were so familiar with my readings habits
I started to read regularly around the age of 12 and since then I cannot remember when I haven't had a book on the go.
I confess I tend to take less time over John Grisham or J G Sansom than I do over Dickens or Hardy, but I take all books I wish to retain very seriously - I am in the habit of taking notes from those that spill over into my personal interests, like traditional music or politics.
A little arrogant and disparaging, I think
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Mass murder of defenceless civilians
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 22 Jun 17 - 04:38 AM

Sorry
No progress with this - just repetitive stonewalling
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Mass murder of defenceless civilians
From: Donuel
Date: 21 Jun 17 - 09:27 PM

I agreed with every single point in robomatic's most recent post.
Could all these facts I agree with be a product of exposure to the same propaganda, party line and the same news machinery or is the ideology and information that perfectly aligned?

Perhaps in this crazy era of fake news I am becoming too suspicious.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.


Jim unlike you, my reading a book is a very serious associative and strenuous exercise. Thank you for your recommendations.

Subject: RE: BS: Mass murder of defenceless civilians
From: robomatic
Date: 21 Jun 17 - 06:23 PM

Jim:

I feel for what it is to lose a post. I started my last longish post a couple days ago in a posh Anchorage Starbucks, swatted a mosquito as big as my knuckle then found I'd lost my post. For some reason when I type up a long paragraph, the computer will select a large patch of it and if I hit one other key it evaporates. The hazards of using an old laptop with an off-center touchpad.
Anyhow, while I think there are definite differences between societies, as I have already posted, I could add that from my point of view many supposed democracies, hence Democracy, are under severe challenge right now. Zimbabwe has long been a depressive regime under the over-long lifespan of Mugabe. South Africa is underachieving under the corrupt ANC. North Africa is full of frightful killer regimes. Venezuela has been ruined by Chavez and his heir. The Phillipines have elected, literally, a mass killer who is imprisoning his political opponents, and in Turkey the secular legacy of Kemal Atatuk is being corrupted and is falling to the dictatorial Erdogan.
In Russia the ex-KGB agent running the show is perpetrating a rule by mafia, and of the once Socialist Republics many have gone under the sway of strongmen.
China is sort of in a netherworld, by form maintaining a Communist vener, but in reality woshipping the almighty dollar and going through the motions of fighting corrupt officialdom. Is Vietnam doing the same?
Funny how the countries once colonized or occupied by the English have maintained or strengthened their modicums of constitutional government. Does Ireland count?

Other interesting books of or for these times:

All the King's Men by the poet Robert Penn Warren. (Very) loosely based on the career of Huey Long of Louisiana.
Dark Horse by Doug Richardson. Story of a political race in Texas where one of the candidates has no behaviorial boundries. Kind of a guilty pleasure novel.