Is Deliberately Starving Millions of the Populace to death A Good Thing

lostinrates

actually the very fact we know about the heinous situation of the 80 year old and the anti terror laws is at least a positive for freedom of speech, and the ability to let that be part of a balanced picture to base a vote on.

Generali

ninky wrote: »

link to source material please.

you ignore the prevention aspect of a non capitalist system. if there wasn't a capitalist system solely motivated by profit in the first place then free food distribution and bankrupting of farmers as you suggest would not be necessary. if the workers were fairly paid in the first place and food prices capped by the government as well as provided to local markets before foreign markets were supplied then large sections of the population wouldn't have been priced out in the first place.

as i said before there was only an 11 percent drop in yield for the 2005 famine which is not enough to explain the famine. and it's not really a 'famine' as such if there is food for sale. it is more a case of how the food / wealth is distributed.

http://www.who.int/hac/donorinfo/campaigns/ner/en/index.html

There is no 'prevention system' in a non-capitalist system. Communism doesn't produce more efficitent farms. In fact (going back to the OP) Communism's lack of efficiency has regularly led to some pretty horrific outcomes for the populace.

carolt wrote: »

Don't be offended, let alone deeply so, as my 'fools' comment was not directed at you.

I thought the earlier poster who pointed out that Generali's OP was rather aimed at 'straw men' explained my views pretty well - of course Stalin did lots of awful things under the name of communism; but that doesn't make the ideology bad; it makes Stalin bad. Clearly the set-up in the Soviet Union was - to put it mildly - bloody awful.

The point I was trying to make is that the OP is trying to propose some kind of position in which communism = bad because bad stuff has been done by nominally communist countries. But it ignores (conveniently) all the equally bad stuff done by capitalist societies, because it doesn't suit Generali's clear and oft-stated bias.

I think the important points to note - and that you yourself make, without realising it, in your own post quoted above - is that dictatorships - be they nominally communist, fascist or whatever - are generally dreadful.

What Stalin did was no more communism than what Hitler did was socialism - there is nothing inherent in communism that states that one should kill doctors. For example.

Your very emotive post - and believe me, with your family experience, I do understand why you feel so strongly on the subject - makes clear why you find it so hard to take on board that ideologies like communism had good points too. (Even if the putting in practice of those idelogies hasn't always...) And that the alternative - which the OP believes is the source of all good in the world - is not actually the panacea it's cracked up to be.

Lots of dreadful, awful things happen daily as a result of capitalism and the profit motive - to imagine that all the ills lie in communist systems only is - whilst understandable in your case - to wilfully shut your eyes to all the terrible things that take place in non-communist systems too.

Terrible things happen under Capitalism, often in the name of the profit motive: Bhopal springs to mind for example. The willful starving to death of millions of the population of the country has never happened in a Capitalist system yet has happened repeatedly under Communism.

ninky wrote: »

well said. and i'm quite shocked that generali ideologically defends the position that where people are starving because they a priced out of the market it is okay because the alternatives would bankrupt farmers. i don't see how this is any better than stalin allowing people to starve because it somehow served an ideology for the 'greater good'.

A free market nor communism can magic food up out of the air in the middle of a famine. What do you think the consequences of the confiscation of food would have been?

FWIW, these people seem to feel that part of the problem was that the President refused to ask for help.

The coup took place as aid agencies and the government were bracing for food shortages and acute malnutrition after poor rains last year. Niger suffered similar problems in 2005 but Tandja's government delayed publicly calling for help.
Addressing the nation on state television on Sunday, Djibo said all means were urgently being deployed to tackle the famine, which "threatens the existence of millions of Nigeriens in virtually all regions."
Although the largely desert nation is better prepared to tackle the crisis than it was in 2005, aid workers say that it was difficult to talk openly about food shortages under Tandja because the issue was so sensitive.

What do you think happens to people who talk about 'sensitive' issues in places like Niger do you think? link

Authorities in the west African nation of Niger have arrested the editor of a weekly newspaper over an article on alleged government corruption, a global media watchdog said on Wednesday.

From the United Nations' UNHCR:

Six independent Nigerien journalists were sentenced to prison in 2008 for reporting on corruption or government mismanagement, according to CPJ research.

Kohoutek

ninky wrote: »

at least being a member of groups like liberty is not illegal in this country. and although the 80 year old was dragged out he wasn't 'disappeared' or made to issue a counter-apology under duress.

You have very low expectations for civil liberties. If being a member of an organisation that campaigns for freedom was illegal, or Walter Wolfgang was murdered by the police, then we would be living in a totalitarian state like Nazi Germany.

I would prefer to live in a society where the government wasn't constantly trying to abridge the rights of citizens, e.g. Blair's wish to legalise arbitrary arrest and detention by allowing 96 days of custody without charge. The right of habeas corpus comes from the Magna Carta (1215), yet Mr Blair was arrogant enough to consider abolishing it, whilst he simultaneously pursued an illegal war in the Middle East.

If we live in a free society, when is Tony Blair going to be put on trial for his crimes against peace and crimes against humanity? It seems unfair that people like Rudolph Hess served a life sentence for the same crimes, yet Blair is free to earn millions consulting for banks and oil companies.

harryhound

tomterm8 wrote: »

Presumably it is talking about average life expectancy, which as you know can be skewed by infant mortality rates... which, in a country without modern medicine must have been very high.

I think civil engineers have a lot more to do with good health than doctors do.

Its official today: "Dirty water is killing more people than wars do"

ninky_2

Generali wrote: »

http://www.who.int/hac/donorinfo/campaigns/ner/en/index.html

There is no 'prevention system' in a non-capitalist system. Communism doesn't produce more efficitent farms. In fact (going back to the OP) Communism's lack of efficiency has regularly led to some pretty horrific outcomes for the populace.

yes there are. what do you call a welfare state? not necessarily communist but not capitalist either.



Terrible things happen under Capitalism, often in the name of the profit motive: Bhopal springs to mind for example. The willful starving to death of millions of the population of the country has never happened in a Capitalist system yet has happened repeatedly under Communism.

i once again site the dust bowl famine as example.


A free market nor communism can magic food up out of the air in the middle of a famine.What do you think the consequences of the confiscation of food would have been?

so you why do you blame communism for famine but when examples are sited of famine in capitalist countries you blame 'natural' events or claim it was unavoidable? who is saying food should be confiscated? why not provide welfare assistance to those too poor to buy the food available?

FWIW, these people seem to feel that part of the problem was that the President refused to ask for help.



What do you think happens to people who talk about 'sensitive' issues in places like Niger do you think? link

just goes to show a capitalist economy does not prevent human rights abuses. other things are needed such as a fair and just society.

From the United Nations' UNHCR:

i really think you are blinkered on this one generali.

ninky_2

Kohoutek wrote: »

If we live in a free society, when is Tony Blair going to be put on trial for his crimes against peace and crimes against humanity? It seems unfair that people like Rudolph Hess served a life sentence for the same crimes, yet Blair is free to earn millions consulting for banks and oil companies.

the winners of wars never get tried for war crimes. yet sense tells us there must have been some committed. i'm sure even those countries fighting against hitler committed war crimes in ww2. our view of history is never neutral.

Kohoutek

ninky wrote: »

the winners of wars never get tried for war crimes. yet sense tells us there must have been some committed. i'm sure even those countries fighting against hitler committed war crimes in ww2. our view of history is never neutral.

Well I think the main crime was starting the war in the first place. You're right, the Allies did some pretty horrendous things in WWII - like dropping two atomic bombs on Japan, but at least they had a legitimate reasons to go to war, e.g the US being attacked by Japan at Pearl Harbor.

We attacked a country had never threatened the UK or an ally of the UK military, on a pretext that was false. I thought we stopped starting wars to oppress people and control their natural resources when we stopped being an empire. It's not realise surprising that we made a lot of Muslim angry by doing stuff like that.

Generali

ninky wrote: »

i really think you are blinkered on this one generali.

It's quite possible that I am.

I think lots of posters have forgotten or missed the reason that I put the poll up in the first place. The reason I did it wasn't to compare Communism with Capitalism, Corporatism, Facism or any other -ism, the reason I did it was to see in absolute terms, how many are prepared to give tacit, grudging or wholesale support to a set of regimes who deliberately persued policies that directly and knowingly led to tens of millions of deaths.

I find the results pretty shocking.

carolt

What do you find shocking?

I think communism had some good ideas, though in my study of it, at uni, I felt Marx's ideas would be perfect if only - and only if - people were too, which they aren't.

However, you're attempting to blame an ideology for the horrors committed in its name - that's just silly. It's not Marx's fault that Stalin hijacked the name he'd given his ideology, without also bothering to apply that ideology. I think he'd be pretty horrified with what had been done in his name, actually.

It's like saying I support everything the Labour party does because it's called the Labour party and pretends to embody those values - even though we all know that it's actually just the Tories under a different name-tag.

Sapphire

carolt wrote: »

Don't be offended, let alone deeply so, as my 'fools' comment was not directed at you.

Your very emotive post - and believe me, with your family experience, I do understand why you feel so strongly on the subject - makes clear why you find it so hard to take on board that ideologies like communism had good points too. (Even if the putting in practice of those idelogies hasn't always...) And that the alternative - which the OP believes is the source of all good in the world - is not actually the panacea it's cracked up to be.

Lots of dreadful, awful things happen daily as a result of capitalism and the profit motive - to imagine that all the ills lie in communist systems only is - whilst understandable in your case - to wilfully shut your eyes to all the terrible things that take place in non-communist systems too.

I certainly don't imagine that 'all the ills lie in communist systems'. To mention a few things, the most recently exposed corruption within this UK government and other 'high' places (which is not being dealt with) is staggering; capitalism in the West has led to corruption and decadence as the society has grown wealthier (even though in many cases this has been due to perceived rather than actual wealth); culture has been undermined and education standards have noticeably fallen; we are callously despoiling remote areas of rainforest with all their rich diversity of animal life through deforestation due to our greed and selfishness...

Going back to communism, the only thing that dissident friends of mine (at the time of communism) told me was good about communism was the education system. Under communism, even workers in Poland were educated to a relatively high standard. Another thing that the communist system produced (which I observed) was some great 'thinkers' and intellectuals among the dissidents, of the kind you rarely meet in the West. Perhaps it was because they were harshly persecuted by the authorities that they developed into fine people? And because people in Poland all lived on top of one another, with grandparents living with parents and grandchildren (often until the latter were adults and married themselves), there was a much greater sense of family and community, as opposed to the alienation you often get here.

But in general communism was a very bad and oppressive system, apart from for the loathsome party apparachiks in their dachas...