[PEN-L:9546] tiresome debates

[Michael Perelman <michael@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Look, I think that it is settled.  Brad and Max think that the left has
done unspeakable evil, while imperialism has done some rather bad
stuff.  Most of us disagree about the relative enomaties, but what I am
reading is becoming repetitive.

One minor point.  From the standpoint of subjectivity, the slaughter of
the Native Americans was a holocaust.  Many people were intent on wiping
out the indigenous population to make way for "civilization."

Max, or was it Brad, said that slavery was not.  They wanted to get the
work out of the slaves rather than kill them immediately.   I am not
clear about the difference.  I assume that those who got sick on the way
were just cast overboard.  The healthy were to be worked -- just as the
stronger Jews were in the concentration camp factories.

Unfortunately, the word Holocaust is both overused -- as in Kosovo --
and underused -- as in Rawanda.

One more question -- If slavery was not a Holocaust because the
intention was not immediate death -- how could the deaths in China or
the USSR be?  Did Mao or Stalin want to see their own nationality
exterminated?  What reason did they have for such violence.  Were they
merely psychopaths?  Stalin may have been in his later years, but that
was long after the masses of purported deaths occured.  All we hear
about this matters are speculations without too much of a substantial
basis.

It is a fact that the US has worked hard to support some of the most
murderous thugs that could exist.  [In all fairness, Mao joined with the
US in supporting Pinochet and some others.]  Here the intentionality is
clear.  Support the murderous bastards so that we can give our
corporations more $$$$ -- always in the name of some humanitarian
motive.  Remember when we saved the medical students in Grenada, who did
not even realize what dangerous conditions they faced.


--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail michael@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx