Response to Tim's Comments
Hey Folks -
A while back, I received two comments from Tim. They are posted below, followed by my response.
- Uke Man
Tim said (in response to: http://www.ukuleleman.net/2007/06/twisted-media.html ) :
There were a lot of poor people in Cuba under Batista. But there were a lot more under Castro. Likewise, the standard of living for rural Chinese fell even further under Mao, many even starving to death. And again, Russia's poor got even poorer after the Communist revolution.
Similar arguments were made to justify each of these situations.
So many people don't believe that Chavez, who embraces the same policies, will help the poor either: we believe he will make their lot even worse, just as the people he follows did.
So it doesn't look to us like Chavez is trading liberty for decreased poverty, but rather than he's bringing the Venezuelan people the worst of both worlds.
1:20 PM
*****************
Tim said (in response to: http://www.ukuleleman.net/2007/07/democracy-whats-that.html ) :
"... if America were even half the shining exemplar we, as children, learned it was; such an opinion [that American democracy is distasteful to others] could not exist."
Of course it could. During the cold war, huge numbers of Western Intellectuals thought Stalin's USSR was far more moral than the US. We had racism, they only had mass starvation... and racism.
In the 1970s, students all over the US (and the world) embraced Mao. Yet, for all our faults, Mao was far, far worse: he'd starved millions of his own people to death, and supported violent thugs in countries as far away as Peru.
World opinion often supports the worst of two options; it holds a few nations to what are sometimes impossibly high standards, and yet gives a pass (or even laudatory praise) to genuinely awful actors.
While criticisms of all the folks you negatively characterize can be made, criticism of the American system (throughout history) can also be made. These criticisms (both left & right) must be as objective as possible if they are to be anything more than partisan faith-based propaganda (sometimes described as "a pissing contest")..
You make a lot of claims about people starving under leftist Bogeymen. Part of what precipitated the Russian Revolution, however, was bread riots under the Tsar. Droughts caused starving in large parts of China in Mao’s day. People are starving all around the world right now, and most of them are in capitalist countries. So, Mao is accused of killing people who starved because of a drought. Insurance companies call droughts “acts of God.”
On what do you base your belief that peasants’ standard of living dropped under Mao? I doubt that; likewise I doubt your claim about Russia’s poor. Russia was the last European nation to end serfdom.
As for Cuba, go back and view the Godfather movie when the Mafia boys are in Batista’s Havana watching a woman have sex with a donkey. Look into the nature of health care and education for the poor BEFORE the revolution. Check out that evil Michael Moore’s latest flick regarding health care in Cuba today.
I don’t think your numbers are right regarding Cuba’s pre and post revolution poverty, either. In any case, the pre-Castro numbers in poverty existed with the blessing of our “Christian” nation, and after Castro they were helped into poverty by our “Christian” country’s economic embargo. And, by the way, how many homeless people are there in Cuba today?
You suggest that “intellectuals” were wrong in their view of Stalin and that “we” were much better – we had racism, but he had racism AND starvation. I bet that was great solace to African Americans.
Your comments that Mao was “far, far worse” than America and its faults and that Mao “supported violent thugs in countries as far away as Peru” expose your one-sided view. The list of thugs “we” have supported goes on and on and on. The “thug-ery” our “Christian” nation has perpetrated all over the world - here upon the Native Americans and people of color and as far away as the Philippines and Viet Nam – can’t just be swept under the rug.
This sort of thing is why I write so much about how the press blindly repeats and endorses the self-serving propaganda of imperial American interests. We are not “a shining city on the hill.” We have not been “sent on a mission by God.” We are NOT “very, very” different from the rest of the world.
It doesn’t help America or the world to think we are. Idolizing ourselves and demonizing everyone else is not just wrong; it’s not just delusional; it’s not only harmful to the rest of the world; it’s destructive of America and the ideals we all were taught and, supposedly, are expected to believe and live by.
Lying to ourselves about how good we are compared to everyone else is prideful blindness, something a Christian country would have no problem recognizing and no reluctance resisting.
The point (and the reason I write) is to find the truth – whatever it may be – NOT to pick a “truth” and then defend it by whatever means necessary. Doubt is real, honorable, and defensible; certainty is artificial, cowardly, and demented.
Certainty is much more comforting than doubt, hence religion; but the certainty provided by religion is based only on faith, and how can one know which "certainty" among the many offered is worthy of faith? Hence the phrase "leap of faith."
If ten different religions claim to be the only true religion, at least nine of them have to be wrong; but somebody signs on with each of them. At that point, they can quit thinking and start defending their particular "certainty" and demonizing all its competitors. This isn't designed or likely to reveal much truth, but it can often give peace of mind.
Most people seem to take this path, but it IS, nevertheless, artificial (the result of a blind leap), cowardly ( "Those who are willing to trade freedom for security deserve neither freedom nor security."--Benjamin Franklin), and demented (i.e. away from the mind - using one's feelings rather than one's mind).
- Uke Man
A while back, I received two comments from Tim. They are posted below, followed by my response.
- Uke Man
Tim said (in response to: http://www.ukuleleman.net/2007/06/twisted-media.html ) :
There were a lot of poor people in Cuba under Batista. But there were a lot more under Castro. Likewise, the standard of living for rural Chinese fell even further under Mao, many even starving to death. And again, Russia's poor got even poorer after the Communist revolution.
Similar arguments were made to justify each of these situations.
So many people don't believe that Chavez, who embraces the same policies, will help the poor either: we believe he will make their lot even worse, just as the people he follows did.
So it doesn't look to us like Chavez is trading liberty for decreased poverty, but rather than he's bringing the Venezuelan people the worst of both worlds.
1:20 PM
*****************
Tim said (in response to: http://www.ukuleleman.net/2007/07/democracy-whats-that.html ) :
"... if America were even half the shining exemplar we, as children, learned it was; such an opinion [that American democracy is distasteful to others] could not exist."
Of course it could. During the cold war, huge numbers of Western Intellectuals thought Stalin's USSR was far more moral than the US. We had racism, they only had mass starvation... and racism.
In the 1970s, students all over the US (and the world) embraced Mao. Yet, for all our faults, Mao was far, far worse: he'd starved millions of his own people to death, and supported violent thugs in countries as far away as Peru.
World opinion often supports the worst of two options; it holds a few nations to what are sometimes impossibly high standards, and yet gives a pass (or even laudatory praise) to genuinely awful actors.
********************
Tim,
You are welcome to your views; they are probably very reassuring. Unfortunately - in varying degrees - they are inaccurate, over-simplified, exclusive of important facts and considerations, and clearly driven by one-sided patriotic faith rather than an open-minded consideration of material reality.While criticisms of all the folks you negatively characterize can be made, criticism of the American system (throughout history) can also be made. These criticisms (both left & right) must be as objective as possible if they are to be anything more than partisan faith-based propaganda (sometimes described as "a pissing contest")..
You make a lot of claims about people starving under leftist Bogeymen. Part of what precipitated the Russian Revolution, however, was bread riots under the Tsar. Droughts caused starving in large parts of China in Mao’s day. People are starving all around the world right now, and most of them are in capitalist countries. So, Mao is accused of killing people who starved because of a drought. Insurance companies call droughts “acts of God.”
On what do you base your belief that peasants’ standard of living dropped under Mao? I doubt that; likewise I doubt your claim about Russia’s poor. Russia was the last European nation to end serfdom.
As for Cuba, go back and view the Godfather movie when the Mafia boys are in Batista’s Havana watching a woman have sex with a donkey. Look into the nature of health care and education for the poor BEFORE the revolution. Check out that evil Michael Moore’s latest flick regarding health care in Cuba today.
I don’t think your numbers are right regarding Cuba’s pre and post revolution poverty, either. In any case, the pre-Castro numbers in poverty existed with the blessing of our “Christian” nation, and after Castro they were helped into poverty by our “Christian” country’s economic embargo. And, by the way, how many homeless people are there in Cuba today?
You suggest that “intellectuals” were wrong in their view of Stalin and that “we” were much better – we had racism, but he had racism AND starvation. I bet that was great solace to African Americans.
Your comments that Mao was “far, far worse” than America and its faults and that Mao “supported violent thugs in countries as far away as Peru” expose your one-sided view. The list of thugs “we” have supported goes on and on and on. The “thug-ery” our “Christian” nation has perpetrated all over the world - here upon the Native Americans and people of color and as far away as the Philippines and Viet Nam – can’t just be swept under the rug.
This sort of thing is why I write so much about how the press blindly repeats and endorses the self-serving propaganda of imperial American interests. We are not “a shining city on the hill.” We have not been “sent on a mission by God.” We are NOT “very, very” different from the rest of the world.
It doesn’t help America or the world to think we are. Idolizing ourselves and demonizing everyone else is not just wrong; it’s not just delusional; it’s not only harmful to the rest of the world; it’s destructive of America and the ideals we all were taught and, supposedly, are expected to believe and live by.
Lying to ourselves about how good we are compared to everyone else is prideful blindness, something a Christian country would have no problem recognizing and no reluctance resisting.
The point (and the reason I write) is to find the truth – whatever it may be – NOT to pick a “truth” and then defend it by whatever means necessary. Doubt is real, honorable, and defensible; certainty is artificial, cowardly, and demented.
Certainty is much more comforting than doubt, hence religion; but the certainty provided by religion is based only on faith, and how can one know which "certainty" among the many offered is worthy of faith? Hence the phrase "leap of faith."
If ten different religions claim to be the only true religion, at least nine of them have to be wrong; but somebody signs on with each of them. At that point, they can quit thinking and start defending their particular "certainty" and demonizing all its competitors. This isn't designed or likely to reveal much truth, but it can often give peace of mind.
Most people seem to take this path, but it IS, nevertheless, artificial (the result of a blind leap), cowardly ( "Those who are willing to trade freedom for security deserve neither freedom nor security."--Benjamin Franklin), and demented (i.e. away from the mind - using one's feelings rather than one's mind).
- Uke Man
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home