Re: This Memorable Day

2004-11-11 Thread Peter Gutmann
ken [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
James A. Donald wrote:
  So far the Pentagon has
 shattered the enemy while suffering casualties of about a thousand,
 which is roughly the same number of casualties as the British empire
 suffered doing regime change on the Zulu empire - an empire of a
 quarter of a million semi naked savages mostly armed with spears.

Be fair. They had a trained and disciplined army. Most of whom
would obey orders to the death. That's worth a hell of a lot in
battle.

You also had to look at what they were up against.  Witness the complete
massacre at Isandlwana (the classic Zulu bull-and-horns overran the
British camp because the troops were too far away from their ammunition
to resupply, no doubt copying Elphinstone's tactic in Afghanistan) vs.
post-Isandlwana use of Gatling batteries and massed field artillery 
(some of which was converted Naval artillery), e.g. Ulundi, where 
post-battle reports were of piles of Zulu dead mown down by Gatlings.

The British only thought that the Zulus were just semi-naked savages 
until Isandlwana.

Peter.



Re: This Memorable Day

2004-11-10 Thread ken
James A. Donald wrote:
 So far the Pentagon has
shattered the enemy while suffering casualties of about a thousand,
which is roughly the same number of casualties as the British empire
suffered doing regime change on the Zulu empire - an empire of a
quarter of a million semi naked savages mostly armed with spears.
Be fair. They had a trained and disciplined army. Most of whom 
would obey orders to the death. That's worth a hell of a lot in 
battle.



Re: This Memorable Day

2004-11-10 Thread R.A. Hettinga
At 9:00 PM + 11/10/04, ken wrote:
Be fair. They had a trained and disciplined army. Most of whom
would obey orders to the death. That's worth a hell of a lot in
battle.

Yeah, but the zulus had the wrong end of, well, the stick.

Take a look at, again, Hanson's Carnage and Culture for a nice discussion
of the Zulus in particular, and exactly why 18 brits in a hastily
constructed breastwork could hold off several thousand, killing most.

Cheers,
RAH
--
-- 
-
R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience. -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'



Re: This Memorable Day

2004-11-08 Thread John Kelsey
From: Peter Gutmann [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Nov 6, 2004 2:10 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: This Memorable Day

The figure that's usually quoted is that 80% of German's military force was
directed against Russia.  Of the remaining 20%, a lot had already been engaged
by France, the UK (via the BEF, the RAF, North Africa), Greece, etc etc before
the US got involved in Europe.  So the Russians should get most of the credit.

Yep.  I think to a first approximation, the US defeated Japan and the USSR 
defeated Germany.  My impression is that a lot of the push to do the D-Day 
invasion was to make sure the USSR didn't end up in possession of all of Europe 
at the end of the war.  (Given how things developed, this was a pretty sensible 
concern.)  

Peter.

--John



Re: This Memorable Day

2004-11-07 Thread John Young
The US made a bundle from WW1 and WW2 warfare, in both
cases being rescued from an economic slump, and some have
argued the US delayed sending troops as long as possible to
extend the demand for supplies, supplies which appeared to
always be insufficient but enough to keep the warring parties
going at it.

To be sure, the US Civil War provided the same beneficence
to its overseas exploiters, not to say domestic entrpreneurs,
not to say hordes of today's reenactors.

Historians have noted that Northern generals in particular 
worked hard to avoid battle while begging for more troops and 
supplies. Shrewd commentators write there could have been 
Southern-general complicity in this paradic churning before it 
got out of hand due to Lincoln demanding action to keep his
comfy future -- kapow! went the prez to his virgins.

It is a truism that power in leaders is enlarged during wartime,
no matter their ideology, so it is a surefire way to boost flagging
support (60 million can be that DUMB). And the more humans 
slaughtered the greater the support as each homeland, praise 
Allah's cloven hooves, and seeks revenge for the loss of its 
prime beef, and if all goes well, the fighting never comes home 
to roost in hilltop mansions, damn those paraplegics who 
won't parade their grotesqueries: axe their meds.

Red poppies, how do they bloom in November, remember Fallujah.
Halls of Montezuma, Shores of Tripoli, yadda.



Re: This Memorable Day

2004-11-06 Thread Peter Gutmann
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (=?iso-8859-1?Q?Tiarn=E1n_=D3_Corr=E1in?=) writes:

The Russians (for example) conquered Hitler's capital, Berlin. And I believe
the Russian zone in Germany was larger than any of the others, reflecting the
fact that Stalin bore most of entire burden of defeating Germany,
uncomfortable as it may be.

The figure that's usually quoted is that 80% of German's military force was
directed against Russia.  Of the remaining 20%, a lot had already been engaged
by France, the UK (via the BEF, the RAF, North Africa), Greece, etc etc before
the US got involved in Europe.  So the Russians should get most of the credit.

Peter.



Re: This Memorable Day

2004-11-05 Thread James A. Donald
--
Nomen Nescio wrote:
 To label any argument that points out the obvious circumstance that
 injustice feeds hatred as communist propaganda, is really only
 ridiculous, even if it's also dangerously incompetent and as such no
 real laughing matter.

 Why do you mention Bin Laden anyway? There are thousands of bigger
 and smaller groups around the world (they exists in every country
 more or less) that we'd label as terrorists in the western part of
 the world.
And all of them are instruments of the affluent and well connected.
For example Shining Path was not poor peasants, but academics and
students.
For the most part using terror are not those suffering injustice, and
all of them are those inflicting injustice.  This is particularly the
case with Islamic terror.  For the most part it is not those suffering
Dhimmi status that engage in terrorism, but those who in their native
countries are successful in inflicting Dhimmi status on those of the
incorrect religion, and who apply terror in the hope of expanding this
success.
Al Quaeda attacked westerners because of their considerable success in
murdering and raping Afghans.   Jemaah Islamiyah because of their
considerable success in murdering and raping Timorese and Ambionese.
Today's Islamic terrorism, like yesterday's communist terrorism, is
the actions of evil men whose considerably privilege and comfort
arises from the injustice and oppression that they have successfully
inflicted, and that they intend to inflict a great deal more of.
Back before the fall of communism, wherever the master's boot smashed
into the face of a child, you lot would loudly praise the master, and
demonize the child as a CIA agent.  Now, after the fall of communism,
you are still at it, even though the masters no longer even pretend to
be acting to defend the poor and oppressed.
--digsig
 James A. Donald
 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
 QeJ5sNOExxqx0Vq7NTG0bDDnwEip8vKbsX9+9d8i
 4IDiep3tuDmwKA77n4H3u9nHRV2g6oqOWQkRYfFcW



Re: This Memorable Day

2004-11-04 Thread alan
On Wed, 3 Nov 2004, Tyler Durden wrote:

 Well, this may actually be less hard than we thought. Indeed, it's the one 
 vaguely silver lining in this toxic cloud. Outsourcing to India will 
 actually add a lot to world stability. Of course, we'll loose a lot of jobs 
 in the process, but in the long run we'll eventually have another strong 
 trading partner like Japan or France or the Dutch. Bush will sell us out to 
 big business and all of the less-well-off will suffer like crazy in the 
 process, but it will actually make things better in the long run. The only 
 thing we need to worry about is not melting the ice caps in the process.

You forget that Bush and his cronies are Evangelical Christians.  They 
believe that the world is going to end *soon* and that it is a good thing. 

These are people who are doing everything they can to make the world a 
less stable place because in doing so they bring about armagedon.  (Then 
Jesus will come back and they will be rewarded for bringing about the 
deaths of billions.

Sometimes i wonder if they worship Jesus or Cthulhu.  (Maybe they are the 
same.  How else could he walk on water?)

-- 
Q: Why do programmers confuse Halloween and Christmas?
A: Because OCT 31 == DEC 25.



Re: This Memorable Day

2004-11-04 Thread Nomen Nescio
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R.A. Hettinga:

 Are you high, junior? Or is it just your politics that sound so...
 sophomoric?

 Communism, Fuck Yeah!!! States are People Too



Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.
(Euripides)


You too. Sad it is.

Howcome the Americans became so egocentrical and cynical that
anyone who dares to speak up and support compassion for his fellow
man automatically is a communist?

It's a sincere question, no doubt in my mind that we won't get a
sincere answer though.

Reading your email actually reminds me of those of Tim May, he
also seemed to be full of bigotry and hatred and deeply disliked
anyone who were unfortunate enough to be poor.


 Our culture -- yours, too, bunky, since I bet you don't shit into a
 hole in the floor and pray 5 times a day for, as Hanson
 appropriately  

No I don't shit into a hole, but I can still try to be unbiased
and extend a though or two to other people who are not so fortunate
as we are to be born in the rich part of the world.


 Ah. That's right. I'm not nuanced enough. It's too *complicated*
 for anyone who didn't take your sophomore (cryptomarxist) History
 Studies class, or whatever. Please.

To me it's enough to at least try to understand and try live by
the spirit of the Bible.

It's also quite ironical that all those right wing voters
actually read communist propaganda in church, since that is the
logical conclusion of your arguments made here.


 There we go. Wisdom from a thug. How about this thug, instead, kid,
 quoted just about as much out of context as you have yours:
 
 When the hares made speeches in the assembly and demanded that all
 should have equality, the lions replied, Where are your claws and
 teeth? -- attributed to Antisthenes in Aristotle, 'Politics',
 3.7.2  
 
 Oh. That's right. One shouldn't read Aristotle. He was a White Male
 Oppressor...

You like quotes, ok here I have a small collection for you, maybe
one or two of them qualifies as white oppressors too, I don't know.


Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups,
parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.
(Nietzsche)

An honest man can feel no pleasure in the 
exercise of power over his fellow citizens.
(Thomas Jefferson)

I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be
depended upon to meet any national crises. The great point is to
bring them the real facts.  
(Abraham Lincoln)

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless
they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.  
(Voltaire)

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the
homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of
totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?  
(Mahatma Gandhi)

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
(Martin Luther King)



 Sheesh. When will September ever end?

In my calendar it's November already, I don't know about yours.


Johnny Doelittle


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Re: This Memorable Day

2004-11-04 Thread Nomen Nescio
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James A. Donald:

 You are quite right, it is unjust that people like Bin Laden are so
 immensely rich with oil wealth.  To remedy this problem, Bush
 should confiscate the Middle Eastern oil reserves.
 
 You are using stale old communist rhetoric - but today's terrorists
 no longer not even pretend to fight on behalf of the poor and
 oppressed.  

This was quite lame and doesn't really deserve a response. 

To label any argument that points out the obvious circumstance
that injustice feeds hatred as communist propaganda, is really only
ridiculous, even if it's also dangerously incompetent and as such no
real laughing matter.

Why do you mention Bin Laden anyway? There are thousands of
bigger and smaller groups around the world (they exists in every
country more or less) that we'd label as terrorists in the western
part of the world. You think every one of these hundreds of thousands
or perhaps millions of recruits and followers are millionaires?
Fantastically lame comment to a real and important issue.

Should we take you seriously when you write these childish rants?

I don't know what to fear the most, the dangerous ignorance of
those of your kind or what dictatorial rulers may accomplish using
your ignorant kind as followers who do not question the truths from
the authorities. Hitler did it in the 30's election where some 37%
voted for the nazis, in a democratic multi-party election I might
add. Some of the ingrediences present then in Hitler's rhetoric are
also present today in Bush's rhetoric, even though I don't mean to
make the comparison .

We just cannot afford to be this naive.

I can't help thinking about the fact that we usually portray
Americans as a religious and church going people. Perhaps some 25%
attend church on a somewhat regular basis. To make matters worse
those people seem to vote for Bush(?). One can't help wonder if
they're literate and if they actually read the bible and it's message
of love, understanding, forgiveness and compassion for their fellow
man.

May god bless the world, we may need it.


Johnny Doelittle


Men willingly believe what they wish.
(Julius Caesar)

There is nothing worse than aggressive stupidity.
(von Goethe)


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Re: This Memorable Day

2004-11-04 Thread Tiarnán Ó Corráin
James A. Donald [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
 When it came to the part of the war that was purely a public good,
 conquering the German and Japanese homelands, America did indeed bear
 almost the whole burden, but when it came to defending Australia
 against the Japanese, the Australians bore the major burden, and
 similarly for most other battlefields outside of the aggressors'
 homelands.  

Nonsense. The Russians (for example) conquered Hitler's capital,
Berlin. And I believe the Russian zone in Germany was larger than any
of the others, reflecting the fact that Stalin bore most of entire
burden of defeating Germany, uncomfortable as it may be.


-- 
Tiarnán




Re: This Memorable Day

2004-11-04 Thread Peter Gutmann
James A. Donald [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

But it is hardly a matter of holding out.  So far the Pentagon has
shattered the enemy while suffering casualties of about a thousand,

We're talking about different things, the War on Bogeymen vs. the War for Oil.
In its war on bogeymen, the most notable thing the USG has achieved to date is
to create vastly more of them.  Its strategy is about as effective as the
paras were on Bloody Sunday, i.e. its actions serve mostly as a recruitment
drive for the opposition:

  I swear by Almighty God [...] to fight until we die in the field of red gore
  of the infidel tyrants and murderers.  Of our glorious faith, if spared to
  fight until not a single trace is left to tell that the Holy soil of our
  country was trodden by these infidels.  Also these robbers and brutes, these
  unbelievers of our faith, will be driven into the sea, by fire, the knife or
  by poison cup until we of the true faith clear these infidels from our
  lands.

(Whoever wrote the original was definitely no English lit major).

Peter.



Re: This Memorable Day

2004-11-03 Thread R.A. Hettinga
At 6:29 PM +1300 11/3/04, Peter Gutmann wrote:
Do you seriously think the war on bogey^H^H^Hterrorism can ever be won?

You're gonna love this one: You can't have terrorism without state sponsors.

We take out (by whatever means at hand...) state sponsors of terrorism,
and, hey, presto, no terrorism. Iraq. Syria. Iran. Libya. Doesn't look so
hard to me. Oh. That's right. Libya rolled over.

Americans -- actually westerners in general -- may win ugly, Peter, but, so
far, they win.

Cheers,
RAH



-- 
-
R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience. -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'



Re: This Memorable Day

2004-11-03 Thread Peter Gutmann
R.A. Hettinga [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

Germany 1944 does not equal USA 2004, no matter how hard you twist the
kaleidoscope.

Fighting an unwinnable war always seems to produce the same type of rhetoric,
whether it's the war on some drugs, the war on anyone Bush doesn't like, or
the war on anything non-German.  The only thing that changes over time are the
identities of the bogeymen that are used to justify it.

(Do you seriously think the war on bogey^H^H^Hterrorism can ever be won?
 Leaving aside the obvious debate that you can't even tell who you're at war
 with, how do you know when you've won?.
 
 We have always been at war with Terroristia)

Peter.



Re: This Memorable Day

2004-11-03 Thread John Young
The US has not won since WW2. Rebellions, now called
terrorist wars, have been far more successful. If you want
to be a winner do not enlist in military forces of states, rather
get a spin contract far from danger, arguing the virtues of
mightily fearsome hardware and sacrificial patriotism.

The US, a hidebound state, engages in limited combat, dithers, 
gets youngsters killed, parades the funerals and heroes, eventually 
pulls out, and the apologists for warmongering do their dirty. 

Still, it can be said of US military might: more servicemen die 
of military and civilian accidents, ill health, murders and
suicide than in combat. Worse, deaths and maimings from 
friendly fire and bad medical care, not to say military justice,
remain a high hazard of high technology and a natsec/military
policy of acceptance and/or denial of responsibility for self-
caused casualties and homicidal behavior in abused and
abandoned service members -- Tim McVeigh one of tens
of thousands who attack at home due to momentum rigged
by inept military training and ethics.

Bob Hettinga is just baiting by putting up flimsy arguments
for western supremacy, evangelizing brand USA. Hoovering 
the yokels who cannot not believe their kind are chosen people.
Standard fare of US (Western, all) state-sponsored education 
and religion and, oh my god, journalism.

Quote of the day from the NY Times: every journalist should
spend a month in jail to appreciate the freedom of the
press. This from a reporter for the Far Eastern Economic
Report, to be closed shortly by Dow Jones.






Re: This Memorable Day

2004-11-03 Thread R.A. Hettinga
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At 7:33 AM -0800 11/3/04, John Young wrote:
The US has not won since WW2.

Nope. Not at all.

1. Korea we lost by shoving the commies all the way up to the Yalu
river. And then leaving them to fester behind a still-extant DMZ
until they're almost enough of a nuisance, to lots of people,
including the now-almost-former-communist Chinese to worry over.

2. Vietnam we lost by kicking their asses so badly that our campuses
revolted, at the behest of a bunch of marxists. Whereupon we packed
up, partied for about 15 years, and killed their communist sugar
daddies in Moscow with just the *possibility* we could invent
something strategic missile defense, they couldn't copy fast enough.

The Cold War we lost by... Wait a minute. We didn't lose. See 1., and
2., above.

That leaves us, what, John? Grenada? Panama? Hell, Columbia? Oh.
Right. Lebanon. Tell ya what. Let's start the clock on this war at,
say, the assasination of Bobby Kennedy by Sirhan Sirhan, include the
Beiruit truck bombing by reference as a battle, and see how we stand
in a decade or so, shall we?

C'mon, John. Think faster, or something.

Cheers,
RAH



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-- 
-
R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience. -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'



Re: This Memorable Day

2004-11-03 Thread R.A. Hettinga
At 5:21 PM +1300 11/3/04, Peter Gutmann wrote:
another super-power in the
mid 1940s about winning an unwinnable war because God/righteousness/whatever
was on their side

Relativism does not a fact make, Peter.

Germany 1944 does not equal USA 2004, no matter how hard you twist the
kaleidoscope.

Cheers,
RAH

-- 
-
R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience. -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'



Re: This Memorable Day

2004-11-03 Thread Nomen Nescio
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R.A. Hettinga:

 You're gonna love this one: You can't have terrorism without
 state sponsors.

Nonsense! Are you in junior high?


 We take out (by whatever means at hand...) state sponsors of
 terrorism, and, hey, presto, no terrorism. Iraq. Syria. Iran.
 Libya. Doesn't look so hard to me. Oh. That's right. Libya rolled
 over.
 
 Americans -- actually westerners in general -- may win ugly, Peter,
 but, so far, they win.

This post gave me a big laugh. So naive. There are a few basic
forces feeding extremism and terrorism around the world and those are
inequalities and injustice anywhere. As long as the most powerful
nations of the world continues to exploit the earth's resources
without taking appropriate considerations to other nations the wrath
and dismay of people elsewhere will always persist. Not understanding
this or simply neglecting it will further add to the negative
feelings and opinions and fuel extremism.

The only way to move towards a more friendly world is to make
people feel they are able to share the wealth and prosperity of the
world. As long as there is one single person anywhere in the world
hungering to death there is still a basis for fundamentalism and all
the problem that leads to.

Continuing being arrogant and policing the world without
listening to the oppressed people in the middle east and elsewhere
will never ever eradicate terrorism. You may may or may not be able
to reasonable confidently hinder most terror deeds (but only after
having turned also the western civilization into police states) but
you cannot stop the oppressed man from growing the hatred i his mind.

If you do not understand this you are not only unintelligent
IMNSHO but also part of the problem itself.



You're not to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face
reality.
Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it.
 (Malcolm X)


Johnny Doelittle


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Re: This Memorable Day

2004-11-03 Thread John Kelsey
From: R.A. Hettinga [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Nov 2, 2004 10:55 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: This Memorable Day

..
Expect more carnage than culture when Bush is elected.

I gather we waited to start the offensive in Fallujah(sp?) until the polls were all 
closed.   I'm not sure how much of this was trying to time things not to interfere 
with the election (the buildup has been going on for awhile, and Kerry could have 
squawked about this but didn't, so presumably he didn't think it was unfair for the 
attack to be delayed a bit), and how much was trying to bury the coverage of a pretty 
bloody battle with a lot of civilians dying and a lot of peoples homes destroyed, 
behind the whole election coverage.  

Cheers,
RAH

--John



Re: This Memorable Day

2004-11-03 Thread R.A. Hettinga
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At 12:50 PM +0100 11/3/04, Nomen Nescio wrote:

Nonsense! Are you in junior high?

Are you high, junior? Or is it just your politics that sound so...
sophomoric?

:-)

This post gave me a big laugh. So naive. There are a few basic
forces feeding extremism and terrorism around the world and those
are inequalities and injustice anywhere.

Ah. That's right. Inequality, instead of causing progress, causes
damnation. Where's Robespierre when we really need him? Another
useful idiot for equality.

As long as the most powerful
nations of the world continues to exploit the earth's resources
without taking appropriate considerations to other nations the wrath
and dismay of people elsewhere will always persist.

Communism, Fuck Yeah!!! States are People Too

Please. Take the towel out from under the dorm-room door and quit
regurgitating what you learned passing the bong around.

Groups are not people. They don't have rights, for instance. Only
people have rights. Nation-states are not people either. More the
point, they aren't people in a dialectical struggle to free
themselves from the Oppressive Industrial West, any more than the
workers are in a dialectical struggle to free themselves from some
guy in a top-hat and spats.

If you'd learned any history, you'd know that the first argument is
the result of the complete failure of the *premises* of the first to
happen at all, and that both arguments have been demonstrated wrong
in the face of *evidence*: the explosion of the bourgeoisie in the
West (that's middle-class to those of us with a state-school
education; the group including *you*, bunky, unless your name is Bush
or Kerry [really Forbes or Cohn, take your pick] and you went to
say, Andover and Yale), and the explosion of gross domestic product
in the very countries you now claim the west exploits. If you don't
believe that, ask that Sidekick-wearing software engineer in
Bangalore the next time you're talking to a help-desk sometime about
how Nehru, the great Indian Leveller, was such a wonderful guy that
millions of his own countrymen starved during his tenure as the
Indian more equal than all the others. It wasn't until Indians
actually started to free their markets that people stopped starving
in the streets.


Our culture -- yours, too, bunky, since I bet you don't shit into a
hole in the floor and pray 5 times a day for, as Hanson appropriately
calls it, a nuclear caliphate --- has figured out a way to make more
new stuff cheaper, and to continually do it for the last 2500 years
or so. And, guess what? As a result, we can kill more people cheaper,
too.

That means we win wars. That means we'll win this one, too. Because,
if you hadn't noticed, they have to use *our* stuff to fight *us*.
Some around here see that as a bug, of course, but I see that much
more as a feature: I'll see that bug, raise you a couple of MOABs,
and call the bet.

Not understanding
this or simply neglecting it will further add to the negative
feelings and opinions and fuel extremism.

Ah. That's right. I'm not nuanced enough. It's too *complicated*
for anyone who didn't take your sophomore (cryptomarxist) History
Studies class, or whatever. Please.

The only way to move towards a more friendly world is to make people
feel they are able to share the wealth and prosperity of the world.
As long as there is one single person anywhere in the world
hungering to death there is still a basis for fundamentalism and all
the problem that leads to.

If we would all just get along, the lion would still eat the lamb
for a mid-afternoon snack, bunky, and then lie down for a nap.
Singing Kumbaya in Arabic won't make it happen any different.

More to the point, some mook in chi-pants marching in a black-block
in Seattle advocating the confiscation of what someone *earns* by
*working* is not going to make some *other* islamist mook, who also
got his way paid through college by *his* daddy, to stop building
bombs and crashing airplanes into skyscrapers. What *will* stop mooks
of the latter persuasion is to kill as many of them as possible, and
as quickly as possible. Maybe their parents, too, for raising an
entire generation of ignorant superstitious children. It was ever
thus, however. The Meijii Japanese could *copy*, even perfect,
aircraft and aircraft carriers, but they couldn't *invent* new stuff,
like, say, atom bombs. Only markets can do that, bunky. More to the
point, only markets full of free people arguing their heads off about
what's right and wrong can do that.

Continuing being arrogant and policing the world without listening
to the oppressed people in the middle east and elsewhere will never
ever eradicate terrorism. You may may or may not be able to
reasonable confidently hinder most terror deeds (but only after
having turned also the western civilization into police states) but
you cannot stop the oppressed man from growing the hatred i his
mind.

Hint: policing the world is what 

Re: This Memorable Day

2004-11-03 Thread R.A. Hettinga
ObPedantry:

At 9:49 AM -0500 11/3/04, R.A. Hettinga wrote:
If you'd learned any history, you'd know that the first argument is
   x second
the result of the complete failure of the *premises* of the first to
happen at all


-- 
-
R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience. -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'



Re: This Memorable Day

2004-11-03 Thread James A. Donald
--
 Peter Gutmann wrote:
Well it wasn't the point I was trying to make, which was comparing
it to predictions made by (the propaganda division of) another
super-power in the mid 1940s about winning an unwinnable war because
God/righteousness/whatever was on their side, and all they had to do
was hold out a bit longer.  Compare the general tone of the WSJ
article to the one in e.g. the first half of
http://www.humanitas-international.org/showcase/chronography/documen
ts/htestmnt.htm.
But it is hardly a matter of holding out.  So far the Pentagon has
shattered the enemy while suffering casualties of about a thousand,
which is roughly the same number of casualties as the British empire
suffered doing regime change on the Zulu empire - an empire of a
quarter of a million semi naked savages mostly armed with spears.
As quagmires go, this one has not yet got shoelaces muddy.  The
enemies are the one's that have heroic fantasies of holding out
against hopeless odds, as for example Fallujah.  The question is not
whether the terrorists keep Falljah, but merely whether Pentagon gets
a city or a pile of rubble.
--digsig
 James A. Donald
 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
 9M6CeBC9wwBisQe3JNJvnnu758kvx8Rq2e2KM9b2
 41XkwhnPAbRy29/XaMnNedLxI40PWmNEk4y2tUdn7


Re: This Memorable Day

2004-11-03 Thread Tyler Durden
2. Vietnam we lost by kicking their asses so badly that our campuses
revolted, at the behest of a bunch of marxists. Whereupon we packed
up, partied for about 15 years, and killed their communist sugar
daddies in Moscow with just the *possibility* we could invent
something strategic missile defense, they couldn't copy fast enough.
Are you trollin' m'friend, or have you been smokin' James Donald's ground up 
toenails?

-TD
Mao accused the US of being a paper tiger, and there may be some truth to 
that.


From: R.A. Hettinga [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: John Young [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: This Memorable Day
Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 10:05:19 -0500
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1
At 7:33 AM -0800 11/3/04, John Young wrote:
The US has not won since WW2.
Nope. Not at all.
1. Korea we lost by shoving the commies all the way up to the Yalu
river. And then leaving them to fester behind a still-extant DMZ
until they're almost enough of a nuisance, to lots of people,
including the now-almost-former-communist Chinese to worry over.
2. Vietnam we lost by kicking their asses so badly that our campuses
revolted, at the behest of a bunch of marxists. Whereupon we packed
up, partied for about 15 years, and killed their communist sugar
daddies in Moscow with just the *possibility* we could invent
something strategic missile defense, they couldn't copy fast enough.
The Cold War we lost by... Wait a minute. We didn't lose. See 1., and
2., above.
That leaves us, what, John? Grenada? Panama? Hell, Columbia? Oh.
Right. Lebanon. Tell ya what. Let's start the clock on this war at,
say, the assasination of Bobby Kennedy by Sirhan Sirhan, include the
Beiruit truck bombing by reference as a battle, and see how we stand
in a decade or so, shall we?
C'mon, John. Think faster, or something.
Cheers,
RAH

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--
-
R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience. -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
_
Is your PC infected? Get a FREE online computer virus scan from McAfee® 
Security. http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963



Re: This Memorable Day

2004-11-03 Thread James A. Donald
--
Peter Gutmann wrote:
 Fighting an unwinnable war always seems to produce the same type of
 rhetoric,
It is a little premature to call this war unwinnable.  The kill ratio
so far is comparable with Britain's zulu war.
--digsig
 James A. Donald
 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
 9YCccdHmWgBxj3a1UFFKM7Xyl1qKvkQYJoNuuZEw
 4pOgjIzTXDiWQ1xXvdwBxCk93EgSXiZfQ29ag+5sW


Re: This Memorable Day

2004-11-03 Thread James A. Donald
--
 This post gave me a big laugh. So naive. There are a few basic
 forces feeding extremism and terrorism around the world and those
 are inequalities and injustice anywhere.
You are quite right, it is unjust that people like Bin Laden are so
immensely rich with oil wealth.  To remedy this problem, Bush should
confiscate the Middle Eastern oil reserves.
You are using stale old communist rhetoric - but today's terrorists no
longer not even pretend to fight on behalf of the poor and oppressed.
--digsig
 James A. Donald
 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
 hB70Rn/r/Izz2zUYn/rVfOyEDZVqu1UUzdNLVJJe
 4inRuB429RCVLG1VVfP9Z5CBGfL+mE/dNmP+GZvcb


Re: This Memorable Day

2004-11-03 Thread John Young
Bob,

But your defenses of the fatherland are hollow formulas.
There has been no war to win, a war the US is forever
stealing from the citizenry to prepare for, and then fucking
up with the minor skirmishes by having no doctrine or
training to apply its mythical might, except, as always,
to explain away abject failure with fairy tales like you're
telling.

Deterence is bullshit, but it worked to keep the Soviet
and US militarists and their supplies in top level comfort.

Now, the US has no complicit partner in raiding the public
till, so it fabricates the terrorist threat, and lockstepping
right along comes Russia, the UK and all the natsec
bullshitters (slanted intelligence addicts) to march to
the beat of bucks aflowing imperially.

Dig deeper, middle-aged spinner, your history seems to 
have been framed by the Cold War and its bastard mini-me 
terrorism racket here lately.

Do you by any chance have a contract with the tomfoolers?
Or is it just natural to believe sugar daddy's tales of
conquest and invulnerability? 

And, what is this shit about needing to kill as many of
the varmints as possible? Have you ever tried to do that,
these mean sumbitches are not birds and rabbits and
women and children.

Beware the May/Donald megadeath syndrome which always 
indicates a yellow stripe down the back of those who love
to advocate others dying for their comfort and safety --
in large numbers, as if big bragging makes it braver.
Weenies do that.




Re: This Memorable Day

2004-11-03 Thread James A. Donald
--
R.A. Hettinga wrote:
Seriously, any future crypto-anarchy / anarcho-capitalist society is
probably not going to succeed unless it can project *more* force
than we can project currently with force monopoly -- not less. That
*doesn't* mean centralized, but it certainly means *more*.
It is often argued that since war, violence, etc, are public goods,
only a state can efficiently defend against states.  Yet in most wars
since 1980, non state entities have done most of the heavy lifting
-loose coalitions containing many independent groups, for example the
contras, the holy warriors that overthrew the Taliban.
Looking at the events of World War II, it looks to me that it does
indeed require a state to conquer and occupy a hostile government, as
the US conquered and occupied Germany, but the Japanese army was
broken by a thousand small groups.
Defeating a large scale evildoer is a public good - but large scale
evil consists of many acts of small scale evil, and defeating each
particular small scale evil act is a private good.
When it came to the part of the war that was purely a public good,
conquering the German and Japanese homelands, America did indeed bear
almost the whole burden, but when it came to defending Australia
against the Japanese, the Australians bore the major burden, and
similarly for most other battlefields outside of the aggressors'
homelands.  Most German troops died fighting Russians in Russia, not
Americans in Germany. The particular victims of particular Japanese or
German acts of aggression counter attacked those particular Japanese
or Germans attacking them.
National defense, or at least some forms of national defense, such as
destroying Hitler's Germany, is a public good, and genuinely anarchist
societies are apt to under provide public goods.
On the other hand governments tend to provide the wrong kind of public
goods, providing what serves their purposes rather than the supposed
purpose of the public good,  Further, when a government gets in the
business of providing a some supposed public good, it creates a lobby,
which results in the public good being over provided, thus for example
ever lengthening copyright, ever more expansive patents for ever more
trivial inventions, and, of course, the infamous military/industrial
complex, such as Haliburton.
War, for example destroying Hitler's Germany, is the most plausibly
essential public good, the strongest justification for the state.  But
when we look at the defeat of the Soviet Union, or the defeat of the
Taliban, this argument looks considerably weaker.  The heavy lifting
in those wars was done by loose alliances of small groups, for example
the holy warriors and the contras, which did not rely on a single
large centralized authority to support the public good of defeat of an
oppressive regime.
In the second world war, public good theory would lead us to expect
that the most powerful state, America would bear almost the whole
burden of defeating the threat, and smaller states would hang back and
cheer the winner.
The holy warriors were probably effective against the Soviets because
each holy warrior was defending his home, and each small group of holy
warriors were defending their village. Among the contras, it appears
that the Indian contras defended the Indians against forced
collectivization, breaking up collectives with extreme violence and
killing the collectives functionaries and administrators, often in
disturbingly unpleasant ways, but failed to participate in other
contra struggles.
Thus anarchic forms of society appear to be capable of waging war
defensively with considerably effectiveness, but are considerably less
capable of taking the war to places far away.
This is not such a severe limitation as it might appear, since the
Soviet Union was overthrown by essentially defensive wars, leading to
the dominoes falling all the way to Moscow.
It is the nature of Islam to impose dhimmitude on nonbelievers,
without much regard for official state boundaries.  Dhimmitude being
a dangerously inferior status where one's property is insecure, and
women are apt to be raped.  Existing Muslim states often fail to
prosecute crimes against infidels, and when crimes are prosecuted,
penalties are slight.
The West has tried to confine Dhimmitude inside a system of states -
the Muslims can oppress their minorities inside Muslim state
boundaries all they like, but cannot oppress outside Muslim state
boundaries.  This artificial boundary bends under pressure, creating
the conflict we now see.
The anarchic equivalent of the current policy of imperial state
building, would be to enter mutual defense arrangements with dhimmi,
without regard to state boundaries.
The Taliban had imposed Dhimmi status on Muslims they did not agree
with in Afghanistan.  An anarchic America would not be able to occupy
Iraq, nor would it be capable of building democracy in Afghanistan,
but it would be able to do the equivalent of sending special forces to
assist the 

Re: This Memorable Day

2004-11-03 Thread R.A. Hettinga
At 11:11 AM -0800 11/3/04, James A. Donald wrote:
Dhimmitude being
a dangerously inferior status where one's property is insecure, and
women are apt to be raped.

ObSmartAssComment: That's why they call it Dhimmicracy, much less the
Dhimmicratic Party...

:-).

Cheers,
RAH

-- 
-
R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience. -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'



Re: This Memorable Day

2004-11-03 Thread R.A. Hettinga
At 11:11 AM -0800 11/3/04, James A. Donald wrote:
It is often argued that since war, violence, etc, are public goods


This is my favorite retort to that:

Externalities are the last refuge of the derigistes. -- Friedrich Hayek

An otherwise excellent rant elided...

Cheers,
RAH


-- 
-
R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
Externalities are the last refuge of the derigistes. -- Friedrich Hayek



Re: This Memorable Day

2004-11-03 Thread John Kelsey
From: Nomen Nescio [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Nov 3, 2004 6:50 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: This Memorable Day

..
The only way to move towards a more friendly world is to make
people feel they are able to share the wealth and prosperity of the
world. As long as there is one single person anywhere in the world
hungering to death there is still a basis for fundamentalism and all
the problem that leads to.

Ahh.  So all we have to do to end terrorism is to end poverty, injustice, and 
inequality all over the world.  *Phew*.  I thought it was going to take something 
hard.  

--John






Re: This Memorable Day

2004-11-03 Thread Tyler Durden
Well, this may actually be less hard than we thought. Indeed, it's the one 
vaguely silver lining in this toxic cloud. Outsourcing to India will 
actually add a lot to world stability. Of course, we'll loose a lot of jobs 
in the process, but in the long run we'll eventually have another strong 
trading partner like Japan or France or the Dutch. Bush will sell us out to 
big business and all of the less-well-off will suffer like crazy in the 
process, but it will actually make things better in the long run. The only 
thing we need to worry about is not melting the ice caps in the process.

-TD
From: John Kelsey [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: Nomen Nescio [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: This Memorable Day
Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 15:13:28 -0500 (GMT-05:00)
From: Nomen Nescio [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Nov 3, 2004 6:50 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: This Memorable Day
...
The only way to move towards a more friendly world is to make
people feel they are able to share the wealth and prosperity of the
world. As long as there is one single person anywhere in the world
hungering to death there is still a basis for fundamentalism and all
the problem that leads to.
Ahh.  So all we have to do to end terrorism is to end poverty, injustice, 
and inequality all over the world.  *Phew*.  I thought it was going to take 
something hard.

--John
_
Get ready for school! Find articles, homework help and more in the Back to 
School Guide! http://special.msn.com/network/04backtoschool.armx



Re: This Memorable Day

2004-11-02 Thread R.A. Hettinga
At 3:32 AM +1300 11/3/04, Peter Gutmann wrote:
Eugen Leitl [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
On Tue, Nov 02, 2004 at 08:16:41AM -0500, R. A. Hettinga wrote:
http://online.wsj.com/article_print/0,,SB109936293065461940,00.html
No cypherpunks content. Just local politics.

And it's not even original, they've mostly just translated it into English,
updated it a bit (e.g. League of Nations - UN), and changed the Russian names
and references to Middle Eastern ones.

Yup. That's Davis' point, actually. Fuck with the West, we kick your ass.

BTW, the Greeks at naval battle of Salamis were arguing, violently, the
very night before the battle. The Persian deaths numbered in the hundreds
of thousands. The Greeks died in the low hundreds.

Cheers,
RAH

-- 
-
R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience. -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'



Re: This Memorable Day

2004-11-02 Thread Peter Gutmann
Eugen Leitl [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
On Tue, Nov 02, 2004 at 08:16:41AM -0500, R. A. Hettinga wrote:
http://online.wsj.com/article_print/0,,SB109936293065461940,00.html
No cypherpunks content. Just local politics.

And it's not even original, they've mostly just translated it into English,
updated it a bit (e.g. League of Nations - UN), and changed the Russian names
and references to Middle Eastern ones.

Peter.



Re: This Memorable Day

2004-11-02 Thread Eugen Leitl
On Tue, Nov 02, 2004 at 08:16:41AM -0500, R. A. Hettinga wrote:

 http://online.wsj.com/article_print/0,,SB109936293065461940,00.html

No cypherpunks content. Just local politics.
 
-- 
Eugen* Leitl a href=http://leitl.org;leitl/a
__
ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144http://www.leitl.org
8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A  7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE
http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net


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This Memorable Day

2004-11-02 Thread R.A. Hettinga
http://online.wsj.com/article_print/0,,SB109936293065461940,00.html

The Wall Street Journal


 November 2, 2004

 COMMENTARY


This Memorable Day

By VICTOR DAVIS HANSON
November 2, 2004; Page A22


In singular moments in our history, the security of the United States
hinged on a single presidential election. Imagine George McClellan
recognizing an undefeated Confederacy in March 1865. Consider an eight-year
Jimmy Carter tenure. Or contemplate Walter Mondale taking over from a
defeated President Reagan to implement unilaterally a nuclear freeze, Mike
Dukakis asking Saddam to leave Kuwait, or Al Gore mobilizing America to
invade Afghanistan. We are now faced with the same critical choice. Today's
vote determines how the United States finishes the present war against
terrorists, and, indeed, whether we continue to defeat Islamic fascism and
those Middle East autocracies that fuel it.

* * *

John Kerry sees our struggle as an unending law enforcement problem, akin
to gambling and prostitution. Thus the terrorist attacks of the 1990s were
not deadly precursors to 9/11, but belong to a now nostalgic era of
nuisance. In contrast, George W. Bush envisioned September 11 as real war
-- a global struggle against Dark-Age extremism, striving for a modern
nuclear caliphate that could blackmail the industrialized world and destroy
Western liberal values. So Mr. Bush took terrorist killers at their word,
convinced that such evildoers, like a Hitler or Stalin, had no legitimate
complaint against America. Rather, they murder out of a deep frustration
that Western-inspired freedom is on the march, threatening both Islamic
fascism and those repressive regimes that hand-in-glove with them have
deflected their own failures onto the United States.

John Kerry promises help is on the way to remove President Bush, who has,
according to Mr. Kerry, lied when he is exposed as incompetent. Such
strident condemnation ignores the stunning victory over the Taliban, the
first voting in Afghanistan in 5,000 years, the removal of Saddam Hussein
with scheduled elections for next January, positive changes in Libya,
Pakistan and the Gulf States, and the absence of another 9/11-like attack
here at home.

Moqtada al-Sadr and Osama bin Laden now whine about American retaliation
and send out peace feelers. But their apprehension arises not because of
Sen. Kerry's rhetoric or his promises of U.N. collectivism. Rather, the
specter of four more years of a resolute George W. Bush equates to their
continued defeat. Their trepidation was shared by the 1980 hostage takers
in Tehran, who relented in terror of an inaugurated Ronald Reagan warning
them of the impending end to Carteresque appeasement.

Most of Sen. Kerry's allegations about this war ring false or insincere
because he shifts in tune to mercurial polls. The senator's yes/no/maybe
public statements and votes reflect the perceived daily pulse of the
battlefield -- and his lack of either a strategic understanding of the war
or faith in the skill and resoluteness of the U.S. military. He insists
that there were no al Qaeda ties to Baathists, but we see them in
postbellum Iraq, knew of them during the first World Trade Center bombing,
and once accepted President Clinton's claim for them during his 1998
retaliation against the Sudan. WMD are likewise derided as a chimera. But
President Clinton, Sen. Kerry, and Sen. John Edwards are all on record
frantically warning about Saddam's bio-chem arsenal -- with others citing
intelligence confirmation from Vladimir Putin to Hosni Mubarak. During the
three-week war, American troops in the field did not don bothersome
chemical suits because of President Bush's naïveté or duplicity.

In Sen. Kerry's world, brave folk such as Iraq's Prime Minister Allawi, the
Poles, and the Australians are belittled as hollow and bought allies, while
Germany and France, that profited lucratively with Saddam, will be invited
to join the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time, now dubbed
analogous to the Bay of Pigs. The explanation for Saddam's removal, in
Teresa Heinz Kerry's words, is blood for oil, a mantra echoed by
Fahrenheit 9/11, MoveOn.org, and bin Laden's latest infomercial. But
after the invasion, petroleum prices soared. Iraq's national treasure is
for the first time transparent and autonomous. France, Russia and the U.N.
can no longer appropriate it. President Bush, once libeled as the
villainous Texas oil schemer, is now reinvented on the campaign trail as
Sen. Kerry's clueless naïf, bullied by a sinister OPEC.

True, much of the Kerry negativism derives from opportunism. Yet there is
also a logic that explains the flip-flopping, rooted in deep-seeded doubts
about both the utility and morality of using American military power. Thus
Sen. Kerry voted against many of our present weapons systems. That
obstructionism explains why in 1988 he looked back at the Reagan strategic
build-up as one of moral darkness.

Mr. Kerry, as a soldier and a senator

Re: This Memorable Day

2004-11-02 Thread R.A. Hettinga
At 10:31 AM -0500 11/2/04, R.A. Hettinga wrote:
The Persian deaths numbered in the hundreds
of thousands. The Greeks died in the low hundreds.

More recently, and closer to Hanson's point in the article, both of
Lincoln's elections were very close. But, after Lincoln's second
inauguration, Grant took charge of the Union Army and began killing
Confederates (and Union soldiers) in a series of horrific battles
culminating in the end of the Civil War.

Expect more carnage than culture when Bush is elected.

Cheers,
RAH

-- 
-
R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience. -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'



Re: This Memorable Day

2004-11-02 Thread John Young
And an admirable role model for the Simian's memory:

An avenging rebel terrorist shot Abe, not Grant, who
suicided himself with whiskey and self-pity, after lollygagging
in the animal-beshat White House, lost that, took up liquor, 
became a helpless drunk, friends caretook his inept pickled 
carcass for a few years then he wrote a vain, distorted book 
about his carnaging of the rebels, and worst comedownance, 
got entombed on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, so it is 
said, but who knows what military-industrial effigy lies in that 
grafitti-and-dogshit-smeared pile overlooking beshitten 
liberal-elitist, nest of rebellious vermin Columbia University, 
Riverside Church, the National Council of Churches, and best,
squalid, infested, periodically ractist white-massacreing 
Harlem.

Still, when you visit Grant's Tomb you see mostly well-dressed
African Americans studying the memoria displayed welling tears
at the piles of war dead, the freed slaves, the army grunts and
officers gauntly posed in muddy filth. A tourist bus roars in, pinky 
blobs waddle into the high-domed gloom, see no cafe, no gift shop,
come out to circle the monument looking for something to
buy or eat or video. Nothing there like the rest of the homeland
shopfested US. What the fuck they mouth, fart, scratch, heave
their globs fore and aft, struggle to re-mount the bus, stare out 
the dark glass at me in my Swift Boat get-up, jesus-bearded,
gut abusting, carrying a Viet Vet begging sign that says 
Apocalypse Now or Else.




Re: This Memorable Day

2004-11-02 Thread R.A. Hettinga
At 11:58 AM -0800 11/2/04, John Young wrote:
Grant, who
suicided himself with whiskey and self-pity,

Actually, he suicided himself with cigars, having died of throat cancer...

;-)

Seriously, any future crypto-anarchy / anarcho-capitalist society is
probably not going to succeed unless it can project *more* force than we
can project currently with force monopoly -- not less. That *doesn't* mean
centralized, but it certainly means *more*.

Peace Kills. Violence will always be conserved. More is more. :-).

Cheers,
RAH

-- 
-
R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience. -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'



Re: This Memorable Day

2004-11-02 Thread Peter Gutmann
R.A. Hettinga [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
At 3:32 AM +1300 11/3/04, Peter Gutmann wrote:
Eugen Leitl [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
On Tue, Nov 02, 2004 at 08:16:41AM -0500, R. A. Hettinga wrote:
http://online.wsj.com/article_print/0,,SB109936293065461940,00.html
No cypherpunks content. Just local politics.

And it's not even original, they've mostly just translated it into English,
updated it a bit (e.g. League of Nations - UN), and changed the Russian names
and references to Middle Eastern ones.

Yup. That's Davis' point, actually. Fuck with the West, we kick your ass.

Well it wasn't the point I was trying to make, which was comparing it to
predictions made by (the propaganda division of) another super-power in the
mid 1940s about winning an unwinnable war because God/righteousness/whatever
was on their side, and all they had to do was hold out a bit longer.  Compare
the general tone of the WSJ article to the one in e.g. the first half of
http://www.humanitas-international.org/showcase/chronography/documents/htestmnt.htm.

Peter.