I so hate it when I can’t place the Austen reference.
Uh, so how do you figure you’re indebted to Mandelstam for something I said?
I gets no respect!
[Austen hijack]
Oh, and since I already looked it up for the other thread and still have it bookmarked, here’s the relevant quote from Mansfield Park, spoken by Miss Crawford:
The first time I read Mansfield Park I could hardly believe it, but I don’t think there’s much room for doubt that Miss Crawford knows exactly what she has just implied! And that sort of joke about the Navy long predates Austen, I’m sure.
[/continuing Austen hijack]
Just to address this one point, it absolutely was not a non-sequitur. Kee-rist; I guess the rant didn’t get through, either. How much more clearly can this be said?
THE CENTRAL POINT OF THE POST WAS TO STATE THAT ALL DICTATORS HAVE APOLOGISTS. AUGUSTO PINOCHET WAS A DICTATOR WHO HAS MANY APOLOGISTS, AT LEAST ONE OF WHOM IS A NOBEL PRIZE WINNER. IT IS THEREFORE RELEVANT TO THE ARGUMENT THAT ALL DICTATORS HAVE APOLOGISTS TO ILLUSTRATE AN EXAMPLE OF PINOCHET HAVING APOLOGISTS. See? It’s evidence in support of the point. How hard is this? The point was NOT to point out that just left-wing dictators have apologists - it applies to both sides of the spectrum.
Hussein’s apologists - and again, I will bet real cash money on this with anyone who doesn’t believe it, through whatever means you like - want my home address? - will tend to be from the left side of the political spectrum only because he’ll now be remembered in opposition to the United States and a conservative President. (At least, his apologists in the Western world. The political dynamics, I would presume, are not the same in the Middle East, and so the same terms don’t apply.) That iosn’t the case with Pinochet because he was, and sadly, IS a friend of the many on the conservative wing in the United States, and wasn’t ousted by force of American arms, and in fact was installed, allegedly, to replace a popularly elected socialist leader.
(Shrug) Let’s make that bet right now.
I predict that if Saddam Hussein is either killed or captured and imprisoned for life in this war, in 20 years (2023) you will be able to find a great number of people in the United States who will be apologists for him. As a test of this, I will be required to find, between the dates of April 5, 2021, and April 5, 2023, at least five specific and distinct examples, who must be drawn from at least three distinct major universities in the United States (so that I can’t find one group of nuts at one school and draw all my examples from them) of people expressing support for Saddam Hussein, consisting of clear, unambiguous apologism for Hussein, his regime, his actions, or his position in this war or in the 1991 war. In every case I will be required to get personal testimony or substantial, convincing supporting evidence to the effect that the author/group/audience/whatever is/are identifiable as being on the left side of the political spectrum. You will have six months following my presentation of the evidence to prove the person is not legally sane. I’ll bet up to $1000 (U.S.) in either 2003 or 2023 dollars, whichever you’d like. If others would like to take this bet - though with volume the money involved would have to be reduced - just lemme know.
Wanna take me on?
As to the rest of it, I assume we’re still friends. Just a misunderstandiong?
Oh, that’s $1000 in U.S. dollars. Can’t let you think I was cheaping out with Canadian bucks. Of course by then Canadian dollars might be worth $2 American.
Saddam is a pan-Arab Baathist socialist. Last I checked, that’s left wing. Although, the connections between socialism and the Baath Party are more tenuous all the time. I know some Baathists have renounced socialism. Anyhoo, I’ve found that the far left and right circle back to a philosophy consisting primarily of half-baked and dangerous social engineering strategies that lead to people getting killed.
Mandelstam said:
Gee, for such a nice guy, he sure managed to do a lot of damage. He created the Gulag system and put over 100,000 political prisoners in it (most of whom died due to the brutal conditions), installed a one-party state, crushed the first worker’s revolts and executed the leaders, ordered the terrorism of the Kulaks, created ‘show trials’ for dissenters and hung them in the streets, plundered the Russian Orthodox churches and executed many of the clergy (esttimates range from TWELVE HUNDRED to EIGHT THOUSAND executions of clergy) or sent them to the Gulag.
And let’s not forget the ‘Red Terror’, in which HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of protestors and other dissenters were rounded up and executed, all on Lenin’s order.
Then there was the forced collectivization of agriculture and the war on the peasants, which resulted in the death of 3-10 MILLION people on Lenin’s watch, during years of excellent weather for growing crops.
Here’s a transcript of a letter Lenin sent to his field commanders, from the Library of Congress:
What a guy, that Lenin. Poor, misunderstood Lenin.
I’d say that anyone who makes even the smallest defense of this monster proves Rickjay’s point.
Well I am no expert on Milton Firedman but I do not believe that he was an apologist for Pinochet. In this interview Friedman talks about his “role” in Chile.
Coil, I’d have to say Friedman is indeed an apologist for Pinochet. I have to say it pains me to say it, because I’m an admirer of Friedman’s work as an scientist, but it’s true. I’m not saying Friedman’s a murderer or anything, and it IS true that Friedman wasn’t part of Pinochet’s inner circle or anything like that.
But on a number of occassions in discussing what happened in Chile, he’s spoken very highly of someone who is, when you get right down to it, a murderous, nasty dictator, whose allegedly miraculous economic reforms resulted in an decrease in real, inflation-adjusted per capita GNP and an increase in relative and absolute poverty and unemployment, all of which has only been reversed since Pinochet gave up power to a real government.
(Of course, thousands of Chileans Pinochet had murdered weren’t around to enjoy it.)
RickJay: *"I predict that if Saddam Hussein is either killed or captured and imprisoned for life in this war, in 20 years (2023) you will be able to find a great number of people in the United States who will be apologists for him. As a test of this, I will be required to find, between the dates of April 5, 2021, and April 5, 2023, at least five specific and distinct examples, who must be drawn from at least three distinct major universities in the United States (so that I can’t find one group of nuts at one school and draw all my examples from them) of people expressing support for Saddam Hussein, consisting of clear, unambiguous apologism for Hussein, his regime, his actions, or his position in this war or in the 1991 war. In every case I will be required to get personal testimony or substantial, convincing supporting evidence to the effect that the author/group/audience/whatever is/are identifiable as being on the left side of the political spectrum. You will have six months following my presentation of the evidence to prove the person is not legally sane. I’ll bet up to $1000 (U.S.) in either 2003 or 2023 dollars, whichever you’d like. If others would like to take this bet - though with volume the money involved would have to be reduced - just lemme know.
Wanna take me on?"*
Rick, I’d be stealing your money–though I’ll take US$ ;).
While I don’t doubt your overall assertion that it will possible to find fringe people who, for idiosyncratic reasons of their own, want to apologize for Saddam, I do deeply doubt that these will ever be leftwing academics (of sound mind).
The reason is very simple. Saddam was supported by the West when he first rose to power and whomever replaces him will have been handed the job by the United States. In addition, Saddam offers nothing to any serious left thinker (or even superficial left thinker) by way of a defensible ideology or cause. So his rise and fall will always fit into a familiar pattern of post-colonial/neo-imperial East/West relations. And his actual reign will never be seen for anything beyond what it has been: a misfortune for the Iraqi people.
Oh and Beagle, if you go by rhetoric only, Hitler was also a “socialist,” but you won’t find any on the left who see him that way. Just about the only person I’ve heard calling Saddam “socialist” in the recent past is Osama bin Laden–not exactly a campus leftist.
"As to the rest of it, I assume we’re still friends. Just a misunderstandiong? "
Absolutely. 
Sam: “I’d say that anyone who makes even the smallest defense of this monster proves Rickjay’s point.”
Oh Sam, you’re so predictable. I could have written your post myself!
To understand why “aspects of Lenin’s life” remain admirable to some on the left, you’d have to consider those aspects. (You’d also have to consider the complexity of events leading up to and in the early aftermath of the Russian Revolution.) But that would require your actually having an open mind. Please, let us not hijack this delightful Pit thread into an occasion for an ad nauseum display of your entire lack of that feature on this subject. I tremble to think of the deep sleep you might induce in me.
That aside, welcome back
Lamia, apologies for not remembering to point out that you deserve all the credit for the Austen pun. And I respect you very much indeed.
Well, since this is a pit thread, I suppose responding to my message with nothing more than an ad hominem attack is acceptable. Worthless, but acceptable.
[hijack continued. Sorry]
Sam Stone offered
Pure rubbish, from a site that is blatantly biased.
Do you mean to tell me that Lenin personally caused a horrendous drought in 1921? That’s what led to the deaths of millions. “Years of excellent weather” my ass!
I’m not sticking up for Lenin and his brutal measures. Just pointing out the stupidity of the statistics you cited.
Well, this campus lefty HATES Lenin with a passion. However, he did like cats. That’s one thing.
The thing about Lenin is that he was really shaken by the death of his father and the execution of his older brother, Alexander, who tried to murder Alexander III. I think if his brother had not been killed, he could have been a better influence on Lenin himself.
Rick Jay
Is this Milton Friedman we’re talking about?
What branch of Science is he affiliated with?
Begs the question, Mandelstam, what is it about those that call themselves socialists that leads to their brutal behavior, and the gymnastic rhetorical permutations that socialist apologists go through–after the fact-- to rationalize them out of the fold?
Don’t hear many people accepting the they were bad Nazis argument. Yet, Stalin: bad socialist. Mao: bad socialist. Pol Pot: bad socialist. Saddam: bad socialist. I could go on. Forgive me, an outsider, for thinking that socialism has a funny connection with murder.
The policy of forced collectivization of agriculture WAS responsible for the famine of 1920-1921. That, and the horrible mismanagement of the economy under the Bolsheviks, under whose rule the economic output of the Soviet Union dropped to 16% of its pre-revolution value within just a few years.
‘Excellent weather’ may be an exaggeration, but certainly there were plenty of other years of worse weather that did not result in massive famine.
Here’s what this article at the Doctors Without Borders web site had to say:
I join this thread only to not that “Of Rears, and Vices, I saw enough” does not necessarily imply anal sex. There are plenty of non-sphinctoral sexual inuendos that can be drawn from that entendre.
Rickjay, Mandelstam, you’re a couple of smart guys trying to rip each other to shreds over trivial perceived insults. Been there, done that. Collected the scalps.
Have fun.
Sam Stone. While I respect what Doctors Without Borders does in a humanitarian way, I disrespect the cited work as based on less than scholarly research. It’s slanted bullshit. Give me a scholarly cite. Quit Googling. Go to a library and actually read a book by a historian.
I HAVE. You might want to ask Guinistasia as well - I believe her major was in Russian history.
So far, I have provided cites from the Library of Congress, several .edu cites, and Doctors without Borders. You have dismissed them all as being slanted, while providing no information of your own.
Well, it doesn’t beg this questional at all. That is, Lenin is a left dictator that people on the left–regardless of whether they see him as wholly bad or not–will recognize has having emerged from out of a left movement. Hitler came out of a rightwing fascist movement. The fact that rightwing fascists at that time chose to call themselves “national socialists” only tells you something about how many different things the word can mean. Hitler was not devoted to realizing Marxist ideas or anything resembling them.
“Don’t hear many people accepting the they were bad Nazis argument.”
Well, no, but that’s probably because you don’t hang out with any fascists! Believe me, you can find plenty of apologists for Hitler, and probably some who think that fascism is good but maybe Hitler overdid it. But thank goodness we don’t have any of them on SDMB, no?
“Yet, Stalin: bad socialist. Mao: bad socialist. Pol Pot: bad socialist. Saddam: bad socialist. I could go on.”
Again, Stalin and Mao were bad socialists in a sense recognized by leftists b/c they were bad Marxists. Not so with either Hitler or Saddam.
“Forgive me, an outsider, for thinking that socialism has a funny connection with murder.”
When you try to remake the world overnight, that’s what happens, alas. That is the lesson of the failed Marxist revolutions. But less dramatic forms of socialism have worked to improve people’s lives without bloodshed, and some continue to work extremely well. Britain was a kind of socialist country for decades, and retains certain aspects of that past. Sweden and Germany provide other examples of social democratic ideas at work.
The word socialism has a very complicated history that both pre-dates and post-dates the Marxist variety (or, I should say, the would-be Marxist variety) with which we are most familiar. In the nineteenth century there was Christian socialism, Owenite socialism, Fourierism, Comtean socialism, Fabian socialism–all of these were leftish forms of socialism that were entirely separate from Marx.
One thing you need to bear in mind about Marx is that he thought that his kind of socialism was going to happen in industrialized nations such as Britain or Germany. But Britain went a with a less radical form of social democracy, and Germany ended up with fascism (for a time). So the more revolutionary Marxist path ended up being tried in places that didn’t have the kind of industrial economy that Marx himself thought was a necessary prelude to true socialist transformation. Indeed, Marx believed that building up an industrial economy was the function of a bourgeoisie.
As I’ve said on these boards many times before: Marx was a brilliant philosopher and social critic. I genuinely believe that it’s more important to read his works now than ever. There’s much more to Marx than the utopian idea of a socialist revolution. There’s also a lot of really thought-provoking discussion about how capitalism works and what its problems are.
In any case, considering this is the first time I’ve ever been the subject of a Pit thread, it’s been very delightful. And Spiritus, don’t worry, RickJay will be sending me flowers in no time ;). (I’m a woman btw.)
I haven’t got much time these days and I really want to devote what little time I have to more contemporary subjects. So I’m going to say thanks and good-bye and see y’all back in GD.