05-06-2003 04:26									#61
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quote: Originally posted by Spiffor Hueij : What evil has Thomas Alva Edison ever done to you ?

Spiff, I'm dissointed. You are French but the first thing you come with is Edison? Alva was a Spanish governor of the Netherlands and one of the mayor reasons we started our 80 years independance war...

	05-06-2003 04:27									#62
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Okay sorry Dinodoc.. I am gonna eat now.. dinner time for me.. Templar.. respond all you want.. I am not talking to you anymore.

	05-06-2003 04:27									#63
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quote: Originally posted by Fez True communists don't want any economy. In fact the word economy to them is capitalist.

"Economy" does not equate with "free market economy", hence the qualifier "free market". Communism, socialism, capitalism are all economic theories (really more like dogmas when you get down to it). Economics is about resource allocation, maximizing plural values, and resolving issues of scarcity. And there is mor than one way to accomplish these goals.

I am afraid Dino Doc is right. You are an idiot.

	05-06-2003 04:29									#64
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I am not the idiot templar.. you are.. Thus I am not responding to you anymore and you earned a good spot on my ignore list as being the brainless person you are. Congrats.

	05-06-2003 04:33									#65
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quote: Originally posted by Spiffor Ranskaldan: I don't know the specific demands of the Tian An Men protestors, so I won't discuss your assertion that they would have brought unfathomable chaos to China (i.e I think you are probably right) However, even if those people were unreasonable, it was still outrageous to have slaughtered 7000 of them ! When a regime disagrees with people, there are other ways to ignore them -we in the EU have plenty . The massacre was outrageous no matter of the message held by the protestors and I'm surprised that you defend it

I don't like defending this either, but unfortunately I can't stomach the idea of China collapsing into a semi-Zaire-like hell.

I suppose there might have been other ways out of this - and I'll look this up further.

	05-06-2003 04:37									#66
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quote: Spiff, I'm dissointed. You are French but the first thing you come with is Edison? Alva was a Spanish governor of the Netherlands and one of the mayor reasons we started our 80 years independance war...

I thought this would come up someday (btw: he not going to win any popularity polls here either), but he has absolutely nothing to do with my nick.
It's an acronym for my real name and that's all it is, secondly, I'm sure that going through the namelist, you'll find more then one nero, Ceasar, Napoleon, Mao etc.
If I would have included duke or something I'd understand your POV, doesn't make much sence now I'm affraid.
(other then it's a couple of centuries ago)
[end threadjack]

	05-06-2003 04:41									#67
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You have just written a two-liner DD. I haven't seen such a long post from you in a long time

	05-06-2003 04:42									#68
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quote: Thus I am not responding to you anymore and you earned a good spot on my ignore list as being the brainless person you are. Congrats.

Yes, you are Replucan!!. Have a problem, just ignore it and it will go away.(you could do the last part with an Homer voice for a more sarcastic effect )
(me thinks I'm getting better every day at american politics )

	05-06-2003 04:43									#69
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Thx for the info Hueij. I actually never heard of Alva before. I viciously suck at pre-19th century history

	05-06-2003 04:43									#70
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quote: Originally posted by DinoDoc Wrong in what way?

Promise me not to laugh...

In the 70's, when I was a student at Nijmegen University (the most left-wing university in the Netherlands during that time) we actually thought that the Chinese Cultural Revolution was the best thing that ever happened to China. Never mind the millions of people dead (though we didn't know that at the time). And although the Rote Armee Faction killed innocent people, their goal was just. I supported the Surinam junta, finally an ex-colony taking matters into their own hands. Two years later they executed the whole opposition "while they tried to escape".

In short, being a Eurocommie isn't easy, a lot of killing in the name of your ideals...

	05-06-2003 04:49									#71
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quote: I thought this would come up someday (btw: he not going to win any popularity polls here either), but he has absolutely nothing to do with my nick. It's an acronym for my real name and that's all it is, secondly, I'm sure that going through the namelist, you'll find more then one nero, Ceasar, Napoleon, Mao etc. If I would have included duke or something I'd understand your POV, doesn't make much sence now I'm affraid. (other then it's a couple of centuries ago) [end threadjack]

Damn... I really thought you picked that handle to piss off us Dutch and that I was the only one who realised it...

	05-06-2003 05:39									#72
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Now THIS is an oxymoron thread title.

	05-06-2003 05:59									#73
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Its also pretty ironic that they chose to massacre protestors in the "Gate of Heavenly Peace". Anyhow..

*gives a moment of silence for the victims of Tiananmen Square*

	05-06-2003 06:26									#74
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quote: In the 70's, when I was a student at Nijmegen University (the most left-wing university in the Netherlands during that time) we actually thought that the Chinese Cultural Revolution was the best thing that ever happened to China.

Whoa!!!

Re Ranskaldan's defense, it's pretty pathetic since it relies on a straw man.

Re the massacre, it makes me sad. The Chinese communist bastard dictators are certainly not an enlightened lot.

	05-06-2003 06:31									#75
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The discussion in this thread fater I made my little comment is so indicative of why crap like this happens: excuses, excuses.

The leader of China at this point had already decreed that getting rich was wonderfull. Obviousy the Chinese Communist Party threw away the Little Red Books in name long before this massacre. What the student were protesting for was not capitalism and free trade and investement, what they wanted was democracy. That day was a battle between those yearning for political freedom and those wanting to maintain political control: how they though the economy of the country should be handled, well, irrelevant (and given that China's leaders then and now are more than willing to let the free market rule, certainly it was not their demand of centralized planning that made them send tanks in). So as I said, it was an example of what authoritarian dictatorships can do.

	05-06-2003 06:38									#76
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quote: Originally posted by Fez The Truth of Communism:

Yup. One worker standing in front of a group of tanks to defend his fellow workers and students. And a tank crew, that refused to run him over.

The PRC had to bring in Army units from the West, because the units in the East refused to move against the students and workers.

	05-06-2003 06:48									#77
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cool

	05-06-2003 06:50									#78
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A sad day indeed...Well, all I can say as my knowledge on China is rather limited, is that I wouldn't have taken those 7000 lives, under any circumstances, even if that would apparently be the "solution" that prevented the country from falling into chaos.

Some other way surely existed....how about "negotiations"?

If some of you people do support such actions, it's your free choice, but then you aren't really fit (morally at least) to complain when other regimes argue that killing several thousand people would be the "solution" too...

	05-06-2003 07:04									#79
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Before anyone starts believing that their own govt is any better they better remember that the US Army attacked the Bonus Marchers in 1932.

	05-06-2003 07:09									#80
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You've got no sense of proportion, Kid.

	05-06-2003 07:17									#81
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quote: Originally posted by JCG A sad day indeed...Well, all I can say as my knowledge on China is rather limited, is that I wouldn't have taken those 7000 lives, under any circumstances, even if that would apparently be the "solution" that prevented the country from falling into chaos.

If that appeared to be the only solution, then I would take it without a blink. Better to take even 7000 lives than to let many more millions die or suffer.

quote: Some other way surely existed....how about "negotiations"?

I don't, as of now, know enough about the situation to make that judgement. However, I suspect that by the time the decision was made, the Chinese leadership was already too deep in the quagmire to try anything other than force.

quote: If some of you people do support such actions, it's your free choice, but then you aren't really fit (morally at least) to complain when other regimes argue that killing several thousand people would be the "solution" too...

You are free to question my morality - though I also question your morality if you say that allowing much greater death and suffering is the more "moral" choice to take.

This is also why I've switched from opposing to supporting the Iraqi War. If you're faced with the option to kill one person in order to save a hundred, and pass up on it, you're the murderer of one hundred people.

	05-06-2003 07:22									#82
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quote: Originally posted by DanS You've got no sense of proportion, Kid.

Proportion is the only difference though, isn't it? If the US Army would have needed to kill 7,000 in 1932 they would have.

	05-06-2003 07:23									#83
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We will never know, Kid.

Also, we knew that a wrong decision had been made pretty immediately after it was done. I see little introspection by the Chinese.

	05-06-2003 07:26									#84
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ranskaldan is correct in his assessment that had the Tianamen movement been left unchecked, the result would be would by the ex-USSR a hundred times over. When the Chinese get crazy, they really go crazy. Remeber the disater of the Hundred Flowers campaign, and then add the Cultural Revolution into the mix.

Still, the reason the government "had" to act wasn't because a few hundreds students were sitting around in Tianamen Square, but because millions of Chinese workers were in the streets protesting, strinking, and marching. Deng may have quipped about the million strong marchin in Bejing, "Remember, in China, a million people is still a very small number," it was mirrored in China's industrial cities all up and down the coast.

What the "Communist" bureaucracy fears more than anything is the political activity of the working class.

	05-06-2003 07:30									#85
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quote: Originally posted by DanS I see little introspection by the Chinese.

We learned that overnight revolutions do not work, and gradual reforms do.

That is sadly something that many people still don't realize.

	05-06-2003 07:31									#86
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ranskaldan is correct in his assessment that had the Tianamen movement been left unchecked

He didn't make that assessment. He argued for the military crackdown, not other measures that would "check" the movement.

	05-06-2003 07:33									#87
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quote: Originally posted by DanS ranskaldan is correct in his assessment that had the Tianamen movement been left unchecked He didn't make that assessment. He argued for the military crackdown, not other measures that would "check" the movement.

I made that assessment right from the outset. Unfortunately you seem to have missed it.

And I'm happy to hear you suggest another method that wouldn't have left behind simmering unrest an open wound on China for years.

	05-06-2003 07:33									#88
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We learned that overnight revolutions do not work, and gradual reforms do.

Another strawman. There was no revolution going on. People were protesting peacefully.

	05-06-2003 07:36									#89
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quote: Originally posted by DanS We learned that overnight revolutions do not work, and gradual reforms do. Another strawman. There was no revolution going on. People were protesting peacefully.

"Peacefully"?

Unfortunately the power of the mob rarely stays peaceful.

Let's let the Cultural Revolution be the shining guide to the actions of the mob in demographically unbalanced China.

	05-06-2003 07:39									#90
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Unfortunately the power of the mob rarely stays peaceful.

That's BS. We have had protests with millions as well. Very rarely have they turned violent. Also, the students had been protesting peacefully for a while. Where were the indications that it would turn violent?