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<DIV>----- Original Message ----- <BR>From: "Mike Lorrey" <<A
href="">mlorrey@yahoo.com</A>><BR><BR>Ok! I'll let it go after this! I just
need to say:<BR><BR>To: "Jack Parkinson" <<A
href="">isthatyoujack@icqmail.com</A>>; "ExI chat list" <BR><<A
href="">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</A>><BR>Sent: Friday, September 23,
2005 12:26 PM<BR>Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Re: Profile the Great
Satan?<BR><BR>> --- Jack Parkinson <<A
href="">isthatyoujack@icqmail.com</A>> wrote:<BR>><BR>>><BR>>>
From: "Mike Lorrey" <<A href="">mlorrey@yahoo.com</A>><BR>>>
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Re: Profile the Great Satan?<BR>>><BR>>>
> Switzerland is peaceful and free because every Swiss is armed
with<BR>>> a<BR>>> > machine gun and the ammo to do damage with
it. The willingness to<BR>>> > commit violence in their defense has
kept them free. Their<BR>>> willingness<BR>>> > to trade with
anybody only has made them rich as any banker of a<BR>>> lord<BR>>>
> of war would. We can't all be bankers to warlords.<BR>>><BR>>>
This makes the Swiss sound like testoterone-crazed, trigger-happy<BR>>>
miltants!<BR>>> Not so! Switzerland is tiny - and without significant
capacity to<BR>>> impose its will by force on anyone. And, it would be
walk-over for<BR>>> any medium power military machine. Your comment is
just obscurist.<BR>><BR>> On the contrary, I happen to know some Swiss, do
you? They take their<BR>> personal duty to personal and national self defense
seriously.<BR><BR>As I understand it, the Swiss are occasionally called upon to
do military <BR>service, each person is required to keep a weapon for this
purpose. Some, no <BR>doubt take it seriously. My Swisss friends thought it was
an embarrassing <BR>joke...<BR><BR>><BR>>> > There are six million
dead in europe who didn't use violence and<BR>>> did<BR>>> > not
live.<BR>>><BR>>> Really? What about the uprisings in Warsaw? The
histories are full of<BR>>> tales of remarkable resistance across the
entire theatre of WWII<BR>>> operations...<BR>><BR>> Now who is
being obscurist? The jews of the Warsaw ghetto uprising only<BR>> resorted to
violence in self defense after they figured out they<BR>> weren't getting out
alive.<BR><BR>BUT that's exactly when they SHOULD have resorted to violence! As
a last <BR>ditch desperation measure. And - if they had decided to launch a
pre-emptive <BR>strike earlier with sticks, stones and kitchen knives against
the Nazi war <BR>machine - they would simply have been slaughtered
sooner...<BR><BR>>There are a number of Warsaw jews who<BR>> escaped the
slaughter. Our discussion of violence is its use in<BR>> initiating violence.
The jews of europe were decidedly pacifist prior<BR>> to the Nazi pogrom, and
most remained so during it, to their own loss.<BR>> >There are tens of
millions of corpses across Turkey, the old<BR>>> > Soviet republics,
and across China who didn't use violence and did<BR>>> not<BR>>>
> live. You are lying the lie of the pacifist.<BR>>><BR>>>
Perspective, perspective... I just wear different glasses and look
at<BR>>> global as well as local implications.<BR>><BR>> Bull. There
is no perspective to tens of millions of innocent people<BR>> dead other than
that they didn't stick up for themselves or didn't do<BR>> it soon
enough.<BR><BR>There is no such thing as people who don't stick up for
themselves! <BR>Resistance always comes, it sometimes takes a while to build and
that is <BR>all. Once again: Every act of violence is met with resistance - and
massive <BR>violence is always met with massive resistance... Widen your
perspective a <BR>little and you can see that the Israeli war machine was born
out of the <BR>European pogroms...<BR><BR><BR>>> Every armed conflict is
eventually a disaster if you widen your<BR>>> observation of the fallout
far enough - from a dawn<BR>>> shootout at the ok corral to carpet-bombing
the bad guys in Asia ...<BR>><BR>> A disaster for WHO is the question? For
the agressor, or its victims?<BR>> How was the US revolution a disaster for
the US states? How was the US<BR>> civil war a disaster for the slaves, or
the northern industrialists who<BR>> benefitted from their post-war migration
and labor?<BR><BR>Wrong questions! How could any of these disasters possibly be
better than a <BR>peaceful, negotiated solution with no violence and
destruction?<BR><BR>><BR>> You refuse to acknowledge that death in a death
camp is a disaster for<BR>> the people suffering the
death.<BR><BR>Nonsense!<BR><BR>>But to you they are just a
statistic,<BR><BR>Nonsense on stilts!<BR><BR>> not to be bothered with in
your grand scheme of sophisticated left<BR>> "perspective".<BR><BR>Ah! The
pejorative labelling begins here!<BR>><BR>>><BR>>> Only the scale
of each disaster varies and is revealed over time.<BR>>>
Pacifism<BR>>> is strength and economy if implemented properly! Nelson
Mandela could<BR>>> have promoted a bloodbath in South Africa - and showed
remarkable<BR>>> resilience in restraining himself and his
followers.<BR>><BR>> He had no cause to. Despite the treatment his people
suffered, they did<BR>> not suffer a holocaust.<BR><BR>Breathtaking nonsense!
Mandela is the first and only African leader to <BR>prevent his country from
sliding into chaos and barbarism at the first <BR>opportunity that presented to
start shooting...<BR>><BR>>> And - he became a true and respected
international statesman thereby.<BR>><BR>> Primarily by the socialist
internationale who he was already a comrade of<BR><BR>Rubbish! Mandela is
respected by left, right and centre of every ideological <BR>persuasion and in
every part of the world...<BR><BR>><BR>>> Gandhi freed modern India in
much the same<BR>>> way and HE will be admired forever because of
that.<BR>><BR>> Gandhi clearly stated that the greatest crime the British
committed<BR>> against Indians was to debar them the use of arms. He used
pacifism in<BR>> a strategic way only because he knew the British considered
themselves<BR>> a compassionate and moral people capable of outrage at
injustice. His<BR>> pacifism was pure agit-prop and nothing more.<BR><BR>You
want to revise history to make Gandhi an aggressor? This is not a
<BR>modest ambition!<BR><BR>Such strategy could not<BR>> have been effective
against, say, Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Pol Pot, Castro,<BR>> or other socialist
heroes of sophisticates like yourself.<BR><BR>I will choose my own heroes thank
you! The characters above are notably <BR>absent from it...<BR><BR>>> The
rare pacifist statesmen we do have promote win-win solutions.<BR>>> Know
of any win-win wars?<BR>><BR>> Sure do. Japan is one of the top economies
in the world, as is Germany,<BR>> as a result of the US pounding them into
rubble,<BR><BR>The people of Dresden, and the crippled and deformed in Hiroshima
etc may <BR>not see that as win-win.<BR><BR>>and both have shed<BR>> their
former militarism<BR><BR>Ok - but now you praise non-aggression and
pacifism?<BR><BR>>and most of their former racism while doing it.<BR>>
Many a German city today that escaped allied bombing now bemoans that<BR>>
they never benefitted from the free razing services that other cities<BR>>
enjoyed to prepare them for post-war redevelopment.<BR><BR>I never heard a
German say that - and I've been travelling there regularly <BR>since the
70's<BR><BR>><BR>> The Cold War has also been Win-win. The people of the
former USSR are<BR>> now far freer than they once were, so they are far
better off. Most of<BR>> the politically and economically astute in the world
joke that the best<BR>> thing that can happen to their homeland is to be
conquered by the US.<BR><BR>Nonsense! Russia is a lawless mess - and try getting
around on one of their <BR>passports...<BR>><BR>>><BR>>> There is
a fundamental law of nature that tough guys learn the hard<BR>>> way:
Every act of violence is met with resistance - and massive<BR>>> violence
is always met with massive resistance.<BR>><BR>> This is also a lie. You
need to learn to distinguish one sort of<BR>> violence from the other.
Otherwise, where were all the post-war German<BR>> and Japanese
insurgencies?<BR><BR>Those insurgencies were neither necessary nor wanted. If
no-one is actively <BR>trying to destroy your or your families lives - there is
no need to hide <BR>behind a rock and snipe at them! Sensible people stop
fighting when the war <BR>is over. Intelligent people don't start wars in the
first place<BR><BR>Jack<BR>Quote of the day: Or what? You'll release the dogs?
Or the bees? Or the dogs <BR>with bees in their mouth and when they bark they
shoot bees at you? - Homer <BR>Simpson.</DIV></BODY></HTML>