On 11/14/18 11:03 PM, Alfie John wrote:

Hey Zenaan,

Are your posts always off topic to Cypherpunks? Maybe other people disagree with me, but I somehow feel your purpose here is to make users unsubscribe 🤔

Aw shucks. Zenaan didn't make me unsubscribe. He did make me create a spam filter rule, and all his posts and replies land in their very own folder - just in case the "stopped clock twice daily" effect produces any real surprises. Years later, still waiting.... :o)

On Thu, Nov 15, 2018, 02:24 Steve Kinney

Postscript: Holey Fukkenshit, I just read the last post "of the moment" from Himself. Something about Donald Trump being an incarnate God, and pitiful revenge fantasies about killing Anarchists. <SNIP>

A bit of fun music: https://youtu.be/qT4qX9UPJ3c Yawn, zzzz... Zzzenaan is a complete waste of space, oxygen, water, food, and time. Always so boring, stupid and tedious... ( -_- )zzz...leeping! I do definitely love all my e-mail filters! <3

On November 16, 2018 4:42:08 PM PST, jamesd@echeque.com wrote:

The violence of leftists is continually and rapidly escalating. War approaches.

The only question is: Do they wipe themselves out after killing a few million or so, as in Khmer Rouge Cambodia and Szechuan province, or

-- I KNOW it's a total fucking waste of time to even respond to garbage like this but I feel the need to point out the Khmer Rouge were empowered by the US government and Pentagram, and certainly weren't "left" of anything. But they ARE the goto diversionary narrative whenever schmucks like this mention the alleged genocide in Vietnam that never occurred in the wake of the US rout-departure. Scumbags like James are the people who spit on US soldiers returning from Vietnam, so it could be blamed on antiwar protesters who weren't even allowed near returning soldier's points of departure and return. Rr Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail.

NOW it's a total fucking waste of time to even respond to garbage like this but I feel the need to point out the Khmer Rouge were empowered by the US government and Pentagram, and certainly weren't "left" of anything. But they ARE the goto diversionary narrative whenever schmucks like this mention the alleged genocide in Vietnam that never occurred in the wake of the US rout-departure

The left passionately denied the bloodbath in Cambodia as they passionately denied the bloodbath in Vietnam: They only admitted to the bloodbath when Vietnam successfully invaded Cambodia - and only then did they blame it somehow on the Americans. Back then when Chomsky and Herman wrote, the left, myself among them, all knew that something terrible was happening in Vietnam, though most now claim to remember otherwise. Today even Chomsky himself now remembers that no one in the press even suggested such a thing [12], though back then two months before he and Herman so indignantly complained of the failure to report the bloodbath as “missing”. the National Review told us [13]: "THE BLOODBATH is motivated not so much by hatred or revenge as by the necessity for the Communist system to purge itself of undesirable elements From a Marxist viewpoint political purge is a necessity in order to achieve political purity, a precondition to the building of socialism. Political purity ensures single mindedness, which in turn achieves high efficiency. The Vietnamese Communists, as they showed in their conduct of the war, are doctrinaire single minded, efficient. But not until all Vietnamese men, women, and children think the Communist way will political purity be achieved for the new nation as a whole. This is why indoctrination (“re-education” as they call it) is of prime importance. For those who are too old or too stubborn to change elimination is the only alternative." The crimes committed by the North Vietnamese regime against the Vietnamese people were smaller than the crimes committed by the Khmer Rouge against the Cambodians, but for us on the left they were emotionally far more significant. When these Vietnamese crimes became known, the reaction of the left was ignore the facts, the details and evidence of the accusations, and attack the messenger, a reaction that was strikingly inconsistent with our self image as the conscience of the world, our image of ourselves as people who cared deeply about the welfare of faraway strangers. Today, most of the radical left comfortably remember these accusations that they so venomously and savagely condemned as never having been made.

The left rejoiced at the liquidation of the kulaks, and only got around to saying it was a bad thing when Stalin was condemned in the secret speech. They rejoiced in the Vietnamese bloodbath at the same time as they denied it. They rejoiced in the Cambodian bloodbath at the same time as they denied, and then suddenly changed their tune when the Vietnamese communists conquered the Cambodian communists.

Within my lifetime there have been two enormous mass murders committed by the left overseas, and each of them was simultaneously supported and denied by the American left. I ceased to be a leftist when I saw the flood of refugees fleeing the bloodbath in Vietnam and fleeing the Khmer Rouge autogenocide, not so much because these enormous crimes horrified me, but because the reaction of my fellow leftists to these gigantic crimes horrified me. And, since that is how they reacted to the liquidation of the kulaks, the great leap forward, the Vietnamese bloodbath, and the Cambodian autogenocide, that is likely what is coming for America.

On Sun, Nov 18, 2018 at 02:40:21PM +1000, jamesd@echeque.com wrote:

[12] https://jim.com/ChomskyLiesCites/Cites.htm#_ftnref12

[13] https://jim.com/ChomskyLiesCites/When_we_knew_what_happened_in_Vietnam.htm

Nice collection of links/cites by the way! Thanks :)

On 11/18/18 12:17 AM, juan wrote:

On Sun, 18 Nov 2018 14:34:11 +1000 jamesd@echeque.com wrote:

...

I ceased to be a leftist when

uh oh...

On the brighter side, now Xenan will have lots of company over there in my CPunks Spam folder. I'm sure they will get along just fine, out of sight and out of mind. :o)

On 11/19/18 6:02 PM, juan wrote:

...

On the brighter side, now Xenan will have lots of company over there in my CPunks Spam folder. I'm sure they will get along just fine, out of sight and out of mind.

I open Zen's messages to see if they include a dailystormer link. I can't believe he puts one or more links to the ds in every message, but he does.

And maybe I should expand my "uh oh" comment a bit. James used to be a leftist and now he's a rightist. He was a partisan and he is a partisan. He was a 'progressive' social engineer and now he's a conservative social engineer, left and right being two sides of the same coin.

Ah, the Progressives! I first got to know them back when they were called the New Left: Think "Hanoi" Jane Fonda & co. Over the years my on-contact categorical rejection of the New Left's message evolved into a personal theory that they were, wittingly or otherwise, fielded by a Federal domestic political warfare activity. Their mission: Displace and discredit Pacifists and Liberals who were getting way too much influence during the Vietnam War. As always in mass media, nothing attracts attention like violence, even if it's only violent and deliberately offensive rhetoric; the plan, if plan it was, worked very nicely. In this same time frame, COINTELPRO was A Thing and the FBI went so far as to provide training, money, arms and explosives to Militant Leftists, creating "shocking headlines" in an effort to equate anti-war and other Liberal / ComSymp sentiments with violent extremism in the public mind. In light of the FBI arranging for people to actually bomb banks and such, it would be absurd to imagine that they did not also field double agents, witting or witless, to present a stereotyped "made to be hated" pro-Commie, anti-American "Leftist" message to the Folks At Home. A funny thing happened after the Vietnam War: The New Left still had its press contacts and professional networks, and kept right on going. After a few years of dormancy, Hanoi Jane married a conventional politician and got a faux Liberal makeover. At about that time I started running into people in real life who presented as political activists and talked about "political correctness" as if they had some moral right to dictate what Liberals and Radicals could and could not think, say and do. My initial reaction was "fuck y'all." Subsequent experience has proved my instinctive anarchist response correct. The Progressives worked industriously through the Reagan years, and managed to take over key roles in the Democratic Party. They elected one of their own - The Clintons - to the Presidency. Did the old New Left do that on their own, or with assistance from our Security Services? I have no hard data on that, but need I mention the relationship established when the CIA obtained full support from Governor Clinton for the Iran/Contra cocaine trafficking business, and the infamous Clinton Body Count from that era? Since before that day to the present, Progressive political actors have worked hand in glove with radical fringe Right Wing extremist elements of our "Deep State." The Clintons' zero-tolerance policy toward folks like the Patriot Movement (who remembers Ruby Ridge?), and the mass murder they carried out in Wayco, Texas do not impress me as evidence of an anti-Right agenda. I see a commitment to Corporate interests who dictate a zero tolerance policy toward any kind of wildcat political organizing, not under the firm control of well entrenched, uber-wealthy factions in the U.S. political/economic ecology. Today our peasants outnumber our dominant aristocrats by about 3/4 million to one, and that can't be a comfortable position for a de facto criminal elite to find itself in. Populism presents an existential threat to the world as they know it - a world where less than 1/100,000th of the population literally makes all the decisions affecting our species as a whole. So it can't be allowed, is all. Anyone who doubts the identity vs. "close relationship" of the Progressive establishment with the Far Right needs only look into the relationship between Henry Kissinger and Hillary Clinton: They present themselves in public as best buddies, and Hillary calls him her mentor. Her own track record for mass murder has yet to rise to Kissinger status - Honduras, Libya and Syria notwithstanding - but put her in the Oval Office and watch the fun! In light of the above model, the whole Left vs. Right paradigm in modern U.S. politics presents as a Big Lie. The only differences I see between the Parties of our duoploy are rhetorical, and a bias toward prioritizing service to financial services and communications shareholder value (Democrats) vs. Petrochemicals and Military Contracting industries' shareholder value (Republican). America's real silent majority, our classic Liberals, have no voice in national policy under a system that locks out candidates for elected office who do not meet Right Wing (Democratic Party) or Radical Fringe Right Wing (Republican Party) acceptance criteria. Meanwhile, thanks to many contributing factors that all come back to "make money fast, at any human cost," we remain on track for human extinction. My own informal model, based on 40 years of obsessive attention to relevant geophysical data and models, indicates that at most single digit millions of humans will survive into the 2200s, with full extinction likely to follow within another century. Setting an extinction date presents challenges: The last humans will live under conditions similar to long-stay missions to Mars, but with abundant water and relatively convenient air pressure and temperature as major advantages. As on Mars, a few minutes of unprotected exposure "outside" will be fatal. One might wish our future Earth Colonists all the best... But that's another story: Search on NOVA Mass Extinction, then look for a mirror because WGBS no longer hosts that file. When I'm really in the zone, I imagine that plans for Mars missions exist to provide cover for technology incubators developing methods for human survival under upcoming atmospheric and etc. conditions right here on Sol III Prime. "Gentlemen, we can not allow a Mine Shaft Gap!" vs. we can not afford to put off the business of shutting the Petrochemicals industry right the fuck down, and fast. No aboveground political faction on the Left or Right, so called, will stand for that; they would literally kill you first, in an effort to discourage others. So the final answer is left as a lab exercise... for all the marbles. :o)

On Tuesday, November 20, 2018, 12:08:58 PM PST, Razer wrote:

There IS a "Left" and there IS a "Right"...

Yes, and the origin of that meme was the outcome of the French revolution in 1789 onwards.  "The right", of that location and era, sat in the legislature on the "right", and "The Left", of that location and era, sat in the legislature on the "left". Simple for post-revolutionary France.  But applying that to other nations and at different times can be difficult.  And, being only one-dimensional, it's quite inadequate and highly misleading.  

Right=Fascism Actually, while I realize that this has become a 'convention', an agreed-upon idea, I challenge that concept.  The Italian "Fascist" Party was formed by a schism (an ideological split, a feud) within the Italian Socialist Party, in 1915, over the relatively simple idea of whether Italy should enter WWI, which it eventually did on the side of France and Britain.   Benito Mussolini   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benito_Mussolini famously headed the "Fascists", as they were called.  Nevertheless, "Fascists" were still "socialists".   "Fascists" did not suddenly decide, 'we are tired of being left-wingers, we want to be right-wingers instead!!!'   <ha ha> No, they were still socialists.  And, like socialists, they wanted big, controlling governments.  It's just that THEY wanted to be in control of those big, controlling governments.  And eventually, they wanted to use government-directed violence against citizens, as would eventually be done in Russia, China, and every other communist nation. Similarly, Germany eventually formed the Nazi party.  Why should we call that "right-wing"?  Strong, authoritarian government, that uses violence against its citizens.  Why didn't 'we' call that "left-wing", rather than "right wing"? Given that the terms "left-wing" and "right-wing" originally came from Post-Revolutionary France, I wonder how anybody could be strongly confident that one label or another applies in any given situation.   In any case, I think that the 'convention' that we refer to "fascism" as being "right-wing" was, and is, completely phony.  I think it was primarily based on the fact that there eventually became a war between "national socialists" and "communist-socialists" between 1939 and 1945.  Some Socialists couldn't stand the idea that other Socialists had just started a war, one that had killed 60+ million people.  Don't forget the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, of 1939 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pact   , in which Stalin gave Hitler the 'cover' he wanted to become confident to start WWII, and he did so.   The "solution", I suggest, was that they decided to label "fascism" (one kind of socialism) as being "right wing", safely kept away from another kind of socialism (Communism).  So, each could safely blame each other for all the ills of the world, without seeming to be attacking themselves.  

Left=Anarcho-Communism(communalism et al)

Sorry, I have to disagree again.  One big problem is that the term "anarchist" gets thrown around a lot.  I have considered myself an "anarchist libertarian" since 1995, because I figured out how to solve the problem of eliminating that last bit of government, becoming my Assassination Politics essay.  So, I think I should have some credibility here.  (Many and probably most people who called themselves "anarchists", even today, were not aware of David Friedman's "Hard Problem", to which I described the solution when I invented AP.  http://www.daviddfriedman.com/The_Machinery_of_Freedom_.pdf (Sadly, for 20+ years, David Friedman has seemed to have trouble acknowledging that I at least sketched out the solution to his "Hard Problem", in my AP essay.  I wasn't even aware that he had called that problem "The Hard Problem" in January 1995, when I found the solution.)  I think that many people who call themselves "anarchists", and people who are called "anarchists", don't really BELIEVE in the concept of "zero government".  Many of them, today, I believe, are actually pro-big-government socialists who have become discouraged by the failure of virtually every attempt at Communism that has been tried.  Even Red China's 'main claim to fame', in the last 20 years, has been the adoption of what should probably be labellable as an (imperfect)  market economy.  Put simply, if China hadn't done that, it would have been about as backward a nation as it was in, say, 1970.   And Walmart would have had to find another supplier for a large portion of its items for sale.

"...and an infinite number of points in between"

I think a one-dimensional political spectrum is hopelessly crude and misleading.  Far better is the Nolan Chart,  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nolan_Chart     and the World's Smallest Political Quiz,    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World%27s_Smallest_Political_Quiz ×

From the moment that I first became aware of it, probably around 1980, I realized that the Nolan Chart EXPLAINED something:  Why libertarians looked, to conservatives, like liberals, and why libertarians looked, to liberals, like conservatives.  The reason was simple:  So-called liberals, of that era, had no respect for the concept of economic freedom.  And so-called conservatives, of that era, had no respect for the concept of personal freedom.    The Nolan Chart also explained why seeming "dictators of the right", and "dictators of the left" looked much alike in their most-extreme cases.  Why shouldn't they?                               Jim Bell

On 2018-11-21 12:39, juan wrote:

On Tue, 20 Nov 2018 21:31:11 +0000 (UTC) jim bell wrote:

...

In any case, I think that the 'convention' that we refer to "fascism" as being "right-wing" was, and is, completely phony.�

so assuming that commies and nazis and other fascists are on the left, who is on the right then?

Whosoever wants to restore civilization against the darkness is on the right. Whosoever speaks truthfully about natures of men and women is on the right. Whosoever wants to return to the system that gave us industrialization, technology, science, and empire is on the right. Whosoever wants to allow men and women to durably contract to form families is on the right. Whosoever wants to restore Pauline marriage, marriage as it existed up to the fifties and early 1960s, is on the right. Whosoever wants science to return to the scientific method as prescribed by Robert Boyle and practiced from 1603 and 1944 is on the right. And proof of this is that anyone who deviates from leftism on any one of these issues, will be accused by leftists of deviating on all of them.

On 2018-11-21 17:45, juan wrote:

uh oh. So let's make clear what "the right" means. As Jim B. pointed out, the left/right classification comes from the french revolution. What needs to be added is that the people who sat on "the right" of the assembly were the conservatives/monarchists/theocrats or representatives of the 'ancien regime'.

The ancient regime was theoretically absolute, and in an important sense was absolute, but could not conscript, nor alter taxes from traditional sense, so in a very important sense far less absolute than the regime that replaced it, that wound up flaying bakers for charging more than the maximum and committing hyperinflation, after the fashion of Venezuela and wiped out entire generation of Frenchmen invading Russia. The divine right regime of Charles the Second gave us corporate capitalism, made the scientific method as called for by Robert Boyle in the "Skeptical Chymist" high status and socially enforced, and instituted corporate capitalism. Which gave us science, technology, industrialization, and empire. So whoever wants to restore civilization against the darkness is going to look very like those who sat on the right hand side of the assembly

...

On 2018-11-21 17:45, juan wrote:

...

uh oh. So let's make clear what "the right" means. As Jim B. pointed out, the left/right classification comes from the french revolution. What needs to be added is that the people who sat on "the right" of the assembly were the conservatives/monarchists/theocrats or representatives of the 'ancien regime'.

On Thu, 22 Nov 2018 16:04:56 +1000 jamesd@echeque.com wrote:

...

The ancient regime was theoretically absolute, and in an important sense was absolute, but could not conscript,

On 2018-11-22 16:56, juan wrote:

excetp, of course it could

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corv%C3%A9e

Corvee was typically one day a week working on the fields or some such. Which is a lot less than I spend working for the government. The ancient regime did not and could not send a generation off to Russia to die.

except hyperinflation in france existed in the 18th century (that is almost 100 years before the revolution)

http://austrianeconomics.wikia.com/wiki/John_Law_inflation_in_France

There was the important difference that though John Law could inflate away the paper money in your pocket, he did not and could not try to force bakers to supply bread for worthless money, unlike Venezuela today and unlike Revolutionary France.

...

Which gave us science, technology, industrialization, and empire.

notice that's exactly what a 'progressive' socialist would say.

But that is because they, and you, lie. Progressives have destroyed science, and socialists' attempts at industrialization were second rate (reflect on soviet cars), relied on buying or stealing technology developed by capitalists (soviet cars and car factories were copied from the US under American engineers) and came at horrifying human cost.

...

Corvee was typically one day a week working on the fields or some such. Which is a lot less than I spend working for the government.

On 2018-11-22 18:11, juan wrote:

One day a week of slavery? cool.

Way better than today's slavery.

...

The ancient regime did not and could not send a generation off to Russia to die.

oh, I'm sure there were no wars in the roman empire, in feudal europe and in monarchist europe

No wars fought by conscript troops, nor any wars with the horrifying casualty rates typical of modern wars fought with expendable conscript troops.

...

...

except hyperinflation in france existed in the 18th century (that is almost 100 years before the revolution)

...

There was the important difference that though John Law could inflate away the paper money in your pocket, he did not and could not try to force bakers to supply bread for worthless money, unlike Venezuela today and unlike Revolutionary France.

what the fuck are you talking about.

In Venezuela, and in Revolutionary France, the government enforces official maximum prices. When goods are not available at these prices, which they never are, the government proceeds to punish whosoever formerly produced goods. As a result, people went hungry in revolutionary France, and are going hungry in Venezuela.

My comments inline: On Tuesday, November 20, 2018, 11:45:27 PM PST, juan wrote: On Wed, 21 Nov 2018 17:04:56 +1000 jamesd@echeque.com wrote:

On 2018-11-21 12:39, juan wrote:

...

On Tue, 20 Nov 2018 21:31:11 +0000 (UTC) jim bell wrote:

...

In any case, I think that the 'convention' that we refer to "fascism" as being "right-wing" was, and is, completely phony.�

    so assuming that commies and nazis and other fascists are on the left, who is on the right then?

Whosoever wants to restore civilization against the darkness is on the right.

 >   uh oh. So let's make clear what "the right" means. As Jim B. pointed out, the left/right classification comes from the french revolution. What needs to be added is that the people who sat on "the right" of the assembly were the conservatives/monarchists/theocrats or representatives of the 'ancien regime'. That explains how it applied in France, in 1795 or so.    >   Now, key features of fascism are close cooperation between the 'private' sector and government and nationalism-militarism, also known as imperialism. Fascists usualy believe that they are god's chosen master race and that they have a Manifest Destiny. In other words the old mercantilists from the british empire and modern day fascists like the americunts are both 'right wingers'. And actually modern day corporatists-imperialists  are simply the continuantion of 18th century imperialists.  I won't argue with this, now, except to point out that the so-understood "leftist" dictatorships of the 20th century (usually based on Communism) tended to have analogous beliefs.  Not identical, of course, but analogous.  For example, Juan says: "Fascists usualy believe that they are god's chosen master race and that they have a Manifest Destiny." My response is that "race" is fairly irrelevant:  We can't choose our race.  It's not a "variable", and certainly not in the short-term.  One could argue, "What does it matter if one person believes, and even declares, that his race is superior?  Unless he tries to act on this belief in a hostile or otherwise violent way, it is functionally irrelevant".   Yet, you will notice today that most of the American Left obsesses about "Nazis"  (seemingly their chosen label for anyone who they have come to dislike) who, they claim, believe themselves to be superior.  My response is:  "Does it really matter what THEY believe about themselves?  Is it relevant?  Is it significant?   As for "Manifest Destiny":   Communists had the idea that their system would inexorably spread around the world, destroying all other forms of government.  (So, that is indeed akin to a "Manifest Destiny".)    Nevertheless that never happened, and it presumably didn't happen because Communism was eventually revealed to be horribly flawed.  Even by the late 1920's and mid-1930's, Russian Communists had begun murdering over a million Kulaks (people who didn't want to give up their on personally-owned farms to the collective.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kulak     From that article:  ("The word kulak originally referred to independent farmers in the Russian Empire who emerged from the peasantry and became wealthy following the Stolypin reform, which began in 1906. The label of kulak was broadened in 1918 to include any peasant who resisted handing over their grain to detachments from Moscow.[1] During 1929–1933, Joseph Stalin's leadership of the total campaign to collectivize the peasantry meant that "peasants with a couple of cows or five or six acres more than their neighbors" were labeled "kulaks".[2]") Another enormous flaw with Communism (and really, with all systems that purport to be 'centrally-planned') is that it is virtually impossible to run an economy by central control.   I saw an essay once that discussed, as an example, the food-distribution function in Manhattan.  It explained that it was enormously complex, and only 'worked' because all the components made their own decisions.  (Adam Smith's "Invisible Hand").    It was certainly not possible to do so in the era before computers and Internet networking, and remains impossible today.   Does anyone remember the stories about the Soviet Union, with its "5-year plans"?   Shoe factories, for instance, were ordered by "the plan" to produce a certain number (at least) of millions of pairs of shoes.  Well, they did so, but they tended to be of a small number of styles that many people didn't want!   Sure, they met 'the plan', but they didn't meet the wants and needs of the public.   Walk into any shoe store today, in America, and there are many hundreds of styles, multiplied by dozens of sizes.  A centrally-planned system never could accomplish this.       China killed perhaps 20 million people in the "Great Leap Forward", a plan which no doubt was intended to bring the prosperity that Mao saw in Western nations.  Ironically, now China is achieving prosperity, but it is doing so by employing a (not-perfect) pseudo-'free market' which it had not previously attempted.  Curiously, Russia has remained economically stuck, for reasons I suppose economists and technologists can explain.         >   So the question for Jim Bell remains. What political doctrines are 'right wing'? First, sorry for taking so long to respond to this. Also, I did not mean to suggest that 'all extremist governments are left-wing', although it might have seemed that I intended that.Rather, take a look at the Nolan Chart as I usually think of it:   A diamond-shape (a square rotated by 45 degrees.)   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nolan_Chart At the top is "100/100", complete freedom.  (Libertarian).  The left vertex is 100/0, complete social freedom but zero economic freedom.  (I do not know if there is a convention as to which number goes first, "social freedom" or "economic freedom").  The right vertex is 0/100, zero social freedom but full economic freedom.  The vertex on the bottom is 0/0, no social freedom and no economic freedom. One of the first things I noticed about the Nolan Chart is that it seemed to explain why 'dictatorships of the left' and 'dictatorships on the right' appeared so similar. (at that time, about 1980, I was not aware that there was a challenge to the idea of "fascism" as being "right-wing").  For example, you can imagine that as most freedoms (both social and economic) go away, the position on the Nolan Chart begins to approach the bottom-most vertex, 0/0.   Thus, as you get close to that point, say a strong "leftist" dictatorship at, say, 10/0, or a strong "rightist" dictatorship at 0/10, you see that these points are actually quite close to each other.   This led me to the conclusion that in the limited area of dictatorships, there really isn't much difference between "left" and "right".  These labels become fairly irrelevant.  Nevertheless today, people can get into fierce arguments as to whether "fascism" is "left-wing" or "right-wing".   Does it really matter?    True, we are today conditioned to accept the idea that "fascism" is "right-wing".  But I think a study of the relevant history shows that these labels are virtually meaningless in the extreme case of a dictatorship.  Would you have preferred living in Nazi Germany, as opposed to Stalinist Russia?                 Jim Bell   

On Thu, 22 Nov 2018 18:46:18 +0000 (UTC) jim bell wrote:

 >   uh oh. So let's make clear what "the right" means. As Jim B. pointed out, the left/right classification comes from the french revolution. What needs to be added is that the people who sat on "the right" of the assembly were the conservatives/monarchists/theocrats or representatives of the 'ancien regime'.

That explains how it applied in France, in 1795 or so.  

I candidly admit I don't know the whole history of the use of those words but I never saw them used in political literature from the 19th century. If I had to guess, the terms became common in the 20th century. Regardless, the fact that monarchists sat on the right was abstracted and "the right" became a label for conservatives/monarchists. So it doesn't apply only to revolutionary france but to all conservatives/monarchists/theocrats. Now, if "the right' is the state-church-oligarchy, ancien regime, or powers that be, then people who oppose them must be on "the left", at least according to one simple interpretation. In the french case, the people who opposed the monarchy were a mix of socialists and fake libertarians, who wanted varying degrees of statism. Quite related fact : a few years before the french revolution there was a coup d'etat against the english monarchy in north america. This coup d'etat is known as the "american revolution" and was funded and supported by the french monarchy. Furthermore, more than a few particular fake libertarians(jefferson and co.) were involved in both the french and american 'revolutions'. So in the english colonies a bunch of criminals overthrew the english monarchy (so they were left wingers) with help from the french monarchy and founded a slave empire. So they were far right wingers... Coincidentally I wonder if children in the USA learn about the fact that the american coup d'etat was funded by the french. I further wonder if children in public schools are informed of the fact that public 'education' is socialism and political brainwashing.

 >   Now, key features of fascism are close cooperation between the 'private' sector and government and nationalism-militarism, also known as imperialism. Fascists usualy believe that they are god's chosen master race and that they have a Manifest Destiny. In other words the old mercantilists from the british empire and modern day fascists like the americunts are both 'right wingers'. And actually modern day corporatists-imperialists  are simply the continuantion of 18th century imperialists. 

I won't argue with this, now, except to point out that the so-understood "leftist" dictatorships of the 20th century (usually based on Communism) tended to have analogous beliefs.  Not identical, of course, but analogous.  For example, Juan says: "Fascists usualy believe that they are god's chosen master race and that they have a Manifest Destiny." My response is that "race" is fairly irrelevant:  We can't choose our race.  It's not a "variable", and certainly not in the short-term.  One could argue, "What does it matter if one person believes, and even declares, that his race is superior?  Unless he tries to act on this belief in a hostile or otherwise violent way, it is functionally irrelevant".

Agreed, if a some people are racists and they just talk about it, then it's mostly irrelevant. But when lots of people are racists, like say, the germans, the jews, the americans, and similar imperialist assholes are, then racism becomes an important anti-libertarian factor. In the case of americans, so called 'liberals' actually don't give a fuck about racism OR are racists themselves. They pose as being against racism only for war propaganda purposes. Notice that the 'liberals' where the assholes promoting eugenics at the beginning of the 20th century. OOPS -they did that before hitler and co go figure...

   Yet, you will notice today that most of the American Left obsesses about "Nazis"  (seemingly their chosen label for anyone who they have come to dislike) who, they claim, believe themselves to be superior.  My response is:  "Does it really matter what THEY believe about themselves?  Is it relevant?  Is it significant?  

Of course racism is significant in the US.

As for "Manifest Destiny":   Communists had the idea that their system would inexorably spread around the world, destroying all other forms of government.  (So, that is indeed akin to a "Manifest Destiny".)   

Yes, that's my point. Commies and american fascists are close cousins. And I'd put the commies on the left, and the americans who think they have a 'manifest destiny' on the right.   

Does anyone remember the stories about the Soviet Union, with its "5-year plans"?   Shoe factories, for instance, were ordered by "the plan" to produce a certain number (at least) of millions of pairs of shoes.  Well, they did so, but they tended to be of a small number of styles that many people didn't want! 

yeah, serfs and wage slaves are more easily controlled if they are 'free' to choose the color of their shoes. That may sounds like sarcasm but it's literally true. And it's the reason why fascism is marginally more 'efficient' than communism.

 Sure, they met 'the plan', but they didn't meet the wants and needs of the public.   Walk into any shoe store today, in America, and there are many hundreds of styles, multiplied by dozens of sizes.  A centrally-planned system never could accomplish this.  

but centrally planned, fake free markets do accomplish that, as seen in 'the west'.

    China killed perhaps 20 million people in the "Great Leap Forward",

I don't think there's any source for that number except right wing propaganda =) While we are at it, do you know how many millions were enslaved or murderer by the american government and its supporters? Slavery lasted for 100 years in the US so you can sum up the number of all the slaves that lived in the US, then add the number all people murderer by the US military since 1776. Don't forget to include the terror bombing of germany and japan. Vietnam, korea, etc. I would be interested to know what that figure amounts to...

a plan which no doubt was intended to bring the prosperity that Mao saw in Western nations.  Ironically, now China is achieving prosperity, but it is doing so by employing a (not-perfect) pseudo-'free market' which it had not previously attempted. 

exactly the same thing western mercantilists always used. A fake 'free' market.

Curiously, Russia has remained economically stuck, for reasons I suppose economists and technologists can explain.  

      >   So the question for Jim Bell remains. What political doctrines are 'right wing'?

First, sorry for taking so long to respond to this.

No problem. There's been a 30% automatic reduction on your wages =P

Also, I did not mean to suggest that 'all extremist governments are left-wing', although it might have seemed that I intended that.Rather, take a look at the Nolan Chart as I usually think of it:   A diamond-shape (a square rotated by 45 degrees.)   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nolan_Chart At the top is "100/100", complete freedom.  (Libertarian).  The left vertex is 100/0, complete social freedom but zero economic freedom.  (I do not know if there is a convention as to which number goes first, "social freedom" or "economic freedom").  The right vertex is 0/100, zero social freedom but full economic freedom. 

Yes but as I said in a previous message to Steve K. I don't think that the left stands for personal freedom and the right for economic freedom. Some of the left's and right's talking points might seem to suggest that but it's just lip service and political propaganda. So the nolan chart's assumptions about left and right are flawed.

The vertex on the bottom is 0/0, no social freedom and no economic freedom. One of the first things I noticed about the Nolan Chart is that it seemed to explain why 'dictatorships of the left' and 'dictatorships on the right' appeared so similar.

Yeah, the chart does make some sense in that regard - but technically it puts full dictatorship on the center...so it doesn't make complete sense either.

(at that time, about 1980, I was not aware that there was a challenge to the idea of "fascism" as being "right-wing").  For example, you can imagine that as most freedoms (both social and economic) go away, the position on the Nolan Chart begins to approach the bottom-most vertex, 0/0.   Thus, as you get close to that point, say a strong "leftist" dictatorship at, say, 10/0, or a strong "rightist" dictatorship at 0/10, you see that these points are actually quite close to each other.  

Yes, so that illustrates the point that the left and the right are close cousins. But in the nolan chart they would appear in the center (and the center usually stand for moderation...)

This led me to the conclusion that in the limited area of dictatorships, there really isn't much difference between "left" and "right".  These labels become fairly irrelevant. 

Yes the labels are irrelevant in one sense and not just in the case of complete dictatorships. You can look at a lot of issues where there's no meaningful distinction between left and right 'opinions'. BUT, at the same time, partisans on both camps pretend that they are radically different.

Nevertheless today, people can get into fierce arguments as to whether "fascism" is "left-wing" or "right-wing".   Does it really matter?   

It depends =P - I think it does matter when talking to people who use the left/right classification. Like say, trump supporter, white supremacists and fascist James Donald who clearly thinks he's "on the right' and a "good guy'. Also I think It's very important to trace the pedigree of anti libertarian imperialists, from the time when they were judeo-christian monarchists, to the time when they were 'national socialists' or when jefferson and washington were expanding their slave empire and when americans blow brown children up for the glory and profits of goldman sachs. So....I don't think you actually answered my question? =) If you put the commies and fascists on the left, then who is on the right? Ayn rand, the champion of....american fascism?

True, we are today conditioned to accept the idea that "fascism" is "right-wing".

I am not 'conditioned' to do that. I have a good argument to justify that position. And as a libertarian I want nothing to do with fake libertarians or right wingers so I'm interested in showing to them that they are just a brand of fascist.

  But I think a study of the relevant history shows that these labels are virtually meaningless in the extreme case of a dictatorship. 

But they do matter because lefties say they are the good guys and so do right wingers. Now, when they get to implement their systems what we have is a dictatorship. But it's important to keep in mind that those dictatorships are the result of left of right wing 'philosophy'.

Would you have preferred living in Nazi Germany, as opposed to Stalinist Russia?

What about being burnt to death in hiroshima, dresden, or vietnam?

                Jim Bell   

On Tue, 20 Nov 2018 21:51:38 -0500 Steve Kinney wrote:

The X axis represents distribution of Private power into fewer hands (Capitalism) or more hands (Free Enterprise). The Y axis represents distribution of State power into fewer hands (Authoritarian) or more hands (Anarchist). I do not label the quadrants, leaving that as an exercise. Examining various "ideologies" in the context of this graph provides a bit of potentially educational fun. Which quadrant would you rather live in, and why?

In this example I place the Right and Left on the graph:

http://pilobilus.net/Political.Oritnetation.Grid.png

I don't think the 2d graph adds much. The assumption that 'economic' freedom and 'personal' freedom are different things is obviously flawed. Also, the assumption that 'conservatives' favor 'eonomic' freedom whereas 'modern' 'liberals' favor 'personal' freedom is flawed as well. In practice both 'conservatives' and 'liberal' are...fascists =) Nolan came up with his chart because libertarianism doesn't fit the mainstream left/right classification, BUT the notion that mainstream left and right are half libertarian is complete bullshit, wishful thinking and dishonest pandering. In practice, both liberals and conservatives pay some *lip service* to 'personal' or 'eonomic' freedom while fully supporting fascism. Anyway, we can simply have a line (or segment I guess) with anarchists on one end and authoritarians on the other end. And then we can classify the whole library accordingly. As to the placement of left and right in your graph, seems to me that both left and right should be at the top since both are authoritarian. And none of them favor free enterprise either...

On Wed, 21 Nov 2018 02:49:31 -0500 Steve Kinney wrote:

On 11/20/18 10:41 PM, juan wrote:

...

...

http://pilobilus.net/Political.Oritnetation.Grid.png

I don't think the 2d graph adds much. The assumption that 'economic' freedom and 'personal' freedom are different things is obviously flawed. Also, the assumption that 'conservatives' favor 'eonomic' freedom whereas 'modern' 'liberals' favor 'personal' freedom is flawed as well. In practice both 'conservatives' and 'liberal' are...fascists =)

Not economic vs. personal freedom, but rather, economic (commerce) vs. coercive (political) agency: Concentration of capital and firepower in more or less hands.

That would be your X axis?

...

Nolan came up with his chart because libertarianism doesn't fit the mainstream left/right classification, BUT the notion that mainstream left and right are half libertarian is complete bullshit, wishful thinking and dishonest pandering. In practice, both liberals and conservatives pay some *lip service* to 'personal' or 'eonomic' freedom while fully supporting fascism.

I was under the impression that Nolan came up with that chart in an effort to persuade people dissatisfied with the Left/Right spectrum that they "belong in" the Libertarian Party.

I guess that's a related reason.

I can't fault his motives:

It's not that I fault his motives. Rather I think the chart misrepresents the nature of left and right. In the nolan chart left and right are halfway between libertarian and authoritairan, but in reality they have varying degrees of authoritarianism.

Before the hostile takeover that converted the Libertarian Party to a Radical Conservative a.k.a. Coprporatist org back in the late 1990s, the Party had a lot to offer - I was a fan and booster. Today, I can not distinguish Libertarian Party advocates and its (rare) candidates for political office from "socially tolerant" Republicans. The Libtards do talk a slightly different game, but I could not care less about that: Performance is my bottom line.

What's your take on this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallas_Accord Anyway, my understanding is that the LP was supposed to be a means to 'educate' people rather than to seize power. It seems to have failed in both accounts at any rate. And at times the LP candiates were outright neocons, so, self-parody.

...

Anyway, we can simply have a line (or segment I guess) with anarchists on one end and authoritarians on the other end. And then we can classify the whole library accordingly.

That's the X axis on the graph...

...

As to the placement of left and right in your graph, seems to me that both left and right should be at the top since both are authoritarian. And none of them favor free enterprise either...

I put the Right near the Anarchist end of the scale, because "Private power" vs. "State power" indicates one central State authority vs. numerous competitive State-chartered Corporate entities: Think Soviet Union vs. United States, toward the end of the Cold War era.

But state chartered and privileged businesses are hardly anarchist? Another interpretation could be that your bottom left quadrant is literally "anarcho capitalism", but that's confusing because at least in theory "anarcho capitalism' is a synonym for full free enterprise. Though granted more than a few self styled 'anarcho capitalists' are 'anarcho' fascists. Overall I think the problem in your graph is that your capitalism/free enterprise axis should be parallel to the authoritarian/anarchist axis since authoritarian systems control all aspects of the lives of the subjects including of course economic activity. However in a cartesian plane the data in te X axis isn't necessarily related to the data in the Y axis. The x,y components are independent so you can have any combination of x,y and you can have things like "authoritarian free enterprise" which is a clearly contradiction. here's one possible take. https://anonfile.com/v9EdG0l7bf/pol_svg notice that the area marked in grey repesents "authoritarian individualism" which is something that doesn't make sense so even in this case teh 2d format isn't optimal.

Thanks to several generations of full saturation Big Lie propaganda, many people believe that Corporate Capitalism "is" Free Enterprise.

Indeed.

But in real life the two present as natural enemies: When an independent sole prop or partnership starts cutting into a major corporation's market by bringing a superior product to market at a competitive price, our Corporate Capitalists use their massive financial reserves to destroy the independent enterprise:

Yes. So perhaps in your graph you could have labeled the "capitalist" side as "corporatist". Also, I haven't fully researched this but I believe that mussolini described his system as corporatist.

Dump lookalike products on the market at a loss, regulate their competitors out of business with the help of friendly, well bribed State agencies, or etc.

Yes, the main mechanisms that first come to mind are : 1) so called 'intelectual property' 2) cemtral banking and 'cheap' credit for cronnies 3) regulation 4) government contracts

This perspective comes from first hand observation, as a participant in high functioning small businesses stomped flat as soon as they became competitive by bringing superior products at completive prices to market.

:o)

My initial reaction was "fuck y'all." Subsequent experience has proved my instinctive anarchist response correct.

America's real silent majority, our classic Liberals, have no voice

Meanwhile, thanks to many contributing factors that all come back to "make money fast, at any human cost," we remain on track for human extinction. My own informal model, based on 40 years of obsessive attention to relevant geophysical data and models, indicates that at most single digit millions of humans will survive into the 2200s, with full extinction likely to follow within another century. Setting an extinction date presents challenges: The last humans will live under conditions similar to long-stay missions to Mars, but with abundant water and relatively convenient air pressure and temperature as major advantages. As on Mars, a few minutes of unprotected exposure "outside" will be fatal. One might wish our future Earth Colonists all the best...

But that's another story: Search on NOVA Mass Extinction, then look for a mirror because WGBS no longer hosts that file. When I'm really in the zone, I imagine that plans for Mars missions exist to provide cover for technology incubators developing methods for human survival under upcoming atmospheric and etc. conditions right here on Sol III Prime.

"Gentlemen, we can not allow a Mine Shaft Gap!"

vs. we can not afford to put off the business of shutting the Petrochemicals industry right the fuck down, and fast. No aboveground political faction on the Left or Right, so called, will stand for that; they would literally kill you first, in an effort to discourage others. So the final answer is left as a lab exercise... for all the marbles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_extinction

On November 17, 2018 8:17:38 PM PST, jamesd@echeque.com wrote:

The left enthusiastically supported and indignantly denied the liquidation of the Kulaks until Khruschev's secret speech, long after the liquidation

There you go... Thinking the USSR was actually a communist country. Totalitarian collectivism isn't communism

The left enthusiastically supported and indignantly denied the Cambodian autogenocide, until the Vietnamese invaded and conquered, three years after the autogenocide had been widely publicized.

The left enthusiastically supported and indignantly denied the Vietnamese bloodbath, and continue to deny it to this day.

Vietnamese Bloodbath... You mean in Cambodia? Because nothing of the sort happened in Vietnam that's ever been documented anywhere. As far as Cambodia goes, that "Bloodbath" committed by the Vietnamese, IF if ever actually occured, would be their wiping out of left-behind and indigenous CIA proxies. Much like the Syrians, with Russian assistance, are doing to another group of CIA proxies. If it was societal 'Familcide', it was the CIA's proxies killing off anyone who disagreed with them. The Khmer Rouge weren't "Left", and no one I ever met thought they were, so you and your Scumbag alt-right friends, and Westerners indoctrinated into the myth of Merica, believe that garbage... Sort of like believing in Chemtrails distributed by commercial airliners, or Russians in the hotel room with Donald Trump, pissing on him. Speaking of pissed... Proof that one pissed-off person can change EVERYTHING: "This is dedicated to the people in the building above me who called the cops on me when I was just trying to get some money to feed my daughter." ~Karl Marx, Dedication, Communist Manifesto. Rr Sent from my Androgyny dee-vice with K-9 Mail

Because nothing of the sort happened in Vietnam that's ever been documented anywhere.

You lie about Vietnam as the American left formerly lied about Cambodia and Russia, because you intend to do to us what was done to them. You lied before. And you lie again. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.

...

...

Because nothing of the sort happened in Vietnam that's ever been documented anywhere.

On November 18, 2018 1:56:31 PM PST, jamesd@echeque.com wrote:

...

You lie about Vietnam as the American left formerly lied about Cambodia

On 2018-11-19 08:17, Razer wrote:

You must mean US LaRouchieLabor Party 'left'.

Leftists are all NPCs, all speaking from one script, like an unhelpful call center workers manning an unhelpful help line, and when the script is suddenly changed, all leftists everywhere suddenly change and no longer remember that yesterday they were saying something completely different. Leftists spoke with one voice before 1978 December 25th, and they spoke with one voice after 1979 February 16th, but now they say the opposite of what they said before before 1978 December 25th. Show us a link to a leftist admitting the Cambodian Autogenocide before 1978 December 25th, or to a leftist denying the Cambodian Autogenocide after 1979 February 16th. Every single leftist every where, in the sense that any leftist anywhere who deviated from the party line was promptly denounced and purged, every tenured Academic everywhere, in the sense that there was not one dissenting voice in all of tenured Academia in the entire world, lied about the Cambodian Autogenocide until 1979 January the eighth, when Phnom Penh fell to the Vietnamese, whereupon every leftist every where turned on a dime, admitted the Cambodian Autogenocide and started blaming it on the CIA, I just gave you a link to Chomsky denying, excusing, and justifying the Cambodian autogenocide. If you say that leftists existed who gave us a different story, link them.

On November 18, 2018 1:56:31 PM PST, jamesd@echeque.com wrote:

...

...

...

You lie about Vietnam as the American left formerly lied about Cambodia

On 2018-11-19 08:17, Razer wrote:

...

...

You must mean US LaRouchieLabor Party 'left'.

...

Leftists are all NPCs, all speaking from one script, like an unhelpful call center workers manning an unhelpful help line, and when the script

is suddenly changed, all leftists everywhere suddenly change and no longer remember that yesterday they were saying something completely different.

Leftists spoke with one voice before 1978 December 25th, and they spoke

with one voice after 1979 February 16th, but now they say the opposite of what they said before before 1978 December 25th.

Show us a link to a leftist admitting the Cambodian Autogenocide before

1978 December 25th, or to a leftist denying the Cambodian Autogenocide after 1979 February 16th.

So, link us to a someone you consider a leftist who acknowledged the Khmer Rouge autogenocide before 1978 December 25th or denied if after 1979 February 16th.

1. I don't go to links named "Jim.com", or whatever, for authoritative info.

So give us your own link that shows a leftist saying something different from the authoritative and official script.

...

If you say that leftists existed who gave us a different story, link them.

Right here buddy.

But right now you are robotically and mechanically giving us today's official leftist script the Vietnamese bloodbath (no such thing, and no one even suggested there was such a thing, and if anyone suggested there was such a thing they don't count) and on the Khmer Rouge autogenocide (that it happened but the CIA did it) and if you were writing before 1978 December 25th you would have been giving us the previous official script - no such thing happened, and no one even suggested it was happening, and if anyone did suggest such a thing happened they don't count because such an absurd and outrageous suggestion proves that they are a lunatic ultra extreme right winger.

On Sun, Nov 18, 2018 at 10:08:49AM -0800, Razer wrote:

"This is dedicated to the people in the building above me who called the cops on me when I was just trying to get some money to feed my daughter." ~Karl Marx, Dedication, Communist Manifesto.

Ha! Is that actually true?

On Mon, Nov 19, 2018 at 10:14:58AM -0800, Razer wrote:

On November 18, 2018 2:09:47 PM PST, Zenaan Harkness wrote:

...

On Sun, Nov 18, 2018 at 10:08:49AM -0800, Razer wrote:

...

"This is dedicated to the people in the building above me who called the cops on me when I was just trying to get some money to feed my daughter." ~Karl Marx, Dedication, Communist Manifesto.

That purported dedication by Marx struck a bell when I first read it. Still does. I've hunted around again, still can't find if it's apocryphal or factual. If anyone finds a more concrete reference, any link would be appreciated. Best I found was this: Manuscript of Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto https://socialhistoryportal.org/museum/6671 .. The only remaining manuscript page of The Communist Manifesto, written by Karl Marx in 1847. The handwriting is almost illegible. This text ends with the famous phrases 'The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Working men of all countries, unite!' manuscript Germany 1847 Inv. Nr.: archive Karl Marx Institute: IISH

...

Ha! Is that actually true?

Not sure... I read that somewhere but it must have been in the manuscript. Marxist.org doesn't show a dedication. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/index.h...

I know it appears in this little piece of Knee-Grow music.

"Yeah, this album is dedicated To all the teachers that told me I'd never amount to nothin' To all the people that lived above the buildings that I was hustlin' in front of Called the police on me when I was just tryin' to make some money to feed my daughter (it's all good) And all the niggas in the struggle You know what I'm sayin'? It's all good, baby baby..."

https://genius.com/The-notorious-big-juicy-lyrics

Rr

Sent from my Androgyne dee-vice with K-9 Mail

On Thu, Nov 15, 2018 at 03:03:44PM +1100, Alfie John wrote:

Hey Zenaan,

Are your posts always off topic to Cypherpunks? Maybe other people disagree with me, but I somehow feel your purpose here is to make users unsubscribe 🤔

Alfie

Myself, as a general rule, I do not killfile or filter my mbox. I only skip over. But I admit I have read some messages from Zenaan, because why not and subjects were intriguing... -- Regards, Tomasz Rola -- ** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature. ** ** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home ** ** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened... ** ** ** ** Tomasz Rola mailto:tomasz_rola@bigfoot.com **