CDR: Shunning, lesbians and liberty

[James A.. Donald]

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James A. Donald:
 > > You are putting ordinary dictatorships, like Pinochet's Chile or
 > > Park's Korea, in the same category as communist dictatorships,
 > > like Castro's Cuba or Mengistu's Ethiopia.  That is ridiculous.

01:02 PM 10/3/2000 +0100, Ken Brown wrote:
 > You really are a prat aren't you?
 >
 > So it is OK to be killed by a fascist bullet but not by a communist
 > one? There are a few million dead who would have been happy had they
 > known that before the likes of Pinochet or Franco murdered them.

Pinochet was not a fascist, not a totalitarian, and murdered only two or 
three thousand.  Any communist ruler that murdered so few would be hailed 
as a living saint and the moral equivalent of Ghandi.  Franco was a 
fascist, a totalitarian, but milder than most fascists, and most fascists 
are milder than most communists.  Franco only murdered fifty to a hundred 
thousand, which would not quite qualify him for sainthood if he was a 
communist, but close enough.

James A. Donald:
 > > and the distribution of famine (excluding famines caused by war)
 > > illustrates that difference. So let us go back to the original
 > > question:  Where was there a significant twentieth century famine
 > > other than those caused by war or socialism?

01:02 PM 10/3/2000 +0100, Ken Brown wrote:
 > Why include the word "socialism"?  Almost without exception, war is
 > almost the only thing that ever caused a prolonged famine. The
 > flavour of dictatorship in power at the time has very little to do
 > with it.

Only if you define socialism as war.  Socialist famines are usually imposed 
once the proletariat have been completely disarmed, and all resistance has 
been shattered.  The Ukrainian famine, the hungry ghosts famine, and the 
recent North Korean famine are all good examples of such famines.

Socialist famines are incomparably more severe and prolonged than war 
famines, the two greatest famines of the twentieth century being the 
liquidation of the kulaks, and the hungry ghosts.

Socialist famines are in a sense caused by war, in the sense that socialism 
tends to be unending war against a disarmed and already conquered populace.

So let us go back to the original question:  Where was there a significant 
twentieth century famine other than those caused by war or socialism?

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          James A. Donald
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