Yes, the US economy is far from peachy right now, not that you'd notice with all this "war on terrorism" malarky conveniently occupying the headlines.

Prince Philip really doesn't know when to shut up. On a visit to Scotland he asked a driving instructor, "how'd you keep the locals off the booze long enough to pass the test?" And when he was invited to pet a tame Kowala (sp?) in Australia, he replied, "Goodness no! I might catch some ghastly disease!" Maybe it's all the interbreeding...

At 10/2/02 09:53 AM, Slizor wrote:

Between 100,000 and 500,000 civilians were murdered by the Cheka and Red army during the war.

Please clarify, was it 100'000 or 500'000? And y'know roughly how many were done by the Cheka? How many were the militant greens? Do spies count as civilans?

It's difficult to be accurate about these figures, given the situation the murders were committed in, hence the broadness of the estimate, but 100,000 would be a very conservative estimate indeed. And that is pertaining solely to the Cheka. Hundreds of thousands more were killed when the peasants tried to resist the grain requisition - I suppose they could be called greens. The so-called "bread war" saw the Red army at its moral nadir, murdering peaceful suspects, their families and even their fellow villagers.

Families of supposed enemies of the new regime and even entire villages were massacred as Lenin waged war on the peasants who refused to give up their grain.

Lenin was harsh on the peasants, actually, he was as harsh as the Tsar and the whites were.

The brutal atrocities meted out by the whites were usually unorgainsed and unordered, certainly not commanded by the Generals at the top. Lenin, on the other hand, was at the epicentre of peasant repression, advocating the destruction of whole social classes: "Merciless war against the kulaks! Death to them!" ("The Russian Revolution" - Richard Pipes). The whites had no hierarchical instrument of terror equal to the Cheka. However, most of the suffering came from the famine which Lenin created - and there the death toll runs into millions. The food surplus built up in White territory, when captured by the Reds, was dispatched to political centres of Russia like Petrograd and Moscow, rather than the countryside where it was more desperately needed. Lenin was callous in the extreme. Stalin was no aberration, but a continuation of Lenin's work.

He also set up a plethora of concentration camps long before anyone had even heard of the Nazis...

Golly gosh, I mean, if I had a civil war, in which people tried to destroy my government, well, after I beat them, I'll let them try again!

Many of them had not even attempted to oppose the Reds, passively or militarily; all you needed was someone to brand you "bourgeoise" or a "Tzarist stooge", and off to the camp you go. It was large-scale, paranoid terror, enforced by despots. Seems kinda ironic that so many should be enslaved by a government that claims to be setting them free.

The Lenin Good / Stalin Bad premise has been torn apart by plently of historians:

The Soviet Tragedy - Martin Edward Malia
The Russian Revolution - Richard Pipes
Lenin - Dmitri Volkogonov
The Black Book of Communism - Stephane Courtois
Koba the dread - Martin Amis
A People's Tragedy - Orlando Figes

Good for them. Y'know the BNP have historians as well....

But they are given no credibility. These are well established historians. The Black Book of Communism was compiled by a group of left-wingers, disillusioned with the Soviet Union.

Do it when others aren't online.

I think the European court of human rights recently condemned British law because it didn't allow someone to be legally regarded as a "wife" or "husband" if they had been born a man/woman respectively because of the birth certificate. They've probably created a clause to get around it now though.

At 9/20/02 07:54 PM, Slizor wrote:

It wasn't even called the USSR until 1922, after all the brutalality had been meted out and all non-Bolsheviks brought to heel.

It was in 1924....the time of Stalin.

Right, so the USSR had not been established before the Civil War. They did not have control of the whole country; no one did.

There was actually a food surplus in white-occupied territories. Yet, Lenin fanatically pushed on with War Communism throughout 1920, compounding the enormous suffering and death for the sake of ideology.

Ah, so when the Whites decided to declare war, you think Lenin should have just given up? Could it be that it was the White's fault for actually attacking the USSR?

He could have fought for control of the country without systematically murdering and imprisoning civilians and their families in prison camps.

And he did.

No he didn't. Between 100,000 and 500,000 civilians were murdered by the Cheka and Red army during the war. Families of supposed enemies of the new regime and even entire villages were massacred as Lenin waged war on the peasants who refused to give up their grain. Lenin created the humanitarian catastrophe as millions starved for his beliefs. He also set up a plethora of concentration camps long before anyone had even heard of the Nazis... The Lenin Good / Stalin Bad premise has been torn apart by plently of historians:

The Soviet Tragedy - Martin Edward Malia
The Russian Revolution - Richard Pipes
Lenin - Dmitri Volkogonov
The Black Book of Communism - Stephane Courtois
Koba the dread - Martin Amis
A People's Tragedy - Orlando Figes

"Lenin seemed intoxicated with violence, wallowing in its degradation as his appetite for terror become insatiable. His love of violence was not created by a revolutionary situation. As early 1901 he stated: "In principle we have never renounced terror and cannot renounce it". "If [any man is against the revolution] we'll stand him up against a wall." Stalin learnt the philosophy of terror from Lenin who bequeathed to him its bloody instruments so that he could continue with the revolution's legacy. It was Lenin who instigated the red terror." - Gerald Jackson

At 9/23/02 11:50 AM, Slizor wrote: People are free to believe what they believe, but, they should not have the means to force their beliefs on others, ie, children.

But if you believe in Christianity then you will probably also believe that you need to worship in a church, as would Muslims or most other major religions. Churches are arguably human services, like hospitals, and they are entitled to exist. I hope you wouldn't set up a similar atmosphere of clandestine meetings to worship that they have in China. You mentioned ideas being forced on children: would parents have the right to do that without gov't interference as they do now? I would rather see a kid brought up by his Nazi parents to harbour bigotted, narrow-minded views than the state intervening in what is none of their business.

Has Blair revealed his much-hyped "dossier" on Saddam's weapons to the general public yet?

At 9/17/02 03:54 AM, Slizor wrote:

Lenin created the Civil War

You're blaiming Lenin because other countries(and some rebels) attacked the USSR?

He wasn't just fighting other countries; the rest of Russia and the mass of opposing ideologies had to be defeated before it was controlled by the Bolsheviks. It wasn't even called the USSR until 1922, after all the brutalality had been meted out and all non-Bolsheviks brought to heel. The USSR was not established when the civil war broke out.

There was actually a food surplus in white-occupied territories. Yet, Lenin fanatically pushed on with War Communism throughout 1920, compounding the enormous suffering and death for the sake of ideology.

Ah, so when the Whites decided to declare war, you think Lenin should have just given up? Could it be that it was the White's fault for actually attacking the USSR?

He could have fought for control of the country without systematically murdering and imprisoning civilians and their families in prison camps. Both sides committed atrocities, but while that of the whites was ad hoc and critised by Gernerals, methodical oppression and massacre to ensure obedience was a cornerstone of Lenin's plan.

Hooray, the people have spoken!

...Now for something more contraversial: Transexual marriage. Should that be legally recognised too, ie someone who used to be a "man" having a sex-change operation and wanting to be regarded as a "wife"?

Gays ought to be given the right to marry in a registry office, entitling them to the same legal status as married heterosexual couples. For example, property, pension and inheritence rights if one of the couple dies. I'm not suggesting that Christian churches be forced to marry gays, but their commitment should be acknowledged in law if that is what the couple wants. All those in favour say aye!

At 9/12/02 07:59 AM, Slizor wrote: Can I have a date on this quote?

Fraid not - disregard it for the time being...

The Kronstadt rebels were mainly pissed off by the grain requisition, which was caused y the civil war, lenin had to work with the situation given to him, that is why millions perished during the civil war.

Lenin created the Civil War, and the humanitarin catastrophe that was War Communism. Millions starved in a famine that was entirely man-made; for perspective, the last severe famine in Russia was in 1891 and killed 400,000. There was actually a food surplus in white-occupied territories. Yet, Lenin fanatically pushed on with War Communism throughout 1920, compounding the enormous suffering and death for the sake of ideology. Then there were the tens of thousands interned in gulags, as well as the hundreds of thousands of kulaks, their families and other "counter-revolutionaries" murdered by the Cheka and Red Army. Stalin's atrocities were not an aberration of Soviet ideology.

I find it richly ironic that America is at such pains to prevent Saddam from possessing chemical weapons when they gave them to him in the eighties during the war against Iran. The Iraqi scientists were then able to extrapolate the elements of these deadly compounds and make them for themselves. Smart move, huh?

At 9/11/02 08:46 PM, TerathanDust wrote:

The fact that you fall back on personal abuse is, in itself, an addmitance that you are losing the argument. PATHETIC!

nooo.. its cuz you turned this into an arguement. the whole point of this message was lost thanks to you. fucker. but its ok. i dont care. i think you might be brainwashed.

No, my friend, you are the brainwashed one. Or at least extrememly gullible. You can't make sweeping statements in this forum and expect people not to scrutinise it. That's what politics is.

did you show your colors today? The RED, WHITE, and BLUE
Red - bloodshed
White - biggotry
Blue - the color of the empty eyes of an american. in other words - Brainwashed!!

I'm not American, nor am I patriotic.

At 9/10/02 11:52 AM, Slizor wrote:

Lenin created a regime of systematic murder and oppression long before Stalin took over.

Urm, what?

The Bolsheviks held democracy and the value of human life in contempt.

Any reason you've come to this conclusion?

Well, there are the numerous barbarities of the Cheka, created and encouraged in these atrocities by Lenin. They set up the first gulags where tens of thousands of political opponents died. He may have been an intellectual, but he was also a zealot, prepared to murder thousands, and allow millions more to perish in the Civil War.

"If for the sake of Communism it is necessary for us to destroy 9/10ths of the people, we must not hesitate" - Lenin.

The manifesto of the Kronstadt rebellion:

"In carrying out the October Revolution, the working class hoped to achieve its liberation. The outcome has been even greater enslavement of human beings.
Power has passed from a monarchy based on the police and gendarmerie into the hands of usurpers - Communists - who have given the toilers not freedom but the daily dread of ending up in the torture chambers of the Cheka, the horrors of which exceed many times the rule of tsarism's gendarmerie."

The Soviet Union was a blood-stained tyranny before Stalin took the reigns.

At 9/9/02 05:36 PM, Fasz wrote: I have never said technology means civilization(hey dagger_happy, learn how to write it OK?)

It can be written in two ways, Fasz, "civilisation" or "civilization". Both are valid.

first, europeans were more civilized, second, that stuff of the nature its not wise

You what?

and, what would have happened if indians continued living in America and europeans had just not killed them, their culture would have died, they were dying, well, you live in North America there was no culture, just stupid natives, aztecs and mayans were dying.

This is all misinformed and irrelevant. You mean the cultures were changing. The Aztec civilisation may have been in decline as an organised power, but they were not all dropping like flies! As I said before, they suffered epidemics when the EUROPEANS brought diseases over which they had no experience of, and ergo, no immunity to.

You say indians were "civilized", they had a poor culture and a extremely dumb religion(cristianism is dumb too), europeans were more civilized!, superior ones(humans) can use the inferior ones as they want(other animals), I can say your "peace with nature" means civilized theory is fucked, just because you are dumb guys that believe we're all humans, we're all the same, we're not all the same!, if someone is worst than you in everything, you are superior. The best one wins, or the cheater, europeans didnt cheated, having better weapons is not cheating, is having better technology in weapons.

Christ! I never said anybody "cheated" (peculiar word to use), I just said it demeans America morally because it was built on the suffering and destruction of a generally benign culture. I agree with you that religion can be a factor of regression in civilisation, but I actually think their Paganist philosophy made more sense than the fanatical Christian one. You respect the earth, and in return, it provides resources for you to survive and flourish. This is a truth which the USA seems oblivious to even TODAY, as we arrogantly destroy the world that preserves us.

Anyway, indians treated the nature good, they didnt treated humans well, killing lots of people as a sacrifice or killing someone because he/she let a ball fall down is not civilized, let me tell you, killing humans is less civilized.

...But the Europeans killed the Indians as well, so that kind of scuppers your reasoning, doesn't it? And the Indians never indulged in the same callously systematic extermination of people and culture as the settlers did. You are also making gross generalisations about a people that had widely different rules in each tribe.

At 9/9/02 10:53 PM, TerathanDust wrote: your an idiot dagger, stop replying to my messages

The fact that you fall back on personal abuse is, in itself, an addmitance that you are losing the argument. PATHETIC!

Heh, I spent a while on that stage myself wondering what the hell to do. Go to where there is a directional arrow pointing down and walk down the screen into the dark area at the bottom, you will find yourself in an alley.

Damn straight.

"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction" - Blaise Pascal

At 9/8/02 07:47 PM, Grandmaster001 wrote: Wow, a lot of you have extreme liberalistic philosophies. Man's ability to have pity is not only just, but a moral crutch. Sure, cultural diversity is a good thing, but the actions of the past were in the past. Can you imagine what the world would be like today if the "Indians" hadn't been "wiped out?" I can't. You tell me. I can't imagine what the world would be like if the dodo hadn't become extinct. You are all thinking on the basis of what should have happened and not what did.

I have no other choice but to accept what happened; I'm not debating that. I was just disagreeing with Fasz who seems to believe that technology is the only factor for measuring how "civilised" a nation is, and thus, the Indians were inferior. The Indians could have been just as industrially progressive as the Europeans if they had the same philosophy, but they chose a different way - perhaps a wiser one - to live in balance with nature. Their subjegation was not morally justified, and I suspect the colonists who were not aggressive zealots knew this. Yes, we can learn from history, but only if we are prepared to acknowledge it and not gloss over the nasty bits that don't fit our political view.

At 9/9/02 10:16 AM, Slizor wrote:

The theory may claim that it's not totalitarian, but every time someone's tried to create a Communist state, that is what it has become.

That's not true, the only real attempt to have a democratic system was Russia, all the others followed Stalinism.

China wasn't Stalinist, and Tito of Yugoslavia broke away from the Eastern bloc, but this did not change them from being totalitarian. Lenin created a regime of systematic murder and oppression long before Stalin took over. The Bolsheviks held democracy and the value of human life in contempt. The genuine enthusiasm that might exist for revolution is frequently, if not always, exploited by despots.

At 9/8/02 09:17 PM, TerathanDust wrote: dagger_happy

go to www.whatreallyhappened.com and quit bitching about how im not putting out the facts. i said this shit like what 3 times already? quit asking me to do it and look it up for yourself. lazy bastard. i looked it up. i read it. now its your turn.

I did "look it up", and its arguments are completely one-sided and its evidence suspect.
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/ARTICLE5/index.html for example, is shoddy on the facts that are generally accepted and extremely brief in its evidence for an alternative history. For example, its section on LBJ setting out for war with Vietnam is about 6 lines long in "evidence". It keeps saying "The cover-up was etc, but the truth is..." yet there are rarely sources to verify their claims. None of the wider historical trends are addressed and it does not even attempt to argue with normal historians who have painted more comprehensive pictures of the political background of each incident. Very poor historical analysis.

Oh, and just for the record, the bulk of contemporary historians currently agree it was more likely that the Nazis did not cause the Reichstag fire.

At 9/8/02 06:11 PM, Slizor wrote:
Communism is not totalitarian in it's nature.

The theory may claim that it's not totalitarian, but every time someone's tried to create a Communist state, that is what it has become.

At 9/8/02 12:03 PM, Fasz wrote: LOL, europeans were more civilized, they had more arts, ideas, more culture, etc.

Are you even listening to me? The Europeans had art and philosophers, but did the Indians see any of that? No, they just saw murder and persecution. Being an imperialistic, industrial powerhouse is not a prerequisite of civilisation.

Something I've noticed no one mention in the debate of the origins of homosexuality is that many animals exhibit it as well; pretty much all mammals anyway. Maybe a little more natural than you think?

We need to make the differentiation here between Anarchy and Anarchism (or Anarcho-syndicatism). It doesn't not have to mean "chaos".

And the Europeans were NOT more civilised than the Indians. Technology does not equal civilisation if it is used in a barbarous and savage way.

That may be so, but all the political theorists - Socrates, Plato etc - who spawned these ideas came from Greece.

I don't suppose they gave any sane reasons for this law?

At 9/6/02 03:11 AM, Reaper-n wrote: The concept is good.
Hydrothermal is a good system too, far more efficient than wind.

Of course the best form of power would have to be Cold fusion

Yeah, if we ever work out how to achieve it. Other than that, I think the hemp crop would be a good alternative to your conventional fossil fuel. You can make four times as much paper from an acre of pot as you can from an acre of trees, and you can make methanol from it, which will power a car or industrial machinery as an alternative to oil.

At 9/4/02 12:13 AM, TerathanDust wrote: i believe different things. as for 9-11 i dont know yet. i been slightly busy with things (work, car wreck, school). but for WW2 i think FDR got us into it by making the Japs fight us. and for the SITES, im just pointing that out. there really is no proof yet to why they went down. FUCK how hard is that to understand? so from now on, NO MORE ABOUT THE SITES.

Hey, you brought it up! And why do you believe FDR forced Japan to attack America? Once again, you are making claims without evidence or even motives.