HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: ausman@ocf.berkeley.edu (James Ausman)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.greens
Subject: Re: NOT LEFT NOR RIGHT BUT UPFRONT
Date: 11 Jan 1993 06:01:02 GMT
Organization: U.C. Berkeley Open Computing Facility
NNTP-Posting-Host: planecrash.berkeley.edu

In article <JMC.93Jan8151856@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU writes:
>
>The first argument has some substance, but is substantially incorrect
>for modern society, because poverty today doesn't mainly arise from
                             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>exploitation of people who work for too little but mainly from certain
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>people not having jobs at all.  There are three lines proposed for curing

The rest of your post was well thought out, but I have to disagree with
this assesment. There is a large and growing body of working poor in this
country.  And worldwide, the vast majority of the poor are working poor.

Jim Ausman
-- 
	Where there is a lower class I am in it.  Where there is a criminal
	element I am of it.  Where there is a soul in prison I am not free.
					-E.V. Debs
Newsgroups: alt.politics.greens
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: Greens vs. Property Rights
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
	<1993Jan2.203857.26830@bnlux1.bnl.gov>
	<1993Jan04.075132.9679@microsoft.com>
Date: 4 Jan 93 08:16:11

The only thing that can increase prosperity in the long run is reward
to work and enterprise.  In the short run helping the poor directly is
most effective even if it involves confiscating wealth from those who
earned it.  However, in the very long run, as Keynes put it, we are
all dead.

Every society compromises between long run and short run
consideratons, and this works even though it is unsatisfactory to
purists of either sort.  Most left-right politics is about where to
put the compromise.  A large part of the argument is conducted by
anecdote.  The rightists have horror stories about someone being
denied the fruits of his labor, and the leftists have horror stories
of someone suffering through no fault of his own, the fault being
someone else getting the money.

There is one major change from the past.  Formerly the poor were
overwhelmingly exploited workers.  Now, while workers are still
exploited, most of the poor who get the sympathy are suffering
because, for a variety of reasons, they are not exploited.  The
exploited workers battle to get *more*, but they aren't starving.

The leftists emphasize the fact that people who are somehow left
outside of the system are suffering, and the rightists emphasize
that helping them causes the amount of dependency to increase.

Whenever society needs less of something than it did in the past, e.g.
main frame computers, there is likely to be unemployment.  The better
the jobs being eliminated, the more stubborn those losing them or who
hoped to get them will be about hanging on.  The more political power
the holders of declining jobs can appeal to, the more likely it is
that make-work arrangements will drag out the change.  This is again a
case of long term vs. short term considerations.

An extreme case is the presidency of the United States.  Four of the
experienced men are unemployed, and the fifth is just about to be.
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
From: cls@truffula.sj.ca.us (Cameron L. Spitzer)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.greens
Subject: Re: PLEASE SIGN IN!
Date: 4 Jan 93 19:00:21 GMT
Reply-To: cls@truffula.sj.ca.us


I'm Cameron Spitzer, an engineer in San Jose.  I got involved with
the Green Party of California's ballot drive, and I've been active
in the San Jose Green Party intermittently since then.  The 10 Key
Values coincide closely with my personal values, and participation
in GPoC and SJGP is one way I can help change future history to
more closely reflect those values.  

Much of what I do to change future history is by participating in
the letter-writing campaigns of various advocacy organizations.  I
have permission from Rainforest Action Network, 20/20 Vision, and
several others to transcribe their bulletins for electronic
redistribution.  I consider myself a discerning consumer of the
services these organizations provide.

If you'd like to participate, but can't afford to subscribe to
RAN, 20/20, etc., then look for my transcriptions in
alt.save.the.earth or talk.environment.  If your site doesn't carry
them, send mail and I'll put you on my "alerts" email distribution.


cls@truffula.sj.ca.us
"I am the Lorax and I speak for the [Truffula] trees
for the trees have no tongues..."  -- Ted "Dr. Seuss" Geisel, r.i.p.
From: dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.greens
Subject: Re: DEMOCRACY AND CONSENSUS
Date: 12 Jan 93 23:52:02 GMT
Organization: VEXCEL Corporation, Boulder CO

In article <C0r8y4.9CK@news.dtc.hp.com> dsojourner@cdc.hp.com writes:
>Dean Alaska (dean@vexcel.com) wrote:
>:As Dale described, decentralization and consensus should limit this
>:problem, but they will not guarantee that the threat of majority
>:tyranny disappears.  The only guarantee of that is anarchy.  
>
>Of course, even in an anarchy there is still no guarantee that that a
>large group of people might not "gang up" and force their will on
>others.
>
>Doug Sojourner
>dsojourner@cdc.hp.com

True.  I hope people didn't infer that I am an anarchist.  My point is
that there is no simple answer to preventing coercion of individuals.
This especially applies to "the market".
-- 
==============================================================================
	Dean Myerson     (aka dingo in boulder)     dean@vexcel.com
==============================================================================
Newsgroups: alt.politics.greens
From: leecr@microsoft.com (Lee Crocker)
Subject: Re: Greens vs. Property Rights
Date: 07 Jan 93 03:40:10 GMT
Organization: Microsoft Corporation

>] Only when man is free to think,
>] speak, work, and trade will he accomplish what all of us want--a
>] clean planet and a decent living for all of us.
>
>Ah, but in theory, he *is*, in a democracy.  Or hadn't you heard?
>The problem with this theory is:  What about the man who *wants*
>to exploit and dominate those around him?

Nonsense.  "Democracy" is where each man's life, liberty, and property
are subject to the whim of 51% of the people in his country.
Democracy and Freedom are not only unequivalent, they are mutually
incompatible.  The idea that they are equivalent is the great American
lie that they taught you in public school, along with other nonsense
like the four food groups and the Civil War being about slavery.

Sure, some men may want to dominate those around him, but without
force to back him up, how can he?  When one man's claim to his
property is held inviolate despite all attempts by those who would
take it from him, then we will be truly free.
-- 
Lee Daniel Crocker    | Free minds; free bodies; free trade.
leecr@microsoft.com   | Libertarian Party  1-800-682-1776
Newsgroups: alt.politics.greens
From: steinman@hslrswi.hasler.ascom.ch (Jan Steinman - Bytesmiths, 3946)
Subject: Re: LET'S DISCUSS NUCLEAR ENERGY!
Reply-To: steinman@hslrswi.hasler.ascom.ch
Organization: Ascom Hasler AG
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 08:05:49 GMT

In article 82344@ncratl.AtlantaGA.NCR.COM, mwilson@ncratl.AtlantaGA.NCR.COM (Mark Wilson) writes:
>In <1993Jan7.125817.14283@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> prs9k@brain.med.virginia.edu (Phil Scarr) writes:

>|Breeder reactors don't produce waste, they consume it.  There is one
>|small side effect though:  unlike normal reactors which can only
>|meltdown, breeder reactors can blow up like a bomb

>Wrong.

That's a rude thing to say when you aren't sure! The breeder designs I've seen
can allow a critical mass to assemble in the event of a melt-down. While this
would *not* make a Hiroshima-size blast, it would make a big enough bang to
breach containment and spread plutonium oxide about the surrounding area. I
seem to recall a fractional kiloton number. (Hiroshima was 12 kT, I believe.)

In another article, Dale and Mark argue:

>|How do you justify poisoning Native Americans by mining the toxic
>|radioactive ore from their lands?
>
>Dale, when you write stuff like this, it makes you sound like you are
>reading from somebodies pamplet instead of thinking for yourself.

Mark, when you write stuff like this, it makes you sound like a nuclear
industry patsy, instead of thinking for yourself. Unfortunately, all my
reference material is in Den Staten, but browse a card catalog for
Wasserman, Goffman, Tamplin, if you are at all interested in examining a
perspective different from the one you have blindly adopted.

>You can get more radiation from a couple of chest
>x-rays than was released at Three-Mile Island.

Geez, I don't ever want to get near Mark's internist! The release at TMI was
on the order of tens of Curies. X-ray exposure is measured in roentgens.
(Actually, there are SI units - Siemens and Becquerels - that make both
of these obsolete.)

So comparing TMI releases to chest X-rays is like saying "I drove 30 cubic
inches in my car." Those who have studied such things can only laugh. So much
of this ignorant drivel is cynically propagated by the nuclear industry that
it is a sad laugh indeed.

: : Jan Steinman, Bytesmiths			   steinman@hasler.ascom.ch : :
: : 2002 Parkside Court, West Linn, OR 97068-2767 USA	    +1 503 657 7703 : :
: : Beundenfeldstrasse 35, CH-3013, Bern, Switzerland	    +41 31 999 3946 : :
From: LAURA@UCF1VM.BITNET (Laura Kittleson)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.greens
Subject: florida greens?
Date: 5 Jan 93 16:36:07 GMT
Organization: University of Central Florida--Computer Services

Anybody out there living in Florida and concerned about the
political decisions and great ignorance that are harming the
Sunshine State?  Does anyone know what Greens-stuff is
happening in Florida and how I could find out more about it?

--Laura Kittleson
laura@ucf1vm.cc.ucf.edu
From: ausman@ocf.berkeley.edu (James Ausman)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.greens
Subject: Re: Greens vs. Property Rights
Date: 11 Jan 93 05:45:26 GMT
Organization: U.C. Berkeley Open Computing Facility
NNTP-Posting-Host: planecrash.berkeley.edu

In article <JMC.93Jan4212425@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU writes:
>Why does Mr. Ausman thinks the world could not sustain 6 billion
>people at the U.S. standard?  This is merely a fashionable idea
>of the literary culture.  There is no resource limitation that
>prevents even 30 billion from living at the U.S. standard.  Beyond
>that, it might be hard.

There have already been quite a few replies to your post, so I will
keep mine brief, but I think that the major limitation is energy.
Current consumption of fossil fuels will use up most of the known
petroleum and natural gas within 50 or so years; if consumption was
increased 25 fold, it would go that much faster.  Coal is pretty
cheap, but the environmental damage caused by massive coal burning
would be quiet extensive.  An American standard of living includes
somewhat breathable air.  Other power sources, such as nuclear or
solar, could be used, but they are all quite a bit more expensive
right now (with good reason).  I don't see how you can expect to
raise the standard of living of all 6 billion of us without a cheap
source of energy.

Jim Ausman
-- 
	Where there is a lower class I am in it.  Where there is a criminal
	element I am of it.  Where there is a soul in prison I am not free.
					-E.V. Debs
Newsgroups: alt.politics.greens
From: steinman@hslrswi.hasler.ascom.ch (Jan Steinman - Bytesmiths, 3946)
Subject: Re: LET'S DISCUSS NUCLEAR ENERGY!
Reply-To: steinman@hslrswi.hasler.ascom.ch
Organization: Ascom Hasler AG
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 12:49:05 GMT

In article 5481@genie.slhs.udel.edu, starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr) writes:
>You do know that the Club of Rome admitted that "Limits" was false, don't you?

That's a little bit like saying some engineer at GE has decided nukes are
unsafe, therefore GE has repudiated nukes!

While it is true that some Club of Rome *members* were in loud and public
disagreement with "Limits", it is misleading and disingenuous to suggest
that the organization formally rejected the first study. After all, they
did pay for the follow-up, which is even more dire.

"Limits" is one opinion, shared by many scientists. Others feel differently.
The "truth", if there be such a thing, is probably somewhere in between. But
simply dismissing "Limits" as "false" is simplistic and short-sighted.

: : Jan Steinman, Bytesmiths			   steinman@hasler.ascom.ch : :
: : 2002 Parkside Court, West Linn, OR 97068-2767 USA	    +1 503 657 7703 : :
: : Beundenfeldstrasse 35, CH-3013, Bern, Switzerland	    +41 31 999 3946 : :
From: Dale McMillen <dmcmillen@igc.apc.org>
Newsgroups: alt.politics.greens
Date: 09 Jan 93 08:06 PST
Subject: Re: save the earth - ridiculous!
Nf-ID: #R:1993Jan6.194324.13459@beaver.cs.:1812685772:cdp:1678600075:000:2002
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!dmcmillen    Jan  9 08:06:00 1993


> ... the original environmentalists, the Nazis ...
 
Come, come, let's not paint with such a broad brush!  John Muir,
Chief Seattle, and St. Francis all predated the Nazis (and couldn't
possibly have had anything in common with them).
 
Regarding the Nazis, The Green Party has maintained a very firm
stance against everything they believe in.
 
The Greens are for Non-Violence, the Nazis, well....
 
The Greens are for Social Justice, the Nazis, well....
 
The Greens are for Grassroots Democracy, the Nazis, well ....
 
While The Greens are for ecological wisdom, the Nazis a for the worst
kind of "NIMBYism" immaginable:  Kill the foreigners if you can't
throw them out.  It is true that some facists have adopted
environmental planks in their platforms (like nearly everyone else
on the political spectrum), but The Green Party has firmly repudiated
them.
 
As an example, remember Marlene Deitrich?  During the 1930s she
left Germany lamenting that she could no longer Germany her home
because of Hitler.  When she died this last year and was buried
in Berlin, many neo-Nazis staged protests because they considered
her a traitor.  However, the Green Party staged a counter
demonstration to show support for Marlene.
 
Also, many consider that the murder of Petra Kelly and Gert Bastian
to be the work of the neo-Nazis.  Petra Kelly, the founder of the
German Greens and for many years, an informal spokesperson for the
international Green Movement, had been spending much of her energy
organizing against the neo-Nazis in the recent years.
 
Dale
 
P.S. There has been a lot of discussion on this newsgroup recently
about environmentalism and misanthropy (human-hating), forced
population control, and now, Nazis.  Having repeatedly said that
these are not the views of The Green Party, I would like to suggest
that these discussions be carried on in another newsgroup.  This
conference is, after all, for Green Party discussion and not simply
another talk.environment, as Jym has aptly put it.

Newsgroups: alt.politics.greens
From: ladasky@netcom.com (John J. Ladasky II)
Subject: Re: LOCAL GREENS
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)
Distribution: ca
Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1993 02:22:49 GMT

Hi, Robert,

	This sounds like a terrific idea.  Some questions, though:

	1) What is Assemblyman Farr's environmental record?
	2) When is the election being held?
	3) Do Greens in Panetta's district have a list of potential
	   candidates to consider?
	4) Will you plan to coordinate outside help?  I know people 
	   in Santa Clara County who wanted to get behind Margene McGee
	   but who were discouraged from doing so by GP locals in 
	   Mendocino County.

-- 
== John J. Ladasky II ("ii") ========================= ladasky@netcom.COM ==
"Great composers do not borrow -	     "Talking about music is like
 they steal."  - John Ladasky	      ~ -     dancing about architecture."
(quote stolen from Stravinsky, who    o o     - Elvis Costello?  Laurie
 stole it from a statement made by     >        Anderson?  Frank Zappa?
 Pablo Picasso about painting, who    \_/    -------------------------------
 stole it from...)			     "Property is theft." - Groucho
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"A man w/o charity in his heart - what has he to do with music?" - Confucius
============================================================================
Newsgroups: alt.politics.greens
From: Dale McMillen <dmcmillen@igc.apc.org>
Newsgroups: alt.politics.greens
Date: 07 Jan 93 08:41 PST
Subject: Re: Greens vs. Property Rights
Nf-ID: #R:1hs8brEINNfle@uni-erlangen.de:-1634168734:cdp:1678600051:000:2922
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!dmcmillen    Jan  7 08:41:00 1993


> Businesses in the US today--which is the closest to capitalism we've
> got even though it's not very close--provide benefits to their
> workers because if they didn't, companies that did would steal them
> away, or workers would strike, customers would boycott, and many
> other free-market solutions would bring them back in line.

Well, its encouraging that you see a role for workers to strike
and consumers to boycott in your economic model.

Part of the point some of us are making in these discussions is that
the the wealthy countries of North America and Europe (and increasingly
Asia) are impoverishing the rest of the world.  We do this by propping
up petty dictators who borrow from international monetary agencies like
the World Bank and put their poor countries and populations in extreme
debt to wealthy interests in the north.  We do this by withholding our
dues from the United Nations and only selectively funding projects which
seem to benefit our interests.  We do this by our reign of terror and
threat of terror by maintaining a military which can bring death and
destruction anywhere in the world at a moment's notice.  (You don't
need to use force to use force in just the same way that a mugger
doesn't need to use a gun to use a gun.  The simple threat is often
very sufficient to meet the aggressor's ends.)

Anyway, the point is that it's not fair only to focus on the US when
our entire system seems to be designed at impoverishing the third
world.

Granted, I know you will claim that all these evils are caused by
the government.  But, I still must ask:  "Why do the capitalists
and the government always seem to be in collusion with each other?"

> Anyone who honestly believes that workers are exploited in the US,
> or even more ludicrously, that they would be exploited more under a
> true capitalist economy, needs to go back to economics 101.

From my memory, Economics 101 was about the theoretical possibilities
(or justifications) of our dominant economic model of capitalism.  At
least in my class, no one ever assumed that this model would ever intersect
with reality.  Actually, as I remember the discussion was about the "free
market" and not "capitalism".  In my way of thinking, "capitalism" is the
process whereby governments and corporations work together to centralize
power and wealth at the expense of society and the planet.  The "free
market", on the other hand, is the utopia you are trying to describe.
As you could probably guess, in my humble opinion, I do not think
the "free market" is the model to bring us to that utopia.

> The fact that no one in human history has ever practiced true
> capitalism should be all the more argument in favor of it.

Why are you so committed to this apparently impossible utopia?  The
Green vision of community based economics is very similar to what
thousands of indigenous peoples have practiced for thousands of
years.

Dale
From: Dale McMillen <dmcmillen@igc.apc.org>
Newsgroups: alt.politics.greens
Date: 07 Jan 93 22:13 PST
Subject: Re: Greens vs. Property Rights
Nf-ID: #R:1hs8brEINNfle@uni-erlangen.de:-1634168734:cdp:1678600068:000:431
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!dmcmillen    Jan  7 22:13:00 1993


> Screw the little bunny rabbits.  If human life is at stake the animals
> shall die (period).
 
> I suggest you start laying off all those drugs you seem to be taking.
 
Mike,
 
It is very dissapointing to see that the person who started this discussion
has so little interest in relating intelligently to the rest of us.
There must be other newsgroups out there which would be more receptive
to the trash you are spewing.
 
Dale
From: ausman@ocf.berkeley.edu (James Ausman)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.greens
Subject: Re: Development (was Re: Greens vs. Property Rights)
Date: 5 Jan 1993 03:28:00 GMT
Organization: U.C. Berkeley Open Computing Facility
NNTP-Posting-Host: planecrash.berkeley.edu

In article <1993Jan4.062006.9885@netcom.com> ladasky@netcom.com (John J. Ladasky II) writes:
>
>	Soleri is not approaching Arocsanti as a bare-minimum, public housing
>project where (rightfully) no one would want to live.  He is trying to see
>whether it is possible to construct a community in which it is possible to
>live frugally and efficiently, yet with dignity and comfort.  In my opinion,
>ideas like his need to be encouraged.  Perhaps American experiments in urban
>planning could be funded in a manner similar to other types of research.

Another interesting idea being developed right now in this area is the idea of
co-housing.  This is another community based set up where each individual family
has a minimum living space, but there is a large deal of common space, including
a common kitchen.  I guess the ones being built in Sacramento have their own
mini-kitchens, but the planners envision dinners being eaten together in 
the commons area.  The houses are much higher density than usual suburban
development and cheaper, too!  This goes right to the heart of one of the
fundamental "green" ideas: source reduction.  We can introduce all the 
recycling plans we want, but unless we learn to live with less, the 
environment will continue to degrade.  We need to find more simple, less
consumptive ways to live that are not unpleasant. IMHO, of course.

Jim Ausman

-- 
	"You are not thinking.  You are merely being logical."
				-Niels Bohr to A. Einstein 
				(during their famous debates on QM)
From: Dale McMillen <dmcmillen@igc.apc.org>
Newsgroups: alt.politics.greens
Date: 04 Jan 93 10:50 PST
Subject: Re: Greens vs. Property Rights
Nf-ID: #R:1hs8brEINNfle@uni-erlangen.de:-1634168734:cdp:1678600024:000:1532
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!dmcmillen    Jan  4 10:50:00 1993


John Ladasky,

Thanks for the thoughtful response.  Just a couple of thoughts:

Is all consumption equal in terms of its sustainability?

Why did you use Burma and its assumed consumption rate of 1/50th of
the U.S. as the ideal?  Are they underconsuming?

The 17 times efficiency which we would get by becoming vegans which
you quoted from the book "Diet for a Small Planet", is probably not
what the author intended.  As I recall, the book said that it takes
17 pounds of grain to produce 1 pound of beef.  However, if we were
all to become vegans (which I am not), we would not be eating that
same 17 pounds of grain.  Instead, we would be eating a variety of
plants from our vegetable gardens.  Considering that grain production
is very inefficient compared to vegetable gardens (fuel for large
tractors, transportation, fertilizers, biocides, etc.), I would think
that our efficiency factor would be much greater than 17 percent, if
we all became vegans.

And ...... what are you suggesting to do about reducing the world's
population by 80 percent?

Dale

P.S. I am not denying there is a population problem, but rather think
     that the social justice problem is more severe, and that solving
     the social justice problem may, in fact, bring us very far towards
     solving the population problem.

P.P.S.  Do you think we need to start a new topic called
        "SUSTAINABILITY AND CARRYING CAPACITY" or something like that?
        I will try to hunt up some factoids and articles which relate
        to that topic.