HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: libwca@emory.edu (Bill Anderson)
Newsgroups: alt.activism,alt.politics.usa.misc,talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: What is United States of America like?
Date: 29 Dec 92 21:11:24 GMT
Followup-To: alt.activism
Distribution: usa
Organization: Emory University, Atlanta, GA
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL3

bud@mtek.com (Bud Hovell) writes:
: 
: [Contrary to evident popular opinion, "individual liberty" has never
: been threatened on the occasion that *guilty* people end up in the
: dock! This may not be the politically correct view, but it is a fact,
: no less.]
: 
: If evidence obtained by search fails to evidence any such guilt, then
: no harm has been done to individual liberty. If it *does* sufficiently
: (to convince a jury) compel conviction, then neither has individual
: liberty been harmed, since such liberty can only be exercised by all
: when actual criminal behavior by the few is prosecuted.

I sincerely hope that armed police officers never break down
your door, throw you to the ground, handcuff you, terrify 
your children and destroy your possesions, only to find later
that they have made a mistake.  If they do, however, please
be assured that they will apologize very nicely.
If this happens to you, write us back and let us know if
you think your individual liberty has been violated.

Bill
From: prs9k@brain.med.virginia.edu (Phil Scarr)
Newsgroups: alt.activism.d
Subject: Re: Prison Jobs
Date: 3 Jan 93 12:16:31 GMT
Organization: Neuroclinical Trials Center, University of Virginia

Would someone please tell me what the difference is between prisons in
the US employing prison labor and what the Chinese were doing?  Sounds
pretty similar...

	-Phil
-- 
(--)======================================================================(--)
 ||                                                                        ||
 ||  As evey cell in Chile will tell / The cries of the tortured men       ||
 ||  Remember Allende in the days before / Before the army came            ||
 ||  Please remember Victor Jarra / In the Santiago Stadium / Es verdad    ||
 ||              Those Washington Bullets Again!      --The Clash          ||
 ||                                                                        ||
(--)== prs9k@virginia.edu === Phil Scarr === Department of Neurosurgery ==(--)
From: orwell@reg.triumf.ca (BALDEN, RON)
Newsgroups: alt.activism.d
Subject: Re: A pacifist's call for conditional support for US action in Somalia
Date: 23 Dec 1992 13:38 PST
Organization: TRIUMF: Tri-University Meson Facility
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: reg.triumf.ca
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    

In article <JMC.92Dec23010318@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>, [John McCarthy]
jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU writes...
> ...
>Please explain about the U.S. invasion of South Korea.  Does even Noam
>Chomsky say that?  I thought North Korea invaded South Korea.  This
>was confirmed in the last installment of Khrushchev's memoirs and also
>by Russian historians even before the collapse of the Soviet Union.
>I would be interested in a reference to a body of literature, however
>leftist, claiming that.

Well, John, what do you call it when massive military forces of a foreign
power occupy the land area of another country (with, perhaps, the fig leaf
of being "asked in" by a government with no popular legitimacy) --
a tea party?  I call the Russian invasion of Afghanistan an invasion;
I call the U.S. invasion of South Korea an invasion.

Ron Balden
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Who coined that slogan?
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
Date: 30 Dec 92 08:46:43

From a news story datelined Moscow about the 70th anniversary of the
formation of the Soviet Union.

	     In President Boris Yeltsin's new democratic Russia,
     the Communist- ruled U.S.S.R. is often branded an ``empire
     of evil,'' inspiring images of Gulag prison camps, mass
     deportations and persecution of dissidents.

What former movie actor coined that slogan in 1983?  The tenth
anniversary of that speech will be March 8 and should be
appropriately celebrated.
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: REDBAITING on the nets...
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
Date: 2 Jan 93 22:13:18

Judging by Hank Roth's language including the word "red-baiting" itself,
he's a rather old-fashioned kind of red.  The modern phrase is
"liberal bashing" and the like.  Anyway let's bait him a little.  What
kind of cheese does he like?
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
From: gtoal@pizzabox.demon.co.uk (Graham Toal)
Subject: Re: How USA-Today Lies
Organization: Cuddlehogs Anonymous
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 03:37:40 GMT

In article <1992Dec31.021359.24874@mont.cs.missouri.edu> harelb@math.cornell.edu (Harel Barzilai) writes:
:
:In fact Mr. Shapiro's _We're Number One_ is an excellent source for
:the vital statistics -- for example infant mortality, or for example
:the child poverty rate, or for example the elderly poverty rate  --in
:all three instances, the U.S. is the "number one" worst of all the
:western industrialized nations; in the later two cases, it is twice as
:bad as the "second-place" worst nations. [see below for info about
:We're Number One].
:
:Judging from these key indicators, the United States corporate-welfare-
:state comes by far *behind* the other industrialized nations in
:"domestic aid programs" as well.

I seem to remember (having seen the infant mortality figures relatively
recently) that they're very skewed by race.  However the figures I saw
didn't list infant mortality divided by income so I don't know if there's
a racial bias in health care or just what you'd expect in a country
that doesn't have a national health service to support its poor.

G
Newsgroups: alt.activism.d
From: nmiller@starbase.trincoll.edu (norman miller)
Subject: Re: REDBAITING on the nets...
Organization: Trinity College, Hartford, CT.
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1993 15:06:00 GMT

Without necessarily agreeing with every word of Kahl's critique
of Hank Roth, it seems to me that it's in the main correct.  Roth
_does_ see things from an extreme anti-Israeli perspective and he
_does_ peddle a line that, thank the stars, is boringly predictable.

Thus no one is surprised when Roth calls any criticism of him
"red-baiting" and few can think that his long-winded and totally
irrelevant History of Red-baiting (short course ;-|) is an answer.

I don't want to be misunderstood: I'm opposed to red-(or any other
kind of) baiting which is another word for cheap and dishonest
demagoguery.  Trouble is: Roth himself operates from within that
tradition.  Makes his complaints more red herrings than serious
arguments.

Norman Miller

Newsgroups: alt.activism.d
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: A pacifist's call for conditional support for US action in Somalia
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
	<23DEC199213383228@reg.triumf.ca>
Date: 23 Dec 92 14:08:43

In article <23DEC199213383228@reg.triumf.ca> orwell@reg.triumf.ca (BALDEN, RON) writes:

   In article <JMC.92Dec23010318@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>, [John McCarthy]
   jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU writes...
   > ...
   >Please explain about the U.S. invasion of South Korea.  Does even Noam
   >Chomsky say that?  I thought North Korea invaded South Korea.  This
   >was confirmed in the last installment of Khrushchev's memoirs and also
   >by Russian historians even before the collapse of the Soviet Union.
   >I would be interested in a reference to a body of literature, however
   >leftist, claiming that.

   Well, John, what do you call it when massive military forces of a foreign
   power occupy the land area of another country (with, perhaps, the fig leaf
   of being "asked in" by a government with no popular legitimacy) --
   a tea party?  I call the Russian invasion of Afghanistan an invasion;
   I call the U.S. invasion of South Korea an invasion.

   Ron Balden

In the first place, the U.S. was there before the North Korean
invasion left over from the end of WWII.  The 24th Infantry Division
was over-run by the North Koreans and the division commander captured.
So it is the U.S. taking taking the Japanese surrender in South Korea
from the Japanese when the Soviets took it in North Korea that you
should be complaining about.

In the second place, it the U.N. voted to defend South Korea from
the North Korean invasion, and many other countries took part in
the operation.  Others I remember are Britain and Turkey.

In the third place, the South Korean government was quite a lot
more legitimate than the North Korean government.  We can judge
from the direction the refugees fled.

--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.

Newsgroups: alt.activism.d
From: astein@nysernet.org (Alan Stein)
Subject: Re: Israel: Mass deportations perpetuate crisis
Organization: NYSERNet, Inc.
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 20:52:35 GMT

I would suggest that all those rushing to condemn Israel for
temporarily removing slightly under 400 Arab terrorists from the
territories ask themselves a couple of obvious questions.

1.  Do you think that Yitchak Rabin is a fool?

Obviously, he knew that Israel would be condemned for its actions;
after all, it's always condemned, no matter what it does.  Wouldn't he
have to be a crazy fool to bring this knee-jerk condemnation onto
Israel if there wasn't a need to do something like this to save
Israeli lives?

2.  Have you thought about why the terrorists' brethren in Lebanon
prefer to have them suffer in a no man's land to hosting them for a
couple of years?

Could it be that some Arabs care more about trying to destroy Israel
than about their fellow Arabs?

3.  Why has there been virtual silence about the numerous terrorist
attacks on Israelis, the precipitating factor leading to the
termporary removals?

4.  What else could Israel have done to protect its citizens?  What
hasn't it tried already?

-- 
Alan H. Stein   -----  AJIN   -----  astein@israel.nysernet.org
Newsgroups: alt.activism.d
From: furr@pilot.njin.net (Grover Furr)
Newsgroups: alt.activism.d
Subject: Re: Book List: CIA - Intelligence (autopost)
Date: 24 Dec 92 03:56:45 GMT
Organization: Montclair State College, Upper Montclair, NJ

Command: followup
Newsgroups: alt.activism.d
To: hiramc@sco.COM
Subject: Re: Book List: CIA - Intelligence (autopost)
Distribution: 
Newsgroups: alt.activism.d
From: dfo@tko.vtt.fi (Foxvog Douglas)
Subject: Re: Neo-Pacifism (Re: A pacifist's call for conditional support for US action in Somalia)
Organization: VTT
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1992 06:50:36 GMT

In article <BzHAE2.5w8@apollo.hp.com> goykhman_a@apollo.hp.com (Alex Goykhman) writes:
>In article <1992Dec18.202245.6709@mont.cs.missouri.edu> dfo@tko.vtt.fi (Foxvog Douglas) writes:
>>I am a pacifist US citizen who has been appalled at US military
>>interventions around the world since I became politically aware in the 
>>1960s.  I know of the terrible things that my government has done and
>>all the ways they try to sugar coat their reasons for taking their
>>actions.  So in no way am i disposed to favor US military actions.

>>However, i find the US intervention in Somalia to be different.  There
>>are hundreds of thousands of people starving to death because small
>>groups of armed men block the provision of food to them (after stealing
>>their livestock and preventing their farming during a drought).  I
>>support the protection of food convoys to the starving people.  
>...

>    Another word, you do support U.S. military intervention abroad,
>    as long as it suits your political agenda.

Not quite.  This was a quite unique circumstance which i explained
rather completely in the deleted text. (I understand that it was deleted
to save space.)  My point was (and is) to examine what is being done
and to decide on that basis the validity of an action.  I would
definitely agree that there are almost no cases in which military
intervention is justified.  I carefully explained why this was an
exception and the limits to which we should support this operation.

>-------------------------------------------------------------------
>"Follow the money."                             Other opinions are mine.
> Deep Throat                                    Disclaimer: 

-- 
doug foxvog     
dfo@tko.vtt.fi   
Newsgroups: alt.activism.d
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: A pacifist's call for conditional support for US action in Somalia
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
Date: 23 Dec 92 01:03:18

This one puzzles me.

     Bud is misinterpreting the evidence here.  The United
     Nations was conceived as an instrument for the foreign
     policy of the United States and for much of its existence
     has served tolerably well in this role (e.g. as a front for
     the U.S. invasion of South Korea) when it did not (e.g. was
     being outvoted by 152 to 2 in the General Assembly over Star
     Wars) it was simply ignored.

Please explain about the U.S. invasion of South Korea.  Does even Noam
Chomsky say that?  I thought North Korea invaded South Korea.  This
was confirmed in the last installment of Khrushchev's memoirs and also
by Russian historians even before the collapse of the Soviet Union.
I would be interested in a reference to a body of literature, however
leftist, claiming that.
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.

Newsgroups: alt.activism.d
From: fyl@fylz.wa.com (Phil Hughes)
Subject: Re: Neo-Pacifism (Re: A pacifist's call for conditional support for US action in Somalia)
Organization: FYL
Date: Sun, 27 Dec 1992 18:01:34 GMT
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]

Alex Goykhman (goykhman_a@apollo.hp.com) wrote:
: In article <1992Dec18.202245.6709@mont.cs.missouri.edu> dfo@tko.vtt.fi (Foxvog Douglas) writes:
: >I am a pacifist US citizen who has been appalled at US military
: >interventions around the world since I became politically aware in the 
: >1960s.
...
: >However, i find the US intervention in Somalia to be different.

:     Another word, you do support U.S. military intervention abroad,
:     as long as it suits your political agenda.

I don't see that he said that.  So far, US intervention in Somalia has
been more of a pacifist action than a "war".  I don't have the
statistics (if they even exist) but I would expect there has been less
violence since the US troops have been there than before they landed.

That said, if we look back in history we see that the current crisis
in Somalia was caused, to a great extent, by the Cold War.  Somalians
didn't go out and buy all the military hardware that is now used by
"War Lords".  Superpower intervention in the past is what caused this
level of armament.

Thus, I see our current intervention an attempt at a quick fix to a
problem that we are responsible for over the past 30 years.  In the
short term it certainly appears that we are helping.  I don't know if
this short term help will translate into long term stability.

-- 
Phil Hughes - FYL - 8315 Lk City Wy NE - Suite 207 - Seattle, WA 98115 
Phone: 206-526-2919 x74      Fax: 526-0803
E-mail: fyl@fylz.com or nwnexus!fylz!fyl 
Newsgroups: alt.activism.d
From: "Michael Smith" <p00004@psilink.com>
Subject: Re: NEWS: Greenpeace "Tickets" Gas-Guzzlers at SF Auto Show
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: Performance Systems Int'l
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 20:03:11 GMT

>DATE:   29 Dec 92 01:14:24 GMT
>FROM:   Greenpeace via Jym Dyer <jym@mica.berkeley.edu>
  
>GREENPEACE 'TICKETS' GAS-GUZZLERS AT SF AUTO SHOW
>Activists Lock Selves to New Models to Protest Fuel Inefficiency
>  
>SAN FRANCISCO, November 21, 1992 (GP) Three Greenpeace activists
>locked themselves inside show models of new gas-guzzling cars
>today at the San Francisco International Auto Show to protest
>American automakers' resistance to increased fuel efficiency.

This is a bit disappointing; I'd've expected Greenpeace to take a less 
namby-pamby approach. Demonstrating against "gas guzzlers" is a bit like 
opposing *large* nuclear bombs; oh well, you know the little ones aren't 
so bad. 

--Michael Smith
From: pajerek@telstar.kodak.com (Don Pajerek)
Subject: Re: What is United States of America like?
Reply-To: pajerek@telstar.kodak.com (Don Pajerek)
Organization: Digital Equipment Corp. - Telstar
Distribution: usa
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 18:31:52 GMT

In article <BzM8u5.JM3@unix.amherst.edu> pdchapin@unix.amherst.edu (PAUL D CHAPIN) writes:
>Jyrki Kuoppala (jkp@cs.HUT.FI) wrote:

[stuff deleted]

>
>: I hear reports of a war being declared and fought in USA - a war
>: against "drugs", with the Bill of Rights being the major casualty.
>: 
>Bullshit.  The Bill of Rights is alive and well.  There are individual
>cases of overzealous enforcement, but the courts usually strike them down.
>

Not exactly. It is now *legal* for drug enforcement personnel to seize
the assets of people whom they want to accuse of drug trafficking. This
seizure can take place *before* guilt or innocence is established, and
recovery of assets in the event that the case falls apart has proven
to be problematic. The courts have *not* been striking this down.

We've also had cases of people having all of their cash seized by
state troopers, on the grounds that drug-sniffing dogs could detect
the residue of cocaine on the bills. The theory here is that anyone
who is in possession of such bills must be a drug dealer. These cases,
too have been upheld by the courts, and no money has been returned,
even though the people were not arrested or charged (i.e., no actual
drugs were found).


>: I hear plans for "boot camps" with "training" for the drug, ie.
>: political, criminals.
>
>They're called prisons.  The "boot camp" model is a more active approach than
>the typical, "let them rot" approach.  If given a choice, I would opt for
>the new approach.  And were do you get this "political" crap.  

This isn't what Mr. Kuoppala is referring to. He is in fact referring to
a proposal which was made, in all seriousness, by some Congresspeople,
to open a series of 'work camps' for drug offenders. These camps were to
be quite distinct from the regular prison system.

I believe that mandatory drug treatment was part of the package, but
I'm not sure of this. This may be what Mr. Kuoppala is thinking of.

[more stuff deleted]

>: I see the U.S. vice president saying "No I don't know that atheists
>: should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered
>: patriots. This is one nation under God."  This during his campaign,
>: and he is later elected president.
>
>A comment almost no one here ever heard of.  He is also about to become
>a former President.


I heard this statement. It was reported in the media.

In summary: Mr. Kuoppala overstates his case; so do you.


Don Pajerek

Standard disclaimers apply.
Newsgroups: alt.activism
From: bfrg9732@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Brian F. Redman)
Subject: Re: please...no more LaRouche fascist crap!! ok?!
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1993 15:23:01 GMT

aforum@moose.uvm.edu (autonome forum) writes:

>What more need be said???

>Fight fascism!!!!
>Beware of LaRouche fascist front-groups!!!

Could you please substantiate your claim?


Brian Redman
(bfrg9732@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu)
"Ah yes, Armageddon. I remember it well."




Newsgroups: alt.activism,alt.politics.usa.misc,talk.politics.misc
From: pdchapin@unix.amherst.edu (PAUL D CHAPIN)
Subject: Re: What is United States of America like?
Organization: Amherst College
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL7]
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 15:52:00 GMT

Jyrki Kuoppala (jkp@cs.HUT.FI) wrote:

: I hear reports of the U.S. military going to Somalia, then declaring a
: prohibition on the Somalian's drug of choice, khat, while the
: Somalians are worried that the U.S. drug of choice, alcohol (which
: they report is brought to Somalia by the U.S. troops in great
: amounts), will cause much more trouble and health hazards in Somalia
: than khat does.  The Somalians believe that alcohol is more dangerous
: a drug than khat, and from everything I've heard it seems they're
: probably right.
: 
I just realized where you got this item.  The UN Secretary General wants the
US to do this.  He also wants us the disarm the clans, train a new Somali
police/military and help establish a new government.  We turned him down 
flat.  We're there to help food get through and stop the random looting
and killing of civilians.  As soon as that's done or somebody comes forward
to take our place, we're out of there.  Bush is talking two to three months.
I suspect closer to six, since I expect it will be a long time before the
Europo-wimps send enough people to make a difference.  (1500 from Germany.
Give me a break.  There are football games that require more security than
that.  30,000 are security.  3,000 are targets).
From: aq817@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Steve Crocker)
Newsgroups: alt.activism
Subject: Re: REDBAITING on the nets...
Date: 1 Jan 1993 22:58:37 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)
NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu


In the middle of an otherwise sensible attack on "red-baiting"
and similar practices, Hank Roth says:
 
>Much of the "red-baiting" and "terrorist-baiting" are the current 
>manifestations of a long line of scapegoating tactics employed by 
>persons who to some degree hold a conspiracy view of history. 
>Rather than deal with issues, they reduce debate to an 
>inquisition to ferret out some real or imagined connection 
>between the proponent of a viewpoint and some vague mysterious 
>conspiracy.  This obsession with conspiracies was described by 
>the late Professor Richard Hofstadter in his classic essay, "The 
>Paranoid Style in American Politics." 
 
>Hofstadter says that the political smear is a "paranoid style" 
>often aided and abetted by disinformation which emanates from 
>members of the government [of the social order] and it is the 
>hallmark of the authoritarian right-wing. 
 
But professor Hofstader's views to the contrary, conspiracies do 
exist. Whether one refers to the ruling elites as the "ruling class"
as the Marxists do, the "power elite" following C. Wright Mills, the
"oligarchy" as favored by Lyndon LaRouche, or the "liberal 
establishment" as the conservative activists name it, the fact is 
undeniable that a small group of people exercise power over U.S. and
world political and economic affairs, that they do this largely in 
secret, and that they are not democratically accountable. The various
groups I mentioned differ as to what forces in society have produced
these groups and allow their continued functioning. They disagree on
the key features of these groups' political agenda. They disagree about 
the shape of the society and social arrangements which we might 
appropriately create as an alternative to the present situation. And
they disagree about the appropriate methods to employ. The bottom line 
however is that these people exist, they exercise illegitimate control
over our instutional life and they need to be stopped. Attacks on
"right-wing conspiracy theories" is just another form of baiting, equally
as destructive to the processes of reason as those Hank attacks.
 
-Steve
 
Xref: sparky alt.activism:19765 sci.med:22957 misc.kids:31001 talk.politics.medicine:416