From: cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer)
Newsgroups: soc.history
Subject: Re: Textbooks and Lefty history (Was: Re: history)
Date: 10 Apr 92 18:05:28 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Optilink Corporation, Petaluma, CA

In article <92098.202658HERSCH@auvm.american.edu>, HERSCH@auvm.american.edu (Herschel Browne) writes:
> In article <1992Apr7.184245.18817@oz.plymouth.edu>, m_lehoul@oz.plymouth.edu
> (Michael L. Le Houllier) says:
# #This is true.  Until Mao Zedong and the Communists took over, China
# #was at least a nominal democracy.
# 
# And under Mao and his successors, China is nominally a "people's
# republic". Under Honnecker, East Germany was nominally a "democratic
# republic". Has either of us said much about reality? The "nominal"
# democracy of Chiang's China (and Taiwan) was about as meaningful
# as the "nominal" democracy of the German Democratic Republic.
# Or as "socialist" as the National Socialist Workers' Party that
# Hitler led. "Nominally" socialist. Yeah, right.

It was nominally socialist, and had significant socialist elements
in it, until Hitler had them exterminated.  The 1924 NSDAP party
platform was certainly more socialist than anything else.

My original point was that China was a far more democratic system
than the government that Western colonialism helped to destroy --
the Qing Dynasty.  I agreed that the Nationalist government
of China wasn't perfect -- but it was closer to a democracy than
the Qing Dynasty.

# But of course what you *mean* is that China was a "nominal" democracy
# that was friendly to western capital, and those other "nominal"
# democracies were not. Why don't you just say so?

Huh?  I guess you've made my point better than I could.  The
Nationalist Government of China had many failings, among them that
it was quite corrupt -- but it appears that what upsets you most
about it was that it still supported private property, even though
many of their actions were to push the Western powers out.  (It
did not complete this process, of course, because there was first
a civil war, then war with Japan, which greatly interfered with
Nationalist efforts at decolonialization).

# ### #The book is full of assertions that all whites are racists.  This
# ### #is both false, and intentionally inflammatory.
# ###
# ### If this book is "full" of assertions that all whites are racists,
# ### I wonder why you don't give even a single example.
# ##
# ##Tired of typing.  If it's important to you, I'll post some quotes.
# 
# Yes, actually, would you?

Sure, over the weekend.

# ##They managed to discuss all the evils of Western civilization,
# ##without mentioning even one committed by the Soviet Union -- not
# ##even one!  Yet they acknowledged that the Soviet Union was part
# ##of Western civilization.  Curious, isn't it?
# #
# #Very interesting.  To go further, I wouldn't be surprised if they had
# #good things to say about the Soviet Union and Communism.  Leftists
# #have been singing thier praises.  Wasn't it the Methodist Church
# #(which is rather leftist) that said that Cuba under Castro should be a
# #'model' of how a society should be run.
# 
# An absence of condemnation of the Soviet Union is evidence of
# Marxism? That seems rather a lot to swallow. During the Second
# World War alliance between the English-speaking countries and the
# Soviet Union, for example, Churchill and Roosevelt refrained from
# bad-mouthing Stalin. Does that mean that they were Marxists?

What war are we fighting right now, that prevents leftists from
condemning the totalitarian government of the Soviet Union?

# Not that I think that being a Marxist involves defending Stalin,
# or, indeed, anything the Soviet Union ever did. But surely, a
# failure to condemn Soviet policy or actions is not prima facie
# evidence of historical materialism, or other, as you might say,
# Marxist sins.

It is if all the rest of the West's deficiencies are raised, and
yet the Soviet Union's are ignored.



-- 
Clayton E. Cramer {uunet,pyramid}!optilink!cramer  My opinions, all mine!
"The mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a
favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace
of God." -- Thomas Jefferson
Newsgroups: soc.history