Political Partisanship, A Bum Rap, Linux and Training

[tcpip]

Are propertarians, that right-wing "libertarian" political philosophy, among the worst thinkers of all? Or, ironically, as bad as vulgar Marxists? I raise this possibility to two recent debates with such individuals where they have shown a disdain for factual information. One claimed that Marxism has no influence in Europe, in Germany in particular. I mentioned everything from the Frankfurt Declaration, to various research institutes, to the state parliament of Thuringia. The next tried argued about Chinese communism, and were less than happy when I suggested it was probably better than the alternatives available at the time. So it goes; the Stalinist communists think I'm an apologist for capitalism, the propertarians and neoliberals think I'm an apologist for communism, and in reality I'm neither. It's just that I start with contextual facts without partisanship. I actually think that consciously losing a sense of political partisanship was one of the smartest acts of self-improvement I've ever done - even it both confuses and annoys those with rigid ideologies.

Anyway, as an example of the horrors of government interventions, when an Australian turns fifty, the government likes to check their bum and I've provided them that opportunity. What I'm referring to is the National Bowel Cancer screening program, a voluntary at-home program which does lead to a reduction in cancer incidence. Of course, people claim that they "don't have time", and to be fair it was weeks before I even read the documentation. For what it's worth this is an encouragement for people to actually pull their finger out and do this, because it can be a life-saving exercise. It is actually better to know, rather than cancer catching you when it's too late. Apropos on other health issues, an old friend has been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis; I have taken the opportunity to recall a story from my youth (Facebook) where involving a memorable confusion between sclerosis and cirrhosis.

Neglected to mention in the last post that I attended the Linux Users of Victoria meeting last Tuesday on the use of FOSS tools in the production of the play 'Share' by Dr. Katherine Phelps, which introduced me to the script-writing tool, CeltX. Also this week ran the usual set of three training courses; whilst the first went really well, even if the class were mostly beginners, the latter two had to be cancelled due to non-attendances. This is the first time in eight years or so that this has ever happened and I've suggested that, whilst we offer the training for free to researchers, that perhaps we need to add a deposit to encourage their attendance. The courses are in very high-demand and it really isn't fair for those who do make the effort to attend.

Comments

[johnny9fingers]

I have to admit not all Marxists are vulgar, nor are they always wrong.

(The Macmillanite High Tory position is almost exactly the same as your non-ideological position in many respects.)

I happen to agree with you about China. I'm instinctively against revolutions as too many folk seem to end up as collateral damage, but given the alternatives available at the time...

In the '70's my position was classed by most of my Marxist chums as being on the far-right; a defender of privilege. The same position and opinions (mixed economy, welfare state, etc) now put my to the right of Corbyn, but not by that much, and to the left of almost all the rest of the polity I live in. I'm not claiming consistency is necessarily a virtue, but it shows the way society has moved.

I actually knew folk in British neo-Nazi parties in the '70's and '80's. They could be semi-civilised right up until they let their guard down, and then the horrors would emerge. The ultimate irony is of course that Nazi-ism in any of its forms is antithetical to British and English values as was; as is now I'm not too sure. Yet still they try to merge Nazi-ism and Britishness of half a century ago. Bonkers, but never mind. But I would say one thing in this generation's defence; most of them have not observed the Nazis up close and have not seen the skull beneath the skin. For those of us who have, however...

My history has really given me confirmation in my political opinions. The things I'm pretty damn sure of are: I'm an anti-fascist; I believe in society; I am my brother's keeper - as he is mine; things should be as fair as we can make them; and if people pay their taxes and contribute, they should be able to spend the rest as they wish.

People and families have historical contexts; as do nationstates and political opinions. Respect should be paid to those things as appropriate, but I will not accept fascism in England. I've seen and heard the Nazis when they think they are amongst their own, and that is scary. (Mind you, in the '70's and '80's there was a lot of Nazi mysticism and Crowley-ite subgroupings which talked about Antarctic civilisations and other lunacies.)

[tcpip]

> I have to admit not all Marxists are vulgar, nor are they always wrong.<

Correct on both counts!

> but given the alternatives available at the time...<

You will be interested in my final remark on the thread:

I don't know why people have such strong opinions on this subject when people haven't done these calculations, and don't know Chinese history.

The loss of life in the Great Famine (using an average of scholarly accounts) is around 22.5 million. This was at least in part due to poor policy, and in part by adverse weather conditions; keep in mind that the 1876–79 famine resulted in 11 million deaths for comparison. That of Cultural Revolution (mostly deliberate) was about 1 million.

In comparison the invasion of Japanese imperialists alone cost 19.5 million civilian lives and over 2 million lives of Nationalist and People's Army, and the Civil War around 2.7 million deaths. Those were mostly deliberate, of course.

In addition to what I have listed above there was also the Xingai revolution (1911-12), Province wars (1913-1916), Protection War (1915-1918), Zhili–Anhui War (1920), Guangdong–Guangxi War (1920–21), First Zhili–Fengtian War (1922), Second Zhili–Fengtian War (1924), Yunnan–Guangxi War (1925), Anti-Fengtian War (1925–26), and the Xinjiang Wars (1933–46).

In a nutshell, the entire first half of the 20th century in China was constant war.

As extraordinary as it may seem without this knowledge and from our peaceful existence, the massive increase is life expectancy under Mao's China (which was effectively a form of left-wing fascism - modernist and totalitarian), along with the six-fold increase in GDP per capita was a *vast* improvement to what had previously occurred. That doesn't mean that I support the Chinese model of communism, nor am I making any excuses for its persecution of real or imagined political dissidents, nor am I accepting the loss of life due to bad policy decisions.

What it means is that it was empirically better than what the Chinese had experienced - and that *should* be beyond dispute.

The fact that it isn't disputed is why so many people of Chinese heritage look absolutely dumb-founded when people of European heritage try to tell them their own history from a position of ignorance.

The political opinions that you express are very agreeable.

[johnny9fingers]

Well I knew various Intel folk in the '70's and '80's and became a bit of a spook-watcher thereafter. As a teenager in a New Wave band in the late '70's I got heavily into the Crowleyite insanity for a short while, which led me into esoteric circles which overlapped with some extreme-right and neo-Nazi occultists of the same period. The overlap to the vague Intel connections (socially, not professionally - I have never been employed by any Intel service) was one of those co-incidences which return to haunt me.

The two big establishment scandals which I think have some credence are the links with the extreme right, and the pædophile network scandal. The former has been ignored for some time, the latter is being manipulated as we speak. Both have Intel involvement and security implications, and there is overlap with each too. But I cut myself out of those loops early on, though I kept an eye on what they were doing. These instances are the really difficult moral quandaries I currently know of concerning security and condoning or assisting vile and disgusting behaviour. Also these are both historical cases with legacy issues and the Intel services would claim they are situational.