XPost: alt.politics, alt.politics.socialism, alt.anarchism   
   From: briquenoir@freeuk.c0m   
      
   James A. Donald  wrote in message   
   news:oatta3tgcodkv6bhtdbhfsgsqh0ftn6kbh@4ax.com...   
   > James A. Donald:   
   > > > > > But, absent socialism, a political decision   
   > > > > > cannot drive the famine - for to *make* a   
   > > > > > political decision to export food, requires some   
   > > > > > degree of socialism, requires massive state   
   > > > > > violence against the marketplace, just as much   
   > > > > > as a political decision to feed the poor.  The   
   > > > > > classic and extreme example of a famine driven   
   > > > > > by such a political decision to export food was   
   > > > > > the Khmer Rouge famine.   
   >   
   >  "brique"   
   > > > > So, the British Empire was 'socialist'....   
   >   
   > James A. Donald:   
   > > > The British Empire had no man made famines except   
   > > > those caused by foreign armies inflicting famine in   
   > > > the pursuit of military victory against the British-   
   > > > in the nineteenth century it had natural disaster   
   > > > famines, but as the power of men increased, and the   
   > > > power of nature decreased, no more famines.  All   
   > > > really serious twentieth century famines have been   
   > > > man made.  No substantial natural disaster famines   
   > > > occurred in the British empire in the twentieth   
   > > > century, and the British have never inflicted a man   
   > > > made famine.   
   >   
   > brique:   
   > > Stretching definitions as ever, James.... no 'man-made   
   > > famines', if one excludes exporting food from the   
   > > famine area as a cause of any shortage of food. No   
   > > 'man-made famines' if one excludes the refusal to   
   > > allow relief efforts as a cause of the intensification   
   > > and prolonging of that famine.   
   >   
   > If these things caused famine, why is that before the   
   > twentieth century, we only saw serious famines during   
   > natural disasters, war, and socialism.   
   >   
   > If these things caused famine, why during the twentieth   
   > century, do we only see socialist famines and war   
   > famines?   
   >   
   > If these things caused famine, we would not see the   
   > pattern that we do see:  That nineteenth century famines   
   > only happened as a result of natural disaster (such as   
   > the potato virus) war, and socialism, and that twentieth   
   > century famines only happened as a result of war and   
   > socialism.   
      
   Interesting how 'war' becomes divorced from politics and economics, eh   
   James?   
      
   Keep weaseling......   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)