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  • Anarcho-Syndicalism versus
    Catholic-Conservatism Debate

    Between Punkerslut and
    the Endeavour Forum

    Part #13

    Letters #61-#65

    By Punkerslut, Made with Graphics by Kim Scarborough
    Image: By Punkerslut, Made with Graphics by Kim Scarborough,
    Released under the Creative Commons
    "Attribution Share-Alike 2.0 Generic" License

    Letter #061

       Thoroughly Experiencing Hunger,   
       Unemployment, and Poverty   
    Punkerslut
    Punkerslut to the Endeavour Forum...
    Date: Sunday, September 26, 2010

    Hello again, Babette,

    >>"The British not only stopped Sati but gave India Parliamentary democracy and excellent railways on which my father worked. I know far more about India under the British than you, so I suggest you lay off this topic, you won't convince me. I have lived through it, yours is all theory."

         You also tried to say that because you took a vacation to the United States you had positive proof that nobody in the country was hungry. Let me explain something to you: your experiences are particular to you. You need to open your mind and realize that people rely on verifiable evidence, not faith. You don't take my word for it, or the word of UN and US statistics, and NGO statistics, that poverty exists in the United States. But I should suddenly take your word for it, without any backing at all, that India was given parliamentary democracy? Haven't you looked it up yet? Indians were shot openly in the streets! Grab a historical dictionary and look up "Royal Indian Navy Mutiny," aka, "Bombay Mutiny." The Indians weren't GIVEN anything. Nobody is given liberty. Freedom doesn't work that way. The Indians had to demand it. You don't even know the name of the popular revolution that freed your country. That's like an American saying "American Revolutionary War? What the hell is that?"

    Wikipedia: Royal Indian Navy Mutiny

    "Reflecting on the factors that guided the British decision to relinquish the Raj in India, Clement Attlee, the then British prime minister, cited several reasons, the most important of which were: which were the INA activities of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, which weakened the Indian Army - the foundation of the British Empire in India- and the RIN Mutiny that made the British realize that the Indian armed forces could no longer be trusted to prop up the Raj."

         Britain promised liberty for Indians at the end of World War 1 and the end of World War 2. It was not given in either case. It had to be fought for.

    >>"You remind me of the joke of the academics who said about a certain topic:
    'Yes, it works in practice, but it doesn't work in theory'."

         Okay.

    >>"As for unemployment, we in Australia have shortages of labor from time to time, especially skilled labor."

         What makes you think that? You can't just say "we don't even have enough workers for all the jobs!" That must mean that Australia has a NEGATIVE unemployment number, right? Real unemployment in Australia is 16%. ( GreenLeft.org.au ) And real unemployment in the United States is 22%. ( ShadowStats.com ) That's 3% away from the Great Depression. Great defense there, "We don't have enough labor!" That has, statistically, never happened in any country ever. It's always the reverse. At least, when it comes to nations that have private property. There will always be hunger.

    >>"And many of the homeless are mentally ill. It was a mistake by the academics to say they should not be in hospitals. They wander the streets now and even when accommodation is provided, they leave and wander around."

         You're not a statistical library. You don't know this stuff. You sound like a bigot when you say things like "the biggest problem for Harlem is obesity!" And now homeless people are all mentally ill? Did you even look at the child poverty statistics I sent you, showing the large number of children who are homeless in the United States?

    >>"As for you not looking a pro-life websites, they are the ones who tell the truth, that the fetus is a small baby, not some odd clump of cells. If other websites don't tell this fundamental truth about the origins of you and me, how can you trust them about anything else?"

         A fetus is not a small baby. That's why we use different words to separate the two things. A tadpole isn't a frog, is it? The reported unemployment ("U45" or whatever) isn't the REAL unemployment, is it? There's a difference. Besides, you can clearly see the bias in ProLifeNews.com. When an archbishop calls condom distribution "a second wave of African Imperialism," can you please tell me how this is newsworthy? How it has anything to do with the subject? More than half of the articles are just a sermon. And look how you interpret them. "Margaret Sanger inspires Third World Colonialism." That article mentioned nothing about Margaret Sanger and simply was about condom distribution. Suddenly, it's a WAVE OF COLONIALISM?

         Please, shock factor might work on people who are at or significantly below your level of education. Your argument kinda falls apart in front of someone who actually knows what colonialism is. It's like Christians who say that "Evolution caused the Holocaust!" That's ignorance of both Evolution and the Holocaust, and a clear disregard for the latter as anything except a currency in misery. You don't care about the deaths, the millions killed by missionaries, the children abducted into international rape circles by the Catholic Church. No, you don't know anything about, nor do you talk about it. Oh, but when you have an opportunity to make a reference to it, you absolutely do!

         "Evolution, which caused the concentration camps in Germany!" -- "But are you doing anything about the US-managed concentration camps today in Israel, in Poland, and in Romania?" -- "The what? I didn't see any concentration camps in Poland and Romania! Therefore, they're not there!"

         "Distribution of condoms, which is like a wave of African Colonialism!" -- "But are you doing anything about the first wave of African Colonialism, initiated by our nations, and forcing 1.4 billion people into starvation and tens of thousands into hunger deaths everyday?" -- "The what? I didn't see any hunger! Nobody's starving to death!"

         Yes, pain and misery is a great currency, for using it to prove something like how condoms are evil. But, more importantly, it shows that you don't care about pain and misery to begin with. Because you wouldn't say "Condom distribution is a second wave of African Imperialism!" You'd say, "I'm going to fight the WTO and the World Bank for propping up dictators in Africa and to destroy that first wave of African Imperialism once and for all!" The killing of sperm, apparently, is a worse crime than killing of fully-grown human beings, or children. There's child-slavery in African mines for pulling up diamonds for our stores? Who cares! The real problem is that they're being given condoms and information on contraception!!!

         Yeah, you're a real humanitarian, Babette. Can you answer my argument now on why people would rather starve to death than work? Either that, or people can't work because of property ownership. It seems to be a simple argument: either people don't want to work and starving is a better option, or people can't work, because they don't have opportunities from those who possess the land and its productive instruments. This idea can't be too hard for some mental giant like yourself to strike down in two seconds.

    Sincerely,
    Andy Carloff

    "The tragedy of the unwanted child--of the accidental child--only begins with whatever evil prenatal effect the emotional condition of the mother may have upon it. The right to be wanted is it first right but only the first of many that are ignored. Usually it suffers a further handicap by being carried by a mother who is physically ill or overworked. Fear of pregnancy is frequently inspired in the mind of the mother by the burden of too many children, or by want or by both. When it arrives, the accidental child usually finds itself in the ranks of the millions of hungry and neglected infants. Often it is merely a candidate for an item in the infant mortality statistics. We have before us always the horrible spectacle of hundreds of thousands of children dying miserably before they have lived twelve months, of other hundred of thousands dying just as miserably before they reach the age of five. Worse still, is the lot of those other millions who after the age of five take their places among the toilers in mills and factories."
              --Margaret Sanger, 1919
              "The Tragedy of the Accidental Child"


    Letter #062

       Conservative, Social Policy   
       Coupled with Patriotic Pride   
    The Endeavour Forum
    The Endeavour Forum to Punkerslut...
    Date: Sunday, September 26, 2010

    Dear Andy,

         You know nothing about me so don't write tripe. I haven't just holidayed in the USA, I visit once a year, sometimes twice. I have a brother and sister who live there. I work there at the UN so I am quite familiar with their statistics. I support the MDG goals of abolishing poverty by 2015 except I disagree with some of the methods, e.g. abortion and population control.

         Yes, a tadpole is young frog, although the development of non-mammals is different to mammals, e.g. chrysalis-butterfly.

         But the Latin meaning of fetus is "small young", and the pro-aborts persist in calling it a fetus even at 9 months gestation. Their terminology is based on location, not development, e.g. if it is inside the womb it is fetus, if outside they reluctantly call it a baby, although one abortionist when accused of not trying to save a baby born alive after an abortion said "I am here to perform an abortion, not put some woman's fetus in a humidicrib"! So even after it is outside the womb, abortionists are reluctant to admit it is a baby, and think they have a right to kill depending on the mother's whim and the fee they are getting.

         Unemployment in Australia is now less than 5% - the Labor government is boasting about it.

         Many of our homeless and Aborigines were provided with housing - they prefer to sleep "rough" and wander away from sheltered accommodation.

         The man who won India's independence was Mahatma Gandhi with his creed of non-violence. The INA were incidental - the British realised after fighting the Nazis they had no moral argument for denying India self-government, although when I see the mess in Pakistan I think the Brit. decision may have been premature, maybe they should have given more time for Jinnah and Nehru to talk.

    Babette

    "...we will never wipe out infant mortality until we stop at the source the stream of unwanted and death doomed infants and you can never push back the stream with the broom of charity..."
              --Margaret Sanger, 1929
              "Address to Pennsylvania Birth Control Leagues"


    Letter #063

       Your System Lives on   
       Racism, Poverty, and Slavery   
    Punkerslut
    Punkerslut to the Endeavour Forum...
    Date: Monday, September 27, 2010

    Hello again, Babette,

    >>"You know nothing about me so don't write tripe. I haven't just holidayed in the USA, I visit once a year, sometimes twice. I have a brother and sister who live there. I work there at the UN so I am quite familiar with their statistics. I support the MDG goals of abolishing poverty by 2015 except I disagree with some of the methods, e.g. abortion and population control."

         How are you quite familiar with their statistics when you said that hunger doesn't exist in the United States, when the former presidents of both political parties admit it? How is it that all I need to do is google "UN statistics poverty" to see the high rate of food-insecurity in the United States? And how is it that now you're "quite familiar with their statistics" now, when you said, and I quote, "You are wrong about UN statistics, or the UN is wrong on this one as it was on climate change." According to the US Department of Agriculture, 15% of Americans do not have enough food to eat: USDA.gov.

         And also... Your annual trip to America is not an indication of how 300 million Americans are living. Even though I've been to all the great cities, and lived in a fair number, I don't claim that my personal experience is fully indicative of the nation. Even if I've seen a million different people, that's less than 1% of the country. So, "tripe" or not, your personal experiences at your brother's and sister's houses do not trump national and international statistics.

    >>"But the Latin meaning of fetus is 'small young', and the pro-aborts persist in calling it a fetus even at 9 months gestation. Their terminology is based on location, not development, e.g. if it is inside the womb it is fetus, if outside they reluctantly call it a baby, although one abortionist when accused of not trying to save a baby born alive after an abortion said 'I am here to perform an abortion, not put some woman's fetus in a humidicrib'! So even after it is outside the womb, abortionists are reluctant to admit it is a baby, and think they have a right to kill depending on the mother's whim and the fee they are getting."

         I'm not going to argue for partial birth abortion, since I don't believe in it. But, there is a period in gestation where the unborn becomes conscious, or, aware -- even if not "self-aware," specifically. At this point, it deserves the same rights as any other individual. Otherwise, it deserves the same rights as any other object. It doesn't matter if it is "human" or "non-human," "baby" or "fetus." These are emotional terms that really apply. Besides, I could easily turn the tables on you: what about a lump of less than a thousand cells, only in gestation for a week, inside the womb of a fifteen year old who was raped? Do you really think that you're saving a life by bringing a handful of cells to consciousness? Or, actually, do you think you're destroying one, by taking the girl's, and forcing a life of misery, poverty, and grinding labor onto her? After all, we certainly know that the unborn here is definitely not a conscious being.

         Partial birth abortions are also illegal in the United States. The Supreme Court of the US, allegedly packed with anti-Christians and abortion fanatics according to conservative groups, upheld this law. I'll make a deal with you. I'll oppose partial birth abortions if you support abortions of the unborn that are not yet conscious -- that is, aware of their environment, or "awake." This point would be somewhere in the late second trimester, but I leave this question up to the neurophysicists and the like.

    >>"Unemployment in Australia is now less than 5% - the Labor government is boasting about it."

         That is not the REAL unemployment rate. Do you think when you see the news, and they say "The unemployment rate is... blah blah," that they mean the ACTUAL unemployment rate? No, they don't. They mean a subclassification, known as U1-U6, which measures the unemployment of particular industries and age groups. When I say "unemployment rate," I mean the percent of people who are looking for work but cannot find it. This is the real unemployment rate. When news agencies say it, they mean "men and women aged 25-55, who have been unable to find work within the past 4 to 8 weeks, have applied for unemployment, and are not agricultural workers." (The U4 is worded like this, which is the most widely reported.) Of course, as you can see, that's not the actual unemployment rate, because it excludes, well, lots of people. The real unemployment rate, as I have shown earlier, is closer to 16% in Australia. If only our governments could get their story straight, and report one accurate number, but actually, I think they get a benefit by confusing people.

    See here: Wikipedia: United States Bureau of Labor Statistics

         It's the same exact thing in Australia. See here: Couriermail.com.au

         To quote it: "Taking account of these 'hidden unemployed' brings Australia's real rate of unemployment to 11.7 per cent, much higher than the official rate of 5.7 per cent, it says." And you don't trust that Capitalist-driven Labour government, do you? In China, "government officials inspired by the working class" create poverty, but when it's done in Australia, it creates prosperity?

    >>"Many of our homeless and Aborigines were provided with housing - they prefer to sleep 'rough' and wander away from sheltered accommodation."

         That's not true. The Australian paper I quoted earlier said the reason why Aborigines were arrested most often was "failure to move on." If they really "like it rough," it would be impossible to be arrested for that, wouldn't it? Besides, you're aware that Aborigines were never provided with land or, that is to say, anything from the Australian government? "The white people never thought of paying US rent for the whole country that they took from our ancestors. Leave us this tiny corner where our homes are. Why should we pay rent for it at all? We regard that little bit of land as ours still." -- IndigenousRights.net.au

         Are you familiar, also, with the Day of Mourning, where the Australian Aborigines protest the land that was taken from them? What about the Australian protests against Invasion Day? Are you aware that British colonialism, in North America and India, in Australia and Africa, was with a complete disregard for the local peoples? Every history book will tell you this. It doesn't just happen in Australia, but all over the world: "The Penan have long struggled against loggers and plantation developers in Sarawak, the Malaysian state that occupies the northwestern part of Borneo. The Penan, along with other forest groups, have won a string of court cases over the past decade that have recognized their land rights, but these have been largely ignored by the state government..." (MongaBay.com)

         It's a complete joke to talk about the "benefits" that aboriginal people receive from governments that have oppressed or enslaved their people. Look at the Native American, in North and South America. South America still has governments that resemble apartheid: domination of the government by the foreign ancestors of a very few Capitalist and colonialist exploiters. And I don't know if you ever read Gandhi, but he wasn't too thrilled about his people being dominated by a foreign, Capitalist Monarch.

    >>"The man who won India's independence was Mahatma Gandhi with his creed of non-violence. The INA were incidental - the British realised after fighting the Nazis they had no moral argument for denying India self-government, although when I see the mess in Pakistan I think the Brit. decision may have been premature, maybe they should have given more time for Jinnah and Nehru to talk."

         During the Bombay Mutiny, Gandhi was urging support for the British government -- just like during both of the world wars, enlisting Africans whom he considered racially inferior to be slaughtered by the Germans. The British government admitted that it had lost military control over the situation, and because of this act, India gained its independence. Gandhi's non-violent resistance was a decades-long campaign, and at the final moment, when the people finally rose up and demanded their freedom, he became a coward, and told everyone to obey their masters. It doesn't erase his positive accomplishments, but he was outdone by the Communists in freeing India. Compared to those who first raised the flag of the Indian nation, Gandhi falls into obscurity.

         And are you going to support anything else Gandhi said? Probably not. Just like African Imperialism, Gandhi is an "intellectual currency." Use him to prop up your argument. Who cares if he said he wanted the abolishment of British rule all across the globe. Who cares if he said he wanted to abolish Capitalism and institute Democratic Socialism. Who cares if he said "I like your Christ, but I don't like your Christians"? Who cares if he hated the church, capitalism, and the state, right? But if you have to deny the participation of Communists in the liberation of your nation, then you obviously don't value your liberation very much. And now you pull Gandhi from his grave and throw him into the middle of your argument as a shield, "No, wait! This is the guy who freed India!" With such a callous attitude, obviously you don't really care about the person Gandhi or what he tried to accomplished. It's just better to attribute the independence of India to Gandhi instead of some Socialists, Anarchists, and revolutionary unionists.

    Sincerely,
    Andy Carloff

    "If children are to be brought into the world by chance--inert, undernourished, victims of hereditary diseases-- to be brought into a world to live their lives as dependent and indigents; if, in short, this differential birth rate is to be still further widened between classes, the doom of this nation is already written. If our New Dealers turn a deaf ear to the cries of the Forgotten Woman, they are attempting to solve the problem of economic security without due consideration for the basic human factors involved in that problem, which must be recognized."
              --Margaret Sanger, 1935
              "National Security and Birth Control," Part III


    Letter #064

       Again, Kropotkin Seems to   
       Know the Truth on This Matter   
    Punkerslut
    Punkerslut to the Endeavour Forum...
    Date: Thursday, September 30, 2010

         The arguments of Socialism are simple, and you have never tried to even answer or address them. You have responded only with, "Why on earth do you read this stuff?" My answer should be very clear: I read because I want to end poverty, war, and exploitation between humanity. Or, in the words of someone whom I recommend reading...

    "... after having followed the economists so far, we are none the wiser, and if we ask them: 'How is it that millions of human beings are in want of bread, when every family could grow sufficient wheat to feed ten, twenty, and even a hundred people annually?' they answer us by droning the same anthem- division of labour, wages, surplus value, capital, etc.- arriving at the same conclusion, that production is insufficient to satisfy all needs; a conclusion which, if true, does not answer the question: 'Can or cannot man by his labour produce the bread he needs? And if he cannot, what is hindering him?'"

    --Peter Kropotkin
    "The Conquest of Bread," 1892, Chapter 14, Part I

         Thanks, Babette,

    Sincerely,
    Andy Carloff

    "The great horde of the unwanted has proved to be a spineless mass, which did not have the courage to control its own destiny. Had woman had knowledge of birth control and brought into the world only such offspring as she desired and was physically and spiritually prepared to receive, society would have been far too individualistic to tolerate wholesale massacre for the benefit of money kings. Under such an order, the child would have been considered a priceless gift to the community. Manhood would have been too valuable to be sacrificed on battlefields. Motherhood would have been revered, and the mother's voice raised to forbid the slaughter of her offspring would have been heeded."
              --Margaret Sanger, 1917
              "Woman and War"


    Letter #065

       Gandhi, Communism, and Poverty   
    The Endeavour Forum
    The Endeavour Forum to Punkerslut...
    Date: Sunday, October 3, 2010

    Dear Andy,

         I am guessing you are a young schoolboy and need to grow up. Where in world have your revolutionary anarchists achieved your nirvana?

         I know Gandhi better than you, and his commitment to non-violence. I took part in the fight for Indian independence. You seem to know little about recent Indian history if you think the communists won our freedom. Nehru was a socialist, not a communist. Anyway I thought you didn't like communists?

         To end this silly argument, tell me where in the world has the system you suggest - and I don't even understand what it is - worked to end poverty? Quite a bit of poverty is caused by stupidity - take two identical twin brothers, same education, same opportunities. One decides to smoke, drink heavily and take drugs. The other does not. The first will fall into poverty.

    Babette

    "If anyone sincerely believed that poverty and hardship produced the best results, he would deliberately choose them for himself and his children. But no one does. Health, happiness and opportunity are unquestionably a benefit to humanity, otherwise we should not be justified in struggling for them."
              --Margaret Sanger, 1919
              "Birth Control: Yes or No?"



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