Ein Polizist, Keine Beine

This is the German version of the One Cop, No Legs post. Translator: Dan Bablinskas.

I am looking for translators to write this post up in Polish. Email me if you are interested.

Click here for the Korean translation. (한국). Spanish translation (en Español). French translation here (en Français).

Warning! This video has caused adverse reactions, including vomiting, in some viewers. Please exercise caution in viewing this video.

Das ist wirklich ein krasses Video. In Vietnam wird ein Verkehrspolizist von einem Lastwagen erfasst und halbiert. Für circa fünf Minuten wird er von Zuschauern (Schaulustigen) umringt, die aber nicht wissen was sie tun sollen. Das idiotische ist, dass keine anderen Polizisten, keine Rettungswagen, keine Aerzte, gar niemand kommt. Der Arme liegt einfach da. Jedoch endet das Video nach etwas mehr als fünf Minuten als der Rettungswagen endlich auftaucht.

Er bemerkt was passiert, und es so wie er versucht seine Eingeweide wieder hineinzustecken. Was noch merkwürdiger ist, ist dass die ganze Zeit mit der Menge unterhaltet er und scheint gar nicht in gewaltigem Schmerz zu sein. Es ist fast als ob er sie fragte, « Hallo, können Sie bitte meine Eingeweide hineinstecken, und vergessen nicht meine Beine anzufassen. Es ist echt Schade, Sie wissen, hier durchgeschnitten zu liegen. Erstens, kann ich gar nicht aufstehen! »

Es gibt Leuter die klagen dass die Zuschauer nichts machen. Dies wird eine Kritik zu Vietnams als ein dritterweltischer Schlamassel, wo man das Leben nicht schätzt. Aber wenn du verdeutschst die Vietnamesich eine andere Wichtigkeit sich entwickelt.

Die Leuter scharen sich ihn um. Sie sagen ihm dass er still bleibe, dass sie die Polizei angerufen haben, aber dass der Verkehr den Rettungswagen abbremst. Andere versuchen den Verkehr zu halten, damit sie den Rettungswaven schnellner durchkommen könne. Andere stellen vor einen Doktor in der Nähe auszusuchen. Eine Christin sagt ihm, er solle Jesus bitten sein Wesen zu retten. Der Mann erwidert, « Ich sterbe . . . » Zu einem Punkt, angrig, sagt er, « Macht keine Fotos von mir! »

Heutzutage, dieses Video geht ringsum durchs Internet und es wird immer populärer, obwohl es noch nicht total überall verbreitet ist. Es lasste sich blicken im Internet ab 20 August 2009. Es war auf Youtube ein bisschen Zeit, aber davon wurde es schnell abgenommen.

Ich kann die köpfende Videos hierauf nicht anschauen. Ich hab die ein- oder zweimal geguckt und das war mir genug. Ich weiss es nicht ob irgendwas unrechtes mit mir ist, aber dieses Video hat mir nicht aufgeregt. Aus irgendeinem Grund, fand ich es lustig. Ich meine, der Mann liegt durchgeschnitten im Mitten der Strasse und er sich benimmt, als ob nichts unrechtes ist. Er schaut die Menge um, und es ist als ob er sie um das Wetter fragt. Also, man sieht ihn nicht sterben, und darum ist es nicht so abscheulich.

Un Flic, Pas de Jambes

This is the French translation of One Cop No Legs by Natalie from France.

I am looking for translators to write this post up in Polish. Email me if you are interested.

Korean translation here (한국)). Spanish translation (en Español). German version (in deutscher Sprache).

Warning! This video has caused adverse reactions, including vomiting, in some viewers. Please exercise caution in viewing this video.

C’est une vidéo vraiment écoeurante. Un policier de la route au Vietnam a été écrasé par un camion et coupé en deux. Durant cinq minutes, il est entouré de gens qui ne savent pas quoi faire. Bêtement on ne voit aucun autre policier, ni ambulance ou docteur, personne. Le malheureux gît par terre. Cependant la vidéo se termine sur une ambulance qui finalement arrive.

Il se rend compte de ce qui se passe, et on dirait qu’il essaye de remettre ses intestins en place. Ce qui est encore plus bizarre c’est qu’il discute avec la foule autour de lui en même temps et ne semble pas souffrir énormément.

On dirait qu’il est en train de dire "hé, pouvez-vous me remettre les jambes et les intestins en place, s’il vous plait ? Quelle barbe d’être coupé en deux, vous savez, à peu de chose près je pourrais presque me lever."

Les gens se plaignent que les spectateurs ne font rien. Cela se traduit par une critique du Vietnam, qui est un pays du tiers monde chaotique où la vie n’a que peu de valeur. Toutefois si on traduit les conversations en fond sonore, du vietnamien au français, on découvre un autre tableau.

Les gens s’agglutinent autour de lui, en lui disant de rester calme et qu’ils ont appelé la police, mais que l’ambulance est ralentie par la circulation. D’autres personnes tentent de stopper la circulation pour faciliter l’arrivée des secours; certains suggèrent d’appeler un docteur qui habite tout près. Une chrétienne lui dit de prier Jésus pour qu’il le sauve.

L’homme dit "je vais mourir!" À un moment il dit méchamment "arrêtez de me prendre en photo!"

Cette vidéo fait le tour d’Internet ces jours-ci, elle est en train de devenir assez populaire, même si elle ne cartonne pas encore. Elle est apparue aux alentours du 20 août 2009, sur Youtube durant un peu de temps, puis elle a été rapidement enlevée.

Je ne peux pas du tout supporter la vision de décapitations ou meurtres en vidéo. Je les regarde une fois ou deux, puis jamais plus. Je ne sais pas s’il y a quelque chose qui cloche chez moi, mais cette vidéo-ci ne me bouleverse pas.

Je la trouve même marrante, ce mec coupé en deux qui agit comme si de rien n’était. Il regarde la foule autour et on dirait qu’il parle de la pluie et du beau temps. De plus on ne le voit pas mourir, donc ce n’est pas si terrible.

On ne sait pas ce qui est arrivé à ce gars, mais il semble qu’il soit mort. Il y a confusion entre cet homme et Peng Shulin, un chinois qui a eu le même type d’accident en Chine en 1995, alors que cet accident a eu lieu au Vietnam récemment.

Un Policia Sin Piernas

This is the Spanish translation of One Cop No Legs by my kickass Spanish translator, Frederick Furby from Argentina.

I am looking for translators to write this post up in Polish. Email me if you are interested.

Korean translation here (한국). French translation here (en Français). German version (in deutscher Sprache).

Warning! This video has caused adverse reactions, including vomiting, in some viewers. Please exercise caution in viewing this video.

Este es un video bastante serio. Un policia de transito en Vietname es golpeado por un camión que lo corta al medio. Por 5 minutos, hay algunas personas a su alrededor, pero ninguna sabe que hacer. Estupidamente, ningún otro policía, ambulancia, doctor ni nadie aparece. El pobre hombre yace en el piso. De todas formas, el video termina un poco después de los 5 minutos cuando la ambulancia finalmente llega.

Él se da cuenta lo que sucede, y parece que trata de meterse las entrañas nuevamente. Lo que es más extraño es que continua manteniendo una convesación con la multitud alrededor de él durante todo el tiempo, y ni siquiera parece que se encontrara con dolor.

Es casi como si preguntara, "Hey! ¿Puedes meter mis entrañas y ponerme las piernas de nuevo por favor?" Esto es realmente un lastre tirado cortado por la mitad sabes?. Por una cosa, no puedo levantarme.

La gente se esta quejando de las personas paradas alrededor, diciendo que no estan haciendo nada. Esto se traduce a una crítica cultural de Vietnam siendo un lío tremendo por ser del Tercer Mundo donde la vida no se valora. De todas formas, si traduces el sonido de vietnamita a ingles, una imagen diferente aparece.

La multitud a su alrededor le esta diciendo que se calme, que ya llamaron a la policia, pero que la ambulancia esta siendo demorada por el tráfico. Otros estan tratando de detener el tráfico para que la ambulancia pueda pasar más rápido.

Otros sugieren buscar a un doctor que vive ahi cerca. Una mujer cristiana le dice que rece a Jesús para que lo salve. El hombre dice, "Me voy a morir..." En un momento, enojado, dice, "Dejen de sacarme fotos!".

Este video esta dando vueltas en internet estos dias y haciendose bastante popular, aunque le falta llegar a la totalidad de la popularidad. Fue presentado en la Net alrededor del 20 de Agosto del 2009. Estaba en Youtube por un tiempo, pero fue rapidamente removido.

No puedo manejar los videos de decapitación o asesinatos del todo aca. Los veo una o dos veces y nunca más. No se si hay algo malo conmigo, pero este video no me molesto realmente. Por alguna razón pense que era gracioso.

Me refiero, el chabon es cortado a la mitad tirado en la calle y actúa como si no hubiera nada malo. Está mirando a la multitud y parece como si les preguntara acerca del clima. Además, no ves el hombre morir asi que no es tan horrible.

Nosotros no sabemos que le paso al sujeto, pero parece que aparentemente murio. Hay una pequeña confusión entre este hombre y Peng Shulin, un chino que sufrió un accidente similar. Ese accidente ocurrió en China en 1995, y este ocurrió en Vietname recientemente.

꽉 막힌 베트남 거리의 사고 (Vietnam Street Accident)

This is a Korean translation of the One Cop No Legs post. The translator is 넝근넝근.

I am looking for translators to write this post up in Polish. Email me if you are interested.

Spanish translation here (en Español). French translation here (en Français ). German version (in deutscher Sprache).

Warning! This video has caused adverse reactions, including vomiting, in some viewers. Please exercise caution in viewing this video.

주의를 요구합니다! 이 비디오는 몇몇 시청자들에게 불편한 반응과 구토를 야기 할수 있습니다. 이 비디오 시청에 주의를 하십시오.

심각한 정신적 충격을 주는 비디오입니다. 베트남의 교통경찰이 트럭에 치여 몸의 절반이 절단되었습니다. 5분동안 구경꾼들이 그의 주위에 모여있지만 뭘 어떻게 해야 할줄을 모릅니다. 어리석게도 다른 경찰이나 구급차, 의사는 보이지 않습니다. 저 불쌍한 남자는 그냥 저기에 누워있군요. 그러나 5분을 조금 넘기자 구급차가 도착하고 비디오도 끝납니다.

그는 무슨일이 일어났는지 알고 그의 내장을 다시 집어 넣으려는것습. 이상한것은 그는 계속해서 주위의 구경꾼들과 이야기하면서 급격한 고통을 느끼는 것 같지는 않습니다. 아마도 그가 '이봐요 내 내장좀 다시 넣어주고 다리 좀 원래대로 돌려 놔 주실래요? 계속 하체가 잘린채로 누워있기도 지겨워. 그리고 나는 일어 날수가 없어' 이렇게 말하는 것 같군요.

사람들은 구경꾼들에게 불만을 품으며 그들이 아무것도 하지 않았다고 말합니다. 이것은 베트남의 생명 존중사상의 문화적 퇴보로 해석되어집니. 그러나 이 비디오의 음향만을 영어로 번역해서 들으면 그와는 다른 이미지가 느껴집니다.

사람들은 주위에 둘러모여서, 그에게 침착하라고 말하며 경찰을 불렀지만 통정체로 구급차가 늦어질거라고 말합니다. 다른사람들은 차들을 세우고 구급차가 좀더 빨리 올수 있도록 해줍니다. 또 다른사람들은 근처의 지역의사에 대해 제안하기도 합니다. 한 기독교 신자 여성은 그를 살려달라고 기도하기도 합니다. 그 남자는 "난 죽을것 같아....."라 말하며 한 장면에선 화난채로 "사진을 찍지마" 라고 합니다.

이 비디오는 마치 바이러스에 감염된듯 최근에 인터넷에 퍼지면서 유명해지고 있습니다. 이 비디오는 2009년 8월 20일에 처음 인터넷에 공개됬습니다. 비디오가 유튜브에 잠시 올라왔지만 즉시 삭제가 되었습니다.

저는 여기서 목이 잘리거(참수)나 살인에 관한 비디오를 잘 보지못합니다. 한 두번만 보고 다시는 보지 않지요. 저는 저에게 문제가 있는지도 모르지만, 이 비디오는 저를 열받게 하는군요. 몇가지 이유로, 나는 이게 웃기다고 생각했습니다. 제말은 남자가 하체가 잘린채로 거리에 누워있는데 그는 아무 문제도 없는것처럼 행동하는 것 같더군요. 그는 구경꾼들을 보며 날씨같은 걸 물어보는 것 같습니다. 게다가 저 남자가 죽은건 아니라 별로 공포스럽지 않군요.

우리는 후에 저 남자에게 무슨일이 벌어졌는지 모릅니다. 그러나 그는 아마도 죽었을 것 같군요. 이 남자와 Peng Shulin씨라는 비슷한 사고를 겪은 중국인과 약간의 혼동이 있습니다. Peng Shulin씨의 사고는 1995년 중국에서 일어났고 저 비디오는 최근에 베트남에서 일어났습니다.

이 사진이 몇개월 전에 끔찍한 사고로 하반신을 잃은 중국인 Peng Shulin 이. 많은 사람들이 Peng Shulin이 비디오의 남자라고 주장하지만 같은 사람이 아니. 우리는 저 비디오의 남자의 이름을 모를 뿐만 아니라 생사여부도 확인 할수가 없다.

One Cop No Legs

I am looking for translators to write this post up in Polish. Email me if you are interested.

Korean translation here (한국). Spanish translation (en Español). French translation here (en Français). German version (in deutscher Sprache).

Warning! This video has caused adverse reactions, including vomiting, in some viewers. Please exercise caution in viewing this video.

This is one seriously messed up video. A traffic cop in Vietnam gets hit by a truck and cut in half. For about five minutes, bystanders surround him but don't know what to do. Idiotically, no other cops, ambulances, doctors, anyone, show up. The poor guy just lies there. However, the video does end at a little over 5 minutes when the ambulance finally shows up.

He realizes what is going on, and it's like he keeps trying to stuff his guts back in. What's even more weird is he keeps up a running conversation with the crowd around him the whole time and does not even appear to be in tremendous pain. It's almost like he's asking, "Hey, could you stuff my guts back in and put my legs back on please? This is really a drag lying here chopped in half you know. For one thing, I can't get up."

People are complaining about the bystanders and saying that they are not doing anything. This is translated into cultural critique of Vietnam being a backwards Third World mess where life is not valued. However, if you translate the soundtrack from Vietnamese to English, a different picture emerges.

The people are crowding around, telling him to be calm and that they have called the police, but that the ambulance is being slowed down by traffic. Others are trying to stop traffic so the ambulance can get through quicker. Others suggest getting a local doctor who lives nearby. A Christian woman tells him to pray to Jesus to save himself. The man says, "I'm going to die..." At one point, angrily, he says, "Stop taking pictures of me!"

A screenshot from the horrible video.

Here is a good second by second wrap-up of the footage for those who do not wish to watch it:

00:00: The video opens on a man lying on his back in the street. Both legs have been ripped from his body and are lying far askew to his right. He turns his head and lifts his arm to his hat. There is a small pool of fresh blood on the ground, and the severed area is well-coated with blood and viscera. There is a good-sized crowd around; none of them come to his aid. To the camera right there is a large dump truck, presumably the one who ran over this victim. Heavy traffic passes by on the street.

00:00:34: A man from the crowd moves in to talk to the victim. The victim reaches down to his waist, appearing to try to unbuckle his belt.

00:00:46: The same bystander approaches again, and the victim reaches briefly to his right, touching his severed legs. He continues to work on his belt area, sometimes pulling hard enough to cause the viscera from his open wound to move. The camera moves in a little closer, and you can make out the small intestine.

00:00:58: The victim lifts his head to look down at his wound. He sees, lays his head back down. He looks to his right at his legs again. He is no longer fiddling with his belt, but instead appears to be picking the edge of skin away from the wound.

00:01:26: The victim lifts his head briefly and reaches his right arm towards the camera. The bystander moves around and lays something on the wounded man's chest. The victim appears to be trying to pull the skin from his stomach down to cover his wound.
He lifts his head up a couple of times to look at his wound.

00:03:47: A woman is standing over him, speaking. He talks to her.

00:04:07: The victim lifts his head again, then his shirt. He uses his hand to wave over someone from the street. Traffic, mostly motorcycles, continues to pass. From the video, it is uncertain whether this man died. He remains conscious and alert throughout, and clearly has control over what muscles are still connected to his brain and spine.

This video is making the rounds on the Internet these days and it's getting pretty popular, although it has not gone totally viral yet. It showed up on the Net around August 20, 2009. It was on Youtube for a bit, but it quickly got removed.

We don't know what happened to the guy, but it appears that he apparently died. There is some confusion between this man and Peng Shulin, a Chinese man who suffered a similar accident. That incident occurred in China in 1995, and this incident occurred in Vietnam just recently.

The Record of Communist Language Policy

A commenter posting on the Cool Neo-Latin Websites post critiques what he sees as a disconnect in my views:

That's funny 4you support preserving small languages, because most communists do not and prefer centralization and one mass-language for everyone.

For instance, the communists in the USSR did much to stamp out local languages by forcing all people living within its boundaries to learn Russian first and foremost in state schools (which they were forced to attend).

They did somewhat try to preserve local languages in the so called "autonomous regions" within the Soviet empire, but still many local languages were lost in the forced shuffle from locally-based economies to the centralized/state-run economy where Russian reigned supreme.

In China a similar situation is taking place...many languages and dialects have been lost and are continuing to be lost as the communists there forcibly centralize everything in sight and institute Mandarin over all else.

I respond: First of all, I would like to point out that as a linguist, of course I support minority languages. Most linguists do. I would be hard-pressed to think of one that doesn't. So my support for minority languages comes first from being a linguist, and then, if at all, from being a Leftist.

Also, most linguists are liberal to leftwing types - it's just their nature, and most folks on the Left support language rights. I would gather that even Centrist to conservative (assuming they exist) linguists would still support minority tongues. So in a way this support by linguists is independent of politics.

This is not true at all. No one has supported the preservation of small languages and cultures better than the Left. First of all, the USSR was the first country on Earth to set a standard for a nationalities policy. The policy called for linguistic and cultural autonomy for all USSR nationalities. Grammars, texts, books and alphabets were developed for all sorts of small languages.

It's true that Stalin pretty much turned a lot of this around in the 1930's, but even by the 1950's, the USSR was still very progressive on the language question. Also, all nationalities were given the right to secede.

China also gave all nationalities the right to use their language and cultural autonomy. They also had the right, similar to the USSR, to education in their native language. China's language policy is very progressive by world standards. It's true that they have not been so good with the Tibetans and especially the Uighurs, but the language policy for the Tibetans is still pretty good.

Eastern Europe had a great language policy for minority tongues. You must understand that as internationalists, no one opposes the nationalist oppression of minority tongues more than the Communists. It was only due to decades to internationalism that Czechoslovakia was able to split up with no bloodshed.

The USSR also broke up relatively painlessly. The only modern states that have allowed succession at all have typically been seeped in decades of Communist internationalism. Even Vietnam has an excellent language and nationalities policy.

There was a need for a national language in the USSR and that was Russian. Before, in most of the USSR, there were no schools period. The Soviets brought culture, written language, education, modern medicine and civilization to many backwards groups, and for this, nationalist boneheads condemn them.

You ignore that many of these groups were allowed instruction in their native tongues as a medium of instruction. It is true that everyone had to take Russian every year in school from K-12. This was necessary in order to have a national language.

Due to the progressive Soviet language policy, many minority languages in the USSR were still in superb shape even in 1990 with the breakup of the USSR. 70 years of capitalism in the USSR would have been devastating to minority tongues.

The line you are citing above is from fanatical anti-Communists, typically Baltics. These are Lithuanians, Estonians and Latvians, and most of them are fascists . That's interesting because most of these Baltic Nazis support fascism, and no one has been harder on minority tongues than nationalist regimes, particularly the fascists.

With the fall of the USSR, nationalist regimes took over in most of the new states. In most cases, one nation and culture was promoted over all others (a national consolidation project) and minorities and minority tongues were attacked. This definitely occurred in the very Baltic states that were leading the charge against the horrors of Russification for minority tongues.

In Eastern Europe, a similar thing occurred with the fall of the Communist regimes. In general, nationalist regimes took their place and quickly began attacking minorities and minority tongues. This has been most pronounced in the former Yugoslavia, but has also been quite notable in Romania, Hungary and especially Czechoslovakia. We saw this even in Germany. The Sorbs fared well in East German, less well under unification.

The locally-based economies of the USSR were backwards and non-productive. There was a need to bring the state into the modern era and these small groups had to participate in the national economy. After all, they were getting so many benefits from the state, should they not have to contribute something to the economy rather than run around hunting reindeer all the time?

The language policy of China continues to be very progressive for an Asian nation. Sure Mandarin is emphasized, but you need a national tongue. Most minority languages in China are still in surprisingly good shape. The one area where they have been lax is in the Chinese "dialects".

These are actually separate languages, but due to Chinese nationalism, Chinese nationalists refuse to admit this, and say they are all just Chinese. These are languages such as Min, Cantonese, etc. Actually though, most of them still have lots of speakers.

China and the USSR had shortcomings in language policy where they have deviated from internationalism. Stalin did institute Russification, and his successors were even worse. And the Chinese regime has not been immune to Chinese nationalism. It is nationalism, not Communism, that is deadly to small minority tongues. Anti-Communists, almost always nationalists, ought to put that in their pipes and smoke it.

Multiculturalism and Socialism: The Odd Couple

The latest death toll figures from Hurricane Katrina can be seen on this website here. The famous Russian neo-Nazi video is on this blog here.

Updated September 2:

In the comments section, Scott, who is a White nationalist, discusses the disconnect between multiculturalism and socialism or social democracy.

Yes, we do allow White nationalists, even anti-Black ones, on the board, but every time a cute Black woman shows up on the board, we force them to kiss her. On the lips. On penalty of banning. None have left yet. Brown sugar, how come you taste so good?

Scott says:

Look at the countries that have the highest index of egalitarianism in the West: Iceland, Norway, Sweden (used to have more). The inhabitants are all pretty closely related to one another. I'll spot my sibling $100 cash.

It's basically the same thing but in a less dramatic way in such countries, but when other nationalities come in because of the aforementioned ethnostates' welfare system, as seek to take advantage of it, the whole system gets messed up. Find me an ethnically diverse country with a social democracy.

I respond:

Scott is right. Does the UK count as a multicultural country? If it does, it's growing a nasty White racist - fascist party of reaction to the diversity in the BNP.

Does Venezuela count? If Venezuela counts, I would say that Venezuela is a country riven with violence, tension and class war. There seems to be a racial angle, but in the upper class and upper middle class, it's really more about class than race. Nevertheless, it's clear that the oligarchy is much more light-skinned than the Underclass that supports Chavez.

Is multicultural Russia a social democracy? Maybe so, but it's riven from one end to the other with horrible racism.

Do Communist states like China and Cuba count? Maybe so, but those countries, probably due to the class warfare (in the case of both) and combined class/race warfare (in the case of Cuba) inherent in their societies, needed full, bloody Communist revolutions to institute any kind of socialist system.

Vietnam and Laos are multiethnic countries, but the Lao and the Vietnamese are the overwhelming majority. They also needed Communist revolutions to put in socialism.

I would say Sri Lanka. They have a pretty good social democracy there, and the ruling party is a member of the Socialist International. There's also a horribly vicious civil war going on, because that "socialist" party in power has never done much to help the Tamils.

Socialist parties in Chile, Argentina and Brazil haven't been able to get much done. In Chile and Argentina the problem is probably much more class than race. In Brazil, surely it's both race and class together. The socialists in Ecuador and Bolivia are trying to get something done, but Bolivia is riven with a horrific class/race division and it's almost civil war there.

I don't think that the socialist parties in Nicaragua and Guatemala will be able to get much done. Both nations had Leftist revolutions for decades, in the case of Nicaragua followed by a revolutionary government and more civil war, this time counterrevolutionary. Nicaragua was always more about class than race, but the oligarchy is light-skinned. In Guatemala, the situation is very much about both class and race riven together.

One thing becomes clear in this analysis.

The only way to peacefully vote in a socialist or social democratic government is to have a relatively homogeneous society. Typically a White society. As diversity and multiculturalism increases, even in White European countries, White racist/fascist groups rise up for various reasons and racial violence against minorities becomes common.

In multiethnic or deeply class-riven nations (Note how often the two are conflated!), socialism, social democracy or movements towards them is typically accompanied by either outright civil war, de facto civil war, tremendous open class war in terms of coups, attempted coups, lockout strikes, riots, imperialist interventions, class-based separatist movements, and much violence.

In other places, socialist governments are not able to get much done due to deep class and race-based conflicts and the threat of violence from dominant ethnics and/or classes.

In other places, long civil wars eventually installed Communist regimes in multiethnic countries and ethnic conflict subsided or stopped. Short of installing a Communist regime, multiethnic countries moving towards socialism are likely to experience a lot of internal violence and chaos.

If diversity is so bad for socialism, why do socialists in the West keep pushing it?

Good question.

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More on Socialist Institutions in Capitalist States

In response to my post, In America, Socialism is Everywhere, Dr. Andrew Austin (blog here), a sociology professor at the University of Wisconsin - Green Bay, and one of the smartest people I know, commented, rejecting my notion that all government structures in a capitalist system were de facto socialist institutions.

His response is a typical, but very explicitly and eloquently stated, Marxist rejoinder. Refer to the post linked above to see what he is talking about.

Andrew Austin:

Socialism is a political economic system in which the workers own and control the means of production. That means the workers run the firm, so to speak.

Leaving aside the question of whether they produce anything of value (in an exchange sense), soldiers and police officers do not run the firm. They are employees of the state and are told what to do by those who run the state. They have no say-so in determining who stands above them. The hierarchy that controls their work lives (and to a large extent their leisure lives) is not comprised of democratically-elected offices.

Moreover, the military and the police serve the interests of the capitalist class and its managers and associated functionaries, not the interests of the working class.

Government functions are socialist to the degree that they are controlled by and benefit the working class.

An example of a public system in the US that is often said to have the appearance of socialism is the educational system. School board members are elected, subject to public pressure, and every child can access the system. However, public education has become a system for indoctrinating children into the values and norms of capitalist society.

Just because the state sector is involved does not signal socialism. The capitalist state is by definition not socialist because it is controlled by capitalists for the benefit of capitalists and the perpetuation, expansion, and entrenchment of capitalist relations.

States reflect the character of the underlying mode of production. I see a lot of people make the error of thinking that extensive state intervention means socialism. The only way state intervention is socialist is if the social relations are socialist or society is undergoing a revolutionary transformation.

Authoritarian capitalism - fascism, whatever - has a massive state sector, but it is the antithesis of socialism. Capitalism can be more or less democratic - though there are always sharp limits on how democratic capitalism can be. Socialism can be more or less democratic. Unlike capitalism, the more democratic socialism becomes, the more socialist it is.

I'm not going to comment on this because I am more or less at a loss for words. Feel free to comment in the comments section.

On the other hand, astute commenter James Schipper agrees with me, but takes a non-Marxist and more social democratic view of socialism.

Keep in mind that social democrats call their system socialism, while Marxists reject that, calling social democrats "bourgeois democrats" when they are in a good mood and "social fascists" when they are in a bad mood (recall the epithet used by the German Communists against the German social democrats in the 1920's and early 1930's).

Schipper:

I agree totally with you. Every country in the world has a socialist sector. The market can't exist without the state, but the state can exist without the market. A country in which the state ran everything would be a disaster, but it could exist. A country in which literally everything were left to the market would sink in anarchy and misery. Some African countries have come close to this.

Socialism means essentially three things: state-directed production, state-directed distribution of income and state-regulated private production. There is plenty of that all over the world.

The biggest department in the socialist sector in the US is the Pentagon. Many American generals might balk at being called employees in the socialist sector, but that's exactly what they are. They don't get their paychecks from a corporation.

However, I would like to add that socialism in the sense above does not necessarily mean egalitarianism. There can be such a thing as socialism for the rich. Even a totally socialist economy could be run mainly for the benefit of an elite, in the same way that a corporation can be run mainly for the benefit of senior managers and at the expense of shareholders and employees.

I respond, agreeing with James:

Indeed, what we have under Bush seems to be something like a socialism for the rich. The rich are allowed to gamble all they want with their money and possibly even blow up the economy. If they make money, they get to keep all of it. If they lose, we taxpayers cover all of their losses. Hence there is nothing to prevent them from making mad and wild gambles with money, which are quite risky for the economy.

Guaranteeing the losses of capitalists is something that economists call "moral risk". It's like if I get to go to the casino all day and win as much as I want, but once I start losing, I get to come hat in hand to the taxpayers and demand that they bail out all my losses. I might just stay at the casino all the time if that were the case.

This is the moral risk inherent in today's corporatist system.

On the other hand, we cannot allow big banks and strange institutions like Freddie Mae and Fannie Mac to fail. In return for bailing these clowns out, though, taxpayers must demand either an ownership share in Freddie Mae and Fannie Mac (I would argue that there is an excellent for nationalizing these institutions, but after Ronald Reagan, that's hardly possible).

Or those two institutions, and the entire finance industry for that matter, must submit to the kind of intense state regulation that they formerly labored under, and that worked very well from 1935 until 1973 or so when capitalists started destroying it.

Surely socialist states can be run solely for an elite as James notes. This is why I object to supporting the Burmese state. Some Leftists are supporting Burma on the basis that the Western sanctions on Burma are not because it is an evil murdering state, but because it refuses to open up its state economy sufficiently to multinational capital. They are correct that this is the real reason for the sanctions on Burma.

But while Burma is formally a socialist state and most of the economy is in state hands, the state sector is run by a venal, callous, paranoid and murderous military elite as a cash cow. They pocket the substantial profits of this state sector while disallowing any private competition with it and at the same time treating their people little better than chattel.

This is something like a crony state capitalist state, and there is nothing progressive about it, especially while the vast majority of Burmese wallow in the worst misery. Just to show that there is nothing progressive about it, the Burmese Communist Party (admittedly very radical Maoists) has been waging armed struggle against the Burmese "socialist" junta since it was formed in 1962.

The junta has oppressed the various Burmese nationalities, most of whom never even consented to be a part of the new Burmese state freed from colonialism in 1948 in the first place.

A proper progressive state gives substantial rights and autonomy to national minorities, and the USSR, Vietnam and China have all done this, despite a lot of problems along the way. The progressive socialist states in Europe also give cultural rights to national minorities.

Vicious repression of minorities is a quality of fascism and ultranationalism and not properly of the Left. On the other hand, the divergent, quirky and twisted Khmer Rouge ferociously attacked all non-Khmers, though they were surely Marxists. The Khmer Rouge was a sad case of ethnic nationalist and racist Marxists. I would agree that a racist Marxist is still a Marxist, but he just isn't a very good one.

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Problems of Leftwing Democracy

In the comments section, astute commenter huy remarks on the conundrum of socialist democracy when capitalists retain control over the media and culture::

The only problem is that a socialist revolution would probably require a dictatorship and repression.

This is because without dictatorship and repression, rich capitalists would be able to prevent significant social services and state planning in a democracy via their control of the media and peoples' thoughts.

I'm not for socialism as a long term thing, but only as a way to quickly develop a country's infrastructure and economy, before gradual privatization of suitable sectors.

I respond:

huy, you are correct as far as your first two sentences go. I will deal with the third sentence at the end.

This conundrum is why Communists opted for the dictatorship of the proletariat, not because they are lovers of repression and haters of freedom.

The rich capitalists, through their media control and also their cultural construction and fertilization creating Gramscian cultural hegemonies (what you referred to as "control over people's thoughts"), are typically able to prevent social services and state planning in a democracy.

This is why Communists say that you never really have a democracy in capitalism. You always have a dictatorship of capital. Be that as it may, most folks nowadays do not seem to want to live under a dictatorship of the proletariat. Nevertheless, the roadblocks in the way of socialist democracy present a a serious problem.

Not only are the capitalists able to thwart significant progressive change via media and cultural control, but the same capitalists, via control over the economy, are able to stage lockouts and capital strikes, to send their capital out of the country, to artificially create shortages, and to send wealthy housewives out into the streets beating pots and pans in a middle and upper class strike, etc.

These housewife pot-banging strikes occurred in Chile under Allende, Venezuela under Chavez, and just recently occurred again in Argentina when President Kirchner tried to tax booming agricultural exports.

The big ag producers in Argentina responded by trying to starve the cities by staging ag strikes and refusing to ship produce to the cities so the people would have nothing to eat.

What is ominous about this is that these same rich housewife pot-banging demos and a latifundista (large landowner elite) strike presaged the coup that brought the death squads into power in Argentina in the late 1970's and early 1980's.

The generals stayed in power for several years, during which they murdered 30,000 leftwing Argentines, the vast majority of whom were just idealistic young people working with the poor and had not taken up arms at all.

The capitalists will usually try to stage a coup through their control over the military too. That is why Hugo Chavez is correct in cleansing the corrupt bosses' oil workers' union, in cleansing the officer corps of the military of reactionary elements, and putting in some state media.

The corrupt state oil workers union was a white collar union of well to do managers who had been operating the state oil company as a personal ATM for decades. They were behind the owners' lockout strike that followed the coup, and after Chavez fired those who had been behind the lockout and sabotage, they destroyed much of the records and paperwork of the oil company before they left. Clearly they had to go.

In the previous coup attempt, the middle and upper-class officer corps supported the coup, but the enlisted men, who came from the poor, did not. The poor rank and file military refused their officers' orders and the officers backed down. Hence, cleansing the officer corps of coup supporters was a must.

Getting a foot in the door of the Right's media monopoly was also important. Previously, the rich had all of the papers, magazines and especially TV stations and they used these to wage continuous lying propaganda war against Chavez.

Furthermore, the entire rightwing media not only supported the coup attempt against Chavez but were actively complicit in it. For that treason, Chavez is perfectly within his rights to shut down the entire rightwing media. He only does not do this because of the international outcry it would arouse.

The Right did the same thing with their media control during the Allende regime in Chile, printing wild lies about Cuban armies offshore and hiding in Chilean bases ready to invade Chile and impose Communism at gunpoint.

Middle class and upper class capital strikes can be devastating to the economy, and most folks, no matter how revolutionary, just get tired of the economic pain after a while and vote to put the reactionaries back in power.

Sanctions work the same way. The US and UK and sometimes France and Canada (when those two latter states are in an imperialist mood) usually slap sanctions on democratic Left states as soon as possible.

Recent examples are Nicaragua, Haiti and Zimbabwe (at first democratic, now increasingly dictatorial), and this alone is enough to devastate the economy and cause the people to vote out the Left and put reactionaries back in power.

What happens is that in an effort to get some control of the country back and fight back against all of this US plots, the Left regime often starts becoming more authoritarian and less democratic. Then the US says it's a dictatorship and needs to be overthrown on that basis.

If that doesn't work, the US forms a reactionary contra counterrevolutionary army that goes around killing any civilian that is pro-Left, murdering teachers and health care workers, burning down schools, ag cooperatives and health care facilities and just making the place ungovernable. In order to fend off contras and coups, Chavez has built up his military and even armed the population.

One more thing the US does is to flood money into the democratic Left country to buy the election of the reactionaries via all sorts of fake civil society groups. A good way to stop this is to ban all money coming to political groups from outside the country, but that is easier said than done. The money seems to find its way in anyway.

The US and its reactionary allies also stage bombings, shootings, riots, etc, against democratic Left states, and then often blames them on the Left. This is what they did in Chavez' Venezuela, Aristide's Haiti and Mossadegh's Iran.

If worse comes to worse and none of the above works, the Left regime is overthrown by a coup and replacement by a reactionary dictatorship. This dictatorship typically then institutes a reign of terror in which anywhere from 100's to 1 million progressives are killed all over the land. This is what happened in Indonesia in 1965, when 1 million Leftists were killed in a CIA coup.

What is even creepier is that while the Left is in power, the CIA is usually running around the country making up lists of leftwingers. As soon as the coup comes, the CIA hands over the lists to the death squad Right now in power, and they use these lists to hunt down progressives and murder them.

So if a Left regime is in power, there is always the terror of a future coup followed by a murder spree against anyone politically active in the regime. This is enough to make people afraid to get politically active.

The reign of terror itself so so terrorizes the population that most people are afraid to get involved in progressive politics for years or even decades afterwards. Why get involved? Who is to say when the death squads will come back in power and try to kill you for being politically active in Left politics.

All of this makes socialist democracy or even social democracy in backwards states almost impossible to achieve.

On the other hand, lots of leftwingers are trying to figure out a way to have some sort of socialist or even Marxist democracy, despite all the challenges. The Sandinistas had a democratic socialist revolution and Hugo Chavez is having one too. The Nepalese Maoists support 100% democracy. There's new thinking with a lot of Communists nowadays that socialism is not really possible without total democracy.

When I look at Cuba and I think about a few dissidents getting thrown in prison, is that really worse than masses of people dying early from preventable death or not having enough food to eat, or living in shantytown hovels, or prostituting themselves, or homeless kids sniffing glue, turning into criminals and getting killed by cops as happens all over Latin America?

Third World capitalist nightmare states punish an awful lot of innocent people too. Doesn't Cuba punish a lot fewer innocent people by clapping a few dissidents in prison than are harmed in these failing 3rd world capitalist states?

In India, capitalism is killing 4 million people a year. That's a five-alarm fire right there. If we had a socialist revolution there even with a dictatorship and saved 4 million lives a year, would it be worth it for a few folks slapped in prison?

I do think that the new way of Chavez, the Sandinistas, the FMLN of El Salvador and the Nepalese Maoists is the better way to go. Nothing wrong with democracy. If the people reject socialism at the polls and go back to capitalism and lots of them go hungry, go homeless, drink sewage water, get sick, get crippled and start dying, I guess we can say that they made a choice to have that happen to themselves.

Most socialist countries did go socialist for a while (usually decades) to develop the economy and then go towards capitalism after they were pretty well developed.

People have no idea how much of China's economic growth is based on the foundations laid by decades of Maoism. At any rate, most do not realize China is still a very socialist country in many ways.

The Communists in Russia built that place up from nothing. Without the USSR, Russia would probably be like India or Afghanistan. The Vietnamese and Laotian Communists are also putting in a lot of capitalism, and North Korea now has joint partnerships for foreign investors. I support Vietnam, Laos, North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela in their experiments at mixed economy. I also really like social market of Belarus.

Really what we ought to look at is does the system give us the outcomes that we want? If it does, it doesn't matter what mixtures of socialist, collective and private ownership it has.

There are also all sorts of ways of enterprise ownership.

We can have nonprofits, labor collectives, families, single owners, neighborhoods, towns, cities, states and nations. All of these forms of ownership are operating all over the world as you read this.

The cooperative sector in particular is a great way to go, and most do not realize it is a non-capitalist economic system. Worker-owned firms compete with each other, and there is no exploitation of labor as in capitalism.

One of the best examples of that is the Mondragon cooperatives in the Basque Country. Most Cuban agriculture is now run by cooperatives. In the cooperative model, you get away from the management-labor conflict you see in capitalism.

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Jews Versus Overseas Chinese

Uncle Milton comments on a previous post of mine, An Apologetics For Zionism, that dealt peripherally with the overseas Chinese. I will deal with his comments at the end of the article:

Robert Lindsay: There are differences between Jews and Overseas Chinese. The Overseas Chinese tend to keep their heads down, keep out of politics, and are not endlessly meddling in the cultural and political affairs of the nation - they just focus on making money. Jews focus on making money too, but they can't seem to help trying to change society, a habit that arouses mountains of anti-Semitism.


Uncle Milton: I would say this is incorrect. Thaksin Shinawatra, the former prime minister of Thailand (and one of the richest if not the richest men in Thailand) was deposed by a military coup is ethnically Chinese.

There were also many ethnic Chinese who were very close to Suharto and received special favors and privileges from the Indonesian government.

The Chinese in Indonesia, however, have had to play a background role because the Indonesians, especially the Muslims, resented them. Basically, as recently as 1998 there were pogroms against ethnic Chinese. (One could also say the anti-communist purges of the mid 60s were heavily directed against ethnic Chinese.)

In other words ethnic Chinese in Indonesia were never tolerated previously as much as Jews have been in the US in the past five decades, so they had no basis on which to build a political or cultural movement. In recent years however, China has given aid and been an important foreign investor in Indonesia.

I suspect ethnic Chinese influence using mainland China with it's rising economic prowess (and potentially it's substantial army) will increase (outwardly) in Southeast Asia.

As for the Philippines, their national hero Jose Rizal was part Chinese as was the first president after Marcos' dictatorship ended: Razored Aquino.

I really do not know much about the Overseas Chinese. I do not think that they would go on Jewish-type jihads to wage radical change in Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines no matter what. Overseas Chinese just do not care about such things. They just care about making money and keeping the pogroms away and little else.

Sure, they have gained quite a bit of political power, as one might expect due to their money. However, I believe that Indonesia and certainly Malaysia still have some very anti-Chinese laws on the books.

The Communist revolutionaries in Malaysia were mostly Chinese, but the Chinese got into this movement not due to any love of Communism so much as a way of changing a government that they saw as heavily biased against the Chinese.

In this way, they may be somewhat comparable to the many Jews who flocked to the Bolsheviks in Russia and the Communists in Poland during and after World War 2 not necessarily because they loved Communism so much, but more because the Communists were offering to crack down hard on anti-Semitism, and Polish and Russian anti-Semitism has not been a picnic for the Jews.

It's quite common for Filipinos, especially the urban university educated middle and upper classes, to be part-Chinese. The Chinese have been coming to the Philippines in large numbers for 800 years now and they bred in pretty heavily with the locals. Filipinos with some Chinese ancestry are quite common. The real Overseas Chinese are the pure Chinese who are 3% of the country and control 70% of the wealth.

Uncle Milton responds: I would say any ethnic minority group that controls 70% of a nations wealth inherently has a large amount of societal and cultural control, albeit indirectly.

Ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia (with the exception of Thailand) are probably in a position similar to Jews in the US around 1950 with the although the ethnic Chinese control a much larger percentage of the wealth in the Southeast Asia than Jews control in the US.

The rise of political and cultural influence from Jews (US) came fairly soon after WWII and the formation of Israel and really got rolling by about the mid-60s. In my view US Jews have probably hit their peak influence or are past it. Basically it's a numbers game, Jews are declining rapidly in number both nominally and as a percentage of the population.

The average number of children born to Jewish women is 1.1; even this number is skewed towards Orthodox Jews, who tend to have larger families and generally do not get involved in politics. The ongoing Hispanicization of the US will, in my opinion, ironically (since multiple Jewish groups promote immigration to the US) mark a decline in Jewish influence.

Latino Catholics tend not to be interested (and if anything are somewhat anti-semitic) in Judaism unlike many evangelical Whites, many of which are Zionists and and tend to be very pro-Jewish.

I tend to believe the Overseas Chinese influence will strengthen in coming years, basically in conjunction with the rise of economic power in China. Effectively, over time, I believe we will see a Sinicization of all of East Asia with the exception of Japan.

In regards to repression of ethnic Chinese in Indonesia: those laws have been reversed. As for Malaysia, basically the laws are similar in scope to our affirmative action laws. It's up to each individual, I suppose, to determine how oppressive affirmative action is. In addition, Malaysia has some quirky laws about Islam; the Constitution states that all Malays are Islamic and anyone marrying a Muslim has to convert to Islam.

I am convinced that any further pogroms against Overseas Chinese will be met with some sort of response by the PRC. Likely first an economic threat and if severe enough, a military threat.

I respond to Uncle Milton: I am not going to go round and round about this. My perception is that the whole Overseas Chinese (OC) thing has been to keep their heads down, focus on making money and getting along, and stay out of cultural stuff. They are the complete opposite of the Jews.

Now, why so many OC got involved in the Indonesian Communist Party in 1965, I have no idea. First of all, I am not even sure it is true. I am sure that there must also have been huge numbers of Indonesians involved. After all, that party was one of the largest political parties in the nation. It's been outlawed since 1965 because the ruling Indonesian elites are so terrified of it coming back bigtime.

Communist parties (CP's) are still a pretty big force in that region.

Vietnam and Laos are ruled by CP's, Cambodia had a ruling CP until just recently (not the Khmer Rogue, but instead a pro-Vietnamese CP whose leader was named Hun Sen), the Philippines has a vast CP that is outlawed and has taken up arms in a huge insurgency, Nepalese Maoists are about to seize power, Indian Maoists are tearing up India, there is a Maoist insurgency in Bangladesh, there is an active armed CP in Burma, and China, the largest nation on Earth, is ruled by a CP.

Communism goes right along with the cultural and economic realities of the region very well, particularly with Confucianism and Buddhism.

Indonesia still has one of the most horrible and inequitable semi-feudal economies in the region. It's not that different from the Philippines. A ruling elite who are little more than criminals has teamed up with the military to steal about every spare dime in the land. Hunger and malnutrition are widespread, and wages are ridiculously low.

The state for all intents and purposes as a guarantor of the rights of the poor, who are the overwhelming majority, simply does not exist. The ruling system under Suharto (pangasila) - an alliance (LOL!) between capital and labor along with very close ties between capital, the military and state, along with all sorts of para-state organizations - bears quite close resemblance to classical fascism.

The state even has bands of street thugs (usually Islamists) who conveniently assault striking workers. Leftists, dissidents and labor activists are also just out and out murdered by the state.

I am not sure about the Sinoization of the whole region, because so many nationalists in those countries are hostile to the OC. Even in Vietnam there is a lot of hostility towards the OC and to Chinese in general. Fact is, no one in Asia likes the Chinese. This is what I have been told by Asians. They are an 800-lb gorilla romping through the backyard and everyone is scared of them.

There is a Chinese nationalist who comes here every once in a while and he is furious at the way that these countries have treated their ethnic Chinese. He is urging the OC's to just pack up, sell off their assets, and go back to China or Taiwan.

You may be correct that China may intervene in the next anti-Chinese pogroms, assuming that they occur.

The Jews are total morons for letting all of these anti-Semitic Mesoamerican Catholics in here. Jesus Christ, what were they thinking? I talk to these Hispanics now and again, and they are, as a group, way more anti-Semitic than the average US White Protestant. Jews are so stupid sometimes. You know that probably 80-90% of US Jews are 100% open borders too.

Jews play dangerous games a lot, and this is one more case of it. They don't want to oppose immigration because that will set off White racism. They like immigration because it weakens the dominant ethnic-religious group in the nation - in this case, White Christians. Thing is, the Jews have done their work and the job is done.

White Christians are already sufficiently diluted that there is not going to be any racist backlash that is going to turn anti-Semitic and go after the Jews. Whites are like 64% of the US population and that was in 2000. You know we are probably like 57% now. That's what this sudden burst of White nationalism is - the last cry of a dying majority. Historically, such backlashes can get nasty, but I think in this case, it's too little, too late.

Amy Chua's World On Fire is an excellent example of a modern-day Overseas Chinese polemic. Her OC aunt living in the Philippines was murdered by her Filipina maid, possibly in a fit of ethnic pique.

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Free Market Starvation

The latest death toll figures from Hurricane Katrina can be seen on this website here. The famous Russian neo-Nazi video is on this blog here.

Updated January 23, 2008:

The power of capitalist propaganda is immense. According to the ruling class media, the only system that starves anyone anymore is Communism.

One hears this platitude over and over - Communism = starvation. It is true that 600,000 have starved to death in North Korea since the 1990's. However, 14 million starve to death every year in the world - mostly in South Asia but also 1 million in Latin America - almost all under capitalist regimes. Not one word of this from the ruling class mouthpieces.

This has been going since at least 1986 (when the figure was calculated) with no end in sight.

The Soviet Union and China are now synonymous with starvation. There was a famine in the Ukraine in 1932 that killed 1.5 million people. Previously, during the Russian Civil War, there was a famine in 1921 that killed 9 million people. It is a simple truth that under Czardom, the peasant never had enough to eat. His life expectancy was a mere 32 years and lack of food played a role here.

Under Communism, the peasant had plenty of food to eat for the first time in centuries. In the early 1930's, the Soviet Union saw the largest harvests in its history, big harvests that continued for decades. All of this is forgotten, and all we know is famine, famine, famine. One wonders how Stalin doubled life expectancy in the USSR while the people starved.

In China again, we hear that Communism starved the people. In 1958, it is true, there was a terrible famine, the worst in modern history, mostly caused by the stupidity of over-procurement by the state, that killed an astounding 15 million people.

Yet year and year out, millions of lives were being saved every year in China. Under Communism, with the exception of 1958, the Chinese peasants finally had enough food to eat. Like the Russian peasants, starvation and lack of food had stalked the Chinese peasant for centuries.

By the early 1970's, the problem of food in China was finally solved for the first time in centuries. As with the USSR, China also doubled life expectancy under Mao. Once again, one wonders how this was achieved if the people were "starving" as the anti-Communists claim.

In Vietnam in 1944-45, 2 million died during deliberate starvation by French and Japanese capitalist forces when they seized the rice crop. One never hears of this famine. Only Communists starve people.

Cuba has recently lowered malnutrition to 2%, the lowest rate in Latin America. More here and here. It is amazing how they can do that while they starve the population, no?

Here is a Cuban newspaper about how, in Cuba, the right to eat is elevated above the right to shoot off one's mouth. In fact, the paper suggests intriguingly that the limits on free speech in Cuba are directly attributable to the government's ability to feed everyone. The suggestion is that if you let everyone shoot off their mouth, food will be snatched from the mouths of babes:

Ironically, the country that supposedly limits the freedom of its citizens is the only one in Latin America where there is not malnutrition," wrote Periodico 26, an official publication in backwater Las Tunas province, on Feb. 6, alluding to a recent United Nations report stating that only two percent of Cuban children had some kind of nutrient deficit.

"What is portrayed in the U.S. media as an aggression against an individual's free will, is in fact a synonym for nutritional security for most Cubans." The newspaper goes on to say that free meals provided at work centers and schools add another crucial component to Cubans' diets.

In Vietnam, the malnutrition rate of 18% is about 1/2 the Thai rate of 36%, one positive aspect of Vietnamese socialism. When one thinks of Thailand, one never suspects that 1/3 of the population doesn't get enough food to eat. All one thinks of are tourists, skyscrapers, traffic jams, girly bars, beaches and elephants.

In Pakistan, 62% of all children are already stunted in growth by the tender age of five. But the media tells us that stunting only occurs in North Korea. After all, it is only Communism that starves the people.

Let us focus our attention on the capitalist showcase of Niger, in northern Africa, where the human-hunting industry, the most profitable enterprise capitalism has ever developed, yet festers.

Here capitalism has blessed this blighted and unstable land with the worst human development indicators on Earth, where 40% of children are chronically undernourished (And that is in a bountiful harvest!), where the literacy rate is a Medieval 17%, life expectancy is a tragic 44.7 years, the infant mortality rate is an outrageous 151.8 per 1000, and Niger is bested by only one other country when it comes to killing little kids under age 5.

What is killing the children of Niger, or for that matter, kids across the Sahel? None other than the free market. Recently, free market fundamentalists convinced the government to deregulate the grain market, leading to major fluctuations in grain prices. When prices are high, they are so high that families could not even afford to buy food for their kids.

Worse, money that should have gone to education and health care, such as it exists, goes for food. The wonders of the invisible hand of starvation! Incredibly, while the people starved, Niger exported food according to capitalist market "logic". One is reminded of Czarist Russia, which exported wheat every year while the peasants went hungry.

Going the free market route was one of the dumbest things Niger ever did. It increased poverty, hunger and starvation. Yet the media tells us that this free market project is the only thing that works, and everything else is "failed". I think if the successful project were starving me, I might give one of those "failures" a shot.

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