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From: janw@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Orphaned Response
Message-ID: <7800680@inmet.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 15-Nov-85 01:32:00 EST
Article-I.D.: inmet.7800680
Posted: Fri Nov 15 01:32:00 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 26-Nov-85 21:56:34 EST
References: <797@whuxl.UUCP>
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Nf-From: inmet!janw    Nov 15 01:32:00 1985


[ tim sevener whuxn!orb]  From Jan Wasilewski: 
>> (3) By breaking off the quote where you did, you made it factual-
>> ly misleading (unintentionally, I presume). It appears to be say-
>> ing that China is only as bad as India or Pakistan in feeding her
>> people.  But  in  the original, an important BUT follows, proving
>> that she is much worse - as bad as Bangladesh.

>This is ridiculous. Travelers and relief agencies in Bangladesh 
>all report etc.

(1) This is amazing! I point out that by breaking the  quote  in the
middle  you  changed  its meaning; and *you* answer that that meaning
was ridiculous ! Did you then cook the quote on purpose, to  make
it less ridiculous, and *then* proceed to refute it ? Allow me to
disbelieve it; I still think your distortion was unintentional.

(2) I don't at all mind your calling the report of a leading
expert  in  the field ridiculous; such irreverence is refreshing;
let us see however your grounds for it :

>This is ridiculous.   Travelers and relief agencies in Bangladesh
>all report massive starvation and hunger. homeless people and
>beggars on the street.  Visitors to India report the same thing.
>On the other hand, this has *not * been reported in China.

I know that; and I am more than sure Butterfield knows that.

You ignore, however, two important peculiarities  of  China  that
make  these  observations  irrelevant. They both proceed from its
totalitarian system of government. First,  the  cities  are  fed,
whatever  happens  to  the countryside.  And cities are where the
visitors come. (Of course, given the same average  figures,  that
makes the plight of the majority *worse*).

Second, a totalitarian society is a closed society. The  capacity
for  concealment,  deception and Potemkin village building is un-
limited. If you doubt it, consider the Chinese famine of the ear-
ly  sixties  -  the greatest in world's history! Only now, in the
80's, has it become the subject of Western  studies.  And  *that*
only because China itself released the relevant demographic data.
If a holocaust like that can be concealed, what cannot ?

Of course, that closed nature of  a  Communist  society  distorts
statistics no less than tourists' impressions.  The study of such
societies has therefore to apply quite different methods than the
study of non-totalitarian countries.

One thing about your "tourist" argument remains  true.   It  *is*
worthwhile  to cross-check statistics by the observations of live
people. But in the case of a Communist country, the best people 
for the purpose are not visitors; but *refugees*.

(As for the figures you quote from Ruth whatshername,  for  which
the best you can say is that she's connected with an institute in
a nonaligned country - after due deliberation, I decided to ig-
nore them).

		Jan Wasilewsky