Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site kontron.UUCP Path: utzoo!lsuc!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!bellcore!decvax!decwrl!pyramid!voder!kontron!cramer From: cramer@kontron.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: Slave labor built Siberian pipeline Message-ID: <609@kontron.UUCP> Date: Fri, 14-Mar-86 13:02:42 EST Article-I.D.: kontron.609 Posted: Fri Mar 14 13:02:42 1986 Date-Received: Sat, 15-Mar-86 23:37:12 EST References: <1720@bbncca.ARPA> <1122@mit-eddie.UUCP> <542@ihdev.UUCP> <71@gilbbs.UUCP> Organization: Kontron Electronics, Mt. View, CA Lines: 67 > In article <542@ihdev.UUCP>, rastaman@ihdev.UUCP (Floyd Hydrozoan) writes: > > In article <1122@mit-eddie.UUCP> lkk@eddie.UUCP (Larry Kolodney) writes: > > >... > > >Isn't this the same sort of slavery we criticize the Soviets for? > > > > Sure! It will be just as soon as we make it illegal to be a Jew, or > > a dissident (You don't like the administration's policy on Nicaragua? > > Off to the road crew, scum!), or make it illegal to fall out of favor > > with the party. > > Or *FUNCTIONALLY* illegal to be non-white! Come now, Floyd, do you honestly > expect us to believe that the inordinately high percentage of Black inmates > in southern (or northern, for that matter) jails is simply because blacks are > more likely to commit crimes? Granted, the Soviets carry their situation > to greater extremes, but the principals are the same! > I don't find it surprising that blacks have historically received rougher sentences in this country because of racism. I don't doubt that it still happens, although to a lesser extent. However, the one thing which is indisputably clear is that blacks commit a disproportionate number of the crimes in this country (mostly against other blacks). We can argue about the reasons for this all day long -- but suggesting that the high percentage of blacks in jails and prisons is racism, not a reflection of crime incidence is just plain absurd. > While visiting in North Carolina several years ago, I became involved in a > discussion of the racism issue. A young black woman pointed out to me that > she would rather live in the south. She argued that while the "north" pays > much lip service to equality, the fact is that racism is just as prevalent, > we just lie about it, and keep it covered up. IN the south, she said, at > least she KNEW where people were coming from. If you were going to be hassled > for being non-white, it would be done openly and honestly. > > I don't know if I agree with her completely, but being white, I don't find > my reluctance particularly amazing, especially as I am from northern California, > home of California Liberalism. I have this nagging suspicion, however, that > she is correct. > > IN any case, thh whole point here is that while the Soviets may take things > to greater extremes, I cannot think of anything that the Soviets do, to their > own citizens, as well as to other nations, that we ourselves in the US do not > do, to some extent or another. > > -- > > ==================================== > > Disclaimer: I hereby disclaim any and all responsibility for disclaimers. > > tom keller > {ihnp4, dual}!ptsfa!gilbbs!mc68020 > > (* we may not be big, but we're small! *) How many American prisoners of war were sent to prison camps after World War II out of fear that they might have been exposed to Western ideas? How many American prisoners of war had to be returned by force to America? Before you try to claim that these sort of things didn't happen to Soviet soldiers, I have a friend who remembers seeing it happen at the end of war -- Soviet POWs begging the Germans to hide them from their countrymen. America isn't perfect, and especially in the past, the government and the society's treatment of minorities has been really abysmal, but claims like the one in your last paragraph are utterly WRONG. Tom, you are shockingly ignorant of history.