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From: mnl@cernvax.UUCP (mnl)
Newsgroups: net.followup,net.politics
Subject: Re: Air raid on Libya (really Lincoln and Communism)
Message-ID: <311@cernvax.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 9-May-86 23:17:06 EDT
Article-I.D.: cernvax.311
Posted: Fri May  9 23:17:06 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 14-May-86 00:49:45 EDT
References: <157@unido.UUCP> <720@ark.UUCP> <122@paisley.ac.uk> <755@kontron.UUCP> <120@stracs.cs.strath.ac.uk>
Reply-To: mnl@cernvax.UUCP (Mark Nelson)
Organization: CERN, Geneva/Switzerland
Lines: 57
Xref: linus net.followup:5264 net.politics:15001

In article <120@stracs.cs.strath.ac.uk> jim@cs.strath.ac.uk (Jim Reid) writes:
>
>  .
>  .
>  [discussing bombing of Libya, terrorism, U.S. policy]
>  .
>  .
>
>It seems to me that US foreign policy is and has been to prop up nasty regimes
>all over the world, provided these regimes support US interests, regardless of
>how they treat their own citizens. Examples - the Shah in Iran, South Korea,
>the generals in Argentina, Pinochet in Chile, Franco in Spain, Marcos, Somoza
>and South Africa. Is this how the successors to George Washington, Lincoln and
                                                                    ^^^^^^^
>Franklin should be behaving?
>
I find it interesting that you include President Lincoln in this list. After
all, Lincoln is remembered primarily for leading the overthrow of a very
popular government through the application of armed force. Sounds vaguely
like what some recent U.S. president is trying to do.  And nobody flame me
about the war being fought over slavery.  The Confederate states seceeded
primarily for economic reasons, for example freer trade with Great Britain.
And the Emancipation Proclamation only freed slaves in confederate states--
slaves in loyal (e.g. Maryland) and neutral (e.g. Missouri and Kentucky)
border states were not freed until the 16th (?????) ammendment 20 some
years later.

>>...a Labour Party government in England at this point can't 
>>be distinguished from a Communist government by any
>>reasonable measure.
>
>More garbage! I don't see the Labour party advocating a police state or
>abolishing a free press. [A press that on the whole is owned by friends
>and supporters of Mrs. Thatcher and is rather nasty in the way it reports
>on the Labour Party.] I don't see the Labour party supporting the development
>and deployment of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons either. You can't
>even identify the United Kingdom, so I'm not surprised you fail to see the
>distinction between the Communists and the *British* Labour party. [I see
>myself as a Scot, not a Briton BTW.]
>
I'll have to admit that I don't know much about the British Labour party,
but I'm very sad to see that the Soviet Union had given communism such
a bad name that it is immediately identified with a police state, lack
of free press, chemical weapons, etc.  And I always though communism had
something to do with economics :-).  The above definition is going to
make a lot of right-wing dictators very unhappy when they find out that
they are really communists.

>
>  [The discussion continues]
>
-- 
Mark Nelson

mnl@cernvax.bitnet or ...!seismo!mcvax!cernvax!mnl
"This function is occasionally useful as the arguement to a function
which requires a function as an arguement."  Guy Steele