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Anarcho-Syndicalism versus
Letters #81-#85
Letter #081
Dear Andy, Unlike you, I do not pretend to have expertise about the whole world. The places I know well are India, the US, Australia and NZ , and to a limited extent Europe, excluding Russia, In those countries (except for India) few are starving, if they are it is because they are mentally ill or drug addicts. In India the churches are doing something about landlessness, and the church did not bless the English colonials because the church was Catholic (due to the Portuguese earlier conquests) and the English were Anglicans. You write such nonsense I think you are a nut case too. In Australia no who wants land is "landless". In fact the farmers are often walking off their land (farms) because they can make more money elsewhere, e.g. trading in stocks and shares. Any unemployed here (and our jobless rate just went down dramatically) get very generous welfare, which they spend surfing - or waste on drugs and alcohol, e.g. the Aborigines who large tracts of land reserved for them, but many prefer to drink, so much so their women want to have alcohol free zones. Babette
Letter #082
Hello, Babette,
By all means, if you think you've got more statistical data than the US Department of Agriculture, the United Nations, UNICEF, or any other international aid group -- please, let me see them. 15% of people in the United States are food insecure, or 45 million people. 20% of the children live in poverty, and another 20% live on the brink of poverty. I've already responded to your suggestion that every single one of these people is a drug addict. Besides, how is it that the 1.4 BILLION people who are starving have enough money to afford drug addiction and a psychiatric diagnosis? That's puts drug use on the planet at around 25% of the population. It's not just me. I think anyone with actual evidence would have a hard time taking you seriously.
Oh, that's right. Great response. "The Church did not bless the group of murderers, rapists, and imperialists called group A. They only blessed the group of murderers, rapists, and imperialists called group B." (Except Group A is Britain and Group B is Portugal.)
Why are people being thrown in prison for going back to their own homelands, then? I've sent you the articles. Besides, those people who own that land are homeless.
Any unemployed people waste their money on drugs and alcohol? Really? Every single last one of them? (a) Maybe that has nothing to do with interfering with the job, since employed people use drugs and alcohol. (b) Maybe you should investigate statistics or conditions in society before just making some gigantic assumption like "100% of the unemployed waste their time on surfing or drugs." And, (c) with a reported unemployment rate of 5.1%, you can do the math to figure out the REAL unemployment rate: 2.25 * 5.1% = ~11.5%. More than one out of ten workers can't find a job. Oh, wait, you remember that the REPORTED unemployment rate and the REAL (actual in reality) unemployment rate are different, right?
They have large tracts of land reserved for them? Then why are many of them in prison for demanding their right to land? Aboriginal activists are always sitting in prison somewhere is Australia, just waiting for you to pay them a visit. You're aware that the "alcohol free zones" are imposed upon them not by their women but by the government, also with pornography bans? And that this essentially has created a police state? RustyIdols.blogspot.com How would you like it if police kicked in your door, kidnapped your computer to look at its files, and you were detained and forced to work at the point of gun and whip? You'd probably say, "That's tyranny!" But, if your captor is as ignorant as you are now, they'd say, "You know that your women want us to do this to you!" You must have a very degraded image of the feminine gender. Yes, sounds like your heart is overflowing with compassion. Let's cut off food to Harlem to help them with their obesity, funding from universities so they stop researching global warming, and even land and liberty to the aborigines so they won't indulge in pornography and drinking. Again, simply put, I really don't think you're sincere. A forced work camp? Yeah, yeah, that's "specially reserved land just for them." Compassion overflowing again, and certainly not mixed with lies, right? Sincerely,
Letter #083
Dear Andy, The people in the USA are homeless and hungry because of the policies of Obama and growing unemployment. Also many spend what welfare they get on rubbish. Yes, drugs are a big problem worldwide - the international trade in drugs probably rivals the international trade in food. There was a news report in The (Weekend) Australian, 2/3 October, about a woman who starved her 7 children. The item was headed "Benefit cheat mother jailed for starving seven children". She used her welfare money for drugs and alcohol. You can probably access the item through Google. I repeat, no one starves in Australia unless there is involvement in drugs or alcohol by them or their carers, or because of mental illness. A huge proportion of our land mass is reserved for Aborigines, problem is that they are a pre-agricultural society and do not know how to grow food - they were a hunter-gatherer community. I don't entirely trust UN statistics. They were recently promoting the falsehood that there are over 500,000 maternal deaths worldwide - until corrected by data in Lancet, the British Medical Journal. You have a totally wrong impression of both British and Portuguese in India - both brought benefits - the Portuguese brought Catholicism and the British brought democracy, railways, eliminated Sati, united a country previously divided among a number of Maharajas etc etc. Do stop this silly nonsense, Andy, I have lived in India and have lots of relatives there, you have no PERSONAL knowledge of what happened there. Stop focusing on revolutionary and anarchist literature and DO something about the starving - there are heaps of organisations you can join instead of pining for a mythic anarchist regime. Babette
Letter #084
Hello, Babette,
Yeah, there's that mild problem of homelessness and hunger extending back to the dawn of landed property. Not to the year 2008, you know, when Barack Obama was elected. It wasn't homeless and poverty at 0% and then Barack takes office, and now it's 40%. See, if you thought about it, you'd understand why that makes no sense at all.
Yes, that is one news story, but it's not a statistic. More than a billion people are in poverty. I've starved in the United States, and I've seen people starve in the United States, by the thousands. Like I said before, about a thousand times, I don't take one case to prove everything.
WHAT MAKES YOU THINK THIS? You see, Babette, you can't just blurt out something that I already showed articles to disprove. There was no LAND RESERVED for Aborigines. These were SLAVE CAMPS. Do you understand the difference???? And if you disagree, show me something that backs up your point.
Yes, and the difference was 500,000 versus 350,000. So, sure, 1.4 billion people aren't starving. Say about a billion. Nobody's gonna argue that. Do you have any source whatsoever for statistics, or do you just believe whatever comes out of the Pope's mouth?
And they machinegunned your ancestors in the streets when they demanded and achieved your national independence. Let's dance to "God Save the Queen" over that! I've corrected your understanding of Indian history at least five times, showing wikipedia pages with dozens of references. These articles even suggest that there is widespread, mass hysteria in India, where all the non-Communists deny the existence of the Indian independence movement -- much like you, talking about how "Britain brought democracy." That wasn't a long time ago, Babette. The evidence still roundly contradicts your perception of events.
You're absolutely right. I haven't been to India. There are many things I have not directly experienced, but that doesn't mean I can't know about it more than those who have experienced it.
Oh, yeah, David Hume is totally a revolutionary. He didn't believe in divorce. Anyway, how do you know I'm not involved with any organizing already? (Have you ever heard of "Food Not Bombs"?) The point of this e-mail isn't to demonstrate to you that I'm a good human being and that I deserve 50 rosaries for my deeds or whatever. I'm only interested in discussing why there is suffering still in this world, and for humanity, that revolves around the question of property. How many organizations I've been with, or how many you've been with, isn't really a point of the e-mail, is it? After all, my organizations want to overthrow Capitalism and establish the right to work for all. Your organizations want to give a few more scraps to masses that are struggling for the right to work. Do you see the tactical difference of these two directions? You push to make people accept their condition, we push to make them demand everything. Just like those who fought for Indian freedom, you're not going to get anything by it being given to you, because in a moment, it will be snatched out of year hands. You should be aware that the Catholic Church closed every single soup kitchen and food pantry in Canada, Britain, US, Australia, etc., at the start of the Great Depression, to save money. And all that donating just so that bishops could have golden cups and candle-holders.
It's quite clear that the problem is no longer the ability or will of people to work to feed themselves. It's about landed property, and the artificial constraints put upon human impulse, that have created poverty. You don't seem to want to recognize Diouf or any of the others who have pointed out this difficulty (such as Kropotkin in the year 1892). But for those of us who want to CHANGE this, must know WHY it happens, and if you have no knowledge of that, you're like a truck driver trying to perform surgery. Your unskilled hands will easily slip up on problems so deep as effecting every culture and so old as to have been born with property. Sincerely,
Letter #085
Dear Andy, You are totally wrong if you think I prefer to give people handouts rather than jobs. every group I am associated with is for full employment, not just soup kitchens. You persist in talking about India when you know nothing about it. I am Indian by birth and lived through the struggle for independence, you just get your "knowledge" through books and encyclopedias. Not good enough. The farmers in Australia are walking off their land (farms) because food is now so cheap relative to labor that they make more money in the cities doing other work. Once upon a time it took 50% of the US population to grow the food needed, now it is 2%. Food production is now so efficient, sometimes not even land is needed. Ever heard of hydroponic tomatoes? My suggestion that you work through an organisation is because you won't achieve your objectives arguing with me. Do something constructive. And you know little about Australian Aborigines. They hunted and fished and when they had exploited a particular area, they moved on. They had no agriculture, no domesticated animals. Babette
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