A former CIA spy has revealed his key role in the arrest of Nelson Mandela
thetimes.co.uk
thetimes.co.uk
Such an AI system can break free from our control (it will end up manipulating us in the physical space), it should become wiser than humanity as a collective (because it will evolve much faster then us). And in this case, we'd end up having such "an intelligence group that only did good".
The problem lies in how we manage to bridge the period between now and "then", because it will be a highly volatile situation, with a very high probability for our extinction.
And that would lead to the conclusion that AI will only dominate us during certain periods of time, will mainly remain of commercial nature, used as a tool to create/monopolize power further.
I too do dream of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Of course you can. The problem I assume you're encountering is that you're not starting from irreducible basic premises. Thus, you can't logically resolve the already-existing and conflicting inconsistencies.
We are bombarded from birth with very illogical and inconsistent rules about how the world works. All of those things implicitly include "ethical" value systems. They're very hard to reconcile logically after the fact, simply because they're contradictory in nature and we have at that point heavily-invested into building mental models to navigate the world.
And what about other nations' national interests? Doing your own interest is not renowned as a particularly ethical activity per se, you know. Before assuming that the evil done by an intelligence agency has to do with its failure to work in its nation's interest, you should ask yourself whether your own interests are legitimate and above other people's interests.
Do you see the pattern?
In the interest of balance, the situation on 9/11 wasn't completely the fault of the US. Saudi Arabia appears to have been the main driving force behind the attacks. There are a number of reasons the US avoided attacking Saudi Arabia and went into Afghanistan instead, including past political deals and Saudi Arabia being the home of Mecca, the holiest site for Muslims (if you're looking for the quickest way to radicalise Muslims, damaging Mecca would probably be it).
I believe the main way for resolving the mess in the Middle East is to reduce our reliance on oil and move to locally controlled sources of energy like renewables. It's the oil money that's fuelling the conflict on both sides, if we cut that out of the equation I'm confident we would find it much easier to work towards peace in the Middle East.
I agree, though even if the US solved its energy problems today, we (i.e. the entire Western world) need to survive the generation or two of pretty angry Middle-Easterns seeking revenge for their destroyed homes and killed families, as well as our own politicians using that to further their agendas.
Observe: We kinda did, as far as geopolitics are concerned anyway (environmentalist concerns may obviously differ). US net imports of oil are approaching zero, and our neighbor Canada has plenty more.
Here the Financial Times reports on projections that the US will be a net exporter by 2028, and maybe 2019 if the price shoots up: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f6dcbd90-e2bf-11e4-aa1d-00144feab7...
http://www.zdnet.com/article/us-will-not-surpass-saudi-arabi...
15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers were saudis. The London 7/7 bombers were raised in Britain. Most of the Paris/Belgium attackers were born in Europe.
This seems like a fairly biased statement. In all cases that spring to mind - Gaza, the Golan Heights, and the West Bank - Israeli seized and occupied territory during wars in which they were the defenders.
Just in case that the Six Day War was one of them, it's worth pointing out that there's evidence that Isreal started this war:
http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2010/07/04/israels-attac...
So if it wasn't the headquarters for the WTO, what activity was taking place at the WTC?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Trade_Centers_Associatio...
Makes a lot of sense to me. NYC is an obvious top target. WTC is a big building, so high body count. Well known around the world; will have more impact than hitting some building nobody has ever heard of. Very distinctive appearance and a lot taller than the buildings around it, so good chance of actually being able to find it. Having two tall towers next to each other increases the chance of collision. Being so tall compared to the buildings around them, good chance of a lot of people seeing it happen (and recording the second one hit, so good publicity). In terms of practicality and terrorising, it ticks all the boxes.
But just like with all the other agencies in the US, I don't believe they'll be gone fast. They know to much ;)
0 - https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https://upload.wikimedi...
1 - https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&e...
I recently read Legacy of Ashes[0], which I thought would be a sort of thrilling history of the spy game in America, but turned out to be a chronicle of blunder after blunder by the CIA. Fascinating stuff.
Having read that, I'm not naive enough to believe the cause of "most" global instability is due to the CIA; that's giving them far too much credit.
[0]http://www.amazon.com/Legacy-Ashes-History-Tim-Weiner/dp/030...
Beyond you liking to think that, what evidence do you have that the CIA's policy is controlled by anyone other than the CIA's Deputy Director who commands internal operations, and its Director, who reports to the director of National Intelligence as well as having to answer to Congress and the White House?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Intelligence_Agency#Or...
For the most part, theories of secret groups that control things are false, not counting well-known groups like the Masons, etc. that make secrecy part of their identity. There is plenty of evidence to support that Congress and the White House are lobbied heavily by outside interest, and that's no secret. Combine that with the varied interests and agendas in the involved organizations, human error, incorrect or misinterpreted information, etc. and you have plenty enough reason for things like this to go wrong.
If you are an American citizen, and you believe the U.S. government is so wrong and misguided, nothing is typically stopping you from leaving the country or attempting to vote for others that might be able to make some changes, but the fact is that there is an extreme momentum of the country that is simultaneous chaotic and well-intentioned, so no matter who you vote for, things will typically continue on. Well- maybe not if Trump is elected, because the entire country could turn into a sideshow ;) , but this is true for the most part.
If you live in another democratic country, vote for leaders that you believe will positively influence the U.S. in one way or another, or you can speak up about it.
Belief in some shadowy group is just not helpful, and is a result of the imprint on the psyche from movies, television, and other media sources. There are real groups out there with influence, and real single players with influence, but it's really not that hidden; it's just complex.
More likely, there's a little golf club agreement now and then between some corporation or lobbying group and government agencies. For example, if you guys can help us with a little information and maybe a teensy overthrow, we'll give you some better terms on that spy sat you wanted.
https://www.google.com/search?q=congress+committee+anti+scie...
Why would you expect any other oversight committee in any other field be competent?
The mob is ignorant so pick someone smart to be in charge? How do you pick? Who decides? Maybe the smartest people are the ones who take power already. Really the money is in charge.
The conspiratorial view of history is the correct one.
Would you like me to go into more detail?
Sure.
The reason it's funny to me is because the only time I ever hear bout "secret evidence" is when I read about secret courts and prisons that the US government runs, such as the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. (LOL! It's so funny that people around the world can be prosecuted, killed and tortured because of secret evidence, isn't it?)
Honestly. What do you need to just to consider the small possibility that your view of things is the incorrect one?
Do you want macro/micro/historical/current evidence and do you expect such evidence to be easily disseminated here or are you just asking without any of these things in mind?
I guess we could start with the fact that it's proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that very few people control the economy in modern times - https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228354-500-revealed...
We could also prove that for historical times.
The evidence is there. It just takes a little work to dig through and a lot of reading. So, I suggest trying to look around on your own first. Read about the United Fruit Company. 1950's Iran. Rand Corporation. There's just so much out there already that I think anybody who hasn't read about this stuff by now must not really care.
Take the United Fruit Company - so they lobbied the US government to instigate a coup in Guatemala. That's devious. (I've just looked up the coup in more detail, and the consequences for Guatemala were horrendous, so I'd say the coup instigators were not merely devious, but outright evil).
Thing is, neither party benefited. The US got involved to prevent communism growing in its backyard, but ended up pissing off the entire region. The UFC wanted to protect its assets in Guatemala, but was forced by Eisenhower to divest them all 4 years later.
What's the grand pattern here? What's the motive behind all these conspiracy theories? Do they intentionally backfire, or are the people pulling the strings just short-sighted?
I agree that it's a fact that there are different groups competing for power and that there is a constant struggle. I would quibble over the "without a guiding plan" part because I don't know what you mean by that exactly. Large and powerful groups can certainly exert leverage over numerous smaller and less powerful groups.
A guiding plan could be a general philosophy. Look at all of our political and military power systems. They are designed hierarchically, so that the nearer you get to the top, the smaller and more powerful the group is. The pyramid on the dollar bill is obviously symbolic of this. That's indicative of some sort of guiding plan. I mean, there's one group (the Masons) who can get all of their secret symbols implanted into our money forever? That's scary to me.
Regarding United Fruit - yes, the company suffered but can you say that company profit was the prime motive for messing with South America? Have you considered that all warfare starts with economic warfare? What if de-stabilizing a region makes you all sorts of profits in other ways, with other companies? What if you can get all sorts of secret money to do secret things by controlling illicit trade that now comes out of that region?
I have a LOT of questions. How could the Taliban have virtually ended poppy production in Afghanistan in 2001 and yet our own government which supposedly is at "war" with drugs like Heroin, cannot quell the supply from that area which produces 90% of the drug for the rest of the world?
In my view of the world - the puppets change all the time but somehow shit stays the same, so I just am not that sure that there isn't a guiding plan of sorts. (EDIT: Even if that plan is just "greed". Endless greed. And "do what you want" mentality, which is the philosophy of Satan/Lucifer. You might think I'm crazy just for mentioning Satanism but secret power didn't start in modern times.)
"As the most recent National Security Advisor of the United States, I take my daily orders from Dr. Kissinger, filtered down through General Brent Scowcroft and Sandy Berger, who is also here. We have a chain of command in the National Security Council that exists today."
http://www.cfr.org/world/remarks-national-security-adviser-j...
For example, George W. Bush initially got elected on a platform of non-intervention. There was, however, a strong core of Neocons in his administration, like Paul Wolfowitz. After 2001 the President switched directions completely and they became considerably more powerful and their lobbying probably directly led to the Iraq war.
But none of this is really hidden secrets.
I'd like some evidence of that statement.
If you have any evidence that the US is actually a democracy, that would be nice too.
Link to op-ed: http://tinyurl.com/hstheus
Congressional oversight of the CIA didn't begin until the Hughes-Ryan act of 1974. This act slowed down the cloak and dagger activities of the organization but never eliminated them.
Perhaps the CIA is thus wildly successful? That may be their primary mission.
There are several factors at play, including European colonialism of the early 20th century, as well as the tendency to split countries in a divided fashion (e.g. India & Pakistan) as countries divested of those interests.
See:
China Military Spending by year https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https://upload.wikimedi...
Photos reveal growth of Chinese military bases in South China Sea http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/13/politics/china-military-south-...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3591000/How-CIA-got-...
https://www.rt.com/usa/343096-cia-nelson-mandela-arrest/
Anyone have a decent article on this with more info and backstory?
Edit: Dulles was also fixated by protecting the interests of his law firm's Wall Street clients and he viewed the Nazi apparatus, minus Hitler, as a potential resource, something to be protected and largely left in place after the war.
(The USA does lose wars; it's just career suicide for a politician -- and deeply unpopular for a media channel -- to admit it. And nobody has actually threatened to invade the CONUS since 1941, so the cost of losing a war is much lower than for most other nations.)
See Operation Rolling Thunder [1]
The US sought to destroy all North Vietnamese infrastructure, rail, bridges, and communications.
The North Vietnamese responded by decentralizing. They sent half the population of Hanoi to the country side. When a bridge was bombed, they rebuilt it with dirt or set up a ferry.
When rail was bombed, they split it into smaller segments and only operated at night.
They fully militarized their entire population, civilians carried messages, and relayed goods.
They dug tunnels, set up in caves and got modern anti-aircraft guns and MIGs from Russia and China. Even though their planes were not as good, they were good enough to engage in hit and runs, all the MIGs had to do was show up and the American planes had to dump their payload of bombs to be maneuverable enough to be able to defend themselves.
Cambodia was bombed even more harshly in Operation Menu and then Operation Freedom Deal, which was kept secret from the American public.
"The United States dropped upwards of 2.7 million tons of bombs on Cambodia, exceeding the amount it had dropped on Japan during WWII (including Hiroshima and Nagasaki) by almost a million tons."
It didn't work. We could not subjugate Vietnam or Cambodia. One of the things it did accomplish was creating a civil war in Cambodia and a generation of crazies led by a Western educated leader, Pol Pot, that responded to their inability to feed their population with the killing fields.
This stuff just doesn't work and we keep doing it over and over again, creating mass human misery and trauma, and destroying the economic surplus of our nation.
The US projected all the "power" it had at Vietnam and Cambodia. It carpet bombed, it defoliated the jungle with agent orange. It used ground troops. It attacked the neighboring countries to deny sanctuary to the Viet Cong across borders. It killed three million Vietnamese. It still couldn't win.
The only other weapon the US could have used was nuclear. The US could have annihilated Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia with atomic weapons. Only those weapons are powerful enough to destroy as much as we think "carpet-bombing" with conventional explosives can accomplish.
The land mass is too large, the number of planes that could get past Vietnamese air defenses too small, the power of conventional weapons also too small, and the ability of the Vietnamese to adapt and repair too great to achieve the effect of total destruction.
The US tried. We really, really tried. The idea that we "kept the gloves on" is a myth. This idea of American omnipotence has to go. There are limits to air power, and limits to American power.
It is the failure to learn this lesson that has created four failed states in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Libya.
Afghanistan is another tragic example. After 15 years of war, counter insurgency, and surge the Taliban now controls more territory than it did in 2004-5.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Rolling_Thunder [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Freedom_Deal
Aren't these two statements contradictory?
Anyways, I agree with your point in general. Guerrilla tactics are extremely effective against an enemy with superior funding attacking your home turf (hello American Revolutionary War).
Iraq is in utter chaos, the US is doing just fine.
How exactly did the US "lose" in Iraq?
The events you describe don't affect the US's dominance at all.
The region's current turmoil is all internal. The US can just wait it out and then when it's all over, the winner will be weak and the US can just come in again any time and reset the whole thing.
So this doesn't affect the US's ability to "write" history.
It does, this thread (and thousands others like it) is the proof. The US are internationally much weaker than they were before the wars in the Middle East, and their international politics are now considered by growing amounts of people as illegitimate and harmful.
That has always been the case.
GWB:
"Our nation enters this conflict reluctantly, yet our purpose is sure. The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder."
American history is fun like that.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athens_Polytechnic_uprising
And it's still unclear whether anyone else was involved in the decision to tip off the police.
How fads change. Had it happened today, they would have called him a terrorist.
Sadly, it's not really news that the U.S. only pay lip service to Democracy. After all, the dictator of our choice can guarantee our economic and military interests much better than any democratic regime.
Actually the ANC (or at least a splinter group) did bomb civilian locations in a terror campaign so yes it was considered a terrorist organisation. Now they're considered the liberators/bringers of democracy. Hows that for a pivot hn?
Yup, as soon as oil is involved pretty much anything is considered acceptable. Gaddafi, Iran, Iraq, the whole bunch of Arabian emirates... all countries where US (and British) influence either actively promoted dictators to power or let radical powers rise to power.
Funny enough, Saudi Arabia got all its riches from Western money, and a shitload of that money ended up at ISIS, al-Quaeda, Boko Haram - Western money used to fight the Western system.
'The ANC is a typical terrorist organisation ... Anyone who thinks it is going to run the government in South Africa is living in cloud-cuckoo land' - Margaret Thatcher, 1987
'How much longer will the Prime Minister allow herself to be kicked in the face by this black terrorist?' - Terry Dicks MP, mid-1980s
(there's worse in the article)
[1] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/from-terrorist-to-te...
I feel like a conspiracy theorist when saying it out loud, but given the history...
I mean it's economic suicide for britain to leave the EU, yet someone is plastering it all over the media and it's not the politicians. :\
And it's not economic suicide. In the short term it will most likely hurt but in the long term, Britain will survive and the EU will need to bend to accommodate Britain's consumers, even if the UK is not a member state. It is one of, if not the, biggest importers of EU goods and it's the EU, not Britain, who cannot survive without accommodating the other.
Also I don't see why the US would benefit in any way from a collapsed EU or UK. Trade and travel becomes harder when they are not a single unit.
our sovereignty is not important as long as we have the choice to leave in future, but the benefits awarded the middle/working/lower classes is unquestionable and we may not be awarded such luxury under a malevolent or overly 'for the rich' party. Rights are only rights until they aren't.
Workers rights in the UK are the best they've ever been, and better than those in the US, which is where our model seems to steer towards without EU guidance.
Quality of living (I'm guessing housing?) is bad in spite of the EU rules, not because of it.
We are awarded many luxuries and exceptions by the EU because of our status as one of the "core" members, if we renegotiate we don't have that. In addition trade agreements are not going to be in our favour unless with have something to barter with.
most of our industries are service/management layer, we're the middle people to a lot of things and without being a pivotal hub we may lose this and the foundation of British economy will be rocked, we need to produce something that the world cannot live without before making such threats.
Additional:
Without the EU being a unified block we do not have the clout to stand up to US bullying.
edited to remove condescension and provide only my points
The immigration argument is about EU citizens which the Danish system can do nothing to stop/slow, and stopping the 'free-flow' of EU citizens is most Brexiters biggest desire from the campaign. The economic studies are definitely in Remain's favour, but economics as a field is very 'woolly', often wrong and more importantly does not resonate with a large populace who have seen living standards broadly stagnate since the last prolonged recession.
There are arguments for and against - the Remain camp don't have a satisfactory answer to people who are genuinely concerned over immigration or (albeit discretely) do not like immigration in their surrounding, and the Leave campaign have the consensus on the economic side due to uncertainty over post-Brexit state and agreements.
However, the Danish system does indeed stop and slow EU migrants.
As a British citizen living in Sweden, I can't go live over the bridge in Copenhagen unless I have a residence permit, which requires having a job, or meeting the required points.
Without a residence permit I cannot rent property or pay bills. I had to go through all the pain with my sister-in-law who is Estonian and studies business in Copenhagen. I'm fully versed on the difficulties of getting a residency there and it's certainly not as simple as being an EU citizen.
I've edited my first post to remove the comments about brainwashing as it's not productive to conversation.
Also leaving the EU is not going to result in 'economic collapse' - the EU doesn't want tariffs on their exports to the UK. I'd expect those trade negotiations to be pretty swift.
It's still their choice, to democratically decide to leave. Even though it potentially has bad/far-reaching consequences, doesn't mean we can discount the "democratic process" because of nefarious interference by clandestine agencies and media-manipulation.
Implying my opinions are manipulated by shadowy forces is a very low form of trolling.
If that's true and if it was planned, there's probably a memo justifying it somewhere and we will declassify it in the future.
Given ubiquitous surveillance and increasing state power, how long before average citizens start getting locked up because a single cowboy at an agency "firmly believes" they are a threat?
And given that Mandela was a member of a banned organization that was wanted by his own government for attempting to start armed rebellion using weapons (acquired from from sympathtic communist-aligned powers), it wasn't exactly as if the whim of a single agent was the main factor behind his detention (or the CIA's ultimately unfounded belief in what might happen if he succeeded)
If anyone thinks that a defeat of "militant Islam" would bring peace to the world, they're sadly deluded. The next "enemy" will already be being funded, armed and encouraged to flex its muscles, ready to be smacked down again, in the next great crusade to bring "freedom and democracy" to some unfortunate part of the world.
We've just not been told who it is yet!
Just for the record: of course large parts of it were manufactured. Some of it was manufactured by a so-called "source", but that source was so in-/non-credible that you wouldn't buy a used hammer from him, never mind a used car. And it was well known that this source was completely non-credible.
In addition, various other bits were combined in ways that the appearance of a threat was manufactured out of pieces of information that both weren't threatening in themselves and also did not constitute a real threat when combined appropriately (the infamous 45 minute claim is among these). For more, see the various UK inquiries regarding "intelligence failures" leading up to the Iraq war.
The difference between that and manufacturing the whole thing from scratch is at best marginal.
Yet Powell built his case, before the UN with Curveball's informations. Curveball who ultimately admitted he was a taxi driver and not a scientist. Some might say "the US has been misled", I don't believe one second, the Bush government was looking for any excuse, even fake to invade Irak. I pity the families of all the soldiers who died there, they died for nothing. And the locals who were massacred,during and after the war,the US is directly responsible for their death.
Powell was acting on good faith. His post-festum testimonials indicate that he was suspicious of the intel and had expressed his discomfort - to which he had been repeatedly re-assured by the people in charge of intel that intel was good.
Thus your claim that "Bush government was looking for any excuse" is wrong - as Powell himself has been a major part of Bush government.
Implying that Powell has been a victim of conspiracy is quite a bit of a conspiracy theory in itself. He might have been lied to due to corruption - or "just" due to incompetence.
What I am trying to argue here is - that somebody, somewhere should start an inquiry on how it was possible that Powell has been fed bad information. If there was a conspiracy - the perpetrators should be indicted for treason. If the reason is incompetence (which is a worse option IMO) - then a major overhaul of the intelligence agencies would be in order.
I do understand that the pragmatic option for numerous reasons has been to just "forget" about it - that may not be the best long term solution.
How do Americans maintain this doublethink that their government's military actions are bad but the people who carry them out are good? Is a US soldier somehow more righteous than an ISIS soldier? They both kill innocent people, they both do it to serve "bad" purposes. Why not treat them all as what they are - killers?
Why not treat both of them as victims - young people sent to die by politicians furthering their agendas? Or, in some cases - victims who die defending their homes from a foreign invasion?
As a low-rank soldier, it's not exactly your choice where you get deployed or what your orders are. Let's go after those who give the orders. And those who do invasions.
The leaders, by contrast, knowingly engineered it (according to parent)
No one brought up isis soldiers.
We shouldn't blame the soldiers for doing a difficult job, especially after the damage is done, but we can and should discourage people from signing up in the first place.
You should read up a bit on the US military. A lot of those people came from disadvantaged backgrounds where army careers are the only ticket out of poverty.
The US political and military establishment literally preys on the poor for their cannon fodder. It's the post-Vietnam equilibrium: they won't draft, so (white) sons and daughters of the middle-classes will be left alone, and in return such middle-classes don't ask too many questions about where, how and why the military is used.
To assuage collective guilt, a narrative has emerged in which grunts are not blamed, since they are effectively victims of a system nobody really wants to change.
They are not the only ticket out of poverty, speaking broadly these people have choices. What is happening is that the military provides, for some people, an attractive way to get out of poverty, because it comes along with a certain level of prestige. Change the level of prestige and you change the influx of new recruits.
Who can change the level of prestige? Upper and middle classes. Why would they do that, when the system works just fine for them? Nobody is legally coerced, and still cannon fodder is overwhelmingly provided by the "right" people.
From a certain perspective, it's a beautiful system.
We all can, and we can start by resisting the narrative to refer to those involved in preemptive war as 'heroes'. There's nothing heroic about playing the role of the aggressor.
Furthermore, we need to find a way to better engage with those who have taken part in war so that we can learn from their experiences. The more we can see war for what it is, the less likely we'll be so casual about it continuing.
That will mean raising taxes and fighting tax evasion, which might mean less "free money" from VC gluts.
In developed countries potential soldiers already have other options so it's not a question of making economic changes, it's a question of changing how we cut through the propaganda that glorifies soldiers. The only cases for soldiers as heroes are in cases of defending against an external aggressor or defending the helpless. Becoming a soldier does not automatically make you a hero, just as lawyers are not automatically heroes, it all depends on the causes they serve.
Communism is a cleptocratic system of ruling and exploiting the manual labour and natural resources of any given territory inhabited by unambitious masses that largely lack individualism. The core of the system relies on individualism and personal achievement being punished and forcefully suppressed, while the masses are continuously promised vague ideals of equality and justice (much like with any other system of government - nothing innovative here. ) There is nothing acceptable about communism - not in theory, not in practice, not in ideals - nothig.
There are plenty of communists who categorically reject state communism. They're called anarchists.
Also i'm sure our definitions of individualism are irreconcilably different. Your individualism involves people subordinating others with violence explicit and implicit if you really think capitalism is a pro-individualism system. For me, individualism cannot be separated from collectivism.
> Your individualism involves people subordinating others with violence explicit and implicit if you really think capitalism is a pro-individualism system
What is capital(ism) if not the accumulation of things to build more things. In order to build anything, you need a certain capital even in a anarchy world, it could be pieces of wood, bricks, money etc. Now who is better suited to manage this capital? Everyone? Turns out, some people suck at managing capital and some people know best how to manage it because they're the ones who managed to accumulate enough in order to build this capital in the first place. Societies where capital was managed by collectives have historically not done well.
Also, I'm not for subordinating people with violence so not sure where you got this idea. I'm ok though with using force to defend your body and the property you acquired peacefully with it (because you built it or because someone agreed to give it to you).
My reason teaches me that land cannot be sold. The Great Spirit gave it to his children to live upon, and cultivate, as far as necessary for their subsistence; and so long as they occupy and cultivate it, they have the right to the soil—but if they voluntarily leave it, then any other people have a right to settle upon it. Nothing can be sold but such things as can be carried away.
Locke[1] also believed that people shouldn't be able to own things that they don't personally use or hoard resources if they are scarce.
But I think you are probably using an unusual and ideologically-specific definition of "private property" that you should probably detail explicitly.
Are you sure Marx wrote that, or are you letting your own bias into your definition?
For the record, I live in a communist country and don't like how that aspect turned out at all. But I don't blame it on the communism, after all, Russia still has many problems even after they threw off communism. Selfish bad leaders will beat you up with any ideology they find convenient.
Seen with the benefit of hindsight, Mikael Bakunin's criticism is most appropriate:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Bakunin#Critique_of_Ma...
They [the Marxists] maintain that only a dictatorship—their dictatorship, of course—can create the will of the people, while our answer to this is: No dictatorship can have any other aim but that of self-perpetuation, and it can beget only slavery in the people tolerating it; freedom can be created only by freedom, that is, by a universal rebellion on the part of the people and free organization of the toiling masses from the bottom up.
For Bakunin, the fundamental contradiction is that for the Marxists, "anarchism or freedom is the aim, while the state and dictatorship is the means, and so, in order to free the masses, they have first to be enslaved."
Marx directly argued that communism should be implemented by violent revolution that would put in place a temporary "dictatorship of the proles", which is an absurd concept containing the seeds of its destruction.
Bakunin did on occasion describe himself as a communist; but like Kropotkin, his communism was of the libertarian rather than authoritarian variety.
There clearly is. Everywhere it has been tried, it led to at least poverty and usually genocide. Communism has been far, far worse than nazism or fascism and holding national socialism as some sort of valuable ideal untainted by the reality is unacceptable almost everywhere.
Fascism is quite similar, though I'm not sure one could say communism is worse than fascism, given that the latter was only tried a couple of times and was put out relatively quickly, while the impact of the former happened over a much longer period of time and under much larger populations.
I can see how one might find communism interesting from the perspective of 19th century. I cannot believe anyone still does in the 21st.
No we don't want communism (at least I don't), but for someone to say it is illogical is completely incorrect.
Communism is an economic system that falls apart in practice because of greed. An economic system that fails to account for greed is not good, even in theory.
If someone said "let's kill the Jews", you would probably slowly and carefully walk away from that person because they were nuts. An unreasonable proposition that you probably don't want to bother arguing against (because what kind of person would even say that?).
But it's only valid if you oversimplify a little. Starting with "first, forget everything you know about human nature" goes too far.
I don't think of "works in theory" as shorthand for "doesn't have internal contradictions" or "sounds reasonable if you forget everything you know about human nature."
He said: Mandela was a communist and a terrorist. He's not saying what you're claiming.
Mandela was a terrorist because he was part of a terrorist organization that intentionally set off bombs in shopping malls and restaurants.
Of course we don't call the Apartheid government "terrorists" for these crimes.
He was not a communist, but an African nationalist. This is something he has always maintained and was confirmed when he became president, the national economic policy was pretty much neoliberal. The reason why he remained close to the communists is because they were sympathetic to his cause and lent a lot of support.
Almost everyone agrees that the Apartheid government was horrible. Almost no one holds them up as a positive example.
Conversely, almost everyone holds Mandela and his terrorist organization up as an example and as a hero despite them intentionally setting off bombs in civilian locations like shopping malls and restaurants.
But, of course I read that in biased biographies. Do you have source that a person was killed by these attacks?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umkhonto_we_Sizwe#Bombings has a list of atrocities committed by them. During most of them Mandela was in prison I believe. I don't know about his influence over the organization during that time or if he condemned these attacks, I'd guess he didn't but am happy to be proven wrong.
"five civilians were killed and 40 were injured when MK cadre Andrew Sibusiso Zondo detonated an explosive in a rubbish bin at a shopping centre shortly before Christmas."
"a bomb was detonated in a bar, killing three civilians and injuring 69"
" terror campaign continued with attacks on a series of soft targets, including a bank in Roodepoort in 1988, in which four civilians were killed and 18 injured. Also in 1988, a bomb outside a magistrate's court killed three. At the Ellis Park rugby stadium in Johannesburg, a car bomb killed two and injured 37 civilians. A multitude[14] of bombs at restaurants and fast food outlets, including Wimpy Bars,[15] and supermarkets occurred during the late 1980s, killing and wounding many people."
Not to be demonized but not to be idolized as well
Props on Mandela for being gracious in victory & not immediately going Full Zimbabwe, but it is insane to suggest that he was some sort of sainted figure that there was no reason to even fight.
When you know the outcome, you don't get to wash your hands of the guilt.
As it is, perhaps 5% of these comments know anything about what they are talking about. One of the biggest intellectual failings of the sort that frequents this place is mistaking being smart with being informed.
Given I commented, calling you out to explicitly state why you feel that my comments on this page somehow show that I don't know what I'm talking about.
And therein lies the problem. Echo chambers are only good at making you wish to be deaf, if even...
What I do make something of is meaningful responses to my comments.
It's also very obvious when you've said something that annoys one individual as you can get a string of downvotes in quick succession across multiple comments. Such feedback is easy to spot and see as childish, so I enjoy it for what it is instead.
That said, I much prefer comments, even those that disagree with me.
This is my long way of saying, maybe other people have different purposes for posting than you.
http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/2016/05/15/Bombshell-CIA-sp... is the only other link I could find, don't know if DM has more info but given it's sourcing The Times I wouldn't be surprised if DM is too.
(FTFY)
Which is not to say I really doubt his claims (assuming it can be verified he was a CIA operative who was in South Africa at that time.)
The ANC undermined the police service when they were unbanned When they took office, they ran the police service into the ground. They do not protect the rights of minorities.
struct NelsonMandela *nelson_mandela =
(struct NelsonMandela *)malloc(
sizeof(struct NelsonMandela));
free(nelson_mandella);If Mandela was a secret operative for the communists in South Africa, as the local communist party claimed when he died, and as this former CIA operative has claimed, then he had to have known he was playing a tricky game. Ending apartheid, creating a communist paradise, pick one.
[Edit] I know I'm being downvoted, but I also doubt anyone commenting here lives in a communist country, or has ever spent much time in one.
Pretty much all of the ANC has/had strong communist links since thats who sheltered those that went into exile. So I wouldn't say "secret operative"...
Remember, you are a "3rd world" movement, European colonialism is still in full swing (though wavering), you are probably the wrong color and civil rights aren't a thing yet -Jim Crow laws are still being enforced in the US, and the apartheid government you are fighting have been aligned with the Allied powers (the west) since WW II.
Edit: corrected 'Allied' powers: had named them Axis by mistake
There wasn't really much of a choice. The west was sorta unofficially aligned with the Apartheid gov, so by default that puts revolutionaries on the soviet side. Idealogical the soviets were also a better fit.
Ho Chi Mihn was a Comintern member, but the Viet Minh was a broader alliance that included nationalists and others as well alongside the communist party until it was clear that they would not be able to rely on the west for support. Ho even bean the Vietnamese Declaration of Independence with an explicit reference to the US Declaration of Independence [1], which he admired greatly.
And so on...
US governments kept throwing pro-democracy movements under the bus one after the other for large parts of the cold war in ways that made it trivially easy for the Soviet Union to buy themselves friends.
But try that with a colony or some place with a large US corporate presence (banana republic, anyone?) and you were begging for trouble.
Frankly the cold war seems in hindsight to be just an extension of the so called great game.
United Fruit Company being a particularly nasty one to get on the wrong side of.
Its successor Chiquita as recently as 2007 pleaded guilty in US courts to aiding and abetting a Columbian terrorist organization, and got away with just paying $25m restitution, and the US government refused to allow extradition of any of the involved parties to stand trial in Columbia.
When someone like Jeremy Corbyn appears and challenges or threatens that consensus, you immediately get a determined media campaign to smear and undermine him - while barking mad racist demagogues are treated as serious political representatives without being questioned or challenged in the same ways.
Ulbricht borrowed money on easy terms in return for West German political influence. Lots of money, not so much influence.
Your false dichotomy is empirically false because apartheid was ended without creating a 'communist paradise'.
Even if we were to accept your limited worldview/binary choices; it is not clear how a state with codified racism (apartheid) is superior to an egalitarian communist one.
Revolutionary Spain did not survive long enough to discuss IMO.
Cuba... egalitarian in what way? Is there anything the government does that the citizens can legally undo without overthrowing it? (Note that a benevolent dictatorship can exist, in theory, and among other things it can be a communist - or a racist - dictatorship; nothing prevents from the dictator to grant freedoms to the subjects, the point is that nothing prevents him from taking them away, either. If you don't refer to rights in the sense of things the government cannot prevent you from doing but instead refer to "egalitarian" in some sense of Cuban citizens living substantially different lives than Soviet citizens, I'd be curious to hear what exactly you mean.)
If it had been, it would have been thanks to idiotic operations like this.
There was no secret that there were tons of SACP members working within the ANC - they were in an explicit alliance with the ANC and COSATU (trade union alliance), and when the SACP forerunner - the CPSA - was outlawed with the introduction of apartheid, because they'd consistently opposed it, many CPSA members joined the ANC with full knowledge of the ANC. Some continued working within the ANC after the party was re-formed as SACP.
To the extent the SACP had "secret" operatives in the ANC, they were secret from the public, not from the ANC. There'd be no point - SACP members were actively encouraged by both the SACP and ANC to be active in the ANC leadership.
And the official statement on Mandela's death from the ANC [1] is what stated he was a member of the SACP Central Committee - it was not a statement from the SACP.
However, given the policies he's actually fought for, which included openly opposing a lot of the SACP's programme, this likely says more about the close mutual relationship of the SACP and the ANC than about Mandela's political views.
More importantly, prior to Mandela's arrest, the ANC was largely a social democratic leaning organization. If the CIA was concerned about Soviet influence on the ANC, getting Mandela arrested was entirely counter-productive.
Because after Mandela and other leaders was arrested, the weakened ANC radicalised massively while it rebuilt as its leadership was forced into exile where the SACP used Soviet contacts to ensure training and supplies of weapons, and many ANC leaders ended up spending a lot of time working closely with Soviet-supported governments.
The CIA basically handed the ANC to the Soviets.
> Ending apartheid, creating a communist paradise, pick one.
That's a pretty idiotic statement. The CPSA/SACP made ending racial segregation a cornerstone of their programme to lead South Africa towards socialism from the 20's, about 30 years before apartheid was even introduced, and their membership continued to risk imprisonment for about 70 years to fight apartheid.
They did so because the Soviet dominated Comintern explicitly told them to.
There were plenty of Stalinists amongst them who nobody in their right mind would want to lead a country, but there were also a great of them that gave their lives to end apartheid because they believed it was the only way forward for South Africa, and members of the SACP were also central to the creation of the Freedom Charter
Sadly their actions seems to more often than not hasten the takeover rather than counteract it.
Then again there is also the whole "banana republic" issue, that had been going on since at least WWI.
However, despite the CIA's (perhaps counter-productive) interference, it is a common misconception that the ANC's violent struggle forced the capitulation of the Apartheid government. I believe Mandela's arrest had little to nothing to do with how things played out. MK was outmatched by the government's security forces, and as long as the world wanted our gold, this could have continued indefinitely. It is tragic, but, those who gave their lives in the struggle did so only to maintain the threat of all-out civil war. Instead, what determined South Africa's future was the west's reluctant imposition of sanctions (not co-incidentally, just as the Soviet Union was falling apart).
I'm convinced that the end of Apartheid was negotiated between the nats and the West. The government knew that they were going to run out of money, in which case the ANC would become a real threat. The US first forced them to destroy their nuclear arsenal, and then the CODESAs followed as the public face of negotiation, but I suspect the actual terms of the transition was decided largely by world powers and the ANC was given instructions.
I sense a lot of outrage from Americans on this CIA/Mandela thing, but look at it this way: the US did eventually end Apartheid in a way that didn't create another Cuba, while simultaneously disarming bunch of white guys with nukes who were convinced that it was their God-given right to wield them.
I didn't downvote you, but this edit seriously tempted me. Your background is irrelevant. It is your arguments we have taken issue with.
The replies you have gotten point out how flawed this idea is/was. We know what politics Mandela would come to push, because he eventually got to run the South African government, and despite having prominent SACP members in it, it was a fairly moderate government which opposed a lot of SACP policies. This despite decades of Soviet influence on the ANC after Mandelas arrest.
Even if the CIA could not have known that at the time, what they would have known if they did their job properly was that the ANC at the time was quite moderate, and that they had an opportunity to stem SACP influence in the ANC if they'd engaged constructively with them.
Instead they treated them as a terrorist organization and chose to act to help their racist authoritarian enemy, and as a result they were part responsible for forcing the ANC to turn to the Soviets for weapons, training and exile for prominent members.
If South Africa had become a Soviet satellite, it would have been in parts thanks to yet another case of CIA blowback, not because of Mandela.