Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site batman.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!whuxlm!harpo!decvax!genrad!panda!talcott!harvard!seismo!ut-sally!batman!gene From: gene@batman.UUCP (Gene Mutschler) Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: South Africa Again Message-ID: <163@batman.UUCP> Date: Mon, 19-Aug-85 19:01:30 EDT Article-I.D.: batman.163 Posted: Mon Aug 19 19:01:30 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 24-Aug-85 15:38:24 EDT References: <1053@ihlpg.UUCP> Distribution: net Organization: Burroughs Austin Research Center, TX Lines: 98 [berman (again)] > How refreshing it is to see a naked defense of the racist South African > regime on the net. The Reaganites usually mumble some hypocritical > lies about disliking apartheid, but continue to support the regime > through trade and commerical investment. You are (as usual) laboring under several misapprehensions: 1) I am neither defending the South African government. In the first place, it needs no defending, and in the second (as you and your ilk love to point out with respect to Viet Nam and Nicaragua) this is an internal affair and none of anybody else's substantive business. I have an opinion-- P.W. Botha should cut a deal with Buthelezi to give the Zulus the Natal province and partition the country--but that's just my opinion. What I have been trying to do is show a bunch of well-meaning but naive leftists just what the real situtation is over there. 2) Although I voted for RR in 1984, I did not vote for him in 1980. In general, I think he has been a great disappointment. I am not really a Reaganite. 3) I don't go around naked, at least not outside of my house. > >The principal reason so many African countries are in a pickle is because > >their farmers have acted rationally when faced with markets distorted by > >a bunch of tinpot dictators and tinhorn politicians. > A four-hundred year legacy of emasculation by slavery, estimated > to have killed 100 Million Africans is conveniently ignored. By whom? If the Europeans had kept it up for another few centuries, they just MIGHT kill as many as Mengistu did in Ethiopia last year. > A legacy of European colonialism that denuded the wealth of the African > contident is ignored. They didn't denude it--they just moved all the chromium, gold, and diamonds to South Africa (-: :-). What it amounts to is that as soon as an African Socialist state gets its hands on something, they turn it to sh*t. It's the "Marxist Touch", definitely NOT to be confused with the "Golden Touch". I don't think I need to mention that resources are not necessary to economic well-being--example: Japan. Further, it is possible to be a colony and still be well-off--example: Hong Kong. > >[The ANC] believes in violence as a means to solve the problem, > Here Gene gives us the old hypocrisy, condemning the > violence of the oppressed > when they fight the violence of the oppressor. No act of force > by the ANC or by the brave African people now standing up to > oppose Apartheid can match the violence of the Racist regime in > South Africa. Where is Mutcscher's comdemnation of the daily > violence of Apartheid? Which violence are you referring to--the violence wherein a black woman was stoned and then burned alive by a black mob? Or the black policeman? Or the black civil rights lawyer probably killed by the ANC to create a martyr? You want a condemnation--you got it. I condemn the violence of the South African government. They are incredibly stupid for using it because they are playing right into ANC hands, if for no other reason. My whole posting was to indicate that 1) the US should be using constructive engagement to help the SA government change and 2) if the situation for blacks is bad now, the experience of the rest of Africa's flirtations with Marxism shows that things could be much much worse. > He [Mandela] will not "rot." His victory is near! > The days of the Apartheid regime are numbered. The African People > have decided that. The future is theirs. People of good will > around the world support their just struggle. Please, spare us. We know that you leftwingers are so burdened with Liberal Guilt that you want to show solidarity with whatever tinpot Marxist who cloaks himself in the "oppressed", but you should know that "One Man, One Vote", means "One Election" to the likes of Mandela and the ANC. > The last refuge when arguments fail: bring out the old > "Communist Conspiracy" theory. We only keep using it because it continues to demonstrate the truth. > In the noble battle against > Moscow, everything is permissible: Apartheid, killing peasants > in Central America, you name it. Sorry Gene, folks just ain't buying > that crap like they used to. In the noble battle against freedom, everything is permissible: Slavery (in the building of the Trans-Siberian pipeline), germ warfare (in Afghanistan), forced relocation of the Miskitos in Nicaragua, you name it. Sorry, Berman, you are destined for the ash-heap of history, because we are starting to fight back--in Afghanistan, Angola, and your beloved Nicaragua, just for starters. Eastern Europe is next. -- Gene Mutschler {ihnp4 seismo ctvax}!ut-sally!batman!gene Burroughs Corp. Austin Research Center cmp.barc@utexas-20.ARPA (512) 258-2495