Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site l5.uucp Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!decwrl!sun!l5!laura From: laura@l5.uucp (Laura Creighton) Newsgroups: net.politics.theory Subject: Re: Let them eat the Gross National Product Message-ID: <137@l5.uucp> Date: Sat, 21-Sep-85 14:10:57 EDT Article-I.D.: l5.137 Posted: Sat Sep 21 14:10:57 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 25-Sep-85 08:18:25 EDT References: <3476@topaz.UUCP> <28200078@inmet.UUCP> <1790@psuvax1.UUCP> <192@gargoyle.UUCP> Reply-To: laura@l5.UUCP (Laura Creighton) Organization: Ell-Five [Consultants], San Francisco Lines: 22 Richard, what you are saying is that the British government did not do a good job in dealing with the famine. I agree. I expect that the Red Cross and the Salvation Army could have done a better job. That the government did a worse job than it could is another reason why sticking your eggs in one basket and assuming that ``the government'' will do a proper job is a poor idea. I come from a line of Irish immigrants who really believe that the problem was worse than that -- that without prior government restrictions on farming *there* *would* *have* *been* *no* *famine* and worse, that elements of the government viewed the famine as a good way to end the Catholic problem that Ireland (a subject nation, ruled by force for generations which *still* hasn't solved Catholic Irish/Protestant English problems) once and for all. I do not know how to verify these claims, but if they are true then the government's activity becomes all the more reprehensible. i think that you are wrong in viewing the Irish famine as a ``free trade'' famine since Ireland more closely resembled a colony or an occupied territory at that time. -- Laura Creighton (note new address!) sun!l5!laura (that is ell-five, not fifteen) l5!laura@lll-crg.arpa