Things Noticeable this week

[blueballsdc]

Originally Posted by Greenman

Coffee perhaps?

Only if it is like my grandfather used to have. He liked his coffee black with no cream or sugar.

But mixed 50/50 with brandy.

Thats brandy the spirit not Brandy some large breasted nightclub dancer.



On second thought he would probably take her too.

[Brecht]

Originally Posted by rotobott

Totaly agree, but perhaps that was not the best example.

Violence never solved anything, unless you blow up politicians and bankers

Those rights were not demanded by violence but the answer was violence. The bourgeois revolutions like the French Revolution or the American Revolution were not peaceful either. They established a society based on an economy that would only be in their service while speaking in the name of the people. Once the people discovered that they have been deceived, the answer was violence. The Paris Commune was the earliest attempt to build an egalitarian society but was brutally smashed by the French liberal bourgeois government around Adolphe Thiers with the support of Prussian troops. About 40.000 people were murdered afterwards, so the people might be reminded what will happen if they try to demand true democratic rights again.

[otokonomidori]

Originally Posted by Norbert84

Those rights were not demanded by violence but the answer was violence.

The Haymarket Plot you referred to involved bomb throwing which killed a number of people - it's not surprising that the response was violence.

[Brecht]

Originally Posted by fleetwood77

The Haymarket Plot you referred to involved bomb throwing which killed a number of people - it's not surprising that the response was violence.

The general strike began US-wide on the 1st May 1886. Two days later, the police opened fire on strikers of the International Harvester factory in Chicago. 4 workers killed, many injured. Following these events, a peaceful protest was organized the next day but after another police attack, a bomb was thrown on the police and one policeman got killed (not "a number of people"). The government and their capitalist allies, after repetitive violent provocations towards workers, were just waiting for this to happen, so they could justify their terror against unions afterwards.

[otokonomidori]

Originally Posted by Norbert84

The general strike began US-wide on the 1st May 1886. Two days later, the police opened fire on strikers of the International Harvester factory in Chicago. 4 workers killed, many injured. Following these events, a peaceful protest was organized the next day but after another police attack, a bomb was thrown on the police and one policeman got killed (not "a number of people"). The government and their capitalist allies, after repetitive violent provocations towards workers, were just waiting for this to happen, so they could justify their terror against unions afterwards.

According to the Wikipedia article you cited it there were 12 deaths caused by the bomb. Blowing people up in the 19th century tended to result in the culprits getting hung.

[TCO95]

Originally Posted by blueballsdc

I was bored and paging through Mugshots.com and I found this little item:

http://mugshots.com/US-Counties/Flor...m.2484185.html

Scroll down and take a look at it.

What were these parents thinking? You have a kid, he is a ginger, and you name him Aragorn? Did you want to give this kid a lifetime of being beat up and laughed at?

Not to be a stick in the mud, but, he may have changed it himself. I realize that Aragorn and Avatar are old names, however, they have come into common use recently.

Foreign names don't always translate well. A friend worked with a Vietnamese guy who's name when he moved here was Bum Suk Shim. He soon found his way to the government office and changed it.

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by fleetwood77

According to the Wikipedia article you cited it there were 12 deaths caused by the bomb. Blowing people up in the 19th century tended to result in the culprits getting hung.

However, where such rules hold, it should also hold for the actions of police forces when they use lethal force without justification. The American police were notorious for this in the miners' strikes in West Virginia and in industrial disputes elsewhere, right through to the early 20th Century. They uses to get away with it by claiming to have been defending themselves; this only started to fail as a strategy when the camera came into common use and photographic evidence started appearing to prove they were lying.

No one should condone the throwing of bombs. But neither should we ignore the vacuum which is created when the forces of law and order become the criminals.

I like bourgeois liberal revolutions. I like bourgeois liberal democracies. I dislike workers revolutions on the empirical evidence that history has shown, too many times to be a coincidence, that they lead to tyranny. I would rather be a free man in an unequal society than a slave in a workers paradise. But once the police open fire on me because I presume to protest in a peaceful deomonstration, I am no longer a free man and I am forced to resist.

[otokonomidori]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

I like bourgeois liberal democracies. I dislike workers revolutions on the empirical evidence that history has shown, too many times to be a coincidence, that they lead to tyranny. I would rather be a free man in an unequal society than a slave in a workers paradise. But once the police open fire on me because I presume to protest in a peaceful deomonstration, I am no longer a free man and I am forced to resist.

I couldn't agree with you more - except I have a feeling that violent resistance is futile and self defeating

[blueballsdc]

Originally Posted by TCO95

Not to be a stick in the mud, but, he may have changed it himself. I realize that Aragorn and Avatar are old names, however, they have come into common use recently.

Foreign names don't always translate well. A friend worked with a Vietnamese guy who's name when he moved here was Bum Suk Shim. He soon found his way to the government office and changed it.

Damnit man! Don't bring logic and sensibility into this. It interferes with my ability to laugh at other people.

[Greenman]

Noticed this week so far.
Rolf Harris, veteran kids presenter and painter will receive a BAFTA Fellowship award at the TV BAFTAs this month-and about time too-where is the honorary Knighthood Your Majesty?-your official Birthday Honours list is coming up, perhaps you could find one for Mr Harris?

The amount of firepower, aircraft and carriers we had back in 1982 pales into insignificance compared to today's defences-maybe a lot more weapon-laded but not enough to effectively beat off any challenges to the Falklands perhaps, but we are told their air defences are weakened and this outburst last month was just to cover up their inadequacies in their own country.

End of an era as Snooker's Stephen Hendry retires from major tournament snooker-although he made a great 147 break against Stephen Maguire, he was still beaten. Seven times world champion, something that might take a long time to beat, he leaves an era of snooker when it got exciting. Somehow, I think this new batch of snooker players will have a job to live up to the Hendry era, let alone Davis, Taylor and others in the 80s.