Gandhi was a dumbass

[hugo]

From some article:

 

Problems with pacifism

 

In most of these cases, Gandhi�s mistake was not his pacifism per se. In the case of his recruiting efforts for World War 1, there wasn�t even any pacifism involved, but loyalty to the Empire whether in peace or in war. The Khilafat pogroms revealed one of the real problems with his pacifism: all while riding a high horse and imposing strict conformity with the pacifist principle, he indirectly provoked far more violence than was in his power to control. Other leaders of the freedom movement, such as Annie Besant and Lala Lajpat Rai, had warned him that he was playing with fire, but he preferred to obey his suprarational �inner voice�.

 

 

The fundamental problem with Gandhi�s pacifism, not in the initial stages but when he had become the world-famous leader of India�s freedom movement (1920-47), was his increasing extremism. All sense of proportion had vanished when he advocated non-violence not as a technique of moral pressure by a weaker on a stronger party, but as a form of masochistic surrender. Elsewhere (Elst: Gandhi and Godse, Voice of India, Delhi 2001, p.120-121) I have cited four instances of his advice to the victims of communal violence which is simply breathtaking for its callousness in the face of human suffering. Two more instances follow.

 

 

During his prayer meeting on 1 May 1947, he prepared the Hindus and Sikhs for the anticipated massacres of their kind in the upcoming state of Pakistan with these words: �I would tell the Hindus to face death cheerfully if the Muslims are out to kill them. I would be a real sinner if after being stabbed I wished in my last moment that my son should seek revenge. I must die without rancour. (�) You may turn round and ask whether all Hindus and all Sikhs should die. Yes, I would say. Such martyrdom will not be in vain.� (Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol.LXXXVII, p.394-5) It is left unexplained what purpose would be served by this senseless and avoidable surrender to murder.

 

 

Even when the killing had started, Gandhi refused to take pity on the Hindu victims, much less to point fingers at the Pakistani aggressors. More importantly for the principle of non-violence, he failed to offer them a non-violent technique of countering and dissuading the murderers. Instead, he told the Hindu refugees from Pakistan to go back and die. On 6 August 1947, Gandhiji commented to Congress workers on the incipient communal conflagration in Lahore thus: �I am grieved to learn that people are running away from the West Punjab and I am told that Lahore is being evacuated by the non-Muslims. I must say that this is what it should not be. If you think Lahore is dead or is dying, do not run away from it, but die with what you think is the dying Lahore. (�) When you suffer from fear you die before death comes to you. That is not glorious. I will not feel sorry if I hear that people in the Punjab have died not as cowards but as brave men. (�) I cannot be forced to salute any flag. If in that act I am murdered I would bear no ill will against anyone and would rather pray for better sense for the person or persons who murder me.� (Hindustan Times, 8-8-1947, CWoMG, vol. LXXXIX, p.11).

 

 

So, he was dismissing as cowards those who saved their lives fleeing the massacre by a vastly stronger enemy, viz. the Pakistani population and security forces. But is it cowardice to flee a no-win situation, so as to live and perhaps to fight another day? There can be a come-back from exile, not from death. Is it not better to continue life as a non-Lahorite than to cling to one�s location in Lahore even if it has to be as a corpse? Why should staying in a mere location be so superior to staying alive? To be sure, it would have been even better if Hindus could have continued to live with honour in Lahore, but Gandhi himself had refused to use his power in that cause, viz. averting Partition. He probably would have found that, like the butchered or fleeing Hindus, he was no match for the determination of the Muslim League, but at least he could have tried. In the advice he now gave, the whole idea of non-violent struggle got perverted.

 

 

Originally, in Gandhi�s struggle for the Indians� rights in South Africa, non-violent agitation was tried out as a weapon of the weak who wouldn�t stand a chance in an armed confrontation. It was a method to achieve a political goal, and a method which could boast of some successes. In the hands of a capable agitator, it could be victorious. It was designed to snatch victory from the jaws of powerlessness and surrender. By contrast, the �non-violent� surrender to the enemy and to butchery which Gandhi advocated in 1947 had nothing victorious or successful about it.

 

 

My point is not that Gandhi could and should have given them a third way, a non-violent technique that would defeat the perpetrators of Partition and religious cleansing. More realistically, he should have accepted that this was the kind of situation where no such third option was available. Once the sacrifice of a large part of India�s territory to a Muslim state had been conceded, and given previous experiences with Muslim violence against non-Muslims during the time of Gandhi�s own leadership, he should have realized that an exchange of population was the only remaining bloodless solution. The Partition crisis was simply beyond the capacity of Gandhian non-violence to control. If he had had the modesty to face his powerlessness and accept that alternatives to his own preferred solution would have to be tried, many lives could have been saved.

 

 

Robust pacifism

 

 

It cannot be denied that Gandhian non-violence has a few successes to its credit. But these were achieved under particularly favourable circumstances: the stakes weren�t very high and the opponents weren�t too foreign to Gandhi�s ethical standards. In South Africa, he had to deal with liberal British authorities who weren�t affected too seriously in their power and authority by conceding Gandhi�s demands. Upgrading the status of the small Indian minority from equality with the Blacks to an in-between status approaching that of the Whites made no real difference to the ruling class, so Gandhi�s agitation was rewarded with some concessions. Even in India, the stakes were never really high. Gandhi�s Salt March made the British rescind the Salt Tax, a limited financial price to pay for restoring native acquiescence in British paramountcy, but he never made them concede Independence or even Home Rule with a non-violent agitation. The one time he had started such an agitation, viz. in 1930-31, he himself stopped it in exchange for a few small concessions.

 

 

It is simply not true that India�s Independence was the fruit of Gandhian non-violent agitation. He was close to the British in terms of culture and shared ethical values, which is why sometimes he could successfully bargain with them, but even they stood firm against his pressure when their vital interests were at stake. It is only Britain�s bankruptcy due to World War 2 and the emergence of the anti-colonial United States and Soviet Union as the dominant world powers that forced Clement Attlee�s government into decolonising India. Even then, the trigger events in 1945-47 that demonstrated how the Indian people would not tolerate British rule for much longer, had to do with armed struggle rather than with non-violence: the naval mutiny of Indian troops and the ostentatious nationwide support for the officers of Subhas Bose�s Axis-collaborationist Indian National Army when they stood trial for treason in the Red Fort.

 

 

So, non-violence need not be written off as a Quixotic experiment, for it can be an appropriate and successful technique in particular circumstances; but it has its limitations. In many serious confrontations, it is simply better, and on balance more just as well as more bloodless, to observe an �economy of violence�: using a small amount of armed force, or even only the threat of armed force, in order to avoid a larger and bloodier armed confrontation. This is the principle of �peace through strength� followed by most modern governments with standing armies. It was applied, for example, in the containment of Communism: though relatively minor wars between Communist and anti-Communist forces were fought in several Third World countries, both the feared Communist world conquest and the equally feared World War 3 with its anticipated nuclear holocaust were averted.

 

 

One of the less well-known criteria for just warfare which deserves to be mentioned here in the light of Gandhi�s advice to the Hindus in Pakistan is that there should be a reasonable chance of success. No matter how just your cause, it is wrong to commit your community to a course of action that only promises to be suicidal. Of course, once a group of soldiers is trapped in a situation from which the only exit is an honourable death, fighting on may be the best course remaining, but whenever possible, such suicide should be avoided. This criterion is just as valid in non-armed as in armed struggle: it was wrong to make the Hindus stay among their Pakistani persecutors when this course of action had no chance of saving lives nor even of achieving certain political objectives.

 

 

As the Buddha, Aristotle, Confucius and other ethical guides already taught, virtue is a middle term between two extremes. In this case, we have to sail between the two extremes of blindness to human fellow-feeling and blindness to strategic ground realities. In between these two extremes, the mature and virtuous attitude is one which desires and maintains peace but is able and prepared to fight the aggressor.

[wez]

Hahahaha...

 

 

When you gonna storm your Governers mansion?

[hugo]

Hahahaha...

 

 

When you gonna storm your Governers mansion?

 

I already tried burning it down, Texas Governor's Mansion damaged by arson fire | U.S. | Reuters

 

http://www.shop.com/+-a-godse+nathuram-p64553447-g3-k36-st.shtml

[Guest sheik-yerbouti]

I think Ghandi was a nice guy. But a policy of non violence cannot work. The bully just comes on the stronger because he sees that he himself cannot come to harm in the encounter.

 

Just look at recent events in South Ossetia. Georgia thought it could get away with its policy of invasion and terrorism. When it saw a bigger and more determined foe than itself, they ran away.

 

Violence always brings about change. Wars are brought to an end only by participation in violence. I have yet to see pacifism bringing about change.

 

I did like some of Ghandi's sayings though. My favourite is : Poverty is the very worst form of violence. I like the way he widened the concept of violence.

[wez]

Well, that's just what the bully wants.. for you to give them a reason to pummel you. Like Palistinians fighting tanks with rocks and bottles. Perhaps the bully would have a harder time with cameras rolling going in and pummeling a large group of people holding hands, praying and refusing to fight with the entire world watching. Perhaps the other choice is a slow death, choked off from the necessities of life.. Either way, might = right according to the bully.

 

If you don't think Ghandi changed anything, you should look again.

[wez]

Well, that's just what the bully wants.. for you to give them a reason to pummel you. Like Palistinians fighting tanks with rocks and bottles. Perhaps the bully would have a harder time with cameras rolling going in and pummeling a large group of people holding hands, praying and refusing to fight with the entire world watching. Perhaps the other choice is a slow death, choked off from the necessities of life, nice and quiet without the prying eyes of the world watching.. Either way, might = right according to the bully.

 

If you don't think Ghandi changed anything, you should look again.

[wez]

It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence. ~Gandhi

 

 

Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary. ~Gandhi

 

 

 

 

 

 

[hugo]

A bully will always find a reason to pummel you...until ya beat the crap out of him.

[wez]

A bully will always find a reason to pummel you...until ya beat the crap out of him.

 

 

You know I love to beat the crap out of bullies teach.. with me mouth, better than with me fists.

[hugo]

A Moriori Lesson

A brief history of pacifism.

 

By Dave Kopel, Paul Gallant & Joanne D. Eisen

 

nce upon a time, there was a people called the Moriori. Of Polynesian descent, they are believed to be the first inhabitants of the Chatham Islands, a group of four main islands about 540 miles east of New Zealand.

 

Based on study of their language, skeletal remains, and artifacts, scholars have concluded that the Moriori shared a common ancestry with Maori tribes who first settled in New Zealand. The Moriori probably migrated from New Zealand to the Chatham Islands around the 13th or 14th centuries.

 

The Moriori brought with them a culture of violence and cannibalism. But their revered chieftain, Nunuku-whenua, became sickened by the endless combat he was witnessing. Nunuku jumped between two fighting forces, and ordered the fighting and savagery to stop. The stunned warriors pulled apart. According to Michael King's book Moriori: A People Rediscovered, Nunuku demanded: "Listen all! From now and forever, never again let there be war as this day has been! From today on forget the taste of human flesh!" Those who refused to honor Nunuku's decree would be cursed: "May your bowels rot the day you disobey."

 

And so, virtually overnight, a warring, violent culture changed to a culture of people who practiced what Mahatma Gandhi would later call "ahimsa," or non-violence. Most of us would recognize the Moriori philosophy as pacificism. As King noted, "The membrane of distance, which had protected the Chatham Islanders from contact with peoples who thought and behaved differently from themselves . . . allowed the uninterrupted evolution of their culture and the successful observance of Nunuku's law."

 

But the pacifist world of the Morioris would be tested to the limit when strangers began to arrive.

 

On November 27, 1791, 28-year-old British lieutenant William Robert Broughton, commander of the brig Chatham, sighted land where none was supposed to be. The Union Jack was planted in a ceremony that stole the Moriori land for King George III. The Europeans brought with them devastating disease, which killed 10-20 percent of the Morioris.

 

The Taranaki were one of the several Maori tribes of New Zealand; they were a not-so-peaceful people who did not live under Nukunu's prohibitions. They did know about the peaceful nature of the Moriori on the Chatham Island, and in 1835, the Taranaki Maori decided to migrate to the Chathams.

 

The Maori majority who stayed in New Zealand fought a long and often successful series of campaigns against the white invaders. Outnumbered by the whites, the New Zealand Maori invented a form of trench warfare, using timber and earthwork structures called pa. They Maori rapidly became expert in firearms and fought longer and more successfully than any other outnumbered indigenous group in the 19th century. It was only because of overwhelming white numerical superiority that the New Zealand Maori were finally defeated in the 1860s-and even then they won citizenship rights and designated seats in the parliament. In New Zealand, the readiness of the whites and the Maori to fight had resulted, after much bloodshed, in a political settlement whereby the majority was victorious, but some minority rights were established. While the gentle stone age Aborigines of Australia had been very quickly crushed and viciously subjugated, the fighting natives of New Zealand preserved a not-insubstantial degree of their rights.

 

Such was not the outcome in the Chatham Islands. Early in 1835, 400 Taranaki Maori sailed on the brig Rodney to the Chathams; 500 additional Maori arrived by the end of the year. Shortly after the last group disembarked, the Maoris began to take possession of the islands by their ceremony of "takahi," or "walking the land."

 

King describes the takeover: "Parties of warriors armed with muskets, clubs and tomahawks, led by their chiefs, walked through Moriori tribal territories and settlements without warning, permission or greeting. If the districts were wanted by the invaders, they curtly informed the inhabitants that their land had been taken and the Moriori living there were now vassals."

 

A council of Moriori elders was convened at the settlement called Te Awapatiki. Despite knowing of the Maori's predilection for killing and eating the conquered, and despite the admonition by some of the elder chiefs that the principle of Nunuku was not appropriate now, two chiefs ? Tapata and Torea ? declared that "the law of Nunuku was not a strategy for survival, to be varied as conditions changed; it was a moral imperative."

 

And so it was decided. There would be no resistance, no compromise with the principle of Nunuku. King continues: "Morioris were taken prisoners, the women and children were bound, and many of these, together with the men, were killed and eaten, so that the corpses lay scattered in the woods and over the plains. Those who were spared from death were herded like swine, and even killed from year to year."

 

King suggests that the Moriori decision not to fight back was a spur to Maori brutality, for Maoris confused Nunuku with cowardice, "and ? by implication ? worthlessness."

 

By 1862, only 101 Morioris out of an initial number of about 2,000 were left alive. The strategy "not designed for survival" led directly to the destruction of the Morioris. The Europeans watched the slaughter of Morioris by the Maoris, and did nothing to prevent it.

 

If Gandhi had known of the Moriori, he might have admired them: "To lay down one's life for what one considers to be right is the very core of satyagraha [resistance by non-violent means] . . . [in non-violence] the bravery consists in dying, not in killing," he said. But as King observes, "The Moriori had learned a tactical and philosophical truth that was to be articulated by other people from other cultures in the twentieth century: non-violence is an effective weapon only against an adversary who shares your conscience."

 

The last full-blooded Moriori, Tommy Solomon, died on March 19, 1933.

[wez]

Interesting.. but in this day and age, the lines between friend and enemy are quite blurred and the rules of engagment have changed.. I don't think Muslim people are trying to take over my country and I think the war on terror is bullsh t. I'm not worried about Iraq and Afganistan.. Never were.

 

 

Your governer aint no friend of the Constitution, America, or mine. Who do you think the bullies and your enemies are and what would you personally be prepared to do about it?

 

I guess I'm only willing to fight for what is fundamentally right for all people of the world, as well as for my countries Constitution, not for what can keep me stupid, fat and lazy.

 

Muslims have not shredded our Constitution.. our president and his buddies have.

[RoyalOrleans]

You know I love to beat the crap out of bullies teach.. with me mouth, better than with me fists.

 

Wez...

 

you fag.

[wez]

Wez...

 

you fag.

 

 

Hahaha.. hey man, where ya been?

[wez]

I guess it's always easy to be for violence when someone else, or someone elses kids are doing the dying.. Don't really matter what they're dying for either. No need to question.. we're in good hands of those who love us and our constitution.

 

Real men do their own dying ~ wez

[ImWithStupid]

Interesting.. but in this day and age, the lines between friend and enemy are quite blurred and the rules of engagment have changed.. I don't think Muslim people are trying to take over my country and I think the war on terror is bullsh t. I'm not worried about Iraq and Afganistan.. Never were.

 

 

Your governer aint no friend of the Constitution, America, or mine. Who do you think the bullies and your enemies are and what would you personally be prepared to do about it?

 

I guess I'm only willing to fight for what is fundamentally right for all people of the world, as well as for my countries Constitution, not for what can keep me stupid, fat and lazy.

 

Muslims have not shredded our Constitution.. our president and his buddies have.

 

Do something about it or move. I'm sick of the bitchin".

[Guest sheik-yerbouti]

I don't think Muslim people are trying to take over my country

 

Muslim people are a huge group with several sub groups, all thinking different things.

 

Fundamental Muslims do wish to establish a world order where Islam is compulsory . Other religions and Atheism are not to be tolerated. Fundamental Islam is the new communism.

 

They have already stated their objectives, just as Hitler openly stated his objectives

[wez]

Do something about it or move. I'm sick of the bitchin".

 

 

Already taken care of.. I'm gonna go buy a 750 square inch TV with a built in drool bucket and get a lobotomy on Wednesday..

 

But don't worry.. before then I'll edit all my posts with the slogans from the ministry of truth, or minitrue, in Newspeak...

 

 

WAR IS PEACE

 

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

 

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

 

 

Can you open all those locked posts too so I can erase my sins?

[wez]

Muslim people are a huge group with several sub groups, all thinking different things.

 

Fundamental Muslims do wish to establish a world order where Islam is compulsory . Other religions and Atheism are not to be tolerated. Fundamental Islam is the new communism.

 

They have already stated their objectives, just as Hitler openly stated his objectives

 

Well hell, lets scream the truth in some kids faces and give em a gun.. stop them evildoers dead in their tracks.

[ImWithStupid]

Already taken care of.. I'm gonna go buy a 750 square inch TV with a built in drool bucket and get a lobotomy on Wednesday..

 

But don't worry.. before then I'll edit all my posts with the slogans from the ministry of truth, or minitrue, in Newspeak...

 

 

WAR IS PEACE

 

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

 

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

 

 

Can you open all those locked posts too so I can erase my sins?

 

Did you decide on Canada or Mars?

[ImWithStupid]

Muslims have not shredded our Constitution.. our president and his buddies have.

 

Thank goodness the Prez has help every year when Congress goes into session. The Prez is sidestepping the limits of the Constitution on the right and Congress is taking away personal freedoms by way of an ever increasing "nanny state" on the left. Yeah!

[wez]

Did you decide on Canada or Mars?

 

 

Mars... still shopping for a tent.. I think I found one I can afford. 360 E-Z payments and that baby will be all mine..

[ImWithStupid]

Mars... still shopping for a tent.. I think I found one I can afford. 360 E-Z payments and that baby will be all mine..

 

Home Shopping Chanel or QVC?

[wez]

Home Shopping Chanel or QVC?

 

 

QVC... but bloody hell! I just got an email telling me I was denied since there's no jobs on Mars, thus, making me "not economically viable"..

 

 

Ever seen Fallling Down?

 

I'm close... hahahahahaha

[hugo]

Problems of Research into Adult/Child Sexual Interaction

by Eric Vern L. Bullough and Bonnie BulloughThe third example is a more modern holy man, Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi was married at age 13 to a girl about his own age and at age 37 took a vow of sexual abstinence. In spite of this vow, he found a need to fondle prepubescent and early adolescent girls. He took such girls to bed with him to overcome, he said, his "shivering fits" in the night. His female companions, who came from his inner circle ? all certified virgins or young brides ? entered his bed naked in order to warm him with their bodies. Some of them also administered enemas to him. Among the young girls, there was rivalry as to who would sleep with him, and one of his girl disciples reported that his bed companions had a difficult time in restraining their sexual impulses since he often rubbed against them and touched them in erotic places. Although his closemouthed house guardians were fearful of public reaction if news of these "pedophilic" sexual interactions were publicized, Gandhi continued to engage in them until his death. Gandhi did not have sexual intercourse with them, but obviously the touching and feeling were very important to him. If he had lived in the United States, he would have been sentenced as a child molester (Bullough, 1981).

 

Why is it most pacifists are also pervs?

[wez]

How did rape become a weapon of war?

By Laura Smith-Spark

BBC News

 

 

 

The UN has accused the Janjaweed militia in Sudan of using mass rape

Women's bodies have become part of the terrain of conflict, according to a new report by Amnesty International.

Rape and sexual abuse are not just a by-product of war but are used as a deliberate military strategy, it says.

 

The opportunistic rape and pillage of previous centuries has been replaced in modern conflict by rape used as an orchestrated combat tool.

 

And while Amnesty cites ongoing conflicts in Colombia, Iraq, Sudan, Chechnya, Nepal and Afghanistan, the use of rape as a weapon of war goes back much further.

 

 

Spoils of war?

 

From the systematic rape of women in Bosnia, to an estimated 200,000 women raped during the battle for Bangladeshi independence in 1971, to Japanese rapes during the 1937 occupation of Nanking - the past century offers too many examples.

 

So what motivates armed forces, whether state-backed troops or irregular militia, to attack civilian women and children?

 

Gita Sahgal, of Amnesty International, told the BBC News website it was a mistake to think such assaults were primarily about the age-old "spoils of war", or sexual gratification.

 

Rape is often used in ethnic conflicts as a way for attackers to perpetuate their social control and redraw ethnic boundaries, she said.

 

"Women are seen as the reproducers and carers of the community," she said.

 

Women were raped so they could give birth to a Serbian baby

 

Medecins Sans Frontieres report

 

"Therefore if one group wants to control another they often do it by impregnating women of the other community because they see it as a way of destroying the opposing community."

 

A report by Medecins Sans Frontieres says it first came across rape as a weapon in the 1990s.

 

"In Bosnia systematic rape was used as part of the strategy of ethnic cleansing," it said.

 

"Women were raped so they could give birth to a Serbian baby."

 

The same tactic was used in a "very strategic attack" by state-backed Pakistani troops during the fight for Bangladesh's independence in 1971, Ms Sahgal said.

 

 

Ex-"comfort women" in Korea hold a weekly rally demanding reparations

 

"They were saying 'we will make you breed Punjabi children'," she said, with the aim of weakening the integrity of the opposing ethnic group.

 

Amnesty this year accused the pro-government Janjaweed militias in Sudan's Darfur region of using mass rape in order to punish, humiliate and control non-Arab groups.

 

Such attacks cause women and children to flee their homes, lead to fragmentation of communities and bring the risk of infection with HIV/Aids.

 

Sexual violence is also used to destabilise communities and sow terror, Amnesty says in its Lives Blown Apart report.

 

In Colombia, rival groups rape, mutilate and kill women and girls in order to impose "punitive codes of conduct on entire towns and villages", so strengthening their control.

 

Act with impunity

 

The strategic use of rape in war is not a new phenomenon but only recently has it begun to be documented, chiefly in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Colombia and Sudan, said Ms Sahgal.

 

And even after conflicts are resolved, few countries seem willing to tackle what is often seen as a crime against individual women rather than a strategy of war.

 

In many nations the collapse of the rule of law leaves them unable to deal with allegations of rape, while in others women feel too exposed to stigma to accuse their attackers.

 

International courts have tackled some cases in Bosnia, where Muslim women were forced into sexual slavery in the town of Foca in the 1990s, and in Rwanda, but the vast majority of perpetrators act with impunity.

 

Women's lives and their bodies have been the unacknowledged casualties of war for too long

 

Amnesty's Lives Blown Apart report

 

Representatives of the 200,000 "comfort women" forcibly drafted into military sexual slavery by Japan from 1928 until the end of World War II are still fighting for restitution.

 

Far from colluding, women from Korea, China, Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia and East Timor were "severely coerced" into prostitution, says Ms Sahgal.

 

And whether a woman is raped at gunpoint or trafficked into sexual slavery by an occupying force, the sexual abuse will shape not just her own but her community's future for years to come.

 

"Survivors face emotional torment, psychological damage, physical injuries, disease, social ostracism and many other consequences that can devastate their lives," says Amnesty.

 

"Women's lives and their bodies have been the unacknowledged casualties of war for too long."

 

 

Why is it most non-pacifists are also rapists?