Adolf Hitler: hero or villain?

Only a statist could such a question.

A statist? Meh?- (as the kids say these days)

Firstly, Mao killed 50million people, not thousands and he did so as a communist.
That's twice the population of our nation - All Dead.
I respect that theres pro's and con's with every argument but not a lot to see here.
No disrespect to the Chinese.

What is this?
An attempt to drum up support for Hillary with her 'Chairman Mao' pantsuits?
Sorry, I don't care for communists or mass murderers.

As for Dastari, that smug little worm should be charged.
Anyone else who tries to NOT pay the government what's owed end up in jail.
Why is he any different? 1 rule for them another for everyone else.
This piece of toilet scum supports Muslims and Chinese over Australians in our country.
And he openly claims "I didn't want to pay it" so he sells our country out instead.
And he thinks he's smart and 'Australian' for 'taking the piss' out of Pauline Hanson with his pro-halal snack packs.
I bet it's not the first time he's done something shady.
Who else is involved in 'pay for play'?
What a lowlife sack of crap.

For that, your a traitor to the nation and should face a firing squad, along with anyone else that wants to pull some dirty scam ripping off Australian workers.

I told you all numerous times.
1. Build a prison for politicians for when they do the wrong thing.
2. Theres no such thing as democracy in our country.
- If they make the rules for us we should make the rules for them.

And I told you again and again that it wouldn't stop with free helicopter rides and when it happens again WE would all be to blame for doing nothing.
Well its not me anymore, it's just all of you.

The Chinese can do whatever they want in their own homes, but they can't expect to celebrate Mao openly on our streets. Sorry, this isn't China, no matter how much of it they purchase.

What a stupid question! Mao was a murdering mongrel. The people 'honouring' him in Australia are idiots who do not belong in a democracy. Their presence here is just another example of the stupidity of multiculturalism.

I just don't see a we here Peter, just a them! As for whether chinese folk from wherever want to do?

It remains a case of one man's freedom fighter is another's terrorist, and the victors in any conflict are the ones who write history?

In which case those who feel a historical or ethnic link can please themselves, on whether he Mao Zedong is hero or villain, or both!? I'm not bothered! It's freedom of speech and belief, isn't it?
Alan B.

Of course it is inappropriate, even inflammatory, within Australia's borders, to celebrate Mao's death in 1976.

He led a state that was Australia's enemy:

- Australians fought Mao's Chinese troops in Korea, 1950s.

- Australian's fought Mao inspired Chinese insurgents in Malaya, 1948-1960.

- from 1960s to 1972 Australians fought, Mao's China supported North Vietnamese troops and Communist Vietcong insurgents. Those Vietnamese were supported with Chinese weapons, training and advisors.

Even mainland Chinese have mixed feeling about Mao appalling human rights record, including the millions he killed. Mao believed a mega-death purge every 10-20 years cleansed Chinese society. So:

- In 1957, Mao launched the "Great Leap Forward" campaign that aimed to rapidly transform China's economy from an agrarian economy to an industrial one. The campaign contributed to a widespread famine, whose death toll is estimated at between 15 and 45 million Chinese. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_Zedong

- Mao's "Cultural Revolution" also killed millions and led to huge misery http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution#Struggle_sessions.2C_purges.2C_and_deaths

Chinese agents in Australia, be they in the ALP or elsewhere, have no reason to celebrate Mao, even if China is paying them.

A bit of hypocrisy popped up today on ABC NewsRadio. Big stink about a kid who dressed up as Adolf Hitler for a fancy dress competition (he was judged best dressed) but it's OK for a bunch of Chinese, who supposedly came here for our way of life, to celebrate a monster who actually murdered at least 50 million of them - Chinese people in their own country. I imagine that there would be other Chinese living in Australia who would be just as offended by clearly fascist Chinese celebrating Mao, as other Australians would be offended by a look-alike Hitler.

Personally, I am offended that our own elites allow such people to immigrate here, let alone allow them to laud one of the vilest monsters of modern times. The Hitler kid can be excused because of immaturity; he is not likely to do it again. The Chinese cannot be excused. I would like to say that MORE screening of prospective immigrants is needed, but I'm not sure that there has been ANY worthwhile screening in the past, or now. Our elites have not just decided that we should not be a majority in our own country, they are importing people who are totally opposed to our ways, and these people are not just Muslims.

Mao himself took official responsibility for 800,000 execution deaths under his rule, due to the civil war aftermath and social unrest.

However, much of the multi-multi-multi-million death figures are heavily anti-communist biased, mostly emanating from the US, and tend to rely on population extrapolations and anecdotal accounts by anti-communist exiles rather than actual records. For example, many of the anecdotally reported atrocities were committed by regional officials overdosing on their petty power fiefdoms (which also happened frequently under the Emperors) not on Mao's or official CCP orders.

By way of comparison, under the Emperors, brutal mass killings and grotesque tortures were the order of the day - especially during the Teiping and Boxer rebellions.

As for the Great Leap Forward famine, Mao also took responsibility for the lives lost, which he admitted was due to disastrous planning. However, this needs to be balanced against past famines - in fact, famine was endemic to China until the 1950s, but there hasn't been a famine since the GLF. Well over 100 million people starved in famines during the 19th century and about 10 million between 1900 and 1949.

Yet, according to Western propaganda, you'd think that famines only came to China under the communists.

Also, a little-known fact about the GLF is that China imported grain from Canada and Australia (about 6 million tons per year, from 1959 to 1962) and wanted to import many times more, but the US put pressure on both countries to limit their sales to China. So, one could also argue that the US administration murdered millions of Chinese people during the GLF.

For what it's worth. During his 40 years of rule Mao doubled China’s population, life-expectancy and calorie intake, and quadrupled its GDP and literacy. Chinese people the world over have a right to celebrate that if they so choose.

Sure Killarney

And your best mates, Stalin? Lenin? were misunderstood social workers..."It was zee Americans who forced them to sign the Kill-a-million-liquidation documents..."

Whats a million dead Chinese to you?

Mao started out as a hero and turned into a villain. Has anyone anywhere in the world ever been more corrupted by power than he was?

Killarney, Friday, 9 September 2016 8:47:00 PM.

From time immemorial, great movers and shakers have attracted the praise and odium of historians and commentators. Chinese history is one of dynastic decay and renewal. Such history is measured over a period many times longer than that of the upstart powers that exist today.

It behoves the current clutch of "China experts" to remember this when rushing to judgement with figures so easily at hand as Wikipedia's. This source is a prime example of presenting the victor's version in a consensus of views that are unlikely to be challenged by a majority of Western PC opinion. That view is equally unlikely to find favour with the Chinese or to harmonise with how the Chinese view themselves.

It is futile to deny the elephant in the room. How the Chinese see themselves in the 21st century has a millennia-long process of historical development.

Mao, like all great leaders, was a controversial figure, a mixture of visionary, ruthless messianic revolutionary and indefatigable political survivor in the mold of the creators of new dynasties through China's history each change accompanied by vast blood-letting and destruction. Some inter-regnums lasted hundreds of years but not often, each interval was a period of lawlessness, savagery and social chaos in which millions perished. The Taiping and Boxer rebellions and the civil war that followed the close of WW2 are the most recent examples. But possibly we might include Chiang kai-Shek's contribution......it is not inconsiderable. It is impossible to give a reliable figure for the number of deaths caused by foreign invasion. The Mongols and the Manchus might also vie for a place each at the grisley table.

We are indebted to Killarney for putting the picture better into focus. Mao's vision for his country has been vindicated and his own contribution is considerable. Very few national leaders accomplished so much in their life-time as he did. It is to pervert history not to remember that.

I should point out that attributing 50m deaths to Mao's particular actions and decisions has little support among reputable historians of China.

I don't think this is even the tip of the iceberg.

Anything we set up to stop foreign donations will be fine. Then the Chinese will work out how to get around it.

Some of the richest Chinese businessmen are already Australian citizens.

Poor Fellow, My Country!

The world's will be China's. Better face up to it now and teach our kids Mandarin.

http://www.smh.com.au/world/in-time-this-world-will-be-china's-business-anticipates-profound-power-shift-20160909-grcgas.html

So Pogi and Killarney

Are you two Australians who will celebrate Mao's death?

Let's see what all the Taiwanese do... to celebrate Mao's anniversary
Apparently theres a Taiwanese Festival today.
Interesting timing!

It seems that the 'celebrations' have been cancelled, mainly because of protests from Chinese Australians who know the truth about Mao the Muderer.

Nice post, Pogi.

Brutal wars of liberation from imperialism and/or revolutions against ancient tyrannies (almost always followed by equally brutal civil wars) are par for the course as countries develop and change within changing global patterns. It's always terrible for the ordinary people caught up in those changes.

Mao banned foot-binding in 1949 (even though the practice was largely gone by then), but he also ruthlessly destroyed Tibet. The Long March is also one of the great military successes of modern times.

He was both a hero and a bastard. It's unhelpful to purely focus on the bastard and ignore everything else about his life and achievements.

Should we allow various high-placed Australian spokes-people to spruik America's own ideas about its place in the world?

Sometimes The Truth Hurts. Get over it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhMQRFyBp0Y

"We need the US for defence, but we only need defence because of the US"
https://www.mup.com.au/items/136891

Buy it, Read it. It's True. Think clearly because he's right!
-

I don't like the Americans especially. But I don't want to abandon Australia to the Chinese. You can se just how much freedom they have over there. They stand in front of tanks and get mown down.

We only need defence because of the U.S? What utter rubbish! We need America's defence capability to defend the free world from people who hate us. If it were not America, even under the pathetic leftist, Obama, we would be over-run buy Muslims or the Chinese, and North Korea would be lobbing missiles where it would like to, not just where it can without stirring America, as it us now.

@Waverley, "But I don't want to abandon Australia to the Chinese."

There's no reason to.

re: "You can see just how much freedom they have over there."

People should stop believing (without checking) anything seen or heard on TV and out of the mouths of politicians and shills.

Do these people look like they're suffering and oppressed?
http://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/program/if-you-are-the-one

If 1,300 million people are not satisfied with the system they have all the power they need to change it.

The level of thinking and rhetoric about China these days borders on seriously delusional. imho Dastyari actually has it 100% right... it's 'politically correctness' a beat up over nothing.

Meanwhile Howard and Company totally screwed East Timor over "borders". What's the definition of a hypocrite?

The only reason anyone says a word is because WE are being threatened by the USA to kowtow to their madness and self-interests, again.

re: "They stand in front of tanks and get mown down."

Yes that has happened, but not last week. How many innocent people has the US mowed down the last 50 years, in and out of the USA?

Vietnam was 2 million dead, based on a lie. Afghanistan totally incompetent military and political leadership for over 11 years!
Iraq was a war crime and has killed like another half million mowed down for nothing.

The US cares about as much for others democracy and freedom as they do about their unemployed and the poor in their own nation - ziltch.

Kent State students shot dead, lynching for decades nothing done, and others MOWN down on the streets of US cities protesting (violent or not, it still happened). Where was their freedom?

We should treat those 1,300mln via their Government, with the respect and courtesy they deserve and be good honest partners ourselves.

The 1940s have long gone. The USA is a totally different nation now.

"When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?"
asked John Maynard Keynes

plantagenet, Saturday, 10 September 2016 11:30:42 AM

"So Pogi and Killarney
Are you two Australians who will celebrate Mao's death?"

I have never had any inclination to celebrate such events. I am an amateur historian who sees such questions as yours as rather trivial and/or irrelevant. I have an abiding interest in learning what comprises actual history, how it is recorded and presented and why it happens. I regard it as incumbent upon myself to be as well informed as my abilities allow and become a slightly better citizen than those who have little interest in understanding and who tend to form opinions dictated to them rather than thinking and researching for themselves.

George Santayana, a significant Spanish-born US philosopher wrote: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." No truer statement has ever been uttered by any philosopher living or dead. We see his dictum verified every day.

Almost paraphrasing Santayana is Albert Einstein when he observed: "The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them."

Great minds throughout history have striven to impart better ways to solve our pressing problems but too often it is the braying of asses we listen to.

Thanks Pogo

You're precious :)

Just stop your vigilance for a minute- the Chinese steamroller will run over you.

Then where will be our freedom of speech and freedom of the press?

China knows what to do with difficult people. The just seem to disappear.

Yes the Chinese Communist Party is really Worst Excesses of 19th Century Robber Baron Capitalism in style. The Party considers "disappearing" democracy advocates without trial as a legitimate role of The Party, The State.

Meanwhile the kids of old Comrades, through nepotism, are now the Billionaire Aristocracy.

Some reading http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/countries/asia-and-the-pacific/china

Poor Sam is in strife again. They seem to be finding some incriminating stuff on him. How long can he last?

Are communists nice people now?

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/sam-dastyari-praises-incredible-work-of-communist-party-mouthpiece-peoples-daily-20160912-gred5n.html

plantagenet. Monday 12 Sep 2016 4:09:23PM.

You're probably a nice fellow [I trust I have the gender correct] and would be able to sustain a reasonable conversation on some historical subjects, but please be assured that regurgitating "facts" about China whose source are the second and third generations of the "robber barons" that you execrate is, to be kind, seen as somewhat indiscriminate and arbitrary.

In the west we grew up with such opinions, listened to them on the radio, later read correspondents' reports in the daily newspapers and viewed selected video clips on TV. Without being conscious of it we were being inculcated with a victor's version of recent international affairs, of whom the victor approved and of whom he disapproved. It became habitual to see the world as the victors saw it or, at least, how the victors wanted the man and woman in the street to see it.

Yes, none of us like communism and would not choose to live the communist life. I certainly would not, But the anti-communist hysteria that followed WW2 and assailed our consciousness for some 35-40 years since made me increasingly suspicious. And confirmation came after several friends and relations in business and diplomatic circles now and again discussed some political hotspots of the time, among which China figured significantly.

I learned that that much-used admonition "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth" was not a well regarded tenet among news journalists, war correspondents, newspaper editors, politicians and film-makers. Like most of my contemporaries and friends, I wasn't "radicalised" as by an attack on any religious faith I may have but I was intensely resentful against those who treated us like gullible automatons.
Sometimes the capitalist view is wrong and sometimes deliberately so, simultaneously the opposition can be equally responsible for obfuscation and misrepresentation.

Histories are written by the victors but fortunately others write histories also. It is the "others", the opposition and the skeptics who live with the victors who receive much of my attention. In the end though any opinion I publish is my own.

Agree with some of the comments above.
When did communists become more or less OK? Why do we have to kneel down and give China whatever it wants? Which seems to be a lot, now it's turning from the South China Sea (so called) to Japan? God help little Australia.

Hi Pogi

Here's two things I have written on Chinese influence that were more serious than the Dastyari case:

- Embracing China involves risks for Australia http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=7324

- The fall of Fitzgibbon? http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=8745

As Defence Minister Fitzgibbon had access to Top Secrets, including many provided by the US.

Pete

Pogi

'Yes, none of us like communism and would not choose to live the communist life.'

That is very much a learned (brainwashed) belief in the West under capitalism, but it doesn't hold up to scrutiny.

I don't have any statisics for China, but there have been a few polls taken in Eastern Europe in recent years, which indicate otherwise.

In a 2013 survey by Russia’s Public Opinion Foundation, 59 percent of respondents believed there were more positive than negative aspects to communism.

A 2010 survey by Pew Research showed that a whopping 72% of Hungarians polled felt life was better under communism.

A 2010 IRES (Romanian Institute for Evaluation and Strategy) poll found 63% felt life was better under communism.

A 2013 Der Spiegel poll in what used to be East Germany found that 57% felt life was better before the fall of the Berlin Wall.

In the 'East German' poll, one 48-year-old man made the comment that 'it was not until after German reunification that I saw for the first time in my life homeless people, beggars, and impoverished people who fear for their survival'.

I have friends who grew up in Hungary, China and Yugoslavia and they have no really negative feelings about life under communism. They do acknowledge that there were some restrictions on freedom, but not enough to make them unhappy. They all generally feel that this was more than made up for by the fact that virtually everyone under communism had guaranteed jobs, a financial safety net and were generally better looked after.

Well there will always be some people who think communism is the best.
Having seen East Germany and Czechoslovakia under communism- I have my own views.
No doubt people said they were happy under Nazism and Japan's militarists
Sadly, it looked grim and grey and I could hardly find any food.

Beats me how Communism rules China and yet capitalists make heaps and come to Australia to buy up apartments everywhere I look.

Sydney lately is awash with Chinese ...the wave of the future?

Someone is making heaps out of it all......

Killarney

You get any collection of old people together and they'll talk about the Good Old Days. Rose coloured glasses.

Hence the days of Comrade Stalin or Mao are remembered fondly by weirdos.

They'll also predictably say the Young Are Not As Good/Tough/Fit As We Were.

In my day we trusted that churches were full of good people that you could trust with children.

Um, er, yes well....
Apparently Knox Grammar Headmaster has been found to lie - he knew about a number of cases of teachers abusing boys. The church and the school pretended it hadn't happened.

How many other cases?

And these people are going to preach at us about the sacred bonds of marriage, chastity, God, etc?

The good old days- yeah.

Peter,

Embracing China involves risks for Australia [05/05/2008] Peter Coates [Plantagenet].

The fall of Fitzgibbon? [31/03/2009] As above.

Thanks for directing me to your two treatises. I read them and a few of the comments with interest. It was somewhat disturbing to read how some posters so eagerly strive to demonstrate a deplorably meagre and superficial knowledge of East Asian and western Pacific history during the 20th century, a subject of abiding interest to me. Any historian worth his salt is fully aware that it was the communists who were the main assailants of the Japanese forces who occupied China. Chiang occupied himself committing rapine, pillage, torture and a multitude of other awful atrocities on his own people in southern China trying to rid himself of communists. He committed the same crimes on the native malay peoples who occupied much of Taiwan. Even the Americans were sickened by Chiang's ruthless occupation. He exemplified the worst in the warlord tradition. Only recently has the Taipei government issued a comprehensive apology to the descendants of the native inhabitants of Taiwan for the treatment they suffered under Chiang and his Kuomintang.

These events are not in dispute, but the problem is that they hardly ever become public knowledge because the victor writes the history and issues the communiques.
"The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth"? The best that can be said is that it's someone's truth.........just not everyone's.

Waverley, Tuesday, 13 September 2016 8:36:32 AM

"When did communists become more or less OK?"

Not so much OK, but not quite the dangerous overbearing big brother that capitalist powers threatened us with unless we razed village after village with napalm, poisoned thousands of acres of forests and agricultural land with chemical warfare weapons like agent orange and bombed the bejeezus out of bordering lands of peoples not involved in the conflict.

"When did communists become more or less OK?"

When people perceived that communism was not so much of a threat to our way of life, especially since the collapse of the Soviet Union and its progress toward a capitalist economy. But they are doing it from a perspective of history vastly different from other capitalist economies. We become suspicious and apprehensive when their view of their destiny differs from our view of their destiny and vice versa. This applies to the reunification of Germany to a large degree.

"When did communists become more or less OK?"

When it became apparent that communism was not quite so much conforming with the cartoon representation of a map of S.E.Asia with huge arrows pointing south to a vulnerable empty Australia, accompanied by some doom-laden headline about "yellow peril" or "red menace".

"When did communists become more or less OK?"

When the communist-governed nations of Vietnam, Kampuchea and Laos are pursuing capitalist development at every turn and pay lip service to communist doctrine.

"When did communists become more or less OK?"

When the world's policeman decided that the new bogeyman of a nuclear-armed Islam is a far greater threat than a nuclear-armed communist. Cont.......

Cont..........."Why do we have to kneel down and give China whatever it wants?"

By "we" do you mean the whole of humankind that is not Chinese or just Australians? Assuming the latter, I think you are becoming a little xenophobic. Just recently China was denied a large investment proposal [as was one from Vietnam and I must admit this was a bit of a surprise]. Your complaint is symptomatic of a latent fear that there are millions to our north who are prepared to work harder than we do, who will do whatever work is necessary, who have centuries-old traditions of working co-operatively, who are clever and innovative. It unsettles us that the prospect of an easy life to a government-funded pension is vulnerable to change more so now than at any time in our history. Tremendously costly hot warfare is becoming an anachronism. Economic power is accomplished with far less cost and with virtually no disruption to mercantile progress. It is only if we fall behind in the race for education that we should be afraid.

"...now it's turning from the South China Sea (so called) to Japan?"

There's an irony in that which the Japanese will appreciate to their chagrin. After the brutality, atrocity, slaughter, rapine and plunder they perpetrated now a rejuvenated and powerful China turns its attention to Japan, the old antagonist for 14 years [1931-45]. If anyone deserved a shared occupation of Japan with the USA it was China. But that's another story entirely, one that I would enjoy discussing with other interested parties should the opportunity present itself.

Killarney, Wednesday, 14 September 2016 12:29:00 AM

"'Yes, none of us like communism and would not choose to live the communist life.'

That is very much a learned (brainwashed) belief in the West under capitalism, but it doesn't hold up to scrutiny."

Touche Killarney, indeed my observation was held up to scrutiny and was found to be not only incorrect but dogmatic. But I'll not spend more than a few moments of regret and self-recrimination.

I have seen video news interviews with elderly Russian citizens who harken for the Golden Years of Stalinism. I'm pretty sure it was about the time that Boris Yeltsin was in contention for the premiership. A few elderly people spoke of the Stalin years. Your admonition brought back the memory.

Of course when we consider the polls you present [2010 to 2013] and those who effect a nostalgia for earlier regimes, it should be remembered that a substantial [but forever indefinite] number could well be counted among those caught up in the Gorbachev institutions of "perestroikha" [1986] and especially "glaznost" in 1988 and the subsequent throwing off of the communist yoke thus giving voice to nationalist aspirations among the various members of the union. The turmoil that followed involved bloody conflict and social upheaval that very few were ready for. It is not so surprising then that the experience aroused a cynical view of a largely unregulated market driven economy as opposed to the highly regulated one that could be relied upon, even if people had to wait hours in a queue for a few loaves of bread in some places.

For a great majority of those directly involved an almost mystical certainty was replaced by uncertainty. Supply and demand was driven by the personal profit motive and not by a state imposed work ethic.

I think legitimate questions may be raised as to the bias of many who voted. I firmly believe that their children will benefit well from the sacrifices of their parents

Interesting to see Pauline Hanson attacking Chinese buying up property and flashing money around....
Sometimes she makes sense.....

@Waverley: "Pauline Hanson attacking Chinese buying up property and flashing money around, Sometimes she makes sense"

It's an accident if that happens! LOL

IMO she is 100% wrong for attacking the Chinese. It's not their fault and they are not part of a grand conspiracy to take over our nation.

If Pauline had any sense and holistic awareness then she would not be attacking the Chinese but attacking the long term illogical lunacy of our 'political classes' be they IPA/Syd Institute sycophants, Howard fawning luminaries, or Saints Hawke/Keating prayer meetings.

Logic: 1+1 = 1+1 - Think about that for a moment before proceeding.

Can an Australian buy a farm, a house, investment rental property in Thailand, China etc in their own right? No.

Can an Australian company buy any Company they want in China etc? No.

Cultural values of Australia is based upon notions of "a fair go" and anti-class "egalitarianism".

Were Australia's political, finance and corporate 'class' in harmony with core Australian Values, then the solution to Pauline's hand-waving and blaming the wrong people would be simple and obvious to a new born!

But our Politicians are duplicitous, disingenuous. Repeatedly fail to tell Australians the 'truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.' (hat tip)

Like AGW/CC anti-scientific denialists - they revert to cherry-picking fallacies, half-truths, and passing on provable lies.

Why? Because they can get away with it, because their 'Class' - the same as Media power-broker's 'Class'.

The solution:

China, can Australians by land, farms, property, businesses in China?

China Govt A: No.

OK then, until that changes, no Chinese citizen or company can do the same in Australia. Our Laws will be a mirror reflection of your Laws.

China Govt A: Oh, OK. That makes sense and is reasonable. We respect that. Thanks for simplifying your rules so anyone can now understand them. Happy year of the Sheep.

Problem solved.

But only after Politicians are elected who use logic and common sense and who are not incompetent. Solving that is the job of The People, individually and collectively and no one else, ie YOU.
-

Dear Pogo

Thankyou for your 4 posts of 13-14 September which I understand constitute your Little Red Book.*

I must admit I didn't understand your 14th point! What were you trying to say man, woman or hermaphrodite?

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotations_from_Chairman_Mao_Tse-tung

plantagenet, Thursday, 15 September 2016 5:30:45 PM

"Thankyou for your 4 posts of 13-14 September which I understand constitute your Little Red Book.*
I must admit I didn't understand your 14th point! What were you trying to say man, woman or hermaphrodite?"

I confess I do not understand what you are implying or saying. Are you sure it's I that you need to address? I have re-read the posts of mine that you refer to and can find no numbered points, nor could I find some place where a necessary choice between "man, woman or hermaphrodite" is even remotely relevant.

I have nothing that could be seen as a Little Red Book. My posts addressed isses raised by contributors so they contained my opinion on those issues. I place great value upon the wisdom of intelligent people from the past whose words echo down the halls of time and which have underpinned much of what is noble and admirable in our societies, which, through science, have visited incalculable benefits upon citizens and our environment. I quote from the opinions of the past when I consider them helpful to a better understanding, are relevant and/or support my argument.

Very, Very few have ever been left in a quandary as to what I write or say. I cannot remember the last time I "tried" to say something and left doubt as to my meaning. I have encountered one or two occasions when my interlocutors did lack sufficient intellectual aparatus to understand what I wrote, but they suffered the pathology of religious faith and didn't matter anyway. [sniff!]

Dear Colonel Pogi

Hmmm! Are you sure?

Was not Mao's crowning Long March "achievement" but a myth?

see "Long March to mythology" http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/HJ24Ad01.htm

Pete

An old tale told in Germany and Holland:

"Anyone who isn't a communist at 20 has no heart.

Anyone who is a communist at 25 has no brain"