Dear Mitchell,

True believers of all stripes whether the belief is in religion, Marxism, astrology or something else try to explain things away. Marx does not mean what he says, and one who does not buy that is an obstinate fool. Many of the corpses were probably also obstinate fools.

Dear David F.

I don't believe there is likely to be a potent enough mechanism in any independent judiciary overseeing international moves to stop superpowers like the U.S. from waring on other countries.
Chomsky called the whole framework of international law "hot air".
The full quote from Michael Glennon continued to describe the impotence of international law as: "a convenient stance for one state able to adopt the new non-rules for its purposes, since it spends almost as much as the rest of the world combined on means of violence and is forging new and dangerous paths in developing means of destruction, over near unanimous world opposition."

Dear David F.

Just read your last post - I'm a bit confused as to why you believe Marx (or anybody) would write or say things that they do not mean?

Dear Poirot,

I think Marx said just what he meant to say in the Manifesto. I think true believers try to explain it away. That's what I made out of Mitchell's post. I was supposed to read something that would explain that Marx meant something else than what he said. I think Marx was a brilliant man who had a precise command of the language.

Marx recommended:

6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state.

That would make even printing presses in private hands illegal. I have no reason to think he didn't mean it.

Marx also recommended confiscation of the property of emigrants and rebels.

I have come to Australia from the US. The US has confiscated nothing and even sends my Social Security. Fortunately they don't follow Marx's recommendation.

Marx advocated tyranny and got tyranny.

True believers want to explain it away.

Dear Poirot,

I don't see any mechanism powerful enough to stop the depredations of a superpower, either. Any solution must get rid of national sovereignty, and I don't see how we are going to do that. The point I wish to make is that the US is acting in more or less the same way any superpower in that position would behave. The problem is not the United States. The problem is the nation state system which generates superpowers.

Dear David F.

I think "nation states" are something that derive instinctively from fundamental human behaviour. We have and will continue to organize ourselves into groups, nations, etc because we follow a holon-like method of arrangement - as does everything. There will always be a superpower of sorts (and when one degenerates, another will follow)
Man is brutish when it comes to territory and resources. He swerves from his enlightenment and reverts to aggression for gain.
Don't know the answer there.