Atrocities? Which atrocities? When a Turkish writer uses that word, everyone in Turkey knows what he is talking about, even if they deny it vehemently. But most British people will stare at you blankly. So let me give you two examples, both of which are as well documented as the Armenian genocide.
In his book Late Victorian Holocausts, published in 2001, Mike Davis tells the story of the famines which killed between 12 and 29 million Indians(1). These people were, he demonstrates, murdered by British state policy.
When an El Nino drought destituted the farmers of the Deccan plateau in 1876 there was a net surplus of rice and wheat in India. But the viceroy, Lord Lytton, insisted that nothing should prevent its export to England. In 1877 and 1878, at height of the famine, grain merchants exported a record 6.4 million hundredweight of wheat. As the peasants began to starve, government officials were ordered to discourage relief works in every possible way(2). The Anti-Charitable Contributions Act of 1877 prohibited at the pain of imprisonment private relief donations that potentially interfered with the market fixing of grain prices. The only relief permitted in most districts was hard labour, from which anyone in an advanced state of starvation was turned away. Within the labour camps, the workers were given less food than the inmates of Buchenwald. In 1877, monthly mortality in the camps equated to an annual death rate of 94%.
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2005/12/27/how-britain-denies-its-holocausts/
[Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on February 19, 2006]
Note: http://www.monbiot.com/...

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"A Liberal is someone who refuses to take his own side in a fight".
-Robert Frost
That old bible has a lot of death to answer for.
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Good government is not a party government
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If I stand for my country today...will my country be here to stand for me tomorrow?
I can remember how I was taught that one needed the church to survive, but I could never figure out why so many children were abused so and why the native community were even abused more so than we little whit kids. But never the lees Catherine I remember the abuse administered by the hand on the nun who used that 18 inch leather strap, and did so , because a kind was left handed.
I can remember the priest who took advantage of my young friend and how that friend lives to vday with the scars of that sexual abuse, done according to that priest because GOD said it had to be done.
I look at political parties much in the same way, both are used to justify the abuse of people. I have chosen to no longer put my trust in the religous belief that the bible is the word of God. I see no good that come out of religion or political parties, both are self serving organizations.
One would think that honesty, ethics and moral might be something we look for and one would think that after all of the corruption in politics and the sins committed in the name of religion, people would wake up.
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Good government is not a party government
Those who use religion as an excuse for their sins or crimes, are simply users, needing something to blame so they don't have to take responsibility for their actions. Same with political parties, the party doesn't commit the act, the person does, and it is the person that needs to be held accountable.
Its time to stop the blame game and start being responsible and holding people accounatable for their actions, not holding out one excuse or another. If you got rid of religion and political parties you would not rid the world of corruption, greed or war. There are plenty of examples of horrific things done to innocent people without religion or politics being involved.
Let's talk about real solutions instead of constantly looking at something to blame.
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If I stand for my country today...will my country be here to stand for me tomorrow?
Mother Teresa as we know her now was the myth created in 1969 by Malcolm Muggeridge:
Was opposed to birth control
Said she wanted to open a 'special jail' for doctors who performed abortions (what would happen in these 'special jails', only she would know)
Endorsed Sanjay Gandhi's pogrom of forced sterilisation of the poor (slumdwellers, including those who never married)
ignored numerous other human rights abuses, sudden disappearances, perpetrated by Sanjay Gandhi and his goons
Tried to stop the abortions by women victimised by Pakistani soldiers in Bangladesh
Advised a 14-year old rape victim to keep the baby
"I say, forgive" - uttered to the Bhopal gas tragedy survivors
her organisation did only token work during disasters
while ignoring major catastrophes like Latur earthquake, Uttarkashi earthquake
Accepted the Legion d'Honneur from Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier, the worst dictator of Haiti
Went to Albania to pay respects to Enver Hoxha, cunning, ruthless and fanatical, and one of the most repressive rulers of the 20th century
Accepted more than a million US dollars from Charles Keating who caused more than 21 000 old investors to lose their life savings worth US$ 285 million; a conservative catholic.
Accepted money worth hundreds of millions of pounds from Robert Maxwell who embezzled it from his employees' pension funds; an orthodox jew
Refused to return these money when requested back by the authorities
has hundreds of millions of US Dollars parked in banks worldwide, collected in the name of charity but not used for it
Still appealed for charities when the money collected is not being used
Created "Houses of the Dying", not hospitals or clinics as widely believed, where poor people and lepers could go to die (was that her way of saying, go to hell?)
Was exorcised while hospitalised in a wealthy hospital in Calcutta
Quoted as wishing to finish her life in a "House of the Dying" like the poor people attended to by her organisation
Actually died in her luxurious bedroom surrounded by modern cardiac machinery
The 'exemplary, un-paralleled charity work' by her MoC; a myth, propagated by herself; seemed to have ended with her death.
stopped denying the Jewish Holocaust, after many years of
proclaiming that Hitler had no part in the "Final Solution," and that
it was all greatly exaggerated.
I've heard another acclaimed historian, Martin Gilbert,
acknowledge Irving as a fine historian who "went wrong" at a
certain point in his life. True enough, but what a lot of harm Irving
did to the history of Jews, homosexuals, Gypsies, and all whose
lives were destroyed by authority of the German state.
Now, Irving says, he has had the opportunity to read certain other
historic papers documenting the names and numbers of the
victims exterminated in the Nazi concentration camps. He now
admits he was mistaken. And that the Holocaust did occur, taking
the lives of approx. 6 million innocent men, women, and children.
How on earth can we rationalize these things?
ALL organized religion is a way to control people.ALL countries have engaged in murder and genocide in their past at some point,some continue today.
BUT.By looking for someone to blame,or putting the blame on someone,the RESPONSIBILITY of getting involved to help solve problems is REMOVED.The public blames the pols for everything,yet who do they vote for?Stockwell Day,Harper,or they don't vote at all.Then they bitch that everything is wrong.Had they voted for CAP,Green,DD,Independent,the loonie bunch in there now would be on the street.We could be solving problems.The sad reality is people don't want to have any say in government.That means being responsible.Something the average citizen does not want to do.Better to go shopping.
How sad.
I am thinking of the Emerson situation, the people are outraged and he says 'ya but the system is flawed and we will change it for next time, or well I am not the sharpest political knife in the drawer...gosh, just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.'
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If I stand for my country today...will my country be here to stand for me tomorrow?
Here we have a new Prime Ministers and a religious one at that and what did he do right out of the gate? Well he lied and then he went against this thing we are led to believe in called democracy and the democratic right of the people.
He requested David Emerson go against the will of those Liberal , party believers to cross the floor and he appointed a Quebec not elected lawyer to be the head of Public Works and he sent him to the Senate.
Is this how as you say Catherine "Taking responsibility for our actions and not accepting lame excuses for someone elses actions or blaming someone or something will be a great first step towards real solutions."?
Who is listening to the will of the people? No one! Who cares ? No one . Political parties and the legal community have but almost destroyed the democratic process and those who belong to these parties at the grass roots level are to weak to correct and clean out their own parties.WHY? When will you guys instead of talking about it..do it?
This is why I and many people have decided to get away from political parties, they are controlled by money and power, they will never change.
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Good government is not a party government
The worst part was how the nazis used huge manpower and energy to kill more and more till the last minute, when everything was collapsing around their necks. When we were dug in on the dike of the Bober, now Bobr river in Silezia, now in Poland, defending the bridge of the Breslau, now Wroclav - Berlin autobahn, waiting for the Russians to arrive, we saw long columns in the distance, in the nights, marching West. We thought they were refugees.
I found out not too many years ago, that they were KZ camp inmates being taken into Germany. I woman wrote to me about her uncle who was one of them, marching right across Sudetenland and way down to Austria, to the Ebensee KZ camp, where he died.
By coincidence, we followed their footsteps and the end of the war caught us in that neighbourhood. We saw the inmates as they were spreading over the countryside, as the gates of the camp were opened. 2-3 days later, when I was taken to a German military hospital with my badly infected ankle, and was in the delousing bath, US trucks were bringing the Ebensee inmates who couldn't walk, to all the neighbouring hospitals. =The country was full of them in every hotel and school, also for delousing and baths.
I'll never forget the sight. I only weighed 47 kg. but the way those victims looked was horrible. I only wish the deniers could have seen them. And Ebensee wasn't a death, but a working camp, digging vast caves in the mountainside, to build the V3 and V4 rockets the nazis hoped could hit America.
Ed Deak, Big Lake. BC.
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Good government is not a party government
You have become a whiney annoyance off on the sidelines offering little else but offence.
You have been asked repeatedly, What have YOU got?
Your logic is non existent, as can be seen by your replies, so rather than solution you rely on repetition and have now included only more of all you have: attack
The following paragraph is particularly telling, Coady
Who is listening to the will of the people? No one! Who cares ? No one . Political parties and the legal community have but almost destroyed the democratic process and those who belong to these parties at the grass roots level are to weak to correct and clean out their own parties.WHY? When will you guys instead of talking about it..do it?
What will?
Which people?
By answering your own questions you have further offended those who are working.
Where are YOUR solutions?
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People are more violently opposed to fur than leather because it's safer to harass rich women than motorcycle gangs.
Alexei Sayle
My solution, is not to support the party system.. you disagree. I say cut off their funding.. you disagree... I say stop working for political parties..you disagree.
I say revisit the political structure and look at things like PR.. you disagree. Look at re-call...you disagree. I say we should work towards a consensus style political system... you disagee. I say elect judges..you disagree.
Now that I have for the 100th time put forth my solutions, WHAT ARE YOURS ?
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Good government is not a party government