Tim,
You most certainly did NOT understand the piece correctly the first time.
You treated it as an anti-semitic comment, and then later admitted that you
had missed the phrase "trumped up" in reference to the protocols of Zion.
In now calling it the "poor little persecuted billionaires" retard's
debate, you are showing that you still miss the point of Ed's comparison. Ed
was concerned that some very ordinary non-rich people were having their shop
windows broken and being labeled as evil capitalists. I don't entirely agree
with Ed's comparison, but he has a valid point: that revolutionaries with a
rigid ideology often end up persecuting a lot of the people they should be
helping, e.g., the kulak peasant farmers in the Soviet Union.
If we take a formal definition of capitalist as someone who invests his own
money in tools and equipment for the purpose of making more money, then it
covers not only Bill Gates but some very ordinary, even some very poor
people.
My wife is technically a capitalist. Five years ago she took out a $60,000
mortgage to build a horse barn and she owns 12 horses with a total value of
about $25,000. We take in six horses for board, and she offers riding
lessons on our own horses. The only problem is that so far the expenses
considerably exceed the revenues. She is forever taking money from her
elementary school teacher's salary to buy hay for the horses. We think that
the stable should begin to show a small profit three years hence after the
mortgage is paid off.
Living in rural Simcoe County, I've employed plumbers who are technically
capitalists. They own a battered old van and a large number of tools. They
buy plumbing supplies and charge the customer a markup on the ones they
install. Judging from their lifestyle, I would say that they make about the
same income as an ordinary working stiff factory labourer like me--about
$25,000 to $35,000 annually.
And how about the single mom I met five years ago? She had just got herself
off welfare by making and selling dolls. She bought her parts at craft
shops, sewed them together in original designs and sold them at a markup.
She was totally thrilled when she discovered that the garbage at my factory
included dozens of small plastic dust caps which substituted admirably for
one of the doll parts, thereby saving her 50 cents per unit. Now there's a
capitalist for you!
So, Tim, the fact is, you have trouble understanding plain prose let alone
something with a smidgin of irony like Ed's posting. I don't know what you'd
make of real thoroughgoing irony. I suppose if you had lived in the 18th
century, you would have tried to get the Very Reverend Jonathan Swift
charged with cannibalism ("A Modest Proposal") and blasphemy ("An argument
against abolishing Christianity").
Personally I find the idea of you setting yourself up as a Commissar of
Coherent Thought quite chilling.
Victor Milne
----- Original Message -----
From: Tim Rourke <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: December 11, 1999 1:04 AM
Subject: Aw, jeez...
> ...they've managed to drag me back into the "poor little persecuted
> billionaires" retard's debate.
>
> I have read over the piece that I commented on in the first place,
several
> times, very carefully. I understood it correctly the first time and every
> time I reread it it gets more offensive. You'll notice that when some fool
> says something really ridiculous and gets challenged on it, he or she
> tries to get out of it by saying it was intended to be 'ironic.' They
> wouldn't know irony if it bit them. What this piece is, is false
> association.
>
> At least an idiot with access to the internet isn't as dangerous as an
> idiot with access to a car, but unmoderated e-mail lists are still pretty
> scarey things. They are something like first year university philosophy
> classes.
>
> As I have said before, free speech is for those who are capable of
thinking
> coherently.
>
> Tim R.
>
>
>
