Blast in Beirut, Lebanon - Page 3 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15111701
wat0n wrote:
It didn't even sound all that good while Marx himself was alive, but if you want to argue for presentism in this issue then I hope you will agree it's silly to use our contemporary moral standards when it comes to other people who lived centuries ago.



Okay.


wat0n wrote:
I second @Rugoz here. The mere participation in the financial sector is not hucksterism and ironically this conception of finance was a relic from Medieval Christianity. And we know this because, in practice, Marxist regimes did engage in financial dealings as well.



'Marxist regime' is a *contradiction in terms* because Marxism, according to the Communist Manifesto, calls for the *proletariat* to have a collective dictatorial-level command and control of society's productivity.

A 'regime' implies *nationalism* of some sort, which is certainly not what Marxism calls for.
#15111708
Some points:

Israel who has one of the best emergency recovery services in the world offered help, so far not accepted.
Hate an enemy so much, they let their people suffer and yet refuse an offer of assistance.

This was no nitrate explosion alone, prior to the main explosion you can see multiple small explosions like you would see of fireworks or munitions going off.

I hope death roll is as suggested and does not go higher, what an insane explosion.
#15111709
Oxymoron wrote:
Some points:

Israel who has one of the best emergency recovery services in the world offered help, so far not accepted.
Hate an enemy so much, they let their people suffer and yet refuse an offer of assistance.



Maybe such services would be *superfluous*, and obviously politically undesirable, given Israel's track record on 'humanitarianism', as regarding the Palestinians.


Oxymoron wrote:
This was no nitrate explosion alone, prior to the main explosion you can see multiple small explosions like you would see of fireworks or munitions going off.

I hope death roll is as suggested and does not go higher, what an insane explosion.
#15111711
@skinster @ckaihatsu

The crew who served on the USS Liberty are entitled to their own opinions and I respect their service to my nation. However, based on the evidence, I honestly and sincerely believe that Israel mistakenly attacked the USS Liberty believing it was an Egyptian ship. It was a tragic accident and entertaining conspiracy theories surrounding this accident is just stupid. Anyway, that is something that is a settled matter and I will no longer discuss or entertain conspiracy theories on.
#15111713
Oxymoron  wrote:you can see multiple small explosions like you would see of fireworks or munitions going off.

I saw that too and having seen ordnance cooking off, it looked like munitions to me, not fireworks.
#15111719
ckaihatsu wrote:Maybe such services would be *superfluous*, and obviously politically undesirable, given Israel's track record on 'humanitarianism', as regarding the Palestinians.



If human life is superfluous... then there are bigger issues. I think the Arab track record on dealing with the Palestinians is as "humanitarian" if not more so.
#15111720
Oxymoron wrote:
If human life is superfluous... then there are bigger issues.



*No one* suggested that human life is superfluous -- you're being hyperbolic.

I already noted that perhaps Israeli involvement, of *any* kind, in Lebanon's aid efforts to Beirut, would probably be a bad idea because of such involvement being politically *undesirable*.

There's already participation, anyway, from Russia, Iraq, and Iran, as noted earlier in the thread.


Oxymoron wrote:
I think the Arab track record on dealing with the Palestinians is as "humanitarian" if not more so.



Sources, please.
By wat0n
#15111721
ckaihatsu wrote:Okay.





'Marxist regime' is a *contradiction in terms* because Marxism, according to the Communist Manifesto, calls for the *proletariat* to have a collective dictatorial-level command and control of society's productivity.

A 'regime' implies *nationalism* of some sort, which is certainly not what Marxism calls for.


You are missing the point. Even Lenin realized finance was useful, and indeed was all for nationalizing the financial industry (specifically, banks) rather than simply eliminating it.
#15111723
wat0n wrote:
You are missing the point. Even Lenin realized finance was useful, and indeed was all for nationalizing the financial industry (specifically, banks) rather than simply eliminating it.



Here are the decrees that were enacted:



• All private property was nationalized by the government.

• All Russian banks were nationalized.

• Private bank accounts were expropriated.

• The properties of the Church (including bank accounts) were expropriated.

• All foreign debts were repudiated.

• Control of the factories was given to the soviets.

• Wages were fixed at higher rates than during the war, and a shorter, eight-hour working day was introduced.



That said, the interference of the Whites and Western Allies counterrevolution put tremendous economic pressure on the nascent revolution, and Lenin had to *backtrack* on many of these revolutionary measures, with War Communism and then the New Economic Policy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_in ... _Civil_War

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_communism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Economic_Policy


Also:



Not all private property was nationalized by the government in the days, weeks, and months that followed the revolution of 25 October. The government of the Bolshevik party and Left SR did not support the workers taking over large corporations and collectively organizing the economy. As chairman of the government, Lenin negotiated with factions of the upper bourgeoisie, so that the bourgeoisie would manage the corporations according to orders from the new government. This failed utterly, because it presupposed the masses would accept class cooperation in a revolutionary situation. In this context, the Bolshevik party understood "workers' control" as checking and supervision by the employees to ensure that orders from the government were followed. Some factories continued in private hands because the masses either had no managerial competence or they hesitated to support the Bolshevik party. Other factories were taken over by the employees and some by the government, after pressure from below or by governmental initiative. There was a lack of class consciousness of the masses who put their hands in an authoritarian political party. Only a minority of the working-class population fought to establish a democratic rule over the main capitalist factories.[citation needed]

Dictatorial approach

The Bolshevik party opposed the masses ruling the economy from below as it opposed political institutions being ruled from below. Through democratic elections to the soviets in autumn 1917, the Bolshevik party built its power to control the trade unions which became state institutions. Later the same year, the factory committees were subordinated to the trade unions. From this base it was not difficult to establish one-man-rule over the factories. One administrative and one technical manager had daily control, the technical manager having the last word relating to the economy, independent of what the employees wanted, based on orders from higher ups in the state. The system of one-man-management was fiercely defended by Lenin at a trade union congress in spring 1918, where he said that if the party is not in charge the whole point of a party ceased to exist and thereby the revolution itself would cease.[citation needed]

A system of appointment from above was established step by step. Local soviets resisting this policy were either met with armed Cheka troops and forced to submit, or the soviets were denied access to ration cards for food and fuel. The Bolshevik party blocked democratic elections to the soviets, factory committees, the trade unions, and other institutions, which made this transfer of power easier.[citation needed]



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_Revolution
#15111750
Rugoz wrote:
"petty financial dealing"? What does that even mean :roll:

Finance plays an important role in an economy, no matter what Marxists think about it.



ckaihatsu wrote:
Think 'petty bourgeoisie' here -- small shopkeepers, with a modest investment of capital, just for the store (of handicrafts, or whatever), within the *far larger* context of (white-supremacist-type) *corporate* capital, based on *industrial* mass production, and all of the vast profits from such.



CORRECTION:

Sorry, I mischaracterized the groupings -- while demographically social minorities may be petty-bourgeois, the petty bourgeoisie tends to be the group / demographic that's more prone to fascism since they're 'squeezed' between the demands / pricing of the big capitalists (their suppliers), and the demands of those they employ, the workers, for higher wages.

The *haute* bourgeoisie tends to be the rich, corporate types -- vested Democrats, basically -- who will relent on more-progressive social policies (civil rights, etc.), but will be resolutely nationalist and imperialist since they're functionally corporatist.

This is all from recollection -- I'd be willing to go and dig up some sources if anyone requests it.
#15111772
No doubt, the ammonium nitrate detonation was an accident as nobody would be mad enough to set off 2,750 tons of the stuff on purpose to make a point they've made many times before.

Oxymoron wrote:munitions

It's the multiple small explosions on the ship (?) or in the warehouse next door, seen before the chemical exploded, that bother me. From the distance the video was taken, they appear too big to be your standard pyrotechnic. Of course, it is possible the Lebanese (like the Maltese, see below) are into those ridiculously large petards that set off car alarms and shatter windows.

Last edited by ingliz on 06 Aug 2020 13:32, edited 1 time in total.
#15111774
...now it’s something about a troubled Russian ship stranded in Lebanon. Can someone just sum it up for me...I’m tired of reading for one day *wipes sweat off brow*
Last edited by ness31 on 06 Aug 2020 11:27, edited 1 time in total.
#15111775
ness31 wrote:a troubled Russian ship stranded in Lebanon.

The Moldovan flagged 'Rhosus' was carrying a cargo of fertiliser to Mozambique. It had technical problems and had to put into Beirut for repairs. The cargo was offloaded and not put back. No idea what happened to the ship.
#15111776
ingliz wrote:No idea what happened to the ship.


Apparently it sunk :| https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/05/worl ... -ship.html

I dunno, this is a tricky one to read. On face value it was mismanagement due to garden variety corruption. On the other hand it could be willful mismanagement due to organized crime, which could also be (without wanting to sound cliche) :roll: terror related. Is there a difference? I don’t know :hmm:

Edit- 6 years it sat there without incident. Does that substance become more volatile as it degrades? You kind of need to know a bit about it’s composition to see how volatile it is and what triggered it. God, I hope it wasn’t a cigarette butt :eek:

6 years folks.

Edited again - if the death toll stays low, I will assume it was a controlled detonation :|
By Rich
#15111778
wat0n wrote:Could it be that the oldest hatred is, in fact, deeply embedded in Marxist politics from the beginning?

The oldest hatred is the hatred of the Jews for the Gentiles. This goes back to the genocide of the Canaanites. People tend to object to being genocided. Blaming the Gentiles for their historic antipathy towards Jews is like blaming the Blacks of the Haiti revolution or the Nat Turner for their antipathy towards racial-Europeans people. At certain stage in their history Jews policy of genocidal expansion was no longer possible. But Jews took their extreme racist attitudes into the diaspora.

Jews historically operated a form of Apartheid in the exact same way that Southern American racists practised Apartheid when forced to give up slavery. Jewish supremacists and Cultural Marxists are trying to gas light us into thinking that Jews separation was some sort of accidental by product of their religiosity, when the whole point of the strict religious laws is to create separation and stop tribal / racial mixing.

During the Middle Ages ruling elites often used Jews as middle men, because of their racist contempt for ordinary poor gentiles and the fact that the Jews were not a threat to usurp them. Everyone else had no choice in their religious beliefs. Jews were privileged in Medieval Europe in being able to choose their religious beliefs. Its hardly surprising that ordinary people felt resentment towards Jews. People whine on about the unfair treatment of the Jews in the Middle Ages. Yeah right! :roll: Try practising Odinism or Wicca in Middle Ages Europe and see how long you last. Christian Europe was a totalitarian regime where even the King didn't have the human right to freely choose his religion.

And then there's the whining about Jews' treatment in the Roman Empire. Jews were privileged in the Roman Empire being exempted from the normal requirements of Emperor worship. The whole religion of Christianity is founded on the attempt by Christians to claim the privileges given by the Roman authorites to the Jews. When the Jews rose up, they were brutally put down. Yeah and so, I don't remember the Romans offering much in the way of human rights to the Carthaginians or the Gauls. The Romans gave exactly the same brutal treatment to Gentile uprisings. Yet Jewish supremacists whine on about their treatment in past times as if they are the innocents of history.
#15111782
ness31 wrote:Does that substance become more volatile as it degrades?

"Ammonium nitrate is hygroscopic and forms a hard crust when it absorbs water. It degrades in storage with an exothermic reaction, so heat is produced. If the ammonium nitrate ignites, [it is often set off by an initial fire], and the hard crust confines it, then the burn wave can transition to a detonation by a process known as deflagration to detonation transition."

— Prof Andrea Sella, Professor of Inorganic Chemistry, UCL
#15111784
ingliz wrote:"Ammonium nitrate is hygroscopic and forms a hard crust when it absorbs water. It degrades in storage with an exothermic reaction, so heat is produced. If the ammonium nitrate ignites, [it is often set off by an initial fire], and the hard crust confines it, then the burn wave can transition to a detonation by a process known as deflagration to detonation transition."

— Prof Andrea Sella, Professor of Inorganic Chemistry, UCL


Fuck me, you’re awesome ingliz :lol:

Edit - so yeah...what caused the fire?

I wonder if it was stored shoddily?

Don’t expect you to answer that Ingliz, but you are very good at recon :lol:
#15111795
Just musing...

But another thing I found odd was that none of the 'fireworks' had lifting charges. Usually, when a fireworks warehouse goes up, there's shit flying everywhere.

It's very strange.
#15111811
ckaihatsu wrote:*No one* suggested that human life is superfluous -- you're being hyperbolic.

I already noted that perhaps Israeli involvement, of *any* kind, in Lebanon's aid efforts to Beirut, would probably be a bad idea because of such involvement being politically *undesirable*.

There's already participation, anyway, from Russia, Iraq, and Iran, as noted earlier in the thread.





Sources, please.


Participation by countries that couldn't rescue a cat from a tree :lol:

Without citizenship, Palestinians in Lebanon do not have Lebanese identity cards, which also entitles the holder to health, education and other government services. To receive health, education and other social services, Palestinian refugees are obligated to live in the twelve refugee camps in Lebanon set up by UNRWA. According to Human Rights Watch, Palestinian refugees in Lebanon live in "appalling social and economic conditions." Non-citizen Palestinians are also legally barred from owning property and barred from entering a list of desirable occupations.[6]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestini ... ccupations.


On 8 January 2015, Egypt's expansion resulted in the destruction of about 1,220 homes,[22] while destroying more than 1,600 tunnels.[23] Some tunnels discovered ranged over 1 kilometer long and contained lighting, ventilation and phone systems.[24] The total cost of this phase of the buffer zone is expected to cost $70 million.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza%E2%80%93Egypt_border

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