Zambian miners rise up, kill Chinese mine owner

[Vosem]

Obviously it's wrong to murder a human being, though it's hard to not sympathize with the miners.

I succeeded. Obviously a minimum wage is a key part of the sort of thing governments should do, and it should be enforced, but the very idea of strikers killing businessmen leaves a horrible taste in my mouth. Thankfully in the country where I live this sort of thing doesn't happen.

You really are completely and across the board in favor of established interests and power, aren't you?

Being opposed to the murder in cold blood of businessmen isn't to do with being in favour of established interests and power.

I'm opposed to it because it's people killing people. Vosem seems to care an inordinate amount about the positions of the people in question.

Who an angry mob kills is very significant when it comes to understanding the situation and what happens next, Nathan.

[opebo]

Who an angry mob kills is very significant when it comes to understanding the situation and what happens next, Nathan.

Precisely, which is why some of us applaud this as a possible first sign of some kind of government-changing event or process.  If not an immediate revolution, perhaps some other chaos - an 'Arab-spring' style civil war, or riots leading to a coup.. anything is better than the status-quo of utter and total capitalist domination.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Obviously it's wrong to murder a human being, though it's hard to not sympathize with the miners.

I succeeded. Obviously a minimum wage is a key part of the sort of thing governments should do, and it should be enforced, but the very idea of strikers killing businessmen leaves a horrible taste in my mouth. Thankfully in the country where I live this sort of thing doesn't happen.

You really are completely and across the board in favor of established interests and power, aren't you?

Being opposed to the murder in cold blood of businessmen isn't to do with being in favour of established interests and power.

I'm opposed to it because it's people killing people. Vosem seems to care an inordinate amount about the positions of the people in question.

Who an angry mob kills is very significant when it comes to understanding the situation and what happens next, Nathan.

I know that, but I still think that the fact that an angry mob is killing people at all should be the main focal point for any emotional reaction, Vosem.

Although to be quite frank, in the political context of Zambia it's hard to feel as revolted as I intellectually and morally know I should be.

[Vosem]

Who an angry mob kills is very significant when it comes to understanding the situation and what happens next, Nathan.

Precisely, which is why some of us applaud this as a possible first sign of some kind of government-changing event or process.  If not an immediate revolution, perhaps some other chaos - an 'Arab-spring' style civil war, or riots leading to a coup.. anything is better than the status-quo of utter and total capitalist domination.

With all hope such a process does not begin, and if it does that the capitalists ultimately win.

[ingemann]

Obviously it's wrong to murder a human being, though it's hard to not sympathize with the miners.

I succeeded. Obviously a minimum wage is a key part of the sort of thing governments should do, and it should be enforced, but the very idea of strikers killing businessmen leaves a horrible taste in my mouth. Thankfully in the country where I live this sort of thing doesn't happen.

You really are completely and across the board in favor of established interests and power, aren't you?

Being opposed to the murder in cold blood of businessmen isn't to do with being in favour of established interests and power.

I'm opposed to it because it's people killing people. Vosem seems to care an inordinate amount about the positions of the people in question.

Who an angry mob kills is very significant when it comes to understanding the situation and what happens next, Nathan.

We have a mine where the managers have a history of shooting their employees (and getting away with it), and we should somehow feel bad for the managers when their work force rise up in protest over the mine breaking the contract with the emploees and kill one of them semi-accidental (if they were serious the other manager hadn't survived). I don't care for mob rule, but the workers wasn't left with any alternatives here.

[Gustaf]

You're not one of the slaves, and I thought one reason you liked the place was that you didn't have to pay as much.

Well, compared to the price of other things, and normal salaries, working girls are much more expensive here - say $35 baht for a high-quality 1-3 hours, compared to a normal working-class wage of about $10/day.  In the US you'd pay $200 for the same service, and a normal working class wage is nearly $100/day. 

Heheh, you mean I should rise up against the ladies I pay out loads of money to each month?

So, when you're paying people for their work they're exploiting you but in all other instances when someone gets paid it's the people getting paid who are exploited?

It was a joke, buddy.  The serious implication is, of course, that in terms of repeat visits this kind of thing becomes a rather personal relationship..  Just like the case of gold-digging wives in the US, it isn't always so clear who is exploiting who or who has the 'power'.   

But do you do repeat visists with all of them? I'm sure that's only a part of the industry.

Regardless, it's not obvious to me that the personal nature is exclusive to the sex industry, nor that it necessarily implies that you're being exploited. I just find it amusing how your standard principle suddenly reverses so conveniently when it comes to your own life.

[opebo]

But do you do repeat visists with all of them? I'm sure that's only a part of the industry.

Of course.  Nor was I intending to cover 'every case'  in my comments.

Regardless, it's not obvious to me that the personal nature is exclusive to the sex industry, nor that it necessarily implies that you're being exploited. I just find it amusing how your standard principle suddenly reverses so conveniently when it comes to your own life.

No, its really more of a matter of not being too much of an ideologue - in the same way I don't get too serious about the exploitation done by very small scale 'private business', as I see all around me here in Thailand.  Nor, after all, have I ever offered either a plan for a society without exploitation, or proposed eschewing it personally.