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Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Keith Locke on Safe Socialist Nuclear Power

As tomorrow is the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, I thought it might be the time to resurrect one of Marxist Green MP, Keith Locke's, more idiotic scribblings.


In the July 23rd 1976 issue of "Socialist Action", editor Keith Locke wrote; "Capitalism cannot be trusted with nuclear power... socialism ... would step up nuclear power research in order to make it safe"

13 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ouch

8:44 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Who actually listens to Keith Locke anymore?

He doesn't live on planet earth.

EXOCET

8:20 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Keith Locke's comments from 1976 are just as nutty as comments made in by Trevor Loudon in 1989 (much more recent than 1976). Loudon said the Business Roundtable were communists!

Loudon has said he no longer believes the NZBRT are communists. Maybe Locke no longer stands by comments he made 30 years ago. So maybe it's pointless looking into people's dingy pasts like Trev does on a near daily basis.

10:01 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Something to hide Cameron?

10:32 AM  
Blogger Trevor Loudon said...

Get your bleeding facts right Cameron and read what i actually wrote. I never said the BRT were communists. I said some members of the BRT had business dealings with the Soviets at a time when the Soviets were clearly our enemies.

I thought that was completely irresponsible just as I view trade with China today as completely irresponsible and morally reprehensible.

If Keith Locke had repudiated his socialist views, he would be of no interest to me. Unfortunately he is still the same hard core socialist he always was. The difference is that in 1976 he was aplacard waver, now he is an MP. Now I help pay his salary.

11:50 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Trade with China - great idea in a country if you go to get a liver transplant they will execute somebody for you to make $30,000.00 US.

Or how about the fact they throw there citizens on the street with no compensation.

If it was a right-wing government there would screaming from the left and calls for trade boycotts.

But because it's a socalist paradise, it's all quiet on the lefty front.

6:33 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Anonymous, if Cameron has something to hide, he wouldn't use his name, he'd post as "Anonymous".

Nichlmn is right. Marx posited socialism as an alternative to capitalism. China embraced capitalism in the 1980s therefore it is simply a dictatorship, not a communist dictatorship. Perhaps if you read a bit of Orwell you would understand the difference.

For a member of an alegedly free market party your objection to trade with China, or even the old Eastern Bloc is utter hypocrisy. "By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good." (That old commie Adam Smith)

11:33 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Can we see the full comment? I assume that ... means you have ommited parts.

I don't know what it was I'm just interested to know.

Not taking sides either way :)

12:09 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

As I said at kiwiblog:

If Locke means democratic socialism a la Sweden, he might be right. If me meant Soviet state socialism, then he'd obviously be wrong. Those are some pregnant ellipses though. Post the whole quote and let us see.

And either way the statement about capitalism and nuclear power may be accurate, but that's more complicated.

Also, you seem to be saying the difference between Chernobyl and Three Mile Island has something to do with marcoeconomics or market freedom, when my understanding is TMI was almost Chernobyl, but was saved from the brink (in a way that has nothing to do with American capitalism vs Soviet communism.

1:31 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

hehe - you are probably quite right - accidents have far more to do with people than with the economic environment.

The question is about which systems bring the best out of people, not which make people less human.

If you like same-ness and defacing people, then socialism is your heart. Of course you'd be kidding yourself, nobody actually likes same-ness - we just call anti-envy measures "sameness" aka socialism.

I bet if you lay down your morals, socialism would fall out side them all.. at least with capitalism (as a system) it's a-moral.. Socialism is quite the immoral facilitator.

It just hides a lot in the "pretty" rhetoric you folk spout.

(like: for the greater good.. even though socialism only appeals to those who stand to get “redistribution dividends” – look into butterfly options. You sell yourselves so short!)

5:28 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The basic reality is that you're a total fruit loop, Loudon. I'd like to hear a good explanation of why we shouldn't trade with China. If we didn't trade with those who oppress their peoples then we wouldn't do a lot of trading really would we? Surely trade with China means there's a better chance they'll grow their way out of poverty than not?

If it's just 'cos their communist (and to be fair you do seem to be obsessed by them, 1950s McCarthy style) than that's even more patehtic than I thought.

3:18 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Get a life... 1976 was a very long time ago!

10:47 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

ummm.....

still waiting for that full quote

1:48 PM  

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