Hamjatta wrote:

"Buharry,

With due respect, it is clear that you are just misrepresenting my views -
again and again. When i questioned you the last time why you keep
attributing views to me that i do not hold, i quizzed you along these lines:

1. Where i categorically condemned co-ops;
2. Where i said i'm opposed to PDOIS implementing these co-ops;
3. Where i've condemned state enterprise  - categorically?"

To which you responded by quoting me along these lines: '(.....)'"

The brackets and contents in single quotes are mine and represent quotations
from earlier posts you made about the central plank of PDOIS's economic
policy that Buharry has retrieved from the archives to answer your own
questions.

You then wrote: "Yet, in response to your initial rejoinder to my original
piece, i made my position vis-a-vis cooperative economics very clear along
these lines:

"Hamjatta: First, a disclaimer: i never said that cooperative societies are
un-profitable. There are, indeed, indications that they can be profitable.
Also, expressing my disquiet over cooperative societies doesn't in any way
mean that i'm opposed to them. Far from it. Liberals only become suspicious
of these things if they are State contrived and susceptible to pork barrel
politics. Free enterprise should be free from political control and
nefarious influences. Cooperative societies when they trade on liberal
principles of free and civil association, are something to be allowed
breathing space and or room to blossom."

With all due respect Hamjatta, the above you claim to be a disclaimer is
infact not a disclaimer. You CANNOT disclaim three powerful indictments of
PDOIS's economic policy from THREE DIFFERENT POSTS with the above disclaimer
without withdrawing the former three. Your disclaimer above is in DIRECT
CONFLICT with your earlier posts and seem to another view that DOES NOT
CATEGORICALLY STATE which of the two applies to PDOIS's economic policy. The
onus is on you to either withdraw the former and stick to the latter or vise
versa. This, I guess is Buharry's contention and I stand to be corrected.

You again wrote:

"In my opinion, a debate is not just about condensing a posting with a
plethora of questions and expecting the other participants to keep answering
them as if you are the examiner and they are the examinee. This, i'm afraid,
is where we are heading right now. The tautological nature of your approach
is not helping matters. If you can rescue the debate from that pit, i'll
gladly engage you on any relevant issue - so long as i'm on this List".

To avoid this Hamjatta, you must clarify what your current view of PDOIS's
economic policy is vis-a-vis in relation to co-operatives in general and the
Bakau Garden project in particular.

Buharry, it is also important to hit the nail on the head, so to speak,
rather than increasing the questions. The more questions you ask without
categorically stating PDOIS's policy with regards to those questions, the
more you will comlicate matters and the more you will find it difficult to
get Hamjatta to answer them categorically.

Hamjatta, I find it difficult to see the relevance in your reference to
Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom" to the current debate. In my own opinion, it
is one thing "to read a decisive, eloquent and effective repudiation of the
central tenets of socialism, and the dangers of State contrived
collectivisation or cooperatives" and another to relate it to PDOIS's
economic policy especially with regards to co-operative economics and the
Bakau garden project.

Have a good day, Gassa.

PS. I know very little about the theory of socialism and its relation to
cooperative economics, but I am very much interested in the current debate.
It is my opinion that it may help some of us who are not very familiar with
PDOIS's economic programme to hear opposing views of them to be better
informed.

>From: Hamjatta Kanteh <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Response To Brother Buharry
>Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2001 06:07:18 EDT
>
>Buharry,
>
>With due respect, it is clear that you are just misrepresenting my views -
>again and again. When i questioned you the last time why you keep
>attributing
>views to me that i do not hold, i quizzed you along these lines:
>
>1. Where i categorically condemned co-ops;
>2. Where i said i'm opposed to PDOIS implementing these co-ops;
>3. Where i've condemned state enterprise  - categorically?
>
>To which you responded by quoting me along these lines:
>
><< Answer: "But PDOIS would have none of it. Instead, they are ready to
>wager
>the
>Gambia's economic future to tested and failed State contrived
>collectivisation that even Lenin and Stalin in their infinite lunacy
>wouldn't
>dare impose on Russians in this day and age. Perhaps, PDOIS takes its cue
>from the stubborn-ness of the North Korean dictatorship to continue with
>the
>same economic nonsense that continues to register zero economic growth and
>abject poverty for the masses they have literally forced against their
>wills
>into these State contrived cooperative societies. " >>
>
>And:
>
><< Answer: "The current spate of the outbreak of the programmed fanatic
>virus
>affirms
>just what Krugman's government economist told him. Just when we thought
>that
>decisively repudiated economics like State contrived agricultural
>collectivisation is dead and buried, programmed fanatics are busy and
>doggedly marketing the idea anew. And, be it noted, most of the economic
>nonsense now being recycled anew has been dealt with comprehensively in an
>earlier essay on PDOIS' economic agenda; and one would assume then that
>they
>would at least have the decency to go back to the drawing board again to
>reformulate and rethink policy. Rather, the party unabashedly brought to
>the
>fore again the same economic nonsense i have earlier debunked effectively."
> >>
>
>Yet, in response to your initial rejoinder to my original piece, i made my
>position vis-a-vis cooperative economics very clear along these lines:
>
>"Hamjatta: First, a disclaimer: i never said that cooperative societies are
>un-profitable. There are, indeed, indications that they can be profitable.
>Also, expressing my disquiet over cooperative societies doesn't in any way
>mean that i'm opposed to them. Far from it. Liberals only become suspicious
>of these things if they are State contrived and susceptible to pork barrel
>politics. Free enterprise should be free from political control and
>nefarious
>influences. Cooperative societies when they trade on liberal principles of
>free and civil association, are something to be allowed breathing space and
>or room to blossom."
>
>Yet, these repetitive questions, which your postings invariably come
>chock-a-block with, continue - as ever - to ignore this disclaimer. As i
>said
>before, expressing disquiet or scepticism over the consequential or overall
>impact of something is not the same as a categorical condemnation.
>Disquietude or scepticism is not the same as categorical condemnation. More
>to the point, virtually all the questions you raised in your last posting
>are
>along the same degrees of misrepresenting my views. Needless to say that
>all
>of your questions feed from this source of misrepresenting my views. And
>this
>is not to mention the non sequitur arguments or questions you keep raising
>as
>a result of such misrepresentation. Consider these examples:
>
><< 1. (a) Who carried out the rational disinterested study you talked
>about?
>(b) Was it you?
>(c) If it was you, can you truly say it was disinterested?
>(d) Was it carried out on the PDOIS model or other communist or socialist
>models such as the USSR, East Germany, North Korea etc.?
>(e) How did you come to apply it to PDOIS? What criteria did you use? >>
>
>Talk about misrepresenting views! When i made the point the point about 'a
>rational disinterested study', i was stating the case that were this to be
>case with PDOIS policies, are you going to recommend them refuse to
>acknowledge such a disinterested rational inquiry and or its results?
>Nowhere
>in my postings did i indicate stating that i carried out 'a rational
>disinterested study' into PDOIS. Yet, you went right ahead to quiz me about
>stuff that only someone who has not been reading me will continue to raise
>in
>such a tautological manner. This is why you keep posing non sequitur
>arguments and questions that continue to arise out of such
>misrepresentation.
>Who talked about the USSR, North Korean and East German models?  I merely
>wrote an essay stating what i argue to be the problem with PDOIS' economic
>policy thrust, within the framework of present day Gambian conditions. The
>point i raised about North Korea or Russia or juxtapose them alongside
>PDOIS
>is to allude to their intransigence as a meeting point. I explained this
>very
>clearly in my first comprehensive response to your piece. By the way, if
>you
>really want to read a decisive, eloquent and effective repudiation of the
>central tenets of socialism, and the dangers of State contrived
>collectivisation or cooperatives, you might want to try reading Hayek's
>"The
>Road to Serfdom". Now that is a classic rational disinterested enquiry into
>socialism and makes the point loud and clear.
>
>In my opinion, a debate is not just about condensing a posting with a
>plethora of questions and expecting the other participants to keep
>answering
>them as if you are the examiner and they are the examinee. This, i'm
>afraid,
>is where we are heading right now. The tautological nature of your approach
>is not helping matters. If you can rescue the debate from that pit, i'll
>gladly engage you on any relevant issue - so long as i'm on this List.
>
>All the best,
>
>Hamjatta Kanteh
>
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