First of all, I want to say that I enjoyed your response. Often you are criticized for being harsh but, while sometimes I feel it is deserved, this particular response was fair. Of course if I agreed with everything you said this wouldn't be a very entertaining discussion then would it.
I agree that collective responsibility is dangerous, but it is dangerous because it is a steroetype; and as woith all stereotypes, the generally abstract is taken as true in the specific circumstances. But that is not the case here - the slogan of the Anmerican revolution was "no taxation without representation". Yours is not a government that RULES the people; it is allegedly a government OF the people, BY the people and FOR the people.
The mantras of our early government and even the positive action of our early government are not a good characterization of our government at any time of its existence. Certainly these ideals are what one hopes that most will strive for but more often than not we have fallen short. Our founding fathers, while revolutionary, were lacking just as each administration has been and will be for the foreseeable future. We haven't got it right after 200 years but we have made strides in certain areas that I hope will continue into the foreseeable future. I am certainly not the first American to say that America needs change and has needed it constantly throughout its history, often for drastic reasons. The point though is that America's "corporate mission statements" are not a good representation of what it actually is and never has been.
If you now wish to disclaim responsibility for your actions as carried out by your state employees, you are essentially saying that democracy is a fiction - that, in fact, people in a democracy are just as vulnerable to the random whims of their state apparatus as they would be in a straight-up dictatorship.
Now that all depends. I think I would agree with your position more if I felt we had a true democracy over here. A true democracy should be representative of the people and until some serious election reforms I don't feel we have that or could ever have that. I know Bush is not the only one on our presidential roster that is troublesome but the most recent elections are telling of how messed up the system is. Bush won by the slimmest margin for an incumbent in the history of our country. The first problem with this is that a full third of the nation didn't or couldn't vote. The second problem is that the validity of some votes are in question for key states (another plug for
Electronic Frontier Foundation | Defending your rights in the digital world - we need electronic voting reform now!). Third and probably most difficult problem is that the system has evolved in a way that does not favor the best man for the job but rather the man with the best PR department and right now that is without a doubt the GOP.
I do feel that I am currently living in a de facto dictatorship because I feel that the establishment has imposed its will on the people contrary to its purpose. The people have been cajoled, lied to, tricked, threatened, brainwashed, etc. It is probably one of the largest case studies of psychological conditioning of our day.
Does that mean I feel blameless for the actions of my government? No. The point I am trying to make and will elaborate on further is that I don't feel that the things that our nation has done, terrible as they are, do not put give an overt righteousness or moral superiority to acts like 9/11.
Yes, if you get blown up in an anti-government rally, you still count as deserving it, becuase you cannot expect the people resisting US aggression to stop and interview every one of you to find out where your lotyalties lie, any more than your pilots and soldiers can do in any war zone. that is the price of war; that is what you decided was aceeptable when your representatives in Congress voted for the war; when you failed to impeach, but instead re-elected, a president who is a warmonger and liar. War is necessarily made as a collective decision; you enter the war with your collective force, and the state can compel even those who chosse nbot to fight to do so. Nobody resisting your states aggression has any responsibility toward your individual dissent. As you say, it was your CHOICE.
All I am contesting in why in this case it is more justified when it is done to one group over the other. Certain people may be joyed in seeing the bully get bloodied but it doesnt make it any more right than the bully himself. I do not dispute that cannot be counted as part of the body of the nation that cannot bleed just because I don't support the administration. That would be silly.
Still, my position is morally superior becuase it is not hypocritical. If you acknowledge the need to police the streets, and for the police to be armed, then you are acknowledging that in some cases killing is OK, becuase it aligns with your political beliefs about the necessity of the stability of the state. It's merely impolite to say killing is OK, but in fact that is exactly the basis of all politics. The point is hypocrisy - America says it is ok when it bombs cities and kills civilians, but says it is not OK when the favour is returned.
Here I will contest a little stronger. Regardless of the atrocities the US has committed in modern times it is not hypocritical to think it is "not OK" when it is violently attacked. How else should it be given reality? Because the US had done bad things to other it should now just take the hit in stride? The problem is not the US response to attack but rather the political climate we created to entice the attack in the first place.
I also think it is far too general to say that America says it is okay to kill civilians. For all our hypocrisy in many areas I would be pressed to find many that think this is "ok" among citizens or even soldiers.
The main point here is that I don't believe that repeating the depravity upon the attacker does not make the act any less depraved. That is what I mean when I say that I contest that your position is morally superior. I see no moral legitimacy in 9/11 at all.
Equally bad on both sides of the issue. You can't condemn one and not the other. "He started it!" was not a good justification when I was 6 and is not one now.
Yes, thats the exactly the point that both Ward Churchill and I advance. The Western media, and folk like Hambre, want to ONLY condemn the other side and accept no responsibility at all for American actions - they want to play the role of victim. And when some of us point out that what is happening is no more than our own chickens coming home to roost, a form of military reciprocity, we are in turn demonised for failing to fall into their jingoist line.
When you are attacked you
are the victim. I would like to see some of this overt demonization of dissent to American action. Certainly I can even think of some from our favorite fascist new source Fox but I don't think the sentiment holds in general like you make it seem. Notice that I don't doubt that there is some, just that it is pervasive or even significant. Respectfully, it always seems to be a black and white issue with you. Why is that so?
Agreed which is why we need to support legitimate and realistic opposition rather than just more killing.
Except the west has spent the last 50 years refusing to talk to legitimate oppositions by denouncing them as "terrorist". The first step to a negotiated settlement is mutual respect; and that means you have to treat your enemy AS AN ENEMY, not as a manifestation of Satan.
The point is that appropriate opposition is not praise for 9/11 attackers. Change will only happen from an internal movement or a catastrophe and I prefer the former. That is what I mean by legitimate opposition.
The only Americans you have ever met have mostly been racist? If so then that sucks.
Your missing the point - I alledge American culture is genrally racist. Being against "political correctness" is potlitcally correct; stupid arguments against affirmative action are mainstream; you judge a president according top their military career, but demand that all black leaders eschew violence.
And I contest your generalization. I know there are racist centers in our country and that is a big problem but I feel that the trend in American culture is toward less racism. Not so for our government which is what I was agreeing IS racist and worse oppressive toward different race and religion. From a personal perspective the only people I know who are racist come from one of those centers or are foreign born. Political arguments about affirmative action or any media representation for that matter rarely accurate of the actual culture and you of all people should know this. On one hand the media is this corrupt vehicle of the administration and on the other it is an accurate description of "American culture" whatever that is? That we demand all black leaders to be militant is a careless generalization and simply not true.
To which I say nonsense - the situation was just as bad under Clinton, where once again, in Somalia, American casualties forced a change of position and loss of life among Somali's was ignored; anyone shot by Americans was automaticlly presumed post facto to have been armed and dangerous. And then, and then, you wonder that they drag the bodies of your dead through the streets, accompanied by singing and dancing.
In many ways the fact that so much blame is being shifted to the Bush admninistration is highly alarming - it suggests that in fact there is no review in the minds of the public of Americas place and role in the world, but instead just blame attribution. On present form, the danger of Fascism in the US will not be remotely mediated by the election of a Democratic president.
I never said that a Democratic president would inevitably lead to an ultimate solution to the problem. I use the re-election of this president as a perfect example of how the system needs to be fixed. In the short term potential of the previous election, the best way to make headway with legitimate opposition was to support the candidate that had the best chance to remove Bush from office. Certainly the Democratic Party has a number of problems of its own that also need to be addressed. I'll not be the first to say that its position on copyrights/patents for digital content is anti-constitutional.
So Whats The Plan? Where is the appeal to inmpeach bush for lying to congress? Where is the civil disobedience? I don't see any resistance - I see Bush getting standing ovations. Your private reservations and disucssions with friends do not constitute political activism.
Who said anything about private discussions? I actively support and participate with a number of groups who oppose the administration. A friend of mine was maced and shot with a rubber bullet at a sit in protest. "The Plan" was to start by electing someone else into office. That plain unfortunately failed. Just because you don't see the resistance in whatever news source you frequent does not mean it doesn't happen. You standing ovations that you see are also a figment of the PR machine of the GOP. The only people who were allowed to attend his campaign speeches were those who fervently supported him. Of course it looked like he was "the man". To further dispute, of all the state of the union addresses I have ever seen I have never seen a president get booed by congressmen.
Primary support from the commoner will almost always be for the troops. How could you expect different?
Becuase we are supposed to have grown up, and recognised that we cannot simply discount the humanity of our enemies. Becuasde we remember how important a role vilification and propaganda played in the world wars. Because we remember the suffering of the people of Vietnam, and because we would have others do unto use as we do unto them. Thats why.
All I am saying is that support for the troops is going to be the norm most of the time. The troops didn't all get together and decide to invade Iraq. They are an instrument of the administration and emotional ownership of their lives is going to be more so then that of what is presented to us as a statistic. If we had more situations where Americans were directly exposed to the effects of Iraqi dead then I doubt the indifference you sense would exist. This is counter to your claim that Iraqi lives are thought of as less. I don't think so nor do I know anyone who does.
I personally know 5 people one way or another who serve in our armed forces. I have a much bigger emotional investment for my friends then of people I have never met even if I don't agree with the war. That doesnt mean I don't cringe when I read about X number of Iraqis killed in some event. Its terrible all of it but you seem to be just stretching a simple fact of reality for your own rhetorical purposes.
Then you really do not understand how much this admission has lowered your standing in my eyes. Its like a throwback to C19th nationalism, and exactly the sort of contempt for HUMAN rights, universally, that allows Fascism to arise.
Well, my standing in your eyes is irrelevant and I don't know why my explanation of why I think you are seeing apathy for non-American loss of life produced this response. All I meant was that it is nearly axiomatic to expect greater concern for loss of American life by Americans. The apathy you sense is based in the ignorance of the American populace of or about Iraqi dead rather than an innate apathy. Can you at least consider that this might be a possibility?
I did not say that it was; I said, these killings certainly happen but on the basis of enemy versus enemy, even people versus people. Not the United Fruit Corporation and the US Marine Corps against the people and democratically elected government of Granada.
The claim is that Middle East history of violence was somehow superior in moral justification than the US because it was for ethnic/religious rather than commercial/political ones. This is still unsupported.
Ahat is, America seems to think that going to foriegn lands and killing the people there does not matter. The American public manifestly agress, as it voices little to no protest. I'm not aware of similar motivations existing in the MidEast.
America cannot be generalized in that sense and have an argument based on that reasoning hold water. I have said that the American public does not manifestly agree and that your lack of knowledge of dissent is not indicative of actual lack of dissent. Are you not aware of similar motivations in the MidEast because you know it doesnt exist or because you simply have not heard of it before? The difference is not subtle and makes a big difference when using it in support of your argument.
Thats nonsens IMO I'm afraid - please recall that most of the states in the middle east were forcibly created by European empires. Nationalism simply does not have such deep roots; it is not the definer of identity it is in the west. Most of those issues are dealt with under Islam and its statements in regards relationships with infidels. You will recall that throughout the history of the Arab world, they have been more tolerant of ethnic minority groups than the West was, what with its routine purges of Jews.
Thinking about this point some more I will actually concede. I do feel that the Mid East is less nationalistic and more accepting of diversity in many cases. All I will comment on is that they are not free of such contempt for outsiders with as much disparity that I feel you are assigning to them.
Um, MORE heterogenous that a mid-east country? I mean, this is the same America thats derided as a monoculture, with identical strips of identical chainstores in every town? You have people with a few quaint ethnic attachments to the Old Country, but these simply do not inform the political culture which is steadfastly old, wealthy and white. The middle east has been the gateway between the occident and orient for millenia, has a very complex history
including many ethnicities.
Well, I was not talking about the political culture first of all or even this "American culture" that is so vaguely defined. Part of what helped me come to my conclusion of heterogeneous stems from the amount of multi-generation Americans I know whose family history is ripe with cultural diversity. Just my own family is a great example. My dad's whole side of the family is Arab and his generation was the first to immigrate to America. Most of that generation married Arabs and try very hard to "keep the blood pure" so to speak. My mom's side of the family all have been here for many generations. I have ancestors that are Irish, English, Jewish, Hispanic, and Native American. In terms of religion, just in my extant family we have Catholics, Methodists, Presbyterians, Southern Baptists, Moslems and Atheists. To my dad's side of the family our little node of the family tree is strange and in many cases undesirable. My indication from personal experience is that their impression is consistent with many others who live in the Middle East.
Elected or not, the fervent nationalism that existed in imperialist Japan cannot be denied. Just because a leader is not elected does not mean he is not supported by the populace. Democracy does not exclusively spawn nationalism or responsibility by nationalism.
Indeed not; but the SUBJECTS of the emperor who opposed the war, of which there were some, cant therefore honestly say that whoever much they opposed it, they wer enot enfracnhsied tand their opinion carried not wait. Americans cannot say that - Bush got permission to invade directly from the personal representatives of the US populace, aand was re-elected on a popular vote. The empowered populace in American cannot disclaim their responsibility for the actions of their state in any way.
The point you were making to Hambre seem to suggest that Japanese citizens were absolved of responsibility by nationalism because their government was not elected. Why does support that is not sourced from democracy absolve a citizen from responsibility by nationalism? I have not outright disputed responsibility by nationalism but rather argued that is it precarious.
The point is that people were willing to give the American people, as distinct from the American state, the benefit of the doubt regarding Bush. But seeing as he was re-elected, that benefit of the doubt is being withdrawn, because clearly there is not a grass roots that opposes the Bush Imperialist agenda. Bush manifestly commands popular consent, and so the populace are rightly held accountable for their choices.
Sorry for the snideness. All I am saying is that the public opinion of Americans does not justify generalized condemnation and especially does not justify physical violence. It is your whole argument reversed. Why is it more okay if it is American citizens dying in the WTC? Certainly not because world opinion of Americans has diminished.
Granted. What I was pointing out though is that Orwellian doublethink is already the order of the day: Bush can simultaneously argue that democracies are peaceful, which is why his democracy must go to war, to bring about democracy. It is and was totally illogical and yet it was never question, merely swallowed.
I agree with your assessment of what Bush is doing. He is using democracy as his justification and by so defiling it. I disagree that in general it was never questioned and merely swallowed. Things are never black and white.
This message has been edited by Jazzns, 02-08-2005 11:30 AM
By the way, for a fun second-term drinking game, chug a beer every time you hear the phrase, "...contentious but futile protest vote by democrats." By the time Jeb Bush is elected president you will be so wasted you wont even notice the war in Syria.
-- Jon Stewart, The Daily Show
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