[Peace-discuss] [Peace] Trump torpedoes Iran nuclear accord

Fri May 11 18:31:40 UTC 2018

On Fri, May 11, 2018 at 1:18 PM, Mildred O'brien <moboct1 at aim.com> wrote:

I suppose John W. (whoever he is) represents mainstream rural America,
> uninformed and unread, gullible patriots.
>

You replied only to me, Mildred/Midge, so you may as well just address me
directly, whoever I am.  Anything else would be rude and boorish.  But
here, I'll add us back in to the peace-discuss discussion.

I don't "represent" mainstream rural America, except insofar as I lived and
worked in that environment for 20 long years, and know what their interests
are and how they think.  I was a fish out of water, but it was water that I
was forced to swim in for all those years, and I really didn't know how to
find fresher, purer water such as the kind that YOU plainly have been
privileged to swim in.

>   He no doubt represents more of the population than informed activists,
>

Again, I'm absolutely certain that that benighted population is far, far
higher than the population of "informed activists", who as often as not
can't even agree among themselves as to priorities, tactics, and
strategies, and end up breaking into splinter groups and driving away those
who might have been allies.

You see, I've now been an "informed activist" in THIS community for 20 long
years, and I see how IT works too.  I have what might be termed by Noam
Chomsky a "basis for comparison".

> but to say there was no opposition in those days is not accurate at least
> in this area.
>

I at least didn't assert that in any way, shape, or form.

> Midge
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: John W. via Peace-discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
> To: Karen Aram <karenaram at hotmail.com>
> Cc: Brussel, Morton K <brussel at illinois.edu>; Peace-discuss List (
> peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net) <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
> Sent: Fri, May 11, 2018 1:09 pm
> Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] Trump torpedoes Iran nuclear accord
>
>
> On Fri, May 11, 2018 at 8:41 AM, Karen Aram <karenaram at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> It’s good to know that more Americans were protesting the USG Central
> American wars in the late 70’s and 80’s than even those protesting the
> Vietnam war in the 60”s. I had no idea, until you made the statement,
> below. I have the excuse of being in Asia from Spring 1977 on through the
> next 22 to 28 years, with brief visits to the US at times. However, I’m
> wondering if most Americans even knew of the opposition at the time, due to
> limited media coverage?
>
>
> No, most Americans had no idea.  Our "boys" weren't fighting and dying
> there, so most Americans outside of university communities had no
> particular awareness of what was going on in Central America, and no
> interest in finding out.  There was very little mainstream media coverage.
> Living in a small blue-collar Illinois town back then, I never did figure
> out the difference between the Sandinistas and the Contras, just as an
> example.  And didn't really care.  Nor did I understand what the whole
> Ollie North scandal was all about.  There was no internet in those days,
> remember, and I personally didn't even read a daily newspaper.
>
> I think academics and "progressives" and "revolutionaries" absolutely,
> dramatically overestimate the amount of support they have in middle America
> for their various causes.
>
>
>
>
> On May 9, 2018, at 15:32, Carl G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu> wrote:
>
> You’re both forgetting the organizing in this country against the US
> government's Central American wars of the 1970s and ‘80s - arguably
> involving more Americans than the Vietnam protests of the ‘60s.
>
> A decorated (indicted) hero of those wars, Oliver North, has just become
> head of the NRA.
>
> What happened after 1975 was the construction of a vicious
> counter-narrative, neo-conservatism, to join the business community's
> counter-attack on ’the Sixties,’ neoliberalism.
>
> Beginning in the Carter* administration, neolib and neocon lies dominated
> US politics.
>
> President Bush I celebrated the real success of the first Gulf War
> (1990-91): “...by God, we've kicked the Vietnam syndrome [ = reluctance of
> Americans to engage in neo-colonial wars, after Vietnam] once and for all!”
> ______________________________
>
> * "At one point, President Jimmy Carter actually said that the U.S. owed
> no reparations to Vietnam because 'the destruction was mutual.’”
> <http://www.vvaw.org/veteran/article/?id=265&print=yes>
>
>
>
> On May 9, 2018, at 5:02 PM, John W. via Peace-discuss <
> peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
>
>
> On Wed, May 9, 2018 at 4:52 PM, Karen Aram <karenaram at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Unfortunately, thats not what we did in the sixties. Once the Vietnam war
> was over, everyone went home, I left the country, many went to California
> to join communes, and navel gaze, while others got swept up into the
> eighties, where greed was good.  So here we are on the brink of nuclear
> war, and climate catastrophe, pick your poison.
>
>
> Right you are, Karen.  And more or less my point.  Every several decades
> there's a new generation of young idealists who are going to "straighten
> out" the mess their parents made.  And always, always, always with the same
> result.  Or, if not EXACTLY the same result, close enough that "it rhymes",
> as Carl is fond of quoting.
>
>
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