[Peace-discuss] Rant on the SDA Monday night event

[C. G. Estabrook]

I hope you've sent this to the DI (as a "forum," or whatever they call
comments up to 500 words -- they apparently won't run letters over 200).

Your remarks as they stand are quite a devastating reply to the sort of
American Likudnik propaganda that's so fashionable at the moment.  It
should be exposed and countered when it turns up locally.  Your account
should have an audience larger than that of this list.  --CGE


On Tue, 22 Apr 2003 msimon at uiuc.edu wrote:

> Comments on Students for the Defense of America:
> 
> I just came from the "teach-in" for the Students for the 
> Defense of America, and I'm near tears.  So many racist 
> comments, believing that people from the Middle Eastern want 
> to be like Americans so they can eat Big Mac's and wear 
> bluejeans (and Gottheil wants us to remember that "the most 
> popular site in France is EuroDisney").  Of particular 
> interest was Gottheil's comparison of the similarities 
> between the failure of the Quebec separatist movement and the 
> Islamic states.  Its also so clear to me now that the main 
> reason for the Palestinian daily income of $2 is the region's 
> cultural and political backwardness.  Lord, I see the light!  
> Off to war to save the Middle Easterners.  We might even find 
> the grail this time!  Let me note a student comment during 
> the Q/A session of the evening: "The Crusades weren't all 
> bad.  They saved Europe from a Muslim invasion."  
> 
> Disgusting!  What aggravated me most was the EASE with which 
> these students and teachers (who were ALL white) could make 
> and support these sort of claims (Gottheil: most Middle 
> Eastern countries are "closed  societies" and "failed 
> societies").  Whatever (little) worth was allocated by the 
> neo-cons in the room to the richness of Islam or to the 
> various Middle Eastern secular cultures was deemed an 
> unfortunate, but necessary casualty in this war on terrorism 
> and for democratization.  To set a false people on the right 
> path.  But there is no evangelism here, right!  We are a 
> secular state!
> 
> Equally disgusting was the ease with which they could spread 
> this nationalist gospel of American Exceptionalism without 
> ever giving voice to the fact that there are US minority 
> cultures still living modern, colonized, ghettoized 
> existences.  Again, the implication is that these American 
> colonized people too, are backwards, and will eventually give 
> up their struggles of self and cultural-preservation in the 
> face of the inevitable, enormous wave of Americanism, 
> Whiteness, and Progress.  Apparently, the disproportionate 
> number of blacks locked in prisions must continue until the 
> African-Americans learn the errors of their ways.  Of course, 
> there is no systemic governmental breakdown in national 
> policy that perpetuates such a situation.  "Damn dope 
> dealers!  Say no to drugs!  Let them stay in prison," they 
> say as they gleefully forgive Elliott Abrams, John 
> Poindexter, Richard Perle, John Negroponte, and Otto Reich 
> their little sins, their petty involvements in mass murders 
> and international drug trafficing (or in Perle's case, 
> alledgedly giving out classified intelligence information to 
> Israeli Ambassadors on two separate occasions), sins for 
> which they have NEVER apologized and repented.  
> 
> How dare our government forgive such reptiles as these in the 
> name of dead South Americans, Middle Easterners and their 
> families!  This is one of America's greatest sins.  
> 
> I've gone off on a tangent.  For in fact, Gottheil made it 
> quite clear that US minorities, African-Americans in 
> particular, oppose the war only because they have pressing, 
> and unrelated, social issues to work on and they don't like 
> attention being channelled to other theaters.  One student 
> turned to me with an alternate proposition, full of 
> reflection: "Blacks are generally leftists.  That's why 
> they're against the war."  
> 
> But according to Gottheil, blacks aren't generally leftists 
> at all, at least where the war is concerned!  Nevermind 
> Zogby's recent statement: "The poll reveals that only...27% 
> of African American voters support the war."
> 
> "They [blacks] make up a large part of our Armed Forces," he 
> said, "They're patriotic!"  Of course, nothing was said about 
> military campaigns to recruit impovrished young people with 
> (often false) promises about $40,000 for college, plus job 
> training, adventure, and travel.  See the world from the 
> front lines and learn to write about it later on your free 
> ride at Harvard!  Spread freedom and bring me back a nice, 
> old Koran for the good ole bookshelf!
> 
> In aggravation,
> Mike Simon
> 
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