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

[Ricky Baldwin]

Mike,

Thanks so much for this report.  And I'd just like to
second Carl's suggestion.  Others need to see this. 
They really do.

Ricky


--- 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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