[Peace-discuss] Re: "Liberal" media

Tom Mackaman tmackaman at yahoo.com
Tue Jul 19 23:05:55 CDT 2005 

The argument that "we've got to clean up this mess" was used for nearly two decades in Vietnam.  The US left defeated anyway, but the "mess" had in the meantime become unspeakable:  two million Southeast Asian dead, 55,000 US soldiers lost, not to mention the environmental destruction of the entire region.  
 
While I don't doubt the sincerity of the rank-and-file liberals who have written on this question, such language as "we can't leave such a mess" and "we can't cut and run" when used by prominent liberals is code.  Translated into normal English, they are actually saying the following:  "Yes, Bush and Co. screwed up.  But at this point we can't leave without creating a major crisis of confidence in US foreign policy, the military, and American capitalism.  We must avoid that even at the cost of great loss of life."      
 
The sectarian violence is the result of the US presence, and it is clearly increasing with time.  The US occupation now threatens Iraq with full civil war.    
 
There can be no confusion on this point:  The US military has absolutely no progressive role to play in Iraq, or anywhere else for that matter.  No matter how one wishes or prays, an imperialist army of occupation cannot become the benefactor of the oppressed population.  If the peace movement bases its hopes for the return of the US military on the prerequisite of the establishment of a tranquil Iraq, they will wait a long time indeed.    
 
We must demand: all US and occupation troops out of Iraq now; jobs and health care for all returning soldiers; massive reparations paid to the Iraqi people out of the coffers of the US oil and defense giants; criminal prosecution of the war's planners
 
 
Sincerely,
Tom

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Today's Topics:

1. Re: "Liberal" media (Chas. 'Mark' Bee)
2. Re:Liberal media (Indigo Frank)
3. Re: "Liberal" media (C. G. Estabrook)
4. Re: Re:Liberal media (C. G. Estabrook)
5. Re: Re: "Liberal" media (ouroboros rex)
6. Patrick Thompson (Bob Illyes)
7. marketing (Jason)


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Message: 1
Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2005 12:53:43 -0500
From: "Chas. 'Mark' Bee" 
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] "Liberal" media
To: 

Message-ID: <004b01c58c8a$cd9cd4b0$b87e7e82 at scribe>
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="UTF-8";
reply-type=original


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "C. G. Estabrook" 
To: "Morton K. Brussel" 

Cc: 

Sent: Tuesday, July 19, 2005 11:48 AM
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] "Liberal" media


> Tendency, not purity, is the issue, Mort. A reasonable
> description of the usage of “liberal” in contemporary American
> politics involves a position on the war like that of Clinton's
> man, Sidney Blumenthal, on Democracy Now last week -– a view
> that Norman Solomon accurately called pro-war (= roughly, US
> troops should stay until some stability emerges).
>
> That is also the position of the Woolsey Concurrent
> Resolution, about which MoveOn did an internal poll recently
> -– and which represents the most advanced position MoveOn has
> advocated (although their website still doesn't say that even
> that is the position of the organization). Their website
> lists eight campaigns, only one even peripherally associated
> with the war: support for Rep. Conyers' petition “demanding
> that Bush address the evidence in the Downing Street Memo"!
> (Address the evidence?)
>
> That resolution by House liberals merely asserts that it is
> “the sense of Congress that the President should develop and
> implement a plan to begin the immediate withdrawal of United
> States Armed Forces from Iraq.” Develop a plan to begin?
> Hardly a ringing demand for Out Now. And a hat-in-hand
> sense-of-Congress resolution, while nice to have, hardly
> inhibits the administration from what we know was their plan
> from early on. Remember that during Vietnam the Supreme Court
> held that Congress authorized the war by continuing to fund it.
>
> MoveOn has been a Democratic party front group since its
> founding by a couple of guys from Silicon Valley who wanted to
> support the Democratic agenda despite Clinton's impeachment
> (hence the name). Their campaigns are basically faction
> fights within the business party.
>
> If I've “misstated their position,” as you charge, I'd like to
> see “their emails [that] call for an end to the occupation
> now,” to which you refer. Eli Pariser, MoveOn.org’s executive
> director, has in fact said he's never supported immediate
> withdrawal.
>
> And take a look at “MoveOn conducts a push poll on Iraq and
> cons its supporters”:
> ,
> and “MoveOn.org: Making Peace With the War in Iraq”
> . --CGE


We hear constantly that those of us who support moving out slowly to avoid massive civilian casualties are 'pro-war', 
'supporting the occupation', have 'strange or corrupted reasons', etc.

My reasoning is based entirely on number of Iraqis killed per day. How a desire to keep that number down is 'strange 
or corrupted' is beyond me. Now that the religious elements over there have begun to turn to bombing each other, it 
becomes clearer than ever that our new job as honorable compassionate people, post-invasion, is to get out, but to clean 
up Bush's mess before we leave. Unless, of course, we want to personally enable casualty numbers to move on up into 
holocaust territory.

Arguments that such reasoning cannot also be anti-war, when we are talking about defusing the potential for *more* 
war, are simply exercises in feely-good redefinition. And labels of 'pro-war' - when applied to this idea - are simply 
lies. -cmb 



------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2005 20:32:07 +0100
From: "Indigo Frank" 

Subject: [Peace-discuss] Re:Liberal media
To: peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
Message-ID: <20050719193207.B0842203FC at ws5-1.us4.outblaze.com>
Content-Type: text/plain

In response to:
My basic views haven't changed much since the Vietnam war,
when I opposed my Marxist-Leninist friends from the Left,
from an anarchist or libertarian-socialist position. (As
Rocker Rocker said, all anarchists are socialists, but not all
socialists are anarchists.) --CGE

But anarchism is a shaky term. Is it some "true anarchism" that is socialist? Indigo

-- 
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Download Opera 8 at http://www.opera.com


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Message: 3
Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2005 14:42:09 -0500
From: "C. G. Estabrook" 
Subject: [Peace-discuss] Re: "Liberal" media
To: peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
Message-ID: 
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8

Suppose we were talking to a member of the German government
sometime from mid-1940 to mid-1944, and he said the following:

“We hear constantly that those of us who support moving out of
France slowly to avoid massive civilian casualties are
'pro-war' ... My reasoning is based entirely on number of
French people killed per day ... Now that the political
elements there have begun to turn to attacking each other [as
Left and Right in France did under the Occupation and
afterwards], it becomes clearer than ever that the Germans'
job as honorable compassionate people, post-invasion, is to
get out, but to clean up the mess the invasion made before we
leave.”

Would we believe him at all? Probably not. But suppose he was
sincere. Then his protestation that his was an anti-war
position -- that he was “talking about defusing the potential
for *more* war” -- would simply seem deluded. “Cleaning up”
and “defusing” would be obvious euphemisms for continuing the
effects of the German invasion -- an unavoidably pro-war
position. --CGE


---- Original message ----
>Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2005 12:53:43 -0500
>From: "Chas. 'Mark' Bee" 
>Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] "Liberal" media 
>To: 

>
> We hear constantly that those of us who support moving out
slowly to avoid massive civilian casualties are 'pro-war', 
>'supporting the occupation', have 'strange or corrupted
reasons', etc.
>
> My reasoning is based entirely on number of Iraqis killed
per day. How a desire to keep that number down is 'strange 
>or corrupted' is beyond me. Now that the religious elements
over there have begun to turn to bombing each other, it 
>becomes clearer than ever that our new job as honorable
compassionate people, post-invasion, is to get out, but to clean 
>up Bush's mess before we leave. Unless, of course, we want
to personally enable casualty numbers to move on up into 
>holocaust territory.
>
> Arguments that such reasoning cannot also be anti-war, when
we are talking about defusing the potential for *more* 
>war, are simply exercises in feely-good redefinition. And
labels of 'pro-war' - when applied to this idea - are simply 
>lies. -cmb 
>
>_______________________________________________

------------------------------

Message: 4
Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2005 15:13:08 -0500
From: "C. G. Estabrook" 
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Re:Liberal media
To: Indigo Frank 
,
peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
Message-ID: <5514dc7f.1e78f64b.841d900 at expms1.cites.uiuc.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Sure, if we look at the European anarchist tradition, which as
Chomsky says is the prolongation of the liberal ideas of the
Enlightenment into the age of industrialization.

OTOH, there is a position that's sometimes called
"anarcho-capitalism," exists almost only in America, and is
not socialist; it's practically solipsistic, and its prophet
is probably the late Robert Heinlein. And -- again, only in
the US -- it's coming to be called "anarchism" or
"libertarianism." 

BTW, I was not quoting some now-forgotten punk band ("Rocker
Rocker") but rather the remarkable German-American writer
*Rudolf* Rocker (1873-1958), probably the best-known anarchist
in America in the mid-20th century. (Chomsky would be that
now.) See . --CGE


---- Original message ----
>Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2005 20:32:07 +0100
>From: "Indigo Frank" 

>Subject: [Peace-discuss] Re:Liberal media 
>To: peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>
>In response to:
>My basic views haven't changed much since the Vietnam war,
>when I opposed my Marxist-Leninist friends from the Left,
>from an anarchist or libertarian-socialist position. (As
>Rocker Rocker said, all anarchists are socialists, but not all
>socialists are anarchists.) --CGE
>
>But anarchism is a shaky term. Is it some "true anarchism"
that is socialist? Indigo
>
>-- 


------------------------------

Message: 5
Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2005 15:27:54 -0500
From: ouroboros rex 
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Re: "Liberal" media
To: peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
Message-ID: <42DD624A.1000304 at itg.uiuc.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed

C. G. Estabrook wrote:

>Suppose we were talking to a member of the German government
>sometime from mid-1940 to mid-1944, and he said the following:
>
>“We hear constantly that those of us who support moving out of
>France slowly to avoid massive civilian casualties are
>'pro-war' ... My reasoning is based entirely on number of
>French people killed per day ... Now that the political
>elements there have begun to turn to attacking each other [as
>Left and Right in France did under the Occupation and
>afterwards], it becomes clearer than ever that the Germans'
>job as honorable compassionate people, post-invasion, is to
>get out, but to clean up the mess the invasion made before we
>leave.”
>
>Would we believe him at all? Probably not. But suppose he was
>sincere. Then his protestation that his was an anti-war
>position -- that he was “talking about defusing the potential
>for *more* war” -- would simply seem deluded. “Cleaning up”
>and “defusing” would be obvious euphemisms for continuing the
>effects of the German invasion -- an unavoidably pro-war
>position. --CGE
>

The depths to which you have to go to refute my argument indict your 
position more thoroughly than I ever could, but it would still be 
interesting to see evidence of these civil struggles in France - 
particularly their genesis in old religious rivalries, the church 
bombings, and the routine calls for civil war from the pulpit.

Or is this just a particularly dishonest and disgusting straw man?



>
>
>---- Original message ----
> 
>
>>Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2005 12:53:43 -0500
>>From: "Chas. 'Mark' Bee" 
>>Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] "Liberal" media 
>>To: 

>>
>> We hear constantly that those of us who support moving out
>> 
>>
>slowly to avoid massive civilian casualties are 'pro-war', 
> 
>
>>'supporting the occupation', have 'strange or corrupted
>> 
>>
>reasons', etc.
> 
>
>> My reasoning is based entirely on number of Iraqis killed
>> 
>>
>per day. How a desire to keep that number down is 'strange 
> 
>
>>or corrupted' is beyond me. Now that the religious elements
>> 
>>
>over there have begun to turn to bombing each other, it 
> 
>
>>becomes clearer than ever that our new job as honorable
>> 
>>
>compassionate people, post-invasion, is to get out, but to clean 
> 
>
>>up Bush's mess before we leave. Unless, of course, we want
>> 
>>
>to personally enable casualty numbers to move on up into 
> 
>
>>holocaust territory.
>>
>> Arguments that such reasoning cannot also be anti-war, when
>> 
>>
>we are talking about defusing the potential for *more* 
> 
>
>>war, are simply exercises in feely-good redefinition. And
>> 
>>
>labels of 'pro-war' - when applied to this idea - are simply 
> 
>
>>lies. -cmb 
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>> 
>>
>>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>Peace-discuss mailing list
>>Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>>http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/listinfo/peace-discuss
>> 
>>




------------------------------

Message: 6
Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2005 16:44:30 -0500
From: Bob Illyes 
Subject: [Peace-discuss] Patrick Thompson
To: peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.2.20050719163007.01f818c8 at express.cites.uiuc.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed

Patrick Thompson's trial continues in courtroom E at 9:30
in the morning. Today, Patrick's accuser and the first
witness for him took the stand. I think there is a fair
chance of a verdict tomorrow. There is NO EVIDENCE against
him except the word of his accuser. But he is being prosecuted
for assaulting a white woman and has an all-white jury of
mostly women (hard to believe, but true). Patrick is defending
himself. This is definitely worth attending, if you're able.

I think you all know of his VEYA connection and the felony
eavesdropping charges for monitoring police performance. Now
he is being prosecuted on unrelated charges with inadequate
evidence. What a coincidence!

Bob



------------------------------

Message: 7
Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2005 18:15:38 -0500
From: "Jason" 
Subject: [Peace-discuss] marketing
To: peace-discuss at lists.cu.groogroo.com
Message-ID: <20050719231538.4DF1416DB8 at mail.chambana.net>
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