[Peace-discuss] Re Durbin's mis-steps

[C. G. Estabrook]

You're quite right, Mort.  It's an excellent piece, beginning
with a demand for Durbin's resignation for his shameful
cave-in and ending, "If you want to know how the U.S. got into
its current dangerous, potentially pre-fascist state, don’t
just look to 'red' states and counties. You’ll also want to
examine the deadly, authoritarian nature of political and
social life in 'bluer,' more urban and Democratic territories
like Chicago and Illinois." And we should.

My only disagreement is with a line he quotes from Andrew
Bacevich (whose book, The New American Militarism: How
Americans Are Seduced By War, sounds important): Bacevich
is surely right that “a new and dangerous obsession” has
“taken hold of many Americans, conservatives and liberals
alike," but he describes it as "the marriage of militarism to
utopian ideology – of unprecedented military power wed to
blind faith in the universality of American values.” 

There's nothing wrong with the universality of American
values.  Durbin's point, from which he backtracked, was that
US policy contradicted what we say those values are.

As Bacevich says, “paying homage to the those in uniform has
become obligatory and the one unforgivable sin is to be found
guilty of failing to ‘support the troops.’”  That's a triumph
of propaganda, not a defect of values.  How often have you
heard "patriots" say that "our" soldiers couldn't possibly be
doing anything really wrong?

We have to make clear that that is exactly the policy, and
Durbin wouldn't do it.  --CGE

---- Original message ----
>Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 09:33:13 -0500
>From: "Morton K. Brussel" <brussel at uiuc.edu>  
>Subject: [Peace-discuss] Re Durbin's mis-steps  
>To: peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>
>Cogent commentary from PaulStreet about Drubin's apologies at:
>
>http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=30&ItemID=8157
>
>--mkb
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