[Peace-discuss] Hawaii to Iraq

[John W.]

I wasn't being rhetorical at all, but perhaps it's a moot point.  I was 
looking at the larger picture of American history, not just the efforts to 
stop whatever current war the United States happens to be engaged 
in.  After successfully(?) bringing to a halt the war in Viet Nam after 
only (!) a 10-year protracted struggle, I've watched for the past 25 years 
as  the multinational corporations have consolidated their immense power; 
the American economy has been largely outsourced; unions, pensions, and 
health insurance benefits have been decimated; real wages for most 
Americans have been plummeting while the price of housing, education, and 
medical care has been skyrocketing; the middle class has been disappearing; 
our national debt has exploded; regulatory agencies are filled with 
industry hacks; virtually NO progress has been made on alternative energy 
development; what little social safety net America used to have has been 
largely eliminated; our prisons have been filled to overflowing; civil 
liberties have been eviscerated; etc., etc., etc.  Stopping the war in Iraq 
will save a few American lives and more than a few Iraqi ones, and that's a 
good thing.  It will stanch for a moment or two the hemorrhaging of 10 
billions dollars a month that we're spending on the war in Iraq, and THAT 
is a good thing.  But what about the next war, and the one after that?  I'm 
witnessing the decline and fall of the American Empire after only 200 
years.  Maybe that too is a good thing for the world, but it's hard for me 
to be terribly sanguine about it because I still have to live here in this 
shithole, and so does my daughter.  If you have a different take on it I'd 
be glad to hear it, but it has to involve more than just stopping the 
current war.

And this education of which you speak....it's a constant process, and it 
doesn't take place primarily in books.  New generations are constantly 
being born and growing up who didn't experience Viet Nam or the civil 
rights movement, and they have no concept of it.  They ask, just as my 
generation asked 35 years ago, why their parents (US!) are leaving them a 
world in such bad shape.  It will take them years of bitter experience to 
learn why the world is in such bad shape.  They won't learn it in 
books.  Will THEY leave the world better than they found it?  Have we done 
that?

No, I wasn't being rhetorical at all.

J.W.



At 07:38 PM 4/23/2006, Robert Naiman wrote:

>If you are being rhetorical -- I suspect you are -- then you are of
>course right to call attention to the danger of an overly
>one-dimensional understanding of the causes driving US policy. Of
>course there are multiple causes that overlap and intersect. But to
>say that there are multiple causes does not imply that all causes are
>equal in importance. On the other hand, to say that commercial
>interests play a decisive role does not suggest that organizing is
>irrelevant.
>
>Why does it matter? Well, when President Bush says that we are
>fighting a war in Iraq for democracy, unfortunately a lot of people
>believe that. Many people don't, but many do, and one of the many
>difficulties we face in organizing against this war and other wars is
>the depth of this kind of belief. And one way -- not the only way, but
>one way -- to counter this belief is to try to educate people about
>the true history.
>
>Of course, if by being sloppy and one-dimensional we managed to
>convince people that there is nothing to be done, that would be bad.
>But, while such things have happened in the past (see: orthodox
>Marxism) I don't see too much of that around us now, so it doesn't
>seem like a big danger to me.
>
>RN
>
>
>On 4/23/06, John W. <jbw292002 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > If what you two are saying is true - and I'm not disagreeing - then what
> > difference does it make whether or not we somehow succeed in impeaching
> > Bush?  What difference does it make how many Americans regard American
> > foreign policy (or domestic policy) as "fundamentally wrong and
> > immoral"?  The two of you (and Kinzer, if he was just a bit more aware of
> > the implications of his own data) would seem to be suggesting that American
> > policy has remained substantially the same (intentionally and fundamentally
> > wrong and immoral) for 100 years, irrespective of administration in power
> > and irrespective of public opinion.  So why should we bother with activism
> > at a national level at all?  Aren't we just tilting at windmills?  Pissing
> > in the wind?  Isn't the sole achievable purpose, really, to pull an
> > isolated body out of the fire here and there?
> >
> > John Wason
> >
> >
> >
> > At 05:35 PM 4/22/2006, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> >
> > >Exactly right.  Kinzer's position seems similar to that of the
> > >left-liberal extreme of respectable opinion regarding Vietnam,
> > >e.g., Anthony Lewis in the NYT in 1969, that the war had begun
> > >with "blundering efforts to do good" but had become a
> > >"disaster" -- at a time when 70% of the public regarded it as
> > >"fundamentally wrong and immoral," not "a mistake." --CGE
> > >
> > >
> > >David Green wrote:
> > >
> > > > I think that Kinzer does a great service, but I would
> > > > have at least one concern. From the portions of the
> > > > interview yesterday on DN that I saw, he seems to be
> > > > saying that--for example--if only we hadn't overthrown
> > > > Mossadegh in 1953, we would have had a liberal
> > > > democracy in Iran all these years, and wouldn't the
> > > > whole Middle East look different, implying that our
> > > > leaders would be happy with that. Well, yes it would,
> > > > and no they wouldn't, and that's exactly why we
> > > > wouldn't allow that to happen. Kinzer still subscribes
> > > > (I think) to the "good intentions gone wrong" version
> > > > of history, rather than imperial intentions done well,
> > > > if messily, with too many dead bodies left behind. We
> > > > put a lot of effort into making sure that Arab
> > > > nationalism could not set a bad example for the Middle
> > > > East--in Iraq in 1958, in Egypt in 1967, etc. We put a
> > > > lot of effort into making sure that Saudi Arabia does
> > > > not become democratic, or Kuwait, for that matter.
> > > >
> > > > David Green