[Peace-discuss] Rewording

[John W.]

At 08:42 PM 7/3/2007, Jenifer Cartwright wrote:

>Good re-write, Bob. Philosophical and economic viewpoints aside, I think 
>this works better because it focuses attention on what is going on NOW 
>(Iraq), and what is likely to happen in the near future (Iran). It's 
>stronger and more to the point.
>
>Others?
>
>Jenifer

Bob's rewording is somewhat preferable, for the reasons stated prior to his 
"QED".  One has to decide who one's target audience is.  If it's only the 
choir, it doesn't much matter.  But if it's the general public, loaded 
phrases like "America's criminal wars of hegemony" often achieve the 
opposite of the desired result.

But it's already July 4.

Incidentally, I left the Prairie Green Party several years ago over just 
such an issue of consensus - or rather an egregious breach thereof.

John W.



>Bob Illyes <illyes at uiuc.edu> wrote:
>I'm not sure how to reword it, Carl, but I'll give it a stab. The first
>sentence is the biggest problem in my opinion. For example, what wars and
>occupations? To make occupation plural you have to consider Israel our
>proxy. This is arguable. To make war plural you have to include Desert
>Storm as an improper war (unless you consider Israel our proxy again). This
>is also arguable- we freed an occupied country. The entire sentence is
>problematic. Consider this:
>
>Who would say "the corporate economy drives America's criminal wars"?
>A Marxist.
>
>Would a lot of readers notice this?
>Yes.
>
>Can AWARE be effective as an antiwar group if it promotes Marxist ideology?
>No.
>
>QED
>
>I'd do something like:
>
>The corporate economy drives America's criminal war and occupation of Iraq,
>and threatens Iran. The profitability of war to the defense industry is the
>obvious reason for this, but there may be a longer-term profit. Both
>Democratic and Republican administrations have demanded that the US control
>Middle East energy resources, even though we import very little oil from
>the Middle East for use in the US. This would not benefit the American
>people, but would give US corporations considerable control over America's
>principal economic competitors, Europe and northeast Asia (China, South
>Korea and Japan).
>
>Bob
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