[Peace-discuss] Barbershop conversation

[John W.]

At 12:45 AM 7/22/2007, Neil Parthun wrote:

>I agree with Bob here as well.
>
>We cannot be pigeonholing people who have come to be anti-Iraq war due to 
>the terrible mismanagement, et al. as somehow less than us due to their 
>beliefs and opinions about the subject.  That mentality just smacks of 
>'more activist than thou' and can really turn people off.  This is a time 
>where we need to all be binding together to present a wide anti-war stance 
>of people from the Old Right all the way to the far left (using these 
>terms in their broadest sense of the traditional political spectrum) 
>because we all agree that this war is wrong.  I personally like people to 
>be flexible and acknowledge when they've made an error in their beliefs 
>and would like to correct it rather than hanging it over their heads in a 
>"told you so" and "look what you helped support!" kind of fashion.  If 
>we're truly open and inclusive, should we not be open to people who come 
>to the same conclusion that we have (the wrongness of this war) but 
>through different means?
>
>Enjoy every sandwich,
>                     x Neil x


Self-rightousness and "I told you so" and a refusal to be inclusive wasn't 
really my point.  Sure, let 'em jump on the anti-war bandwagon four years 
too late.  The more the merrier.  But what happens when this 
administration, or the next, says "Iran is developing nukular weapons, and 
we can't let 'em do that!  We got to bomb 'em into the Stone Age!"  Bob's 
barber and Bob's janitor, lacking any sort of coherent historical 
perspective, are right back on the ol' war bandwagon, cheering the 
(p)Resident and shouting "Support our Troops!", placing those f*cking 
little magnetic yellow ribbons on their cars.  And history repeats itself, 
as Yogi Berra might have said, all over again.

J.W.