[Peace-discuss] ideology etc.

[Bob Illyes]

Examples, Carl, but I've gone over this before:

1) Israel is simply America's proxy.
2) America is simply Israel's proxy.
3) American and/or Israeli governments are consistently on the side of evil.
4) Palestinians are not as responsible for the chaos in Gaza and the West 
Bank as are Israelis, but are rather as pure as wind-driven snow.
5) Democrats are to the right of Republicans.
6) Capitalists have completely subverted democratic government.

These all are blanket statements about groups, and are no more appropriate 
than racism or anti-semitism. It is not the group that is morally 
responsible, but the individual. As Mort might put it, this sort of talk 
leads to more heat and less light.

If we are to reach both sides of the isle, and Jews as well as Gentiles, 
this sort of over-generalization should not be in our literature. If there 
is substantial evidence that there is something to any of these claims 
(which I doubt), we should give our readers the evidence and let them draw 
the conclusion, rather than looking down our noses at them and assuming 
that they aren't smart enough to understand where the evidence leads.

That is, I should say, what we should do if we actually seek to make a 
difference rather than simply looking down our noses at the world.

There is a recent book by a Catholic scholar (I don't remember his name) to 
the effect that there is no hope, but that he at least wanted to give 
witness that he knew this. He was on McChesney's show one time, and I was 
muttering to myself "That is not true" over and over. Sarah said, "Why 
don't you call in", so I did, as the last question. He was trying to 
compare the Roman Republic to America. I pointed out that the Roman 
Republic had no means to replace the Senators (the seats were hereditary) 
but that modern republics did have such mechanisms. I pointed out that 
there is much to be optimistic about in what is happening in Latin America. 
He granted that there was some merit in what I said, and Bob closed by 
saying that that that was the most positive thing that was said in the 
entire show.

I reject this pessimism. There is no conspiracy. There are only the actions 
of individuals, which matter. If the scholar I cited was as serious about 
his pessimism as he seems to have been (I have no reason to doubt him) he 
should have put down his pen and spent time with a child, something that 
has a know positive effect, all political matters aside.

Bob