Re: [Peace-discuss] Sous les pavés, la plage?

[John W.]

On Fri, Jan 30, 2009 at 10:39 PM, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at uiuc.edu> wrote:

Difficult question.  The first premier of the People's Republic of China in
> the 1950s, Zhou Enlai, when asked his opinion of the 1789 French Revolution,
> is supposed to have said, "It's too soon to tell."
>
> I think the traditional Just War theory (jus ad bellum, jus in bello: see <
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_war>) is correct, understood to mean
> that an oppressed or invaded people may take up arms under some conditions.
> (But, e.g., the US demand for unconditional surrender in WWII was clearly
> unjust.)
>
> I doubt your question can be answered in the abstract.  As a practical
> matter, in dealing with angry people in the streets, unless overcome by
> hypocrisy I would hope to have belonged to the anti-war party in Boston in
> 1775, in Paris in 1789 (at least to the extent Tom Paine was), in Washington
> in 1860, etc.
>
> The only congressional representative to vote against US entry into both
> World War I and World War II, Jeannette Rankin (1880-1973) of Montana, asked
> at the end of her life if she had any regrets, said, "I wish I'd been
> nastier." She meant in opposition to war, and that may imply that angry
> people should be in the streets. --CGE


But in this case the People's ire seems to be directed toward the world's
economic woes rather than toward war or its elimination.  It's still a
difficult question, of course, but I'm not sure that the GOVERNMENTS of our
world know what to do - or are willing to do what may be the "right" thing
to do - in order to alleviate the People's economic concerns.

John again



> John W. wrote:


>  On Fri, Jan 30, 2009 at 8:53 PM, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at uiuc.edu<mailto:
>> galliher at uiuc.edu>> wrote:
>>
>> [A topic discussed on tonight's News from Neptune/TV Ed. (ch. 6 at 7pm and
>> soon online) but few other places in US media. I was in Latvia several
>> years
>> ago, and what's described here is hard to imagine. --CGE]
>>
>>
>> What's your opinion of the EFFICACY of angry people in the streets, Carl?
>> Historically, does this type of protest, more often than not, lead to
>> positive change for ordinary people?  Or is it just a venting of
>> (certainly
>> in some cases legitimate) emotion, which could just as easily lead to
>> civil
>> war and genocide?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Governments across Europe tremble as angry people take to the streets Ian
>> Traynor, Europe editor The Guardian, Saturday 31 January 2009
>>
>> France paralysed by a wave of strike action, the boulevards of Paris
>> resembling a debris-strewn battlefield. The Hungarian currency sinks to its
>> lowest level ever against the euro, as the unemployment figure rises. Greek
>> farmers block the road into Bulgaria in protest at low prices for their
>> produce. New figures from the biggest bank in the Baltic show that the
>> three
>> post-Soviet states there face the biggest recessions in Europe.
>>
>> It's a snapshot of a single day – yesterday – in a Europe sinking into the
>> bleakest of times. But while the outlook may be dark in the big wealthy
>> democracies of western Europe, it is in the young, poor, vulnerable states
>> of
>> central and eastern Europe that the trauma of crash, slump and meltdown
>> looks
>> graver.
>> ...
>>
>
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