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

[John W.]

On Sat, Jan 31, 2009 at 1:00 AM, E. Wayne Johnson <ewj at pigs.ag> wrote:

 I dont think they will be rioting on questions of principle so much as
> rioting and looting for something to eat.
>

C'est ca.  Exactement.

Someone on Nightline tonight compared these Wall Street CEOs to Marie
Antoinette.  It would give me great joy to see the guillotine brought out of
retirement, and applied to a few of their arrogant necks.




> Jenifer Cartwright wrote:
>
>   My 2 cents re the efficacy of angry folks taking to the streets:
> that seems to have worked great in France a couple of summer ago
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4865034.stm
>
> Of course, that was France, and that was then...
>
> No, it won't happen here anytime soon in the fat, lazy, dumbed-down US of
> A (where the gendarmes actually use live ammo).
>  -- Jenifer
>
>
> --- On *Fri, 1/30/09, E. Wayne Johnson <ewj at pigs.ag> <ewj at pigs.ag>* wrote:
>
> From: E. Wayne Johnson <ewj at pigs.ag> <ewj at pigs.ag>
> Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Sous les pavés, la plage?
> To: "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at uiuc.edu> <galliher at uiuc.edu>
> Cc: "Ron Szoke" <r-szoke at illinois.edu> <r-szoke at illinois.edu>, "Morton K.
> Brussel" <brussel at illinois.edu> <brussel at illinois.edu>, "Peace-discuss"
> <peace-discuss at anti-war.net> <peace-discuss at anti-war.net>
> Date: Friday, January 30, 2009, 11:28 PM
>
> Don't expect anyone out in the streets in the US of A until about
> mid-March.
> It's just too dang cold for 24/7 rioting and much too slippery for the
> gainful fleeing
> from paramilitaries.
>
> American roast bellum is always served *au "jus".  *
>
> I don't expect that the phasers will always be set on "stun".  It might not
> be all that pretty.
> I am imagining it hard to breathe out one's anger through a large
> perforating chest wound.
>
> The abstract sometimes answers my questions but often I have to get the
> whole paper and read the
> materials and methods.
>
> C. G. Estabrook 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><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
>
>
> John W. wrote:
>
>
> On Fri, Jan 30, 2009 at 8:53 PM, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at uiuc.edu
> <mailto:galliher at uiuc.edu> <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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