[Peace-discuss] The Day They Arrested President Roosevelt

[John W.]

On Sun, Jul 19, 2009 at 1:10 PM, Jenifer Cartwright <jencart13 at yahoo.com>wrote:

WHY am I putting my 2c midway into one of the many threads going on this
> topic??
>
> Can't argue w/ this posting from John W, tho' re the last sentence, feel
> the need to clarify and remind folks (probably preaching to the choir here)
> that there IS a HUGE distinction between political and economic systems: e
> g, democracy vs dictatorship as prime examples for the first; and e g
> socialism vs capitalism as examples for the second.
>  --Jenifer
>

And again, that's the point.  Bob Naiman started this thread, innocently
enough, by mentioning several ECONOMIC gains for ALL Americans that might
never have been achieved if FDR had been forcefully removed from office, as
the Honduran President recently was.  Carl retorted, predictably, by
reminding us for the 5,721, 986th time that not only FDR but every President
since has been a war criminal and should have been arrested.  Ricky chimed
in that probably every President we've ever had was a war criminal.

My contribution was to suggest that there is no POLITICAL system on earth
that does not produce war criminals.  War is a POLITICAL act, but it has
ECONOMIC justifications and ramifications.  I went on to suggest that not
only does the POLITICAL act of war not negate the ECONOMIC good that a
President may do, but more importantly, war is one of the primary engines
that has actually made it possible for all of us in America to enjoy the
ECONOMIC privileges which we have enjoyed and still to a large degree enjoy.

It's not difficult to draw the implication that, unless we are literally
willing to "put our money where our mouth is" and renounce our economic
privileges - e.g., our gas-guzzling automobiles - we are ALL complicit as
war criminals, just as Carl wants to hold the average German accountable for
Hitler's atrocities (and equate me, for rhetorical effect, with the average
German during World War II).  Most of us are not in a position to totally
alter our lifestyle, so it seems rather pointless and hyprocritical to me to
make a list of Presidents who ordered others murdered so that we in America
could all live better.





> --- On *Fri, 7/17/09, John W. <jbw292002 at gmail.com>* wrote:
>
>
> From: John W. <jbw292002 at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] The Day They Arrested President Roosevelt
> To: "Ricky Baldwin" <baldwinricky at yahoo.com>
> Cc: "Peace-discuss List" <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
> Date: Friday, July 17, 2009, 7:14 PM
>
>
>
> On Fri, Jul 17, 2009 at 5:52 PM, Ricky Baldwin <baldwinricky at yahoo.com<http://us.mc449.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=baldwinricky@yahoo.com>
> > wrote:
>
>   Nice list (if 'nice' is the right word for an accounting of such heinous
>> crimes).
>>
>> We could go back further, of course - right to Washington, if I'm not
>> mistaken.  Pretty close, anyway.
>>
>> Ricky
>>
>> "Speak your mind even if your voice shakes." - Maggie Kuhn
>
>
>
> To the point where it's utterly moronic to make such a list.  What's the
> point, if every President we've ever had made decisions that led, directly
> or indirectly, to the instigation or escalation of some war?  Wars are
> instigated by virtually every other nation and tribe and culture and people
> on earth as well.  The human race is insufferably brutal and selfish, and
> humans kill fellow humans every day to get what they want.  You yourself,
> gentle and precious reader, may not kill directly, but you very definitely
> consume the things and enjoy the lifestyle that war and brutality make
> possible, just like everyone else.  Wake me up the day one of you figures
> out how to eliminate human aggression and self-centeredness.  Until then,
> wake me up when one of you figures out a better system of government, in
> terms of your ONE stupid binary criterion of war/not war.
>
> John Wason
>
>
>
>
>>   --- On *Fri, 7/17/09, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu<http://us.mc449.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=galliher@illinois.edu>
>> >* wrote:
>>
>>
>> From: C. G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu<http://us.mc449.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=galliher@illinois.edu>
>> >
>> Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] The Day They Arrested President Roosevelt
>> To: naiman.uiuc at gmail.com<http://us.mc449.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=naiman.uiuc@gmail.com>
>> Cc: "Peace-discuss List" <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net<http://us.mc449.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net>
>> >
>> Date: Friday, July 17, 2009, 2:33 PM
>>
>>
>> Of course, it might have been a good idea to arrest
>>
>> --Truman before he bombed Japan;
>> --Eisenhower before he overthrew the governments of Iran and Guatemala;
>> --Kennedy before he invaded Cuba and South Vietnam;
>> --Johnson before he attacked North Vietnam and the Dominican Republic;
>> --Nixon before he attacked Cambodia and domestic dissidents (e.g., Fred
>> Hampton, not G. McGovern);
>> --Ford before he allowed the attack on  E. Timor;
>> --Carter before he increased military aid to near-genocidal Indonesia;
>> --Reagan before he killed tens of thousands in LA and Lebanon;
>> --Bush before he launched wars in Panama and the Gulf;
>> --Clinton before he attacked Iraq and Serbia;
>> --Bush jr. before he invaded Iraq
>> --Obama before he devastated AfPak...
>>
>> and perhaps even Roosevelt in 1937, before he manipulated an anti-war
>> populace into war with Japan.
>>
>> We might also have noticed that the Constitution nowhere gives the Supreme
>> Court the right to overrule an act of Congress.
>>
>>
>> Robert Naiman wrote:
>> >
>> > What a dark day for American democracy it was - February 5, 1937, the
>> day the
>> > crisis over President Roosevelt's struggle with the Supreme Court's
>> blocking
>> > of the New Deal was "resolved" when Roosevelt was deported to Canada.
>> How
>> > might America be different today, if minimum wages, the National Labor
>> > Relations Act, and Social Security had not been overturned by the
>> Supreme
>> > Court? Maybe 60% of our fellow citizens wouldn't still be living in
>> poverty.
>> >
>> >
>> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/the-day-they-arrested-pre_b_237678.html
>> >
>> >
>> > http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/7/17/112828/523
>> >
>> > http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/node/265
>>
>>
>
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