[Peace-discuss] The Day They Arrested President Roosevelt

Sun Jul 19 14:34:59 CDT 2009

Whoa, wasn't wanting to get into the whole fray, merely saying that yr last sentence -- "better system of government" needed clarifying -- that "system" always needs to be tho't of in terms of political vs economic... that differentiation and distinction of the two is always necessary.
 --Jenifer  

--- On Sun, 7/19/09, 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: "Jenifer Cartwright" <jencart13 at yahoo.com>
Cc: "Ricky Baldwin" <baldwinricky at yahoo.com>, "Peace-discuss List" <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
Date: Sunday, July 19, 2009, 1:43 PM

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> 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> wrote:

From: C. G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu>
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] The Day They Arrested President Roosevelt
To: naiman.uiuc at gmail.com
Cc: "Peace-discuss List" <peace-discuss at 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

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/archive/peace-discuss/attachments/20090719/0aaf015c/attachment.htm