[Peace-discuss] Limits of allowable debate

[C. G. Estabrook]

It's a positive review of a new book on James K. Polk and the theft of half of 
Mexico (which even A. Lincoln knew was wrong).

Wilentz thinks the Mexicans had it coming (cf. S. Hussein) on the grounds that 
they were really Spaniards and Catholics.

And it didn't have anything to do with slavery.  Nothing.  No way.


Stuart Levy wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 22, 2009 at 12:31:58PM -0600, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
>> The same edition of the NYT (I really won't miss it when it goes) includes 
>> a review by the awful Clintonoid pop-off Sean Wilentz, justifying 
>> particularly speciously 19th c. US imperialism, with obvious present-day 
>> implications...
> 
> Justifying as in US national interest?  White Man's Burden?
> Societal Darwinism, as in, If we did it, it must have been
> because we were Better?
> 
>> David Green wrote:
>>> <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/opinion/22wright.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print>
>>>  The NYT brings in Robert Wright, a liberal heavy thinker known among 
>>> other things for his contributions to the dubious field of evolutionary 
>>> psychology, to define the LOAD for Hasan/Ft. Hood:
>>>  "Conservatives backed war in Iraq, and they’re now backing an 
>>> escalation of the war in Afghanistan. Liberals (at least, dovish liberals) 
>>> have warned in both cases that killing terrorists is counterproductive if 
>>> in the process you create even more terrorists; the object of the game 
>>> isn’t to wipe out every last Islamist radical but rather to contain the 
>>> virus of Islamist radicalism."
>>>  As long as we discuss various perspectives on "terrorism," we can't 
>>> consider that this was not terrorism as commonly defined as attacks 
>>> against civilians. Whatever the pathology of Hasan, we might compare him 
>>> to a black soldier from segregated American asked to kill Asians (and 
>>> perhaps return home to enforce martial law in Newark or Detroit) in the 
>>> 1960s. What the LOAD will not allow us to do is to think of this event in 
>>> terms of rebellion.
>>>  DG
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