[Peace-discuss] U.S. Out of Afghanistan Now

Wed Oct 7 21:21:30 CDT 2009

On Wed, Oct 7, 2009 at 8:43 PM, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu>wrote:

John--
>
> The essential propaedeutic (I knew you'd like my using the word) for any
> effective political action is an accurate account of the situation.
>

Hahaha!  It's a marvelous word, Carl, one which I've never before seen in
print.  It has the advantages of being of Latin derivation like *sine qua
non* - or at least LOOKING Latin; it's actually of Greek etymology - plus
it's COMPLETELY obscure.  :-)  For the uninitiated:

pro⋅pae⋅deu⋅tic
<http://dictionary.reference.com/audio.html/lunaWAV/P08/P0831600>
 /ˌproʊpɪˈdutɪk, -ˈdyu-/
<http://dictionary.reference.com/help/luna/IPA_pron_key.html> Show Spelled
Pronunciation [proh-pi-doo-tik, -dyoo-]

  Use *propaedeutic* in a
Sentence<http://ask.reference.com/web?q=Use+propaedeutic+in+a+Sentence&qsrc=2892&o=101993>
See web results for
*propaedeutic*<http://ask.reference.com/web?q=propaedeutic&o=100049>
See images of *propaedeutic*<http://ask.reference.com/pictures?q=propaedeutic&o=100049>

–adjective Also, pro⋅pae⋅deu⋅ti⋅cal.  1. pertaining to or of the nature of
preliminary instruction.   2. introductory to some art or science.
–noun  3. a propaedeutic subject or study.  4. propaedeutics, (used with a
singular verb) the preliminary body of knowledge and rules necessary for the
study of some art or science.

> In the absence of a good analysis, the best will in the world can do the
> right thing only by accident. So it's essential to understand what's really
> going on.
>

Yes.  But are you certain that YOU understand completely what's really going
on?  Are you not rather one of the blind men groping the elephant, just like
all the rest of us, myself excluded?

> If you think the economic deprivation of the majority is a result of the
> machinations of the Jews, you'll pursue different political remedies from
> what you'd do if you think it's a result of the machinations of the
> capitalists. That's what August Bebel (1840-1913) meant when he said,
> "Anti-Semitism is the socialism of fools."
>

Not necessarily.  What if most of the capitalists are also of Jewish
extraction?  More seriously, Calvinism has played just as much of a role in
our national evolution as has capitalism, and indeed the two are
inextricably linked.  Which is to say, one "model" of understanding the
world inevitably leaves out some causative factors, and renders the model
less than perfectly adequate.  Models are for academics; they rarely have a
great deal of application in the hurly-burly of the "real world".

> Today, Obama's war is the anti-terrorism of fools. But Obama (and Bush) is
> not a fool.  Therefore he's doing it for some other reason.  It's worthwhile
> knowing why he's killing people, if we want to stop it.
>

Well, Bush was a fool plain and simple, so we disagree there.  And I think
ALL Presidents are to varying degrees carried along by history rather than
being true shapers of history.

Also, virtually ALL societies of any size and strength - certainly all
empires - have been killers of people.  I defy you to cite me an exception
to that rule.  So why should we expect something different?

> In the US, we didn't have much success with that for a century or so, but I
> think Vietnam -- in conjunction with the civil rights movements and the
> liberation movements from the 60s and 70s -- changed things a bit.  That's
> why the neoliberal counter-attack of the last quarter of the 20th century
> was seen by our rulers as so necessary. They were deeply frightened by the
> success of "the sixties movements." And that's why today those struggles
> have to be ritually repudiated by anyone seeking the approval of the
> American ascendancy. (For a notable example, see "The Audacity of Hope.")
>

And the neoliberals have been rather successful.  I'm not fooled, because I
remember the sixties very clearly.  I remember Viet Nam.  And so, obviously,
do you.  But the younger generations seem to have to learn the same lessons
all over again, at great cost in terms of time and wasted effort.

> Throughout that period, it's been the Democratic party, from Wilson to
> Obama, that has been the instrument in the US for corralling "progressives"
> into support for the regime.  It's instructive to learn what "Wilsonian
> idealism" -- which the US leadership consciously opposed to "Leninist
> socialism" -- meant in practice in regard to war, labor, Europe, Latin
> America, etc.  We are the heirs of a century of that intellectual
> corruption.
>

Indeed.  And before that there was some other form of intellectual
corruption.  Think about it.

> And, after a century, our rulers think that there's more danger of our
> winning than you do. That's why they're willing to go to such lengths to
> prevent it.
>

'Twas ever thus.  Heretics have been burned at the stake or crucified
throughout human history for threatening the power structure.  What hope
have we this side of heaven?

> The question is indeed as Chomsky put it in the book Chavez praised at the
> UN, "Hegemony [of the US rulers] or Survival."  I prefer the latter -- and
> want to continue with the progress we've made against the former.

Well, let me go out on a limb here and predict that our US rulers are going
to maintain their hegemony by force of arms as long as they possibly can,
then move to some island paradise with their ill-gotten gains.  The rest of
us will be left here in America to sweep up the debris and pick through the
landfills for food, and watch our brethren in Venezuela and Cuba and China
and India pass us by.   Mark my words.

>  Regards, CGE
>

*sigh*  Yes, regards.

> John W. wrote:
>
>>
>> On Wed, Oct 7, 2009 at 9:40 AM, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu<mailto:
>> galliher at illinois.edu>> wrote:
>>
>> If by "long-range mind-reading" you mean attempting to understand what the
>> US
>> government is actually doing, behind its propaganda, I should think that
>> that
>> was the first thing a group that wants to be AWARE should be doing.  --CGE
>>
>>
>> Carl....If we FULLY and COMPLETELY (am I being redundant?) accepted your
>> analysis of what the US government is doing, and has been doing for the past
>> 50 or 100 years....what would be the basis for any hope whatsoever?  Why
>> wouldn't we just blow our brains out or set ourselves on fire, or retreat
>> into hedonism or the oblivion of alcohol or drug addiction, or something?
>> Why go on with any sort of political/civic involvement?
>>
>> J.W.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Ricky Baldwin wrote:
>>
>> Our local efforts might be better spent, as usual, trying to organize
>> something similiar here rather than long-range mind-reading.
>>
>> Ricky
>>
>> "Speak your mind even if your voice shakes." - Maggie Kuhn
>>
>> --- On *Tue, 10/6/09, C. G. Estabrook /<galliher at illinois.edu <mailto:
>> galliher at illinois.edu>>/* wrote:
>>
>>
>> From: C. G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu <mailto:
>> galliher at illinois.edu>>
>> Subject: [Peace-discuss] U.S. Out of Afghanistan Now To: "Peace-discuss" <
>> peace-discuss at anti-war.net <mailto:peace-discuss at anti-war.net>> Date:
>> Tuesday, October 6, 2009, 9:53 PM
>>
>> [Dispelling some of the mendacious fog about how the "Obama team is really
>> rethinking Afghanistan" (when all they're doing, of course, is trying to
>> find
>>  the best way to enforce their colonial control). --CGE]
>>
>> "The organizers of the October 7th protests note that the war and
>> occupation of Afghanistan is linked to U.S. interests in controlling
>> strategic energy resources and markets in central Asia."
>>
>> Students to Protest Afghan War on 25 Campuses (Oct. 7) Posted: 06 Oct 2009
>> 08:20 AM PDT
>>
>>  From the Students for a Democratic Society Antiwar Working
>>>
>> Group: Demonstrations mark 8th anniversary of Afghan War -– demand
>> immediate U.S./NATO withdrawal
>>
>> Students on 25 campuses across the United States will protest eight long
>> years of war against and occupation of the people of Afghanistan, on
>> Wednesday October 7. Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), a nation-wide
>> student organization committed to activism for peace, justice and equality,
>> are organizing the protest...
>>
>
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