[Peace-discuss] The message of wiki-leaks…

[C. G. Estabrook]

John--

An elegant bit of writing in defense of your proletarian authenticity.

If only you didn't despise the proles as much as you do the preps.

Seek first the reign of God. --CGE


On 8/3/10 1:43 AM, John W. wrote:
>
> On Mon, Aug 2, 2010 at 12:27 PM, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu
> <mailto:galliher at illinois.edu>> wrote:
>
> John, when you & I were young and in New England, that was called
> "poor-mouthing," and no one could get away with it.
>
> Carl, you always suggest that our experiences at our respective Ivy League
> institutions, during the same general era, were the same.  They weren't, not
>  even remotely.  I WAS in fact a poor boy from a working class neighborhood
> in Chicago.  I hated the preppies.  I didn't have a clue about the Old Boy
> network or how it worked.  When I graduated from college magna cum laude, I
> went right back to the south side of Chicago and worked for minimum wage
> unloading railroad cars, washing trays in a bakery, pumping gas, mowing
> lawns, shoveling manure on farms, and killing rats and cockroaches.   My
> entire life, at least until I arrived here in C-U and largely even here, has
> been spent in blue collar environs. You, on the other hand, understood the
> preppies even if you disagreed with them politically.  You read infinitely
> more books, went on to get a couple more Harvard degrees, and made a career
> as a professor.  You could have been a ranking member of the "political
> elite" if your politics hadn't been so radical.  We both remained more or
> less true to the ideals that we embraced while in college, but we remained
> true in vastly different manners and milieux. I'm not happy with the choices
> I've made in life, but I do know infinitely more about how the "average"
> person thinks, and why, than you do.  You[re a Noam Chomsky, with perhaps
> more attitude.  I'm an Eric Hoffer or - dare I say it? - an Eldridge
> Cleaver.
>
> But you think these Midwesterners are more credulous, eh?
>
> Attention to the political class' newspaper of record and its leading liberal
> columnist is a matter of noting how well the manufacture of consent is
> working.
>
> The administration thinks that its greatest threat right now comes from home
> (as usual), not abroad - the danger that the US public may cop an attitude on
> AfPak (cf. Vietnam).  That's what really scares Obama & Co. (See the
> "Audacity of Hope," where he indicates how serious he thinks the problem is -
> and offers himself as the solution.)
>
> Ol' Frank's job - as David points out mordantly - is to patrol the limits of
> allowable debate, to tell us how as  well as what to think about "Obama's
> first year," so that more will follow as the night the day.
>
> And you tell us to pay no attention to the little man behind the curtain...
>
> Not exactly.  I tell you that we on this list already have a pretty good idea
> as to how the little man behind the curtain operates, though we may disagree
> on a few of the details.  But the larger public - the silent majority, if you
> will - are not critical thinkers and they have very little idea of what is
> going on. Perhaps more importantly, even if they suspect that limits have
> been imposed on allowable debate, they have no idea what to do about it.  And
> neither do you. Which is why you just keep talking about it.  I wish I was
> wrong.
>
> On 8/2/10 12:09 PM, John W. wrote:
>
> You know I'm not very smart, and sometimes have trouble following these
> arcane threads.  Someone please remind me why Frank Rich's precise turns of
> phrase are the most important thing that y'all have to talk and think about.
> Are you in danger of becoming complacent if ol' Frank finally admits that
> the war in Afghanistan is "morally wrong" and not merely some manner of
> mistake? John
>
> On Mon, Aug 2, 2010 at 11:49 AM, David Green <davegreen84 at yahoo.com
> <mailto:davegreen84 at yahoo.com> <mailto:davegreen84 at yahoo.com
> <mailto:davegreen84 at yahoo.com>>> wrote:
>
> Mort, it's not at all clear that /Rich /thinks we should get out. Although
> he is an editorial columnist, he says nothing throughout of his own views.
> The closest he comes is this: /As the president conducts his scheduled
> reappraisal of his war policy this December, a re-examination of 1971 might
> lead him to question his own certitude of what he is fond of calling “the
> long view.” /That's obtuse, and for a reason. And indeed the lessons of
> "1971" aren't at all clear, if one is serious about making even this
> argument re what "might lead" Obama. Neither the army nor the population is
> rebelling against the war, and the economic downturn that has accompanied it
> does not seem to be bothering the interests of capital, broadly speaking. In
> fact, it has benefitted them greatly--the economic world is very different
> than it was in 1971, and the resource stakes are much higher in the ME than
> in Southeast Asia. There is no certainty at all, as Rich suggests, that we
> are on the downside of this war. So his column is counsel for complacency.
> With you, it has seemed to work. DG