[Peace-discuss] [sf-core] couple things

[Stuart Levy]

On Sat, Mar 13, 2010 at 10:54:21AM -0600, C. G. ESTABROOK wrote:
> Obama has more US troops fighting in more places in the Mideast than Bush 
> did. Demonstrating against out-of-office Republicans now plays into the 
> defense of Obama, that he "inherited the problems."

So once Obama is out of office, we'd have no further interest in him either?

*That* seems perverse to me.  Our job should include maintaining the memories
that the mainstream media are happy to forget.  We should be reminding people
of what the Bush Admin said to get us into Iraq -- and Afghanistan --
especially since it sounds too much like what we're being told these days
by the Obama administration about Iran.

> We should be demonstrating against the crimes being committed in our name 
> at the moment. Instead, members of Socialist Forum are defending the 
> president.

I'm not sure that that's what they are doing.

> And I think I'd prefer to say that AWARE is an anti-war group (and 
> specifically US wars) rather than a peace group. All oppressors are in 
> favor of peace - just peace on their terms. "Croppies lie down," in the 
> Irish song.
>
> But contemporary wars are primarily the result of US policy (in this 
> administration as well as the last).  To quote a real socialist (also an 
> Irish patriot):
>
>      "One great source of the strength of the ruling class has ever been 
> their willingness to kill in defence of their power and privileges. Let 
> their power be once attacked either by foreign foes, or domestic 
> revolutionists, and at once we see the rulers prepared to kill, and kill, 
> and kill. The readiness of the ruling class to order killing, the small 
> value the ruling class has ever set upon human life, is in marked contrast 
> to the reluctance of all revolutionists to shed blood."
>
>
> Stuart Levy wrote:
>> On Fri, Mar 12, 2010 at 08:51:24PM -0600, C. G. ESTABROOK wrote:
>>> It is certainly "a bit perverse" to assert that the present 
>>> administration represents any improvement over that last in, say, the 
>>> matter of killing people.
>> I don't think we need to claim that to find Rove thoroughly worthy
>> of demonstrating against.
>> Rove is one of the principal political architects of support for the
>> wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  And he has not changed his tune.
>> The Obama administration has not shown that kind of grand initiative --
>> they owe a heavy debt to the previous admin.
>> For some fun, check out recent Doonesbury strips (doonesbury.com),
>> which involve helicopters, the CIA, and an Afghan wedding party, but
>> not in the usual tragic way.  It also includes Trudeau's favorite
>> quotes from recent news, and here's the current one:
>>     "I'm proud that we used techniques that broke the will of these
>>     terrorists... I'm proud that we kept the world safer than it was,
>>     by use of these techniques." -- Karl Rove on waterboarding
>> If John Yoo came to town, would we refrain from demonstrating about
>> his presence on the grounds that he wasn't part of the current 
>> administration?
>> How short are our memories supposed to get?
>> During the Bush administration I didn't see AWARE, at least, as
>> a specifically anti-Republican action group, and I don't see us as a
>> specifically anti-Democratic one now.  We're a peace group.
>>    Stuart

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