[Peace-discuss] Bacevich Brown Bag Program

[Jenifer Cartwright]

Makes sense to me, thanks for clarifying. --Jenifer

--- On Thu, 9/30/10, Robert Naiman <naiman at justforeignpolicy.org> wrote:

From: Robert Naiman <naiman at justforeignpolicy.org>
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Bacevich Brown Bag Program
To: "Jenifer Cartwright" <jencart13 at yahoo.com>
Cc: "Peace-discuss" <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
Date: Thursday, September 30, 2010, 12:26 PM


No, I do not think, and I am pretty confident that I did not say, that it is "only -- or even primarily -- the Repubs who are perpetuating endless war."

What I do think, and have written and said, is that we have a specific and important problem with respect to the Republican party. One way of posing the problem is this: if you compare public opinion and Congressional voting, there is a gap on the Democratic side, but there is a huge chasm on the Republican side. This is a major obstacle to getting a majority in Congress to turn decisively against the wars.

This gap has two key, related, causes:
1. The national Republican party has essentially adopted support of the wars, etc. as a party policy, on which party discipline is enforced. We saw this in the Michael Steele affair, among many other examples.

2. The "peace movement" nationally has little "field" in the districts represented by Republicans in Congress. Most of the country's active peace people live in major metropolitan areas represented by center-liberal-to-progressive Democrats in Congress. You can see this by looking at anti-war initiatives in Congress, looking to see who co-sponsored them, and looking to see what districts they represent.

That is a big part of why I think Bacevich is important. We need folks in Republican districts to turn against the wars and get active.
On Thu, Sep 30, 2010 at 11:26 AM, Jenifer Cartwright <jencart13 at yahoo.com> wrote:


Bob,Re one of yr last statements: Do you really think it's only -- or even primarily -- the Repubs who are perpetuating endless war?It's a no-brainer that this mindset is wrong in all ways... and I expected Bacevich to tell us (when he mentioned "the powers") just WHY this continues to be so entrenched, WHO all are responsible, and WHO all are benefiting... but he didn't get a chance to say and nobody asked.  I'm still wondering about this, but I'm guessing the answer is, A whole lotta rich and powerful folks who don't stand to lose a thing... and don't care a bit about those who do... and their puppets who are convinced there's a
 patriotic justification.
Good show, thanks for arranging it. --Jenifer 



      
_______________________________________________

Peace-discuss mailing list

Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net

http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss





-- 
Robert Naiman
Policy Director
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman at justforeignpolicy.org


Urge Congress to Support a Timetable for Military Withdrawal from Afghanistan
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/act/feingold-mcgovern

 






      
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/attachments/20100930/ebd3d97b/attachment.html>