[Peace-discuss] Be careful what you assume…

[E.Wayne Johnson]

The characteristic of bullying is to pick a fight over a minor infraction.  Many evaluate human life in relativistic terms.  Certainly American lives are made to be much more valuable in the popular commerce than those of enemies and those who are slaughtered, butchered, tortured, starved, or worse, by american "principles"

Bullies dont have much concern about the value of the life that is the object of their bullying.  I agree that valuing life, even the life of non-americans is an important fundamental.

But if we are going to insist on everyone having absolute ideologic purity on our pet issues while we at the same time insist on them overlooking our blind spots and ideologic pecadilloes, we will have trouble reaching any sort of viable critical mass.  I think that people can be accepted into the anti-war movement even if they disapprove of violence and bombing of public buildings.

We have these concerns that we have about people who belong to or sort of belong to or might get sorted into various ideologic groups or sets, and it's more convenient for us to say that "they ain't like us" than it is for us to try to figure out what who they really are.  We tend to forget that people do make mistakes, and even admit it on rare occasions, particularly if we dont insist on continually dipping their noses into their "accidents".

People can change their minds.  If every one who disagrees with us is a Hopeless Case, then War and Extermination and Purging is the only way to a better world.  Some people dont have their ideologies well established.  It seems that most people don't.

Anyway, I think that americans miss black and white TV, the HowdyDoody Show, and brand new red 1957 Chevrolet Nomads and that accounts for most of the popularity of the fellow that my grandfather called "Baldy Eisenhower", and his warning about the militaryindustrialcomplex is an excuse for lapses into nostalgia.


----- Original Message ----- 
  From: David Green 
  To: naiman.uiuc at gmail.com 
  Cc: Peace Discuss 
  Sent: Friday, January 21, 2011 4:24 AM
  Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Be careful what you assume…


  Pragmatically, the antiwar movement needs all of the help it can get. The question is whether one can have a successful movement when some of its allies are unprincipled in their professed opposition to war, wars, or a war. In relation to left-libertarian alliances I don't see this as a problem, although apparently some do, because libertarians are by-and-large principled opponents of foreign intervention. In relation to Coulter, etc., I do see it as a problem, since they only admit to the "mistakes" of fighting a particular war, but essentially support the notion of intervention and militarism, on "principle." What does the anti-war movement become when it allies itself with those who are essentially pro-war? Certainly, it loses analytical clarity in relation to the value of human life. Does the end justify the means? "Pragmatic" opposition to the Vietnam War contributed to ending the war, but it perpetuated the foreign policy "principles" that led to subsequent wars.

  DG




------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  From: Robert Naiman <naiman.uiuc at gmail.com>
  To: Morton K. Brussel <mkb3 at mac.com>
  Cc: Peace-discuss List <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
  Sent: Thu, January 20, 2011 11:28:11 AM
  Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Be careful what you assume…

  I would guess that most people who cite Eisenhower's speech cite it
  not as evidence that Eisenhower was a wonderful human being, but
  rather because the fact that *Eisenhower* said it gives it greater
  weight. So it's almost the opposite. I suppose that it could be argued
  that the citing has some residual effect of making people feel more
  positively about Eisenhower. But, seeing as he is long dead, any
  social harm caused by this seems minimal. If you could shut down one
  foreign base, cancel one weapons system at a cost of inadvertently
  discouraging people from hating Eisenhower as much as they're supposed
  to, it seems like a small price to pay.

  There are a lot of arenas where someone's usefulness as an authority
  is almost inversely proportional to one's opinion of their intrinsic
  moral worth. Some pacifist denounces the war in Afghanistan: great.
  George Will and Ann Coulter denounce it: now you got something. If I
  point out that Ann Coulter has denounced the war in Afghanistan, am I
  guilty of Ann Coulter-promotion?

  On Thu, Jan 20, 2011 at 9:49 AM, Morton K. Brussel <mkb3 at mac.com> wrote:
  > I too have used Eisenhower's words in hopes that they be taken literally
  > from someone who understood the perils of militarism, but Wolff explains why
  > to do this is to give a false image of Eisenhower.
  >
  > Eisenhower's "warnings about military overreach were couched, it's usually
  > forgotten, in passages insisting on the need for a military of unprecedented
  > size." The famous final warning about the military-industrial complex is the
  > best example: It was immediately followed by words that are typically
  > ignored: "We recognize the imperative need for this development [of the
  > complex].... Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action" because the
  > communist threat "promises to be of indefinite duration."
  >
  >  http://www.truth-out.org/how-one-paragraph-a-single-speech-has-skewed-eisenhower-record66953
  >
  > _______________________________________________
  > 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
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