[Peace-discuss] Liberals

[C. G. Estabrook]

But it's soi-disant liberals who keep Obama's war policy (and economic policy) in place - as he knows very well (and sketched in Audacity of Hope).

It was only because he co-opted the liberal anti-war movement that he's able to continue (and expand) Bush's war policy; it was only because he co-opted liberal Democrats that he's able to put into practice the Republicans' austerity policy. He's not the lesser evil but "the more effective evil" (as Glen Ford says), because he is putting into effect neocon foreign policy and neoliberal economic policy (and killing a lot of people). 

As Chris Hedges points out (in The Death of the Liberal Class) it is precisely people who see themselves as liberals who are allowing this, when they should be resisting it. We should be attacking liberals and their silence on Obama's actions. 

Did you notice that our liberal senior senator objected to a resolution opposing a president’s ability to bomb citizens on US soil?  --CGE


On Mar 14, 2013, at 12:45 PM, Mike Lehman <rebelmike at earthlink.net> wrote:

> I guess I'll be convinced that we're arguing on a level field here when 
> Carl is as judicious in his attacks on Bergoglio's silence on the junta 
> as he is on all those "liberals"* and their silence on Obama's actions.
> 
> * Personally, I have yet to figure out Carls' obsession with "liberals" 
> since most of the folks I know on these lists would scoff at the notion 
> they are mere "liberals" or that that haven't been sufficiently 
> condemnatory viz Obama and his neo-liberal juggernaut. I do agree there 
> are liberals out there who are complicit by their silence, but I'd think 
> Carl should shift to fishing in waters where his bait won't be wasted as 
> it usually is here.
> 
> Mike Lehman
> 
> On 3/14/2013 12:27 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
>> An argument "'ad hominem tu quoque' (Latin for 'you, too'), or the appeal to hypocrisy, is a logical fallacy that attempts to discredit the opponent's position by asserting the opponent's failure to act consistently in accordance with that position; it attempts to show that a criticism or objection applies equally to the person making it. This dismisses someone's point of view based on criticism of the person's inconsistency, and not the position presented, whereas a person's inconsistency should not discredit their position. Thus, it is a form of the ad hominem argument."
>> 
>> But that's not what I was doing. While it's true that many Americans recently argued that a child-killer should be supported as head of state, if only as a "lesser evil," Bergoglio seems never to have asserted the same thing, although he may have believed it.
>> 
>> The question is indeed about the existence of Bergoglio's "reprehensible acts."
>> 
>> And on that point, did you notice that the Guardian today withdrew what seemed to me the most serious charge in Hugh O'Shaughnessy's 4 January 2011 column, apparently the source of most of the recent criticism of Bergoglio's actions during the Argentinian dictatorship?
>> 
>> "This article was amended on 14 March 2013. The original article, published in 2011, wrongly suggested that Argentinian journalist Horacio Verbitsky claimed that Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio connived with the Argentinian navy to hide political prisoners on an island called El Silencio during an inspection by human rights monitors. Although Verbitsky makes other allegations about Bergoglio's complicity in human rights abuses, he does not make this claim. The original article also wrongly described El Silencio as Bergoglio's 'holiday home'. This has been corrected."
>> 
>> --CGE
>> 
>> On Mar 14, 2013, at 11:23 AM, "Brussel, Morton K" <brussel at illinois.edu> wrote:
>> 
>>> There must be another Latin phrase for what I wanted to say. Perhaps you supply it. What I meant was "side-stepping" or "bait and switch", a kind of dodge to avoid the issue.
>>> I'm confident that that you knew what I meant.
>>> I.e.,  that Obama is a beast in sheep's clothing does not absolve others' reprehensible acts.
>>> 
>>> --mkb.
>>> 
>