[Peace-discuss] [sf-core] More dead children on Obama's watch

[C. G. Estabrook]

If "bloody shirt waving" includes talking about what the political leaders we've supported are actually doing in our name, then it seems to me that that's exactly what should be done.

Look how long it took to describe what the US actually did in SE Asia. (Cf. Nick Turse's new book, "Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam.")  

Obama's persecution of Manning and Assange results from their release of information (e.g. the "Collateral Damage" video) on how the current war is being fought.

His greatest fear, as we've seen, is losing "the bond of trust between the American people and their government." Telling the truth about the war - which of course he's not doing - is the way to destroy that.

As to what Chomsky says (and has been saying for years), Corey Robin writes,

"Whenever I read the work of a professional Chomsky-basher*—you know, the person whose passport to mainstream respectability is stamped with a Chomsky-is-the-most-dastardly-person-on-the-face-of-the-earth visa—or someone who attacks anarchists or leftists in order to maintain his or her liberal street cred, I’m reminded of this passage from Hannah Arendt:

"'In the following chapter, Karl Marx will be criticized. This is unfortunate at a time when so many writers who once made their living by explicit or tacit borrowing from the great wealth of Marxian ideas and insights have decided to become professional anti-Marxists, in the process of which one of them even discovered that Karl Marx himself was unable to make a living, forgetting for the moment the generations of authors whom he has "supported." In this difficulty, I may recall a statement Benjamin Constant made when he felt compelled to attack Rousseau:…"Certainly, I shall avoid the company of detractors of a great man. If I happen to agree with them on a single point I grow suspicious of myself; and in order to console myself for having seemed to be of their opinion…I feel I must disavow and keep these false friends away from me as much as I can."'

"* This is by no means the most egregious case of what I’m talking about, but in March 2005, The American Prospect ran a cover with the title 'Between Chomsky and Cheney.' As if the man who brought us the Iraq War and the man who opposed it were equivalent evils." 


On Mar 27, 2013, at 6:42 PM, Mike Lehman <rebelmike at earthlink.net> wrote:

> ...I guess I'm really more interested in what you've done or propose to do, 
> rather than what Chomsky said about something that likely is tangential 
> at best, given that SF, at least, isn't a pacifist group -- or at least 
> my SF driver's license didn't have the pacifist endorsement ticked off 
> when I checked. Is that like organ donation, where you have to sign a 
> form, but less bloody? I know I've had quite enough of the bloody shirt 
> waving here...