[Peace-discuss] [Peace] Trump torpedoes Iran nuclear accord

Fri May 11 22:02:16 UTC 2018

On Fri, May 11, 2018 at 2:14 PM, Karen Aram <karenaram at hotmail.com> wrote:

Carl
>
> Your statement:
>
> “What happened after 1975 was the construction of a vicious
> counter-narrative, neo-conservatism, to join the business community’s
> counter-attack on ’the Sixties,’ neoliberalism.”
> Makes sense and I believe this is what happened based upon what I have
> read, and what you have said stated many times.
>
> I have also heard others discuss how many people turned to “personal
> pursuits” as a result of Edward Bernais propaganda. The turn on, navel
> gazing crowd, populating the west coast began a movement, in the sixties
> that dulled the senses of many of those who “participated in political
> activism of the 60’s and 70’s”, not the serious organizers, who often were
> older and continued the struggle.
>

In a word, Dave Dellinger vs. Abbie Hoffman.  Ironically, Abbie became a
serious environmental activist years later in upstate New York, before
committing suicide at age 53.  But he and Timothy Leary had turned a
generation of college students into "yippies".

> Just as today, its difficult with only small turn outs.
>
> Many of the groups such as the SWP regrouped under a new strategy, of
> taking individuals out of the cities, off of campuses, into more rural
> areas in order to organize unions, unfortunately many as a result, dropped
> out rather than uproot their lives.
>
> This is why I find it difficult to believe that the masses demonstrating
> against US interventions in Latin America were larger than that which took
> place during the Vietnam war.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On May 11, 2018, at 11:31, John W. via Peace-discuss <
> peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
>
>
> On Fri, May 11, 2018 at 1:18 PM, Mildred O'brien <moboct1 at aim.com> wrote:
>
> I suppose John W. (whoever he is) represents mainstream rural America,
>> uninformed and unread, gullible patriots.
>>
>
> You replied only to me, Mildred/Midge, so you may as well just address me
> directly, whoever I am.  Anything else would be rude and boorish.  But
> here, I'll add us back in to the peace-discuss discussion.
>
> I don't "represent" mainstream rural America, except insofar as I lived
> and worked in that environment for 20 long years, and know what their
> interests are and how they think.  I was a fish out of water, but it was
> water that I was forced to swim in for all those years, and I really didn't
> know how to find fresher, purer water such as the kind that YOU plainly
> have been privileged to swim in.
>
>
>
>
>>   He no doubt represents more of the population than informed activists,
>>
>
> Again, I'm absolutely certain that that benighted population is far, far
> higher than the population of "informed activists", who as often as not
> can't even agree among themselves as to priorities, tactics, and
> strategies, and end up breaking into splinter groups and driving away those
> who might have been allies.
>
> You see, I've now been an "informed activist" in THIS community for 20
> long years, and I see how IT works too.  I have what might be termed by
> Noam Chomsky a "basis for comparison".
>
>
>
>> but to say there was no opposition in those days is not accurate at least
>> in this area.
>>
>
> I at least didn't assert that in any way, shape, or form.
>
>
>
>> Midge
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: John W. via Peace-discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
>> To: Karen Aram <karenaram at hotmail.com>
>> Cc: Brussel, Morton K <brussel at illinois.edu>; Peace-discuss List (
>> peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net) <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
>> Sent: Fri, May 11, 2018 1:09 pm
>> Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] Trump torpedoes Iran nuclear accord
>>
>>
>> On Fri, May 11, 2018 at 8:41 AM, Karen Aram <karenaram at hotmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> It’s good to know that more Americans were protesting the USG Central
>> American wars in the late 70’s and 80’s than even those protesting the
>> Vietnam war in the 60”s. I had no idea, until you made the statement,
>> below. I have the excuse of being in Asia from Spring 1977 on through the
>> next 22 to 28 years, with brief visits to the US at times. However, I’m
>> wondering if most Americans even knew of the opposition at the time, due to
>> limited media coverage?
>>
>>
>> No, most Americans had no idea.  Our "boys" weren't fighting and dying
>> there, so most Americans outside of university communities had no
>> particular awareness of what was going on in Central America, and no
>> interest in finding out.  There was very little mainstream media coverage.
>> Living in a small blue-collar Illinois town back then, I never did figure
>> out the difference between the Sandinistas and the Contras, just as an
>> example.  And didn't really care.  Nor did I understand what the whole
>> Ollie North scandal was all about.  There was no internet in those days,
>> remember, and I personally didn't even read a daily newspaper.
>>
>> I think academics and "progressives" and "revolutionaries" absolutely,
>> dramatically overestimate the amount of support they have in middle America
>> for their various causes.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On May 9, 2018, at 15:32, Carl G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu>
>> wrote:
>>
>> You’re both forgetting the organizing in this country against the US
>> government's Central American wars of the 1970s and ‘80s - arguably
>> involving more Americans than the Vietnam protests of the ‘60s.
>>
>> A decorated (indicted) hero of those wars, Oliver North, has just become
>> head of the NRA.
>>
>> What happened after 1975 was the construction of a vicious
>> counter-narrative, neo-conservatism, to join the business community's
>> counter-attack on ’the Sixties,’ neoliberalism.
>>
>> Beginning in the Carter* administration, neolib and neocon lies dominated
>> US politics.
>>
>> President Bush I celebrated the real success of the first Gulf War
>> (1990-91): “...by God, we've kicked the Vietnam syndrome [ = reluctance of
>> Americans to engage in neo-colonial wars, after Vietnam] once and for all!”
>> ______________________________
>>
>> * "At one point, President Jimmy Carter actually said that the U.S. owed
>> no reparations to Vietnam because 'the destruction was mutual.’”
>> <http://www.vvaw.org/veteran/article/?id=265&print=yes>
>>
>>
>>
>> On May 9, 2018, at 5:02 PM, John W. via Peace-discuss <
>> peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>> On Wed, May 9, 2018 at 4:52 PM, Karen Aram <karenaram at hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Unfortunately, thats not what we did in the sixties. Once the Vietnam war
>> was over, everyone went home, I left the country, many went to California
>> to join communes, and navel gaze, while others got swept up into the
>> eighties, where greed was good.  So here we are on the brink of nuclear
>> war, and climate catastrophe, pick your poison.
>>
>>
>> Right you are, Karen.  And more or less my point.  Every several decades
>> there's a new generation of young idealists who are going to "straighten
>> out" the mess their parents made.  And always, always, always with the same
>> result.  Or, if not EXACTLY the same result, close enough that "it rhymes",
>> as Carl is fond of quoting.
>>
>>
>
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