I wish things were as simple as they are for you, Joseph.<br clear="all">
<div><br>Yours truly,<br>Ù©(â—̮̮̃•̃)Û¶<br>Henry Musikar, CISSP<br><a href="http://astore.amazon.com/tdcoccamsaxe-20" target="_blank">http://astore.amazon.com/tdcoccamsaxe-20</a></div><br><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Jan 16, 2013 at 8:38 PM, Joseph Tracy <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:brook7@sover.net" target="_blank">brook7@sover.net</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote style="BORDER-LEFT:#ccc 1px solid;MARGIN:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;PADDING-LEFT:1ex" class="gmail_quote">So its ok if you just murder a  couple hundred? Just torture a couple hundred? Maybe jail a few thousand without trial?  Yea that's not so bad, especially if someone in the ever astute chain of command thinks they might be "linked" to Al Kida. If these were George Bush's drones I suspect you would react differently.<br>
<div class="im">On Jan 16, 2013, at 12:48 PM, Henry M wrote:<br><br>> Yes, yes, EVERYONE is being killed by drones! Â It's just a miracle that there's anyone left. Â (Must not be enough drones to kill them all.)<br>
><br>> If those 70% had been correct and if there had been evidence that there were WMDs and there was further evidence that there was a program to threaten the USA with them, then I might have supported the war with Iraq.<br>
</div>Well the democratic party had even more reason to doubt there was a threat but only a small handful opposed the war.  This is the way real decisions have been made. The current decider continues to verbally justify the slaughter in Iraq by saying the soldiers who served there were "defending us".  Pure  Orwellian newspeak.  "We" were not attacked, and you cannot defend someone who was not attacked.<br>
<div class="im">><br>> Do you support the Arab Spring? Â Many non-combatants were killed, ya know.<br></div>Do you? Because the Tunisian uprising was directly related to the B Manning Wikileaks release, which you seemed to despise. Â I believe people have a right to defend themselves from violence , cruelty and oppression but violence and revenge are hard to stop once they begin. Â We must all beware of narratives that excuse our particular group from the abuse of power. Â What the Arab Spring tells me is that there are many in the Gulf region who aspire to the same rights , freedoms and justice that I want. Â I think we all have a long way to go and will need to find new tactics to defend our loved ones from wars and climate change. Killing will not protect us.<br>
<div class="HOEnZb">
<div class="h5">><br>> Yours truly,<br>> Ù©(â—̮̮̃•̃)Û¶<br>> Henry Musikar, CISSP<br>> <a href="http://astore.amazon.com/tdcoccamsaxe-20" target="_blank">http://astore.amazon.com/tdcoccamsaxe-20</a><br>><br>
><br>> On Wed, Jan 16, 2013 at 11:24 AM, Joseph Tracy <<a href="mailto:brook7@sover.net">brook7@sover.net</a>> wrote:<br>> WMD was the reason given.  Also  the white house speeches carefully placed 911 next to Saddam until 70 % of americans thought Saddam was directly connected or responsible. Judy Miller published  her shit in the NYT. It was all made possible by the perceived threat.<br>
><br>> Once you start down this road,  the next inevitable step is to label everyone killed as  a terrorist threat, which is the policy with the drones and night raids.<br>> On Jan 16, 2013, at 10:46 AM, Henry M wrote:<br>
><br>> > Sorry, Joseph, but you're wrong. There was no threat from Iraq, so it would not fall under the rubric of doing some harm to strangers to protect familiars. Â That's the problem with absolutists; they try to cram everything into too few boxes. Â I'm not talking about retaliation. Â I'm talking about terrible decisions that must be made by responsible people, e.g. to blow a plane that is heading toward the World Trade Center out the sky. Â Things would be much better around the world if we'd been able to do that, but the mantra of "NEVER do ANY harm" would have forbidden it.<br>
> ><br>> > Yours truly,<br>> > Ù©(â—̮̮̃•̃)Û¶<br>> > Henry Musikar, CISSP<br>> > <a href="http://astore.amazon.com/tdcoccamsaxe-20" target="_blank">http://astore.amazon.com/tdcoccamsaxe-20</a><br>
> ><br>> ><br>> > On Wed, Jan 16, 2013 at 10:15 AM, Joseph Tracy <<a href="mailto:brook7@sover.net">brook7@sover.net</a>> wrote:<br>> > Innocence as used here is just referring to noncombatants and your hypothetical construct is far more meaningless. The legal concept is innocent until proven guilty. The idea that you can make yourself and your family safe and comfortable by subjecting all your imagined enemies to terror and even mass slaughter, and all the "uncivilized" to theft has always been the province of the military empires of history.  This model is destroying the earth.  Based on such reasoning as you put forth in your hypothetical amplified with false information similar to what is being used with Iran now, the US  just slaughtered 1/2 a million people in Iraq, engaged in larg scale torture, and released tons of radioactive materials into their nation which has brought a dramatic increase in birth defects and leukemia. It has not made us one bit safer but cost us 5000 soldiers  and thousands with lifelong injuries and ptsd.<br>
> ><br>> ><br>> ><br>> ><br>> > On Jan 16, 2013, at 6:49 AM, Henry M wrote:<br>> ><br>> > > I'm just being honest and forthright. Â Let's throw innocence to the side for the moment, as it is a practically meaningless, and ask if you would be willing to ensure the death of two people holding your child hostage in order to ensure the safety of your child? Â Where is your moral compass now?<br>
> > ><br>> > ><br>> > > Yours truly,<br>> > > Ù©(â—̮̮̃•̃)Û¶<br>> > > Henry Musikar, CISSP<br>> > > <a href="http://astore.amazon.com/tdcoccamsaxe-20" target="_blank">http://astore.amazon.com/tdcoccamsaxe-20</a><br>
> > ><br>> > ><br>> > > On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 5:31 PM, <<a href="mailto:malignd@aol.com">malignd@aol.com</a>> wrote:<br>> > > "Some number"? Â What might that "some" be? Â Tens of thousands in order to save your nephew? Â Do you have a moral compass?<br>
> > ><br>> > ><br>> > > -----Original Message-----<br>> > > From: Henry M <<a href="mailto:scuffling@gmail.com">scuffling@gmail.com</a>><br>> > > To: Pynchon Liste <<a href="mailto:pynchon-l@waste.org">pynchon-l@waste.org</a>><br>
> > > Sent: Tue, Jan 15, 2013 1:09 pm<br>> > > Subject: Re: Oliver Stone (was:Pauper and Sweatshop Fallacies)<br>> > ><br>> > > In an us vs. them world, x should not be the number of lives saved or lost by an act, but how many more of their lives are "we" ready to terminate in order lower, or end, "our" losses. Â It may sound harsh, but I'm comfortable with some number of innocent people dying (as long as I don't know them or see them die) in order to save the life of someone in my family; fewer people to save a bff; still fewer people to save someone I grew up with; even fewer to save someone I don't know at all but with whom I share something more than being human.<br>
> > ><br>> > > Yours truly,<br>> > > Ù©(â—̮̮̃•̃)Û¶<br>> > > Henry Musikar, CISSP<br>> > > <a href="http://astore.amazon.com/tdcoccamsaxe-20" target="_blank">http://astore.amazon.com/tdcoccamsaxe-20</a><br>
> > ><br>> > ><br>> > > On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 4:40 PM, <<a href="mailto:kelber@mindspring.com">kelber@mindspring.com</a>> wrote:<br>> > > Alice said:<br>> > ><br>> > > [insert your choice here, but please no Howard Zinn or Oliver<br>
> > > Stone ;-)]?<br>> > ><br>> > ><br>> > > Oh, Alice, Alice, you brought it upon yourself! Â I was looking for some gratuitous opening to bring up Oliver Stone's new series:The Untold History of the United States, and you supplied it. Â Now before you start beating on me, I'll say that it's a pretty flawed documentary. Â One device he uses that's both dishonest and annoying is to have actors recite quotes from various personages, making it seem as if we're listening to a historic oration, rather than a reenacted reading of someone else's written or spoken words. Â He's weak on attributing sources, uses way too much Hollywood footage to make rhetorical points (as opposed to using it to show the mentality of the particular time), and gets over-zealous in praising various personages (as various as Henry Wallace and Stalin), to the point where the so-called documentary devolves to overt propaganda of Fox-level intensity. Â The worst part of this is that, in doing so, he drives away mainstream viewers who could actually be enlightened by some of the things he has to say.<br>
> > ><br>> > > But he still makes some good points, and asks questions that are rarely if ever asked on such a mainstream venue as Showtime. Â In last week's episode, by way of discussing Bushes senior and junior, he brought up the shameful history of Prescott Bush and other American industrialists who supported the Nazi regime (something that we discuss all the time here, by way of GR).<br>
> > ><br>> > > I particularly liked the episode that covered Hiroshima and Nagasaki, wherein he tackled the standard orthodoxy: Â By dropping the bomb, we saved x number of lives. Â This passionately defended point has been the endless fodder for Thanksgiving dinner fights with in-laws, etc., with countless (always male)defenders shrieking variations of (naively confident that no one will make the obvious, hostile rejoinder): "Hey my [father, grandfather] was stationed in the Pacific. Â If we hadn't dropped the bomb [incinerated small children], he would have had to invade Japan, and I would never have been born!"<br>
> > ><br>> > > The Stone episode brings up some convincing evidence that Japan, afraid of an impending invasion by the Soviet army, was ready to capitulate, but Truman stalled any negotiations, and convinced the Soviets not to invade, so the "tests" could be run. Â Stone also provides a nice montage showing how the variable x in "we saved x number of lives" increased steadily over time. Â I suspect there are plenty on this list who are devoted to the bomb-saved-lives orthodoxy. Â I'm glad Stone questions it, if only on subscriber cable TV.<br>
> > ><br>> > > Laura<br>> > ><br>> > ><br>> > > -----Original Message-----<br>> > > >From: alice wellintown <<a href="mailto:alicewellintown@gmail.com">alicewellintown@gmail.com</a>><br>
> > > >Sent: Jan 14, 2013 5:49 AM<br>> > > >To: pynchon -l <<a href="mailto:pynchon-l@waste.org">pynchon-l@waste.org</a>><br>> > > >Subject: Re: Pauper and Sweatshop Fallacies<br>
> > > ><br>> > > >Why would I deny it? Why would anyone who knows a bit of history, who<br>> > > >reads the newspapers, who has read One Hundred Years of Solitude,<br>> > > >M&D...any decent narrative about colonialism, orientalism, a but of<br>
> > > >Said or [insert your choice here, but please no Howard Zinn or Oliver<br>> > > >Stone ;-)]?<br>> > ><br>> > ><br>> > ><br>> ><br>> ><br>><br>><br>
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