is it ok to be luddite

[jbor]

> if one is  a seal, a whale or a tree
or a dodo, or a Gadarene swine on the road to Boston ...

Yes, I'm sympathetic to the causes you mention also, but what we are talking
about is the processes through which equity is achieved for these
minorities. And I'm not so sure that lumping seals and trees together with
Kurdish refugees isn't over-generalisation. Nevertheless ...

I agree with you that radical thinking and radical action do not necessarily
equal violence, but sometimes they do. The Oklahoma City bombing was an act
of terrorism, and as such it tends to overshadow the Manifesto which
accompanied it in respect of popular acceptance and international
endorsement of the radical thinking espoused therein. At the top of
Greenpeace's current agenda also is stopping the use of biotechnology in
agriculture: the major focus of last October's Greenpeace Conference in
London was a debate between the CEO of Monsanto and Lord Melchett over the
production and use of genetically-modified foods. Fair enough. But
Melchett's arrest for mowing down an experimental government crop of
genetically-modified maize near his Norfolk estate fits the definition of
terrorism you provided earlier ("violence towards ... public property"). I'd
hate for the opponents of environmentalism to be able to consign Greenpeace
to the same lunatic fringe as Kaczynski.

The other point to note is that journalistic bias is generally
political/ideological, insidiously so. Whereas a Greenpeace-sponsored
publication will perhaps echo the euphemistic description of the Sea
Shepherds' 'Ocean Warrior' as a "new long-range, ice-class, heavy-duty,
conservation enforcement ship ... a protector, defender of life, and a
symbol of hope for a better, more humane, and more ecologically conscious
future", a Norwegian newspaper might well describe it as a pirate vessel
acquired by a criminal organisation under false pretences. It is naive to
believe that journalistic "ethics" somehow override the political and
corporate constraints which determine publishable content and editorial
slant.

best


----------
>From: Jedrzej Polak <jedpolak at mac.com>
>To: jbor <jbor at bigpond.com>, <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>Subject: Re: is it ok to be luddite
>Date: Sat, Jun 10, 2000, 5:06 PM
>

> Okay, I certainly agree with you, but we have some unresolved problem here:
> if one is  a seal, a whale or a tree (or belongs to sexual/political/ethnic
> minority with no real influence), how one goes around making the world aware
> about his/her needs? I will repeat: radical thinking and radical action does
> not equal violence. In my country not so long ago, radicals were publishing
> illegally "Doctor Zhivago" and sending aid to those behind the bars, so
> forgive me, but I'm quite sympathetic.