"But the world isn't like that"

[Bandwraith at aol.com]

In a message dated 10/15/02 5:24:51 PM, jbor at bigpond.com writes:


>>Yes, there are protesters in Islamic countries just like there are
protesters in the US, Germany etc. But it does not mean they are
representative of the whole population. Far from it, in fact.<<

But you can be sure if protestors in Islamic countries, e,g,
Pakistan, begin to get the upper hand politically- even if they
do it by democratic means- the USA will drop them like a hot
potato. But if Pakistan, et. al., remain loyal to the self-interests 
of the USA, even by brutally repressive regimes, the USA will
embrace them, as it has done, time and time again.


<<Seeing as you've made the Nazi comparison, which isn't really apt in this
case at all, I'll add that what history (and GR) shows is the way that the
Allies ignored the threat posed by Hitler for way too long, and the way they
didn't know or didn't want to know about the mass exterminations going on in
the German death camps.>>

Why would They interrupt something from which their corporate
subsidiaries were turning a handsome profit? The Allies were not
primarily motivated by moral concerns excepting as those concerns
coincided with their continued economic hegemony. 

>>Saddam's extermination campaigns against the Kurds
and Assyrians in northern and western Iraq, his imprisonment and murder of
political opponents, and his persecution of Chaldean and other Christian
communities, are components of a despotic and genocidal regime every bit as
deplorable as that of the Nazis. But perhaps the deaths and torture of
Kurdish and Assyrian people don't matter.>>

Right, But they didn't seem to matter to GB the elder, and only 
matter to GB the younger, apparently, in as much as they can 
be used to garner support for the long range designs of his 
corporate sponsors to get their hands on Iraqi oil reserves. 
If that means an up tick in recruitment of suicide bombers 
from the Islamic street, that's just the price We are left to pay
by the death and maiming of our friends, relatives and colleagues. 


>> I wrote: "The American economy and standard of living still
exceed those of anywhere else on the planet by truckloads, no matter how
badly that wealth is distributed domestically." As I've said, I agree with
you that both these things do matter. My point was that just because the
wealth is distributed inequitably doesn't mean it's not there.<<

It's there, alright, and it does matter domestically and
globally. It signifies the extent to which America has slipped
from a world leader to The world bully, increasingly led by an
un-elected cartel of the hyper-rich, who care less and less
about democratic ideals and social justice, and more and more
about ensuring their continued economic domination of rigged
markets.

>>My only points in this argument are that the fight against terrorism is and
should be the number one priority, and that while there is a suspicion that
Saddam or any other national government or authority is actively aiding and
abetting terrorist activities, or planning to launch terrorist-style attacks
itself, then the full pressure of international law should be brought to
bear upon them.<<

    Oakley Hall, in his very fine novel Warlock (Viking) has 
    restored to the myth of Tombstone its full, mortal, 
    blooded humanity. Wyatt Earp is transmogrified into 
    a gunfighter named Blaisdell who, partly because of his 
    blown-up image in the Wild West magazines of the day, 
    believes he is a hero. He is summoned to the embattled 
    town of Warlock by a committee of nervous citizens 
    expressly to be a hero, but finds that he cannot, at last, 
    live up to his image; that there is a flaw not only in him, 
    but also, we feel, in the entire set of assumptions that 
    have allowed the image to exist. It is Blaisdell's private 
    abyss, and not too different from the town's public one. 
    Before the agonized epic of Warlock is over with-- the 
    rebellion of the proto-Wobblies working in the mines, the
    struggling for political control of the area, the gunfighting, 
    mob violence, the personal crises of those in power-- the 
    collective awareness that is Warlock must face its own 
    inescapable Horror: that what is called society, with its law 
    and order, is as frail, as precarious, as flesh and can be
    snuffed out and assimilated back into the desert as easily 
    as a corpse can. It is the deep sensitivity to abysses that 
    makes Warlock one of our best American novels. For we are 
    a nation that can, many of us, toss with all aplomb our candy 
    wrapper into the Grand Canyon itself, snap a color shot and 
    drive away; and we need voices like Oakley Hall's to remind us 
    how far that piece of paper, still fluttering brightly behind us, 
    has to fall.

    http://www.pynchon.pomona.edu/uncollected/gift.html

Softly falling, falling softly...

STOP THE WAR!

regards