The broader point that is being missed is that the establishment of capitalist property relations everywhere in the world has been violent. But that does not mean that if you do NOT establish capitalist property relations in Iraq that its un-capitalist state will be non-violent.
Regardless of your political positions, every time you put gasoline in your car, or for that matter, every time you buy food that has been delivered to you on a petroleum fueled transportation system, you vote for the violent establishment of capitalist property relations in those parts of the world where they do not exist. The problem is extensive. Capitalism can be violent about non-essential goods like bananas and sugar. All that is happening with Iraq is that it is explicit.
One other thing. In spite of the "inhumanity" of the bombing, remember, if they wanted to level Baghdad they would have done so a long time ago. In spite of charges of racism and what have you the treatment being accorded Baghdad is considerably superior to the treatment accorded Berlin: and there, too, the "people" were made to suffer for the misdeeds of a dictator, whom some of them would have preferred not to have.
So, Doug, I share your frustration with Clinton but I find it unsophisticated. Virtually no President of our capitalist society would be behaving much differently. They have all been committed to the establishment of capitalist property relations in the periphery. The only question is whether as a pragmatic matter you favor this capitalist president over other capitalist presidents. I decided that left-wing romanticism was a waste after I voted in 1980 for a third-party candidate (not Anderson, some leftie something in Massachusetts). I decided that, within the context of capitalism, I'd rather have some marginal environmental protection and the occasional park than not have all those things AND the usual assault on sensibilities.
For my comments on Clinton, see my post #2, on tobacco.
-- Gregory P. Nowell Associate Professor Department of Political Science, Milne 100 State University of New York 135 Western Ave. Albany, New York 12222
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