> ps : don't you have visceral reactions when you know what's going on in
> Palestine and the US quietly supports it ? If you don't, then I think your
> visceral reactions at seeing NATO catured soldiers is quite selective.
Of course it's selective. That's the whole point: we're not somehow outside of ideology. The damn thing is actually *inside* us, it conditions our entire existence in ways we mostly don't realize, even we radicals. It's the same thing as acknowledging that we're all a little racist, a little sexist, etc., because these things are the cultural dominants of our time; noone is automatically pure, just because they say they are. That moment of shock was programmed into me, and millions of other Americans, by countless hours of TV, film, consumer ads, etc., and entire cultural landscape and historical trajectory, which simply can't be wished away. If the Revolution was as easy as condemning Evil and praising Good, history would've ended with the Reformation. But it didn't, and I'm mightily suspicious of *any* attempt to invoke morality as a reason to do anything at all. This moralization is what's been driving the hideous slaughter in Yugoslavia, and it's the same stuff which is driving the NATO bombing. "Innocent people are dying, so let's kill more innocent people" is the attitude of both groups. Which is why I refuse to choose between Serbian ground gangsters and NATO air pirates. Screw 'em all, I say.
-- Dennis