Protest against the Bombing

Sam Pawlett epawlett at uniserve.com
Fri Mar 26 09:28:45 PST 1999



>
>
> The length of Barkley's analysis is interesting, but the matter is simpler:
> marxists should have a prejudice in favour of the right of nations to
> self-determination.

but the question remains what constitutes a nation. Southern California and Tejas now have or soon will have majority Latino(a) populations. Do they now have the right to self-determination? or the right to (re)join Mexico? Their case is even stronger than Kosovo Albanians, given that SC and Tejas were originally part of Mexico, nabbed illegally by the U.S.A. If every geographical area where an ethnic group is in teh majoritty, constitutes a nation, then the world would splinter into hundreds if not thousands of statelets. What is the relationship between ethnicity and a nation?

In the case of Yugoslavia, there is now at least 20 minorities living in the province of Serbia. Should each have the right to self-determination or just the Albanians?

Those concerned with civilians; bombing will only kill more civilians and make the lives of those who survive even worse.

If the ruling elites really believed their own rhetoric about concern for civilians they would have abolished capitalism in favor of a more humane system long ago. I would suggest that they adopt the language of concern for civilians only when it serves their interests to do so. There are no principles at work here, just straight Machiavellianism. By nabbing Kosovo, the U.S. expands its sphere of control eastwards.

Sam Pawlett



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