> Paul Henry Rosenberg <rad at gte.net> wrote:
>
> >Sure, why not? Why shouldn't the left join up in the latest surge in
> >military mania? If we try hard enough, we can permanently alienate
> >Russia, bringing the most reactionary forces there to power.
> >
> >Then we'll be able to DOUBLE defense spending under a Democratic
> >President and TRIPLE it under a Republican. Or is it the other way
> >around?
>
> You've lost me, i'm afraid, Paul. Are you saying that
> we ought to try to appease the Russians? 'Peace in
> our time', sort of thing?
As if!
How can anyone with a straight face compare the US with Britain and Russia with Germany at that time?
This kind of nerve-twitching in place of critical thinking is utterly appalling.
The question of what to do instead depends a great deal on what one is willing to assume.
On the unbelievably counter-factual assumption that the US is a force for good in the world, and just needs to be told what to do, the answer is simple: build up international security through a combination of fundamental cooperation and demilitarization. This would mean dismantling NATO rather than expanding it, for starters. Ditto our own military-industrial complex.
All stuff that's not bloody likely to happen. But if we don't talk about it, then who the hell will? And we CAN talk about it without necessarily believing that the US is a force for good. We can talk about it from the perspective that this is what the US WOULD do if it really were a force for good. Shame can be good.
-- Paul Rosenberg Reason and Democracy rad at gte.net
"Let's put the information BACK into the information age!"