Habermas & NATO (was Re: Hate crimes)

kenneth.mackendrick at utoronto.ca kenneth.mackendrick at utoronto.ca
Sun Oct 17 13:57:12 PDT 1999


On Sun, 17 Oct 1999 11:34:46 -0400 Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu> wrote:


> Is that the reason why Habermas supported the NATO
bombings -- violence as a form of strategic communication that is legitimate outside of the German 'civil society'?

To be honest, I really don't understand Habermas's [tentative!] support of the NATO bombings. And I don't understand Zizek's call for an armed outside military presence. I really don't. I've read thousands of pages of Habermas - and *nothing* he has written, in regards to theory (not politics), supports the idea that NATO should bomb anyone anytime. In an interview with Peter Dews he noted that he was a pacifist. Now I'm confused. Does a pacifist mean that you just let someone else pull the trigger?

I'm lead to despair when I see thinkers whom I hold in high esteem think so crudely about such things. Since my early undergrad years I've been a swore nonviolent actionist, not on ethical principles - on strategic ones. Nonviolent action seems to me to simply be more effective in regards to meeting the goals that protestors usually set out to obtain. Gene Sharp has a wonderful and brilliant collection of essays and data in a series called "the dynamics of nonviolent action" and any equally important book "civilian based defense" and Peter Ackerman and Christopher Kruegler have put together a magnificent analysis of nva too - "strategic nonviolent conflict" - all of which illustrates the effectiveness of nonviolent strategies - from boycotts to sit-stand-walk-kneel-ins. I wish this material was more familiar to people like Habermas, but it doesn't seem to be.

north, south, east, west kill the best and buy the rest it's just, spend a buck to make a buck they don't really give a flying fuck about the people in misery...

ken



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