> Your position is for everyone to shut up until they clean their own house.
> I
> am much more in favor of activists organizing across the board to pressure
> for denunciations of each countries failures and hypocrisies. I want
> progressive Austrians denouncing the racism of Israel's immigration
> policies
> and Israelis denouncing the racism of Austria.
>
I was reminded of this argument when I read the LA Times article Doug posted about the LAPD. There is a weird dichotomy. On the one hand, exposures of institutional racism and corruption in the USA happen with numbing regularity. Yet every time they happen, they are viewed by most people as exceptions, aberrations.
After all, it's common knowledge that American society is steeped in excruciating sensitivity, even kowtowing, right?. Doesn't our President feel everyone's pain, pander to every group, want every cabinet to look like America? Aren't we constantly apologizing for slavery, aren't we always regretting some past wrong? Most whites think discrimination against blacks never happens.
Clintonian finger-wagging against Haider -- or his support for hate-crimes laws, for that matter -- is part of this phenomenon. It helps to coat the system with a sheen of endless "tolerance" and "fairness" so it can then more effectively abuse people's rights.
Seth