debates

Carl Remick carlremick at hotmail.com
Thu Oct 12 13:01:43 PDT 2000



>On Thu, 12 Oct 2000 14:10:45 -0400 Max Sawicky <sawicky at epinet.org> wrote:
>
> > I'd say Gore is the more consistent imperialist, but Bush is
> > the more unstable one.
>
>Maybe I'm a nutter. But if Gore's politics revolve around a humanitarian
>claim,
>then at least isn't it possible, in theory, to hold him to that claim?
>Should
>Bush bomb someplace then he isn't under any obligation to justify it other
>than
>saying, "We'll make money in the aftermath" whereas Gore, at least, is
>obligated to say, "we did it for moral reasons." The former is closed to
>any
>sort of dicussion about whether or not it is right and hinges entirely on
>profit or advantage. The latter at least is open to discussion about
>whether or
>not the US should be involved. In short: Gore is obligated, by his own
>standards, to listen to objections and weigh dissent and consent - whereas
>Bush
>is under no such obligation. To put it bluntly - Bush is claiming that the
>US
>can bomb whoever they want whenever they want (ie. "our military exists to
>win
>wars") whereas Gore is claiming that military intervention depends on the
>moral
>high ground. I'm reminded of Aquinas here. Gore at least assumes that the
>cause
>must be just, and so is obligated to engage in the Just War stuff - which
>coincides with at least some sort of reasoning. Bush simply assumes Divine
>Right in all circumstances.
>
>ken

Whether one uses the blunt realpolitik language of a Henry Kissinger or the highfalutin idealistic lingo of a JFK makes precious little difference to the people you're actually bombing.

Carl

_________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com.



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list