Terrorism and Globalization

[Kelley]

At 01:11 AM 12/1/01 -0800, Chuck Grimes wrote:

>So, the point is that the working class may support the war on an
>anonymous questionnaire, but that support is as thin and as unexamined
>as Joe's. Since it didn't take too much to erode it down to
>unanswerable questions, I would say that support depends very heavily
>on a continuous stream of mass media support and its supplements to
>manufacture and maintain the appearance of universal consent. Real,
>live, examined and contented support might be a whole different
>animal.
>
>Chuck Grimes

exactly. but none of that means that, given half the chance, opponents 
couldn't work with them to build perfectly solid, sound arguments for a 
war/whatever that you oppose. afterall, people on this list made some 
perfectly sound arguments for a "bring them to justice" approach that would 
have, in the end, very likely entailed quite a bit of death and 
destruction. that is, they felt that the perpetrators of 9-11 should be 
punished.

further, had things worked out the way many often say they'd like: 
diplomatic avenues exhausted, plenty of evidence, and a still belligerent 
taliban, then what? what if the perps had fessed up, publicly? summary 
executions in the process of bring them to justice would have been 
supported by many, no doubt.

the only way some of the more opportunistic  anti-imperialist arguments 
work is that they depend on a USG that inevitably does the wrong thing. but 
those wrong things are not in any way clearly connected to the operations 
of capitalism. there are vague gestures at the need for a war machine, but 
max often points out how unpersuasive these are from his more inside 
washington perspective. it's too conspiracy theory, in a way.

doug got at the heart of it way back at the be/g when he asked carrol what 
his answer to the "what is to be done" question would be had the USG done 
everything perfectly (from a lefty perspective) and had we known exactly 
who the perps were, only to be faced by an afghanistan who was unwilling to 
turn ObL Inc over.

if your answer is to do nothing because, in the end, the US has done far 
worse and, indeed, actually caused all the problems, so it has no right to 
demand justice from the perps, so the US casualties had to be taken:  we 
deserved it.

for mine, this is where one should concentrate one's argument, rather than 
make other disingenuous arguments that appeal to other rationales against 
war: intolerance of any form of violence, enlightened self-interest, etc.


kelley

 From the YeahSureRightFW Dept:
"If young women go for older men and vice-versa, who cares? The problem is 
the asymmetries in wealth and power between individuals which make one 
person more dependent on/vulnerable to the other, usually the woman.
If we could eliminate class, innumerable social problems would be solved
virtually overnight."