-----Original Message----- From: Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu>
>I'm confused. Are some people on this list pretending that they are
>working in the Pentagon and exchanging inter-office memos? Of what
>concern to us are arguments for or against a ground war? We are
>concerned with developing the opposition to any war at all of any kind.
It all comes of that idea, favored by Nathan, that it is very bad just to have "negative" demands like "no to war", "stop the bombing", "no to genocide", "end the death penalty", etc. You have to have "positive" demands, which means telling the Bush administration how to proceed "positively". Then some people go further and think they can tell the Bush administration to proceed with a strategy that they think will be bad for it. It all reminds me somehow of that music group, who the hell was it?, who were sued for having "subliminal lyrics" which supposedly told a kid to commit suicide, and one of the musicians said, "If we could control our fans' behaviour, we would say 'Buy 10 copies!', not 'kill yourself!'". Similarly, if the Pentagon will do what we say, why don't we say "Give us the keys to your aircraft!" and not "Invade Afghanistan!"
lp