[fwd, Liberals Stuck in Scold Mode, Marc Cooper]:
``...These difficult times require the active and effective presence of a clearer-thinking left, one that can offer unique and salutary perspectives to counter a war-empowered, conservative Bush administration...
....It must begin with an unequivocal acknowledgement that the perpetrators of Sept. 11 are in no way the avengers of some oppressed constituency. They were atavistic, religious fascists whose world view is diametrically opposed to all humanitarian and progressive morality...
...But the left must also be vigilant against any attempt by the Bush administration and its most right-wing allies to expand this war into an undefined, indeterminate and ultimately self-defeating global crusade. There is no military solution to terrorism: There is only a military component..
...We on the left must walk and chew gum at the same time. Supporting limited military action and increasing domestic security does not mean surrendering on civil liberties or grotesque handouts of corporate welfare (as seen in the bipartisan rubber stamping of the airlines bailout) or new tax cuts for the wealthy. If sacrifices are to be made to restore any sense of security, then they must be equally shouldered...''
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You know I am sick of hearing this crap about how it is morally repugant to state the obvious. The US got its ass kicked for being a world bully and nobody likes who did it. So What?
And another thing, this is sure a long list of demands on progressive groups who have been disenfranchised, disillusioned, and just handed two massive political defeats in less than a year. What defeats? Florida and bin Laden.
Let's remember that Bush was not elected but defeated by popular vote. Let's remember that bin Laden has managed to hand Bush three enormous prizes he could have never otherwise attained: 1) a united government and populous, 2) concrete foreign and domestic policy directions of war and repression, 3) and a seal of legitimatization on just about anything he does or wants to do.
What I want to do is tar the US Right with bin Laden---because that's were he belongs---with them. Notice that the Right has managed to tar the Left with bin Laden, by making any dissent, or even realistic analysis equivalent to support for bin Laden and terrorism. So, let's give them what they want, multiplied many times over.
The soon to be enacted anti-terrorism bills (totalitarian police-state laws) can also be seen as a golden opportunity. We are certainly not going to stop their enactment in any case. So let's analyze them strategically. As far as I can tell, all the concrete forms of criminal activity related to terrorism are already illegal, so what is the point to these new laws? They all seem to be about probing the populous for advanced notice, but depend on highly selective enforcement to be effective. In other words erase everybody's civil rights so they can be trusted abuse only a select few.
Will all rag-heads and sand-n-words please move to the back of the plane for a full body-cavity search, police grill, and indefinite detenion. What if everybody answered the call and moved to the back of the plane?
Judging from some of the drafts posted last week, these terrorism bills are all bad law. Segregation and the draft were bad law. The way those laws were destroyed was by masses of people putting themselves in violation of them in order to completely clog up the criminal justice system. This tactic is something that can be done, and can be organized, and will work. There is no doubt that it will take guts, plenty of guts. So I am not volunteering to be first---I'll wait for the other few brave souls to step forward. But they will sooner or later.
Notice that the effectiveness of selective enforcement requires a general background acceptance of bigotry against middle eastern people---their isolation by the rest of the US population makes possible and enables selective enforcement. So this is also a vulnerability if there is no isolation, if there is instead unity and solidarity. You want to strip them, you have to strip me too. Jam it up. Once some protest like that achieves a certain scale, not only do the laws they protest start to break down but evidentually so does the government apparatus itself.
And let's be clear there is no security for the masses under Empire, so there is no need for the masses to sacrifice or shoulder anything for the Empire. In fact, we are more secure by refusing to shoulder or sacrifice anything.
The US government isn't protecting anything but the US government in its foreign and domestic holy wars, so fuck'm. Notice for example that the provisions for support of the victims and families of WTC attack were all tagged to the airline bailout package as a means to divert the massive insurance claims to be filed. That alone pretty much sums up where the government stands: four square behind itself and its own corporate sponsors---at the expense of us masses.
There is no need to identify with US government and its corporate security needs, because these are certainly not our (my) security needs.
Chuck Grimes