Thinking like Nathan

Luke Weiger lweiger at umich.edu
Thu Sep 27 00:22:27 PDT 2001


I may not think that Nathan's provided his most lucid analysis as regards the recent terrorism, but I see no reason to viscously lampoon him.

-- Luke

----- Original Message ----- From: "Chris Kromm" <ckromm at mindspring.com> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2001 9:06 PM Subject: Thinking like Nathan


> Not easy, but I'm going to try:
>
> ATTEMPT #1
> -- Terrorism is not caused (or even really encouraged) by broader social
> forces and policies, therefore
> -- It must be the result of utterly random, spontaneous and isolated acts
of
> personal "evil" (although the attacks take 5 years to plan and *happen* --
> only coincidentally, mind you -- to originate in countries that suffer the
> tragedy of American diplomacy), therefore,
> -- There's nothing we can do about terrorism except 1) kill the
terrorists,
> 2) huddle and wait for the next attack, or 3) subject the terrorists to
> exorcism
> -- Corollary: That stuff would solve the problem, why would we want to
worry
> about changing U.S. foreign policy?
>
> ATTEMPT #2
> -- U.S. foreign policy doesn't breed terrorism, therefore,
> -- U.S. foreign policy, while sorta bad and causing a few deaths here and
> there, must not really piss people off -- they just kind of shrug and go
on
> with their lives and never THINK of responding, therefore
> -- Wait a second, maybe U.S. foreign policy really isn't that bad...
>
> Ok, I'm sorry, I just can't do it.
>
> Nathan -- I know you've painted yourself into a corner, but you're welcome
> to come back to reality, any time buddy...
>
> CK



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