Michael McIntyre wrote:
>
> Boring weekend Dennis? Baiting the "pwogwessives" to inject some excitement into your life? Your initial comment WAS a propos of nothing after all.
>
> But if you're worried about the "do nothings", [clip]
The debate to which Dennis refers so charmingly was about what _opponents of the war_ should do. The following posts from last November give some of the flavor of the debate. I would only comment now that the "Do Somethings" of the time seem only to have whined about what others weren't doing. As Yoshie's forwardings of local events in Colombus show at least one of the "Do nothings" has been fairly busy doing a lot.
Carrol
Subject: Re: Unjust, Unlawful, & Unproductive Re: Arguments for ground war
Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2001 01:02:40 -0600
From: Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu>
Greg Schofield wrote:
>
> Yoshie, in the abstract all your arguments are justified and good, but the Afghans are not
living in the abstract - this winter means death, it is that which is
the primary concern of
internationalism.
>
> >
> Yoshie, as I said your arguments are sound in the abstract. But the point is not talking
abstractly, we should say all that you have said but we need to add to
it temporal reality.
>
Greg, you are engaging in fantasy if you think the left can have any impact on the US policy in Afghanistan over the next few months. Whatever is going to happen this winter is already decided. This private fantasy you are spinning amounts to a rather cruel hoax.
Whatever the left does, we can't lie to people. Ane it is a rather crude lie to claim the left can make a difference in the short run.
Stop playing games and turn your attention to the actual question: What can leftists do now that will make a difference next year?
Carrol
P.S. For necessary qualifications of the argument stated here, see the following post:
Subject: Building the movement, and Carrol's "Impotence Thesis" Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2001 07:17:58 -0500 From: Lou Paulsen <wwchi at enteract.com>
* * * * * * *
Subject: Re: Air Support to Ground Troops Re: Arguments for ground war
Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2001 17:34:04 -0600
From: Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu>
Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> So what should we do? Say nothing? Make no demands at all? Just say
> "No war!" and nothing more? Await the legitimation crisis when the
> war goes badly? I'm confused.
>
Do you have the slightest idea how "we" could change this? I really don't have any idea. If you have an idea that could be implemented in the next 14 days by 3 or 4 hundred people to save millions of lives, you rather owe it to the world to let us know. And if you don't, why are you pestering Yoshie? She clearly doesn't have any such suggestion either.
Carrol
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Subject: Re: Air Support to Ground Troops Re: Arguments for ground war
Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2001 18:13:17 -0600
From: Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu>
Doug Henwood wrote:
>
>
> Do nothing. You win.
>
I'm not really interested in winning or losing. I'm interested in devoting thought to what leftists can usefully do in present circumstances, and it seems to me first necessary to identify what we _can't_ do. If we really can't do anything about those coming millions of deaths, then we owe it to ourselves and the world to be thinking about what we can do in a world in which those deaths have occurred.
To keep demanding that we "do" something when we simply cannot is rather obscurantist -- that is, it is a way of stopping thought by insisting that thought focus on intractable questions, thereby blocking focus on potentially tractable ones.
Carrol
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