sawicky at epinet.org (Max Sawicky)
We disagree on use of the word "cause." If out of despair over the world situation I kick my cat, that doesn't make U.S. imperialism the culprit. I don't think we will settle that argument. In this vein, I *do* deny that 9/11 was simply "a retaliation." I do *not* deny that the retaliatory *aspect*, such as it is, is a legitimate topic of discussion.
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CB: I have no problem with "U.S. imperialism ( more specifically a small subset of the set of all U.S. imperialist acts) is _a_, rather than _the_ cause of 9/11." I believe my argument or position would still standup with that limitation. Some of the other causes U.S. imperialism has aided and abetted. To analogize from tort law, U.S. imperialist actions are a proximate or culpable cause of 9/11 and they are a "but for" or material cause of 9/11. U.S. imperialism might be a "but for", but not proximate, cause of you kicking your cat.
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I think your use of the word 'fascist' is too loose. "Very bad" and fascist are not necessarily the same thing, the former being a more general expression.
mbs
CB: I'd have to go back and look at the sequence of posts, but I believe I was just picking up the usage in the post I was responding to. I'm not trying to be "fascistology" precise here ( See 700 references from Chip Berlet for that project).
On the other hand, with due respect, but to make things worse here, I am still trying out the rhetorical usage of referring to U.S. _foreign policy_ as the New Nazism. I want to piss people off with it , because it is agitational. I am accumulating precision on it. I confine it to _foreign policy_. Recall the Nazi blitzkriegs based on claims of revenge for attacks or assaults on Germany, including going back to WWI , I believe. Well, there actually had been military attacks on Germany, just as there was an actual military attack on the U.S. on 9/11. But those attacks did not justify Germany's response.
Other parallels with Nazi Germany are the U.S. has the most powerful military of the time. There's another parallel , but it just slipped my mind. Oh, I know this thing of announcing ahead of time that the U.S. going to attack Iraq, and potentially all these other countries. Didn't the Nazis do that sort of thing ? " Sudetanland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Poland, SU, here we come " . That's kinda creepy.
I will say that it has been Nazi foreign policy _rhetoric_, and not full action yet, though I don't want to understate the heinousness ( both moral and meta-moral, and viceful, etc) of the attack on Afghanistan.
And again, now is the time to try to sharply cut it off, before they get beyond words.
> CB: Do you really deny that Sept. 11 was a retaliation for U.S.
> mass murder against Iraq and Israeli mass murder against the Palestinians
? Do you
> really deny that the U.S. has a fascistic foreign policy ? Even the
attacks
> on Iraq were in defense of Saudi Arabia with its retrograde fascist
> worldview.