From: Doug Henwood
Sent: Wednesday, April 09, 2003 9:40 AM
Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Re: WBAI's ambitions
R wrote:
>as a graduate of the post-1960's collapse, doug, i'm not optimistic
>that today's antiwar fervor will grow into anything meaningful.
>currently, it doesn't show signs of being anything more than a
>noisy flash in the pan, coming out of nowhere, receding into
>nowhere. to many people put too many hopes into what easily will
>turn out to be shallow.
We'll see, won't we?
yes, we'll see. and as they say on wall street, past performance is no indicator of future results.
As Americans, we owe it to the rest of the world
to do everything we can to stop these maniacs.
noble, doug, but i think you miss the point, and are waxing nationalistic. the lethargic US people sat on their hands for over 25 years when it could have done something, anything, to stop our govt from support and subsidizing psychopaths domestically and around the world. suddenly, rip van winkle awakens, forgetting the blood baths in east timor, in afghanistan, in central and south america, in asia, and so forth. obsessed with self righteousness about people in iraq receiving the same treatment the US govt meted out to others for decades. why the sudden interest?
we (whoever that is) are not doing everything we can, and show utterly no signs of or desire to do so.
the US peace movement is making exactly the same mistake the white middle class women backing the equal rights amendment made. they are not involving the working class, minorities and the poor. they won't reach out; and they don't offer anything more than rhetoric. rita mae brown, among others, repeatedly warned organizations like NOW that without broad support from the lower classes, there was no chance of an equal rights amendment ever passing. she spelled out exactly how to involve them and was passed over.
without broad based support, today's peace movement is a flash in the pan.
i think it's gradiose to say we owe anything to the rest of the world. also, patronizing, condescending and snobbish. people must realize what they owe themselves and their posterity (to coin a phrase), not have someone else do it for them.
don't think for two seconds the powers that be in the EU wouldn't love to see the US spend itself into oblivion fighting meaningless wars. and aren't looking forward with shameless, unabashed, shrubbian greed to making money on the "rebuilding" of iraq.
there's no balance sheet. if one must include a concept like "owe," the world owes it to itself. it will have to do for itself.
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