[lbo-talk] Polls about "Iraq" and "Terrorism" Re: how's it feel?

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

At 12:07 PM -0500 4/17/03, Carrol Cox wrote:
>  > One of the goofiest rationalizations came from some liberal hawks prior
>>  to the war: it was that since we'd built up to the war, we had to carry
>>  it through or else we'd look weak.
>
>Goofy it may well be, but it was an argument accepted at the highest
>reaches of the u.s. government and u.s. ruling class in the 1960s, and
>it took an additional one or two million dead to convince them that it
>wasn't worth it.
>
>Of course, I can remember the propaganda of the 1940s, and all the fun
>made in that propaganda of that strange Japanese habit of putting value
>on "face." We Americans would never engage in such foolishness.

The concept of "face" makes sense.  It's a paradoxical tribute to the 
latent power of the masses that the power elite and the ruling class 
pay.  They are afraid that we'll see their weakness and become 
emboldened to take more if they ever retreat when the stakes are 
high.  Even when they can't win, they can't surrender -- they feel 
compelled to carry on in search of "peace with honor."
-- 
Yoshie

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