Carrol Cox wrote:
> Note: The ISU server which handles incoming mail is down, so I cannot at
> this time retrieve any of my email. We can, however, send mail.
>
> I have been rereading the cluster of threads around the question of what
> demands the organized anti-war movement should put forward in its
> demonstrations and forums. And the more I consider it, it seems to me
> that Doug, Joan, and others are indeed committed to the foreign policy
> advocated a century ago by Kipling. But even more serious is that they
> are playing sandbox politics. For example, Dout wrote:
>
> ****
>
> Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: By that logic, the United States government, or
> any other government [clip]
>
> The question was how to extricate Iraq from the mess it's in now, and
> minimize the suffering of Iraqis, something you don't seem to address
> much other than to say it's the business of Iraqis, who don't have any
> institutions or resources to accomplish the task. I also said this
> should not be the U.S.'s role, so this point is doubly irrelevant.
>
> [Yoshie] In any case, no one but Iraqis themselves is capable of
> unifying the [clip]
>
> What does this have to do with getting the electricity running? - Doug
> ****
>
> This would be even minimally rational if, _and only if_, the President
> had asked Doug what U.S. policy for the next serveral months should be.
> Addressed to a group of fellow leftists it is simply childish.
>
> I is what I call sandbox politics: pontificating in a way that only
> makes sense if one is talking directly to those who (a) can make a
> decision and (b) are prepared to listen to you.
>
> How soon, Doug, do you think we can convince Bush that he should follow
> your advice and get the electricity turned on? How are we going to
> effect politics soon enough to help anyone in Iraq this year?
Your assumption that I thought the U.S. Government could do anything good in Iraq is off-base. I was explaining why I thought the U. S. Government was wrong-headed in its approach to *fixing* the mess it had made. Your presumption that it is useless to discuss alternatives to the actions the administration is now taking is baseless, as well. To follow your logic through, one would have to agree that all public discourse was useless and pointless. Surely, besides the entertainment value, public discourse is useful for unifying like minds to take action. How else are movements built?
-joan
> Carrol
>
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