[lbo-talk] Interesting article on the irrelevance of Abu Ghraibto Iraqis

[Carl Remick]

>From: Chuck0 <chuck at mutualaid.org>
>
>snitilicious at tampabay.rr.com wrote:
>
>>People are disagreeing with your glib, "Fuck the Troops" since your glib 
>>"Fuck the Troops" doesn't convey what you mean, above. (Harry was 
>>responding to your FIRST comment, "Fuck the Troops." not to your attempt 
>>to explain yourself.
>>
>>Disagreeing with your glib little quote is just that: disagreement. They 
>>are not liberals because they disagree with you.
>
>No, they are liberals because they just can't come out and say that they 
>oppose the war without wrapping it up in the red, white and blue 
>chickenshit "We support our troops."
>
>I'm going to make glib remarks and I'm going to say uncomfortable things 
>because that is my role as an anarchist. People don't respect the antiwar 
>movement because it can't just say why it opposes the war without resorting 
>to defensive rhetoric like "We support our troops." The more radical 
>anti-war activists deride the peaceniks who wave thos red, white and blue 
>signs around.

Why not just say, "Fuck the Pentagon"?  It gets across the same point w/o 
blowing off enlistees who might agree with your overall POV.  Enlistees, 
after all, are both perps *and* victims -- a point Naomi Klein makes well in 
her Guardian column today:  "The torturers of Abu Ghraib were McWorkers who 
ended up in Iraq because they could no longer find decent jobs at home."  
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1218981,00.html>

At the same time, I would not recommend that the left try to appropriate the 
slogan, "We support our troops" -- which at some level does connote 
indiscriminate support for the US war machine.  I think the left's using 
that slogan is as fatuous as the left's trying to appropriate US flag-waving 
-- which a number of LBOers recommended right after 9/11.  A this point in 
history, I don't think the left has any reason at all to wave the US flag.  
You don't have to burn the damn thing, but wave it?  Never.

Carl

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