[lbo-talk] poverty draft

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

> Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
>
> > This crowd is a small part of a much bigger problem of the  
> intellectual
> >poverty of the left nowadays that seems incapable of making any  
> political
> >argument without having a victim do defend.  If they cannot find  
> any, they
> >will manufacture one.  They seem to have given up on the idea of  
> presenting
> >an argumewnt capable of competing with the neo-liberal alternative  
> for the
> >"hearts and minds" of themaionstream population, but instead resigned
> >themselves to appeals to pity - and for that they need victims.
> >
> Beg to disagree. Victim rhetoric is pretty much universal by now --  
> successfully used by the Right, beginning with Bakke and ending  
> with Iraq war, which had to be entirely cast in victim rather than  
> imperial rhetoric. We're not there the way the Brits were there at  
> the end of the nineteenth century -- to sieze what rightfully  
> belonged to the empire. We're there to protect the U.S. and the  
> world from terrorism and WMD. Victim rhetoric is the foundation of  
> every right-wing rant and every "Xtian" reaction.
>
> Though I agree that the Left would win hearts and minds if it gave  
> it up first.
>
> Joanna

Closely examining the social, economic, and political backgrounds of  
soldiers is not necessarily to see who is a "victim" and who isn't.   
It's about recognizing where in the military the potential for  
organizing lies, where in the United States counter-recruitment  
organizing makes sense, etc.

Yoshie Furuhashi
<http://montages.blogspot.com>
<http://monthlyreview.org>
<http://mrzine.org>