[lbo-talk] Marc Cooper's flipping out over Churchill

T Fast tfast at yorku.ca
Sun Feb 6 09:56:02 PST 2005


It is not a comprehension problem, it is because he is a lawyer that he is deploying such a deliberately disingenuous tactic. That is what it means to be a good lawyer as distinct from what it means to engage in reasoned, measured debate.

He wants us to say that those who died in the WTC attacks were the "cause" rather than the unintended victims of a consequence of US foreign policy which at an abstract level the American populace is duplicitous. This is the same rhetorical move made by the right and I might say members of the duplicitous liberal intellegencia every time someone tries to smash the thin veneer of civilisation that sustains the empire.

This, to my mind is where Churchill falls prey to his own quarry--a lengthy text/rant which supplies ample room for misquotes in order to pull this rhetorical slight of hand. I for one feel no need to apologize for what O'Really and Newman (sic) wish Churchill had said.

Travis


>


> Yeah, this is a Marc Cooper kind of tactic, distort what someone writes
> and then argue against that distortion. Honest debate at least required
> acknowledging that Churchill's argument was not against working class
> persons in that building, nor lower level administrators. If that is how
> you read his argument, you've plainly experienced problems of reading
> comprehension.



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