[lbo-talk] Churchill's complaint

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Tue Feb 15 11:41:37 PST 2005


Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:


>Doug, but you (and Max) are missing his main point, that we tend to apply
>double standards: it is "collateral damage" when brown skinned people are
>killed by our bombs on the other hemisphere, but is personal and
>raw-nerve-touching when our neighbors are killed by brown skinned people
>from the other hemisphere.
>
>If you apply truly universal standards, as most claim to do, you should
>apply the same standards in both situations. Most leftist tried to do it by
>"humanizing" the brown-skinned victims of the US empire i.e. using "our"
>standards to view "their" casualties. That is commendable, but easily
>dismissed by fascist propaganda as "bleeding heart liberalism." So Mr.
>Churchill reversed the strategy and applied the standards "we" use to judge
>"them" to judge "us." Lo and behold - the fascist vermin is going nuts.
>Evidently, the strategy worked.

By what standards did it work? Churchill's job is at risk, and tenure and academic freedom are more at risk than they were a few weeks ago. It's done nothing at all to humanize the "enemy," or even raise the level of discourse. The only principled thing to do is to humanize the "enemy" - you're corrupting yourself if you embrace us/them logic and reverse the signs. When the fascist vermin go nuts, they don't hurt themselves, they hurt good people.


>Sometimes, the best thing you can do is to piss your enemies off to the
>point they start blindly lashing out. That makes them more vulnerable, so
>wait for the opportune moment and go for the kill. "By any means
>necessary."

I've never known you to be so delusional.

Doug



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