Doug said:
"It's done nothing at all to humanize the "enemy," or even raise the level of discourse."
On that second point... it remains to be seen.
L
----- Original Message ----- From: Doug Henwood To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Sent: Tuesday, February 15, 2005 11:41 AM Subject: RE: [lbo-talk] Churchill's complaint
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 ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
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