Miles Jackson wrote:
>
>
> Sure, people can do both; it's just depends on which question you
> want to answer. "Why does that doofus make that bogus claim
> time and again?" --Analysis of motives is helpful. "Is that
> claim bogus?" --Analysis of motives is irrelevant.
>
Yes.
Example: Analysis of U.S. aggression in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Haiti, Venezuela, Cuba, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, etc. There is no point in talking about motives at any level (of the ruling class, of the Administration as a whole, of Bush (or Clinton or Reagan or Carter or Eisenhower or Truman before him) unless one has first established (to the satisfaction of those one is writing speaking to) that all those instances from the Truman Doctrine through overthrow of Mossedegh to the latest crimes in the Mideast are in fact instances of aggression. Then it is still not important to analyze Bush's personal motives, because such gossip interferes with our building a movement rather than contributes to it. I'm not in the least embarassed by the Weathermen or Lynne Stewart but I'm embarassed as hell (though there's nothing I can do about it so I ignore it) by leftists on maillists or in left publications who go on and on about what a doofus Bush is.
Discussion of Bush's motives or character simply diverts from and throws in to chaos attempts to understand the overall thrust of u.s. policy for purposes of resisting it.
Ascribing imperialism to personal motives is about the most disruptive discourse on the left that I can conceive of. Cheney's policies have to be established as vicious in abstraction from the benefit to Halliburton. They would be equally vicious if they were counter-productive for Cheney personally and Halliburton as a business -- and Cheney's motives were squeaky clean and utterly disinterested.
Carrol