> No, I'm just annoyed at lack of thought. We were
> discussing a focused topic, a questionable analofgy.
Not true, I think about it alot, that's why I've taken that position.
Analogies(metaphors) are powerful things. Why don't we just run with it, and let the bastards deny it, as LBJ said many years ago?
Or perhaps we want to shoot ourselves in the proverbial foot, *instead* of assembling a circular firing squad.
On a similar, equally abrasive note: Why is everyone afraid to say the people who promulgate the behavior displayed at GITMO by patriotic (seriously misguided) Americans are facists... this guy wasn't:
The News Media's Political 'F' Word
By Norman Solomon, AlterNet
Posted on June 25, 2004, Printed on June 25, 2004
http://www.alternet.org/story/19050/
When a federal judge compares George W. Bush to Benito Mussolini, is that newsworthy?
After the conservative daily New York Sun broke the story about a speech by Judge Guido Calabresi of the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, few media outlets even mentioned what he had to say.
"In a way that occurred before but is rare in the United States ... somebody came to power as a result of the illegitimate acts of a legitimate institution that had the right to put somebody in power," Judge Calabresi told attorneys and law students at the American Constitution Society's annual convention on June 19. "That is what the Supreme Court did in Bush versus Gore. It put somebody in power."
The 71-year-old judge, who was born in Milan before his family left Italy in 1939, added: "The reason I emphasize that is because that is exactly what happened when Mussolini was put in by the king of Italy." And Calabresi, a former dean of Yale Law School, went on: "The king of Italy had the right to put Mussolini in, though he had not won an election, and make him prime minister. That is what happened when Hindenburg put Hitler in. I am not suggesting for a moment that Bush is Hitler. I want to be clear on that, but it is a situation which is extremely unusual." <...>
> Leigh has to bring in the global history of US
> imperialism with the suggestion that the body count
> makes Soviet totalitarianism better than US
> imperialism. That is a tired and boring and fruitless
> discussion that is irrelevant to the question at hand.
> Moreover, it is a fundamentally stupid position.
Not stupid, simple. I leave the more complex appraisals to people who like to mentally masturbate.
In the 21st century(the here&now), GITMO=GULAG, fuck the historical definitions.
Let's just talk U.S. history... I think America's history of "eating" our own shines brightly enough, with a historically impressive body count & history of repression and imprisonment just this week alone:
June 21 10 miners accused of being militant “Molly Maguires” are hanged in Pennsylvania - 1877
June 22 Violence erupted during a coal mine strike at Herrin, Ill. Thirty-six were killed, 21 of them non-union miners - 1922
June 26 Members of the American Railway Union refuse to handle Pullman cars, in solidarity with Pullman strikers - 1894
Remember when? Ah, those were the days!
It is fruitless as long as the belief remains that it was much worse... in a different place, in a different time, to different people.
>
> The tendency I belong to had a slogan, when the USSR
> still existed, that said: Neither Washington Nor
> Moscow but International Socialism! A bit dated and
> quaintly phrased now but the sentiment is right. No
> one here, not even Luke, defends US imperialism.
>
Sorry, I get a little worked up when I watch the US constitution get trashed.
> Comparing something no one defends to something that
> is also indefensible but also totally over is just
> stupid. So maybe it was rude to tell Leigh to shut up,
> but this is not worth as much discussion as I have
> even had to give it here. So I was annoyed.
Saying that GITMO is not GULAG is not indefensible, but it is a defensive construct. The best defense is a good offense. Make the bastards deny it.
>
> I apologize if I was rude. But let's bury this line of
> discussion. US imperialism sucks. Stalinist
> totalitarism sucked. The Gulag was a terrible crime.
> So is Gitmo, but they're not very close. End of story,
> jks
GITMO is close to us, alot closer than Siberia... beginning of story
Leigh http://www.leighm.net
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