[lbo-talk] We can lose, or we can just lose later

Gar Lipow the.typo.boy at gmail.com
Sat Nov 26 12:29:44 PST 2005


On 11/26/05, Travis Fast <tfast at yorku.ca> wrote:
> Would not this question be posed better as one of strategy? It seems to
> me that one does not need to be 'thankful' for the soldiering provided
> by troops in Iraq but can at the same time be sympathetic. The point is
> the war is wrong, the American people in the aggregate were wrong to
> support the war via acts of commission and omission and their political
> representatives were wrong. This being the case there is a collective
> responsibility for the war. So if boddi's argument is that the soldiers
> are no more guilty of perpetuating this war then the majority of
> Americans than the question becomes one of trying to get all Americans
> who supported and support the war to take up responsibility for their
> actions and make attrition. The question of being thankful or not
> really misses the political point. The question is what is the best
> strategy to get returning soldiers to think about their contribution to
> the war and get them to speak against the war. Blindly thanking them or
> demonizing them is not going to accomplish anything politically.
>
> Travis
>
But Boddi is the one insisting on "thanking" them and "gratitude" (as is umm Leah I think). Almost nobody on this list is talking about demonizing returning soldiers. I twice gave a Vietnam era example that specifically rebuts the idea that I'm for "demonizing" returning troops. And Carrol has mentioned on occasion that he was involved in the part of the movement that provided coffee houses for returnees during the Vietnam war, so I bet he could tell similar stories if he wanted to bother. (Mind you I don't want to take this too far. Not holding returnees a little bit responsible for their own actions is to deny them agency - which is also a form of disrespect.) But gratitude and thankfulness for their actions is IMO way over the line. When you go that far, you have just conceded most of the premises of a particular form of military-worshipping right wing extremism.



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