> Consigliere Pugliese here w/ a hurried reply, probably w/ little of
> numerous thoughts and feelings of the last hour
> thinking about this thread, an offlist e-mail from Julio Huato.
It is not in my temperament to pass righteous judgment on other people. If and when I do it, it is reluctantly. And then it seems to me that the golden rule works. This is a version of the golden rule that applies here: As an adult, if you cannot tell somebody in her/his face what you truly feel or think of her/him, then you keep it to yourself. You don't go behind that person's back and ask some bully to help you confront that person.
By analogy, if we're really concerned about genocide being committed against an oppressed group in Muslim Africa and that is bugging our consciousness to the point of keeping us from sound sleep, the appropriate thing to do is not to ask the U.S. government to use its military to intervene there. No. The instrument has to fit the purpose. Using *this* U.S. government and *this* U.S. military in *these* times to act benevolently in Muslim Africa is like trying to perform micro surgery on an infant with an RPG.
The proper thing to do is to go -- as *individuals*, as regular citizens of the world -- to that place, learn the language of those people there or somehow find a way to communicate and connect with the victimized group, and -- with due dignity and respect -- help them get organized to confront their oppressors, help them become the agents of their self-defense. That is how. If we cannot do *that*, then we keep it to ourselves and focus on doing what we can do.
Julio