You know that rightists and centrists who started and supported the Iraq War won't take any responsibility, liberals who preferred sanctions or a multilateral invasion to the war won't take any responsibility, liberals and leftists (including yourself) who took too long to demand immediate US withdrawal won't take any responsibility . . . so that pretty much means few or no American will take any responsibility for the Iraq War. :-0
On 11/20/06, Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
> ravi wrote:
> > Yoshie's basic point (as I see it) is so simple that it seems to require
> > no convincing. We as fairly free people have a large set of options to
> > exercise in order to control the activities of our governments and the
> > people who run it.
>
> This is true, but my earlier argument holds, because blaming or
> ascribing responsibility simply doesn't generate political power. I'm
> willing to hold Doug responsible for fucking up late November discussion
> of the war on LBO (leaving aside whether or not what is said on lbo
> makes any difference or not), but I see nothing to be gained by holding
> "the american people" or the "western left" or any other general
> category (even the ABBs or the Committees of Correspndence or UFPJ, as
> much as I am pissed off at those groups) responsible. In fact,
> discussion of "respnsibility" provides an opening for such nonsense as
> Doug's weird desire to have explained the twitch of one little molecule
> in the midst of a volcanic eruption.
There is much to be said for rejecting any moralism, but in the American context, that means letting the culture of denial -- it's not our fault, it's their fault -- stand. What does this collective American denial look from the POV of Iraqis and others? -- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>