<div>On 4/14/06, Wojtek Sokolowski <<a href="mailto:sokol@jhu.edu">sokol@jhu.edu</a>> wrote:<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> I am not trying to take sides in your debate with Ulhas, but the above passage caught my attention for a different reason.  What is it exactly that "we" (be it "we on this list," "we the American people" or "we the community of nations") can do about US nuclear terror policy, other than cursing and stomping our feet?  </blockquote></div> Wojtek, It is a very good and important question.  The second person plural is particularly ambiguous in conversations such as this.  At minimum the "we" in this case was simply those of us in the United States who have the ability to make a choice and organize against the violence of our own government.  In this sense it is a moral "we."  (If you look back into the history of the U.S. anti-slavery movement there was much debate, specifically between William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglas about this question of who formed the moral-community that they spoke for, when they said "we."  In fact questions about the use of the "second person plural" was framed very similarly to how you framed it.  In the fifties and sixties in the U.S. there were also similar discussions between the likes of Dwight Macdonald, Paul Goodman, etc. over the idea of the "beloved community."  But I think that it is important that those of us who are concern to stop the violence of our own country don't simply make a point of making a stand on what I am calling the "moral we."  I think the fact is that activism among the U.S. people have had limiting effects on U.S.G. violence in the past and will have such effects in the future.  It takes large amounts of organization in all areas of life and it will take a revival of a vigorous solidarity movement, workers movement, and, yes, of the religious left.  Unfortunately, I get a little annoyed by defeatism, maybe because it reflects my own deeply held Southern Italian pessimism.  Through the 1980s I spent much time with people from Central America and in the 1990s I spent time in Rio de Janeiro.  In each case I saw people with very little resources, poorer and with little formal education, fighting for better lives, not only for themselves but for us.  They fought against greater odds than we fight against, and they didn't stamp their feet and pout.  I have met El Salvadoran peasants who know more about U.S. foreign policy than middle class U.S. college graduates.  I have met people who run coffee cooperatives in Guatemala, with a belief that they can effect U.S. policy and I have met lawyers and law students who say they can do nothing to effect the world and thus the best thing they can do is live their own private life.  Basically I believe their is a "moral We" that we address ourselves to in matters of education, self-education, etc.  This is a group of people that I think, hope beyond hope, does not believe that the U.S . government should fund, for example "death squads" in Central America.  But the materialistic "We", the "We" of social relations is a matter of constant organization, mobilization and education.  This is a solidaristic "We." I believe, in the long run, that this solidaristic we must be based on the potential for power of working class institutions.  In the short run it depends upon where and when we can organize ourselves, at work, in our neighborhoods, etc....  It has been possible to mobilize in the past.  People in other countries organize and mobilize.  Sectors of the U.S. population have mobilized in the past -- against slavery, for unions, against the Vietnam War, and against intervention in Central America.  I still believe that in the long run any lasting institutional power for this kind of mobilization will be from the "working class."  To begin with you just organize the people who agree with you and get to work.  I disagree with you about gunboats, tanks, and fighter planes.  Of course you are partially correct.  But consider what is happening in the world now. If this was the 1950s the U.S. would simply draft more people into the Army and get on with its projects.  One reason why Rumsfeld was so shocked when some army general asked for a huge increase in U.S. occupation forces in Iraq, is that he knew he couldn't do it without the draft.  The reality was that a proper occupation takes more boots on the ground.  The U.S.G. was not able to mount a proper occupation of Iraq because the U.S. rulers were afraid to reintroduce the draft, even after 9/11.  They were not able to reintroduce the draft because of the so-called "Vietnam Syndrome", i.e. "unorganized" popular opposition to imperial adventures.  Note also that the limits that the U.S. population has imposed upon its rulers has also given Latin American room to breath in this period.  E.P Thompson, a man I much admire, once said about similar issues that either we organize to change things or we suffer a high risk extinction.  The only possible countervailing power is the organization of the mass of the people to counter the rulers and owners in each country.  This is especially vital in the U.S.  It's not easy but there is no other way.  Jerry -- Jerry Monaco's Philosophy, Politics, Culture Weblog is Shandean Postscripts to Politics, Philosophy, and Culture <a href="http://monacojerry.livejournal.com/"> http://monacojerry.livejournal.com/</a> His fiction, poetry, weblog is Hopeful Monsters: Fiction, Poetry, Memories <a href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/jerrymonaco/">http://www.livejournal.com/users/jerrymonaco/ </a> Notes, Quotes, Images - From some of my reading and browsing <a href="http://www.livejournal.com/community/jerry_quotes/">http://www.livejournal.com/community/jerry_quotes/</a>