[lbo-talk] Zizek on normalization of torture

Yoshie Furuhashi critical.montages at gmail.com
Sat Mar 24 00:56:02 PDT 2007


On 3/24/07, Chuck <chuck at mutualaid.org> wrote:
> Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
> > 36% of the Americans are simply goners. The rest either don't have
> > the courage of convictions or are too beaten down to do anything.
>
> That's because the rest of us are too fucking nice to these white
> people. They have to be white people, because these are the people who
> get their marching orders from Rush Limbaugh and Fox News.

On 3/24/07, andie nachgeborenen <andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> wrote:
> There _are_ really
> privileged Americans, and most of them are white, but
> they are not anywhere near 35% of the population, and
> they are far too sophisticated to listen to Rush or
> watch Faux. Those people think that Rush-Faux are
> crude and vulgar. They read the NYT, the WSJ,

Who are the pro-torture 36% of the Americans? I bet they are mostly richer and whiter than the average -- many of them in the top two quintiles of household incomes (cf. "Table HINC-05. Percent Distribution of Households, by Selected Characteristics Within Income Quintile and Top 5 Percent in 2004," <http://pubdb3.census.gov/macro/032005/hhinc/new05_000.htm>). They don't listen to Rush Limbaugh or watch Fox News, but they read the WSJ and approve of its editorials, some of them invest in or advertise on Fox News and Clear Channels (which runs the Rush Limbaugh show), and the classes they belong to or serve own and control both the Democratic and Republican Parties.

The House just voted for $100 billion for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, 218 to 212. Only 14 Democrats refused to vote for war funding: <http://www.govtrack.us/congress/vote.xpd?vote=h2007-186>.

To top it all off,

As expected, among the 14 Democrats who crossed

the aisle to vote against the bill were Congressional

Progressive Caucus co-chairs Rep. Barbara Lee,

D-0akland, and Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Petaluma,

who felt the bill doesn't pull our troops out of Iraq

fast enough. On Thursday they'd struck a deal with

Pelosi, delivering her about 10 votes from progressives

who'd been undecided about what to do, in exchange

for their own ability to stand on principle and oppose the bill.

It appears the margin they provided was crucial —

in a 435-member House, 218 votes is the bare minimum

needed for passage. The National Journal's CongressDaily

reported today that Lee, Woolsey and Out of Iraq Caucus

Chairwoman Maxine Waters, D-Los Angeles, got a standing

ovation in the Democratic caucus meeting before Friday's

vote, spurred by Pelosi's praise of their actions. ("What Our

Locals Said about the Iraq Spending Bill," <http://www.ibabuzz.com/politics/2007/03/23/what-our-locals-said-about-the-iraq-spending-bill/#more-351>)

What a joke!

On 3/24/07, andie nachgeborenen <andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> wrote:
> many, perhaps most,
> Obama supporters believe that he is antiwar.

So do many supporters of HRC, Edwards, etc., or of the Democratic Party in general, what with their charade about a *non-binding* call for a US withdrawal by March 2008 attached to war funding. Too many leftists, out of bad faith, have been enabling liberals to live in their bad faith. -- Yoshie



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