"Those Iranians." I like the glib identification of Iranians with the their government.
I'll say lots of good things about Iranian leftists and labor organizers and liberals and feminists and ordinary people who are repressed by the regime. But I don't know why the Iranian regime, which executes our comrades and stands for reactionary ideals we despise when they are advocated by Christofascists here, deserves any more "support" than the arms length, nuanced, it's-not-our-fucking-business attitude that, for example, the old Soviet regime was entitled to. And that system was better than the Iranian one. At least it theoretically stood for the right sort of thing, even if it miserably failed to life up to its own ideals.
But the more the Iranian regime lives up to its ideals, the worse it would be. And the more you support it, the more you betray the people there who think of people like you as the only support they have. They sure as hell aren't going to find succor from the US government.
No war with Iran? No actions, stay out, absolutely. Any concessions to theocratic fundamentalism, fugeddaboudit. Sorry if I am just being a dedicated follower of fashion, supporting Enlightenment ideals like all the cool kids.
Although now that I come to think of it, aren't the cool kids lining up to support torture, rendition. preventive detention, military tribunals apart from federal court jurisdiction, secret evidence warrantless wiretapping, and the abolition of habeas corpus. Gee, aren't the cool kids on the same page as the Iran regime? Aw, shit. I guess I am not cool after all.
--- Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
>
>
> Julio Huato wrote:
> >
> > Why is it evasive or dishonest to resist feeding
> the prejudices of the
> > crowd? Why do we have to reinforce the morbid
> sense of moral
> > superiority that people in the Western world
> "naturally" feel towards
> > Persians, Arabs, Latin Americans, etc.?
>
> I wish I could work out a full version of my
> critique of negativism --
> expressing one's "taste" by focusing on what one
> disapproves of, because
> I think it is relevant here. You should look up
> Dennis Perrin's account
> of his daughter being embarassed when he picked her
> up at school because
> he was playing Springsteen on the car's audio. It
> just wasn't "cool."
> That is Doug's attitude on this topic; he is
> frightened to death of not
> being "cool" unless he assures everyone in sight
> that he, of course, is
> too morally cool to say anything good about those
> Iranians.
>
> Carrol
>
> ___________________________________
>
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