[lbo-talk] lbo-talk Digest, Vol 813, Issue 3

[Politicus E.]

Hi.  I hardly think that your claim is obvious.  Consider, for example, the
history of African-American resistance to colonialism in Africa as a
counterexample;  and consider, to take another illustration, the general
anti-war attitude of African-Americans.  African-Americans were at the fore
of resistance to Italian rule in the Horn of Africa during the early 20th
century, and the basis for this resistance, I claim, was solidarity with the
oppressed -- something that white folk in the US have generally lacked in
the post-WW2 period.  This is also clear in polling data:  African-Americans
tend to be consistently against US wars, in contrast to the white
population.  To reiterate, I don't think that the evidence supports your
view.

epoliticus

I'll just make this obvious point: Of all the people in America who are
> against the Afghanistan war, probably for only a tiny percentage is
> their opposition grounded in even the vaguest notion of solidarity with
> the weak and oppressed. A much larger number probably oppose the war for
> reasons that are closer to "I'm sick of helping people halfway around
> the world; they don't even want our help; we should be helping Americans
> instead."
>
> If you just think about it from the most naive "what would a Martian
> assume?" perspective, a war advertised as being designed to prevent a
> medieval-minded gang of violent theocrats from taking over a country and
> letting it be used as a base for senseless international attacks against
> civilians - there's no obvious reason to expect that the opponents of
> such a war would tend to be sympathetic to the values of the left.
>
> SA
>