It was in fact echoed, but by relatively "progressive" organizations in the Middle East like the Iraqi Communist Party in 2006. If you take it to imply that the US should be supported in the region, a stance that neither I nor Chris takes.....* * * *As for the other Chris (Cutrone), you should go back to his 2nd message on this list, where he mentions that Platypus is about asking questions rather than taking positions. All these questions are asked with the sobriety to realize that there isn't a revolutionary left anymore.* * * *Some other points from the discussion.... though its a bit confusing to lump Hamas and Hezbollah with Al Qaeda (though of course they are all manifestations of the right), Chris is one of the few leftists I've seen acknowledge that the September 11 attacks were meant to kill a great deal more than 3,000 people. You can acknowledge that petit bourgeois utopians aren't the prime enemy of socialists without pretending that there aren't international networks of terrorists regularly plotting to mass murder civilians. * On Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 11:16 AM, Eric Beck <ersatzdog at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/8/10, Chris Maisano <cgmaisano at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >The alternative to
> > the US presence in these places is probably the installation of regimes
> that
> > most of us on the western left probably would not consider to be
> > progressive, and could potentially be quite nasty. If the US left
> > Afghanistan next month, for example, we probably would not see a
> progressive
> > regime take root there. We'd likely see a reversion to decentralized,
> > clan-based rule and warlordism.
>
> I'd say if Platypus believes this, they are a pretty nasty piece of
> work. Progress, Emancipation, and Civilization as the primary
> political categories, with westerners deciding if those states have
> been achieved. Kipling and TR would be proud!
>
> This whole discussion has made me wish that Platypus's and
> Heartfield's parents had bought them a copy of Risk when they were
> tots. Maybe they would have gotten the geopolitical, world-leader
> role-playing games out of their system.