[lbo-talk] Enough With the China Shtick Already!

Joseph Catron jncatron at gmail.com
Sat Jan 30 22:34:05 PST 2010


On Sat, Jan 30, 2010 at 10:00 PM, Shane Mage <shmage at pipeline.com> wrote:

Not any more than I believe that every unplanned pregnancy should (or should
> not) result in an abortion. What must be absolute is the right of choice. So
> be it with self-determination. To deny a people or a woman that choice is
> utterly repulsive.
>

Fair enough. I'll resist the temptation to launch a protracted flame war by prying too deeply into what "repulsive" might mean as anything other than an aesthetic judgment.

But still: Why predicate self-determination on nationhood? One of the main Zionist talking points is that no Palestinian nation ever existed prior to the Nakba. This is an impossible point to refute, and also one that should prove rather unimpressive to anyone knowing the first thing about the history of nationalism.

Then again, if not nationhood, what else? And what if a given movement for autonomy or sovereignty is clearly reactionary, as in the recent case of Bolivia? I'll leave aside the experience of the South, which certainly had as valid a claim to nationhood as most independence movements in the world today.

-- "Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað."



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