Hedges) Looking at the context, I think the issue is less one of finding a synonym for "old women" than of finding a contrastive to "heroes." I hear mainly two pairs of opposites at work in the juxtaposition: "courage vs. cowardice" and "decisiveness vs. indecisiveness" (or maybe "confusedness"). I'm not sure "cowards" has the right kind of traction for making a point like this, but I don't have a better suggestion at the moment; hopefully others will jump in. I'm less convinced this specific point by Rosa is vital than I am that it could be good to reflect on what kinds of categories could be effective in framing the implicit moral-political demand for courage and decisiveness.
A slightly tangential thought: One of the things about the Middle East uprisings that I found striking was how comfortable people were using terms like "heroes" and "martyrs." I have trouble imagining those terms being used unselfconsciously and non-ironically in the U.S. context, but that may be a failure of imagination on my part.
I wonder if I'm the only person here who dislikes heroic notions of politics. But, for what it's worth, I think the word that Cde Cox is looking for is either 'wimp' or 'wus'. Perhaps 'wanker' might serve as well. Tahir
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