Peace Protestors, Grow The Fuck Up!

[Milossarian]

Otto (and, just because this is the Pit and I want to piss you off, I just spelled your name backwards, derisively):

**Gee, David Horowitz wants to curtail civil liberties. Maybe he’ll stop whining now about the college papers who refuse to run his silly anti-reparations ad.

**
My take was that he wasn’t saying they didn’t have a right to protest; he was saying they shouldn’t protest, because it’s harmful and not helpful.

pld:

**Ugh. Milo, the terrorist attacks have probably resulted in us seeing eye-to-eye more so than on any topic ever, but if David Horowitz told me I was on fire, I’d want a second opinion. He is so fundamentally dishonest, I consider him to be simply untrustworthy.

**
To be honest, I don’t know that much about him. I was aware of the slave reparations thing, which I saw as rather inflammatory on his part, but who am I to quibble about somebody giving a jab at academia desperately in need of jabbing?

I mostly found it interesting because, for whatever he’s done since, the guy was one of the inventors of campus anti-war protesting.

Mandlestam:
I read your links.

I agree to a large extent with the premises of the alternet.org article. So does the Bush administration, obviously, given their ideas of providing humanitarian aid and direct information to Afghan citizens (an idea I’d like to see expanded throughout the Middle East), strongly urging Israel and the Palestinians to cease fire and negotiate, and setting aside past disagreements with certain countries formerly considered by us as rogues, and basing our new relationships with them on how they help us with the terrorism threat.

Where I disagree is, they seem to think changing perceptions of America in the Middle East is the most important goal, and anything else we do is not as important and won’t stop the terrorism threat against us. It may be the most important long-term goal, but I do not see it as the most important short-term goal. That is obliterating the highly organized, elaborate terrorism networks that have done us harm and seek to do us more harm. That one involves the military, law enforcement and intelligence.

A large group of people that has emnity for us we can deal with - and will have to regardless. It isn’t as though we can change those views overnight. It’s when they are actively taking steps against our national security that they must be stopped, and I believe can be stopped.

The article in The Nation is more of what’s been pissing me off post September 11. I don’t know the extent of our collaboration with bad people in Latin America. I don’t know the extent to which they were carrying out atrocious activities that we wanted them to carry out, or were just having their own fun in their spare time, aside from what they were doing for us.

You can rest assured, however, that I’m not going to take The Nation’s or Guinastasia’s Latin American Studies prof’s word on it as last-word gospel.

More importantly, I don’t think Osama bin Laden knows about or gives a fuck about what the U.S. did in Latin America, either. He has no qualms with our involvement with him in the Afghan war against the Soviets, either, from everything that I’ve heard.

Hindsight is 20/20. Supporting the freedom fighters against the Soviets was provably, demonstrably, a worthwhile endeavor.

It is unfair to say that either of the above should allow blame to be assigned to the United States for September 11. And The Nation’s article does that in plain English in the first paragraph.

I disagree that bin Laden’s attacks are solely motivated by American foreign policy. The idea that it was not an attack “on America” and everything it stands for is ludicrous. (Stated in plain English in the first line of the second paragraph of the article.)

The second graph almost seems to imply that the terrorist were RIGHT, in some weird way, to attack us as they did, because how else do you attack the mighty U.S. if not by slaughtering innocent people?

I’ll give the author the benefit of the doubt that he doesn’t mean to imply the implication I’m taking there.

Very next line - the attack renders the power of our military “useless.” Horseshit. Knee-jerk. Or, to put it another way, I guess we’ll see about that. “The terrorists offer it no targets.” Horseshit. I guess we’ll see about that, too.

Calling bin Laden a “CIA creation?” Horseshit. We trained bin Laden to do a job. He did the job we wanted him to do. It was a demonstrably, provably worthwhile effort. We didn’t train him to hate or kill Americans. Those views came later. (And I think are more about his lust for power, cynically using an angle that plays with suffering Muslims looking for a scapegoat.)

Should we have abandoned Afghanistan the way we did after the Soviets left? No; we should not have. It was a major mistake. We missed a golden opportunity there.

Sorry; I disagree with the tenor and substance of almost every line of that Nation article.

We did nothing - NOTHING; EVER - that in ANY WAY provides the remotest justification for the acts of Sept. 11. We have the capability, the responsibility, and the moral right to turn to cinders those who did it.

For a less ideologically skewed perspective that touches on some similar points, I highly recommend another column. It inspired me to start a GD thread, and it’s linked there.

Couldn’t bear to further hijack gobear’s careening thread. (I support your views, though, gb, as I’m sure is obvious.)

[Mandelstam]

Milossarian, enjoyed reading your reply; thanks for writing at such length. I feel there’s no need for me to go through it point by point as, by now, you can probably guess just where I’d want to differ.

The only thing I strongly disagree with is the characterization that Chalmers Johnson (the author of The Nation piece) is justifying the attacks. I feel very certain that were he posting he would say that nothing can justify so indiscriminate a slaughter. There is very big difference between saying that something is predictable based on certain historical conditions (and Johnson’s book did in fact predict a major terrorist problem in this century), and saying that insofar as it is predictable the thing is also justified. It’s just not the same. Johnson’s logic is that we can predict more of the same unless we change our ways; not that innocent civilians deserve more of the same or anything of that order.

That said, as I said when I first posted, I still think Johnson overstates his case. I agree that Latin American activities probably meant little or nothing to ObL.

I will check out your column/thread tomorrow.

Thanks again :).

[Otto]

Milo

Otto (and, just because this is the Pit and I want to piss you off, I just spelled your name backwards, derisively)

You go to hell! You go to hell and you die!

My take was that he wasn’t saying they didn’t have a right to protest; he was saying they shouldn’t protest, because it’s harmful and not helpful.

Man, I didn’t get that at all. Let me read it again.

:::reading it again:::

No, I’m not getting that at all. I’m getting ‘I committed treason when I protested against the Vietnam War and the people who are protesting now are just like I was. I wish someone back then had been less tolerant of my treason and I hope that someone today will be less tolerant of this new treason.’

Putting aside that I find his analysis that the protests prolonged the Vietnam war to be completely ridiculous, he’s pretty much said that the speech of at least some of the current protestors has crossed the line into “treason” which is non-protected under the Constitution. Since “treason” is the only constitutionally-defined crime, anyone accusing another of treason ought to be able to show by evidence that the accused has levied war against the United States, or “adhered to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.” (Article III section 3) He hasn’t done so, choosing instead to rail against his perpetual shibboleths, “Marxists and radicals.” Which as near as I can tell, is defined as “people who disagree with the brilliant pronouncements of David Horowitz.”

Can you tell that I think Horowitz is a near-total nincompoop?

[Milossarian]

Try Michael Kelly again, then. He’s back on the pacifists, and continues to hit bullseyes:

(M)uch of what is passing for pacifism in this instance is not pacifism at all but only the latest tedious manifestation of a well-known pre-existing condition: the largely reactionary, largely incoherent, largely silly muddle of anti-American, anti-corporatist, anti-globalist sentiments that passes for the politics of the left these days.

He notes that the largest anti-war rally that has occurred to date, the recent one in Washington, was scheduled before Sept. 11. Which might lead one to believe that protestors protest to protest. Just hand 'em a white paper with the cause du jour, let them know the words to the chant and give them a minute to get the rhythm down.

He also notes that the precise reason said cretins are able to protest is because their freedoms have been protected for 225 years by a powerful military.

How many pacifists would be willing to accept the logical outcome of their creed of nonviolence even in face of attack – life as a conquered people? Not many, I would think.

1-2-3-4, We don’t want your racist war?

But you want us to get the terrorists, right?

Just so long as no other innocent person is hurt.

To which I respond: And if that’s impossible, then what?

[Mandelstam]

Milo: “[Kelly] notes that the largest anti-war rally that has occurred to date, the recent one in Washington, was scheduled before Sept. 11. Which might lead one to believe that protestors protest to protest. Just hand 'em a white paper with the cause du jour, let them know the words to the chant and give them a minute to get the rhythm down.”

But that’s absurd, Milossarian, and shows his complete ignorance of what the fair trade movement is about. (I dislike the phrase “anti-globalization” because most protesters aren’t in fact anti-globalization; they’re anti-globalization in the form it’s now taking which, they hold, is unfair.)

One of the key protest issues for the fair trade movement is that the US government, on behalf of multinational corporations, dominates and, at times, enforces an agenda that hurts the less powerful. The so-called “Washington consensus” often involves the US government’s coercion of less powerful nations. For obvious reasons, this issue overlaps with any kind of excessive military coercion that might take place in the future. Peace protests are an important way of expressing sentiments that don’t get adequately expressed in the mainstream media, despite it’s so-called leftwing bias.

The only thing that is muddled and confused here is Michael Kelly’s understanding of the issues: both economic and military. And they are, indeed, rather complicated. But, seriously, Milossarian, you seem a lot more clued in than Kelly does and I think you’d be wise to keep your distance from such a two-bit mudslinger.

(BTW, probably won’t get to look at that other thread till tomorrow.)

[Mandelstam]

“He also notes that the precise reason said cretins are able to protest is because their freedoms have been protected for 225 years by a powerful military.”

That is complete and total bullshit. Check your history Milo. Standing armies didn’t figure large in US history until well into the twentieth century. Early in history, as often in British history, standing armies were actually feared because people feared they would be used to encroach upon liberties. And for the two hundredth time, few of these people are likely to be absolute pacifists who will settle for nothing less than the complete dismantling of the US armed forces. Once again, to be put it somewhat unkindly, Kelly is a moron with press card.

[Otto]

Milo

He notes that the largest anti-war rally that has occurred to date, the recent one in Washington, was scheduled before Sept. 11. Which might lead one to believe that protestors protest to protest.

It might, if one were completely ignorant of the original reason the protest was called. The original target of the demonstrations was the meetings of the World bank and International Monetary Fund. Since those meetings were cancelled in the wake of the attacks and since the rather pressing issue of the potential launch of another world war presented itself, the focus expanded to include calls for peace.

[Michael_Ellis]

*Originally posted by Otto *
**Since those meetings were cancelled in the wake of the attacks and since the rather pressing issue of the potential launch of another world war presented itself, the focus expanded to include calls for peace. **

OK, if I hear how we’re going to start World War Three once more I’m going to scream.

World War Three? Give me a fucking break. Who with? Christ, almost everyone condemned the attacks! In there was a ‘war’ (“Oh god, anything but that! Someone innocent might die!” “Like the 6000 from September 11th!” “Well, you know what I mean.”)

Like it or not, there are going to be retaliations against those responsible. If you don’t like it, well what would be a resonable course of action? Maybe waiting until Al Queda gets a stray H-Bomb and levels the rest of New York or Washington. Or until they start an epedemic which kills millions of Americans? Compared to what could happen if we do nothing, I think you are either remarkably naive or completely whacko.