From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Fri Jan 28 2005 - 14:45:55 GMT
Arlo, Wim . . .
Arlo writes:
> I agree with you, Wim. This is not a "social-biological" war as Platt would
> like to believe. Besides making the assumption that everyone fighting
> "against the US" is "fighting for the ability to live under a 'might makes
> right' anarchaic system", it can't explain why the great majority of Iraqis
> are either openly hostile to US presence, or are quietly not supporting it.
> In the election, notice how no candidate is running on an openly
> pro-American platform. To suggest that the entire population of Iraq desire
> to be "willing victims of tyranny" or prefer "street justice" to any social
> pattern, is silly condescesion.
>
> I am sure, as Platt suggests, there are some Iraqis fighting for "might
> makes right", but it does not explain the scale of the resistence. A better
> explanation would be, as you've suggested Wim, a clash of static social
> patterns, a resistance to hegemony.
All of which makes me wonder, Arlo. Where do your sympathies lie? With
those who blow up their fellow citizens including women and children in
the public square, or those who are blown up?
> Consider this. Pretend for one moment that a dictator gains control of
> America (or the Netherlands). China decides it has the moral obligation to
> overthrow said dictator and restore democracy. Now, consider your response
> as suddenly Chinese bombers are dropping napalm on your streets, you watch
> as your friends and daughters and sons are melted by the fire bombs. The
> houses on your street are demolished, your friends are shot because, you
> know, all Americans look alike to the Chinese. They can't tell who the "bad
> guys" are. So they shoot to kill. You are arrested by the Chinese army and
> held prisoner. Because you are "American", you are asssumed to be the
> enemy, you are held without representation and denied decent accomodations.
> You are made to lay on big pyramids with other naked American men because
> the Chinese know Americans are homophobic, and can break our resistence
> this way. Let's assume that somehow they let you go, you return to your
> bombed out town, house in rubble, no running water, no electricity, armed
> Chinese patrols monitor the streets so you can't really walk around without
> getting shot at or killed. All your art museums that you visited were
> destroyed by bombing attacks, as the chinese army was guarding oil
> platforms and factories. Now, how "pro-chinese" would you be? And if you
> resisted the ongoing chinese occupation, would you be fighting for
> "biological reasons"?
Your hypothetical example sounds like what actually happened in France,
Italy, the Netherlands, Japan and Germany as the Allied forces liberated
those countries from tyranny in WW II. How pro-Allied would you be? Last
time I looked, those countries were prospering democracies with no desire
to return to tyrannical rule.
> > The trouble your country is currently having with your Muslim population
> > would seem to question your assertion about the Dutch social system being
> > more "sophisticated."
>
> Without knowing the details of the Dutch "problem" with Muslims (or if
> there is one, as Platt suggests), inter-cultural and assimilation
> difficulties are not the exception, they are the rule. Look at the problems
> we (the US) are having with our latino and black populations, just to
> mention the two predominent minority groups. If degree or lack of severity
> of problems are the measure of "sophistication", I would wonder how one can
> claim "we" (the US) are "more sophisticated".
I for one never claimed the US to be "more sophisticated" in handling its
welfare programs. In fact, I said just the opposite, citing the abject
failure of the Great Society.
Platt
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