From: Adam Watt (adamwatt@mac.com)
Date: Thu Jun 03 2004 - 14:27:21 BST
On Thursday, June 3, 2004, at 01:08 pm, David Robjant wrote:
> Hi Platt, Mark, all
>
> Just to say, Platt, that I agree with you completely about what you
> were
> saying on european ingrates forgetting that America saved Europe from
> both
> facism and communism in WWII, but: careful not to join in with everyone
> else's hyperbole on Iraq.
>
> When you were told by Mark M that:
>
>>> By the way, Sadham Hussien was also described as a middle Eastern
>>> 'moderate' when it suited the US in the 80's. (About the time he was
>>> being
>>> armed with nerve gas by Donald Rumsfeld.)
>
> And you replied
>
>> Another unsubstantiated claim. Next you'll be telling me that Michael
>> Moore is a reliable source.
>
> This was *hasty*. My recollection is that Mark M is factually correct
> here
> (shame about the inadvertent advert for MM), athough what this has to
> do
> with the appropriate response to Saddam in 2003 I don't know. It's a
> shame
> you had to contradict Mark here - the principle 'if it doesn't suit my
> argument it must be false' seems to be getting dangerously popular on
> all
> sides - though I'll grant it wasn't you who started with this heated
> and
> unenlightened approach. This accidental hyperbole of yours is a bit
> of a
> shame, because otherwise you were quite right that what MH says about
> US
> foreign policy pre WWII is: a load of old balls. As a nation, one
> can't
> symultaneously be pro-facist and isolationist. You made that point
> well
> enough, Platt.
>
> (Isolationism in America, pre both world wars, had much to do with the
> fact
> that the mid west German farming minority was to early 20th century
> america
> what the hispanic minority is to todays america - dressed up in some
> escapist tosh about leaving old europe behind. America's foreign
> policy,
> then as now, has been much tossed-about by the allegiances of
> electorally
> important immigrant communities, far more than by 'big business', I'd
> say.
> Just look at how policy on Cuba is formed by the electoral clout of
> Miami
> Cubans, with 'big business' just longing to do deals with Castro.)
>
> But Mark M is right that many 1930's anti-communists in America (OK,
> read
> 'Big business' if you must, but there were many more concerned groups
> besides), as in England and in western europe as a whole, got
> side-tracked
> by the falacious principle that mine enemy's enemy is my freind into
> thinking that facism had it's merits. Likewise, many passionate
> anti-facists (most undergraduates in england in the 1930's, for
> instance)
> got sidetracked by the very same polarised way of thinking into
> thinking
> that Communism was a good thing. Though a bit luckier than Spain,
> England
> was no better than USA at avoiding this daft polarisation, and you can
> intelligably argue that in the end we were only saved from the daft
> 'Facism
> or communism - the only choice' way of thinking by one determined man.
> That
> in 1940 Churchill managed to overcome the pro-peace
> facist-sympathisers [eg
> Halifax] within the UK conservative party was a damned near run thing
> (It's
> widely known that he had to fight with the appeasers throughought the
> 30's
> and in 1939, but it is not widely known that England was still
> politically
> devided in the early period of the war - this is an uncomfortable
> memory -
> and that Churchill had to fight a very near run thing in cabinet to be
> able
> to continue the war after Dunkirk).
>
> You might say that WWII was the upshot of the muddled thinking, and the
> muddled action in the 'league of nations', that the 'mine enemy's
> enemy is
> my freind' principle lead to.
>
> George Orwell's essays are good on the intellectual climate of the
> thirties
> - it worryingly resembles 2004. There was a dangerous and falacious
> bi-polarism abroad then as now. Compare 1930's: the whole world is to
> be
> devided between Communists and anti-communists [Franco], Facists or
> anti-facists [Stalin], terrorists or anti-terrorists [Bush],
> imperialists or
> anti-imperialists [Chomsky].
>
> Here propaganda on all sides is crowding out the truth. The truth
> being:
> one can coherently be anti-communist and not facist, anti facist and
> not
> communist, anti-terrorist and not pro-war, and anti-imperialist while
> pro-war.
>
> Let's all save ourself from the need of a Churchill by being more clear
> thinking this time, and not get carried away by any of these idiotic
> bi-polar simplifications. Yes, Chomsky, I mean YOU.
>
Hello all,
Yawn.. Where to begin? David, again, on what basis are you accusing
Chomsky of being guilty of 'idiotic bi-polar simplifications'? What
were you reading that cause you to come to this conclusion? Really, I'd
love to know. Also, you call mention unnamed 'terrorists' and then
comically refer to Bush as an 'anti-terrorist'... what definition of
the term 'terrorist' are you using here? Again, I'd love to know. Platt
has avoided a similar question twice so far that I've noticed, please
try not to do the same. I could say plenty more about the above post,
but that will suffice for now.
Best wishes to all,
Adam
>
>
>
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