Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1999 17:22:05 -0500
From: Unka Bart <mendicant-AT-buddhist.com>


G'day all,

Brother Dave raised two points that I'm going to blather a bit about here.
One is a point of fundamentally skewed logic, the other a matter of
perspective.

(Oh, by the way, nice bit there, Roger! Kudos!)

Please be advised at the start, that I bear no animosity towards Dave, but
rather considerable affection; nor to any other member of this list (the
ocassional pissant, notwithstanding).  Disagree with me to your hearts
content, my emotions are *not* involved with my positions.  Except, of
course, when the position involves a member of another gender, but I
digress...  And naturally, being the kindly, magnanimous guy that I am, I
freely grant everyone the same privileges that I grant myself, the
privelege to be wrong.  Oh, there I go again...

The first point is the one I've been waiting to see.  The argument that "no
one did anything (alternatively, raised a stink) about Rwanda (or fill in
your favorite saddle burr here), so why should we get our shorts in a knot
over the current genocide?"

Now you may phrase that any way you like, but this is what it boils down
to:  "If we can't solve all the worlds problems, why should we try to solve
any?"

Does that actually *need* an answer?

I'm not going to point out that the Rwanda genocide, being a tribal matter,
was not the sort of thing that western governments are very well equipped
to deal with; nor will I mention that I'm as pissed at the lovely Klinton
for his brain-deat approach to Iraq as I am at him for the bombing of
Serbia, either.

But in the yuglosalv situation, you can say all you like about the problems
with the solution being tried (and for that matter, I've said a few things
about it myself, mainly that it won't accomplish the stated goal) but the
indisputable fact is that *someone* is doing *something.*  And when
genocide is the problem in need of being addressed, it is my view that
doing something is infinitely preferable to doing *nothing!*

Further, from what I see, the voices echoing this sentiment are reaching a
much louder volume here in the estados.  I am beginning to believe that
ground forces, in *sufficient* strength to accomplish the task, are very
likely to be introduced.  When they are, their mission will be to *destroy*
the serb army and occupy yugoslavia for long enough to change attitudes.
At least a generation.  That this worked in Germany can be debated, but I
believe that it did.

The second point involves "Hope."  Brother Dave accurately presented my
view, that the "glorious anarchist revolution" will be heralded by the soft
fluttering of avian swine; but he goes off the deep end when he equates
that (realistic) assessment with a lack of Hope.  I do not believe that
there is any lack of protents for Hope, and I see no reason not to keep it
in one's heart at all times.

What I do *not* see is any liklihood of any form of revolution, if by that
term one means "insurrection" or mass uprising of the workers (or the
wankers either, for that matter, but I digress...) to establish ...
ummmm... come to think about it, being anarchists, they wouldn't be
*establishing* anything even if they did.  No mind, that ain't agonna
happen.  Nope.  Sorry.

But what I *do* see is an explosion of "interconnectedness" among
like-thinking folks that is making it *impossible* for a state to control
what the populace can learn about what's going on.  While the significance
of this in the recent dramatic changes in the face of greater Europe, the
demise of the DDR and the CCCP, the disappearance of the Iron Curtain, and
other stuff (your generalized, basic "stuff") is debateable, I believe that
it played a small part.

There are youngsters here now who have no idea how fundamentally this
changed the world, but most adults do.  We ain't takin' cosmetics here,
chillun'...

We've been in the midst of a "revolution" (used in the same sense as
"Industrial revolution') that will change the world, including states and
governments, even more dramatically than the Industrial revolution.  It's
been going on, noticably, for at least the last 30 years and I don't think
we've seen anything yet.

If you want "Hope," you can find it in spades in *this* revolution.  Hell,
on the internet (which I would make analogous to the original telegrph)
*anyone* can put up a web-site - be a full-fledged *publisher, with one own
*Press* - no longer just states or major capitalists!  If you can't find
*HOPE* there, I don't know where it exists.

But if you really want something *beyond* "Hope," something more
substantial than mere "Hope;" there won't be much to find as long as people
turn a blind eye to genocide.

And as long as people, faced with it, throw up their hands and say "If we
can't solve everything, we shouldn't try to solve *anthing*," you won't
find it either.

And if all you want to see is flying pigs, you might as well just go ahead
and shoot yourself.  It flat ain't agonna happen.

Yer Kindly Ol' Unka Bart