File spoon-archives/anarchy-list.archive/anarchy-list_2003/anarchy-list.0303, message 55


Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2003 08:12:40 -0500 (EST)
From: dan combs <dcombs-AT-bloomington.in.us>
Subject: RE: amerikan hegemony


On Mon, 3 Mar 2003, Dave Coull wrote:

>
> No, not recently. However, I do know that somewhere
> between a million and two million people (nobody
> is exactly sure) demonstrated in London against war
> recently. I do know that if anybody suggested that
> English schoolchildren should be required to recite
> a "pledge of allegiance to the flag" every day,
> they would be laughed at as some sort of lunatic.
> And yet I also know that precisely that act of madness
> does takes place every day in American schools,
> and is taken for granted as something "normal".

Actually, you are WAY out of line here.  The pledge almost never happens
in the school I am at, nor did it happen at the last one--the only time at
this school was after 9-11-01 and I told all of the students I came into
contact they weren't required to do it.  A great number declined.  Kids do
that, when they know they have choices.

The pledge has not been required since 1943; anyone can opt out and kids
do so in droves when it comes up.  But it comes up far less frequently
than you seem to assert.  Yes, there have been one or two loopy school
districts adopt resolutions since 2001 requiring its recitiation, but they
are not enforcable nor do many people pay attention to them.  You seem to
have taken these one or two news reports and applied them to the 50,000 or
so school districts around the nation.  This is the most dangerous kind of
stereotyping based on a shrill news media dedicated more to fright and
propaganda than to reality reporting.

So you see, Dave, it is this kind of mindless US-bashing that pisses a lot
of us off; reporting rumors as fact and then condemning all of us for it
IS EXACTLY what you condemn us for.   Perhaps you should inform yourself a
bit better before you start casting stones.


> the unspoken implication is "so I'm not going to do
> very much to oppose what 'my' government is doing
> to the rest of the world". I am not saying that is
> so in  _your_  case, Scott, but I am quite sure that
> it is in others'.

This is absolute bullshit.   If anything this is *your* perception of what
is going on, and you are simply worng.


> We are not having some interesting
> philosophical discussion about whether or not, in
> an abstract world, all nationalisms are equally
> repugnant. We are talking about whether, in a world
> with just one super-power which is throwing its weight
> around ever more aggressively, those citizens of that
> super-power who claim to be anarchists or libertarians
> or anti-authoritarians of some kind ought to take
> quite such a relaxed view of their  _own_  Nationalism.

Now you encourage discriminatory critiques.  This is bullshit of the
highest magnitude.  Exactly WHO has a relaxed view of their nationalism?
So relaxed that it tempers their view and activities regarding resisting
the rule and role of the state?  You've spouted a lot of
Holier-Than-Thou-Chickenshit-Sort-Of-Nitpicking in the past, Dave, but
this one is the corker.

Actually, what it sounds like is you are jealous that you don't live in
that superpower.


> Whether or not it is any worse than any other country
> would be "in its place" is not the point. No other
> country  IS  in its place. And this "we're no worse
> than anybody else would be in our place" can be,
> and I am quite sure  _is_ , used as an excuse
> for inaction.

If you add them up, more people turned out for anti-war marches in the US
than everywhere else combined.  Also there is a strong anti-war element
that has taken to the airwaves and print media.  Good numbers of people
are financing well done commercials that tell the truth about the Iraq
situation.  Even more are participating in a massive print-media drive
that puts full-page ads in our newspapers on a daily basis.   The message
is out and it is the subject of much discussion everywhere.  The polls
show numbers that are extremely qualified, and also are part of the
ongoing media deman for some Big Event to happen that will boost their
ratings.

Exactly what is it you would have people do, Dave?



carp




   

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