Date: Sun, 07 Oct 2001 18:53:48 +0100
Subject: Re: Different approach to terrorist threat




Hugh

The problem is that it is the 'democracies' aka G8/14/20 who are in the 
forefront of the developments which most of time you are so against, but 
which suddenly you have become ambivilant about.  Sometime back we 
exchanged emails about the ownership of information, copyright etc am I 
correct in assuming that you have suddenly discovered that totally free 
access to information is dangerous? That some information should be 
'owned' that biological, genetic, nuclear information, the way to make a 
bomb should not be freely available?

If you believe it is necesscery to support the US state in its current 
intention to declare war on the people of Afghanistan with a gun in one 
hand and a bag of flour in the other, then you need to justify this. You 
need to explain why the US state and its corporations deserves to be 
supported to a greator extent than the people of Afghanistan who have 
spent most of the colonial and post-colonial era being instructed in the 
 inoperative nature of there communities.

This is not the place to discuss the meaning and limits of democracy. 
Later perhaps.
 
hbone wrote:

> Are there individuals or groups who can persuade Blair or Bush, other 
> Coalition leaders to
>
> change their plans? 
>
Yes - Charter 88, Amnesty, Oxfam, the anti-globalisation movement - add 
your own US based list.

>  Nation states, democratic or dictatorial, have support or passive 
> acquiesence of their citizens  The States can opt for action or 
> non-action, at earliest or later dates.   Is there a better way to 
> prevent possible imminent attacks?
>
What imminent attacks? - what evidence is there that with sensible 
precautions they could not have been prevented from carrying out the 
acts of the 9/11. Moreover since we know that the coalition states will 
have killed already, and will cause the deaths of many more people than 
terroists can possibly achieve it is absurd to consider that this in 
anyway justifies military attacks on Afghanistan.

>  In  democracies, Individuals and groups who dissent have the power to 
> speak out in protest, sollcit funds, buy publicity, march in 
> demonstrations.  How many would go to the polls and vote for new 
> officials tomorrow, next week, next year?
>
I wasn't aware that the USA was a democratic state. I thought you could 
only vote for the status-quo or abstain which is what most people do...

Let me quote Peter Singer "When we consider how serious it is to take a 
life, we should look, not at the race, sex, or species to which it 
belongs, but at the characteristics of the ndividual being killed, for 
example its own desires about continuing to live, or the kind of life it 
is capable of leading....' The g8 states are plainly not functioning 
within the shadow cast by Singer's statement and as such should not be 
supported.

regards

sdv

HTML VERSION:

Are there individuals or groups who can persuade Blair or Bush, other Coalition leaders to

change their plans? 

 Nation states, democratic or dictatorial, have support or passive acquiesence of their citizens  The States can opt for action or non-action, at earliest or later dates.   Is there a better way to prevent possible imminent attacks?

 In  democracies, Individuals and groups who dissent have the power to speak out in protest, sollcit funds, buy publicity, march in demonstrations.  How many would go to the polls and vote for new officials tomorrow, next week, next year?