Date: Mon, 08 Oct 2001 09:11:09 -0500
Subject: Re: Different approach to terrorist threat


steve.devos-AT-krokodile.com wrote:

I have a great deal of sympathy for this message - however I don't agree
that the US government has been moving slowly and deliberately, as far
as I can tell the G8 states have been acting hysterically, foolishly and
with a wanton disregard for human life.... Not that the modern state has
ever shown any regard for a human life.

Steve,

After this last posting, I spent my Sunday afternoon going to see an art
exhibit with my wife Mary.  I had no idea anything at all had happened
until we came home in the evening and turned on the TV.  Then I
dicovered the attack had been made.

Now of course the point I was making has become moot. 

However, my previous surprise was due to the fact that given the
hysterical rhetoric I heard, I thought we would have started bombing the
very first weekend after 9/11.  The fact that we waited this long has
gave me some pause. It appeared the Bush administration was actually
engaging in diplomacy, rather than merely riding into Dodge City with
all their six guns blazing.

I was also speaking here pragmatically and strategically. Here in
America, the trouble with anti-state rhetoric is that immediately people
think you are in agreement with the libertarians, Rush Limbaugh and Newt
Gingrich, even though I doubt whether most of those voices are calling
us to reduce the size of the government right now. 

Besides the war, there is also a huge recession going on right now and
because of the way America has decreased its social spending over the
past decade, a lot of poor families are going really going to be hurting
in the months to come.  I don't have it end me to rail against the state
right now when I think instead that more state social intervention is
probably necessary to deal with the looming domestic crisis.

I also recognize the militaristic side of the state is another issue and
I will attempt to address that more in another post.

eric
eric