From: DAKLAR-AT-pseud.pseud Subject: M-INTRO: Attack on America Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 17:13:16 -0700 With the events of Tuesday in mind and the fact that I am taking Professor Hans Ehrbar's Marxian economics class at the University of Utah. I can't help but wonder what Karl Marx would have said about the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Would he have said like Saddam Hussein, "The American cowboys are reaping the fruit of their crimes against humanity." The attacks were focused after all on one of the greatest symbols of American capitalism and the center of American military might. Were these attacks a result of the exploitative nature of capitalism on the rest of the world? Would Marx approve of this direct attack on capitalism in hopes that it would start the revolution to over throw capitalistic oppression and set up a perfect communist world? I don't know how exactly to reconcile this but I do feel we as a country should be held partially responsible for what happened. We have been bombing the Middle East for years over Oil. Oil of all things. If it weren't for the industrial revolution and our selfish desires to produce and get gain at all costs maybe this wouldn't have happened. I don't feel the defense of democracy, which is the excuse we have used for years to justify our attacks on the Middle East, has been extremely valid. It isn't as though the Middle East is really big enough to pose a real threat to our military might. To paraphrase what Hans sent to the class today, maybe we should think of how many people die everyday because of capitalist exploitation before we try to get revenge for an insignificant 20,000 or so that will be lost as casualties of this tragedy. I don't want to sound anti-American or supportive of terrorism. I love my country but I think that before we "find out who did this and go after the bastards" as our beloved Senator Orrin Hatch so eloquently put it, we better think long and hard about why this happened and how we can change so that it won't happen again. Not what we can change or how we can protect ourselves better or how we can make our airports more secure before allowing flights to run again, but how we can treat human beings in this world better. I would appreciate any comments or thoughts that anybody would like to express in response to anything I have mentioned. These are only things I have been thinking about and not necessarily all my own personal beliefs. More than anything I would like to know how a Marxist views this situation and what a Marxist thinks of how the United States is handling the situation. --- from list marxism-intro-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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