Re: <nettime> Afghan women

[Miles Nordin <carton {AT} Ivy.NET>]

begin  David Goldschmidt quotation.
> activists . . . continue to criticize the policies of America 
  [...]
> "do these americans even realize how good they have it?"

I don't believe that people criticizing policies are very often doing 
so because they want to have ``it'' better.  Complaining about how 
American policies cause unpleasantness for people elsewhere in the world 
seems to me totally consistent with an awareness of ``how good we have 
it.''

Your admonishment seems to imply, ``people who have things so good have 
no cause to complain,'' which is exactly the sort of selfishness that 
many complainers find reprehensible.  What you say makes sense at first.  
I often hear people say it.  But this moment-of-thanksgiving you are 
suggesting to us is totally upside-down.  It is not right to turn 
activism into some kind of aristocratic indulgence for which we should 
all feel rich-white-man's-guilt.

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