Re: <nettime> incoming! digest [valentine (x2), cantsin]

[Rick Bradley <roundeye@roundeye.net>]

* david garcia (davidg@xs4all.nl) [030326 16:20]:
> > My suggestion: Donate blood, not rhetoric.
> > Brandon D. Valentine
> 
> Brandon's final suggestion treats us to yet another Bush like binary,
> another false dichotomy like theory vs practice. For us or against us!
> Blood or rhetoric. humanitarian relief or fury. 

Ironically, those who jump up quickly to point out the exclusivity of
"binary logic" are in the typical case simply sitting on the 0 end of
binary.  Pointing out the excluded middle is a poor device for
justifying the hypocrisy of excluding it oneself.

Perhaps the reason declarative (as opposed to meaningless or evasive)
judgments like those of Bush and his kind rub the Left so wrong is that
they force recognition that PostModernism, moral equivalence, victim
culture, and cultural relativism do nothing to address social problems.
There has been a conservative backlash in the U.S. against the worthless
"logic" of postmodernism (and it's farce writ large, transnational
progressivism).  It is widely believed (especially among the voting
populace) that the net effect of PoMo/Tranzi thinking is some smoldering
buildings and the irony of Chirac pounding the podium to protect his oil
and arms contracts with a dictator condemned 16 (now 17) times by the
UNSC.

Bush, for all his "simplisme" (remind me who it was that was able to
stifle "sophisticated" Old Europe diplomatically while building up
sufficient forces in the Gulf to depose Hussein, while stringing Hussein
along into believing that diplomacy might cow us -- thereby dissuading
Saddam from a pre-emptive strike during our buildup?), is guilty of
calling a spade a spade.  He's also holding the deck, which gives his
words that added "oomph".

> Well lets donate both! they are not mutually exclusive.

Sounds like a plan to me.  Methinks media (from mass- to Indy-) are
documenting coalition progress on both fronts, though somewhat
begrudgingly in the more liberal press.  

> Maybe we millions of fools who flooded the streets failed to stop the
> "juggernaut" of mayhem you call "liberation" but if this horror were to
> last much longer then just maybe history might repeat itself and as with
> Vietnam the accumulation of resistance might eventually weaken the resolve
> of what must (in all its God fearing conviction) be trully one of the most
> shameful US administrations in living memory.

Feh.

When this campaign in Iraq endures over multiple administrations (much
less multiple months, or should I dare mention multiple _weeks_) like
the Vietnam debacle then perhaps reasonable people will come around to
this way of thinking.

For the time-being, however, I, and a multitude of others are inclined
to believe our administration is waging the most effective and efficient
military operation the world has ever seen, and we will truly liberate a
violently oppressed nation which has suffered under a regime politically
and economically supported by the very nations protesting the loudest
that we're unjustly violating the "peace".

The military phase of this conflict may well continue for some number of
months (judging by the reports regarding the mobilization of the 4ID
from Texas), though hopes are that we're looking at some number of
weeks.  Should the conflict continue for some number of years, the
American people would be surprised, but such a conflict could only
result if Saddam's regime is even more dangerous than we contended at
the UNSC.  The will is present to see this situation through.  Will this
conflict be bloodless (on either side)?  Hardly.  Will we succeed in
minimizing civilian casualties to a degree unheard of in the history of
warfare?  I truly believe so.  Is the price of the means worth the value
of the ends?  This country, as represented at the polling place, by the
polls, over the phone, and by email and fax, believes so. 

When all is done I believe it will be clear that we were justified in
moving now.  It will also be clear why our "allies" on the UNSC were so
shrill in expressing their fears that we would actually turn over stones
in Iraq.

Had there been a viable alternative to this campaign proposed from any
quarter perhaps demonstrations from "millions of fools" would have been
persuasive.  Instead of making sense, however, people made slogans and
signs.  Instead of taking the opportunity to express their opinions at
the ballot box (this is giving the benefit of presuming they didn't show
and turn over the Legislative Branch anyway) a tiny fraction of the
populace took to the streets and proclaimed themselves a majority.
Instead of becoming a part of the debate, the so-called "peace movement"
became marginalized as incoherent.

I hope you'll forgive me for not rushing to grant them credibility.

Rick
-- 
 http://www.rickbradley.com    MUPRN: 850
                       |  ifferences. We
   random email haiku  |  used that for grouping set
                       |  of rows in table.

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