Open Thread

Is it too early for a Jack and Coke?

Welcome back, Snappy.

Benson, lest you think I’m one-sided, here is some equal opportunity bashing. I thought of it when I was asked recently if I ever had the urge to hit a wall. I think there are many good reasons to punch a wall: Sarah Palin, Fox “News” etc, “liberals”, the New York Times, and billions more. In fact, the rise of walls (as a proxy for hitting actual people) correlates with the rise of U.S imperialism (a nation founded on imperialism, as I recently heard Noam Chomsky very shrewdly say. He said he was asked to talk about “American Imperialism” and he said that’s like trying to talk about “triangular triangles”. It’s been expansionist (killing / displacing Native Americans, since day 1).

So yes, walls serve a cathartic, safety valve role in our society. They’re not just for ceilings anymore (as that old commercial said).

Chomsky has reams and reams of writings on that (and it actually would fall into the research category, as he shows through example after example that the so called “liberal left wing” end of the spectrum is no different than the so called “hawks” or conservatives; only different in rhetoric and tactics. They have identical aims / “morals” (barf and choke when applied to those lepers); they just differ rhetorically.

For example, the liberals turned against the Vietnam War as it became too “costly” (to us!?) in terms of outlay of cash, and unrest at home. They felt they couldn’t deploy more troops as they might need those troops to put down internal (US) civil unrest caused by the war. They were never against it from a moral standpoint, as something like 75% of the US population constantly states when polled (it was “wrong morally”) and they still always frame the Vietnam War and all other imperialist adventures as our “blundering effort to do good” or “bring democracy” or spread freedom and a bunch of other pabulum. The “hawks” have the same aim, but might have advocated for simply nuking Vietnam etc.

Chomsky also makes the point over and over again that the “liberal” “conservative” debate also serves the very useful propaganda service of giving the appearance of a lively democratic debate: the free flow of ideas, when actually the spectrum of ideas discussed are so narrow and the framework for discussion / assumptions already agreed upon that it ceases to have any real meaning. It’s a complete mockery of democracy.

The fact I’ve come to this conclusion is, at least in my own humble opinion, quite impressive given the strata I have to interact with. The most “educated” are often the most indoctrinated, for sure.

Let’s take the conflicts one by one, at least in the past 100 years.

WWI: US involvement good, at least for the short term, although terms of peace were heavy and led to much resentment. Also led to Russian revolution, indirectly.

WWII: US involvement good, at least for England,France and the allied nations, Germans, Italians and Japanese would grudgingly admit good for the long term too.

Korea: US involvement good, at least for the South Koreans

Vietnam: US involvement not so good, but as part of a larger war against encroaching communism in south east asia; good.

Cold War; US involvement good considering nuclear annihiliation of the planet would be bad.

Gulf War; US involvement good, for regional stability and Kuwaiti’s in particular.

Serbia; US involvement good in terms of putting a halt to “genocide” although some there say encroaching islamist groups are not our allies.

Afghanistan; US involvement not only good but necessary.
although continued involvement is debatable.

Iraq; Jury still out, just had democratic elections, budding democracy, women involved. Time will tell.