Re: [OT] Everyday ideology

Martin <bitbucket@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Blair, his oily cabinet and the hordes of compliant Labour MPs, lied to
> us and misrepresented the information that they had in their possession
> to commit a massive act of terror on Iraq. 25,000 civilians have died
> and over 40,000 have been injured. The post-invasion civilian death toll
> is *rising*.

I take your point about how pathetic mainstream journalism is, and I
agree, especially in the degree to which the media are the lens through
which we see what we think is our society. Live8 was a lovely (for
sarcastic values of lovely) example of how someone can see what's going
on, get very angry that it does go on when we have the means to stop it,
try to do something about it, and get analysed on a meta level by the
media and the whole event manages to become superficial and trivialised.

What *is* your answer to the question

> in which circumstances it would be justified in the future
> to take military action against a sovereign state either for
> humanitarian or security reasons.

Do you think we should stand by and watch the Christians in Yugoslavia
slaughter the Muslims? Do you think we should stand by and watch 'Hutu'
hack millions of 'Tutse' people to death? Do you think we should let
Mugabe bulldoze hundreds of thousands of houses because those people who
lived in them voted against him?

Yes it's terrible that Saddam was put there as a puppet for the
Americans, and the powers that be are all evil suppressors of the
proletariat, but that doesn't mean he wasn't a nasty *** who needed
sorting out. Whether "sorting out" means invading the country and
killing thirty thousand people or not is one of the questions that needs
answering on the basis of a lot more facts than we are ever allowed to
see, of course.

By the way, I'm sick of seeing your verbally violent "*** the police"
subject line. It's just more tabloid thinking, us and them, acab,
divisive rather than inclusive. I realise that's your mindset, but until
the revolution happens there's still an awful lot more evolutionary
change that can happen to improve things.

--
Pd
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