From: Michael M. Butler (mmb@spies.com)
Date: Tue Feb 18 2003 - 11:12:38 MST
Yes. A large component seems to be "don't rock the boat", along with a hunk of
"rock the boat *my* way" driving the organizers/drivers. Or, at any rate, that
is not inconsistent wth what I think I observed in this weekend prior.
estropico@virgilio.it wrote:
> From: "estropico" <estropico@virgilio.it>
> X-Mailer: YaBB
>
>
> Very interesting analysis from Mick Hume at the excellent Spiked-Online:
>
> http://www.spiked-online.co.uk/Articles/00000006DC61.htm
>
> In an age of political passivity, why were so many moved to march on this
> issue?
> It seems unlikely to be solely out of concern for the Iraqi people. For more
> than a decade, the United Nations Security Council has imposed punitive
> sanctions on Iraq that have caused considerable suffering.
> [
]
> The two biggest factors motivating Saturday's marchers were the growing
> atmosphere of mistrust towards government institutions, and the pervasive
> culture of fear and risk aversion.
> [
]
> In the field of politics as much as those of science and society, it is now
> seen as unwise to do anything too far-reaching or innovative, for fear of
> what the unknown side-effects might turn out to be. The general assumption is
> that decisive action is most likely to make matters worse. This is reflected
> in the anti-war lobby's argument that attacking Iraq is too risky because it
> might lead to more terrorism in the West.
> [
]
> The obsession with avoiding risk informs the position of just about every
> protest movement today, whether the object of their fears is the MMR triple
> vaccination, GM crops or whatever else. All exhibit a deeply conservative
> better-safe-than-sorry siege mentality. From this point of view, the new
> anti-war movement appears to be modelled on the anxious outlook of the
> anti-MMR lobby, projected on to the Middle East.
>
>
>
> ----
> This message was posted by estropico to the Extropians 2003 board on ExI BBS.
> <http://www.extropy.org/bbs/index.php?board=67;action=display;threadid=54829>
>
>
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