RE: My Blind Spot -- long

From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Sun Mar 16 2003 - 22:58:59 MST

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    matus writes

    > > "Screw Vietnam."
    >
    > Well that certainly seems to be the general attitude of most
    > Americans, then and now. Who cares? They aren't people, right?

    Why exaggerate the attitudes of those you disagree
    with? After all, you have *plenty* of good points
    in the following.

    > Never mind that millions of Indochinese people were
    > slaughtered and enslaved. They weren't Americans, we
    > didnt know any of them, right?

    That's not the reason that so many liberals can't get
    excited about them, and prefer never to think about
    what happened there.

    The real reason is that to bring all that up does nothing
    to criticize the great Imperialist power, the U.S. How
    would exposing real crimes of Saddam's regime, or China's
    or the other Communist regimes help deflate the U.S.?
    As some (a few, granted) on this list have actually
    described it, the "most genocidal nation in history", the
    one currently ruled by "inhuman paranoid and future war
    criminals", what matters is only whether or not the
    influence of the United States is curtailed or not.

    Suppose, for example, that (for some unknown reason) the
    Bush administration concluded that a frightful slaughter
    of many thousands of people was underway in, say, Ruwanda,
    and that the U.S. should take over that country for a
    period of years. Would there be worldwide protests?
    Would there be people on this list savagely denouncing
    the U.S.? Of course not. We know this; because: are
    they criticizing (or even conscious of) France doing the
    same thing in the Ivory Coast? No, of course not.

    Well, why not? Well, I will tell you why not. Because taking
    over Ruwanda to suppress genocide would not in any way advance
    the interests of the U.S. in the world situation. Therefore,
    it would be unobjectionable!

    I was recessed from this list when Clinton invaded Bosnia.
    Were the same usual suspects making a fuss then? (I really
    would like to know, thanks.)

    Your list of "rights" is quite telling:

    > I'm sure such a list of lost rights just after the fall of
    > Saigon might have
    > read:
    >
    > - the right not to have your skull bashed in by the
        butt of rifle
    > - the right to not have to dig your own grave before
        being executed as an 'enemy of the people'
    > - the right to propery, speech
    > - the right to not be enslaved and forced into peasant
        farming
    > - the right to life of nearly 1 million people
    >
    > A similiar list in Cambodia might have added
    >
    > - The right to more than a quarter cup of rotten corn every day
    > - the right to express feelings of an emotional nature to
        loved ones (The Khmer Rouge would often execute anyone for
        public displays of affection, as it demonstrated that they
        valued something more than the state)

    Were the liberals in the streets protesting that? Of course not.
    Again, the only reason I can think of (why not) is that it wouldn't
    be against U.S. foreign policy to do such a thing. So why do it?

    > - the right to express sorrow at the news of the loss of a
        child without being executed, a child who had been carted
        off to a distant slave labor farm and surprisingly died
        despite his healthy quarter cup of rotten corn every day
        (again, expressing grief at the loss of a child demonstrated
        that someone loved themselves or their children more than
        the state)
    > - the right to life for 2 - 3 million Cambodians

    Nah, who cares about them? Despite certain distortions perpetrated
    by some, their deaths had nothing to do with the wickedness of U.S.
    foreign policy---so why make a stink about it?

    Lee

    (The last paragraph was heavily sarcastic.)



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