Re: [WAR] amazing new photo history

From: MaxPlumm@aol.com
Date: Sun Jun 08 2003 - 04:22:47 MDT

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    Harvey Newstrom replied to me:

    MaxPlumm@aol.com wrote,
    > If you had taken a moment to step off the Condescension Express, Mr.
    Newstrom,
    > you might have noticed that I never once mentioned President Bush in my
    > original reply to Damien.

    "That's just plain misleading. While it is true you didn't mention
    President Bush by name, you clearly criticized Damien's concern with
    "American missteps" and suggested he research "the Saddam Hussein regime"
    instead."
     
    No, it is you who again are being just "plain misleading". On the first
    point, by "American missteps", I referred to civilian casualties inflicted by
    Coalition forces in the field, given those would be the dead bodies Damien sought
    to have included in the photo history. In regard to your assertion that I
    suggested he ignore those deaths, let us refer back to my original post to Damien:

    Then no doubt you are currently at work preparing in your view a more
    appropriate pictorial compendium of the just concluded war in Iraq. One would hate to
    think you are merely concerned with American missteps, however, so no doubt
    you are ALSO (emphasis added) preparing a pictorial compendium of the Saddam
    Hussein regime and its legacy. You'll find no shortage of dead children there.

    I certainly did criticize Damien's concern with "American missteps", but only
    because he showed a single-minded concern for what the West did wrong and
    ignored the innocent victims murdered by the Hussein regime. The context in which
    I mentioned the other evil regimes was, as I said earlier, heavily sarcastic,
    but I was and remain appalled that he is more concerned with the plight of
    American pot smokers than the victims in Pyongyang, Hanoi, or Havana's gulags.

    > I have never read a post of Damien's in which he refers to a Vietnamese
    Communist
    > "re-education camp omelette", a Castro or Mengistu's "famine omelette",
    or even
    > a Saddam Hussein's "oily omelette". The crude criticism is reserved
    solely for
    > the Bush administration.

    "The current thread is about the Iraq war. It is unfair to attack Damien
    for not criticizing other regimes that are not involved."

    Last time I checked, Saddam Hussein's regime was (albeit briefly) involved in
    the Iraq war. In regards to the other odious regimes, they merely serve to
    illustrate the fact that Damien somehow approves of a world and moral view in
    which a despot may deliberately murder or destroy hundreds of thousands to
    millions of people, but the West may not inadvertently kill hundreds to remove said
    despot.

    > So clearly your analysis that
    > my thinking consists of Bush=good, arrogant extropians=evil is clearly
    incorrect.
    > If anyone is guilty of oversimplification in this instance, it is clearly
    you.

    "I don't think so. The more you rail against communists in other regimes
    instead of discussing Iraq, the more I think you are using binary thinking
    of "us-versus-them" to lump all of "them" together."

    Please illuminate for those of us not occupying your higher plain of logic
    and reasoning specifically why it is inappropriate, or an "oversimplification"
    to list the Saddam Hussein regime amongst a "them" list of similar murderous
    and barbaric tyrants ranging from Hitler to Mengistu Haile Mariam.

    > Since it is apparent you are more than willing to share your ever cogent
    and
    > not the slightest bit pretentious insights with us, Mr. Newstrom, I
    humbly
    > request that you tell me how my "position" as an anti-communist (indeed,
    > everyone's favorite at that) is so flawed.

    "This is the oversimplification I am talking about. Where in the world did
    you get the idea that I thought your anti-communist position was flawed?"

    Hmm, let us return to your original post to me:

    "I also noted that the previous note somehow was connected with
    anti-communism AND (emphasis added) several other binary us vs. them
    worldviews."

    You directly state that anti-communism is a subset of binary "us vs them"
    worldviews. You then commented on your perceived value of binary world views
    thusly:

    "Strange. It's like some people see reality in black and white, while
    others see whole continuums of grey and colors."

    Given these concise observations, one must draw the conclusion that you
    consider binary worldviews flawed, or incorrect. Since you directly assert that
    anti-communism is a binary worldview, the negative implications of your comments
    are obvious. So, you must then either directly acknowledge that my position
    as an anti-communist is not flawed, or conversely you must define why it is
    flawed, which despite a clear enunciation of why I hold such a "binary worldview"
    in my previous post to you, you chose not to address it in this post.

    Regards from a country without "Democratic" in its name,

    Max Plumm



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