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Chomsky on Iraq
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grufty jim
grufty jim
1978 posts

Re: An analogy
Oct 17, 2002, 12:52
Firstly, the analogy of the berserk loony with the gun isn't really fair. To kill a direct threat to yourself and your loved ones is a biological imperative and goes beyond ethical discussion (in my opinion).

You ask me to propose an alternative plan, and (aside from the long term strategies i mentioned before - ending our dependence upon oil) i just don't have one. Our entire society is fueled by a resource that is getting scarcer and scarcer. the remaining large concentrations of the stuff are in the Middle East. Wars are going to be fought over it. Get used to that fact.

The *only* thing that will prevent those wars is a major drop in demand for that oil.

[In My Opinion - as always - and i want to stress that]

Human beings will go to war over who controls essential resources - always have done, and i don't see that trait evolving out of us very soon. So long as we *need* that oil to survive, our government will go to war over it. It's their job to protect society after all.

I honestly believe that fuel depot blockades would ultimately be counter-productive. Certainly such tactics would do no long-term harm to the oil industry (seriously, it wouldn't hurt Exxon or BP or Shell except perhaps very slightly in the short term). Blockades would damage the government alright (if they were effective), however i believe that form of damage would transfer a lot of political capital to the Tories (for a bunch of reasons).

You propose a short-term course of action that would had dubious practical effectiveness, potentially large negative fall-out and insist that it is the right course of action because no other short-term strategy is being proposed. Perhaps that's because there is no *short-term* solution to the problems we face regarding global energy resources. Fuel depot blockades are the mirror-image of invading Iraq - an aspirin instead of the required triple-bypass surgery.

Ineffective short-termism only serves to distract from the vital, and ignored, point... the only effective strategies are long-term.
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Re: An analogy (YerArseInParsley)
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