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Chomsky on Iraq
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grufty jim
grufty jim
1978 posts

Re: An analogy
Oct 18, 2002, 11:19
You say that your aim is first to stop the war; then to address world energy consumption. My whole point is that this war is simply a symptom of our current consumption patterns. Without cheap oil, the US (and European, Japanese, South Korean, Australian, etc etc) economy will fall apart. 1929, only much worse. If it were to happen now - without any real alternative in place - it would result in deaths in the USA (and many of those other places).

Resource wars are an inevitable symptom of resource scarcity. The symptom itself is untreatable in many ways. It's the illness - the dependence upon that resource - that needs attention.

And again, it needs repeating, i honestly don't believe that threatening innocent lives is a valid protest to prevent threats against innocent lives. Those who suffer most will be the worst off in society. Punishing the weak for the sins of the powerful is pretty dubious from an ethical stance.

Also, and i wonder if you've considered this, what makes you think that blockades would be in any way effective this time round?

Last time the government had no contingency plan. Last time it was businessmen, hauliers, company owners that were doing the protesting. Last time was before September 11th.

This time you can be damn sure there's a contingency plan (that protest was the single largest PR disaster New Labour has yet had - way beyond Foot & Mouth in many ways).

This time it'll be peaceniks, not businessmen (and police tend to clear those kind of protests a lot quicker, oddly enough).

This time (post-sept 11th) the government will very quickly paint your protest as terrorism (i shit you not). And they'll get away with it, because queues at petrol stations is just about the quickest way to get people mad at you.

Anyways, that's all by-the-by. We have differing opinions on this, and that's cool. Ultimately we're both "on the same side", i think. Though i still don't get the "punishing the innocent to protect the innocent" trip you're on. It's so Christian!

Next week (i.e. when i next have the time) i'll probably write an article on this subject and will recycle a lot of my postings here - i hope nobody has any objections if i end up putting in a sentence or two that they might have written on this thread?
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Re: An analogy (YerArseInParsley)
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