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What America thinks of the world | 13 comments

[new] Responsibility (Avg. Score: none / Raters: 0) (#11)
by amy on Mon Jun 23rd, 2003 at 10:23:50 PM EURODISCORDIA TIME
(User Info) http://plagiarist.org

Sense of responsibility is an interesting topic, since that's what causes a lot of people to support the war. Lessons of the Holocaust go, "How could people let this happen as long as it did?" So when the mass graves and gassings were reported in Iraq, a lot of people in the US felt a sense of responsibility to oust Hussein. And to be honest, I haven't seen that point adequately addressed by the left. There are often responses such as, a) "yes, but there are other countries doing worse and we don't invade *them*" or b) "the fact that we don't take care of the mess afterwards proves we don't really give a shit about the people." But they don't really address it, because the answer to those objections is a) then we should really invade *more* countries and b) better to do a messy job than to do nothing at all.

But lets go back now and look at the other side of the coin - the dissenters' perspective. In the US, there are bumper stickers now that say, "Don't blame me - I voted with the majority." And this sums up a lot of the feelings of futility here. The majority voted against the Bush administration, despite all the corporate incest, but they took over anyway and proceeded to impose their will as though they had a mandate. People gather and protest the war, but the corporate-controlled media rarely report it and the president proudly declares that he doesn't care anyway. So dissenters feel like opposition is futile. It's easy to see why people begin to consider more drastic measures. You can beat people down for a while, but eventually they start to get pretty angry. Might not be right away, while many of the politically-interested still have jobs and cars and food and so aren't really frustrated to that level, but as the economy continues to tank, this may become more of a reality.

But a more useful question might be, "if we want to assume responsibility, what else can we do?" I have some thoughts, but would rather start off that discussion with a question, as this comment is getting too longwinded. :-)

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[ Parent ]

information war by ricardomiranda zuniga, 06/26/2003 07:16:48 PM EURODISCORDIA TIME (none / 0)
- me too post :-) by amy, 06/27/2003 06:38:49 AM EURODISCORDIA TIME (none / 0)

What America thinks of the world | 13 comments

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