From: Grant Callaghan (grantc4@hotmail.com)
Date: Wed 11 Dec 2002 - 06:42:04 GMT
In time of war people do reprehensible and illogical things -- regardless of
which side they're on. It's the nature of war and the primary reason it
should be the last possible solution to a political problem. But never
expect people at war to be nice. That just ain't agonna happen (except by
occasional individuals).
Grant
>Date: Wed, 11 Dec 2002 17:24:31 +1100
>
>Joe wrote:
> >> >> >before this can happen, people vote to change things; thus, a
> >> >> >democracy maintains itself between the intolerable and the
> >> >> >perfect, in a perpetually evolving yet always tolerable spectrum.
> >> >>
>Jeremy:
> >> >> Bingo, but where does that lead to, a decline in USAnia-bashing or
> >> >> an improvement in its foreign policy? Jeremy
> >> >>
>Joe:
> >> >It's been improving for quite a while; the US's most recent military
> >> >interventions (in Bosnia, Kosovo, Haiti, Somalia, Afghanistan, and -
> >> >possibly - Iraq) have been on the side of the angels.
> >> >>
>Jeremy:
> >> Only if you are an 'angel' Joe. That is the memetic problem - memes
> >> only acceptance of the acceptable. Jeremy
> >>
>Joe:
> >Well, Baby Doc, Aidid, Milosevic, Karadzic, Mladic, Bin Laden and
> >Omar didn't appreciate it any more than Saddam seems to relish the
> >prospect - but you are known by your enemies as well as by your
> >friends.
>
>Jeremy:
>'Memes only accept the acceptable' is what I meant to say above. For
>example there in an Australian incarcerated in Camp X-ray who fought
>against Milosevic, Karadzic, Mladic and the Russians with the Mujahadin
>(sp?). If any of them had captured him and held him in inhumane conditions
>with no charge, no contact and no hope we would have tried like hell to get
>him back and, if we did, many would have acclaimed him as a hero. Yet, as
>he was captured by the 'angels' our Government is not interested in his
>welfare in the least. As it is we don't know whether he was or wasn't
>involved with terror as he has no human-rights, no representation, NO
>CHARGE, no family contact and no hope of a finite detention but we don't
>care cos we are pandering to the US cos we want trade liberalisation, (did
>you hear how fast our PM wound back his rhetoric when Iraq threatened to
>cancel wheat purchases?)
>You can see that the same man fighting the same cause, at least in his
>memetic construct it probably was, is treated entirely differently.
>IMO, angels and devils are memeticly and culturally specific constructs
>which lead to inescapably subjective opinion-making.
>Lawry wants to talk about the formation and foundations of a new dialogue
>between USAnia and the rest of the world, but we can't do that without
>addressing the hypocrisy, deceit and bullying by the US. For you they may
>be angels but IMO, for much of the rest of the world they are the devils
>You may well ask why I am so cynical about USAnian Foreign Policy Joe;
>Vietnam, in a word. I had my innocence stripped away by the realisation
>that my mates died, were wounded or were mentally scared for the benefit of
>Bell, Boeing, GE, Westinghouse, etc. As one USAnian General said, "it's a
>shity little war, but it's the only one we have got".
>IMO the USAnian military/industrial complex needs a war at all times in
>order to justify its existence and to keep the stock-market up. War is kind
>of like viagra for a flaccid market, but I've got no shares so I don't need
>it to be hard all the time.
>BTW don't think that this is "America (sic) bashing", it is just my attempt
>at explaining the memetics of difference.
>Jeremy
>
>
>
>===============================================================
>This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
>Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
>For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
>see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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===============================================================
This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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