From: joedees@bellsouth.net
Date: Wed 11 Dec 2002 - 06:55:46 GMT
> 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.
>
In Afghanistan he would have been fighting with Al Quaeda or the
Taliban; in Bosnia-Herzegovina, there was an Al Quaeda sleeper cell
broken up that was planning attacks against peacekeeping interests
there. In one case he was attacking one totalitarianism, but in both
cases he would have been fighting on behalf of another one.
>
> 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.
>
They are definitely devils in the eyes of aggressive and bloodthirsty
tinhorn despots and dictators. In such cases, the angels are those who
the devils consider to be devils. And your attempt to foist absolute
relativism (a contradiction in itself) into the discussion and thus reject all
humanistic values whatsoever, founders on the rocks of who the
despots and dictators are. One who fights one despot in the name of
another, but who still plans to turn his attention to you as soon as he is
done, in the name of the same despot he is fighting for now, is not an
angel. He is a memebotic robot who is commanded by a despot,
wishing to murder for his 72 virgin houris right along with the rest of the
Islamofascists, and his chosen despot simply tells him who to murder to
breach the gates of Paradise. Many at camp X-Ray have stated that
they are lifelong acolytes of Bin Laden, and will kill as many infidels as
they can murder, as often as they can do it, if ever again given the
chance. Are you sure your Aussie isn't among them, and if he is, do
you really want him walking among you and yours?
>
> You may well ask why I am
> so cynical about USAnian Foreign Policy Joe; Vietnam, in a word.
>
Here's a phrase for you: WW II. And also the conflicts that the US has
gotten into in the past 10 or 12 years, mostly at allies' behests, have not
been those that anyone with a humanistic conscience and no personal
agenda could conscientiously criticize. It is your own bias that choose
Vietnam and Central America over WW I, II, Korea, and the more
recent Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Haiti, Bosnia, Somalia, and on and on
and on...
>
> 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
>
Actually, it is several voices from the present and former military that
have been arguing against an Iraqi engagement, because it would
mean that they'd have to actually DO something with all that money
they get shoveled their way. Most generals would prefer never to
engage an enemy, and simply to train forever. And the effect upon the
US economy of a war with Iraq has been calculated (by Nobel Laureate
Robert Samuelson)to be highly negative (yet endurable); changing that
regime would be happening IN SPITE OF the economic consequences,
not BECAUSE OF them.
>
>
> ===============================================================
> This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
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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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