Newsgroups: alt.activism,talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: Never again. How soon we forget.
From: kmcvay@oneb.almanac.bc.ca (Ken Mcvay)
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 92 15:14:40 GMT
Followup-To: talk.politics.misc
Organization: The Old Frog's Almanac, Vancouver Island, CANADA
Summary: Spare us the left-wing rhetoric and deal with the issue

In article <Bsz8G2.LnA@news.cso.uiuc.edu> bfrg9732@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Brian F. Redman) writes:

>demon@desire.wright.edu (Stupendous Man) writes:

>>	So unless we are going to attempt to solve every problem simultaneously
>>we shouldn't even try?

>    No, that is not my point. Here you have put words in my mouth.
>    My point is that starving blacks apparently does not upset
>    the Bush administration.

So what? That is a strawman, and was when you brought it up. The issue here
is intervention in ex-Yugoslavian states to put a stop to "Ethnic
Cleansing", not whether or not you Yanks care about Somalian suffering. You
are clearly incapable of dealing with one issue at a time.

If your comment about Bush is correct, it simply implies that Americans as a
whole, _not_ their president, aren't too concerned about starving blacks...
and _that_ has nothing whatsoever to do with "ethnic cleansing" and
intervention in Bosnia et al.

>    Again, you are putting words in my mouth. I have nowhere insisted
>    that it "be the US who has to help Somalia." I am only noting
>    that the Bush administration seems uninterested in starving
>    babies when they are black.

Western societies are collectively disinterested in starving babies, period.
Still has absolutely _nothing_ to do with the issue under discussion:
intervention in Bosnia. While your political flagellation may be of passing
interest to those who share your contempt for your own government (and, by
implication, its people), it isn't of concern here.

What seems to be disturbing you is that Americans don't care about blacks,
eh? I submit that the question at hand is whether or not western societies
care about Croats, Serbs and others dying in the fighting.

>>> Why haven't we been hearing the U.S. governments standard and inevitable
>>> refrain "we have no money" on this one. Here in the United States we
>>> have had a problem with children going to bed hungry for years. Here
>>> in the United States we have had problems of homelessness, inadequate
>>> health care and economic despair for years. And what do they consistently
>>> tell us when the people in their outrage beg for a few crumbs of
>>> assistance from the U.S. government? They consistently tell us, "Sorry.
>>> We'd like to help but there is no money." Why aren't they saying that
>>> *now*? Why aren't we hearing "Sorry Yugoslavia, but we have no money."
>>> Why aren't they saying that?

Who gives a damn? Your loathing for your own people is of marginal interest
to shrinks, but still avoids the issue. 

>>	Because they are unwilling to sit by and watch Holocaust II?
>    You are hysterical.

Phooey - he doesn't appear either irrational or violently emotional to me -
have you got another definition you'd like to add, like "opposed to my
political agenda?"

>>	Why are you willing to sit by and watch it?

>    This holocaust you refer to, do you mean the one currently
>    going on in U.S. cities? You are unclear.

I think he's clear enough - many have made the comparision with the
Holocaust of World War Two, and, although I disagree with the use of the
term relative to Serbo-Croat warfare, I doubt very much whether many others
misunderstood his reference. If, as many opine, using the word holocaust in
reference to the situation in <ex> Yugoslavia is an insult to the memory of
those who suffered and died during WWII, the use of the word in the context
of American cities is clearly inappropriate and highly offensive, although
consistent with your previous political rhetoric.

>If the basis of your refutations is going to be 1)misrepresenting
>me, and then 2)attacking these misrepresentations, then there is
>little I can do in the realm of having a reasonable discussion
>with you. I am puzzled at your hysterical insistence that another
>holocaust is occurring. 

Good - we find common ground, although your repeated assault on the
respondent is getting tedious... what hysteria?

>Delving more deeply into this conundrum,
>I can only conjecture as to the breakdown of your logical
>processes. Perhaps you get off on a self-image of someone who
>is saving the helpless (and hence is quite a fine fellow). Thus,
>it is surmisable that the breakdown of your logical processes and
>subsequent descent into emotionalism can be traced to a sort of
>"feel good" emotionalism. "Look at those bad guys. *I* will save
>you. What a fine fellow I am!!"

You seem to address the need to get personal with Stupendous Man here - why
is that?

>Of course, it can be o.k. to work yourself up into a state of
>emotional positivism (provided that fantasy and reality do not
>become confused). For example, you could watch "Rambo" and become
>so caught up in the movie that you forget reality. Often we
>identify with the "hero" in these types of movies and, for the
>time, forget who we really are. *This is o.k., provided that we
>do not begin to distort fantasy and reality*. However I fear that
>in your case this Ramboesque identification has gone across
>the line between the two. Hence, the breakdown of your logical
>processes and subsequent egoist fantasy. It is my conjecture that
>at the moment you are insane.

Ah, yes, now the mask of interest in rational discussion is dropped
completely so you can endulge in some wierd mental masturbation - you are
definitely a piece of work.

>    My point is that it is too easy to send someone else over
>    there to fight out your particular fantasy.

The ISSUE is whether or not you support military intervention in Bosnia -
you do not, although you seem unwilling or incapable of saying that without
adding ad hominem fluff to fill the page.

>    Calm down.

Given that he didn't seem too excited in the first place, I'd say
"physician, heal thyself" should apply here.

-- 
"Of  course I am a doctor and  want  to preserve life. And  out of respect for
human life, I would remove a gangrenous appendix from a diseased body. The Jew
is the gangrenous appendix in the body of mankind."          [A Nazi doctor at
Auschwitz,  as reported  by Dr. Ella Lingrens-Reiner,  in "Prisoners of Fear"]
Newsgroups: alt.activism,alt.discrimination,talk.abortion