From: pat@rwing.UUCP (Pat Myrto)
Newsgroups: seattle.general
Subject: Re: Panama Deception showing, Nov 15 (and related stuff kinda long)
Date: 12 Nov 92 12:58:52 GMT
Distribution: seattle
Organization: Totally Unorganized

This stimulates some observations on things of this nature that
have bothered me for some time.  Though I know these will no doubt
draw their share of flames, I can't let the possibility of being
considered 'reactionary', or <fill in pet derrogetary> cause me to
let this go without some comments.  If this stimulates some constructive
review of tactics of the left leaning groups or people, great. 
If I am just flat wrong, and a reasoned argument to why this is so
is presented, also great.  If it just causes flames or hate mail,
I will be disappointed, but not surprised, based on past experience
regarding expressing 'incorrect' views.  Therefore, please redirect
the hate mail and flames to /dev/null.

That said here goes (if you don't give a damn, hit 'n' now):



In article <1992Nov12.051822.25410@fylz.wa.com> fyl@fylz.wa.com (Phil Hughes) writes:
>
>I thought about your comments.  Now, for something like the Cuba
>embargo or welfare or universal health care I can see there are two
>sides to the issue.  But, in this case, the US government went in and
>bombed the hell out of a bunch of civilian homes in the middle of the
>night in order to allegedly capture someone they could have had handed
>to them two weeks earlier.  The US press wasn't even there.  I just
>don't see much you can say positive about either one.  I invite you to
>offer something on "the other side" but, honestly, I can't imagine
>what it is.  For example, someone said that the movie seemed to only

Above indicates a position of essentially rejecting any opposing view
by default.  That is one problem I have with "Progressive" viewpoints.

>interview those who were affected.  Yeah, isn't that reasonable?

Not quite right, he said the movie interviewed those affected
NEGATIVELY.  Big difference.  When put that way, it is not reasonable.

Its these subtle omissions, which I think are often intentional, that
results in a slanted viewpoint.  One can make a MAJOR effect on the tone
of any critique of any event by carefully editing out excess material.
The problem is what the criterea is for determining material 'excess'.

I just have a problem when a double standard exists, for whatever reason,
such as it being very rotton when the US Govt puts out a one-sided view
of an event, whitewashing it for whatever purpose, yet it being OK
or "progressive" to do a similar thing, differing only in that it
is set up to condemn all actions in the given event (or by the US in
general).

I suspect that the truth lies somewhere in between - that the US did a
lot of fucked up things, but did some good things, as well.  Perhaps
this was a totally screwey op from the get-go, I have problems with the
original claimed purpose of the raid (part of the 'war on drugs') but
I have learned to be highly suspicious of both 'official' sources, and
'lets bash the US' sources.  The latter seems to be highly fashionable
in some circles, especially left-of-center ones, much to the detriment
of any good ideas that they might have.  It results in folks tending to
regard ANYTHING these sources have to say as extremist propeganda.
Unfortunately, the response usually is them being more vocal, and having
demonstrations designed to disrupt EVERYBODY (like blocking freeways,
etc) which, at least as far as I am concerned, makes me want to oppose
ANYTHING they might support.

It is SO EASY to condemn, much more difficult to offer VIABLE constructive
alternatives.  Usually the best I have seen are alternatives that impact
very negatively most everybody except those that advocate them.  This
is typical of the extreme fringe of the environmentalist movement - the
'deny all use to everybody for any reason (except themselves, for policing
purposes, naturally)' type of group.

Just like the many demonstration seen over excesses of authoritarian
gov's that happened to be friendly to the US at the moment, but one
never seeing similar energies devoted toward excesses of gov'ts that
are regarded as left-leaning and that are hostile to the US (but stil
authoritarian).  One wonders why if these demonstrators believed in
human rights, etc., these groups weren't demonstrating against policies
of Lybia, Iran, the whole East Block, etc as well.  When this point was
ever brought up to one of these demonstrators, the result ranged from
ignoring the question to attempted assault.  Usually closer to the latter
was more frequent ("you DARE question The Truth[tm]?!").

If these groups are REALLY concerned about making Earth a better place
to live, instead of just being a major irritant, I think they should
engage in a lot of self-examination of both their tactics and agenda.

Is this movie viewing session an HONEST discussion session on all points,
or is it mainly to be a 'lets figure out more ways to condemn all US
policy', where viewpoints that are not in lock-step with the host's or
movie's viewpoint will be uniformly shouted down?  I have seen too much
of the latter, too few of the former.

As an aside, one wonders if the Clinton admin, when it gets rolling,
will be scrutinized as closely and as critically as the Bush or Regan
admin, with Congress being as quick to want to bring in an Independent
Counsel (AKA Special Prosecuter) when something is 'funny'? Unfortunately,
I doubt it, and that is sad, IMHO.

-- 
pat@rwing.uucp                                  (Pat Myrto),  Seattle, WA
                      If all else fails, try:
         ...!uunet!{pilchuck, polari}!rwing!pat
WISDOM:    "Travelling unarmed is like boating without a life jacket" 
Newsgroups: seattle.general