From: bfrg9732@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Brian F. Redman)
Subject: Re: Never again. How soon we forget.
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 14:04:49 GMT

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

>> 
>> Sure, war is horrible. It *is* horrible the killing that is going on
>> over there. But did you know that there are thousands of people starving
>> to death in Somalia also? Did you know that because of armed conflict
>> in the region, relief supplies are not getting through? And where is
>> Bush and the U.S. on that one? Why aren't they raising a fuss about
>> going to Somalia with U.S. / U.N. troops so as to save Somalian lives?

>	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.

>	As we speak, the UN is moving to safeguard food supplies.

    Correct.

>	But why do you insist that it be the US who has to help in Somalia?

    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.


>> 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?

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

    You are hysterical.

>	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.

>> After the Gulf War, president Bush triumphantly proclaimed that we
>> had put the ghost of Viet Nam behind us. It is as if by our
>> involvement in the Gulf War we had atoned for Viet Nam. I note that
>> you self-righteously allude to the World War II holocaust at the
>> end of your post. Is that what this is all about? Is it that we
>> have to go to war in Yugoslavia *now* so that we can atone for our
>> lack of involvement in assisting the victims of atrocities which
>> occurred over 50 years ago? Will going to Yugoslavia *now* atone
>> for what happened *then*?

>	Which victims did we not help?  How is four years of fighting not
>helping?  How is liberating concentration camps not helping?

It is an historical fact that the U.S. at first ignored/disbelieved
reports of Nazi death camps. 

Again you have misrepresented me (a.k.a. put words in my mouth).
I stated "lack of involvement." I did *not* state that we did
not help. We helped, but not as soon as we could have.

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. 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!!"

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.

>> Will *you* be going over there to fight what David H. Hackworth 
>> (a veteran of combat in the region and career military man) has
>> called "the meanest mothers in the valley of death and the last
>> tigers the United States ever wants to try to tame."? Will we

>	The meanest mothers fo all fighters?

>	No I won't be going.  The military said no thanks when I signed up for
>ROTC back in 1980.

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

>> be seeing you over there, slogging through the mud and the rain
>> and the cold, atoning for atrocities that happened 50 years ago
>> and wearing a martyred look of self-righteousness? If you want
>> to go over there, go ahead. But stop demanding that others go
>> and risk their lives and limbs for your personal delusions.

>	Just as soon as you stop demanding that no one be allowed to go over
>there and stop Holocaust II.

    Calm down.


Brian Redman
(bfrg9732@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu)
"Ah yes, Armageddon. I remember it well."


Xref: sparky alt.activism:14917 talk.politics.misc:40088 alt.desert-storm:1702