ieyeasu

I agree with just about all of your post--'cept this bit. There was a security issue of sorts--the Zimmerman tele, in which some Germany told Mexico that if the US was defeated in some way involving the continental war, Mexico could expect to recover large territories in the US. Now, admittedly, the telegraph presupposed US involvement, but there was also pressure on American trade due to the fact that the Americans were shipping arms to Britain. But Wilson went to war because popular opinion said to--he was an out and out pacifist on a personal basis.

moon

Exactly the opposite is the case. Popular opinion was overwhelmingly pacifist. Wilson won the 1916 election on a pacifist program. But, Wilson himself was a war monger, and had every intention of driving the country into war, a goal he was able to accomplish.

ieyeasu

Popular opinion was overwhelmingly pacifist when he got elected, but not after Lusintania and the Zimmerman incident.

To borrow from Led Zeppelin, "How many more times" do I have to repeat that?

moon

Yes, popular opinion was overwhelmingly pacifistic, until Wilson was elected and he started his massive campaign of deceit, such as the case of the Lusitania.

(Note: A pacifist would not lie about the Lusitania being a passenger vessel and not a ship carrying arms with a few human shields.)

Danya

I've found this exchange between you and Moon very interesting. I can see some truth in both sides but neither side seems completely correct. I'm not very familiar with all of the labels and have no idea if I would be considered a socialist or a communist or one of the other -ist's so I'm really tryint to get a basic grasp here.

Anyway, the problem I have with your position that I hope you can explain is that economic affairs are obviously not completely seperate from the political powers, at least in the US. It takes a lot of money to run for any political office in this country. How does that fit in with your views?

wdog

quote:
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Originally posted by wdog
ok great. Moon, I'll send you a dollar if you move to iraq.
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ZAR: More disingenuous tripe. When will it ever end? (never)


Oh no Zar, not disingeuous. Ridiculous as it seems, it is simply a logical extension of moon's ridiculous comment that you make someone do anything if you have enough money. I was just trying to illustrate that.

I guess I didn't think that it really a long response since the comment was so stupid.

wdog

I've never really liked Brown's ideas in general. He makes the UN Resolutions out to be some sort of 'promise' by Hussein at gunpoint. Nobody then and now ever took Hussein at his word (or there would not be inspections), and of course they were at gunpoint, the UN was not asking Saddam they were telling him. What is his point?

He derides slogans, but then uses the old 'wars never solve anything' slogan. You may not think of the outcomes as solutions but wars certainly can change things. The revolutionary war gave birth to the US and the civil war ridded us of slavery for example. I suppose Harry would make the case that US blacks would have SOMEHOW and EVENTUALLY won their freedom (I agree, in about 60 or so years), but for the ones in that generation it had to seem like a 'solution' to them.

You can argue about the treaty of Versailles all you want, and it did contribute to Hitlers rise. Then exactly how did we contribute the rise of the militarists in Japan in the 1930s? I suppose it was our 'brutal' sanctions which were in respose the the war that they started in the far east?

Another lesson is that the iraq sanctions will lead to the rise of a middle east japan if you follow harry's logic. What if we had lifted the sanctions (embargo) on Japan? Would they have left China or Korea? I doubt it, but it would have saves the US from a war perhaps. So again we can turn our back on the shenanigans of a hussein and just buys his oil and avoid war, but doesn't that just displace one problem for another? And how does that prevent the Husseins of the world?

We can get al queda off our back, just stop supporting isreal and leave the mid east (the crime of the US was to overstay our welcome after 1991). Is that the best course?

Zar

Alright, well, have it your way.

I do basically think moon hits the nail squarely on the head in many respects but really glosses over some of his political economic ideas while also becoming so trapped in them that he fails to communicate with his audience. Furthermore, I can see that what may seem to me like an understandable moral indignation appears to be bullying to someone else.

But he's not the only one like this by a long shot.

Many here, for instance, have an equal or even greater tendency of only seeing the problems in the historical trials of their repsective philosophies as being due to "impurities" and "not doing enough capitalism / anarchy / communism / socialism" etc. to really make it work. This is where almost everyone falls down because although some are very acute at seeing the problems of the world, no one here is a successful enough political economist to offer more than very superficial solutions. But honestly -- and this may be hard for the capitalists to hear -- moon is doing at least as good a job as any one else at this. Many of the capitalists have little but smart-alecky responses and repetition to offer against his challenges. Only a few occasionally have substantive counter-claims and even they are usually made while brushing the other harsh realities under the rug.

Anyway, this is why I am an incrementalist, becasue I'm willing to try a lot of things, but I don't really claim to have a final solution descended from above fully formed.