Re: Of Nationalist Thugs (and those who enthroned them)

[Brad De Long <delong@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> G'day Brad,
>
> Two responses come to mind.  Firstly, how would you define 'nationalist
> thug' such that the utterances and actions of US presidents don't qualify
> them as just that,

Well, some of the actions of U.S. presidents *do* qualify.

> and, secondly, are all nationalist words and actions much
> of a muchness?  As Joanna Sheldon wrote the other day, nationalism in the
> mouths and hands of the put-upon and the small is not be read as it might be
> in the hands of the mighty.

Yeah. But that's because the put-upon and the small don't have much
power--as the U.S. government  has found out over the past year in
Kosovo, when the put-upon and the small gain power they turn out to
be just as nasty...

> But so much for the generalities of it.
>
> Yes, Srebrenica was an appallingly ghastly episode, Brad.  So was the
> Krajina and so was Mostar - that's war, mate.  It's disgusting, horrifying
> and terrifying beyond the belief and imagination of we fortunates wherever
> it happens.

I think that Srebenica had little to do with "war."

> Reckon the Balkans'd be a much better place if 'we' had kept our filthy mits
> off the place ...


You may be right. I used to think as you do--that NATO intervention
in the former Yugoslavia was not likely to make things better. But
things like Srebenica convinced me to (largely) change my mind...


Brad DeLong