Re: Terrorism and Unemployment

["Ian Murray" <seamus2001@xxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Sean Reilly" <seanjreilly@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Ian Murray" <seamus2001@xxxxxxxx>
Cc: <pkt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2001 10:18 AM
Subject: Re: Terrorism and Unemployment


> Afghanistan has told it's people that they are now in a Holy War
with the
> US.  So, it would be a far stretch to call our Commander-in-Chief,
who was
> legitimately elected by the Electoral College (refer to the
Constitution), a
> hermeneuticist, when he was merely stating a fact that we are now in
"..a
> new kind of war".  It is his job to interperet the facts that he is
given
> and act accordingly.
> Sean
>
=================
< http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary >
One entry found for hermeneutics.

Main Entry: her·me·neu·tics
Pronunciation: -tiks
Function: noun plural but singular or plural in construction
Date: 1737
: the study of the methodological principles of interpretation (as of
the Bible)

It is also the case that those who disagree with his interpretation of
the facts need to do so ever more vigorously in order that his
assertion that what happened last week is an act of war be shown for
the ridiculousness it is. No legal State has declared war on the US
government or it's people[s].

For Dumbya to say "war has been declared" is classic Orwellian
doublspeak. When did Afghanistan tell it's people[s] it is engaged in
a holy war with the US? If it was after Dumbya's assertions and chest
puffing, then, in effect they are defending themselves; as there is,
as yet, no verified beyond all possible doubt causal connection
between those repsonsible for last Tuesday and the policies of the
Afghanistan government.

The polysemy of the term *war* is being exploited to Machiavellian
ends by those in power in the US, proving they have learned nothing
from last week.

Ian

[from the Guardian]

A bully with a bloody nose is still a bully

By Charlotte Raven

Most people in the world had more than one response to what happened
to the
US last Tuesday. I think it is safe to say that apart from three or
four
Palestinians, everyone is sad to see so many of their fellow humans
killed
in such horrendous circumstances. That goes for most Muslims and the
great
majority of those who might have been quite pleased to see the US get
a
different kind of comeuppance. For this second group, in which I
include
myself, the unqualified sympathy extended to the victims is
underpinned by a
feeling that few have dared even to whisper. My next-door neighbour
said it,
and so did a rogue Palestinian whose views have not yet been censored
in the
name of "taste". They are better placed than I am, as a broadsheet
commentator, to admit to a part of them that thinks that the US might
benefit from an insight into what it feels like to be knocked to your
knees
by a faceless power deaf to everything but the logic of its own crazed
agenda.

There's nothing shameful about this position. It is perfectly possible
to
condemn the terrorist action and dislike the US just as much as you
did
before the WTC went down. Many will have woken up on Wednesday with
that
combination of emotions. Some were more "ha" than sorrow, but most had
the
proportions right and none should be accused of inhumanity. If
anti-Americanism has been seized, temporarily, by forces that have
done
dreadful things in its name, there is no reason for its adherents to
retreat
from its basic precepts. America is the same country it was before
September
11. If you didn't like it then, there's no reason why you should have
to
pretend to now. All those who see its suffering as a kind of
absolution
should remember how little we've seen that would support this reading.
A
bully with a bloody nose is still a bully and, weeping apart,
everything the
US body politic has done in the week since the attacks has confirmed
its
essential character.

Given this, it is amazing that so many commentators should feel the
need to
stand shoulder to shoulder with a government that few used to support.
Apparently, it is every American's duty to display their
anti-terrorist
credentials by refusing to criticise anything about its response to
the
crisis. For us British, the most pressing task is to reassure our
friends
across the pond that we don't support the demolition of their cities
by
ridding ourselves of any trace of anti-American sentiment. Apologising
to
the US ambassador for the "ill timed" Question Time in which one or
two
people suggested that America's slate was no cleaner than it had been
the
previous week, Greg Dyke shamed us all. The great thing about the
media in
this country is that they aren't often reduced to the univocal drone
that
expat friends complain of in the US. Those who have been there through
this
crisis have told me how much they miss Newsnight and how little
respect they
have for media that believe the whys and wherefores of this situation
are
somebody else's concern.

Like so many of the ideas America is going to war to defend, free
speech is
a nice thought that hasn't panned out in practice. The US may think of
itself as a nation that nurtures debate but if that happens at all,
it's
only when there's nothing at stake. At this crucial moment in its
history,
it has eschewed the clamour of conflicting positions in favour of the
voice
it always returns to when its foundations are shaken. That voice is
deeply
dumb. Unable to engage with causality and contemptuous of attempts to
do so,
it explains what it sees in terms that bear no relation to reality.

When America speaks from its heart, it retreats into a language that
none
but its true-born citizens can begin to understand. At the root of
this is
an overwhelming need to control meaning. America can't let the world
speak
for itself. It was taken unawares last Tuesday and part of the trauma
of
that event was the shock of being forced to listen to a message that
it
hadn't had time to translate. The subsequent roar of anger was,
amongst
other things, the sound of the US struggling to regain the right to
control
its own narrative.

It did this by declaring war. By this means, Bush ensured that America
only
had to sit with the inexplicable for a couple of anxious days. After
that,
the sense, so unfamiliar to them, of not knowing what had happened or
what
it meant was replaced by the reassuring certainties of John Brown's
body and
calls for national unity. By turning what should have been a criminal
manhunt into an all-out war, Bush was asserting his right to define
America's reality. Instead of submitting to the reality, he created
the
situation he wanted, fashioning a plausible, beatable enemy that bore
only a
passing relation to the ragbag of loons in Bin Laden's camp. They
weren't a
worthy enemy of America, so rather than confront what this might mean,
Bush
has made one up. "International terrorism" has been talked up in the
past
week to the point where it almost looks like an ideology. Much as the
US
might want this to be the case, it isn't. Saying you're going to
"eradicate"
it is like pledging to defeat shooting.

Rather than run the risk of seeing what might happen if it listened to
the
rest of the world, America is going full square into a war that
doesn't
exist. It would rather have a virtual victory than submit to someone
else's
agenda. While understandable, this tendency is one of the reasons why
some
people still have issues with it.