From: Mark Steven Heyman (markheyman@infoproconsulting.com)
Date: Tue Nov 23 2004 - 05:26:45 GMT
(This one failed to go through; sorry if it dupes)
Good Morning Sam, 6:30am here near Mt. Rainier, Washington
On 21 Nov 2004 at 10:10, Sam Norton wrote:
Hi Mark,
Thanks for the pointers. As it happens I'm one of the ZNet
'sustainers', and it has been my primary source of information about
Chomsky up to now.
msh says:
Well, I hope you're able to use Znet for more than NC. There are
plenty of other resources and writers there and, of course, links to
other progressive sites.
sam:
I used to subscribe to Norman Solomon's regular
e-mails, until after 9/11, when I got fed up with him.
msh asks:
Why?
sam:
But I'll go back to exploring him again. (Generally I think it sane
to get as many points of view as possible, especially those you
disagree with, otherwise you're simply circulating stale tea in the
tea cup. I'm still fairly right wing though.... ;-)
msh says:
I agree. And you have your work cut out fo you. From my side of the
fence it's much, much easier to get the "other" point of view. Just
flip on the radio or tv, open the NY times, the Washington Post. Or,
if I'm feeling really masochistic, watch Bill O'Reilly and Fox News
in general; or listen to Limbaugh and his ditto-heads and clones.
> sam:
> Chomsky is concentrating his criticisms on the US, his own country,
> for very valid reasons. My point was that those in positions of
> decision-making have to get dirty hands; that is, it can sometimes
> be the highest Quality decision available to carry out a course of
> action which in and of itself is profoundly flawed.
>
> msh says:
> I knew this was what you were getting at, but figured I'd wait for
> you to come back. In fact, I believe I can argue that NC and other
> critics of American foreign and domestic policy base their analyses
> on the full spectrum of available information, rather than ignoring
> certain context as you suggest. I'm not convinced this can be said
> of the so-called decision-makers.
sam:
This is what I want to investigate further, and the decision to go to
war in Iraq is a useful test-case. My underlying sense is that the
logical consequence of your position is that those in positions of
power are frighteningly corrupt, and I am reluctant to believe that
they are quite as corrupt as all that.
msh says:
Well, there are layers of corruption. But I would have to say that
the level of corruption of some leaders, including some of our own,
is quite clear, and quite frightening. I bet you don't have any
problem believing that Arafat was corrupt, or Hussein, or Kim Il-
sung, or Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Our official enemies are ALWAYS
corrupt, almost by definition.
What's clear to me is that any human being who seeks for himself
immense power over others (and all the perks that go with it), is
going to be somewhat corrupt to start with. Once power is achieved,
the unwillingness to relinquish it often leads to exponentially
greater levels of corruption. I believe that this outcome is
unavoidable as long as we retain within our societies hierarchies of
unaccountable power and authority, of any kind.
But I also understand your reluctance to reject the idea that OUR
leaders are somehow different in nature from THEIR leaders. This is
the expected result of being told from the cradle, every day in a
hundred ways, that our country is great and good, our leaders
beneficent and wise; though they may make a mistake here or there,
our leaders are diligently and selflessly striving to make the world
a better place for all. But the educational and mass media apparatus
of EVERY state is dedicated to inculcating these exact notions. This
fact alone should make us suspicious of our own beliefs along this
line.
sam:
Thing is, I was also having this argument with a friend, and saying
that Bush wasn't quite as immoral as my friend was alleging. And then
my friend pointed out that Bush was happy to execute minors and the
mentally retarded, and I was silenced, because (as my friend well
knew) I think capital punishment is indefensible.
msh says:
As do I. And how different, really, is this from sending a Cruise
missile screaming into an apartment building full of sleeping Iraqis?
In fact, it's obvious to me that the latter is far worse.
But I want to rush to point out that Clinton was the same way re
capital punishment, and was responsible for his own set of crimes
against humanity. My point about power and corruption spans all
parties, societies, nations.
sam:
I think it has been well established that Blair, for example,
strongly distorted the evidence re WMD to drum up support for going
to war. What I am not so convinced about is that this distortion
makes the overall decision worthless.
msh says:
And my point would be that the distortion is evidence of his
corruption and, therefore, the overall decision should be regarded as
HIGHLY suspicious, if not worthless. His argument is very simple:
1) We want to invade and occupy Iraq.
2) We need to persuade people this is necessary for their safety.
3) There is evidence that this isn't necessary for their safety.
4) Therefore, we must distort the evidence.
Why would any leader follow such a line of reasoning, if he were
truly interested in serving the best interests of the majority of his
people?
Anyway, thanks for the essay on Iraq. It looks like an excellent
framework for discussing this issue further. I'll read it and
provide some annotations and ideas; then maybe we should start a
separate MD thread, so folks who don't want to participate can filter
us out.
As always, thanks for your thoughtful comments. It's a pleasure
interacting with you.
Best,
Mark
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