Calm Down
There are some upset conservatives out there who think Harry Belafonte is over the top ( see standingupfornothing.blogspot) for his "Bush is a terrorist" comments. They want us radicals to moderate our speech and thought, to adopt a certain tone , a more acceptable tone. Calm down and have some Soma, some prozac, some ritalin, some scotch, anything to dull the outrage. Unless, of course you are Rush, or Hannity or O Riley or Robertson.
Their hero of hypocricy, Ronald Reagan, ( anyone remember Iran-contra?) formed an organization called the National Endowment for Democracy, a private ,non-profit which advertises itself as independent and non-partisan. Trace it's funding, directors and supporters and you find a covert arm of US foreign policy, doing what they claim they do not and what they accuse others of so readily, interfering in the internal affairs of others. A good source is "A Faustian Bargain" by William Robinson. "Democratizing the planet"means creating conditions conducive to US global capital penetration and their fingerprints (the ones the CIA were unable to wipe off) can be found in US adventures in Latin America such as the ouster of the Sandinistas, the ouster of Allende, not-so-nice activities in Guatemala and El Salvador, the attempted ouster of Chavez, all democratically elected officials of a certain ideological persuasion. They are also involved in the "colored revolutions" of ex-soviet eastern european states which were all the rage amongst conservatives not so long ago. Mark R Beissinger describes much of this recent activity in the winter DISSENT article ,"Promoting Democracy. Kyrgyzstan( Tulip), Ukrain (orange), Georgia (rose) are all on the "doubtful" list when it comes to the "long term stability of democratic change". You can throw Serbia in there as well, and then there is the reactionary backlash in Belarus, Russia and Turkmenistan and Uzbeckistan caused at least in part by US meddling. It turns out there is more to creating democratic revolutions and democracies in general than just giving them a covert."little extra shove". I havent even mentioned that othe , more current project, Iraq.
The place to start forming a democracy would be here in the United States. We will have to start from scratch and it will take some work but it will be worth it. And being timid and polite and mincing words will not get it done. Go Harry!
posted by troutsky @ 8:19 AM
4 comments
4 Comments:
Hold on Troutsky, Harry is plain wrong on this one. Yes, our war in Iraq is immoral, but Bush is not the biggest terrorist in the world. Belafonte loses credibility when he says something so profoundly foolish.
The object, I believe, is to be better than Rush et. al. Yes, their rhetoric is hollow, but so is much that is spewed from the left. Applaud Harry for speaking his mind if you will; I won't give him a second thought until he has soemthing of value to say.
Oh, I almost forgot. I liked your comment on Regular Ron's blog. That poor fellow has become a mouthpiece for Michael Savage in a terrible way.
It's unfortunate that they ignored your comment, or didn't notice the sarcasm. Ice nine anyone, but I doubt they've read Vonnegut.
At first glance it does sound outrageous," worlds biggest terrorist" but what would a statistical analysis show? Definitions first: terrorism = use of violence against non-military targets to intimidate or influence.
What would bin Ladens actual civilian body count be?(who is under direct orders?)What would al Zarqauwis' be? Castros'?(he is on the list)Saadam? Bushs?
Perhaps one could argue his civilian death count is collateral damage not intended to influence but the question of intent could reasonably be debated.
My point about state sponsored terrorism was that it would have to include Clinton (bombing deaths in Bosnia, sanction caused deaths in Iraq)and even Carter if you extend the definition to include support for blood thirsty ,repressive regimes(Samoza)
There is also the issue of Bushs support for the coup attempt against Chavez which could be interpreted as a form of terrorism.
as for sarcasm, it does not seem to play well in the blogosphere of the right but i welcome it here.
I found this blog surfing.
Well written and informative post.
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