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roachboy · 06-29-2004, 07:57 AM

i have wondered about this, actually--the extent to which my opposition to bush in principle has been hardened by the kind of abuses i have seen happening to people close to me...how the evaporation of basic legal protections has effected them--watching what is looks like from up close to find people from a wide wide range of political positions being lumped together on the basis of religion and ethnicity into a single category--muslim/enemy---and to watch that category slip around. this has real effects on real people. this is not a game.

if you think about it, the problems are the following:
1. the direct experience of arbitrary information, of arbitrary power in this situation---why do you imagine that the administration is really so reluctant to allow people to actually go to trial? could it be that they understand much of their information is crap, would never withstand scrutiny, and that they are trading away the lives of potentially innocent people so they can appear to be resolute?
in which case the realilty of the situation has nothing necessarily to do with preventing any more actions like 911, and everything to do with the politics of appearing coherent and in control in the wake of actions like 911. these are radically different things.

2. racism both at the level of the category enemy in this case, and in the justifications floated about that category. many of my extended network of friends--some very close--who are muslim are probably as conservative as you are, art, yet they find themselves cast as potential enemies by the idiotic way in which the administration has responded to 911. how does that sit with you?

if i understand this correctly--and let me know if i am wrong---it looks like you are willing to trade away basic legal protections so long as you are not yourself either implicated, or do not know anyone who is. you do this as a function not so much of "terrorism" but rather as a function of your thinking about the present conflict through the ideological lens afforded by the bush administration. everything makes sense so long as it is distant, so long as you can watch it happening--well not quite, because in the refusal to allow people to come to trial, the administration never has to expose exactly what it is doing--it does not have to release lists of who is being held or where, it does not have to engage in any transparency about what the motivations are behind any particular detention, it does not even allow people held the chance to protest their situation by letting them have access to counsel. how exactly is this countering the dangers posed by an external enemy, real or imagined? what it looks like to me is that the administration is turning itself into a mirror image of what it is claiming to fight. how does this help anything?

06-29-2004, 07:57 AM	#28 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	i have wondered about this, actually--the extent to which my opposition to bush in principle has been hardened by the kind of abuses i have seen happening to people close to me...how the evaporation of basic legal protections has effected them--watching what is looks like from up close to find people from a wide wide range of political positions being lumped together on the basis of religion and ethnicity into a single category--muslim/enemy---and to watch that category slip around. this has real effects on real people. this is not a game. if you think about it, the problems are the following: 1. the direct experience of arbitrary information, of arbitrary power in this situation---why do you imagine that the administration is really so reluctant to allow people to actually go to trial? could it be that they understand much of their information is crap, would never withstand scrutiny, and that they are trading away the lives of potentially innocent people so they can appear to be resolute? in which case the realilty of the situation has nothing necessarily to do with preventing any more actions like 911, and everything to do with the politics of appearing coherent and in control in the wake of actions like 911. these are radically different things. 2. racism both at the level of the category enemy in this case, and in the justifications floated about that category. many of my extended network of friends--some very close--who are muslim are probably as conservative as you are, art, yet they find themselves cast as potential enemies by the idiotic way in which the administration has responded to 911. how does that sit with you? if i understand this correctly--and let me know if i am wrong---it looks like you are willing to trade away basic legal protections so long as you are not yourself either implicated, or do not know anyone who is. you do this as a function not so much of "terrorism" but rather as a function of your thinking about the present conflict through the ideological lens afforded by the bush administration. everything makes sense so long as it is distant, so long as you can watch it happening--well not quite, because in the refusal to allow people to come to trial, the administration never has to expose exactly what it is doing--it does not have to release lists of who is being held or where, it does not have to engage in any transparency about what the motivations are behind any particular detention, it does not even allow people held the chance to protest their situation by letting them have access to counsel. how exactly is this countering the dangers posed by an external enemy, real or imagined? what it looks like to me is that the administration is turning itself into a mirror image of what it is claiming to fight. how does this help anything? __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 06-29-2004 at 07:59 AM..