roachboy

i was not going to look at this thread becuase i knew the reactions--in the double sense of the word--would run like this.
where to start...

there is no doubt that sharon allowed the phalangists to carry out these massacres. does that fact that without "you guys go ahead and murder some palestinians and we'll wait here." mean that in any way sharon is not responsible?
why would you try to shortcircuit the question by routing it through even a general debate about the status of israel as a state?
it is wholly possible among rational people to accept the existence of israel, even if you oppose its political policies, and not have that acceptance result in a shorting out of your capacity to look at the past and draw conclusions about it.

a counter example: when the soviet army stopped in front of warsaw to allow the nazis to wipe out the jewish ghetto ("put down the uprising") who was responsible for the massacre? only the party that carried it out? was the soviet army absolved because all it did was not move while the massacre (which they knew about) was happening?

i assume that it would be easier for you to think about this matter if i put forth an example that involved parties that you would have an easier time assigning blame to,

and that maybe you would have an easier time still if the example involved parties that did not allow for the idiotic reversion to religious identity categories, which too often have precisely the effect that they did here: from turtleboy's post on, the thread tanked. from that post on, nothing coherent (attempts at rebuttal aside, which were of course ignored in due course) was said.

of course i would expect that some might still struggle with this.
maybe some grander historical explanation--you get taught the doctrine of manifest detiny in elementary school as if it is a normal aspect of american history---later you might learn that it was and remained a cover for genocide.
but then there are also the thousands of western films that stage the effects of manifest destiny in a displaced way as an existential struggle between good and evil, and that is a nice fantasy world, so you go there.
in most of these films, native americans are prototypes of the "terrorist" in contemporary discourse, as they appear on the scene in great number, unmotivated and evil, and so it is just fine to watch them die in great number and to read their deaths as a vindication of the "good"....
as for the explicit massacres, most obviously wounded knee--well there are not alot of films that address this.
little big man does.
but that is not a happy nationalist film, is it?
better to not watch it so you dont find yourself having to think too much about history.
fantasy is better.

there is a significant element in the american nationalist mythology that allows folk to practice explaining massacre away.
so maybe it is easy for folk to explain away these.

another way of concluding: what i see here is a displaced example of how the american right nationalism works: if you criticize particular actions by particular people who occupy a relation to a politics that you endorse, then you betray the nation itself. so sharon cannot be held to account for these massacres because to do so is to delegitimate the state of israel.
the two are not connected.
the connection is idiotic.
it is a pretty repellent business, folks.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite