The problem with the whole GOP and Democrats is that both sides will have a tendency and inclination to take the words of the other out of context. And words out of context are without meaning.
It's entirely possible that someone could have a perfectly valid reason for a statement that is utterly reprehensible out of that context. Context is not everything but it is the second most important aspect.
There's an amazing brouhaha about a man named Ward Churchill. His words have been taken out of context and then used to attempt to destroy his character and they even stirred some sad, sick souls to threaten his life. For his words, that they took and used out of context. Here, go and read his words Some People Push Back and think it over for yourself. Don't let the snippet enraged fools deprive you of your opportunity to learn, for yourself, what its all about.
And that is exactly what they wanted to happen. They wanted to scare the living shit out of him, they wanted to drive him into a hole where he would shut up and not dare to speak in public ever again.
Ha.
Here is Churchill's response.
The essay that has set fire to so many people regards the reasons for the attacks against the US on 9/11 and earlier. Churchill explores the history of US intervention in the Middle East, the sanctions, the installment of dictators, the over-riding sense of USA-superiority, the entitlement to behave like planet-sized bullies.
He makes good points, his argument isn't polished too well but its damned coherent for me and his points score often.
In writing of the hijackers of the planes used to inflict the tragedy upon our country on 9/11, he says this:
The Iraqi youngsters, all of them under 12, died as a predictable – in fact, widely predicted – result of the 1991 US "surgical" bombing of their country's water purification and sewage facilities, as well as other "infrastructural" targets upon which Iraq's civilian population depends for its very survival.
Note that they hated America and wanted all Americans to die, they were responding to attacks, long and brutal campaigns of aggression that Churchill later says were admitted to by Madeline Albright, responding to attacks by fighting back. In fact, from his response he says: "In 1996 Madeleine Albright, then Ambassador to the UN and soon to be U.S. Secretary of State, did not dispute that 500,000 Iraqi children had died as a result of economic sanctions, but stated on national television that "we" had decided it was "worth the cost." I mourn the victims of the September 11 attacks, just as I mourn the deaths of those Iraqi children, the more than 3 million people killed in the war in Indochina, those who died in the U.S. invasions of Grenada, Panama and elsewhere in Central America, the victims of the transatlantic slave trade, and the indigenous peoples still subjected to genocidal policies. If we respond with callous disregard to the deaths of others, we can only expect equal callousness to American deaths."
In discussing the accusations of insanity for the attackers of 9/11, he has this:
And still less were they/their acts "insane."
Insanity is a condition readily associable with the very American idea that one – or one's country – holds what amounts to a "divine right" to commit genocide, and thus to forever do so with impunity. The term might also be reasonably applied to anyone suffering genocide without attempting in some material way to bring the process to a halt. Sanity itself, in this frame of reference, might be defined by a willingness to try and destroy the perpetrators and/or the sources of their ability to commit their crimes. (Shall we now discuss the US "strategic bombing campaign" against Germany during World War II, and the mental health of those involved in it?)
People may be outraged by Churchill's use of the Eichmann label and I think it was a stupid mistake on his part since that one descriptive taints much of the rest of the thought train. I am willing to overlook a few stupid blunders to try and get the bigger picture being painted.
Ward Churchill isn't an idiot, he's not trying to derail the Democrats, he's not trying to provide juicy ammo for the GOP spin & hate machine (first you spin, then you hate, rinse and repeat as needed). He makes some good points if you can steer clear of those huge and loaded potholes.
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