I'm Not Lazy, I'm an Activist.
November 2nd
I attended the Nationwide student walkout against war today. I'll level with you and admit that I attended it mostly because I really didn't want to go to class that day, but I am opposed to the current war though. As it turns out though, I don't side with the cause that was presented that day. These were activists who were opposed to war in general. Many of them were also opposed based on arguments like "It's not right!" and "How can you say that" and "You just don't understand" I found that walking into a rally of people who are, in theory, my allies in the great political struggle left me just as annoyed and frustrated as walking into a rally of my opponents.
I spent a fair amount of time talking to conservative action groups during the week U of H started up. I was still working there as a technician and propaganda was in full swing. The key thing I found is that very few people have ever bothered to deconstruct their own thinking, and that many people will eventually pull out a pamphlet, read words that are impassioned and equally inconcrete, and then look at you like that should have answered the question.
And that's not even starting on the Larouche guys. Dear Lord man when did someone's disbelief in the Pythagorean theorem become a political tool? Let's not even get into the nearly infinite amount of empirical evidence we have for the Pythagorean theorem, I just want to know who tacked that onto their Campaign platform.
Enough on them though, back to the matter at hand.
My views on war are complicated. I'm opposed to the current war mostly because I'm opposed to the way it was done, and the target. However I'm not opposed to the concept of war as a diplomatic tool. The key thing to understand is that in war nobody wins, but one side loses a more then the other. When the situation becomes dire enough that injuring yourself in order to critically injure the enemy becomes necessary I say yes, go to war. But Iraq wasn't a real threat to us. Saddam was mostly attacking other Iraqis who were trying to resist his rule. He wasn't a clear and present danger to us. Hell, even if he did have WMDs he wasn't a threat. He's not crazy enough to pull the trigger on that one.
Nuclear war will only be started by someone crazy, the repercussion are too high. Once you pull them out everyone pulls them out. If your lucky the end result will be that your country is an irradiated wasteland. If your not then you've just caused the extinction of the Human race via Nuclear winter. Congratulations
Unfortunately very few people were actually planning on sitting down and talking about this. Or even stopping screaming and talking about this. I would like to note how much violence there was to the attitudes and mind set of anti-war people though. I think a clever leader could easily have turned them into a violent riot all in the name of anti-war protests. That too me was the biggest proof that they were just as blunt as the other side.
I attended the Nationwide student walkout against war today. I'll level with you and admit that I attended it mostly because I really didn't want to go to class that day, but I am opposed to the current war though. As it turns out though, I don't side with the cause that was presented that day. These were activists who were opposed to war in general. Many of them were also opposed based on arguments like "It's not right!" and "How can you say that" and "You just don't understand" I found that walking into a rally of people who are, in theory, my allies in the great political struggle left me just as annoyed and frustrated as walking into a rally of my opponents.
I spent a fair amount of time talking to conservative action groups during the week U of H started up. I was still working there as a technician and propaganda was in full swing. The key thing I found is that very few people have ever bothered to deconstruct their own thinking, and that many people will eventually pull out a pamphlet, read words that are impassioned and equally inconcrete, and then look at you like that should have answered the question.
And that's not even starting on the Larouche guys. Dear Lord man when did someone's disbelief in the Pythagorean theorem become a political tool? Let's not even get into the nearly infinite amount of empirical evidence we have for the Pythagorean theorem, I just want to know who tacked that onto their Campaign platform.
Enough on them though, back to the matter at hand.
My views on war are complicated. I'm opposed to the current war mostly because I'm opposed to the way it was done, and the target. However I'm not opposed to the concept of war as a diplomatic tool. The key thing to understand is that in war nobody wins, but one side loses a more then the other. When the situation becomes dire enough that injuring yourself in order to critically injure the enemy becomes necessary I say yes, go to war. But Iraq wasn't a real threat to us. Saddam was mostly attacking other Iraqis who were trying to resist his rule. He wasn't a clear and present danger to us. Hell, even if he did have WMDs he wasn't a threat. He's not crazy enough to pull the trigger on that one.
Nuclear war will only be started by someone crazy, the repercussion are too high. Once you pull them out everyone pulls them out. If your lucky the end result will be that your country is an irradiated wasteland. If your not then you've just caused the extinction of the Human race via Nuclear winter. Congratulations
Unfortunately very few people were actually planning on sitting down and talking about this. Or even stopping screaming and talking about this. I would like to note how much violence there was to the attitudes and mind set of anti-war people though. I think a clever leader could easily have turned them into a violent riot all in the name of anti-war protests. That too me was the biggest proof that they were just as blunt as the other side.
posted by Max at 3:00 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home