Re: [dvd-discuss] Re: Sen. Hollings plans to introduceDMCAsequel :The SSSCA

[Jeme A Brelin <jeme(at)brelin.net>]

Let me just say that I am greatly grieved at the loss yesterday and
believe that violence such as this should not be tolerated and is never
justified.

And there is something grossly hypocritical about saying that and then
suggesting retaliation.

On Wed, 12 Sep 2001, John Zulauf wrote:
> What "reasonable" people often fail to understand is just how
> non-universal reasonability is.  It does seem reasonable to us that
> people should act out of evil or fanaticism.

This makes no sense to me.  And that which I CAN decipher smacks of
self-righteousness.

Acts that INTEND to DO EVIL or are motivated purely by fanaticism are NOT
reasonable.  That is to say, if the person performing the act is thinking
only "I'm going to make things BAD!" or "I'm doing this even though I
can't quite explain WHY." are unreasonable acts and there is NOTHING that
can be done to prevent them short of destroying all civil liberty.

But acts intended for GOOD (even if you don't agree it's good) or in
retaliation for acts of evil (even if you don't agree it's evil) are
reasonable.  If a person believes they are doing what is good and
explainable, then they are reasonable.  Now, we may not agree they are
doing is good and we may have to do something to stop THEIR evil.  And
that's the spiral of death and retaliation that brings things like the
arms race and the cold war.

> As for the cause of these atrocities -- it is pure misunderstanding.  
> Somehow the terrorists think that their targets actually have
> something to do with their percieved oppression.

The World Trade Center and the Pentagon are probably the two ideal symbols
of global "free" trade and US military policy.  These are the two most
common and effective methods by which the United States undermines the
sovereignty of foreign nations (outside the rare occassions like in Chile
where the CIA simply overthrows the democratic government to install a
more pro-American-business leader).

> The WTC -- "the black heart of the great capitalist Satan" is nothing
> of the sort, but a building full of functionaries, clerks,
> accountants, administrative assistants, and the like.

So are MOST of the buildings in the cities the US bombs every day.

To skip ahead just a bit, you later wrote:
> Sure they might have remove the Joint-Chiefs -- but there are plenty
> of Generals and Colenels (sp?) that would love a star and could do the
> job just as well.

So which is it?  Do they attack the low-level functionaries or the high
level chiefs?  You say that attacking either is futile.

See, the problem is that these people don't have the wealth and resources
to handle this the way the US does:  Destroy the infrastructure in
totality (schools, hospitals, farms), then blockade the nation so that
none of the stockpiled, emergency wealth can be traded for anything useful
(food, medical supplies).  And then just let the nation rot on the vine or
comply with self-serving sanctions.

> Losing these buildings (aside from the horrendous loss of life) won't
> affect fundamentally the power structure of the West.  The Pentagon --
> "the evil center of the military-industrial Satan" is again a building
> of program managers and functionarys.  The important intelligence
> assets are elsewhere, and clearing the Pentagon (from our Cold War
> past) is by design unnecessary for the successful operation of the
> Military.

Back in the Cold War they used to talk about the Super Powers.  The
definition of a Super Power was that only another Super Power could
challenge the power wielded by a Super Power.  A Super Power was a nation
that clearly dictated the policy and action of its allies and the sum
total of its enemies and non-allies still could not defeat that Super
Power unless one of those enemies or non-allies was another Super Power.

The paper said yesterday, "The Pentagon is the center of the Department of
Defense in the United States, the world's one remaining Super Power."

To me, that reads "the 900 pound gorilla".*

> The attackers also misunderstand that we value our freedom to much
> yeild it to those who would bring terror.

This is patently and demonstrably untrue.

Already our legislators and executives are calling for increased security
measures (read, search and seizure, wiretapping, crypto bans) and perhaps
even a declaration of war of some kind(read, conscription, destruction of
public and private assets, loss of life).

> They would need to do this sort of thing once a week for quite some
> time before our freedoms would be even temporarily abridge -- and by
> then they would have to have left enough of a trail to be identified
> and obliterated.

I completely reject the idea that the US has any right to enter a foreign
nation officially for non-diplomatic reasons at all.  Foreign quarter of
US soldiers is wrong and an attack on a foreign nation is a de facto
disregard for that nation's sovereignty.

> Further, while CNN connects us all -- this is still a gigantic
> country.  While we mourn the thousands lost the vast majority of us
> (especially in the heartland) know that no terror will touch our small
> towns -- there is nothing high profile enough to attack.

Might equals right.  We're bigger, you can't kill us all.  We have more
resources.  Whatever we say goes.

I think we can be better than that.

> Finally the attackers don't comprehend our politics.  If they think
> that the US gov't. will as a result of this action crack-down on the
> Israeli's use of military force and Palestinians the couldn't be more
> wrong.

Well, what if the point was just to let most Americans get some tiny
little taste of what it's like to live in Iraq, Ireland, Salvador, Timor,
Colombia, Kosovo, etc.  This is what it feels like to have your cities
bombed.  This is what you're wishing on others every time you send out a
plane full of bombs and missiles.

> Private channels have probably already given the Mossad and the IDF a
> renewed "hunting license."

Again, undermining the sovereignty of foreign nations is NEVER justified.

> If they understood these things they would never have attacked --
> assuming they we're reasonable.  As they clear weren't reasonable --

You're assuming so much, I'm not sure where to begin.

You assume that they were attacking as part of a military strategy to stop
the US dead in its tracks with one big blow.  That's clearly impossible
for the very reasons you described.

You assume that the attacks were intended to bring about some particular
result for some particular people.  That's clearly not the case because no
demands have been made and no group has claimed responsibility.

Lastly (well, the last I'm going to mention, but hardly your last
unfounded or incorrect assumption), you assume that there is no evil
perpetrated by the United States that compares with the kind of
destruction and death we saw yesterday.  I don't blame people for
ignorance of this.  We have no public interest media in this country and
advertiser-supported media can only give us information that sponsors
approve.  But I assure you, it would be trivial to generate a list of
nations or peoples that have lost in excess of 10,000 lives due to
American foreign and military policy in the past thirty years.

> I'm sure they were untroubled by the facts -- and died believing their
> evil was good.

Well, there are LOTS of Americans that believe our evil is good.  So I'd
say your terrorists are in pretty good company.

J.

* for those unfamiliar with the reference (I think we sometimes to get too
far removed from our idia [idioms?]):  It's a joke.  It goes like this.
What do you give a 900 pound gorilla?
Anything it wants.
-- 
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     Jeme A Brelin
    jeme@brelin.net
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