Ah, so - for Mark - we are speaking of relative innocence. I don't know if
that applies to Frederick, but let's go on from what Mark has told us - if
we're all agreeable.
Are they, the workers in the Pentagon, as relatively innocent as those in
WTC who were not in the military, a janitor perhaps? Let's compare, say, a
procurement officer in the Pentagon and a janitor in WTC - are they of the
same relative innocence? And, if so, why?
Are there not degrees of complicity?
L
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Weiss" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 26 September 2001 04:03
Subject: Re: Letter to a leftist friend
| I'm with you, Fred. In this country soldiers and sailors I've known refer
| to the military as "the iron tit," the source of lifetime security. It
| provides our only socialized medicine system, subsidized housing, moving
| expenses, higher education, even subsidized department stores. And a
| healthy pension after 20 years, with most of the other benefits continuing
| till death. Very few sign up to be warriors--it's usually the best gig
they
| can find. And that goes double for the civilian employees. So yes, I'd say
| that they're usually among the innocent, as innocent as any of us in this
| society where it's impossible not to be complicit, whatever our politics.
| The same, I imagine, could be said for the average Afghani.
|
| Mark
|
| At 09:59 PM 9/25/2001 -0400, you wrote:
| >Lawrence Upton wrote:
| >>
| >> ----- Original Message -----
| >> From: "Frederick Pollack" <[log in to unmask]>
| >> To: <[log in to unmask]>
| >> Sent: 25 September 2001 16:43
| >> Subject: Re: Letter to a leftist friend
| >>
| >> | Someone will pay, in blood and pain, for what has been done to
innocent
| >> | American civilians.
| >>
| >> Do you include in that category "innocent American citizens" those who
| >> worked in the Pentagon. If so, why? If not, why not?
| >>
| >> Serious question. Please answer.
| >>
| >> all the best
| >>
| >> L
| >
| >Yes. If one assumes that everyone who works in the Pentagon, including
| >janitors, clerks, quartermasters etc., is guilty of neocolonialism and
| >imperialism, one is following the same standard whereby already starving
| >(and perhaps apolitical) Afghans may soon be "acceptable collateral
| >damage." One accedes also to the idea, with which GWB agrees, that this
| >attack was an act of war.
| >
|
|