Regarding Osher Doctorow's comments to Jacob Puliyel: What comes to my mind
is how the discipline of EBM has helped me in other arenas-and may help in
this as well. By challenging basic dogma or 'gold standards'; through
listening to counterintuitive ideas, and by actively attempting to falsify a
thesis, one really can find that an outcome is not what one anticipates.
If we use this approach, then we have to start with definitions. If we
define "breast cancer" as any malignant lesion of the breast and mammography
is available, then we include intraductal carcinoma in situ - a disease that
had no definition until the advent of mammography. In this way, we can
introduce spectrum-, inclusion- and lead- or length-time bias in studies
when we look at the pre- and post-mammogram era. This led to one aspect of
the current mammography brouhaha.
After reading O. Doctorow's comments - I wonder if we read the same Chomsky
article posted on the EMB list? Let's start with definitions. Certainly,
you've heard the adage, "One person's terrorist is another person's
liberation fighter." But we shouldn't be too glib about that. What does it
mean? It means that Osama bin Laden was a "freedom fighter" according to
the CIA and the Pentagon when he was our boy, on our payroll - as was Papa
Doc Duvalier, Suharto, Marcos, Mobutu, Trujillo, Somoza and a long, bloody
string of thugs.
Of course, no one in the CIA or Pentagon is calling bin Laden a "freedom
fighter" any longer. But if we are true to a definition of terrorism as
someone or some group attempting to rule or gain control through fear and
force and the use of violence directed against non-combatants - then we must
consider quite a few U.S. actions are "terroristic" including the support of
ex-Cubans to down a Cuban plane killing over 100 civilians (shall we bomb
Florida for harboring these known terrorists?); or what about the U.S.
backed overthrow of democratically elected leaders in Guatemala and Chile
and the support of widespread and vicious thuggery in El Salvador, Southern
Africa and many other parts of the world.
What Chomsky was pointing out was not that "Eastern behavior" is beyond
reproach (per O.D.'s suggestion) or that one must 'sit on the tiger' - he
was simply pointing a very positive (and not at all 'depressing')
viewpoint - that the U.S. has played a role in creating some of the very
problems now haunting us. The enormously positive aspect is, therefore,
that something can be done to reduce the violence. Of course from Chomsky's
viewpoint (and my own) that 'something' lies more in the myriad other ways
we can attempt to effect international change rather than a military
response which is about as responsible (and effective) as bombing Florida
because of the ex-Cubans or D.C. because of the President's horrific
policies of supporting dictators.
jeanne
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