RRC Archives

hrm. where to begin?

since much of this 'discussion' revolves around political posturing that organizes hyper-complicated socio-political phenomena into bumper sticker banter i'll begin with a little personal background. in other words, i'll 'sticker' myself so we can all get a handle on what follows.

i spent 5 years in the military as a second class petty officer in the US Navy Seabee just before and during the war(s). never saw combat in Iraq or Afghanistan, but almost 'defended freedom' with an m16 during overseas police operations just after 9/11. so i can speak - if maybe only a little - to the military side of war-making. after my enlistment was completed i headed back to school where i am currently working through a PhD in cultural geography. writers and thinkers such as marx, foucault, derrida, and deleuze now occupy a space once reserved for squad commands, mortars control, and weapon cleaning. so i feel i can also speak - if anyone can speak for an undefinable group - for the academic ‘liberal’ ‘far left’.

so, i’m, like, complicated and stuff.

and it is precisely this sort of complicated-ness – the mostly mind-boggling mix of experience, ideas, and circumstance – that makes much of this thread silly. why? because all of us are complicated to the point that we almost-always defy a strict categorical placement, much less a ‘side’ in an over-simplistic binary.

i mean, what is a conservative? what is ‘the right’? first, it’s not even historically coherent. but even in the 'now', does a shifting emphasis on national security, protestant dogma, and small government actually define something? they certainly don’t correlate in any meaningful way, and yet they are supposed to be the banner elements of a politicized group? no way. i’m a Marxist, but I own a 42â€

I'm good with dumb, just ask charlie. I guess I should say you can have an opinion, it just doesn't count. Yours does. Note I said "carried a weapon". We all carried one in basic training, not all of us used one in combat. We all did have the stones to step up and do the job, however, not just mouth off. That is my point.

I didn't read tbwilsonky's long post so he may have said this... but TradTard, you're an idiot. Are you going to try and sell me on the idea that the mothers and fathers of the soldiers don't have a right to an opinion about war? I think the military broke you in some weird way.

I was broke when I got there. Ain't this a great country, when your freedom and security depends on tards like me.

but it doesn't. to a certain extent 'might makes right', but security/'freedom' depends more on gross national product than it does tards like you. get a map, locate the most 'free' and secure areas, and then tell me if those places aren't also the most affluent. conversely, find the sketchiest spots and take a look at their GNP. afghanistan isn't 'insecure' because they don't have people willing to fight.

-t

tbwilsonky wrote:but it doesn't. to a certain extent 'might makes right', but security/'freedom' depends more on gross national product than it does tards like you. get a map, locate the most 'free' and secure areas, and then tell me if those places aren't also the most affluent. conversely, find the sketchiest spots and take a look at their GNP. afghanistan isn't 'insecure' because they don't have people willing to fight.

-t

I think that's correct more often than not, but how do you square being a Marxist with that belief, being as how Marxism generally produces poverty on a grand scale.

But I'm still an idiot, right?

you know when you watch a movie and the main character has your real life job? and you're all like "ha! that's not how we say/do/fix/remove that!". well, when i try to have a conversation about marx it's a bit like that. so bear with me. again.

since the industrial revolution the world economic system has operated almost entirely under the rubric of capital. the only hiccups in it's expansive grip? three major ones come to mind: Russia/USSR - the poorest european country at the time of the communist revolution. China - originally they employed marxism to disenfranchise the working class (not really what marx had in mind) and maintain a stranglehold on centres of power. similar to when the romans adopted christianity; take the voice of the resistance as your own and there is no resistance. nowadays china is pure capital. Cuba - embargoed to death since the 60's. throw in vietnam, laos, and north korea and that gives us 5/195 countries. a whopping 2% of the world's nations. of these, only laos is in the bottom 50% of GDP rankings. so if marxism isn't the dominant force in economy and the countries that are marxist aren't relatively poor then it seems a bit hard to believe that Marxism produces poverty on a grand scale.

take a look at the bottom of the GDP rankings and see what they have in common. it ain't communism kids - it's colonialism. thank you europe.

but even if i did identify with the marxism you point toward here (you know, the one that has never and will never exist except in conversations between people who have only a passing knowledge of marx or political economy) it would still be easy to 'square my beliefs'. if marxism made everyone poor then everyone's relative security and freedom would diminish and would eventually hit an equilibrium. at that point both would cease to be an issue because there would be no reason for a country full of poor miserable people to attack another country full of poor miserable people. instead, everyone would enjoy the same miserable freedom and security.

i'm not really a marxist though; i just used that to make a point about contradictions and complexity.

i stopped drinking last week,

t

tbwilsonky wrote: i stopped drinking last week,

way to go dude!

heh. thanks.

being 31 + drinkin' booze did not = v10+

but as soon as i send i'm going straight to a bar and picking a fight with the biggest dude there.

but my guess is it'll be hard to get em to throw a punch if they know how hard i climb....

-t