From: Subir Grewal <grewals@acf2.nyu.edu>
Date: Mon, 27 May 1996 06:28:24 +0800
To: jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>
Subject: Re: [SCARE]:  "If you only knew what we know..."
In-Reply-To: <199605260254.TAA14336@mail.pacifier.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.ULT.3.92.960526114819.28626A-100000@acf2.NYU.EDU>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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On Sat, 25 May 1996, jim bell wrote:

:At 09:48 PM 5/25/96 -0400, Subir Grewal wrote:
:How "removed" do they have to be to be innocent, in your opinion?

If they didn't pull the trigger or give the order, they're innocent.
Making these criteria any laxer will cause problems as more and more
people are drawn into the category of offenders, pretty soon you're the
only victim, everyone else is out there to steal from you or assist in the
theft.

:Nuclear bomb design.  Done with funds stolen from taxpayers.  Done to
:protect the leadership of this country, not the public.

Pure mathematics as far as the people working at the lab were concerned.
You really think if the receptionist had died, it would have been
self-defense?  A couple of kids died in computer labs at other schools
where this happened, they were there feeding punched cards into the
machines.  Somehow that doesn't sound right to me.

:And isn't it immoral for George Bush, for instance, to choose a solution
:that results in the deaths of tens of thousands of comparatively innocent
:Iraqis, both during and after the Gulf war, rather than bumping off Saddam
:Hussein?  Think about it.  Exactly why does he do the former, rather than
:the latter?

And the Iranian leaders really think Clinton is an ungoldy kafir for
meeting Rushdie the apostate.  Why not kill him, after all various
Americans have suggested this is a valid tactic?  Your methods will be
used for ends you do not agree with.  From what I've learnt of the Gulf
war (I was reading most of the time, kept away from the TV), they did try
very hard to kill Sadaam Hussein, but got nowhere.  As is apparent,
political leaders value their own lives more than they do those of the
foot-soldiers.  Many among the foot-soldiers belive their lives would be
"brutish, nasty and short" without the mechanism of the state and are
willing to defend it and those who currently operate the machine.  Of
course George Bush I don't trust at all because the man was practically
glowing during "his war", anyone who enjoys a war, revels in it, is not
someone I admire, respect, or even talk to.  However, when you propose
that we kill this person, I'm not going to stand with you either.  Rest
assured, there will be many others waiting to take his place when he is
killed, and some of them will spell potato like the English feudal lords
did.

:>- From what I've gathered of AP, it attempts no radical reformation of "the
:>system", simply adds another set of costs for individuals within the govt.
:>to take into account.
:
:"Another set of costs"?  Yikes!  Read the essay, governments as we know them
:can't possibly survive post-AP.

Oh no, I think they will survive post AP.  The odds are quite high that
the people who are convinced to act on the AP philosophy will be branded
terrorists and become the objectives of many witch hunts the world over.
The IRA has a bad rep, though most sympathize with their cause.  And they
engender Thatchers, or others who are convinced of their "rightness" and
can only get to those posts by making public their convictions and gaining
some sympathy from the populace.  The fact that their targets, and know it
but still do not waver, makes them heroes in many eyes.

:Well, I disagree.  Until recently, public opinion was almost entirely
:manufactured.  It was a joint project of the government and the news media.

I too think Chomsky has perceptive vision when it comes to the media.

:Is there any significant likelihood that the people in power today will
:relinquish power absent a system such as AP?  I'm not optimistic about that.

No, noone "relinquishes" power.  They fight to keep it, but the struggle
does not always have to be violent, and it hurts our cause to instigate
violence when none has been used directly against us.

hostmaster@trill-home.com * Symbiant test coaching * Blue-Ribbon * Lynx 2.5
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	Johnny's so long at the fair.

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