[Reader-list] FW: The Poverty of Debate on Iraq

[Are Flagan]

Re: 2/19/03 13:55, "Jamie Dow" <jamie.dow at pobox.com>:

> Are,
> I'm assuming you intended this to go to the Sarai list, for the benefit of
> all.
> I've replied to bits of it separately, but have posted the full thing lest I
> misrepresent you with my editing.
> Thanks for engaging on this.
> Jamie

Actually, no, it was for your eyes only. But since the FW mechanism took on
a life of its own: I am bored to tears about how this debate is framed. It
is ultimately not about the Saddam and George showdown (someone, please, get
these two a room or a ring), but about the relations between civil society
and an increasingly militant and corporate globalization. It is about the
oligopolies ability to forcefully ignore millions of people in their spread
of profitable "democracy" around the world. The way moral questions are
being pushed around on the swinging good and evil barometer of a polled mood
belongs primarily to the duplicity of the media to dupe the public. The same
goes for justifiable motivations along the cause and effect scenario of
thesis, antithesis, synthesis, chasing enlightenment reason in the "right"
thing to do. We live on a world of flows and forces where such resolutions,
even when voted on by the UN, must give way to a much broader and complex
understanding of direction and power.

-af