tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31482035.post3769464798781838670..comments2023-10-25T02:47:44.285-07:00Comments on Things of common wonder: What Do Your Assumptions Fuel?evehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01938698560949126977noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31482035.post-62978932500987094472009-10-01T13:43:12.165-07:002009-10-01T13:43:12.165-07:00[7] "He is not simply a Democrat apologist.&q...[7] "He is not simply a Democrat apologist." I'm not a Democrat apologist at all. And I think their actions have been particularly reprehensible in regard to the current war in the Middle East.<br /><br />[8] "Has he, like Chomsky, decided that no war is justifiable, and that anyone engaging in war is a war criminal?" That's not Chomsky's view nor mine. Neither of us is an absolute pacifist, although we both may admire some -- e.g. Quakers and Catholic Workers -- who are, even when we disagree with them. <br /><br />[9] "So conservatives are wrong, and liberals are wrong. Who is right?" That is a question that can't be decided in the abstract. Surely Eve knows conservatives who are wrong on occasion and liberals who are wrong as well. It depends on what the question is. <br /><br />[10] "In Estabrook's beliefs, the Ten Commandments are not absolute truth handed down by the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to guide His people to a right relationship with Him. They are an instigation to anarchy." In fact, as a (Catholic) Christian, I think the ten commandments "reveal God to us. In Exodus the revelation of the ten commandments occurs in the context of of a theophany, a manifestation of God, and they are essentially concerned with the difference between Yahweh and the other gods. The decalogue is part of the general demystifying of the divine that lies at the centre of the Jewish-christian tradition. The other gods, the ones that Israel has beyond everything else to shun, make their demands in terms of special religious cults, but the demand of Yahweh is that people should have a certain kind of relationship with each other in the secular world." That's from the late theologian Herbert McCabe, OP, and my article is an attempt to spell it out a bit. <br /><br />[11] "Moonbat Central [David Horowitz' website, which closed down four years ago, after publishing a misrepresentation of Noam Chomsky that the Guardian/UK apologized for] ... looked into his background." It was actually a nasty piece of work called Steven Plaut, who says I justify the 9/11 attacks (I don't) but amidst his sneers manages to get some things right: (a) I have distant cousin with the same first and last names on the Dartmouth faculty: (b) I opposed the US invasion of Iraq and two generations of terrorism against Cuba; (c) I value the work of Norman Finkelstein, Robert Fisk, Noam Chomsky, and Ward Churchill (without agreeing completely with any one of them); and (d) I lost when I ran for Congress as a Green party candidate (although I'm no longer a member of the Green party). <br /><br />[12] "Many people define themselves by what they are not. I think Estabrook is an example. He's vocal about what he is not. But what is he?" Answer: in religion a Catholic, in politics an anarchist, in arts an Oxfordian. (I realize that list risks being as anticlimactic as "For God, for Country, and for Yale!")<br /><br />[13] "What rock is he standing on that he can offer to others?" The question has echoes of both Archimedes and Matthew 16:18, but with regard to the latter I remind you that Jesus like Shakespeare was enamored of puns: he nicknamed his principal follower -- the impetuous and inconstant Simon -- "Rocky" (Cephas, Petrus)! So in that spirit (and I hope Spirit) I suggest that the rocks we stand on are the proverbial slippery slope that will send us on to perhaps uncomfortable truth, will we or nill we... <br /><br />[14] Eve ends -- perhaps in celebration of today's 60th anniversary of the People's Republic of China -- with an implicit quotation of Mao Zedong's "On the Correct Handling of Contradictions among the People" (1957) and its common-sense but important distinction between antagonistic and non-antagonistic contradictions. She admirably rejects the assumption that "there are only two sides to join ... there are nearly always more than two political camps. At some points, his political views and mine intersect." Amen. <br /><br />Regards, C. G. EstabrookCGEhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09728526164096714087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31482035.post-52788895429716354312009-10-01T13:39:52.060-07:002009-10-01T13:39:52.060-07:00[PART 1 OF 2] Eve seems particularly concerned abo...[PART 1 OF 2] Eve seems particularly concerned about "what worldview is guiding Estabrook's denunciations": she seems anxious to find an appropriate label for me. <br /><br />I'd suggest that that's generally the wrong way to proceed. The important thing is to get matters right, not to fit them into a world-view. Without the slightest invidious reflection on Eve's mind, I think we should listen to Emerson's warning that "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." If we do get things right, and the answers seem inconsistent, it probably means that we need to understand them at a less trivial level, not throw them out. She's quite right to insist (twice) that views "reflect reality." <br /><br />So what follows are some possibly inconsistent comments on Eve's comments on me. (The excellent people at CounterPunch.org have been willing to publish my articles for some time -- even ones they might disagree with, such as those on abortion -- and those pieces can be searched There for my views.)<br /><br />[1] "Estabrook is critiquing Obama." Yes, as I've done since he ran for the Senate, threatening war against Iran. For a recent summary, see "Minion of the Long War" on CounterPunch.<br /><br />[2] "He correctly points out that judicial review is unconstitutional." Actually, I correctly point out that it's not in the Constitution; that's different from its being unconstitutional.<br /><br />[3] "In the latter part of the article, he pointedly dismisses the electoral college." In fact, I don't mention the electoral college; I point out instead that I along with 70% of Americans say that US election campaigns "seem more like theater or entertainment than something to be taken seriously." Can you have watched Gore/Bush, Bush/Kerry, and/or Obama/McCain and doubt that?<br /><br />[4] "In his estimation, Saddam really wasn't that bad." In fact I refer to the "horrors of Saddam Hussein's government," but Eve doesn't seem to notice that, perhaps because I note that "they were accomplished with US aid and support."<br /><br />[5] Eve seems to object my calling the US "the true 'republic of fear'," but she graciously quotes my specific reason for doing so: "Only in America was government propaganda able to make citizens personally afraid of Saddam Hussein, sufficiently to promote a war for non-existent 'weapons of mass destruction.' 9/11 was a godsend to the Bush administration, for in all the world only Americans could be made to fear Saddam Hussein because of his supposed link to 'terrorism.'" The point generalizes -- a history of Europeans in America could be written in terms of fear -- fear of native Americans, fear of slaves, fear of immigrants, fear of the working class -- even fear of witches and of women. The Latin maxim is "proprium humani ingenii est odisse quem laeseris" (it is human nature to hate the one you have injured).<br /><br />[6] "Estabrook subscribes to the common fallacy that one nation and one nation alone is capable of true evil: the United States." By nation she seems to mean government, but the statement as it stands is obvious nonsense. All governments are "capable of true evil," but in my lifetime (i.e., since the Second World War) one government has had the unparalleled ability to carry it out. Furthermore, we're US citizens, members of an at least formal democracy, and therefore responsible for what one government does. For both reasons, evil committed by Estonia is a lesser concern of ours. [TO BE CONT'D]CGEhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09728526164096714087noreply@blogger.com