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From: wfi@rti-sel.UUCP (William Ingogly)
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.flame
Subject: Re: American Hostages
Message-ID: <365@rti-sel.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 21-Aug-85 11:47:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: rti-sel.365
Posted: Wed Aug 21 11:47:00 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 24-Aug-85 15:06:35 EDT
References: <1042@ihlpg.UUCP> <185@pyuxii.UUCP> <11045@rochester.UUCP>
Reply-To: wfi@rti-sel.UUCP (William Ingogly)
Organization: Research Triangle Institute, NC
Lines: 100
Xref: watmath net.politics:10569 net.flame:11641
Summary: 

In article <739@mcnc.mcnc.UUCP> omo@mcnc.UUCP (Julie Omohundro) writes:

>I appreciate your comments, but it still seems to me that this EXACTLY
>what was said about the blacks who demonstrated in the South in the
>50's and 60's.  
>...
>While I seriously doubt that most of them WANTED to get beaten or burned,
>I'm sure these people were WILLING to suffer these fates.  
>At the time, this seemed to be the only way to force the law/govt/public
>to recognize that the rights they had been guaranteed were not being 
>upheld--by purposely baiting this type of attack.  ...
>Also, while we weren't so media
>conscious in those days, they could certainly, in this sense, have
>been said to have been `staging a media event'.  And that certainly
>WAS said at the time.  Where's the real difference?
                        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

For me, clarity of the moral issues involved and a society that's
changed to the point where anyone who has an axe to grind can stage a
"media event."

What do YOU think the Christians in Nicaragua ACCOMPLISHED by their
actions? And in what way was the Nicaragua trip 'the only way to force
the law/govt/public to recognize etc.'? The blacks in the '50s and
'60s were up against a wall and had few options available to them
other than civil disobedience. Your drawing a parallel between them
and the Christian group seems similar to me to Reagan's comment about
the contras being the 'moral equivalent of our founding fathers.'
It sounds good, but where's the real similarity? Nicaragua ain't the
U.S.A., and the South in those days wasn't a real battleground
complete with ongoing guerrilla actions.

To say "we weren't so media conscious in those days" is an
underexaggeration, to say the least. Part of what I'm reacting to is a
tendency on both ends of the political spectrum to manipulate the
public consciousness on a superficial level through the mass media. In
my younger and more idealistic days I expected more from the left. Now
everyone indulges in an orgy of posturing: the group that's most
skillful at presenting a good image wins the prize.

Half-remembered quote from a Reagan aide just before the second debate
with Mondale (I'm sure the shave-headed Moral Majority twerps will be
more than glad to correct it):

   "We're going to steer him away from facts in the next debate
    and have him stick to the broad issues. He gets in trouble
    [or creates the wrong impression] when he deals with facts."

>I think there is NO real difference.  You are asserting a truism
>(people who do such-and-so deserve this-and-that) based on a principle
>that you feel applies to a select number of instances.  (Perhaps it
>does.)  But I think it also applies to other cases, where it does
>not prove quite so true.  

There you go again, putting words in my mouth. Please examine the 
following excerpt from my response and tell me again how I'm 
asserting that "people who do such-and-so deserve this-and-that:"

>No one deserves to be shot for expressing his/her political opinions,
> ... They may not
>have 'deserved what they got,' but the likelihood of something
>unfortunate happening in that situation was high.

Let me see if I've got this right: you say I assert that people
'deserve' certain things in certain situations. Then you say this
might be true in certain cases. Then you say it's also true in other
cases, but in those cases it's not so true. I'm not quite sure what
you're getting at. :-)

>So we are back to the basic truism (how
>did I get in this mess) that reality is not that simple.  The actual
>application of ideals to specific instances is infinitely tricky and
>requires knowledge about personal motivations, circumstance and other
>details that neither you nor I can always judge accurately.

So what's the proper response? Paralysis? Or maybe you're suggesting I
should get on the bandwagon and accept unthinkingly anything anyone
does to protest the contras' activities because the general moral
stance is correct and hang the details?
 
>Also, I gather your bottom line is that people do not deserve sympathy
>for the consequences of doing something stupid.  Heaven help us all.  This 
>is the FIRST thing for which we humans deserve sympathy!

Sympathy is one thing. Raising voices of righteous indignation over
the consequences of someone's 'stupid' actions is another, especially
when you suspect the 'stupid' actions were selected to create just
that response and those raising their voices know it.

My position is that we have no business supporting either the contra
thugs OR the Sandinista thugs (I hope that satisfies both ends of the
political spectrum :-). I fail to see WHAT the Christian group's
actions accomplished, other than reinforcing the left's concept of the
contra forces as Brutal Barbarians and the right's concept of the
anti-contra-aid forces as Commie Pinkos. It's certainly not going to
convince Mr. and Mrs. Potatohead from Midland, Ohio to write their
congressman to work against aid to the contras. And it's certainly not
going to change the contras' minds, is it?

                          -- Cheers, Bill Ingogly