Who Won This E-mail Exchange with a Wingnut?

[UTUSN]

I didn't call him a Fascist and I got the last word---did I win?

***********What I said that started it**********

Then Howard-the-Duck (FINEMAN) referred to some "friend" of his who is an officer in Iraq (Duck's personal tie to the actual war), who NOW says the Iraqi people are just "tribal" and just want to kill one another, don't have a concept of what a constitution is, don't want our help, want us to get out of their way in killing one another, that every dang time this wonderful officer lays down a water line the Iraqis just take the money and don't do the job. My my, the burden of Howard-the-Duck's noble warrior.

**********His Challenge*********

What this officer says is directly contrary to what the Bush do-gooders believe about the Middle East and Arabs: that they can be like us if given the chance. I’ve thought that if you DON’T believe they are like us, that that has implications, racial and ethnic implications. As a parallel, you remember when white people would say blacks are (not?)capable, aren’t like “us,” etc., like they are genetically incapable? (I don’t believe that, BTW). Isn’t saying the Arabs aren’t ready for democracy the same thing, saying the same thing: they’re not capable of being like us? I’ve always thought it’s not race but culture. There are some cultures better than others, more capable, better at producing a liberal society. What’s your take on this?

*********My Reply, not what he wanted to hear***********

I'm not sure that framing things as better-culture instead of better-race is an improvement or less patronizing. Once I saw a documentary with an intrepid Brit cruising through Argentina and giving us his oh-so-superior observations. This was in one of the more "advanced" countries, mind you. Some gaucho must have done him wrong, because as the series went on week by week, he became more sour. Towards the end, after what appeared to be a very civilized late night supper al fresco at the hacienda, somebody dropped something and said, "Se me cayo." The Brit made a big deal about this sentence construction in Spanish, that it was reflexive, that it removed responsibility from the person, that it put the blame somewhere OUT THERE--"It fell" instead of "I dropped it". And he extrapolated this to be a paradigm for the whole Hispanic backwardness, that there was no individual responsibility or blame, as contrasted to Anglo culture (and "advancement").

So you really buying that the Shrubbite NeoCons are "do-gooders"? I know they have liked to spin that they are WILSONian. WILSON was my hero when I was 12 or 13, I read a 7 Vol biography, and thought he was SO idealistic and SO tragic and that the Wingnuts of that time were brutes. Now I think that this kind of colonialistic intrusion into other countries is, well, colonialism--patronizing and arrogant.

**********His Frustrated Reply*****

How can anyone survey the world and not think that some countries are better, more fruitful, than others, that they produce more freedom and opportunity than others? Just finished a piece in The New Yorker by a Texan who consulted on a Saudi English-language paper. The picture he paints is of a backward, stultified,..words fail and I’m in a hurry. The country is devolving, drilling down, not up. There is terrible unemployment. College grads, who used to get government jobs, all of them now do not because the government is running a deficit. They go years unemployed, yet, the “entry-level” jobs go to immigrant Paks and Filipinos because THE SAUDIS WON’T TAKE THE JOBS, READ THAT, WON’T HUMBLE THEMSELVES TO TAKE THE JOBS. It’s crazy. This piece paints a picture very much like the one Seymour Hersh did a cupla years ago.

*********I Got the Last Word, Did I "Win"?**********

Within the frame you set, there is no doubt that some cultures are self-defeating. But have you seen "Going Tribal" or something like that, with a Brit living with cannibals? YOU can't run through Mother Nature in your bare feet with them or eat maggot worms. Inside YOUR frame, this is a PLUS for you not having to live that way, but on THEIR terms, they are surviving quite nicely, thankyouverymuch and YOU would be the one starving to death.

You are speaking in MATERIALISTIC and ETHNOCENTRIC terms, as if "freedom" and "opportunity" are eternal, "God-given" ideals. Biology trumps our existence, trumps culture. The dung beetle has its own beautiful life, equal to YOURS. The cultures that are self-defeating will eventually expire. Where you say "the Saudis won't take the jobs, ... won't humble themselves to take the jobs"-----hmmm, sounds familiar, sounds like HERE.

*I* don't want to live in an fascist state OR in an opportunity-gridlocked, hidebound state. But I also wouldn't dream of INVADING other, sovereign countries to "give" them our freedom and opportunity. A wasp lives in its own universe. Leave the wasp alone. Protect YOURSELF and whoever wants protection against it, but leave it in its own universe.

[xchrom]

1. why is that republicans are such experts

on this scenario? "the Saudis won't take the jobs, ... won't humble themselves to take the jobs"

if there's a topic republican will always be a loudmouthed, sophmoric expert on -- it's someone else's laziness.

i figure if someone is constantly yelling ''hey -- look over there'' -- it's past time to look at the person yelling.

[Toots]

5. I did not know that not a single Saud has a job...

I guess their King feeds them daily. :shrug:

[Mz Pip]

2. Whether or not the Arabs

are ready for democracy isn't up to us to decide. Democracy is the icing on the cake of a free society. They will build this or not in their own good time. I hope they do eventually, but I doubt there is much we can do to contribute to this militarily.

We may see ourselves as liberators but many of thes Arabs see us as occupiers. A different point of view describing the same group of people. We had better start getting a handle on how we are really viewed as opposed to how we think we should be viewed.

Mz Pip
:dem:

[UTUSN]

3. He Ties Himself Up in Knots - Substituting "Culture" & "Country" for RACE

First he says that anybody who thinks other RACES are not CAPABLE of hosting democracy is a racist. But then he skips from the Iraqis to the Saudis and sez THAT country is a backward culture. Sounds like he protests himself into a hole, like, a racist in denial.

[UTUSN]

4. Farewell Kick for Potential Sunday Munching n/t