[eDebate] omar -- the draft argument is weak

Jake Stromboli infracaninophile at hotmail.com
Sat Jul 1 14:38:01 EDT 2006


at the top, there seems to be some implication in your rhetoric that
modelling resistance on the vietnam war is weak because it is modelling.
the history of non-violent civil disobedience is based on modelling. the
vietnam war resisters modelled their tactics on MLK and the civil rights
movement who modelled their tactics on the indian indepedence movement.
the history of resistance of social movements is always informative to the
movements of the day. the anti-vietnam war resisters knew that civil
disobedience works from their understanding of history and that is why they
chose sit ins.

many students of today "oppose" the war but have no strategy whatsoever.
the high school and college debate communities -- policy and otherwise --
are a perfect example. i challenge these students because many of them and
their teachers supposedly take critical philosophical and political
literature seriously. i will post soon my explanations in the archives of
how the french civil disobedience movements supported and engineered by
foucault have been transformed into purely philosophical classroom
discussions in the united states. foucault modelled his resistance to the
prison system and other forms of control on the anti-algerian colonial
movement and the Resistance by the anarcho-syndicalists and others to the
nazi occupation of france. canguilhem was his philosopher/scientist
predecessor who played an active role in the disobedience of the Resistance.

talking about resistance will never cross threshold of disobedience until it
is disallowed. the neoconservative controllers are smart enough to allow
discussion that "opposes" the war so long as it poses no realistic threat to
the war. i think that policy debate students in particular have some idea


first of all, the iraqis are largely modelling their resistance to the
american forces on the vietnamese model which is not "their" model, per se,
but modern guerilla warfare. we have an unwinnable war with a propaganda
machine that keeps enough public support to keep it from ending immediately.
military stategists and political analysts speak of kicking the "vietnam
syndrome" for a reason. they LOST that war because of resistance in vietnam
and the united states.

many things have strategically changed since vietnam to make sure that the
successful anti-war strategies from that era do not replicate their success:

1) the "liberal" media is no longer allowed to show body bags and have
restricted access. embedded cheerleaders have the only access to the
persistent murder that could enable the reporting from vietnam that turned
public opinion against the war. guess what, corporations with military
industrial complex interest bought into the television stations post vietnam
to prevent the "liberal" media to prevent a redux.

2) the draft has not been instated, YET. a ground war with iran and syria
might make the draft inevitable. rangel keeps putting his bill on the
floor. the draft is not necessary at this time and the invasion relied
more heavily on air strikes than vietnam did. i agree that students are
more hestitant to protest because there is not yet a draft but think that is
unfortunate because the draft has not been imposed largely to convince
students not to protest.

3)

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