peace-movement

Link	Quote	Tags	Author
7df3fb8	This world's anguish is no different from the love we insist on holding back.	agape-love anguish casualties-of-war child-victims-of-war children-killed-in-war conflict-resolution faith fear grief gun-laws gun-violence hope love nonviolent-conflict-resolution pain peace peace-movement peacemaking police-reform police-shootings russia-and-ukraine-conflict spiritual-love syrian-civil-war tragedy unconditional-love violence war world-suicide-prevention-day	Aberjhani
f959192	Eastward and westward storms are breaking,--great, ugly whirlwinds of hatred and blood and cruelty. I will not believe them inevitable.	bigotry black-history-month civil-unrest crimean-war cruelty diplomacy faith faith-in-humanity hate-crimes hope-for-the-future intolerance national-history-day nonviolent-conflict-resolution peace peace-movement peacism political-aggression political-turmoil prophecy russia syrian-civil-war ukraine violence war war-crimes we-can-do-better wisdom	W.E.B. Du Bois
3caf720	"If the counsel of the peaceniks had been followed, Kuwait would today be the nineteenth province of Iraq. Bosnia would be a trampled and cleansed province of Greater Serbia, Kosovo would have been emptied of most of its inhabitants, and the Taliban would still be in power in Afghanistan. Yet nothing seems to disturb the contented air of moral superiority of those that intone the "peace movement"."	leftism noninterventionism pacifism peace-movement	Christopher Hitchens
5bb6eb0	George Bush made a mistake when he referred to the Saddam Hussein regime as 'evil.' Every liberal and leftist knows how to titter at such black-and-white moral absolutism. What the president should have done, in the unlikely event that he wanted the support of America's peace-mongers, was to describe a confrontation with Saddam as the 'lesser evil.' This is a term the Left can appreciate. Indeed, 'lesser evil' is part of the essential tactical rhetoric of today's Left, and has been deployed to excuse or overlook the sins of liberal Democrats, from President Clinton's bombing of Sudan to Madeleine Albright's veto of an international rescue for Rwanda when she was U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Among those longing for nuance, moral relativism--the willingness to use the term evil, when combined with a willingness to make accommodations with it--is the smart thing: so much more sophisticated than 'cowboy' language.	al-shifa-pharmaceutical-factory anti-war ba-ath-party bill-clinton democratic-party-united-states evil george-w-bush iraq iraq-war leftism liberalism madeleine-albright moral-absolutism moral-relativism morality opposition-to-the-iraq-war peace-movement presidency-of-bill-clinton presidency-of-george-w-bush rwanda rwandan-genocide saddam-hussein sudan united-nations united-states	Christopher Hitchens
4c1ce1d	You might think that the Left could have a regime-change perspective of its own, based on solidarity with its comrades abroad. After all, Saddam's ruling Ba'ath Party consolidated its power by first destroying the Iraqi communist and labor movements, and then turning on the Kurds (whose cause, historically, has been one of the main priorities of the Left in the Middle East). When I first became a socialist, the imperative of international solidarity was the essential if not the defining thing, whether the cause was popular or risky or not. I haven't seen an anti-war meeting all this year at which you could even guess at the existence of the Iraqi and Kurdish opposition to Saddam, an opposition that was fighting for 'regime change' when both Republicans and Democrats were fawning over Baghdad as a profitable client and geopolitical ally. Not only does the 'peace' movement ignore the anti-Saddam civilian opposition, it sends missions to console the Ba'athists in their isolation, and speaks of the invader of Kuwait and Iran and the butcher of Kurdistan as if he were the victim and George W. Bush the aggressor.	anti-war ba-ath-party baghdad communism democratic-party-united-states george-w-bush invasion-of-kuwait iran-iraq-war iraq iraq-war iraqi-communist-party iraqi-kurdistan kurdish-people kuwait labour-movement leftism middle-east opposition-to-the-iraq-war peace-movement republican-party-united-states saddam-hussein socialism	Christopher Hitchens
9ca4e11	I have been taunted on various platforms recently for becoming a neo-conservative, and have been the object of some fascinating web-site and blog stuff, from the isolationist Right as well as from the peaceniks, who both argue in a semi-literate way that neo-conservativism is Trotskyism and 'permanent revolution' reborn. Sometimes, you have to comb an overt anti-Semitism out of this propaganda before you can even read it straight. And I can guarantee you that none of these characters has any idea at all of what the theory of 'permanent revolution' originally meant.	blogosphere internet iraq-war isolationism neoconservatism peace-movement permanent-revolution politics propaganda right-wing-politics trotskyism us-non-interventionism war-on-terror	Christopher Hitchens

This world's anguish is no different from the love we insist on holding back.

agape-love anguish casualties-of-war child-victims-of-war children-killed-in-war conflict-resolution faith fear grief gun-laws gun-violence hope love nonviolent-conflict-resolution pain peace peace-movement peacemaking police-reform police-shootings russia-and-ukraine-conflict spiritual-love syrian-civil-war tragedy unconditional-love violence war world-suicide-prevention-day

Aberjhani

f959192

Eastward and westward storms are breaking,--great, ugly whirlwinds of hatred and blood and cruelty. I will not believe them inevitable.

bigotry black-history-month civil-unrest crimean-war cruelty diplomacy faith faith-in-humanity hate-crimes hope-for-the-future intolerance national-history-day nonviolent-conflict-resolution peace peace-movement peacism political-aggression political-turmoil prophecy russia syrian-civil-war ukraine violence war war-crimes we-can-do-better wisdom

W.E.B. Du Bois

3caf720

"If the counsel of the peaceniks had been followed, Kuwait would today be the nineteenth province of Iraq. Bosnia would be a trampled and cleansed province of Greater Serbia, Kosovo would have been emptied of most of its inhabitants, and the Taliban would still be in power in Afghanistan. Yet nothing seems to disturb the contented air of moral superiority of those that intone the "peace movement"."

leftism noninterventionism pacifism peace-movement

Christopher Hitchens

5bb6eb0

George Bush made a mistake when he referred to the Saddam Hussein regime as 'evil.' Every liberal and leftist knows how to titter at such black-and-white moral absolutism. What the president should have done, in the unlikely event that he wanted the support of America's peace-mongers, was to describe a confrontation with Saddam as the 'lesser evil.' This is a term the Left can appreciate. Indeed, 'lesser evil' is part of the essential tactical rhetoric of today's Left, and has been deployed to excuse or overlook the sins of liberal Democrats, from President Clinton's bombing of Sudan to Madeleine Albright's veto of an international rescue for Rwanda when she was U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Among those longing for nuance, moral relativism--the willingness to use the term evil, when combined with a willingness to make accommodations with it--is the smart thing: so much more sophisticated than 'cowboy' language.

al-shifa-pharmaceutical-factory anti-war ba-ath-party bill-clinton democratic-party-united-states evil george-w-bush iraq iraq-war leftism liberalism madeleine-albright moral-absolutism moral-relativism morality opposition-to-the-iraq-war peace-movement presidency-of-bill-clinton presidency-of-george-w-bush rwanda rwandan-genocide saddam-hussein sudan united-nations united-states

Christopher Hitchens

4c1ce1d

You might think that the Left could have a regime-change perspective of its own, based on solidarity with its comrades abroad. After all, Saddam's ruling Ba'ath Party consolidated its power by first destroying the Iraqi communist and labor movements, and then turning on the Kurds (whose cause, historically, has been one of the main priorities of the Left in the Middle East). When I first became a socialist, the imperative of international solidarity was the essential if not the defining thing, whether the cause was popular or risky or not. I haven't seen an anti-war meeting all this year at which you could even guess at the existence of the Iraqi and Kurdish opposition to Saddam, an opposition that was fighting for 'regime change' when both Republicans and Democrats were fawning over Baghdad as a profitable client and geopolitical ally. Not only does the 'peace' movement ignore the anti-Saddam civilian opposition, it sends missions to console the Ba'athists in their isolation, and speaks of the invader of Kuwait and Iran and the butcher of Kurdistan as if he were the victim and George W. Bush the aggressor.

anti-war ba-ath-party baghdad communism democratic-party-united-states george-w-bush invasion-of-kuwait iran-iraq-war iraq iraq-war iraqi-communist-party iraqi-kurdistan kurdish-people kuwait labour-movement leftism middle-east opposition-to-the-iraq-war peace-movement republican-party-united-states saddam-hussein socialism

Christopher Hitchens

9ca4e11

I have been taunted on various platforms recently for becoming a neo-conservative, and have been the object of some fascinating web-site and blog stuff, from the isolationist Right as well as from the peaceniks, who both argue in a semi-literate way that neo-conservativism is Trotskyism and 'permanent revolution' reborn. Sometimes, you have to comb an overt anti-Semitism out of this propaganda before you can even read it straight. And I can guarantee you that none of these characters has any idea at all of what the theory of 'permanent revolution' originally meant.

blogosphere internet iraq-war isolationism neoconservatism peace-movement permanent-revolution politics propaganda right-wing-politics trotskyism us-non-interventionism war-on-terror

Christopher Hitchens