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If you want peace, preach to the unconverted - Howard Jacobson - from Argument
by Darwin at 5:07 pm EST, Apr 5, 2003

quoted:
===

Easy to blame the war on those who love war; I blame it also on those who opposed it. They should have done a better job produced arguments that smacked less of ancient ideology, found subtler people to express them, put language to better use than sloganising, sought the support of less obviously biased or hysterical groups, kept one issue separate from another, not turned the cause of peace into a ragbag of associated or not-at-all associated grievances, jeered less, cheered less, put their minds, every inch of the way, to the fears no less than the ambitions that fuelled the war, and why others, who were not all Bush's poodles, did not always think as they did.

...

Any decent peace movement could have picked me up and made me theirs in seconds.

As it was, they put a wall up, forbidding if you weren't already camped on the other side of it, if you didn't take it as a given that Americans were hyenas, or that the world's stockpiles of poisons would go away by wishing them away, or if you believe that only those capable of listening are capable of answering. And thus they left me out there, where I didn't want to be.

...

But if they couldn't address the concerns of a man in my condition a nobody loitering by the banks of the River Indecision with his finger fluttering to his lips how were they ever going to get through to the hard men, to Blair or Bush or Saddam Hussein, or to those who could get through to Blair or Bush or Saddam Hussein, or to those who could get through to those who could get through? The slow drip drip drip of mind-changing. And don't tell me that those who organised for peace never entertained such grandiose ambitions, because in that case who were they trying to reach?

I know the answer to that one another.

RE: If you want peace, preach to the unconverted - Howard Jacobson - from Argument
by flynn23 at 1:49 am EST, Apr 6, 2003

Darwin wrote:
] quoted:
] ===
]
] Easy to blame the war on those who love war; I blame it also
] on those who opposed it. They should have done a better job
] produced arguments that smacked less of ancient ideology,
] found subtler people to express them, put language to better
] use than sloganising, sought the support of less obviously
] biased or hysterical groups, kept one issue separate from
] another, not turned the cause of peace into a ragbag of
] associated or not-at-all associated grievances, jeered less,
] cheered less, put their minds, every inch of the way, to the
] fears no less than the ambitions that fuelled the war, and why
] others, who were not all Bush's poodles, did not always think
] as they did.

I agree. And I think the reason why most of the anti-war demonstrations have been nothing more than a big pot bake off have been that few of us really understand what the hell we're doing.

See my post at
http://www.memestreams.net/thread/bid6103/
because I finally feel like I understand it.

There are redundant posts not displayed in this view from the following users: Decius, Rattle.