We've seen many times in the last two years the...ah... flexibility of former Senators Obama and Biden's deeply held principles...
But now I'm wondering about the UU blogosphere- aside from my previous two posts, a search through UUpdates shows that a lobster could count on one hand the number of UU bloggers who have even mentioned the attacks on Libya. This strikes me as very odd. It's a stunning attack- the British are actually running out of cruise missiles, and a single US B2 Stealth sortie dropped 90,000 lbs of bombs, and we've flown hundreds of sorties. And yet the UU response could be described by Paul Simon- "...And my words, like silent raindrops fell, and echoed in the sounds of silence..." Could you understand why the casual observer might conclude that we base our religious principles on our political principles?
10 comments:
I have noticed, as Facebook has passed blogging as the preferred mode for lots of UU conversation, that many antiwar UUs have plenty to say critical of the campaign in Libya. The phenomenon you're pointing to may be real, but I don't think it covers as much ground as you might think. Plenty of my UU Facebook contacts are bemoaning the air strikes.
I'm sure there is a big element of what you are saying, and yet it's not like Facebook has so replaced blogging that blog posts aren't being made- people are still blogging regularly, they're just not blogging about the war. Don't you think there's a psychological factor that a Facebook comment is a semi-private personal conversation, but a blog post is a public statement? People will say a lot of things in private conversation that they wouldn't say in a public statement.
I have the same questions about the horrific photographs that Der Speigal and the NY Times printed from Afghanistan showing smiling US soldiers posing with the corpses of Afghan civilians they've just murdered. At least one soldier has pled guilty to murder, (a dozen are charged) and taking body parts as souveniers. Total silence in the UU blogosphere- unlike Abu Ghraib, when the UU blogosphere was awash in condemnation. Maybe they're facebooking about that, too, but they're sure not making any public statements about it.
I would think the real U-U focus should center on the extent to which our domestic American entitlements have to be sacrificed to continue the off-budget funding of the Military Industrial Complex's entitlements in Iraq and Afghanistan. In that perspective, I think Libya is just a detail.
I'm on the UU Peace Making listserv and it's been quiet.
Bill- that may be because the White House says it isn't war after all- it's just kinetic military action. And Pan Am 103 was just a kinetic passenger complaint.
"kinetic" activity? Now that's the term I've been seeking to use to describe drone attacks in Pakistan. This approach is far superior to boots-on-the-ground occupations and C.O.I.N.! I'm all for it! And, I think we ought to encourage Libya's North African neighbors to contribute modern military equipment to the Rebels. Would that be 'kinetic' of them to do?
It's easy to get riled up about our government waging a trumped-up war on Iraq in response to an unrelated attack. It's almost as easy to get riled up when the government turns its attention on the country harboring our attackers, but does so in such a clumsy and delayed way as to ensure making a big mess for years to come. It's not so easy to get riled up about our government, as part of the international community, *finally* going after the regime that green-lighted the Pan Am 103 bombing, especially when that regime is in danger of being toppled by its own subject people.
Of course, this is all aside from that minor detail of all of these lacking a Declaration of War by Congress...
Congress????????????? You mean that non-deliberative body that couldn't even deliver on medicare for all??????
Good point
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