As part of the pen-l process of prodding Brad to name names, I wrote: >>I still want to know who these "people" are. If they were standing for >>human rights, democracy, and economic development despite the poopstorm >>coming down on their heads during the Truman-McCarthy era, when the >>slightest dissent from the anti-Soviet line was punished as "com-simp" >>treason, they deserve to be celebrated and rewarded. Brad, please name >>these people! I'm willing to set up a shrine and burn candles. He finally responded: >Keynes and White, Hoffman and Harriman, Vandenberg and Acheson and >Marshall, Truman... I'll ignore the fact that Keynes was British and therefore not part of the _US_ foreign policy (or that his version of Bretton Woods was vetoed by the US and had little effect on the main thrust of US for. pol. at the time). The point I want to make (given the limits of time) is that Brad totally ignored the issue of what in hell is meant by "human rights, democracy, and economic development." These phrases are part of the class of words that I call "fuzzwords," i.e., words that everybody uses but almost no one defines (others include socialism, justice, freedom, human nature, capitalism, fascism, traditional values, the family, fairness). Unlike buzzwords, I think it's good to use fuzzwords. However, it's incumbent on us to _define_ what we mean by them. This is especially important for profession word-slingers such as Brad and myself. Just because everyone uses these words without defining them doesn't mean that we can escape trying to make an effort to attain at least a smidgeon of intellectual clarity. (One of the great things about Chomsky is that he is very clear about what he means by words. Similarly, one aspect of George Orwell's greatness (despite the last acts of his depressed and physically ill life, i.e., finking to Big Brother) was that he insisted on refusing to take words for granted, insisted on intellectual clarity.) Of course Keynes, White, Hoffman, Harriman, Vandenberg, Acheson, Marshall, and Truman were all in favor of "human rights, democracy, and economic development"! Isn't everyone? _Everyone_ is favor of world peace and the siblinghood of humankind (especially in this Holiday Season as our leaders drop gifts on the Iraqis). Everyone is opposed to child pornography, too (even those who go to beauty contests for tarted-up 6-year-old girls like the late Jon-Benet Ramsey). These fuzzwords can be stretched and stretched to mean a lot of different things. After all, didn't Stalin establish "people's democracies" in Eastern Europe? Didn't these states promote "economic development" and human rights like socialized medical care and universal education. The problem is that these guys have a different definition of "human rights, democracy, and economic development" than I do. I don't expect Brad to accept my definition of these terms (since after all he is a neoclassical economist). But it's important to acknowledge the fact that these fuzzwords mean something different to the powers that be than they do to the people on the street. Take Truman (please!) What were his definitions of "human rights, democracy, and economic development"? I don't know what he wrote on this subject. But a basic principle of life is that Actions speak louder than words. Even politicians tell us "don't look at what we say, look at what we do." So what were Truman's views of these principles _in practice_? Given the fact that he rose from local machine politics to the White House as part of FDR's efforts to distance himself from Henry Wallace and the more radical wing of the New Deal movement, I wouldn't be surprised if his definition of democracy involved the crabbed and partial democracy of the US, where the passive voters choose between pre-selected representatives of political-economic elites and freedom of the press belongs to those who own a press, where the whole process is biased in favor of big bucks. Though the phrase had not joined the fuzzword pantheon, his definition of "human rights" in practice involved the nuking or fire-bombing of civilian targets in Japan. It also involved the _initiation_ of the Truman-McCarthy era, by imposing loyalty checks on government employees. (Little did he know that the junior Senator from Wisconsin would pick up this ball and run with it, using it against Truman! Those who live by the sword, die by the sword.) And his definition of economic development was clearly that of the development of capitalism. that's enough for today. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://clawww.lmu.edu/Faculty/JDevine/jdevine.html
