At 05:19 PM 5/11/01 +0000, you wrote:
>Jim, I agree that it doesn't make sense to focus organizing activity on
>the crimes of governments we can't much affect--although AMnesty Intnatl
>shows that in individual cases, btw, you can make more difference than you
>would think. But that doesn't mean that critical facilities show go into
>cold storage just because the crimes are committed by foreign governments
>over which we have little influence.
No -- I wasn't arguing that anyone should put their critical faculties into
cold storage (and I never will). Instead, I was talking about what's
appropriate to pen-l. Amnesty International is a different venue.
>The problem isn't "moralism," pointless invocation of morality where ir
>doesn't matter or is inappropriate, but that inthe case you mentioned,
>your colleague disagreed with you about who to condemn or how much, and
>instead of being honest about it retreated behind the proceduralist
>barrier that you leftists use a double standard,
No. Actually, he was saying that holding the US and Serbia to the same
standard is wrong, since just because the US does it doesn't mean that
Serbia should get away with it (two wrongs don't make a right). Double
standards never came up.
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
