[FRA:] Marcuse question

[James Rovira]

Fred:

I think you're a little confused about the meaning of terms.  A "republic"
is simply a "representative democracy" -- rather than having every citizen
vote on every issue, citizens elect representatives to do so in their
place.  Ideally, anyway.  Democrats and Republicans in the US both support
"republicanism" in this sense of the word.

You seem to blame the 9/11 attacks on Republican foreign policy of "pressure
and coercion," but the policies you describe weren't in place until after
9/11, and the planning of 9/11 extended far into Clinton's administration --
in fact, don't forget that the World Trade Center was also attacked under
Clinton's admin (vans filled with fertilizer were detonated in the basements
of the towers, 1993, I think).  Saying the neo-cons are responsible for 9/11
is like saying they are responsible for Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Pearl  Harbor,
WW I, the American Civil War, the Boer war, Russian Tsarism, etc.

Heck, why not?  We all could use a good scapegoat.

The neo-con agenda is worthy of plenty of criticism but I think we need to
avoid hysterical thinking, and we need to avoid seeing the Democratic party
as the great white-robed Luke Skywalker out to save us from the evil
Republican  Darth Vader party, all dressed in black.  Both are indebted to
corporations and lawyers and that is where their loyalties lie.  They may
put different spins on their decisions, but they're working out the same
premises: the autonomous individual is the fundamental basis of this
political system.  What they want they get, esp. if they show up to vote.

Jim R.