News How Many Iraqi Civilians Have Died Since the 2003 U.S. Invasion?

[El Hombre Invisible]

Since they are exact synonyms in some contexts, saying that "understanding" is unacceptable is the same as saying "sympathy" is unacceptable if the context is the same. For clarity, here's me saying that both are unacceptable.

Which gets me back to criminal profilers. Man, this could go round and round forever.

 

[alexandra]

She sympathizes with the people who were invaded not terrorism.

Yes, TSM - THANK YOU! And thanks to everyone else who correctly interpreted what I was trying to say. I thought I was being clear, but obviously I wasn't being clear enough.

 

[alexandra]

I'm a little unclear on what you mean by "sectarian violence", but you were quite clear in other threads in saying that you do support violent revolution because that's what a "Marxist revolution" is. Further, you acknowledged that you understand that people will not willfully give up their material possessions and as a result it will need to be taken from them by force. You can't have it both ways. I assume you mean me - I don't hate you. I honestly don't understand how you can hold some of your opinions, but heck - I don't even dislike you: You're relatively polite for someone with such an unpopular point of view.

So we are still talking about this?

Ok, a here's a brief lesson in politics: 'sectarian violence' basically means terrorism - individuals or small groups organising and doing violent acts aimed at random targets to achieve some 'greater' end. Revolutionary change (qualitative change as opposed to quantitative change), as in the change from feudalism to capitalism, involves mass action by the majority of the population who can no longer live under the prevailing conditions.

The only revolutionary social change we know about (the French Revolution or, as Marxists call it, the bourgeois revolution) involved violence too (or do people deny this?) - but a very different sort of violence. The ruling class of the time (the aristocracy) was not about to give up its power willingly. So the ordinary people, led by the newly-emergent bourgeoisie (or capitalist class), defeated the powerholders of feudal society and feudal society itself by mass-based action. The masses of ordinary French people were no longer going to put up with the extreme poverty they were doomed to living in in that system while the aristocracy lived it up - they collectively and openly overthrew the aristocracy, and the present ruling class was born (today's capitalist class). This is political action of a very different sort (and of a very different scale) to that of little secret groups of people doing random acts of violence.

If the vast majority of the people demand rights and freedoms that they are not being given by the powerful, perhaps they will be able to persuade those in power to hand over their power peacefully, or perhaps they won't. In any case, if it is the vast majority of the people acting in concert in their own interests, they will not be targetting each other in senseless acts of violence, so whatever political action they are taking would not be classified as 'terrorist'.

 

[alexandra]

...I don't hate you. I honestly don't understand how you can hold some of your opinions, but heck - I don't even dislike you: You're relatively polite for someone with such an unpopular point of view.

Good to know that you don't hate me - but I'm only relatively polite? I'm disappointed in myself: I'll try harder to be more polite while at the same time not compromising my beliefs

 

[alexandra]

Ok all, Russ PM'd me to get further clarification about my position and here's part of my response to his questions. Maybe it's time to get back to the OP's topic after this.

Response to Russ' PM:

Regarding acts of terrorism: analytically, I can stand back and see that someone who is misguided and is unable to properly analyse the situation, someone who has been brainwashed by some religion (any religion), etc - can erroneously think that acts of violence are the only resort. I am, after all, a trained academic: I have been trained to dispassionately analyse situations and, my field being the Social Sciences, to analyse motivations when it comes to human actions. So I can analyse this situation and 'understand' it in that way; this does not mean that I sympathise with it, or would ever excuse or condone or ever even contemplate participating in such behaviour. When it comes down to it, I believe myself to be a civilised, evolved person - a person of ideas. Violent acts are alien to who I am. I can't really see that ever changing, somehow.

So perhaps this is a bit of a truce? Anyway, if I haven't responded adequately to your questions, please point it out to me so I can try again.

alex