Louis Proyect wrote: >Doug Henwood: >>How can you stop this process? From your own example, Michael, its >>"victims" embrace it with enthusiasm. From what democratic point of view >>can you hinder it? "Civilization" has committed many crimes against >>indigenous peoples, but I don't see how you can number Coca-Cola and movies >>among them. > >Why do you put "victims" in quotes, Doug? Nobody is demanding that the >people like the Yanomami not drink Coca-Cola or use shotguns. The demand >centers around land-claims. Multinational corporations are attempting to >evict them so that they can drill for oil, extract gold, or chop down trees >to turn into pulp. If traders went into the Amazon and opened up >convenience stores, there wouldn't be such a hue-and-cry from Greenpeace, >Survival International, etc. People wouldn't set up tables in downtown >Berkeley to ban the sale of soft-drinks or porn videos in the rainforest. >I have no idea why there is so much confusion about these issues. It is not >a question of preserving the "noble savage." It is instead a question of >defending people against murder. That distinction is exactly why I put victim in quotes - trying to draw a distinction between Coca-Cola and murder. I'm 1,000% against stealing land and killing indigenes; it's one of the reasons (slavery being the other) I say that the U.S. is a country founded on great crimes. But there's a strand of left thinking that thinks that people should be shielded from the "corruptions" of consumer society, and I have a big problem with that. Doug
