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Originally Posted by Toilet & Bowels
you think people abide the wars as a trade off for their creature comforts or they actually (secretly?) support them so they can have whatever? i don't disagree but i'm just wondering exactly what you mean
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Well, I think it's generally quite complex - we're mostly aware that as a state we're involved in wars or military activity in Iraq and Afghanistan, but I'm not so sure how far the awareness is of our military operations in, say, DRC. Which is to say nothing of our continued military presence as part of the Good Friday agreement. So how far consciousness of our complicity in war or military action, as a populace, goes I've no idea.
So I think 'secret' support for wars is a bit of a mis-nomer - I think complicity is a better (though more complex) way of looking at it. And that introduces things like our involvement in, say, price-setting for rice in impoverished Bangladeshi communities as an economic force.
In turn, I think one of the biggest problems facing the radical left now is how to reconcile all this information into a coherent position; we can only really chose parts of it to get angry about. I wouldn't equivocate PETA with Amnesty or the Fair Trade movement, but they're all part of a moderation of the excesses of vulgar capitalism. But hand-wringing 'we're all doing our bit' isn't really an answer either. We're all fucked, and we all use aspects of political economy (in a broadly non-financial sense) as trade for our psychological well-being. My only real answer is to just feel guilty about everything, but then I am a Catholic, after all.