[lit-ideas] Re: Mirembe and the need for Blackwater
- From: "Lawrence Helm"<lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2007 21:12:58 +0000
I was slandering Mike not Mirembe. It was Mike who without reference or
evidence frothed malignantly against Blackwater and all Security agencies in
Iraq. And did not one of the first notes someone posted refer to an unnamed
embassy state department representative saying that Blackwater behaved
properly? I looked through my notes for it but perhaps someone else posted it.
Subsequently the only spokesperson seemed to be Mirembe so if that early note
(and if I remember it correctly) defended Blackwater then Mirembe "may" have
been that person. I know that in recent notes she is described as not
commenting on this issue but someone, early on, did comment.
I'm amazed that you can remember every note Mirembe posted. I can't even
remember every note I posted.
And, sorry, but the predominant political position of those who post on
politics -- here on Lit Ideas (and also on Theoria by the way) is Leftist.
Thus, the "typical" Lit-idear is Leftist -- that is, the typical one posting.
For all I know there could be 2000 conservatives who don't post . . . nahhhh.
Lawrence
------------Original Message------------
From: Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Wed, Sep-19-2007 1:25 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Mirembe and the need for Blackwater
> By the way, is the US embassy spokeswoman, Miremebe Nantonga
> referred to in the AFP article, the same Mirembe who used to be on
> Lit Ideas and Phil-Lit and with whom I argued on more than one
> occasion?
Yes, she is the same person. Whether you 'argued' with her more than once
I cannot say. It's surely possible that you and she disagreed over something
a couple of times.
> I can't recall what we argued about but could it have
> been politics or the military?
No. Mirembe has never on these lists discussed politics in the sense
of taking sides, criticizing US policy, or attacking the sort of
ideology you exemplify. She has never here discussed US policy from
any political stance, and one could not have inferred from her posts
where her political sympathies lay. That should be enough to answer
what you say next:
> Could [she] have been a typical Lit-Ideas/Phil-Lit member, i.e., a
> Leftist? so, what is she doing in the hated State Department, and
> Mike, what is she doing defending Blackwater? Did she succumb to
> filthy lucre? Or is she operating out of principle?
It's depressing to see you still assigning people ('the typical
Lit-Ideas member, e.g.) to categories, the features of which have been
pre-judged. I grant that this saves one the trouble of thinking: 'Oh,
Smith is a member of lit-ideas, so he obviously believes in arming the
jihadists, levitating the Pentagon, and promoting bimetallism.' One
needn't pay any attention to what was actually said, once one knows
who said it. 'The hated State Department'? Who among us has expressed
hatred toward the State Department--the entire State Department?
(Well, it certainly wasn't Mirembe, who throughout her membership on
Phil_lit and its various reincarnations has worked for the State
Department.)
Mirembe, acting as a spokeswoman for the US Embassy in Baghdad, has
not, in any of her remarks quoted in various newspapers, 'defended'
Blackwater. Nor has she criticized it.
You move, through a series of rhetorical questions, to a conclusion
about someone's political and professional views; but the conclusion
you seem to be trying to reach would only be supported if one accepted
your own implicit answers to your own questions. Since your answers
are false, the most you have done is to slander by innuendo, a person
who was for years an ornament among the contributors to these lists.
Robert Paul
Reed College
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