hey --

just read a great, great article by david talbot in salon.com... i'd
highly recommend it. it's called 'the making of a hawk,' and it
charts his own journey from war protester (protesting vietnam, which
he is still proud of) to war backer (backing the current effort,
which he'd have never predicted 30 years ago but is now proud of as
well); all in the service of reviewing a couple of new books out on
the market.

<http://salon.com/books/feature/2002/01/03/hawk/print.html>


something that i noticed throughout is how inaccurate our left-right,
dem-rep, lib-con spectrum is in discussing attitudes toward war (not
to mention anything else: who remembers that it was democratic
southern governors who so opposed the civil rights movement of the
60s, while the republican eisenhower forced them to comply?). we so
commonly associate being pro-war with republicans and anti-war with
democrats, but that's not really how it happened -- there were hawks
and doves on both sides, each with its own characteristics.... and
keep in mind that it was a democrat (jfk) who sent those troops over
to vietnam and a democrat (lbj) who so escalated the war.

one of the books points out the irony of the D-R split: often,
liberals want to pare down the armed forces to as small as possible,
and then send them everywhere to mend the world's wrongs; whereas
conservatives want to build up the armed forces to as large as
possible, and not do anything with them at all.


something that caught my interest: he discusses the different
approaches americans have had to war and intervention in terms of
four groups, named for presidents who embodied them: the wilsonians,
the hamiltonians, the jeffersonians, and the jacksonians.

wilsonians: interventionist in the largest sense -- international
tribunals, democratic evangelism, a league of nations, all that

hamiltonians: interventionist, but in the economic sense and for
economic reasons -- the current set are the 'global economy' folks

jeffersonians: radically anti-interventionist -- power wielded is
power abused -- these are the ones who most eloquently speak out
against the current wartime assault on civil rights, and who most
eloquently opposed vietnam

jacksonians: the common-man anti-interventionists -- no meddling with
other nations' affairs, but when we're attacked we come out with guns
blazing -- george w started off very jacksonian, but around sept 18
started convulsing toward the wilsonian side.


sooooo...... where do *you* hang your hat, amigos?


(and read the article -- it's worth it.)

barry