let’s suspend it for a moment. OK. I, I’m distinguishing that kind of disinterestedness between the kind of, w- with… But that’s not a kind of disinterestedness, you see, that’s, that’s some-, that’s something that includes, as a special case that includes every case of military aggression and colonial militarism in history. It’s all disinterested in your sense. Well, al- alright, let me simply rest my case by saying that there is an observable distinction by intelligent men between a country, uh, that reaches out and interferes with the affairs of another country uh, because it has reason to believe that a failure to do so will result in universal misery, and that country which reaches out and interferes with another country because it wants to establish Coca-Cola plants there, and Chase National Banks, and, and whatever, and exploit it. Now, that is an observable
Uh, it’s a conceptual…
distinction.
Now, let’s distinguish between a conceptual distinction and a factual distinction.
OK. I’m prepared to do that.
Yeh. [cough]
Alright, it is a conceptual distinction, but in actual fact, the history of colonialism shows that these two motivations can concur, uh—coincide. That it’s practically every… Um, um, there are exceptions,
American Terror libretto © Jeffrey Lependorf 2008
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