woop woop

My paper is going to look at the ambiguity of truth behind the connotations of terrorism as they are viewed from the frame of a "terrorist", and those being terrorized. Rather than doing it about the all to obvious and easy current events, my paper is going to look at the terrorism, in regard to the the symbilic discourse (exchange) of tactics between the two sides - in 1970's latin america. The interesting twist with this case is that in this case, the governments in latin america operated in much the same way that the US handles things right now- hiding torture camps, publically vilifying the terrorists- And also that the Carter and Reagan administrations provided these governments with money and troops. While I don't address these links with the U.S. in the paper, it is interesting knowledge for reading it. I'm using the 3 books we read for class - Ramage, Lakoff and Rutherford. I'm using the three of these as citable rationale for my own thoughts on the subject, taking a few excerpts from each. Each of the authors for this class affected me differently, and i came away with different things from each one - so that difference will be apparent in the context in which i use them, and to argue for or against the side i more closely associate the message i took away. In addition to the reading for this class, I'm using a book called "Death of Somoza" which is a memoir written by a terrorist cell who tracked down and assasinated (the author uses the phrase "erased him from the surface of the earth") their former dictator for the reason, as one of the assasins said, "to let him die peacefully and naturally would be a historical injustice." Also is the book "The Little School," was written by an argentinian concentration camp survivor. There is alot of symbolism in this book that i can correlate to other events. For example, in the concentration camps, the detainees were forced to wear white scarves as blindfolds, white scarves which, the mothers of the plaza del mayo proudly wear around their heads every thursday as they,still 30 years later, wear around their heads, holding vigil for their absent children. In these countries, the government simply kidnaps and eliminates all posible opposition, more than 30,000 in just agentina alone. The main reason i use these book is that they are written from the stand point of political activists, so they are inherently slighted- which i address in my paper. If for nothing else, they are interesting books that provide interesting perspectives on this topic. These are the only books i plan on using. The reason i rely more heavily on the two books not read for this class is because Ramage and the gang never actually DID anything. Its all well and good to analyze all the different problems in the world, especially from behind a computer. These books were written by people that were physically beaten, tortured and supressed by the government they criticize. Action over advocacy. Hell, Rtherford is Canadian!- he's criticizing a war that neither includes nor is concerned with where he lives. Thats not good enough. I appreciate that it allows him to have a more objective standpoint on the issue- and that can't be ignored--*--but isn't truth just as personal and subjective as the pain of the cattle prods and thumbscrews is to the hands that wrote those books?