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POETRYETC  2001

POETRYETC 2001

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Subject:

Re: Letter to a leftist friend

From:

Lawrence Upton <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

Poetryetc provides a venue for a dialogue relating to poetry and poetics <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Tue, 25 Sep 2001 11:18:36 +0100

Content-Type:

text/plain

Parts/Attachments:

Parts/Attachments

text/plain (116 lines)

Thanks for this, Alison. (I still don't know what a leftist is)

I am one of those who thinks the USA should do nothing. By that, I mean I
think it should not retaliate. That seems to me to be wisdom.

I would be content enough for any clear perpetrator left alive to be taken
to justice. I say taken to justice because there would be no clear justice
in most countries, including USA...

We need a proper international court system, a fact the USA has resisted.
That is to say, those in charge in USA, sometimes called leaders, resist it.
So now they are busily building their own international organisation out of
scraps and rubbish, on the basis of threats, a scaffold

I think not to retaliate would be wise; but the hope for wisdom is surely a
tremendous act of will, one which is failing me. Their folly - and in this I
include Blair at least - is so mundane, not just trying to square circles
but to produce a variety of custom-made shapes which change as their
perceptions of the world order change

These criminals who profess to believe in god are worshipping a false one.
They will not act with wisdom.

Re what you were responding to, Alison, when you need to piss, you piss; but
most people don't piss over each other. As for primary needs, I am not aware
of vengeance or justice *being primary needs. They're pretty abstract
concepts. Primary needs are food and clothing and somewhere to live. Those
primary needs have been denied many and as a result a few have felt the need
for justice and revenge. I doubt that those who carried out the attacks were
directly experiencing lack of food, clothing and housing. Revolutionaries
tend to be middle-class. The attacks were a middle-class crime as will be
the revenge.

I admire Alison's restraint. I missed the message to which she is
responding. I don't even know who wrote that paragraph about piss... but it
gives us, to my mind, the motto for the situation which led, without
suggesting that the perpetrators were not personally responsible as well, to
the attacks on USA:

"I'm willing to live with that, and for others to die for it" - put that on
t-shirts, eh? paint it on the bombs, say it as a prayer


L


----- Original Message -----
From: "Alison Croggon" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 25 September 2001 00:16
Subject: Re: Letter to a leftist friend


| I sense, however, that there is a need now - a real,
| >primary need like the need to piss. I share it with millions; to deny it
| >would poison us all. If you refuse to call it a need for justice, I'll
| >call it a need for vengeance. I'm willing to live with that, and for
| >others to die for it.
|
| I am not one of those who thinks that the US should do nothing. However,
| it seems to me rather crucial that if the US acts, it acts wisely.
|
| Putting thousands of Western troops into Pakistan, already inflamed with
| anti-US passions, under the "carrot and stick" philosophy being used to
| coerce various nations seems to me extremely dangerous, in the context of
| the Kashmir conflict and the radical Hinduism now in India (who is
| naturally disgruntled that an accident of geography means its policy of
| being a US friend is so rewarded, "help" with the Kashmiri conflict being
| part of the Pakistan deal). Between these two countries, the millions
| slaughtered during the nightmare of Partition has not been forgotten, even
| if it has by the rest of the world. It has rather the air of throwing a
| stick of dynamite into a rocket fuel factory. Put that with Sharon's
| transparent designs to evade dialogue with Palestine, and it's not looking
| good.
|
| If the US shows no understanding of the Middle East concerns about its
| policies there, and relies on its military strength and wealth to carry
the
| day instead, it is sowing further trouble for itself. It seems to me that
| the one possible good out of this could be a little introspection from the
| US about the real effects it has had on other parts of the world, under
the
| name of US interests. There are incidents which have never been dealt
with
| by the US - its navy shooting down a civilian Iranian airliner with the
| deaths of all on baord, for example, after which the commander of the ship
| concerned was promoted. Such an incident, and the US's response to it,
| shows that "innocent" in certain quarters is a very relative term. This
is
| where the rhetoric of "good" and "evil" is particularly useless. To
| Islamic Fundamentalists, America is Satan. If America holds up an
| ideological mirror, the only possible result is going to be ongoing
| bloodshed. The Oresteia is quite a good model for this kind of thinking.
|
| The need for revenge is what is fuelling terrorism. A primary need, you
| say, like the need to piss. What hits me more and more is how few voices
| of women are being heard: just phalanxes of men, Muslim, Christian or
| military. There are many other primary needs: the needs for example of
the
| millions of Afghanis who now have to get through winter with one bag of
| flour, the millions displaced into refugee camps all around the world.
|
| Best
|
| Alison
|
|
|
| Alison Croggon
|
| Home page
| http://users.bigpond.com/acroggon/
| Masthead
| http://au.geocities.com/masthead_2/
|

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