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POETRYETC  2003

POETRYETC 2003

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Subject:

Re: Perhaps An Imago Approach to Peace?

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:

Thu, 27 Mar 2003 15:06:25 -0000

Content-Type:

text/plain

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----- Original Message -----
From: "Frederick Pollack" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 27 March 2003 13:32
Subject: Re: Perhaps An Imago Approach to Peace?


| Is there any evil to which you WOULD apply the term?
| >
 & "rightful destruction" is dangerous. possibly insane

We used to have public executions. *That was rightful. Women who got
pregnant outside marriage were locked up. That was rightful.

Not that long ago, maiming punishments, "secret police" etc were quite
common in this country. and it was rightful.

rightful actions in Vietnam ruined lives, have ruined lives in Iraq through
the 90s, helped Hussein ruin Iranian lives before that.

who decides?

if I could be *sure of the analysis, I'd be prepared to destroy some people
for the common good. (I think. I could probably get up the courage to raise
my hand for someone else to do it anyway.) I made that clear yesterday -
Ceaucescu was fine, for example - tho it still worries me. You can have
Blair, too, if you want to destroy something. Far as I'm concerned. I'll
probably worry after, but I'll give it a go now.

I'm not sure what evil is.

I find it difficult to be summarily dismissive of people because all the
insult words are sexist. Not having any religion, I am stumped for a
replacement for "evil"

You will never win me over by just saying something is evil, any more than I
take you seriously if you analyse someone's character by saying, eg, "Of
course he's a Leo"

I dare say that there are places in the world where farting is considered an
evil. And that's the point. Who decides what is evil? You?

I find myself reaching for the word "evil" when, for instance, I hear of
cluster bombs being dropped by people who seem clear-headed and are at
liberty.

And when I hear people supporting others who do it

Not believing that the end justifies the means - a belief which it seems to
me is counter to the Abrahamic tradition except by the hand of God alone - I
cannot take comfort when an "evil" man is killed; I have to know that the
killing is done in the context of a coherent ethic

& in the case of Iraq, all I find are contradictions

I think you misunderstood my point about "net gain of freedom" but it wasnt
important.

| The desire of the capitalist class for
| profits is what moves the world.

but Love moves the sun and other stars.

| If that cost gets too
| high this war, like Vietnam, may be scaled back.

I feel a strong need for a replacement for the word evil

| Those atrocities, of themselves, never
| filled and never would have filled the streets of the world with
| protesters;

I know. We have a long running strike by firemen over here which has not
brought out many. So, though when I marched to Hyde Park the other day I
felt my spirits rise, I did not long retain my belief that things are
changing. Not that long ago large crowds made much the same journey to
Tyburn to see petty criminals hanged

 they are being brought to an end by agents of international
| capital.

No, some are being brought to an end by agents of international capital and
others are being started by those same agents - it's getting worse not
better

 Politics means effecting your own
| goals with the help of people you may despise and whose goals you may
| oppose.

Not in my dictionary

| Eventually I learned not to mistake sentiment for action.

But your belief in the by-products of capitalism is a kind of sentiment

| For "USA" you could substitute "the antiwar movement," or, more
| generously, "the contemporary left" - those unlikely and unstable
| coalitions of signs in all those marches.

category error

USA is not a coalition.

contemporary left is pretty meaningless but "the anti-war movement" is
tangible. I'm in it. I opted in. I decided. We don't choose the USA - ask em
in Bagdad and they'll tell you

| Well, it might take a while to explain, but you, and you collectively
| (many of you), have "said anything like that." You might try reading
| your own and other contributions as a kind of poetry - with an ear to
| their assumptions, and to the church-service like rhythm, the
| call-and-response of righteousness, between one and the next.

"the church-service like rhythm" is interesting, tho all that remains an
assertion you have not demonstrated

but the prose gloss remains a gross distortion

Me, I'm just watching you (many of you) raging about Saddam as before it
was Bin Laden as before it was USSR - they sell it to you along with the
cornflakes

and very soon the strings will be retied to jerk a denunciation of someone
else selected for the market they block to agents of international capital

L

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