Hi too Lawrence

I'm afraid I'm going to be very digressive, anecdotal and even rambling in
my reply (what's new? some might ask) which I am sending to you b-c as well
as front, as with my last, as because of my 'naughty boy' status here I
never know when they are going to show up (the one you replied to hasn't of
yet, for instance) it depends when Randolph comes on line to approve what I
say.

Some years ago I used to be a keen member of the Rambler's Association,
believe it or not, and as a result I met quite a few members, current or
retired, of the SAS (they are very keen on hiking around the Wrekin or North
Wales). Uniformly they struck me as utter nutters, to be colloquial, it is
quite an experience to be drenched out of your skin in say North Derbyshire
while talking to a former colonel in the brigade who a) likes Keats and
Blake, b) considers fast effective killing something akin to shopping in
Sainsbury's and c) has the notion that a perfect night out is to be lying
under a bush in a deluge while pondering self-heating rations for breakfast.
Strange people!

I can emphasise with your remarks about the pubs in Helston: years ago I
used to go up to Ripon a lot, it then had a TA base locally (I don't know if
that still obtains) and on a Friday or Saturday night the place, which was
otherwise adorable, was somewhere to avoid. This brings me to a wider point:
the nihilism and violence which underpin all our societies. Being anecdotal
again, last year, when I visited Australia, one of the deepest pleasures was
the delightful Melbourne suburb of Williamstown, not least because it
contains Ms Croggon and her lovely family, but this beautiful place, that
sits on Hobson's Bay with the inlets of the Pacific charming the air, has
just a little stretch of, I dunno, about 3-to-4 hundred metres of a road
called Ferguson St (just around the corner from where Ally lives - hope you
don't mind all this detail Al) that on a Thursday or Friday or Saturday
night, when late, can turn into one of the scariest places I have ever seen,
when the young males are out and getting aggressive. I've lived and been in
a lot of rough places so I'm not naive in these matters. But this underlying
violence in our species, which is my real point, this desire to destroy for
the sake of it, frightens and bewilders me, because I think after a lifetime
of pondering I really have no idea of an answer. It's one thing to be
agnostic about an abstraction, like G-d, to find oneself in that position re
matters of actual, immediate and physical behaviour is another.

Best

Dave





David Bircumshaw

Leicester, England

Home Page

A Chide's Alphabet

Painting Without Numbers

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/index.htm
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lawrence Upton" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, March 26, 2003 12:34 PM
Subject: Re: disturbed about Basra


Hi David

| My reactions are going towards the haven of 'it's one hell of a mess' in
| some respects:

Well, yes. And it is a position which balances the insanity of universal can
do. There never is *an answer, which is how the "Well, what would you do?"
evasion enables some scoundrels to escape explaining and justifying their
murderous positions.

That I shall be happy if Hussein is deposed whilst opposing the war is a
sign, I agree it is complex and messy

I am *sure that North Korea will be next; and *that is when the lunatics
will use nukes. I mean "our" lunatics.

One of the attractions of NK is that they can be nuked without them being
able to drop nukes on USA. And that's about as far as the lunatics think for
all their war games and what ifs

We are already along a chain - Jugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq...

I too have had your dark thought. Someone or other remarked on radio that it
is a great pity the current "peace moves" in Ulster weren't tried 30 years
ago;and it occurred to me that they could have been, but they lost out after
cost-benefit analysis. Our boys skill in street fighting is being trumpeted
as a unique selling point

Others - GG? - here have spoken well of the troops. That brought me up,
especially when G Gatza was mentioned, a fine human being

I don't have such sympathies in general and feel no loyalty to people whose
profession includes killing. *Is it different with US forces? Don't see why
it should be. I avoid the military if I can. Those I have met appear to be
air heads. It's best not to be in the pubs in Helston when Culdrose gets
paid, I know that. But apart from a few experiences with that lot, all I
know is The Long and the Short and the Tall and Full Metal Jacket

I certainly don't have any faith that I could rely on our troops not to
shoot me if they were ordered to do so

With exceptions I am quite happy for all the volunteer "boys" to exterminate
themselves with friendly fire

So, negative capability all the way; I don't know a lot of what's going on,
but I do know Bush is not doing this for humanitarian reasons - for reasons
given

The Blair explanation that if we act now proliferation can be stopped is
stupid. For half a century terrible weapons have been developed y USUK et
al that have no purpose and now those who have lived by the sword are facing
swords coming the other way

If there a true realisation and acknowledgement of the situation, that might
save us; but the clear determination to, among other things, continue
sanctioning the racist violence of Israel signals that George Blair believes
they can still get away with it - No problem yet! they shout - convinced too
that if they get it wrong then that's only God's will


L