Speaking of major contemporary stains, today's New York Sunday Times in both
the Book Review feature pieces on the USA use of torture on Arabs and
Muslims (a review of Abu Graib (sp?) books) and Frank Rich in Arts & Leisure
(an article on the TV networks refusal to deal with the Granier/Torture at
Abu G trial. 
Read SH's essay in last week's New York on Rumsfeld and the Pentagon's new
little secret armies and intelligence services that do not have to respond
to Congress and VERY scare pictures begin to emerge.

If everyone amongst us here in the USA - let alone around the globe -
properly righteous about the holocaust were/are equally righteous about
attacking and transforming what's going on under the aegis of Bush & Co. -
particularly towards Arabs and those of Muslim faith - I would be more
hopeful, rather than depressed about what is now mostly concealed and
operating junta-like and beyond any kind of democratic consent.

And the way to make art - including artists and writers - operative as a
transforming critique in the middle of this strikes me as more relevant than
ever.  I am sure, for example, most of us do want our music to be their
music - in fact 'our' music should be now as a rope raised six tripping
inches off the floor as their boots approach as in 'Welcome to the Symphony,
Mr. Rumsfeld,' 

UGGH

Stephen Vincent
Blog: http://stephenvincent.durationpress.com




> On 24/1/05 6:35 AM, "Mark Weiss" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
>> Everyone who didn't leave or go into self-imposed retirement carries a
>> stain, those who toadied more so. But what does that leave us? There were a
>> lot of Germans--do we dismiss them from consciousness? To what extent does
>> Furtwangler get a pass for resisting the murder of his Jewish musicians,
>> but of no one else? To what extent do we condemn those without the means or
>> courage to leave and with no other way to feed themselves and their
>> children than to conform publicly?
> 
> Very difficult questions, Mark, because they are real questions.  Last night
> I read Orwell's defence of PG Wodehouse, who made some broadcasts for the
> Nazis.  (Also his very interesting and somewhat prescient essay on
> anti-Semitism in Britain, and his speculations on its connections to
> nationalism - made me think I ought to go back and read Kristeva again, whom
> he was, in some ways, anticipating).  He asks why Wodehouse, who from what
> he says was completely naïve politically and whose crime was no worse than
> gross stupidity, was so roundly condemned, when people in high places who
> were all for Hitler _before_ the war, who never said a peep about the camps
> and were very happy to intern Jews as suspicious aliens who were fleeing the
> Nazis &c, got off scot free.  He puts his finger squarely on a bad
> conscience which has not, I think, yet been fully exposed.  In a way, it's
> become trickier, since anti-Semitism has become a trait that everyone agrees
> is a shocking thing, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.  A bit like men
> who think not pinching women on the bum means they're not sexist.
> 
> Best
> 
> A
> 
> 
> 
> Alison Croggon
> 
> Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
> Editor, Masthead:  http://masthead.net.au
> Home page: http://alisoncroggon.com