Dear Alison, I do talk to my neighbours, a lot, and they've no idea
what really happened either. Y'know, on five occasions in my life I
have had direct knowledge of something that got reported in the press,
and on each time what was reported as fact was false.
Best
Dave
2009/1/4 Alison Croggon <[log in to unmask]>:
> David: If you wanted to know about the murder in your street, you
> could begin by talking to your neighbours. And maybe through all the
> different accounts, you could begin to discern what happened. Things
> are never absolute, except in the fantasies of hardline ideologues.
> But you might find it interesting to read some Agamben. I think his
> legal/philosophical maps of our current democratic police states are
> deeply interesting and pertinent.
>
> There isn't an "answer". Who's pretending there is? But there is a
> very serious question about the issue of collective punishment, which
> is outlawed in international law. That punishment includes, as well as
> the bombings and current invasion, the daily serial harassment and
> economic subjugation of Palestine, and the blockade of Gaza, put in
> place in retaliation for the free election of Hamas (whom I keep
> reading "seized power" in Gaza, as if their winning an election was
> somehow illegitimate).
>
> And perhaps one should also take into account that, whatever one feels
> about Hamas, its leadership is probably the most highly educated of
> any political party in the world, (nine of the 15-member Shura council
> have PhDs in the sciences, many of them gained in western
> universities). It makes for a more interesting picture, no? Of course
> there are extremists and fundamentalists, no doubt more after this.
> The horrible thing is that the continual creation of extremism seems
> to be point of Israel's policy. And very successful too, no doubt.
>
> But blah. I don't want to climb onto a soapbox. It's enough to
> remember Primo Levi's famous statement that, for evil to win, it is
> enough for good men to do nothing. Tempered with Zizek's (I think)
> necessary scepticism about contemporary activism, which I fear I
> rather agree with too.
>
> Of course things are complex. I have long thought that the real
> contemporary conflict is between those who claim things are simple
> (Good V Evil, East V West) and those who keep arguing that they are
> actually very complicated, with many different truths. All the same,
> if those things bother you, it's at least worth trying to find out
> what you can about them. And there is a point where all those
> recursive mirrors of doubt are just cowardly bullshit.
>
> xA
>
> On Sun, Jan 4, 2009 at 1:54 PM, David Bircumshaw
> <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> Ok Stephen, the problem is that although the State of Israel is
>> supported by US crooks Hamas too is run by crooks, one bunch of
>> wife-beaters against each other, I simply don't have an answer to it
>> all.
>>
>> 2009/1/4 Stephen Vincent <[log in to unmask]>:
>>> David, given the gift of David Lloyd's piece - instead of ignoring it as 'information overload' - it think it informed, well thought out, and worth responding to, controversial et al.
>>>
>>> Stephen V
>>> http://stephenvincent.net/blog/
>>> --- On Sat, 1/3/09, David Bircumshaw <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>> From: David Bircumshaw <[log in to unmask]>
>>> Subject: Re: World Affairs, and the Moral High Ground
>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>> Date: Saturday, January 3, 2009, 6:34 PM
>>>
>>> Alison
>>>
>>> any murder is very individual, as it only happens to the one person it
>>> occurs to. When I say I don't know what is going on in Palestine, it
>>> doesn't mean I haven't read Said, or I don't listen or read or
>>> watch
>>> the news, it means I don't think those maps of reality I receive are
>>> adequate.
>>>
>>> As far as I can tell the situation is that a very well-supported state
>>> is being attacked by gangsters posing as religious nationalists,
>>> neither party is creditable but innocent people are being killed on
>>> both sides, it's awful, I don't have an answer to it all, and
>>> particularly I don't want to pretend I do.
>>>
>>> the point of my post was that even in this little corner of the
>>> universe that I inhabit, I don't know what the fucks going on, we live
>>> an age of information overload, where the more we know means the less.
>>>
>>>
>>> Best
>>>
>>> Dave
>>>
>>> 2009/1/4 Alison Croggon <[log in to unmask]>:
>>>> There's a big difference between an individual crime, which is being
>>>> investigated and is tagged as "wrong" by the State, and a crime
>>> that
>>>> is committed by a State. Particularly, and this is crucial, a state
>>>> that calls itself a democracy.
>>>>
>>>> If you don't know much about the situation in Palestine, Dave,
>>> it's
>>>> easy enough to find out. You could start with reading some Said, who
>>>> was one of the wiser commentators on the situation. And an acute
>>>> literary critic as well, so you could feel all literary as well.
>>>>
>>>> I'm not a protest kind of gal. I've been to precisely one in my
>>> life -
>>>> the protests before the US invaded Baghdad. I knew when I went that
>>>> the protests wouldn't stop the invasion, which had been planned for
>>>> literally years (although I suspect it blunted the edge of the Shock
>>>> and Awe campaign - not that that helped later). I went because I
>>>> didn't want to be complicit with what I believed was a criminal
>>>> disaster with horrific implications for international law, that my
>>>> country was participating in, allegedly on "my" behalf.
>>> Everything I
>>>> feared came about, but only because it was so predictable.
>>>>
>>>> I'm going this afternoon, not because I think it will stop anything
>>>> that's going on as the tanks roll into Gaza, but because the barefaced
>>>> lies that are being printed about Gaza make me angry, and because my
>>>> politicians are shoving out the usual mealy-mouthed evasions.
>>>>
>>>> And yes, I think of Darfur and Somalia and the Congo and other
>>>> unfashionable conflicts, where atrocities take place every day without
>>>> rippling the surface. Or the more endemic economic crimes that enslave
>>>> people in "offshore" factories - like Amatil in Fiji, where
>>> they've
>>>> been shooting trade union leaders. Yes, injustice is everywhere. Yes,
>>>> I am a writer and not an activist. Etc. We all live with these
>>>> dilemmas. But I feel that while saying no might make very little
>>>> difference, not saying no is worse.
>>>>
>>>> It's not about high moral ground. It's about the kind of world you
>>>> want to live in.
>>>>
>>>> xA
>>>>
>>>> On Sun, Jan 4, 2009 at 11:51 AM, David Bircumshaw
>>>> <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>>> Early on the other day, about 30 yards from where I live, a guy was
>>>>> stabbed to death:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>> http://www.thisisleicestershire.co.uk/news/Woman-arrested-murder-probe/article-583469-detail/article.html
>>>>>
>>>>> will give you news details. Apparently his suspected murderer was a
>>>>> woman. I didn't know who he was, or who is believed to have killed
>>>>> him, all I knew was that on the morning police tape was around the
>>>>> streets and the very road I live on was blocked off by police cars and
>>>>> there was a forensic tent set up. Tonight, complete strangers have
>>>>> been straggling around mutually sobbing about the site of the death,
>>>>> presumably they were friends of the deceased.
>>>>>
>>>>> But I know nothing, or next to nothing, about it, even though it
>>>>> happened almost on my doorstep. Likewise, I know next to nothing about
>>>>> what is going on in Gaza and Israel, I can see no point in
>>>>> pontificating. If I, or anyone, could think of something to help end
>>>>> that tragedy that would be great, but, to go back, the other night, a
>>>>> bloke was murdered, a few yards from my home, I was watching a
>>>>> schmaltzy film on tv, and didn't know, not that I would have been
>>>>> capable of doing anything much if I did, other than calling the
>>>>> emergency services.
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> David Bircumshaw
>>>>> Website and A Chide's Alphabet
>>> http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/
>>>>> The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
>>>>> Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.co.uk
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Editor, Masthead: http://www.masthead.net.au
>>>> Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
>>>> Home page: http://www.alisoncroggon.com
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> David Bircumshaw
>>> Website and A Chide's Alphabet
>>> http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/
>>> The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
>>> Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.co.uk
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> David Bircumshaw
>> Website and A Chide's Alphabet http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/
>> The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
>> Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.co.uk
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Editor, Masthead: http://www.masthead.net.au
> Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
> Home page: http://www.alisoncroggon.com
>
--
David Bircumshaw
Website and A Chide's Alphabet http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/
The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.co.uk
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