One is reminded, Stephen, of George Steiner's comments on how much of
the German language was destroyed by the Final Solution & its
advocacy. There is, indeed, a problem with the grammar of 'peace' &
'war' as practiced today by so many.
And what to do? I dont really know. Try to understand the
reality(ies), & not let the broken grammar make the sense it pretends
to...?
Doug
On 19-Jan-09, at 7:10 PM, Stephen Vincent wrote:
> I am sorry - not really - but my mind is polluted with horrifying
> pictures and stories Gaza. If this - what we now can so easily see
> in the mass media - is not close to genocidal ('genocide prep' or
> 'preface' maybe) what is it?? Is it related to language? Is it
> related to the breakdown of any conceivable grammar that could
> 'hyphenate' the two subjects, Gaza & Israel? When you don't like
> another group's sentences, does that give you permisson to contain,
> starve and then destroy them, institutions, persons et al? And
> somehow propose that these atrocities will also destroy the language
> and acts against this occupation. Indeed, it takes real bad acts of
> grammar to come up with such 'wishful' thinking.
>
> The silence across this country (this and most other poetry lists
> for that matter) I find real disturbing, particularly in the case of
> the USA, where we are principal financiers and providers of
> 'diplomtic' support for the implementation of these horrors.
>
> A silence that is so ironic in proportion to the enormous sense of
> elation that has gathered in this country to celebrate not only our
> first black president, but liberation from 8 years from fraudulent
> and corrupt leadership that has brought nothing but a national
> experience of suffocation and loss on practically every imaginable
> level.
>
> I know 'outrage' is often considered 'too hot' and dismissed from
> the post-modern lexicon.
>
> But to express it here in a constructive way seems crucial. I
> suspect I am not alone in wanting ways to compel this new President
> - unlike Bush - to refuse to condone and support this barbarism in
> our name.
>
> I appreciate anybody else's thoughts on this.
>
> Stephen Vincent
Douglas Barbour
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http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
Latest books:
Continuations (with Sheila E Murphy)
http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=664
Wednesdays'
http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-from-aboveground-press_10.html
Oh, goddamnit, we forgot the silent prayer.
Dwight D, Eisenhower
[at a cabinet meeting]
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