Some while back, Geoff Carver, in a polemic against pomoism,
mentioned Baudrillard's assertion that the Iraq war never really happened.

What are we to make of that ? Is Baudrillard crazy or serious or what ?
I don't know what he meant or why he said that, but perhaps it was a
didactic device which points us toward a deeper insight into our 
contemporary postmodern 'reality ' ?
I recall that S. Hussein declared Iraq the victor, after that war.
And now I hear a report of an interview with the wife of Milosevic,
where (and pardon me if this is not an exact transcription ) she 
states that there is NO killing by Serb paramilitaries and soldiers
happening in Kosovo, and the only reason that hundreds of thousands 
Kosovars are fleeing that territory, is fear of Nato bombing.
Is Mrs. Milosovic a pomoist ?

This, IMO, exemplifies the nature of our contemporary world.
People try to tell us what the 'reality' is. A battle of competing 'realities',
a war to win over your heart and mind, and mine, to sympathize with
and support one or another quest for power. All is propaganda.
Explained rather well IMO here:
http://www.adbusters.org/main/index.html

'The past' is just ammunition, just one more tool to be used / abused
in this warfare.

Not long ago I witnessed a young Welsh (nationalist ?) archaeologist
explaining to a group of schoolchildren that Stonehenge had been
built by the Welsh, and that it was really a Celtic monument 'stolen' by
the English. Thus is the 'past' constructed, or reconstructed, to suit a
political agenda.

The scientists among us will lay claim to a 'truth' that is apolitical, based on
empirical evidence....but is it possible to remain aloof, above the fray ?
Science too is riven with power struggles and ideological prejudices
isn't it ? 

Geoff posted some stuff from those unsavoury folk who 'believe in'
the Lost Tribes of Israel. Of course, none of us, - discriminating educated 
people that we are - accept any of that tosh. But...
NEW YORK (May 10, 1999 10:12 a.m. EDT http://www.nandotimes.com) - Genetic
tests on the Lemba people of southern Africa show convincing evidence the
Bantu-speaking tribe may be of Jewish ancestry, a newspaper reported Sunday.
A team of geneticists have discovered that Lemba men carry a DNA sequence
that is distinctive to the cohanim, a hereditary set of Jewish priests, the
New York Times reported.

A Lost Tribe of Israelites in south Africa ? Who'd have thought it likely

If science has demonstrated anything over the last couple of centuries, it
is that 'truth' and 'certainty' are moveable feasts. Science has a very impressive
array of smoke and mirrors, and the wonderful notion that propositions require
evidence, which is perhaps the only solid thing that we can grasp onto amidst
the storm of propaganda. But is science anything more than a complex of
explanatory principles ? And if it isn't, why should anyone prefer it, over some
alternative, if less rational, more fantastic, set of explanatory principles ? 

The anthropologist Gregory Bateson commented, in a "Metalogue" :

          Daughter: Daddy, what is an instinct?
          Father: An instinct, my dear, is a explanatory principle.
          D: But what does it explain?
          F: Anything — almost anything at all. Anything you want it
          to explain.
          D: Don't be silly. It doesn't explain gravity.
          F: No. But that is because nobody wants "instinct" to
          explain gravity. If they did, it would explain it. We
          could simply say that the moon has an instinct whose
          strength varies inversely as the square of the distance…
          D: But that's nonsense, Daddy.
          F: Yes, surely. But it was you who mentioned "instinct," not I.
          D: All right - but then what does explain gravity?
          F: Nothing, my dear, because gravity is an explanatory
          principle.
          D: Oh... 

Personally, I find the theory that Giants built Stonehenge is far more
satisfying to my silly childish nature than that it were done by Druids, or Celts,
or Welshmen or any kind of people at all.
We NEED fairies and giants and ghosts, because we are peculiar romantic
biological beasties with poetic imaginations and an appetite for myths.
And yet, simultaneously, we want 'truth', truth that is so hard to find, amidst
the cacophany of disparate voices.... 

Chris.
http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~chrislees/tao.index.html



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