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Wasn't Greene The Quiet [sic] American?
Unless I'm misremembering this, The Ugly American was a right-wing riposte-novel by someone whose name I've forgotten (and can't be bothered to google as it was a fairly crappy book).
The Burroughs links passes over my head ...
Robin
(fearing and loathing the 3rdEye)
On 20 October 2016 at 18:38 Mark Weiss <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Graham Greene. You of all folks should know that. Where's an emoticon when I need it? Susan Schultz defined Trump as "in the school of inadvertent Stein."
-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Green<[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Oct 20, 2016 1:26 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: World War III
Indeed, Las Vegas. Post-defeat ( or even post-victory) Donald might run for years as a stand up act at Cesar’s Palace or the Sands. Burroughs saw him coming, of course. ‘The Ugly American….'
On 20 Oct 2016, at 18:13, Jaime Robles <[log in to unmask]> wrote:My turn to go pedantic before going to work: Las Vegas, Paul. Or Lost Vegas, if you prefer.
Best wishes,Jaime
______________________________
QS: Let’s return to poetics.JR: When did we leave?
—From the conversation between Quinta Slef and Joan Retallack, The Poethical Wager
On Oct 20, 2016, at 10:05 AM, Paul Green <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
The embalming of the candidate was sponsored by the corporation as a Salvation strategy. His body was to be coated in platinum before death by golf clubs. His brains interred in a Los Vegas pyramid. Or Air Force One would crash under the weight of the gold toilets.
On 20 Oct 2016, at 17:29, Mark Weiss <[log in to unmask]> wrote:I think you exaggerate his importance, now and in the future, whatever one thinks of his run for the party nomination. A solid base in Vermont is about as meaningful as a solid base in, say, Cumbria. Tho he is a senator. That's where his influence will be. His most passionate supporters outside Vermont have decided that he betrayed them.
There was virtually no difference between his and Clinton's positions before the nomination struggle, and there's less now.
Our systems are very different. The real struggle is for mayoralties, governorships, and especially state representatives in Republican states, people whose names neither of us are likely to recognize. Those governors and state representatives decide who gets to vote and who they get to vote for.
As to the US Greens, it's a nice color.
Best,
Mark
-----Original Message-----
From: Robin Hamilton <[log in to unmask] class="">
Sent: Oct 20, 2016 12:12 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: World War III
Strawman argument, Mark. Of course he won't run again, for one thing he'd be too old next time around. But his run was consequential.
For starters, yes, he'll leverage his position to try to shift the Dems from within, all power to his sheleighleigh. But will this be all? We're talking about one really sharp cookie here, for all I can make out from this distance.
I really don't know, which is why I'm asking. Especially you and Pierre and Kent, as all three of you (and Jaime, of course, and apologies to anyone else I missed) know more than me here. You maybe best of all, as you have the Glasgow background as well as Stateside.
But hey, when ever before did the left in America have someone, anyone, with a rock-solid political base, the way Bernie has in Vermont?
I'm kinda sorta reminded of Red Clyde in the 1910-20 period. But oh god, look how that ended. I think, of that lot, Bernie would be closest to David Kirkwood. I'm mostly Maxton myself, but I think, in his own terms, Kirkwood made the right choice, and I'd willingly, if not happily, have voted for him. If I'd been alive at the time.
Though I am old enough (just) to remember seeing Willie Gallagher walk past the window of the house my parents and I were living in, in the early sixties I think it would have been.
So maybe there is a chance of a left coalition emerging in America, either inside or outside the Democratic Party.
Why I worry about the Greens. I may be misreading the situation, but to me they look all too like the what the Social Democratic Party was here, in the wake of the hatchet job performed on Michael Foot by both the right *and* the left (think [St.] Anthony Wedgewood Benn, may his name go down in the annals of infamy along with that of Mannie Shinwell ...
Boy, have I ever got onto my hobbyhorse over this issue!!
Best,
Robin
(The English poisoned John McLean!)
On 20 October 2016 at 15:41 Mark Weiss <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Sanders won't run again. If the Democrats take control of the senate he'll almost certainly be a committee chair, a position of considerable power. But beyond that he's a footnote.
-----Original Message-----
From: Robin Hamilton<[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Oct 20, 2016 10:31 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: World War III
It's also worth remembering that the Frog *** has previous in this area -- he's given to using the biggest weapon in his arsenal, regardless of consequence. Consider, for example, his current use of Bill Clinton's backstory, used because his poll numbers are falling, despite the fact that his behaviour accelerates that same fall, together with his instant reaction to journalistic criticism, which is to sue.
And of course, he's cheerfully noted that when (sic) he's President, he'll make this easier to do. Also, to paraphrase something he once said, "Why have nukes if you're not prepared to use them?" (and he wasn't talking about nuclear disarmament).
All in all, I'm with Bernie Sanders in this area -- a canny pol, as well as (by all appearances) a thoroughly nice man, together with being reasonably sane in his political views. I wonder how he'll play it? He's got a rock-solid base in Vermont, and now, national recognition and a high profile. Maybe the time has come ...
Any Americans on the list know how the neo-Wobblies are swinging? My shorthand for the grassroots hard left activists who cluster around Z. That's a constituency Bernie could draw in, and I wouldn't be surprised if he's quietly (for obvious reasons) making overtures. He's probably a bit too soft-liberal for their taste, but not so much so that they wouldn't (I'd guess) grit their teeth and support a movement he powered.
Robin
*** That's because, looking over one of my previous posts here, I thought to myself, "My god, Trump! Did I actually say Trump?" On another list I'm on -- well, I wouldn't have been banned, but there would have been some surprise. I new arrival plaintively enquired why no one ever used Trump's name, since he was a candidate for president. I think someone replied, and gently tried to explain, but mostly it seemed just the obvious thing to do. There is a fascinating range of avoidance techniques -- my own favoured Frog, Tr*mp, Tr-mp, T---p ... I could go on. But "Never Trump!" (TM)
Horses for courses ...
Why is it that (they seem to be born that way?) linguists are, as a group, bred-in-the-bone left? Not just Chomsky, but his Great Opposite, M.A.K.Halliday, founder of Systemic Functional Linguistics, who in his younger days was known as the Edinburgh Maoist? It seems to go all the way down the chain, reaching as far as even baby linguists like me. The only question being where exactly on the left-cline do you lie? On that particular list, I'm considered not so much pedantic as amusingly lightweight. They also grok register-jumping. It could almost be said that you're not allowed into the club if you don't get this.
Odd that, but. R.
On 20 October 2016 at 13:48 Pierre Joris <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
David,
That’s silly: Trump is scary in more random apocalyptic ways; HC is just a continuation of the same, in some departments possibly an improvement on Obama, in one, foreign policy, not an improvement though she is unlikely to unleash any kind of apocalypse, exactly because her (too close) links with wall street etc. will keep her on the straight and narrow as far as the survival of capitalism is concerned. And apocalyptic war would benefit only one tiny slice of the capitalists for one tiny moment, while 90% & more would lose in case of armageddon. p.s. American Presidents are elected for four years, not five.
Pierre
> On Oct 19, 2016, at 6:34 PM, David Lace <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Thanks, Kent, for drawing more attention to this.
>
> Clinton scares me shitless—pardon my Latin. Trump is scary in other less apocalyptic ways. Five years of him is survivable. Five years of Clinton....will it even go to five before armageddon?
>
>
>
>
> -------------------Original Message--------------------
>
> Kent Johnson wrote:
>
> Jill Stein, in the article provided by David Lace, does have a very disturbing point.
>
> http://www.inquisitr.com/3608819/world-war-3-with-russia-could-start-over-clintons-proposed-no-fly-zone-in-syria-says-historian/
>
> Here is what a friend (a very respected poet-activist hereabouts) wrote regarding the threat:
>
> there is no question that a no-fly zone over syria, calling putin hitler, amassing troops & missiles on russia’s borders, false accusations about hacking & a hundred & one other things have killary with her hand on the button, ready to press, at the behest of the whole fucking kit & caboodle of israel, wall st., arms manufacturers, saudi arabia etc. it is ALL about energy in this entropic world: whether a pipeline goes from russia to europe or whether the us maintains its global domination through the saudi & gulf scumbags who bankroll jihad, ISIS etc. i could go on & on but that’s the long & the short of it… will read your thing you just sent -
>
> i’ve been writing, as an homage to ed dorn, what i’m calling:
>
> Imperial Abhorrences (& Other Abominations) - here is a recent one, not for posting/publication yet as i’m trying to work them into some coherency:
>
> 2016 Mainstream Election Options: [deleted by me, KJ, for now]