Selective Memory

[Jasper Fidget]

Ever-widening context?  This way lies madness.  After a very short
widening, the context for your context disappears, any act becomes
excusable, all things permissible because the context is too large,
humans small irrelevant blips on vast scales that themselves soon
vanish, and all that remains is some mad god laughing.  Delineation of
context is an art prosecuted by politicians and historians never to the
satisfaction of everyone, but also might be defined and defended with
the rest of your terms.  Are the sins of the fathers passed on to the
sons?  In that case, Barbie might actually have a point in saying,
"Germany, huh".  (Which she doesn't of course.)

Jasper Fidget


> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org
> [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On Behalf Of Richard Fiero
> Sent: Wednesday, December 12, 2001 12:57 AM
> To: The Great Quail; pynchon-l at waste.org
> Subject: RE: Selective Memory
> 
> 
> The Great Quail wrote:
> >>>From: "barbara100 at jps.net" <barbara100 at jps.net>
> >>>
> >>>I'm not sure exactly how many died in the WTC attack, but I heard 
> >>>it reported yesterday on the radio that the numbers of civilian 
> >>>casualties in Afghanistan have now surpassed the number in the WTC 
> >>>attack.  I guess that makes it an
> official 'eye for an eye.'
> >
> >Barbara, this is the kind of statement that tends to undermine your 
> >position, because it points to, more or less, a lack of context as 
> >well as reason. No one thinks that we have launched a bombing 
> >campaign against Afghani civilians, no one things the terrible 
> >casualties are the result of an "official" eye for an eye policy. You

> >know very well that the war is an attempt to break down and destroy 
> >the al-Qaeda terrorist network, in hopes that they will be unable to 
> >plan, fund, and carry out more attacks in their escalating campaign 
> >against the United States and its civilian population. There is no
> >reason at all you can't maintain an anti-War stance and yet 
> >refrain from this sort of unreasonable evasion of simple fact, 
> >this emotional reductionism, where you flatten facts into some 
> >brutal equation that you contend is the entire basis of 
> >foreign policy. If you are going to protest the war, at least 
> >make an effort to place your argument within some sphere of 
> >reason! I hate to "lecture" you, and I suppose I am, but 
> >really, it only makes your "side" look foolish, as foolish as 
> >any hawkish redneck who says "bomb them all."
> >
> >--Quail
> 
> Sure.  See http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/1113-03.htm
> "A conservative academic group founded by Lynne Cheney, the 
> wife of Vice President Dick Cheney, fired a new salvo in the 
> culture wars by blasting 40 college professors as well as the 
> president of Wesleyan University and others for not showing 
> enough patriotism in the aftermath of Sept. 11. "
> 
> Quail, Quail, Quail.  I simply cannot follow your argument
> above.  I'm at a complete loss as to what the "loss of context" 
> might be.  It seems to me that an ever-widening context would 
> include a very large number of dead civilians at the hands of 
> the U.S. and its proxies in the prosecution of war by other 
> means.  I really don't think you'd want any mention of the 
> total context.  I believe that you have dissociated yourself 
> from those ugly details yet your tax dollars supported those 
> efforts and your elected representatives planned and 
> implemented those acts.  Oh, right.  Your take on Chomsky is 
> negative because Chomsky reduces the supposed complexity to 
> simple motives and bodies rather than over-intellectualizing 
> and abstracting them away as Foucault did.  The folks in power 
> are not hawkish rednecks but opportunists of the first order 
> who have emptied the public treasury, suspended the Bill of 
> Rights and are fighting terrorism with unspeakable 
> terror.  Well, that's one way to do it.  The undeclared war 
> proceeds and is constantly referred to as a "war against 
> terrorism"  but appears more as a contest as to who holds a 
> monopoly on terror.
> 
> 
> 
> 
>