Ishmael Reed

[Michael Bailey]

once again, hard to argue...

so, did you get arrested?

On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 9:41 AM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
> I don't hate anyone, despite my screw Obama attitude. I don't  think most
> anti-war types even want revenge though I think some leaders have become
> criminal forces that would be best permanently restrained ( Should Cheney
> and Rummy really be free?). Reconciliation? No problem. Just stop the wars
> of aggression, stop throwing all our money into destruction,and let's deal
> with our real problems, which have to do with energy, and ecological
> sustainability. This apocalyptic bullshit makes for high drama and infinite
> mineshafts of satire and cynicism, but the global holocaust we are steering
> toward is no joke.  I honestly, profoundly, and to the depths of my
> consciousness can see no evidence that the Democratic party has the ability
> or desire to turn in a new direction. I would be happy to be proved wrong.
>  What I see in Obama is a gutless figurehead arguing the terms of surrender
> to the republican far right, and keeping the Democrats in good standing with
> the bankers, weapons makers, insurance companies etc.  Even with a
> bi-partisan majority behind him( 68% against Afghan war, 60% single pay
> medicare for all, 80% against bank bailouts) he refuses to stand with the
> people. At  that point representative government is a delusion, TV
> performance art , or, like Marly, dead as a doornail and doomed to wander
> the spirit world in chains.
> On Dec 21, 2010, at 6:20 AM, Henry M wrote:
>
> It's called reconciliation.  Other countries manage to do it.
> One more word on Nader: So 50 years ago.
>
> AsB4,
> ٩(●̮̮̃•̃)۶
> Henry Mu
> http://astore.amazon.com/tdcoccamsaxe-20
>
>
> On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 4:44 AM, Michael Bailey
> <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> I surrender before your righteous arguments
>> (last little peep of resistance: to really make peace, we have to find
>> a way not to hate those who have made war, no?)
>>
>> On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 12:11 AM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>> > Because of Nader we have cleaner air, safer cars and safer food and more
>> > protection from unsafe products. I have a hard time matching that and so
>> > does Obama and what about you? Do you really think the people in Afghanistan
>> > cares which political party is leading the occupation and killing.  You
>> > can't even defend Obama, Henry, though I have listed his crimes again and
>> > again. You only go on about the horrible Republicans; they never  could have
>> > done a damn thing without the Democrats.
>> >
>> > Last week I went to Washington to be arrested with veterans who have
>> > served in our wars and who are asking to converse with the President. He was
>> > too busy. Too busy  parroting the generals, too busy cutting deals with fat
>> > cats, too busy selling the country to bankers, too busy pimping weapons and
>> > war and drones and lies about clean coal. Here is what Chris Hedges ( over a
>> > dozen years as NYT war correspondent) wrote about the event; it is worth
>> > thinking over:
>> >
>> > Bitter Memories of War on the Way to Jail
>> > by Chris Hedges
>> > The speeches were over. There was a mournful harmonica rendition of
>> > taps. The 500 protesters in Lafayette Park in front of the White House fell
>> > silent. One hundred and thirty-one men and women, many of them military
>> > veterans wearing old fatigues, formed a single, silent line. Under a heavy
>> > snowfall and to the slow beat of a drum, they walked to the White House
>> > fence. They stood there until they were arrested.
>> >
>> > The solemnity of that funerary march, the hush, was the hardest and most
>> > moving part of Thursday’s protest against the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
>> > It unwound the bitter memories and images of war I keep wrapped in the thick
>> > cotton wool of forgetfulness. I was transported in that short walk to places
>> > I do not like to go. Strange and vivid flashes swept over me—the young
>> > soldier in El Salvador who had been shot through the back of the head and
>> > was, as I crouched next to him, slowly curling up in a fetal position to
>> > die; the mutilated corpses of Kosovar Albanians in the back of a flatbed
>> > truck; the screams of a woman, her entrails spilling out of her gaping
>> > wounds, on the cobblestones of a Sarajevo street. My experience was not
>> > unique. Veterans around me were back in the rice paddies and lush
>> > undergrowth of Vietnam, the dusty roads of southern Iraq or the mountain
>> > passes of Afghanistan. Their tears showed that. There was no need to talk.
>> > We spoke the same wordless language. The butchery of war defies, for those
>> > who know it, articulation.
>> >
>> > What can I tell you about war?
>> >
>> > War perverts and destroys you. It pushes you closer and closer to your
>> > own annihilation—spiritual, emotional and, finally, physical. It destroys
>> > the continuity of life, tearing apart all systems, economic, social,
>> > environmental and political, that sustain us as human beings. War is
>> > necrophilia. The essence of war is death. War is a state of almost pure sin
>> > with its goals of hatred and destruction. It is organized sadism. War
>> > fosters alienation and leads inevitably to nihilism. It is a turning away
>> > from the sanctity of life.
>> >
>> > And yet the mythic narratives about war perpetuate the allure of power
>> > and violence. They perpetuate the seductiveness of the godlike force that
>> > comes with the license to kill with impunity. All images and narratives
>> > about war disseminated by the state, the press, religious institutions,
>> > schools and the entertainment industry are gross and distorted lies. The
>> > clash between the fabricated myth about war and the truth about war leaves
>> > those of us who return from war alienated, angry and often unable to
>> > communicate. We can’t find the words to describe war’s reality. It is as if
>> > the wider culture sucked the words out from us and left us to sputter
>> > incoherencies. How can you speak meaningfully about organized murder?
>> > Anything you say is gibberish.
>> >
>> > The sophisticated forms of industrial killing, coupled with the amoral
>> > decisions of politicians and military leaders who direct and fund war, hide
>> > war’s reality from public view. But those who have been in combat see death
>> > up close. Only their story tells the moral truth about war. The power of the
>> > Washington march was that we all knew this story. We had no need to use
>> > stale and hackneyed clichés about war. We grieved together.
>> >
>> > War, once it begins, fuels new and bizarre perversities, innovative
>> > forms of death to ward off the boredom of routine death. This is why we
>> > would drive into towns in Bosnia and find bodies crucified on the sides of
>> > barns or decapitated, burned and mutilated. That is why those slain in
>> > combat are treated as trophies by their killers, turned into grotesque
>> > pieces of performance art. I met soldiers who carried in their wallets the
>> > identity cards of men they killed. They showed them to me with the imploring
>> > look of a lost child.
>> >
>> > We swiftly deform ourselves, our essence, in war. We give up individual
>> > conscience—maybe even consciousness—for the contagion of the crowd and the
>> > intoxication of violence. You survive war because you repress emotions. You
>> > do what you have to do. And this means killing. To make a moral choice, to
>> > defy war’s enticement, is often self-destructive. But once the survivors
>> > return home, once the danger, adrenaline highs and the pressure of the crowd
>> > are removed, the repressed emotions surface with a vengeance. Fear, rage,
>> > grief and guilt leap up like snake heads to consume lives and turn nights
>> > into long, sleepless bouts with terror. You drink to forget.
>> >
>> > We reached the fence. The real prisoners, the ones who blindly serve
>> > systems of power and force, are the mandarins inside the White House, the
>> > Congress and the Pentagon. The masters of war are slaves to the idols of
>> > empire, power and greed, to the idols of careers, to the dead language of
>> > interests, national security, politics and propaganda. They kill and do not
>> > know what killing is. In the rise to power, they became smaller. Power
>> > consumes them. Once power is obtained they become its pawn. Like
>> > Shakespeare’s Richard III, politicians such as Barack Obama fall prey to the
>> > forces they thought they had harnessed. The capacity to love, to cherish and
>> > protect life, may not always triumph, but it saves us. It keeps us human. It
>> > offers the only chance to escape from the contagion of war. Perhaps it is
>> > the only antidote. There are times when remaining human is the only victory
>> > possible.
>> >
>> > The necrophilia of war is hidden under platitudes about honor, duty or
>> > comradeship. It waits especially in moments when we seem to have little to
>> > live for and no hope, or in moments when the intoxication of war is at its
>> > pitch to be unleashed. When we spend long enough in war, it comes to us as a
>> > kind of release, a fatal and seductive embrace that can consummate the long
>> > flirtation with our own destruction. In the Arab-Israeli 1973 war, almost a
>> > third of all Israeli casualties were due to psychiatric causes—and the war
>> > lasted only a few days. A World War II study determined that, after 60 days
>> > of continuous combat, 98 percent of all surviving soldiers will have become
>> > psychiatric casualties. A common trait among the 2 percent who were able to
>> > endure sustained combat was a predisposition toward “aggressive psychopathic
>> > personalities.” In short, if you spend enough time in combat you go insane
>> > or you were insane to begin with. War starts out as the annihilation of the
>> > other. War ends, if we do not free ourselves from its grasp, in
>> > self-annihilation.
>> >
>> > Those around me at the protest, at once haunted and maimed by war, had
>> > freed themselves of war’s contagion. They bore its scars. They were plagued
>> > by its demons. These crippling forces will always haunt them. But they had
>> > returned home. They had returned to life. They had asked for atonement. In
>> > Lafayette Park they found grace. They had recovered within themselves the
>> > capacity for reverence. They no longer sought to become gods, to wield the
>> > power of the divine, the power to take life. And it is out of this new
>> > acknowledgement of weakness, remorse for their complicity in evil and an
>> > acceptance of human imperfection that they had found wisdom. Listen to them,
>> > if you can hear them. They are our prophets.
>> >
>> > The tears and grief, the halting asides, the catch in the throat, the
>> > sudden breaking off of a sentence, is the only language that describes war.
>> > This faltering language of pain and atonement, even shame, was carried like
>> > great, heavy boulders by these veterans as they tromped slowly through the
>> > snow from Lafayette Park to the White House fence. It was carried by them as
>> > they were handcuffed, dragged through the snow, photographed for arrest, and
>> > frog-marched into police vans. It was carried into the frigid holding cells
>> > of a Washington jail. If it was understood by the masters of war who build
>> > the big guns, who build the death planes, who build all the bombs and who
>> > hide behind walls and desks, this language would expose their masks and
>> > chasten their hollow, empty souls. This language, bereft of words, places
>> > its faith in physical acts of nonviolent resistance, in powerlessness and
>> > compassion, in truth. It believes that one day it will bring down the house
>> > of war.
>> >
>> > As Tennyson wrote in “In Memoriam”:
>> >
>> > Behold, we know not anything;
>> > I can but trust that good shall fall
>> > At last—far off—at last, to all,
>> > And every winter change to spring.
>> >
>> > So runs my dream: but what am I?
>> > An infant crying in the night:
>> > An infant crying for the light:
>> > And with no language but a cry.
>> >
>> >
>> > Copyright © 2010 Truthdig, L.L.C.
>> > Chris Hedges writes a regular column for Truthdig.com. Hedges graduated
>> > from Harvard Divinity School and was for nearly two decades a foreign
>> > correspondent for The New York Times. He is the author of many books,
>> > including: War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning, What Every Person Should
>> > Know About War, and American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on
>> > America.  His most recent book is Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy
>> > and the Triumph of Spectacle.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > On Dec 20, 2010, at 5:59 AM, Henry M wrote:
>> >
>> >> Tracy, how can you confuse Nader's talk with actually doing anything?
>> >>  Obama talked about what he wanted to do if elected, but couldn't follow
>> >> through.  I doubt he knew how powerless the POTUS really is until he was in
>> >> the White House.
>> >>
>> >> Nader is just a gadfly gassbag. If he isn't in the pay of the right, he
>> >> might as well be for all that he had "done."  He keeps people from
>> >> supporting viable candidates.  How can anyone who has the slightest idea of
>> >> deconstruction be so naive as to confuse words with action?
>> >>
>> >> AsB4,
>> >> ٩(●̮̮̃•̃)۶
>> >> Henry Mu
>> >> http://astore.amazon.com/tdcoccamsaxe-20
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> On Sun, Dec 19, 2010 at 9:12 PM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>> >> Nobody expected the wars to end in a day but Obama expanded the war in
>> >> Afghanistan. Other nations are leaving,  many atrocities have been revealed,
>> >> Obama has the power to change what we are doing and he has not.  THEY are
>> >> not the republican party. That is baby talk. The impotence you feel is
>> >> probably from doing nothing but supporting one of the 2 war parties. Your
>> >> assertions about Nader are crap, he has been making a difference and
>> >> sticking to his principles for years.
>> >>
>> >> On Dec 19, 2010, at 7:25 PM, Henry M wrote:
>> >>
>> >>> By childish, impractical standards, all Presidents of the US have have
>> >>> been "mass murderers," and if Ralph Nader were elected tomorrow, he would be
>> >>> just another one.  That conflation BS only helps THEM.  It leads to a
>> >>> death-spiral of impotence, which they love.
>> >>>
>> >>> AsB4,
>> >>> ٩(●̮̮̃•̃)۶
>> >>> Henry Mu
>> >>> http://astore.amazon.com/tdcoccamsaxe-20
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>> On Sun, Dec 19, 2010 at 2:38 PM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net>
>> >>> wrote:
>> >>> You may choose to vote for a mass murderer because you think his heart
>> >>> is in the right place, but all you will accomplish is the continued reign of
>> >>> violence.  I understand your choice but will vote for someone clearly
>> >>> opposed to imperial warmongering , mass murder, spying without warrants
>> >>> extraordinary rendition and the rest of the duopoly agenda. Palin works for
>> >>> the same people Obama works for.
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>> On Dec 15, 2010, at 5:55 AM, Henry M wrote:
>> >>>
>> >>>> I've been saying exactly those things, Albert, but the Nader-voting
>> >>>> lefter-than-thou crowd says that I must be a running-dog-lackey for the
>> >>>> bourgeoisie, and the right just knows that I'm a Socialist.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> AsB4,
>> >>>> ٩(●̮̮̃•̃)۶
>> >>>> Henry Mu
>> >>>> http://astore.amazon.com/tdcoccamsaxe-20
>> >>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>> On Wed, Dec 15, 2010 at 3:33 AM, Albert Rolls
>> >>>> <alprolls at earthlink.net> wrote:
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Is Obama far enough to the left, perhaps in his head but not in his
>> >>>> actions. Does that mean I'm not going to vote for him if he's the guy on the
>> >>>> ticket. Hell no. I'm voting because if the left doesn't vote the right gets
>> >>>> into office and what use is that to me or anyone else, even a whole bunch of
>> >>>> people voting for the right. And to just make the contrast between Obama and
>> >>>> what you get when the left doesn't vote because the goddamn middle is what
>> >>>> used to be the right see what Obama did with the meals-for-kids program this
>> >>>> week and then remember that Reagan wanted to define ketchup as a vegetable
>> >>>> so that the meals-for-kids program in the '80s could save money by
>> >>>> substituting ketchup packages for costly vegetables. And don't think that
>> >>>> shit doesn't have a lasting effect (beyond the malnourished generation of
>> >>>> kids from low-income families that have to suffer through it. I saw a chef
>> >>>> on a cooking segment of some morning news program (a Saturday program, I
>> >>>> think) remind the audience that ketchup was a vegetable: that was less than
>> >>>> ten years ago. If the left doesn't vote because Obama is a dissapointent, we
>> >>>> get Gingrinch, Huckabee, Palin, Romney or whoever. I don't need a president
>> >>>> whose only use is to rallying people against him/her. Those people will do
>> >>>> more damage than someone whose hopes are at least pointing in the right
>> >>>> direction.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> -----Original Message-----
>> >>>>> From: Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>
>> >>>>> Sent: Dec 15, 2010 2:41 AM
>> >>>>> To: P-list <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>> >>>>> Subject: Re: Ishmael Reed
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>> Joseph Tracy  wrote:
>> >>>>>> Ishmael Reed may enjoy sucking on his own member participation in
>> >>>>>> Scam Obama, (Yes we can , If massa says it's OK). But I will not be joining
>> >>>>>> him.
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>> yeah, as a pacifist I'm disappointed in Obama, well, not really
>> >>>>> "disappointed" because I didn't expect him to court assassination by
>> >>>>> repudiating Bush's wars (although wouldn't that be cool! maybe they
>> >>>>> wouldn't kill him off, who knows, it'd be a heckuva ride to try and
>> >>>>> find out...but he never said that was his trip)
>> >>>>> (more's the pity)
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>> Reed's "coolest guy in the room" isn't saying coolest guy in the
>> >>>>> world
>> >>>>> - that'd be, like, oh, Desmond Tutu or Pharoah Sanders...somebody
>> >>>>> like
>> >>>>> that (Tom Waits?  Thomas Pynchon's in the running too...)
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>> Hippest dude in a very uncool room, Obama...
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>> --
>> >>>>> "Three things in life are important. The first is to be kind.  The
>> >>>>> second is to be kind.  And the third is to be kind." - Henry James
>> >>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> "Why must I be like that? Why must I chase the cat?" - George Clinton,
>> Atomic Dog
>
>
>



-- 
"Why must I be like that? Why must I chase the cat?" - George Clinton,
Atomic Dog