Trayvon Williams tragedy(not)

[Ian Livingston]

I certainly see no noble aspiration on the surface. There may be none
at all, as you say, Joseph. I don't think anything very nice about
this Zimmerman fellah, that's sure, but I wonder about the whole
nightmare scenario. It's more than just this. It's the guy in France,
the Afghan horrorshow, the Israelis in Palestine, the cops attacking
the protesters all over the world. The absence of mainstream criticism
of our contemporary "nobility", i.e., the capitalist elite seems to
have left a vacuum into which these stories of violence fit nicely to
avert the public gaze from, say, the fact that the feds are ready to
offer the stolen homes of the banking debacle in wholesale lots to
one-percenters who can then rent them to folks made homeless by said
debacle. Will we fall into permanent serfdom crying out against the
deaths we deplore and fear, or will spines straighten among we the
people to oppose the slings and darts of outrageous fortunes? I think
your finger pointing toward fascism is likely fair. Evidence of
democracy is absent; even the representative republic is falling into
mere formality. Where are the people? Where are we? On the net? Is
that all we have to give to posterity?

On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 12:14 PM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
> I think we are seeing the local manifestation of the multi-partisan warlord philosophy of externalized  cost through terrorism. All these actions are directed at the weak and vulnerable. The man still is not in jail. The imperial torturers and bombers are well-paid and secure with pensions guaranteed by drones, pepper spray, bullets, poison gas, slavery, whatever works. I call it fascism because I like verbal continuity, but call it what you will it is a part of our human condition that needs some kind of cosmic medicine.
>
> I'm sure Mike, in the original post, with less info than has come to light, only meant a senseless killing resulting from fear and misunderstanding. I  came to the story with more information on the table and just wanted to address the word tragedy, which is how too many things are treated that proceed from baser causes.  To me tragedy implies noble aspirations thwarted by flaws of thought or character. I see no noble aspiration in what happened here, even the idea that he was protecting his community is absurd because he refused to accept who might be in his community. This is the same absurdity that is playing out on a global scale.
> On Mar 22, 2012, at 2:04 PM, Ian Livingston wrote:
>
>> Well, then there's the issue of hubris in contemporary terms. That
>> bears scrutiny, I think, as one of the essential elements in tragedy.
>> Does hubris apply here? If so, in what way? I think the whole thing
>> stinks to high heaven, like the recent killing spree in Afghanistan.
>> What are we seeing here, in these random killings?
>>
>> On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 10:07 AM,  <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:
>>> Exactly!
>>>
>>> Laura
>>>
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net>
>>>> Sent: Mar 22, 2012 9:44 AM
>>>> To: P-list List <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>>>> Subject: Re: Trayvon Williams tragedy(not)
>>>>
>>>> This whole thing doesn't sound like a tragedy to me. It looks from every part of the evidence to be an unprovoked racist child murder. This dickhead persuaded himself the Young man was threat to his neighborhood because he was black when in fact the boy was a part of the neighborhood and had gone to the store for some candy. The police had Trayvon's cell but did not notify the parents for over a day. They let the guy go as though shooting unarmed black kids were completely ok . As though self defense were a reasonable claim when they knew this guy was following the unarmed boy with a gun.
>>>> The guy's mindset is not what I call tragedy but misdirected xenophobic paranoid stupidity and violence the like of which is all too common in America and which is why a million Iraqis  and 5000 American soldiers are dead.
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> "Less than any man have I  excuse for prejudice; and I feel for all
>> creeds the warm sympathy of one who has come to learn that even the
>> trust in reason is a precarious faith, and that we are all fragments
>> of darkness groping for the sun. I know no more about the ultimates
>> than the simplest urchin in the streets." -- Will Durant
>



-- 
"Less than any man have I  excuse for prejudice; and I feel for all
creeds the warm sympathy of one who has come to learn that even the
trust in reason is a precarious faith, and that we are all fragments
of darkness groping for the sun. I know no more about the ultimates
than the simplest urchin in the streets." -- Will Durant