Oliver Stone (was:Pauper and Sweatshop Fallacies)

[Joseph Tracy]

Is that supposed to be a reasoned argument? 
To my thinking, one of the major roles of Literature  from the Greek tragedies or the ancient trickster stories  to Bruce Springsteen's Dust and Devils is to compel the same kind of questioning of  one's own inner motives  or the motives of one's affinity group as is more easily applied to  perceived political religious or social enemies.  It can be a terrifying process. Hamlet finds out his mother has betrayed and colluded in the murder of his Father. Who can deal with such information?   But how else might the cycles  of the abuse of power change if we fail to recognize that we are not immune from the legacy or allure of violence, theft or abuse? 

Sometimes violence is necessary and certainly justifiable to stop criminal behavior ( Even P, who is averse to violence , justifies it in IV), but just as certainly many things labeled as criminal were not and are not . The geneva accords was agreed to by the US and one of the main focuses is on the avoidance of civilian casualties or any form of collective punishment in military actions.  With the history of lies used to justify morally abhorrent military policies it is only right to probe those questions around Truman and the bomb. 

One of the things that brought this group to start communicating is Gravity's Rainbow in which the Hollywood /Washington DC/greatest generation narrative about WW2 comes into serious question along with all the underlying myths that keep the simplistic good guys vs. bad guys, civilized vs. uncivilized story alive.  What Stone brings forward is that Stalin was more critical to the destruction of the Axis than The US or Britain. We all know that Stalin was no champion of a more just world and this brings into sharp question whether fighting fascism is  a meaningful measure of the US role in world history.  To me it is not US foreign policy that argues best for the US but  the great feminists, civil rights leaders, progressives, anti McCarthyites,  labor unionists,  environmentalists, artists  and humorists  of our history that offer the most hope. 


On Jan 18, 2013, at 6:38 AM, Henry M wrote:

> So it sounds to me, Michael, like it doesn't get personal for you until you, yourself, are personally attacked.
> 
> Yours truly,
> ٩(●̮̮̃•̃)۶
> Henry Musikar, CISSP
> http://astore.amazon.com/tdcoccamsaxe-20
> 
> 
> On Fri, Jan 18, 2013 at 1:03 AM, Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:
> >  Henry M wrote:
> >> Okay.  Here's a dilemma that is unfortuneately not theoretical.  Soldiers of
> >> a mass-murdering tyrant, one who has killed women and children, surrounding
> >> themselves with women and children who function as "human shields."
> >>
> >>
> 
> but let's say the situation is a different one, bin Laden, for
> instance - there's a lot of guys who stand ready to go in blazing
> gunfire and pretty good at avoiding non-combatants in general
> 
> there's a lot of people inspired by that idea
> 
> in all seriousness, i hypothetically wouldn't howl too many
> imprecations from the afterlife if i were, say, a valet or waiter who
> got accidentally blown up by the same suitcase bomb that killed Hitler
> for instance - in all likelihood i've gotta go myself sometime anyway
> (my dad passing in 2012 was a strong reminder of that probability)
> 
> it's just that i'm not personally inspired by that idea, but much more
> by peaceful alternatives.
> 
> you say, hey what peaceful alternative is gonna stop a heavily armed
> tyrant heck-bent on mayhem?
> 
> by ceaseless labor and occasional inspiration and hearty support
> donated by or mulcted from millions over millenia, the military now
> has the capability of almost miraculous acts of destruction!
> 
> even if i were so inclined, they don't need my nose on that
> grindstone...plenty of takers...
> 
> obvious thought experiment, what if the same amount of time and energy
> were spent on something else instead?
> 
> working on something else...yeah that's the ticket...somewhere,
> there's a cubic yard not being used for arms manufacture or target
> practice, i'm'a go sit there and think about peace...ways to practice
> it without making the warmakers even more upset...go to market with
> little harmless sweetnesses even the gnarliest warmaker might want,
> and for that brief second do something different besides act out the
> proverbial "idiot with a penknife" on the world's canvas
>