Bleeding Edge, pp. 312-313

[kelber at mindspring.com]

It's way too easy to write these guys off as losers who can't get laid. Hey, I've known plenty of people who've never had a serious relationship, and rarely, if ever have gotten laid. They channel their frustration into obsessions with art, film, music. You know the type. Should we start pointing fingers at anyone who hasn't been in a relationship?

That Guardian article Mark posted makes it clear: ISIS attracts many people with solid people skills, who, in turn are able to spend hours and hours on line, luring others (girls as well as boys) into the movement. Few losers-who-can't-get-laid have that amount of social finesse. And a big selling point is the trading of a humdrum life for the romance of fighting and/or dying for the "cause." Sure, it's easier to lure in the mentally ill, the lonely, the broke. But their ability to lure in romantics and idealists, and skew their world-view so much that the death of innocents - even little Muslim kids - becomes lost in the swell of glory of the cause, well, that's the truly scary part.

It emphasizes the stupidity of cracking down on the Occupy encampments - they provided a solid grounding point for restless romantics. We need more of that.

Laura


-----Original Message-----

From: ish mailian 

Sent: Nov 16, 2015 11:11 AM

To: Pynchon-l at waste.org

Subject: Re: Bleeding Edge, pp. 312-313



Nah, they are losers. They tried to fit in, to have a girl....these boys and the men who sent them to an early grave did not act heroically, this was no  "brilliantly coordinated act of war" (the Esquire article); that the fools exploded their vests, spilling their guts outside the stadium is evidence that they were boys sent on a mission, like the boys who marched across minefields, like so many boys in war....
Poor boys. Never even made love. They never made war either. 


On Mon, Nov 16, 2015 at 10:03 AM, David Kilroy <thesaintgodard at gmail.com> wrote:
These 'losers' are indoctrinated and brainwashed same as any marine

sniper. As damaged, in their way, as any Starkweather. To simplify

them as Losers is too 2-D, too subjective, too dismissive. These

people, their worldview, has to be understood to be effectively

opposed. Not everyone who opts for celibacy hates sex. Sex is life but

it isn't the only reason to live. Additionally it's a fair bet the

bombers wanked as much as anyone. The 100 percent celibate is very,

very rare. Masturbation may be self-love but it's hardly a substitute

for empathy. Empathy is what's damaged in these killers: they're

taught to not see humanity but an evidence of humanity's failure in

the eyes of Allah. WE are the 'losers' to them: we are the Them to

their Us. Sex alone cannot cure that psychosis.



On 11/16/15, ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com> wrote:

> Even the losers get lucky sometimes. But these losers, boys for the most

> part, don't get that, so they hate themselves, hate women, hate sex, and

> sport, and rock and roll and restaurants and good food and drink, and a

> good time. How unfortunate. To aggrandize the anxiety of these losers, to

> make them ideological spokesmen of the Palestinian plight, the

> Post-Colonial rebound, the effect of Orientalists and Oil, is silly. These

> boys are losers. Masturbation may have prevented this, and a good night out

> and some sex would have surely.

>

> On Mon, Nov 16, 2015 at 6:21 AM, Jochen Stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com>

> wrote:

>

>> Come now, you who say,

>> <https://biblia.com/bible/esv/Jas4.13-15#footnote1>“Today

>> or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there

>> and

>> trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring.

>> What is your life? For

>> <https://biblia.com/bible/esv/Jas4.13-15#footnote2>you

>> are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you

>> ought to say, <https://biblia.com/bible/esv/Jas4.13-15#footnote3>“If the

>> Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”

>>

>> 2015-11-16 11:12 GMT+01:00 Mark Thibodeau <jerkyleboeuf at gmail.com>:

>>

>>> Hm.

>>>

>>> On Mon, Nov 16, 2015 at 5:02 AM, Kai Frederik Lorentzen <

>>> lorentzen at hotmail.de> wrote:

>>>

>>>>

>>>>    In the taxi on the way home, there's loud traffic in Arabic on the

>>>> radio, which Maxine figures at first for a call-in show till the cabbie

>>>> picks up a handset and joins in. She glances at the ID up on the

>>>> Plexiglas.

>>>> The face in the photo is too indistinct to make out, but the name is

>>>> Islamic, Mohammed somebody.

>>>>    It's like hearing a party from another room, though Maxine notices

>>>> there's no music, no laughing. High emotion all right, but closer to

>>>> tears

>>>> or anger. Men talking over each other, shouting, interrupting. A couple

>>>> of

>>>> the voices might be women's, though later it will seem they could have

>>>> belonged to high-pitched men. The only word Maxine recognizes, and she

>>>> hears it more than once, is *Inshallah*. "Arabic for 'whatever,'" Horst

>>>> nods.

>>>>    They're waiting at a light. "If it is God's will," the driver

>>>> corrects him, half turning in his seat so that Maxine happens to be

>>>> looking

>>>> him in the face. What she sees there will keep her from getting to

>>>> sleep

>>>> right away. Or that's how she'll remember it.

>>>>

>>>>

>>>

>>

>
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Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l