BtZ42 48-54: Foxes once more

[Joseph Tracy]

Yes I forgot to include in my short list of fox metaphors Machiavellis wily prince/fox.

Things bad enough to rouse a nation to war, or to expand police powers always seem to be in high demand.

Why worse to kill civilians? Perhaps because we have a deep cultural bias against murder, which is what killing civilians begins to look like when local populations are not the ones organized for battle.  The thing is that our leaders talk of not killing children if avoidable, but  in most cases killing children is much more avoidable than is admitted. The problem is that the more you actually do so the more the brutal nature of war is exposed. Coming from WW2 sensibilities, with the Nuremberg trials still in memory Americans were appalled by My Lai.  

 To reverse the question a bit- Empires always invent moral pretexts for their aggressions. Why? 

> On May 10, 2016, at 6:45 AM, ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Dogs are used and are valuable in the war. Foxes? Lions? Princes?
> Leaders may have their foxes and lions.
> 
> Humans are valuable. For killing, dying, working.
> 
> And they are in short supply, in high demand.
> 
> Children?
> When you look a bit closer, the first question that strikes you is:
> Why is it worse to kill civilians than soldiers? Obviously one must
> not kill children if it is in any way avoidable, but it is only in
> propaganda pamphlets that every bomb drops on a school or an
> orphanage.
> 
> http://www.telelib.com/authors/O/OrwellGeorge/essay/tribune/AsIPlease19440519.html
> 
> http://www.resort.com/~prime8/Orwell/07_14_44.html
> 
> On Tue, May 10, 2016 at 5:52 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Pointsman gathers dogs (for his experiments). Pointsman calls his patients
>> Foxes. "anything but humans" gets said.....
>> how about an octopus "they don't bark"....
>> 
>> He can't experiment on a human...."is this ethical" asks
>> Spectro.....[measurer for measurer].....raising his hand ...in almost a
>> Fascist salute.
>> 
>> Foxes are smart, elusive, skilled at escape, a prey in fox-hunting; but
>> Slothrop may be like a fox, hunting his own prey [Jamf].
>> 
>> How often have we read/heard that scientific 'experiments on animals do not
>> necessarily say anything about human beings reactions.".
>> 
>> Yes, unless we humans are reduced to animals...
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Mon, May 9, 2016 at 9:47 AM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> SPOILERS (if that matters to you)
>>> 
>>> 
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>>> 
>>> ***
>>> 
>>> I like Laura's brown fox and lazy dog, but GR is going to recycle both in
>>> more complex configurations than just Slothrop vs lab dogs... not least
>>> because, as noted before, both dogs and foxes can appear as prey or
>>> predators depending on context (remember Mike Jing's recent query about the
>>> imagined "personal Rockets" that will track each of us like hounds).
>>> 
>>> A few of the later fox references that seem especially salient (Viking
>>> edition pagination):
>>> 
>>> 53.30
>>> the snow tracked over by foxes, rabbits, long‑lost dogs, and winter birds
>>> but no humans.
>>> 
>>> 58.28
>>> A skulk of foxes, a cowardice of curs are tonight’s traffic whispering in
>>> the yards and lanes.
>>> 
>>> 131.19
>>> The true king only dies a mock death. Remember. Any number of young men
>>> may be selected to die in his place while the real king, foxy old bastard,
>>> goes on.
>>> 
>>> 138.19 They gather, thicker as the days pass, English ghosts, so many
>>> jostling in the nights, memories unloosening into the winter, seeds that
>>> will never take hold, so lost, now only an every-so-often word, a clue for
>>> the living—”Foxes,” calls SpectroE across astral spaces, the word intended
>>> for Mr. Pointsman who is not present, who won’t be told because the few Psi
>>> Section who’re there to hear it get cryptic debris of this sort every
>>> sitting—if recorded at all it finds its way into Milton Gloaming’s
>>> word-counting project—“Foxes,” a buzzing echo on the afternoon, Carroll
>>> Eventyr, “The White Visitation”’s resident medium, curls thickly tightened
>>> across his head, speaking the word “Foxes,” out of very red, thin lips
>>> 
>>> 242.24
>>> [General Wivern:] “Slothrop, there are no ‘SG’ documents.”
>>> First impulse is to rattle the parts list in the man’s face, but today he
>>> is the shrewd Yankee foxing the redcoats.
>>> 
>>> 450.16 [re the facilities of the toiletship Rucksichtslos]
>>> “Crew morale,” whispered the foxes at the Ministry meetings, “sailors’
>>> superstitions. Mirrors at high midnight. We know, don’t we?”
>>> 
>>>            The officers’ latrines, by contrast, are done in red velvet.
>>> The decor is 1930s Safety Manual. That is, all over the walls,
>>> photograffiti, are pictures of Horrible Disasters in German Naval History.
>>> Collisions, magazine explosions, U-boat sinkings, just the thing if you’re
>>> an officer trying to take a shit. The Foxes have been busy. Commanding
>>> officers get whole suites, private shower or sunken bathtub...
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>> 
>> 
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