NP....but RT....esp the odious Chris Hedges. Sorry, there are too many pics I can't cut to send a cut and paste.....

[Mark Kohut]

I think the way the WHOLE WORLD but the leaders of about four countries are
manifesting Mutually Assured Cooperation is like the Whirlwind.

nice phrase, that MAC....

when I get to it, I will write something about MAD and pynchon and his
themes...

On Sun, Mar 13, 2022 at 12:50 PM jody2.718 via Pynchon-l <
pynchon-l at waste.org> wrote:

> "In which the once good Chris Hedges who would, of course..."
>
> It was once upon a time, when he preached that "War" is an organizing
> principal, as much as religion, on which our culture depends, and he got
> booed off the stage at a Rockford College, Illinois, graduation- had his
> mic cut off, and was generally drowned out by the conservative audience; It
> was also reported in the NY Times at that time- many tears ago.
>
> But, as Roger Mexico made explicit in GR, War is a Mother with teats of
> ice, and nothing organizes society faster and more completely than her
> baleful gaze, excepting maybe her husband, Mr. Missile. War is the go to
> answer for Fascists and Democrats alike, when confronted with any great
> uncertainty that threatens to shake up the hierarchy of the powers that be.
> War belies not just an overweening sense of entitlement of the elite- of
> which Hedges might be considered- but a real lack of imagination and
> creativity, not to mention humility, compassion, understanding, generosity,
> altruism, etc., etc,- when confronted with impending cataclysms that
> threaten to upend the status quo. They externalize their own shortcomings
> at the expense of the rest of us, and treat us like ballast for their
> Yachts of State.
>
> Threatened as we are on many fronts from the pandemic, to climate change,
> to unsustainable inequality, the current level of uncertainty facing the
> world, while perhaps not quite apocalyptic, is at least surreal; . As
> Russia slouches toward Kyiv, the center of the peace between the "great"
> powers, based on the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction, which has
> kept annihilation off the "playing" field, is failing.
>
> It is revealing that those who would purport to be people of peace, like
> the self-promoting Hedges (well named at least) would be gravitating toward
> centers of power, expressing more of an elite ability to float above it all
> and go wherever they might, than to exhibit real leadership. (I know I'm
> being unfair, but...)
>
> Faced with the current uncertainties, is there any chance to flip the coin
> and base our survival on a new organizing principle- like big MAC, or
> Mutually Assured Cooperation?
>
> I can't hear much in the wind today but I could probably use a hearing aid
> at this point.
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>