[lit-ideas] FW: Happy New Year/Firebombing
- From: "Andy Amago" <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2005 12:02:55 -0500
I had to post this. I have permission.
... The power of culture to define our consciousness is in somme (some)
cases irresistible.
Those of you who are sufficiently well-balanced right now and want to make
some interesting discoveries (do a little meditation before you do your
research), might want to plug the word "firebombing" into the Google Search
Engine and check out what happened at Dresden or Tokyo during the Second World
War.
This is an example of mass-slaughter undertaken by the "good guys." You can
read about men, women and children being burned to death in various grotesque
ways. These were acts undertaken by the heroes of "civilization."
Forget about politics: just try to look at what happened.
To be "against war" seems to me to be an untenable or unnecessary position.
This suggests there is an alternative position-- being "for war"--that one is
trying to oppose. If one is "for" war, what exactly is one for?
Please begin to abandon the idea that war has to do with anything real;
that it possesses some sort of rationality. Please try to abandon the idea that
people (including leaders) actually KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING when they wage war.
Sometimes I feel that they only people more deluded than those who promote
the ideology of war are those promoting the ideology of rationality: the
historians and political scientists that try to "explain" what occurred as if
the actors are functioning according to rational principles.
Some military historians declare that the strategy of the First World War
(asking soldiers to get out of trenches and to advance toward the opposing
trench) was based on the fact that they were operating according to an
antiquated military strategy that "underestimated the power of the machine gun."
This would explain the first few days perhaps, but wouldn't explain why
this strategy persisted for FOUR YEARS. The explanation is as psychotic as the
behavior. Historians and historical actors COLLUDE to pretend that the behavior
of the actors makes sense. They try to provide the insane actions with a gloss
of dignity.
What is written up in the history book really happened, but let's stop
trying to pretend that it makes sense or is based on some sort of rational
thought. Please try to let go of the delusion that your civilization is
civilized. Two-hundred people (I mean two-hundred million people) were killed
in the Twentieth Century in political concepts (genocide, by the way, has taken
more lives than war, although the history books push this fact under the rug).
New Years has to do with letting go of the past. Instead of thinking of
war as evil or wrong (anybody can do that), start thinking of war as bizarre or
strange or weird. The "radicals" aren't radical enough. They believe that they
know what the purpose or meaning of war is.
Imagine that you are one of the characters on the "Third Planet from the
Sun" (the situation comedy) and came to the earth and observed people dropping
bombs and burning people to a crisp (or however people end up when they are
burned alive). These people were slaughtered not because of anything they had
done, but because they were classified as "Germans" or "Japanese."
Bin Laden's ideology grows out of the same logic:"All Americans deserve to
die by virtue of the fact of what their governments have done."
Gee, I hope the mayor of New York City (Mayor Bloomberg), doesn't bomb
Newark, New Jersey. Because this will mean that the Newarkers have the right to
and will feel justified in bombing ME (because I'm a "New Yorker")--in revenge
for the fact that Major Bloomberg bombed Newark. Maybe they think I supported
Mayor Bloomberg (perhaps some of the three year olds in Dresden supported
Hitler).
However, even though Mayor Bloomerg is called "the leader of New York
City," I barely know who he is.
In any case, have a happy New Year and as we used to say in the Fifties:
"Don't do anything I wouldn't do, and if you do, name him after me."
Regards,
Richard Koenigsberg
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