[lit-ideas] Re: Stasi on our Minds

LH:
>>There are two opinions about this matter.  Either they are a serious threat 
>>or they aren't.<<

If you're an ideologue, there are only two opinions -- all ideologues believe 
there is only their position and the wrong position.  I can see very many 
positions. (1) They are no threat at all.  (2)  They're only a threat if we 
threaten them.  (3)  They are a threat but our response to their threat only 
increases the potency of their threat.  (4)  Their threat is a legitimate 
response to our threat against them. (5) They are only a minor threat.  (6) 
We're doomed, we should surrender now.  I can imagine many more.   So you see, 
your polarities are just the mechanisms of your ideological tendencies.


>>So when we don't know do we assume a Dr. Pangloss-Alfred E. Newman persona?  
>>Or do we prepare for the worst.<<

There you go again with your polarities.  Can't you even imagine any other 
response?  A world, perhaps,  wherein complex international relationships 
involve complex political responses?  I know for a fact that you're not as 
simple-minded as our President. 


>>Can we treat them as a few nutcases or as has been estimated by a number of 
>>scholars, 1/3 of the 1.5Billion Muslims in the world are Islamist and 
>>sympathize with the Jihadi cause -- these people provide a fund of people to 
>>be recruited to Jihadi ends.  We don't know!<<


Do you think that they don't worry about the exact same  thing regarding us?  
We certainly don't have any better track record in the world -- the Christian 
West, that is.  In fact, I'd think they have more reason to worry.  Our little 
escapade in Iraq is just the latest evidence that we mean them harm.  


>>I notice you declare yourself a "fifth-columnist," does that mean you've 
>>converted to Islamism?<<

No, sorry to disappoint you, but I've had it with all three Abrahamic 
religions.  They're all just repositories of megalomaniacal ideologues and a 
handful of dishonored saints. 


Mike Geary
Memphis



  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Lawrence Helm 
  To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
  Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2007 6:31 PM
  Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Stasi on our Minds



  Had you simply said you sided with Roy, Kepel & Fukuyama you would have 
managed to avoid sounding shrill.    There are prominent scholars on both 
sides.  I've been reading both sides.  I've been commenting on what I read.  
The matter is by no means as simplistic as you seem to think.  

  But as to the specific matter that you seem to think makes me sound like 
Lenin:  what I am describing is what the terrorists do.  They get in a target 
society and the kill as many people as they can.  They are doing it today -- 
all over the world.  Someone who thinks terrorists do what they do isn't 
necessarily someone who agrees with Lenin.  He may simply be observant.

  Islamists are going to go about their business, but how many are there, and 
what sort of damage can they do?  Can we simply ignore them and have them go 
away?  Are they few in number?  Will they engage in easier targets -- say 
European targets rather than U.S. targets.  Can we treat them as a few nutcases 
or as has been estimated by a number of scholars, 1/3 of the 1.5Billion Muslims 
in the world are Islamist and sympathize with the Jihadi cause -- these people 
provide a fund of people to be recruited to Jihadi ends.  We don't know!

   Someplace in my youth, perhaps when I was in the Marine Corps, I was taught 
that you can hope for the best if you like, but you always prepared for the 
worst.  So as I said, I have studied both points of view, but believe it is 
prudent in this case to prepare for the worst.   That means to assume that they 
believe and intend what they claim they believe and sworn to carry out.  This 
isn't a matter of inventing an enemy.  They exist, but are they as potent and 
resolute as they claim, or are they engaging in braggadocio and wishful 
thinking?  Time will tell.

    or are you engaged in some other form of subversion like Leftism?

  Lawrence


  ------------Original Message------------
  From: "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  Date: Tue, May-29-2007 3:30 PM
  Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Stasi on our Minds


  Lawrence quotes Donnersmarck as saying he was influenced "by a passage in 
which Maxim Gorky records Lenin saying that he can’t listen to Beethoven’s 
Appasionata because it makes him want to say sweet, silly things and pat the 
heads of little people, whereas in fact those little heads must be beaten, 
beaten mercilessly, to make the revolution." 
    
  Lawrence, I don't know how to say this without sounding snide and mean, but I 
assure you that I have no mean or hard feelings towards you personally, just 
strong disagreements.  You quote Donnersmarck as a way of showing how people 
like Lenin are capable of overcoming their humanistic empathetic impulses in 
the pursuit of an ideology.  Had you stopped there I would have agreed with 
you.   But you continued:

  "but inasmuch as the Islamist enemy has vowed our destruction I don’t believe 
this matter can remain academic. The Islamists have declared war on us and are 
engaged in attacks of one kind and another; so it is prudent to protect 
ourselves against their efforts – including (with apologies to Ash) protection 
against Fifth-Columnist-types in our nations. 
  "When the spy slips in to do his evil deed, it is best to discover and stop 
him – not protect his human rights and civil liberties – it seems to me."

  To me your reaction seems very much like Lenin's.

  Mike Geary

  Fifth Columnist of Memphis

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