[lit-ideas] Re: The Strident Voice of Defeat
- From: "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 13:58:14 -0600
LH:
Then there is the equivalent of "you can't know anything about being Black
unless you are Black."<<
Well, yes, I think that's very true. I assert that you have no concept of
what it means to be a Black person in America. You can imagine some
difficulties, I'm sure, but KNOW? No way, Jose. Nor can you know what it
is to be Hispanic, especially not an illegal. Again you can imagine what it
must be like, but the only poor sod of whom you can possibly have any
knowledge of what it's like to be like is Lawrence Helm. You and only you
can know that. And the further you get away from Lawrence Helm the less
able you are to imagine being another. So sayeth I.
>>I think that's pretty much run its course in Black movements<<
Oh, so you're an expert on "Black Movements" now?
But perhaps Mike is trying to adapt that to the current situation. That
will be difficult because Qutbist Islamism doesn't want to be accepted.
It doesn't want rights as Blacks did in the U.S. It wants to conquer and
it fully expects to. It is a warrior code and to oppose it doesn't
comprise "bigotry" in any usual sense of that word. One doesn't usually
wonder if one is becoming a bigot if one is defending one's family or
nation against an attacking enemy. And Qutbism believes in attacking
enemies.<<
When I was a senior in high school, I had a very charismatic social science
teacher. Mr. Lekowski. His classes were exciting. He was a rabid
anti-Communist. Communists were everywhere. They were devouring democracy,
nibbling away in their especially pernicious way at Capitalism and at the
most sacred of America's holy doctrines Private Property. No one had any
idea just how immanent and dangerous the threat was. He was a voracious
reader of anti-Communist literature. Anything he disagreed with (like
taxation, social security, labor unions, welfare, fluoridation of the water,
racial integration, long hair) was a Communist conspiracy. He could quote
chapter and verse from an impressive repertoire of sources to prove it all.
Anyone who disagreed with him -- liberals mostly -- were ignorant or
spiritually blind or nefarious fellow-travelers, pinkos if not fully red.
Wake up, America! was his middle name. I loved his class if only because
it wasn't boring. He was more a proselytizer than a teacher, but damn
entertaining. I wish I'd had more like him. I didn't believe a word he
said. I thought he was crazy, in fact, but damn entertaining. I came from
Pinko stock those who still genuflected at the name of Franklin Delano
Roosevelt. To his credit, Mr. Lekowski never tested us on his personal
beliefs, but he sure liked you better if you were true blue. Can't blame
him for that. What sticks in my mind most about experiencing Mr. Lekowski
is my impression at the time that if it weren't for Communism, the man would
have nothing to live for. He was Don Quixote constructing his own
windmills. There's a lot of that in Lawrence I think. And like Mr.
Lekowski, I get a kick out of him.
I hope you don't take that as patronizing, Lawrence.
Mike Geary
Memphis
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