[lit-ideas] Re: All praise to JC

  • From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2010 16:34:42 -0700

Judy,
 
It might seem like slander if I didn't develop arguments to prove my point;
which I did in other notes not so long ago.  You obviously missed those
notes.  I don't know what to do about that.
 
Lawrence
 
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Judith Evans
Sent: Friday, July 02, 2010 3:05 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: All praise to JC
 

I retract my reply, it is inadequate, you slander Mike, 

>supports the Islamists in their desire to engage in genocide against the
Jews.  

is just too much, is just bad

--- On Fri, 2/7/10, Judith Evans <judithevans001@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

From: Judith Evans <judithevans001@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: All praise to JC
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Friday, 2 July, 2010, 22:57

but I should reply to Lawrence too, if both briefly and partly, now

>Another way to look at the objects of Blogblather's condemnation would be
to see them >.as European ways that had not yet been sloughed off by
Americans dedicated to free
>.enterprise and human rights.

a way that falls foul of the difference between indentured labour and
chattel slavery, of Somersett's case, which effectively abolished slavery
(mainly=domestic service, some 14.000 slaves) in the uk --
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somersett's_Case>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somersett's_Case -- of the 1807 Slave Trade Act
and the 1833 Abolition of Slavery Act (seen as the only way to eliminate the
slave trade). 

but anyway as Mike says, the US is a hotchpotch


 

--- On Fri, 2/7/10, Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

From: Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: All praise to JC
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Friday, 2 July, 2010, 20:30
I posted a response to Mike's (aka Billy Blogblather's) note at
<http://www.lawrencehelm.com/2010/07/shame-germany-america-and-genocide.html
>
http://www.lawrencehelm.com/2010/07/shame-germany-america-and-genocide.html
 
Lawrence
 
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Mike Geary
Sent: Thursday, July 01, 2010 8:09 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: All praise to JC
 
Hi, Chris,

To begin: "Civilization" is a meaningless word .  Let's use the word
'culture' instead -- significantly less meaningless.  In the U. S. there are
innumerable cultures -- my guess is, more so than in any of the European
countries, but I don't know that.  European countries strike me as being
much more homogeneous than the US.  And, as I write this, America is
becoming more and more Hispanicized day by day.  I celebrate that.
Hispanics seem to have a hell of lot better grip on reality than the
Northern European stock here who've grown fat,  proud and complacent,  and
supremely confident of their superiority.  I can't speak to Cheever's
disillusionment with America.  I grew up in Memphis, raised by very liberal
parents,  I've been aware almost from the very beginning how racist and
ultra-right the South is.  I  learned from my parents and from a few
subversive teachers that the Southern culture is not only retrogressive, it
is morally deficient -- to put it politely.  I don't think of America as an
entity, or as a culture.  It's too diffuse.  And that's a wonderful thing.
There are many things about America that I hate, primarily its militarism.
But this is all I know.  I have a brother who has lived in Denmark for the
last 47 years and loves it totally.  I myself came within a week of
emigrating to Canada rather than going to Vietnam, a war I believed was
indefensible on moral grounds.  A teaching job came through at the very end
-- sweet deferment.  I've lived one year in San Francisco -- god what a
paradise -- and  six years in Seattle -- a place better called "Heaven".
Everything about both those cities were right down my perspective alley, but
weirdly I never really connected with anyone in either city -- maybe it was
my Southern accent  : )   When my kids started having kids I came back to
Memphis.  I was struck at how quickly all the old relationships fell back
into place.  I was home again, and loving it.  And hating it.

I've not sure what Cheever expected.  What was he needing America to be?
It's just another country, but one that's a hodgepodge  of cultures, a
country founded in genocide, supported through slavery and slave wages for
three hundred years. A country that presents itself as the noblest of the
noble.  But America is not the shining light on the hill, that I was taught
it to be by my educators -- men (almost exclusively -- most of whom I now
know knew less about life and human nature than I did at ten years old all
praise and  thanks to my wondrously anomalous parents.)  America is just
another grouping of people trying to bring things together without too much
pain to themselves.  What people aren't?  

Mike Geary
Memphis.

PS  anyone interested in contemporary "Southern Culture" should tune into
the Memphis Commercial Appeal's website:  <http://www.commercialappeal.com/>
http://www.commercialappeal.com/   and read the comments on the various
articles..  If you see one by Kinch, that's me.
 

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