[lit-ideas] Re: Mirembe and the need for Blackwater
- From: "Julie Krueger" <juliereneb@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2007 23:51:52 -0500
I most especially miss her amazing poetry. (Her posts, "prose", were
usually in and of themselves poetry.)
Poets, you know, can put on various garbs -- but they are mere trappings
unrelated to Reality.
Julie Krueger
On 9/19/07, Mike Geary <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> Sorry once again for having sent a reply empty of any Reply. Life gets
> complicated at times as everyone of you knows. But here I am back at the
> reply and full of confidence that it'll get sent this time. Actually,
> it's
> hardly a reply, more of an Amen to RP's post on Mirembe. I can't remember
> any political posts by her. She seemed to eschew all political
> opinion --like David Ritchie or Erin Holder do, except that I doubt either
> of them gives a damn about our political anguish -- lucky sods. I've
> always
> imagined Mirembe as being very politically minded but choosing for
> professional reasons to keep her cards close to her chest. I've also
> imagined her as being very internationally-politically astute, which would
> probably preclude most up or down judgments of political happenings as
> Lawrence and I engage in, but I'll be damned if I'll ever let anyone's
> diplomatic aplomb curb my righteous refusal to look at the details. I
> know
> my prejudices and I stand firmly behind them. I only know Mirembe her
> through her posts. so everything I say is to be understood in that light.
> Almost all of her posts, as I remember, were literary in nature. She took
> me to task on more than three occasions over my interpretation of specific
> works and literary theory in general -- she was wrong on all counts, of
> course, but that should have no bearing on how one judges her skills as a
> diplomat with the State Department. Mirembe Nantango! Let's dance!!!
>
>
> Mike Geary
> Memphis
> wondering if her kid is still tethered in a courtyard with the goats.
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Robert Paul" <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
> To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2007 3:25 PM
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Mirembe and the need for Blackwater
>
>
> > By the way, is the US embassy spokeswoman, Miremebe Nantonga
> referred
> > to in the AFP article, the same Mirembe who used to be on Lit Ideas
> and
> > Phil-Lit and with whom I argued on more than one occasion?
>
> Yes, she is the same person. Whether you 'argued' with her more than once
> I cannot say. It's surely possible that you and she disagreed over
> something
> a couple of times.
>
> > I can't recall what we argued about but could it have
> > been politics or the military?
>
> No. Mirembe has never on these lists discussed politics in the sense
> of taking sides, criticizing US policy, or attacking the sort of
> ideology you exemplify. She has never here discussed US policy from
> any political stance, and one could not have inferred from her posts
> where her political sympathies lay. That should be enough to answer
> what you say next:
>
> > Could [she] have been a typical Lit-Ideas/Phil-Lit member, i.e., a
> > Leftist? so, what is she doing in the hated State Department, and
> Mike,
> > what is she doing defending Blackwater? Did she succumb to filthy
> > lucre? Or is she operating out of principle?
>
> It's depressing to see you still assigning people ('the typical
> Lit-Ideas member, e.g.) to categories, the features of which have been
> pre-judged. I grant that this saves one the trouble of thinking: 'Oh,
> Smith is a member of lit-ideas, so he obviously believes in arming the
> jihadists, levitating the Pentagon, and promoting bimetallism.' One
> needn't pay any attention to what was actually said, once one knows
> who said it. 'The hated State Department'? Who among us has expressed
> hatred toward the State Department--the entire State Department?
> (Well, it certainly wasn't Mirembe, who throughout her membership on
> Phil_lit and its various reincarnations has worked for the State
> Department.)
>
> Mirembe, acting as a spokeswoman for the US Embassy in Baghdad, has
> not, in any of her remarks quoted in various newspapers, 'defended'
> Blackwater. Nor has she criticized it.
>
> You move, through a series of rhetorical questions, to a conclusion
> about someone's political and professional views; but the conclusion
> you seem to be trying to reach would only be supported if one accepted
> your own implicit answers to your own questions. Since your answers
> are false, the most you have done is to slander by innuendo, a person
> who was for years an ornament among the contributors to these lists.
>
> Robert Paul
> Reed College
>
>
>
>
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