[lit-ideas] More & More off-list
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Lit-Ideas" <Lit-Ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 18:12:37 -0800
JL,
The note you are responding is a note I posted on-line, but it has not yet
appeared on Lit-Ideas; so I shall copy you as usual in case this one doesn’t
appear either. Ever since you were placed in solitary confinement and allowed
only brief periods in the exercise yard, heavily supervised, my notes have gone
awry. Perhaps because I’ve been associating with you I am under suspicion
also; although since my posts have been confined by the authorities to the dust
bin, I don’t understand how anyone would know.
Ah, so some of your comments were to motivate me to reply. Since you commented
similarly to others I assume you had the same purpose in mind for them. And
since none of them have replied . . . I assume that their notes of reply are in
the same Lit-Ideas Limbo as mine.
As to the Crusades, they have been misrepresented in recent years due to the
misrepresentation of them by the Islamists. According to the Islamists,
Muslims were peacefully minding their own business when without provocation the
evil Christians aggressively attacked them. This is funny in the same way a
conspiracy theory is funny. Actually, Christian nations had been minding
their own business, albeit in the manner of Troy, that is enjoying their wealth
and learning to practice war no more when they were attacked by the Barbarians.
These Barbarians (Muslims) conquered city by city and Western Christianity
ignored cries coming from the East for help for year after year. Finally the
Pope called for a Crusade. And foreshadowing Joseph Goebbels, Islamists and
their admirers have been holding up the Crusades as an example of Western Evil
ever since Sayyid Qutb made that preposterous claim.
Lawrence
From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx [mailto:Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx]
Sent: Monday, December 17, 2007 5:21 PM
To: lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Ain't going to war no more'
Thanks for a thought (and feeling) provoking thought. I see traffic is slow and
your post has not been distributed yet with the list, and, as far as this post
by mine -- this very one I'm sending you now cc the list -- is concerned,
perhaps never will!
So for the record, I made a little search into two delightful OED expressions,
"Foreign Office" and "War Department". Enjoy!
I think you are right and that it's irresponsible to deny war, etc. I hope you
appreciate I was trying to mimick the silly entries in "Who's Who", where one
reads of Churchill, "He enjoys a cigar in the tub", or stupid things like that.
I was also interested in
(a) motivating you to reply and providing an occasion, as it proved, to let us
see your excellent, superb, stylish defense of the casus belli -- complete with
description of the Hellenes are 'barbarian', which I enjoyed, and the motto,
"There are always barbarians". Indeed, a common idiom in Buenos Aires is still,
"There are no Moors on the coast" ("No hay moros en la costa") meaning, "No
danger in view", which must come with the Conquistadores and there fear that
the Moors would tripple across the Gibraltar Strait like _this_.
(b) re-thinking the Crusade, as Richard the CoeurLion _is_ on my list of lists!
And I wonder what led these people to cross all Europe to restore the Faith.
You are possibly right that I would not like Buenos Aires being bombed so I
apologise if I hurt your feelings which have grown so loyal to your homeland as
they should after 9/11.
I hope other members of the list also comment on your post. It deserves good
commentary.
When I was mentioning the 'superb', etc. I was referring to your qualifying the
excerpts from Cartladge and Strauss, not the not-so-great JLS. Anyway, thanks.
Hey, my English setter, Ruperto, never died, so I still _own_ him, in a
metaphorical sense (He was stupidly stolen). You can count the fox terrier as
yet another dog I own, though. Again, I was mocking the Who's Who entries.
This pdf. on athletics I recently referred to in a post
http://www.aafla.org/SportsLibrary/JSH/JSH1985/JSH1203/jsh1203b.pdf.
makes a few references to what the author calls the 'warrior-athlete', which I
hope you will appreciate. Apparently, it's pretty heavy gear!
I have a few other thoughts about war, etc. Back to the recruit versus
volunteer. And I don't want to sound offensive, but how much 'volunteer' can it
be if a member of the armed forces receives a salary. (I've just come from a
'literacy' volunteer centre, and by definition, a 'volunteer' is someone who
does not receive monetary compensation. Please explain!). Back to the
war-argument, I think you DO like the ghurkas, but during the Falklands War,
the Argentine army was basically (a) professional -- though hardly 'volunteer'
-- and (b) draft, recruits -- if you volunteer, the best for your mental
health, I would think. Argentina was not prepared for the fight, and they were
using silly gear and weapons -- like Mausers -- that could not compare to the
mercenary killing instict of _them_ ghurkas -- and their foreign faces! For
some reason I cannot imagine an English officer climbing Tumbledown to kill an
Argentine! After the years of the Good Beef from Old Argentina and all that.
They trusted the _ghurkas_ to do the 'dirty' job.
It's also worth considering that what you mention as war being the occasion or
excuse or pretext for the display of manly deeds may no longer be applicable
with the technicalization (if that's the word) of most 'military strategies'
now. I love a bootcamp, but apparently it's all computerized now, and don't be
surprised if they also have 'simulated' boots in simulated 'camps'.
My reference to 'foreign' was meant as partly comical, in that it's a word that
has nice philosophical puzzles (of the naive linguistic kind) about it. We
think of a foreign-language, and that's French for Americans, but it's American
for the French, et al. I was also reminded of George Mikes (a foreigner, name
pronounced Mikesh) who writes in "How to be an alien", "I told this
Englishwoman that I was ready to marry her, as my mother did approve of my
marrying a foreigner. To which she replied, "Me, a foreigner? I'm not a
foreigner. You are a foregner, and your old mother, too!". "Even in Croatia?" I
asked. "Surely. Things like these are truths, and surely truth is not relative
to place or time." :-)
Hey, you make me sound like I'm Nero in an sempiternal (if that's the word)
orgy in Buenos Aires. And no, I would not resign (if that's the word) my right
to fight in a war. I don't like a satrap, least so a foreign one!
I commend your honor and intelligence and passion in dealing with and doing
your best to understand 'foreign policy'. It can be a fascinating subject too.
And nice to catalogue in the swimming pool library too. I have a few books on
British foreign policy, and they make for quite a shelf! One is called "Britain
in the Western Mediterranean" with a nice map showing all those posts of the
Empire from Horatio Nelson's little bay in Mayonne (Minorca), plus Malta (where
the Queen recently celebrated her 60th? anniversary with Philip) and of course
Gibraltar (that they still possess). I also own a little silly, "Queen
Victoria's little wars", and books on the "Indian Mutiny", "The Boer War", "The
Reason Why" -- and a few on the Falklands/Malvinas.
Foreign is as foreign does, too. Who would have thought that the Chileans -- to
an European -- would count as a 'foreign' to Argentina!? Why, they (Chile) were
_once_ part of the Argentine Empire! Yet, we were more than once on the verge
of war, and I understand your commentary on wanting to negotiate peace as best
as possible. As a matter of history, it was the Pope who settled peace for us!
-- over the Beagle Channel. And as you mentioned on this list too, it's the
Uruguayans now. Fancy living in a country which, as Homer (Simpson) sings,
sounds like "UR-u-Gay?"
Cheers,
J. L. Speranza
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Foreign Office: the department of the ‘Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs’;
the building in which the business of this department is carried on.
1797 Rep. Committees Ho. of Comm. XII. 301 The Office of Secretary of State for
the *War Department was first established on the 11th July 1794. 1819 D. B.
WARDEN Acc. U.S. III. 395 Chapter xliv. Of the War Department. Ibid. 405 The
original proceedings of all courts-martial, ordered by the war department, are
transmitted to that department by the judge advocate of the court. 1866 G. B.
MCLELLAN Let. 26 Dec. in McLellan's Own Story (1887) xii. 221 The entire
establishment..was removed to the War Department building, without my
knowledge. 1944 Time 2 Oct. 19/1 This was strictly a military document drafted
by the War Department.
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