Well, Irene, I'm sorry you had those experiences, but your grasp of these discussions is harming you. You miss so many things it is difficult to reply to you - or reply seriously. I'm not a warmonger nor am I guilty of any of those things you accuse me of, and how can I not laugh when you get so mixed up that you end up coming to preposterous conclusions? Perhaps if you weren't so aggressive while engaged in your misunderstandings that would help. Kindly intended, Lawrence _____ From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Andy Amago Sent: Monday, May 08, 2006 3:40 PM To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Psychotic Expeditions in the garden Yesterday Simon posted the tens of millions who were killed in WWII. Tens of millions. Not ants, people. Tens of millions of people who were killed, maimed, burned, lost their homes. You responded with some philosophical thing that clearly said you heard none of it. There's prepared and then there's reading everything one can get one's hands on to support starting a catastrophe. Clearly your military experience was not negative enough that it turned you off to war. Clearly, it turned you on to war. My mother was a child civilian during WWII. To this day she won't talk about it. My father was also a child, a teenager, civilian rounded up by the Germans and put into a labor camp. Both my parents were lucky. They survived. I substituted in a class once where there was a Vietnamese girl (back in the 80's). I asked her some general question regardi ng Vietnam and she started to cry. I changed the subject. Who knows how many of her family were in that three million that we slaughtered with napalm or whatever. But these are just words on a page to you. They mean nothing. Lawrence, even forgetting the horror of war which clearly is meaningless to you, if you have any semblance of reality, how can you think we're the same country we were 60 years ago? We're broke. We're being walked on (which you deny as a progress) in Iraq, Iran is thumbing its nose at us, we're all but a hostage to foreign oil. Do you ever do a reality check on yourself? I honestly feel sorry for you. I have to log off now, plus the mouse on my laptop is not working, and I'm tired of wasting my time. ----- Original Message ----- From: Lawrence <mailto:lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx> Helm To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: 5/8/2006 6:22:27 PM Subject: [lit-ideas] Psychotic Expeditions in the garden Simon, From a previous note, I wrote: I dont think Im at all paranoid . . . After posting the note containing the above, I read all the notes posted while I was writing to you and ran across the following lines from Irene: 1. Lawrence being the only person on this list who experienced a war, more accurately he's the only person (I hope) who experienced a war and enjoyed it enough to demand more, and want it nuclear to boot. 2. It would be much more honest if Lawrence would come out and do a Patton or MacArthur or whoever it was and say, God, do I love war, and let it go at that . . . [I think it was the Colonel in Apocalypse Now who exclaimed, I love the smell of napalm in the morning.] 3. A[hmadinejad] is only talking a line, while Lawrence is sincere. He really wants to see maimed burned bodies. 4. > Yeah, war is hell. > Not to Lawrence it isn't. 5. Obviously all you want is to support war and applaud Lawrence for having "experienced" it. He loves war, and maybe you do too indirectly. [directed at someone who advised her to put a cork in it] Now, Simon, I ask you, what would be a normal reaction afters reading such things if you happened to be Lawrence? Let me tell you I embarrassed myself by laughing uproariously, but then I began to worry. Sure, maybe Im not paranoid, but maybe I have some other pathological condition. I know Irene would say Im a pathological warmonger, but I mean besides that. What do you think? Lawrence