[lit-ideas] Re: the bombing blues
- From: "Andy Amago" <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2005 20:55:32 -0400
> [Original Message]
> From: Robert Paul <robert.paul@xxxxxxxx>
> To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: 7/8/2005 7:38:47 PM
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: the bombing blues
>
> Andy Amago wrote:
>
> > A.A. I agree. Your comment is illogical, unfeeling crap. Daily
> death and
> > horror is okay for tens of thousands but sorrow aplenty for 50 or so in
a
> > one shot deal. CNN, et al. have done nonstop yammering for those
people in
> > London (who are hurting, to be sure, although quite back to work), but
not
> > one word for the Iraqis that have been hurting far longer for no reason
> > except that Bush, et al. scratched an itch and started something he
can't
> > control. While making us all less safe in the process.
>
> I don't think you actually read Pitt Rivers screed.
A.A. Correct. My above statement is in response to your statement.
In it, he implies
> that we should not feel for (pay attention to, grieve, care much about)
> the deaths of those (mere) 50 people (whose skin colors no one has yet
> been told, although Pitt Rivers knows a priori that whatever color the
> skins, the skins of Iraqis are 'darker'), because there is similar
> anguish and suffering elsewhere in the world. This is a stupid argument
> when it first appeared as a component of white liberal guilt many years
> ago, and it is a stupid argument now.
A.A. If in fact this is what he's saying, then he is as dumb as Bush. In
any case, it doesn't change that there's an enormous outpouring of sympathy
and outrage for one act of terror in London, and none, count 'em, none, for
the years of daily terror that Iraqis have endured because Bush fired at
the wrong target for the wrong reason. Their victims number not 50, but
tens of thousands. As regards skin color, the Iraqis I've seen are rather
light skinned. Not blonde light, but not dark. For the record, skin color
never entered my mind.
>
> It is apparently enough to absolve anyone of feeling anything about
> anything that somebody elsewhere is undergoing the same thing. It allows
> phonys like Pitt Rivers to use the occasion of a terrorist attack in
> which a number of quite innocent people were killed and hundreds more
> injured, to show that they don't give a damn about human suffering if
> there is a politico/ideological point to be made.
A.A. The paragraphs John posted said the opposite to me, that we are
selective in whose suffering we give a damn about. Other than Mike Geary,
Julie and possibly Mike Chase, no one, not even on this list, has mentioned
the hell that the Iraqis live in on a daily basis, a hell created for them
by the American government, except to say we took the war "over there" to
people who had nothing to do with al Qaeda or 9/11. We have it on good
authority (Marlena) that the red states like, in fact adore, Bush for doing
exactly that. Eric's point that things under Saddam weren't wonderful is
true. But it took Bush to make them far worse, in exchange for which we
are as or less secure than on 9/11. I'm curious now how long it will take
until the reds realize they paid a high price for some fool's gold.
>
> I'm sorry that Andy is seduced by such crap.
A.A. Don't be sorry. I don't seduce easily, and those paragraphs were
dressed like Eskimos anyway. No seduction was possible.
Andy Amago
>
> Robert Paul
> Reed College
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
> digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
Other related posts:
