tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post465108382533160725..comments2024-01-28T03:56:39.351-08:00Comments on TOM CLARK: Erasing the Forgotten: Has Gaza Eluded the Historical Memory of Poetry?Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-5538680816267100762014-08-27T15:48:27.212-07:002014-08-27T15:48:27.212-07:00Curtis,
"If we must choose between supportin...Curtis,<br /><br />"If we must choose between supporting Israel while living with its repugnant policies, versus withholding it and risking its vulnerability? . . . I'm not sure we have a good choice here."<br /><br />First, "we" do not have a choice, much less a good choice. Nobody asks "us". It's all theatre, this fraud of a democracy.<br /><br />On the subject of "vulnerability": the exposure, the vulnerability, the harm, the pain, the loss -- loss of family, loss of memories, loss of property -- it's all on the one side.<br /><br />On the other, a Myth of Vulnerability: general paranoia, persecution complex, people with drinks coolers sitting on sofas on hilltops in the lovely Mediterranean dusk, watching the bombing as though it were an entertainment. <br /><br />Power is the issue. They have the fourth most powerful military in the world. The most powerful in the region. A massive nuclear arsenal, the ultimate overkill. <br /><br />The vulnerability of Power is all in the realm of Truth. Their propaganda -- they call the "strategic policy" Hasbara, bombs plus lies -- is designed as an iron shield against the one window of vulnerability. <br /><br />That's the same window of vulnerability that's always been a bother to Power.<br /><br />Vulnerability to Truth.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-90280910374792251912014-08-27T13:11:27.829-07:002014-08-27T13:11:27.829-07:00Tom:
No, no, no.
It wasn't a comparion of me...Tom:<br /><br />No, no, no.<br /><br />It wasn't a comparion of men by any means. Nor a historical pairing.<br /><br />I was just noting that the strategic principle of fighting with "honor" or "the rules of war" or "pity" or "respect" are finally set aside, and savagery is let loose. Anyone who ruthless bombs a grammar school, or an apartment building--well, what can one say?<br /><br />Your eloquent indignation bespeaks a degree of fury that moves me. I've never been completely comfortable being an "armchair sap" but I'm willing to take the consequences of my apathy.<br /><br />If we must choose between supporting Israel while living with its repugnant policies, versus withholding it and risking its vulnerability? . . . I'm not sure we have a good choice here.<br /><br />The whole middle east is coming apart. It was never an organized group of nations, but a cobbled hodge-podge of unstable entities. The fake "nation states" created in the early part of the 20th Century by European colonialists and diplomats never had real viability. In this context, the birth and continued existence of Israel is just another example. Curtis Favillehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06213075853354387634noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-1324535014081608962014-08-27T12:08:31.168-07:002014-08-27T12:08:31.168-07:00Curtis,
A couple of problems with the comparison....Curtis,<br /><br />A couple of problems with the comparison.<br /><br />In the US Civil War the North never suggested the people of the South were of a lesser order of being -- that is, not quite human.<br /><br />The population of the North was made up predominantly of English-speaking people of Northern European descent, and the people of the South, likewise. Apart from their slaves, that is.<br /><br />After all, let's not forget high-school Civics. The North had principle on its side. Slavery and apartheid are deeply inhumane. The "right" to own slaves was the principle on which the South went to war. Israel is an apartheid state. Its perceived "right" to remain that way, furthermore, includes the right to aggressive expansionism, the forcible apportionment of lands and resources, the "resettlement" of the lands of others by outsiders offered substantial incentives to colonize, and so on.<br /><br />Then too, the methods and machinery of warfare in the Nineteenth Century were not what they are in the Twenty-first. Cruel, but not as cruel. <br /><br />And finally, the North was not being financed, equipped, and encouraged by an outside government that empowered it to commit serial war crimes with impunity and with as little notice as possible. <br /><br />That the enabling outsiders in this present case happen to be you and me and millions of other armchair saps like us... well, I can't help seeing that as an aggravating circumstance.<br /><br />Please do keep in mind that in the end -- and this after nearly eight weeks of unmitigated horror too glaring to avoid or deny any longer -- it was not until so many little old ladies, little old men, unemployed social outcasts, and others excluded by the new tech-worshipping, security-obsessed, selfie-mesmerised, smartphone-bound, stock-portfolio-clutching society had bestirred themselves to speak out, however mildly, or act up, however seemingly ineffectively, but in considerable numbers, the cup of horror and revulsion had finally filled to the brim and spilled over into a caldron of international outrage -- seen and felt everywhere but in the US and its weak little sister Canada -- that a lid could at last come down over what must surely be one of the most lopsided, cowardly, barbarous wars waged by a dominant power against a virtually powerless enemy.<br /><br />Keeping in mind that the fury now being expressed in Israel is not over having offered any real political concession -- after all their blockade remains in place, their terror drones still pollute the Gaza sky -- but over having had to call off the campaign of destruction just short of completing it by levelling Gaza to the ground and removing its population permanently.<br /><br />If your historical research has caused you to conclude that Netanyahu = Lincoln, I'd suggest you consider some other sources of information.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-71447665923858548462014-08-27T10:06:30.840-07:002014-08-27T10:06:30.840-07:00Lately, we've been getting revised historical ...Lately, we've been getting revised historical accounts that focus in on Lincoln's strategic thinking towards the end of the Civil War.<br /><br />Over and over again, we hear how it became a ruthless determination to "convince" the South by beating it into abject submission.<br /><br />Which meant, if I understand it correctly, bludgeoning not just whole armies, but towns and civilians and train rails and roads and coal depots and water towers--the whole regional infrastructure. <br /><br />This "convincing" I suppose is what I assume Israel is now determined to do, to beat down the Palestinian society and culture, to obliterate it into submission. <br /><br />I see no way out of the conflict. Either you believe Israel has a "right to exist" as a "Jewish State" or you don't. You take sides with one or the other. Because there isn't a "brokered solution" to which either side will ever subscribe. <br /><br />The killing and destruction is a testament to this unyielding determination. It is one-sided, and horrifying, and we all want it to stop. People are dying. They are also dying in dozens of other places in the world. <br /><br />We live with this, every day. And it goes on.Curtis Favillehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06213075853354387634noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-10948325053714667022014-08-26T17:08:19.418-07:002014-08-26T17:08:19.418-07:00Talking of historical memory, though...
It would ...Talking of historical memory, though...<br /><br />It would be a shame were any of our short-attention-span AIPAC donors to have missed out on the heart-stopping real-time footage from Gaza featuring <a href="http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/51863244" rel="nofollow">the worst terror their money could buy...</a><br /><br />(Just to bring things a bit closer to home, just imagine that exploded and collapsing structure to the left of your screen was, oh, what... an apartment building on the Concourse?)<br /><br />And then, ceremonial incense for Bibi, the eerie silence and funereal pall of smoke rising from the rubble, on <a href="http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/51867073" rel="nofollow">the morning after that tower came down...</a><br /><br />On the other hand, seeing that the Avigdor Lieberman wing of the Fourth Reich is already grieving over the body-parts that got away, maybe at the moment it's an ashes-and-aloes chaser our sado-maso-Zio-trolls will have a taste for... how about a brief check on what <a href="http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/51889166" rel="nofollow">dawn felt like today, amid the ruins of those who had miraculously defeated the mechanical force of mighty arms with nothing but spirit...</a><br /><br />Right. Honk-honk. Get on with it. Awaken from the nightmare, attempt to rebuild something like a normal life...<br /><br />And who's going to take on the massive reconstruction? Will it be left to the endlessly resilient roosters of Gaza to provide the signal of inspiration?<br /><br />Do we hear the jingling of the reparations shekels in the basket, over there beyond the comfortable outdoor atrocity-viewing sofas of Sderot, yet?<br /><br />But wait... Reparations -- for whom? The Forgotten?<br /><br />Oy, who were they, again?TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-52584746070159287312014-08-26T15:16:42.410-07:002014-08-26T15:16:42.410-07:00Great thanks to both of you, Duncan and Hazen, per...Great thanks to both of you, Duncan and Hazen, persons of conscience, for hanging in there. It hasn't been easy.<br /><br />The long night of the towers falling seems to have been Israel's signature at the bottom of the document inscribing the fifty nights in which it achieved a paramount place in the history of brutal and senseless warmaking.<br /><br />That no one knows or cares about history anymore helped. That American coma-bags dressed up as "folks" (thank you Mr Potus) care more about the "lifestyle" of the bacterial cultures in their navels than they do about anything remotely connected with the real world -- that obviously helped too.<br /><br />But it's now clear that if there is a history of that real world, and that history has a dust-bin for the particularly foul, America, by condoning and enabling this one-sided Zionist war, has forever conjoined itself with Israel, in it.<br /><br />On the other hand, very few Americans will have noticed, and fewer still will care.<br /><br />__<br /><br />Outside this country, by the way, the possibility of a historical reckoning has actually been floated. Here's Ben White, writing three weeks ago -- and keeping in mind this was before the latest über-blitzkrieg stages:<br /><br />A report in Haaretz a week ago said that more than 30,000 artillery shells had landed in Gaza, in addition to the then-4,000 "targets" struck by airstrikes. It is vital to recall, when considering the bigger picture of Israel's military operations, that the army's own legal advice strips civilians of their protected status, in what has been described as "a 'targeted assassination' of the principles of international law".<br /><br />Meanwhile, Israel is preparing for the anticipated legal ramifications of its war crimes – a reasonable expectation given the calls already made by the likes of Amnesty International for an arms embargo, as well as the UN Human Rights Commission inquiry.<br /><br />According to the Israeli media, for domestic consumption officials describe the damage done to Gaza "as the main deterrent" – but "play down this claim in the international arena", as they are "aware the destruction will have serious political ramifications". On July 10, a military source claimed that when "Gaza residents see the great damage to the Strip", it "will speak for itself".<br /><br />The Israeli military has already established a team "in case the army is accused of war crimes" consisting of senior army officials, as well as representatives of the Foreign and Defense Ministries. Their remit also includes "organizing a diplomatic and public relations offensive".<br /><br /><a href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/articles/debate/13342-israels-atrocities-in-gaza-prompt-unprecedented-political-fallout" rel="nofollow">Ben White: Israel's Atrocities in Gaza Prompt Unprecedented Political Fallout (8 August)</a>TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-5462790368063877252014-08-26T10:21:50.242-07:002014-08-26T10:21:50.242-07:00This question has been much on my mind lately; I&#...This question has been much on my mind lately; I'm grateful for Dabashi posing it again so eloquently. What can one say in the face of everyday barbarity? But then, silence seems shameful too. For Tel Aviv, the barbarous has become commonplace. Barbarity is now policy, a way of waging death, a scripturally inspired madness. Israel has become the Fourth Reich.Hazenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13417573435195561519noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-21463976516795888492014-08-26T07:58:46.992-07:002014-08-26T07:58:46.992-07:00What has happened haunts everything. When I put pe...What has happened haunts everything. When I put pen to paper I say to my self: I am not writing about Gaza. When I put pen to paper I remember those are our bombs, our drones, etc. and nothing shows up more than the poem's futility. <br /><br />Where are we writing from? Who are we when we write?<br /><br />I hadn't heard of Dabashi before: this is someone whose writing we need.Mose23https://www.blogger.com/profile/01100756913131511440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-29766405304012762322014-08-26T03:09:10.179-07:002014-08-26T03:09:10.179-07:00A view of the moment of destruction of Al Zafer re...<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAHFJjWnsOI&feature=youtu.be" rel="nofollow">A view of the moment of destruction of Al Zafer residential block no. 4</a><br /><br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X2KLlTTprs" rel="nofollow">... and another...</a><br /><br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVq_VVuX-NQ" rel="nofollow">and another...</a><br /><br />There's a school of thought that holds that this tall-building-demolition phase of the terror is some kind of bizarro anniversary celebration, what with the clever early-autumnal timing, the towers madly falling, the black smoke, the circumabient rubble, the airborne toxins, the firefighters getting hosed... but then, school isn't open.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.com