Iraq Armchair War Diaries

Dispatches from the armchair war lords.

The Death of the Father
When someone like Kerry praises the social revolution of the sixties, it’s just the putrid winds of nostalgia aimed at long-in-the-teeth baby boomers. Rotten meat for the faithful. But I’ve been thinking about the sixties social revolution in archetypal terms lately, so please excuse the following generalizations:

Kennedy, the Father/King was killed in Dallas and everything that happened after that to our generation resonates from this act. After the King was killed, the adolescents had free reign and a social Lord of the Flies scenario unfolded. We went hog-wild because we had seen the corruption of our elders—seen the best and the brightest exposed as the most ruthless and ambitious (MacNamara), seen the forces of reaction trounce idealists (Humphrey beating McCarthy; Nixon burying McGovern). We also saw the flip side of the handsome Camelot/Janus, which was the ugly face of the Mob and the Cuban ex-patriots who were intertwined (we still don’t know exactly how) with the Kennedys. Everybody back then wanted to look under a rock and find the dark side. Kerry got caught up in that.

The whole thing wasn’t our fault. It was fate.
—John Dentino

On Jul 30, 2004, at 4:18 AM, Jeffrey Herbert Spencer wrote:

is not what he did in Vietnam, but what he did right after when
he sold his soul to the Democratic Party to be their man to indict
the fighting services in Vietnam with a broad accusation of criminality.
In his wake he brought forward men who claimed to be veterans,
and were later proven to be non-veteran poseurs. There have been
just as many vicious attacks on GW’s service record. One simple
fact: GW was a fighter pilot in Air Defense Command. He carried far
more responsibility than Kerry ever did in his boat---he flew an air-
craft that was our first line of defense in the event of a nuclear attack
on the U.S.; designed to attack Soviet atomic bombers. You don’t get
a job like this if you are an irresponsible idiot.

I’ll say this for Kerry: he is ruthless in pursuing his objectives. He has
the unsentimentality of a Cassius.

Saw The Speech. When it wasn’t giving me the usual horrors political
speeches give me, I had to admit it was an energetic bit of rabble rousing
which the customarily dead dreary Kerry doesn’t usually muster. When I
heard him praising the social revolution of the ‘sixties, I cringed. Rather
than our Finest Hour, I find many of the changes a knife in the heart of our
social fabric, and clearly this has estranged me from (probably 90% of) the
Dem Party. Agreed with him on just about everything in foreign and domestic
policy, but I do not trust him. I detest his milieu. Since Clinton, there isn’t
much of the Dem Party I like anymore. He contaminated the Party with the
kind of “us vs. them” fanaticism I despise. The Dem Party is more and more
the party of Boss Twead---a party of angry and resentful have-nots looking
to government for largesse, not the party of brilliant young people with ideas
which I used to love. With fanaticism came expediency, and Kerry is the
man of expedients, just like Clinton. Ideas died with Clinton---Jerry Brown
was representative of ideas---and Clinton smeared him and ruined him.
Michael Moore perfectly represents the new Democratic Party, ruthless
ideological reduction to simple doctrinaire propaganda. Repeat after me
me children. No more Moynihans or Eugene Mc Carthys, just puppeteers
and attack dogs.

Was so cudgled yesterday I didn’t notice the main body of your email re:

death of JFK father&etc. This makes sense to me; in fact, it is a conceit that
captures the mood of the post-Nov 22 ‘60’s. When an idea makes sense of a lot
of feelings about an experience I sense there is truth in it. Too many ideas are
merely good ideas with no connection to how we really experienced the times.
Your framework is not just a clever conceit, it brings back recollections of how I
felt living in those times and the feelings jog remarkably with your paradigm. Maybe
JFK’s murder numbed our better angels, as Lincoln called them. Maybe we all felt
dirty. I think 1965 was the last year I didn’t feel swamped by the tides of irrationality
in the world. After ‘65, I could barely keep my head above water. I wrote a short story
about this feeling in 1981. It was about a man trying to keep his feet on the ground
while dealing with a woman who was a complete libertine who didn’t believe there
were any limits on appetite---she always said “why not?” and this drove him crazy
because he believed in his gut that no limitations on desire eventually led to chaos.
Her credo was: self-limitation is cowardice. Because he could not accept this, he was
torn by self-doubt. He wanted to please her by being without compunction, but he could
not stop believing this was rotten. Why not? will probably be the defining statement
of our age. Maybe that was just what died on Nov.---the sense that some things were
just impossible. I never expected to make it to 20---I thought nuclear war between us
and the USSR was inevitable. After surviving Reagan, I was almost punchy. I began to
feel like we could, as the English love to put it, “muddle through”, ANYTHING. I got
a What Me Worry? attitude. Sept. 2001 blew that to hell.

I think you are on to something. It FEELS right. One thing: don’t be fooled---Kerry
is a calculating bastard. He will do whatever it takes to win. He has no limit. He
made a political calculation in 1971: the price of Democratic backing for his run
for a House seat was to confirm the press and the Left’s model of the war as the US as
the cause of ALL evil in that war. Too bad Jane Fonda never took a look at the forced
labor brigades where the N Viets made old people and children and adults lug
supplies over the Ho Chi Minh trail, or fill bomb craters on the trail. Thousands died
from exhaustion, starvation, execution, and US attacks on the trail. Kubrick’s FULL-
METAL JACKET never evaded the consequences of failure to defeat the North---
remember the scene where they go to the pit filled with bodies of civilians deemed to be
collaborators by the N Viets? Kerry did something no good man would ever do, and that
was to, in effect, make everybody a Calley. Insane. APOCALPYSE NOW caught the
confusion and uncertitude of that war. The protagonist is a Special Forces assassin!
Col. Kurtz poses the iron-hard dilemma of that war---how can sentimental, soft
Westerners beat an enemy so hard they’ll whack off the arms of children inoculated by
U.S. doctors? I’ll give that conservative Thompson credit
for clearly seeing this. We never squared that equation. Guess what? It’s back again.
The vile branch of the Left (nothing wrong with being Left, but some nihilists hiding
under the banner of the Left are poisoning its air) would have us believe fighting
absolute evil is wrong. Fine. Is mass extermination noble? The Jews recognize the
Jews that fought back at Treblinka and in Warsaw at least didn’t die like cattle. The Jews
that joined the Allies and fought in the war destroyed the image of passivity created by the
camps. Some, apparently, would have us die like cattle out of some bizarre belief
that victims are noble. Madness.

--Jeff Spencer

On Aug 1, 2004, at 7:33 AM, Kraig Grady wrote:

Ah here we have the voice of Penteus
no where near the mark boys. kings have been killed since time began. and corruption has always been
the way of the rulers. american history is full of it
(the Kentucky cycle, the pulitzer prize winning play showed that and the people were well aware of being ripped off)

Dionysis and you better not cross him with you so called dead bland narrow reason cause he will come up an bite him on the ass.
all you want to do is go back to male domination, well its too late and it ain’t gonna happen.
the maenads are waiting in the forest and they will rip you apart.

look at you fools
long hair, the tambourine, love-ins, Dionysis, but neither of you know him at all.
even jesus had to make the water into wine as a tribute to him. they fail to tell you the great things those at that party went on to do for years afterwards, imagine, what the wine of jesus would do to you. Even at the end, he had to return to this one.

Perhaps you boys should read the bacchae, since the whole story of pilate and jesus is based on it, with a different ending for the god for slaves.
i am sure you preferred the car culture of the 50’s as a superior time. the commie cold war, black lists, yes this was much better. the depression, also done by the conservatives.

nothing creative came out of any other decade, without the 60’s there wouldn’t be any music to really listen to, cause what is good since is based on it.
each decade since has been worse and worse, economically pitiful which corresponds with the rise of conservative, and the christian right. they have bankrupt the country with fake morals and robbery. just look at the numbers. the average person lost 10 per cent of their income in the last 2 years according to the IRS. you guys are ostriches.

On Aug 1, 2004, at 4:28 PM, Jeffrey Herbert Spencer wrote:

I will try to refrain from being rude, but it will be hard. I can’t take seriously one
word this guy wrote. To even try to respond to his silly arguments gives me
a headache. In sum: this guy likes rock-and-roll, he has a deficient under-
standing of the ‘sixties (let me guess, he was born in 1970---if not, well....),
and he doesn’t understand BACCAE or the entire body of the work of Euripides.
Dionysis is horror. This is mytho-dillitantism, Sunday afternoon blather.

As for death of the father, history begins anew for each generation. The facts
that Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley had been assassinated were interesting
to us brats, but definitely Dark Ages in every respect. Mr G has either forgotten,
or did not live in the period, that WE believed we lived in Blake’s New Jerusalem,
The Best of All Possible Worlds. 1960-1963 probably saw one of the greatest
explosions of optimism in the history of the world within the borders of the U.S.A.
The entire universe appeared ready to open to us, from the stars to the atoms.
There is not one of us living who cannot recall that tremendous optimism:
THE NEW FRONTIER!!!!! JFK’s assassination burst that balloon to hell---
add to that the seediness of LBJ, the daily ghastliness of Vietnam, the split in
the fabric of our society----HORROR, HORROR, HORROR!!!!! Altamont and the
Manson slaughters blew away the Woodstock fantasy. What planet is this guy on?
His only excuse can be being too young to have lived through that exhilarating
and terribly unhappy time. JFK’s death socked us all in the solar plexus because
we believed something that horrible was the provence of other nations. And, the
whole dreadfulness of it---his head being blown to pieces&etc. The whole feeling
of living in a perfected society was blown to bits. And, of course, to so many of us
Kennedy was a living HERO---PT 109, the stand against the Soviets in Berlin and
“Cuber"---he was our Pericles, our Achilles, our TOTEM against disaster. His
murder by a revolting creep sullied us all. How could such a shining Lancelot be
undone by a vermin unfit to breath the same air!!!!!!! WE ALL FELT DANGEROUS-
LY EXPOSED ALL OF A SUDDEN. That’s what happens when you lose a heroic
leader. Old Jack looks much less heroic now, but that’s 41 years of hindsight.
At the time, to so many here and all over the world, he was all that was good and
great. His death was DEVASTATING. It wasn’t just the death of the father, it was
the death of our HERO-CHAMPION---our talisman against disaster.

John Dentino wrote:

Here’s a fucking great essay on this whole thing:

“The Bacchae, the “Missing Prince,” & Oliver Stone’s Presidential Films”

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0412/is_1_28/ai_63566578

Kraig, I think you’re making it too black and white. Repression does indeed lead to vengeful destruction at the hands of Dionysus. But so does worship of Dionysus to the exclusion of all other gods.

And let’s not forget the difference between art and sacred myth. Euripides’ work, as art, doesn’t necessarily reflect the truth about human beings and their psyches. It seems to me that, as much truth as there is contained in the Bacchae, it’s essentially a polemical work, or if it is more complex, then people have misinterpreted Euripides.

IT IS RATIONAL TO RESPECT THE POWER OF DIONYSUS AND ACKNOWLEDGE HIS GREAT POWER. IT IS SILLY AND NAIVE TO WORSHIP HIM.

“As Euripides strove to show, the central problem is the control of these powerful instinctive forces by the conscious mind. As King Pentheus discovered, to try and suppress them entirely is suicidal. The attempt provokes an explosion in which all barriers are overthrown. The conscious mind must ride these forces as a man rides a powerful horse. This explains, what has puzzled so many, why the worship of Apollo at Delphi was combined with the worship of Dionysos. It was Nietzsche who started the confusion with his false antithesis between Apollonian and Dionysiac religions. Since then, numerous writers have classified not only theoleptic religions, but periods such as Romanticism, as Dionysiac; and have treated religions and periods of cerebral control (including Classicism) as being Apollonian. But Apollo was the symbol of moderation, the golden mean, the Greek conception of measure. The extremes of patrist Puritanism are not Apollonoian, while, on the other hand, the Romantics never abandoned themselves to group orgies. Apollo did not deny the unconscious, and the Delphic sibyl, who spoke from the unconscious in a state of trance, was under his aegis. Apollo and Dionysos are not opponents but partners.the Dionysiac worship did not only provide an outlet for libido, it also provided an outlet for the destructive and aggressive urges of Thanatos. The ceremony ended with the tearing to pieces of a living kid, and the immediate devouring of it. Indeed, it has been supposed that at some stage in its development, it was the priest himself who was torn to pieces. In Euripides’ Bacchae, it is King Pentheus who tries to impose order on the Bacchae and who is torn to pieces. This is reflected in the mythology, in which it is the god himself who is torn to pieces by the Titans.”

“Whether or not, at any historical period, an actual person was so sacrificed is less important than the mythological meaning. It seems feasible that Euripides intended to portray the effects of conscious control of instinctive drives. When that control is too rigid, the unconscious forces are likely to burst out in a violent form and destroy the conscious. From some such roots derives the institution of the orgy of which the Saturnalia is an example: an occasion when it is permissible ‘ to indulge all those desires which are normally kept under control. The orgy is a useful, perhaps an indispensable, social safety valve.

Nevertheless, while there are advantages in providing ceremonies in which such drives may be given outlet, so that their consequences can be limited, there is also a danger that such Ceremonies will suffer a steady deterioration. By late Roman times, the Dionysiac worship seems to have deteriorated into a secret society engaged in practices of a revoltingly sexual and sadistic kind.”

—"Sex as Sacrament” by Gordon Taylor

http://www.ourcivilisation.com/smartboard/shop/taylorgr/sxnhst/chap12.htm

He doesn’t understand BACCAE or the entire body of the work of Euripides.
Dionysis is horror. This is mytho-dillitantism, Sunday afternoon blather.

As for death of the father, history begins anew for each generation. The facts
that Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley had been assassinated were interesting
to us brats, but definitely Dark Ages in every respect. Mr Grady has either forgotten,
or did not live in the period, that WE believed we lived in Blake’s New Jerusalem,
The Best of All Possible Worlds. 1960-1963 probably saw one of the greatest
explosions of optimism in the history of the world within the borders of the U.S.A.
The entire universe appeared ready to open to us, from the stars to the atoms.
There is not one of us living who cannot recall that tremendous optimism:
THE NEW FRONTIER!!!!! JFK’s assassination burst that balloon to hell---
add to that the seediness of LBJ, the daily ghastliness of Vietnam, the split in
the fabric of our society----HORROR, HORROR, HORROR!!!!! Altamont and the
Manson slaughters blew away the Woodstock fantasy. What planet is this guy on?
His only excuse can be being too young to have lived through that exhilarating
and terribly unhappy time. JFK’s death socked us all in the solar plexus because
we believed something that horrible was the provence of other nations. And, the
whole dreadfulness of it---his head being blown to pieces&etc. The whole feeling
of living in a perfected society was blown to bits. And, of course, to so many of us
Kennedy was a living HERO---PT 109, the stand against the Soviets in Berlin and
“Cuber"---he was our Pericles, our Achilles, our TOTEM against disaster. His
murder by a revolting creep sullied us all. How could such a shining Lancelot be
undone by a vermin unfit to breath the same air!!!!!!! WE ALL FELT DANGEROUS-
LY EXPOSED ALL OF A SUDDEN. That’s what happens when you lose a heroic
leader. Old Jack looks much less heroic now, but that’s 41 years of hindsight.
At the time, to so many here and all over the world, he was all that was good and
great. His death was DEVASTATING. It wasn’t just the death of the father, it was
the death of our HERO-CHAMPION---our talisman against disaster.

I hope you’re not implying that either Jeff or I are somehow the dreaded Arch-conservative Dimmesdales. That always amazes me about your arguing process. In fact, I think it’s liberal to want Reason to temper the irrational. Do I need to bring up the intellectual forbears of facism? It was Nietzsche’s idea in the Birth of Tragedy, actually, that Euripides was bringing too much Reason to Art. Nietzsche’s insistence on the pure experience of surrender to the Dionysian “All” is nice to think about, but whose Dionysian universe are we submitting to? I won’t bring up the H word. I think Jeff is talking about the optimism in that particular American period of ‘60 to ‘63, with Kennedy, which was shattered by the assassination. And about the Grey Fifties and early Sixties being horrible—yes they were, but what about the Beats in the 50s? How about the Peace Corps? It’s not a liberal vs. conservative issue we’re talking about. It’s the shattering of illusions. The early Sixties were idealistic. I swear you and I apparently didn’t grow up in the same country. I think Jeff and I are talking about the way the Sixties ended up—Altamont, Manson, the way the flower children grew up into Yuppies who were the worst examples of materialism—worse than the button-down Christian Right even—at least those religious people could keep perspective about their spiritual lives—We are saying that the Death of the Father (as embodied in Kennedy’s gory public assasination) twisted our idealism into something narcissistic and We—through the process of gorging on the intricate patterns in our own navels—We, yes We the anointed generation—turned the culture into a frightening Bacchanal more than a benign Agape love fest.

On Aug 1, 2004, at 8:21 PM, Kraig Grady wrote:

I’m 52 old enough to know that the 50’s were horrible. like the 70s 80’s maybe a bit better , the 90’s saw it all starting to go down hill to the worst decades of ever. this is done by the christian right which worships war. talk about worshipping dionysis you guy worship things and objects . soulless crap
optimistic, wasn’t fail-safe and fallout shelters still being built. drop trills in the schools, air raid sirens every friday.
the cuban missile crisis. We were only optimistic cause there was a real ruler who could write his own speeches.
lets face it the conservatives are the ones that pulled the trigger and once they got into power they dragged it down more than any free sex movement did. WE we are worst off and try to show me other wise . all from conservative policies. imagine trying to buy a house, no such luck

John Dentino wrote:

I think Jeff and I are talking about the way the
Sixties ended up—Altamont, Manson,

the way the flower children grew up
into Yuppies who were the worst examples of materialism

agreed on this point

—worse than the
button-down Christian Right even—at least those religious people could
keep perspective about their spiritual lives—

in the sense that the spiritual exist, i would agree

We are saying that the
Death of the Father (as embodied in Kennedy’s gory public assasination)
twisted our idealism into something narcissistic

aggreed here also

and We—through the
process of gorging on the intricate patterns in our own navels—We, yes
We the anointed generation—turned the culture into a frightening
Bacchanal more than a benign Agape love fest.

So if i understand you too correctly your problem with the 60’s is not with
it’s ethical idealism, it is it degeneration into material hedonism
I have no idea where that guy is. He is all over the road. I was also
a Dionysian mess---all my sympathies go to the poor king who deplored
the madness and excesses, and, sadly for him, believed he could control
the irrational. Suspect G has paternal “issues” which cloud his judgment.
The hero fights the dark forces---and usually loses. I’d rather go down
fighting than give in to irrationality---the preferred mode of the day. I’ll never
succeed but not to try isn’t human.

On Aug 1, 2004, at 10:07 PM, John Dentino wrote:

I forgot to include the one line that prompted Kraig’s last incoherent message. Of course, I’m referring to my own subjective, past personal state of alcohol and pot-induced Hell here:

Begin forwarded message:

From: John Dentino
I didn’t say you don’t know what the play is about. I ‘m not Pentheus. If anything, I worship Dionysus more than you do.

Kraig Grady wrote:

So if i understand you too correctly your problem with the 60’s is not with
it’s ethical idealism, it is it degeneration into material hedonism

John Dentino:

Yes, sir.

i do not see the islamic church as any more pro military than the
Christian, but both have fallen into this trap , the first through it
absorption into the roman empire, forever tainting it. Possibly if the
romans would never have taken it up, it would not be so.
the islamic religions greatest thinkers are a great distance from those
of Al Queda. the influence of Avicenna and Averorres is great upon the
most basic jewish philosophy to this day. In fact jews only abandoned
writing in arabic when confronted by the Christians in spain, then they
turned away from latin to hebrew. up till the 9th century, it is in
arabic or persian.
Alquada has fallen from the likes of ibn arabi and the likes as well as
the two above.

John Dentino wrote:

of course we can see that Al queda has fallen into the same
psychological state.

“fallen into”? Interesting choice of words, my man. Does that mean you
think Al Qaida had a higher calling at one time? How could they have
fallen? What does that mean?
On Aug 2, 2004, at 5:21 PM, Kraig Grady wrote:

i am sure ron could edited this all down into seven lines and will
guarantee i will never get a job at the weekly. If i am jacking off it is
because the damn republicans have done in my job for the most part. at
least i should be grateful that i am not blacklisted like johanna by them.
yet!

you can yell christian all you want but nature has no examples of the
puritan (yet myriad s of the whore). here you had men with long hair,
intoxicating substances, the tambourine, and violence against all those who
weren’t of their kind. ( unlike the punkettes who would sneak out without a
peep if the cops showed up to close done the shows, {wimps}. What could be
more dionysian.
God and goddesses are patterns of behavior beyond the power of any chistist
senex secret society. My rant of bachae began as via it obvious manifestation during the 60’s
down to the damn tambourine, that you might remember was outlawed from
being played in cars. ( having no cassette players the hippies would travel
down sunset or past fairfax ( that high school being one of the hubs of the
movement here) and play their tambourines in the car. no one told them
about this, it just happened like magic

but being in the haight as a runaway in 66-67, it was well known and
thought by many there it was already over and the real brains (beatniks)
had left.
and it is good to be reminded as such, but they had no idea what god was
going to pop up.

any of yours take on the punks , i would be more than entertain, i draw a
blank on them

RS-Quite enjoyed your clarinet playing the other night rehashing old
pieces. do you still play?

But i have already ranting to john about religion, how it is time for
some new (just reasonable ones really, not new for new sake). Sacrifice
came from the notion that the earth was flat and the sun died each night
and had to be reborn. Christist religion is nothing but an updated version
of Osiris and Isis and they even had horus who avenges his fathers death as
the antichrist. They left out his four sons though)Throw in the bachae,
being rewritten by the homosexual secret societies stemming from plato
(popper takes care of him BTW) and gaining control of the early church and
you have a mess that is a little too unimaginative to last beyond where it
did.
it is blind to its own miracles. point in fact. Mary was pregnant only 17
days, just look at when the annunciation is. 17 is one if not the most
common number in the bible. That this is the number of squares that make up
the swastika , is i am sure just a coincidence.

The horizon set by that truly divine inspiration has been left a full ocean
and continent behind. We can’t go back to the head of a pin.

The reality is in this society people will accept the least bit of pseudo
science as portrayed in the newspapers (which often is absurd beyond
belief, with it being contradicted by some other form of research, but no
one seems to notice) and christist ideas have no value to the masses
outside the golden rule. be a good boy and everything will be OK. The truth
is only in rare moments of inspiration none of us at our age have the
stamina to do anything but!!!

Ethics is not religion, the former is better done by philosophy which
is really where it has been done all along anyway.

That leaves cosmology which i expect that no amount of money pumping up
the big bang ( here is a great example of religion having to use the truth
of science to validate itself, science sure doesn’t have to do the
opposite) os going to hold water for much longer.

John Dentino wrote:

I was responding in Greek mythological terms because Grady started up
with his Bacchae talk. I don’t really favor greco-roman gods for
anything other than elucidating human psychology. For me, Christianity
illuminates the the relationship between our ethical lives our maker
(singular) much better. You know, Grady’s a pagan. Sumbitch. He’s
one-of-a-kind, though. gotta love ‘im.

On Aug 2, 2004, at 3:13 PM, Ronald Stringer wrote:

Surely you’ve heard the expression “Shop till you drop”! As to Dead
Fathers and such, maybe when you guys are through jerking each other
off you’d like to take me for a spin. I mean, whence this desperation
to identify with this or that zeitgeist?

Oh, Ronny baby...are you free of all cultural trappings? Other than
Whittaker Chambers, whose your Dead Daddy? Come on, give us younger
guys a break. We were in sixth grade when Kennedy had his head blown
off. You were a cynical high school senior, no doubt.

Child of the ‘60s! Casualty of the ‘70s! Gag me with an ergot
suppository! And whence this notion of the ‘50s as a sad, grey,
conformist decade. The Beats, in fact, were only the most extreme
symptom of the spirit of enterprise, invention, imagination and, yes,
rebellion that permeated the ‘50s—a spirit of which the early
‘60s (moon landing, etc.) constituted, in many ways, the payoff. It
wasn’t till the late ‘60s that the “Watch me, daddy!” finger-painters
started clamoring for their right to be taken seriously whether
they’d done anything, endured anything, conceptualized anything worth
doing, enduring or conceptualizing. I must say, though, that I like
Jeff Spenser’s phrase “mytho-dilletantism.” I think in the case of
those who actually claim to believe in gods and goddesses—versus
donning them, as you seem to have, as an accessory to Jungian
psychologizing—it most often starts out as the merest affectation
of polytheism, a means of getting noticed or layed or something, then
hardens into something else when, inevitably (and quite properly),
people start giggling over what they now profess to believe. Of
course, there are probably those who are addle-brained enough to hear
talk of god, demigods and woodland sprights and think, “Well golly,
sure, that makes sense!”

I do believe the neocons were sincere when they said the U.S.-backed authoritarian regimes and their brutality had been a factor in our unpopularity, therefore we should make every effort to install and support more democratic and humane governments. And I do think Junior is a moral creature, whereas Senior is an outright reptile. But U.S. power is always used in that narrow window allowed by the consent of its people, who are at core isolationist. That leaves the military with less time and resources than it really takes to do the job humanely. Eventually the American people tire of the effort and the easiest thing to do is install a brutal puppet govt. It’s happened time and again and I don’t know why I ever believed the neocons could make it happen any differently.

On Jul 27, 2004, at 11:39 AM, Jeffrey Herbert Spencer wrote:

Read Amazon reviews. Doubt this item surpasses FRONTLINE doc
on Panama which was free of polemics and , for that reason, as hard
hitting as a cruise missile. No doubt there was something rotten in
Denmark re Panama, but I doubt, as one reviewer put it, it all comes
down to money. Noriega was a potential embarrassment to Mr CIA,
Bush Sr. I heard a strange story from the father of an Air Force man
about planeloads of cocaine being moved from Panama to secret
locations on U.S. Air Force bases. Of course, the biggest travesty of
Panama was the number of hapless Panamanians slaughtered due
to the use of the AC-130 gunships on Panama City. And, as we all
know, the dastardly attempt to hide the carnage by bulldozing the
bodies into secret graves. I am convinced Bush Sr is a rat without
doubt. Not at all certain Jr is. Blundering doesn’t let you off the hook,
but it is not malice and callousness.

On Jul 27, 2004, at 1:38 AM, John Dentino wrote:

Just saw it. Now here is a real documentary. It’s about the Panama invasion.

That Bush Sr. is a real piece of work. I urge you to order it from amazon.com.

There are some very disturbing patterns similar to Iraq.

john,
i just wanted to let you know that you are welcome to fill my email inbox
with all of the “liberal paranoia” you want to. in these times, it is my
humble opinion that we need to maintain our reason, compassion, and sense
of shared humanity with the rest of the world, and not lapse into
simple-minded canarads about good and evil, or being “with us or agin us,”
and we most certainly should not fall into that catastrophic 20th century
moral failure of “just following orders,” ie, (blindly) supporting our
leaders in such times. ah, if only we had leaders of the stature and moral
capacity worthy of being followed! we are americans, not “good germans.”

warmest regards,
marc

BUSH MAKES THE CALL

**Exclusive**

President Bush on Wednesday night was to make the ultimate call whether
to strike and invade Iraq with military force, the DRUDGE REPORT has
learned.

A top White House source offered few details, but did reveal the
president would make a “defining decision” by morning.

The news comes just hours after Bush discussed top secret battle plans
at the White House with his national security team and Army Gen. Tommy
Franks, the man who would lead American forces in Iraq.

Here’s a quote from the following article in Salon online magazine:

“There was something truly pathetic in seeing antiwar demonstrations denounce the war at one moment and then in another moment seeing grateful Iraqis welcome their British and American liberators. If I were a member of the antiwar movement, I would have felt a moral shudder at that experience.”

Bush is an idiot, but he was right about Saddam

Paul Berman, one of the most provocative thinkers on the left, has a message for the antiwar movement: Stop marching and start fighting to spread liberal values in the Middle East.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

By Suzy Hansen

March 22, 2003 | On Sept. 11, Paul Berman, political and cultural critic and author of “A Tale of Two Utopias: The Political Journey of the Generation of 1968” watched from his roof as the World Trade Center towers collapsed. That day, Berman says, he “woke up” to the threat of what he calls Islamic totalitarianism. Berman lives in Brooklyn, just around the corner from the Al Farooq mosque on Atlantic Avenue where a Yemeni cleric was recently convicted of funneling $20 million to Osama bin Laden.

During the last year and a half he has picked his way through the Islamic bookstores in his neighborhood, hunting down volumes by Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian intellectual whose “In the Shade of the Qur’an” is the groundwork for Islamic fundamentalism. Berman finds Qutb’s analysis of the “hideous schizophrenia” of modern society “rich, nuanced, deep, soulful, and heartfelt.” Qutb’s work also convinced Berman that in Islamism we face a threat not unlike such 20th century totalitarian movements as fascism and communism.ÊBerman feels similarly about Baathism, the nationalist ideology of Iraq’s ruling party.

In fact, Berman believes that Islamism and Baathism emerged from the same great rift in liberal society, the First World War. “Terror and Liberalism,” Berman’s bracing new book, suggests that just as liberal-minded Europeans and Americans doubted the threats of Hitler and Stalin, enlightened Westerners today are in danger of missing the urgency of the violent ideologies coming out of the Muslim world.
(my wife)

john,
the perspective that saddam hussein is a “bad guy” is not a unique insight
on the part of bush. this has never been in dispute by anyone. and there
has been no one disputing that the iraqui people, in large part, would love
to see him gone. but by the logic that since there are iraquis cheering
american troops that the invasion of iraq is right, then there are many
other countries the world over that we need to immediately send troops
into, including many of the so-called “alliance of the willing.” where do
we start, right next door to iraq in saudi arabia? will the peace in iraq
be as easy to win as the war? what will be the geopolitical results in the
middle east as a whole? what are the long-range effects of america’s
destruction of international law in going over the united nations? what
kind of precedent does this stated policy of “pre-emptive strike” set?
what are the consequences for us here in america as bush uses this “war on
terrorism” as a cover to implement a regressive social agenda? is picking
up litter really more useful and socially constructve than exercising our
civil rights of free speech, protest, and civil disobediance, as the parent
of one of the marines killed has suggested? i, for one, am fearful.
secretary of state colin powell once said that when he hears the phrase
“surgical strike,” he heads for the bunker. i do the same, morally
speaking, when i hear the call to spread liberal values throughout the
world. we have spread enough imperialism… errrrr, liberal values
throughout the world and are reaping the “benefits.”

Marc Ferguson

who are you?
—Michele Spadaro

BEIRUT (Reuters) - An Iraqi Shi’ite Islamist opposition group Sunday accused members of an Iraqi militia of conducting joint training with al Qaeda loyalists aimed at carrying out operations against U.S. interests.
The Tehran-based Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) said elements of “Saddam’s Fedayeen ,” a militia force led by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s son Uday, were training with a group linked to al Qaeda in northern Iraq .
“Sixty elements of Saddam’s fedayeen militias joined the Jund al-Islam (Soldiers of Islam), which is a follower of the al Qaeda organization in Iraqi Kurdistan,” SCIRI said in a statement faxed to Reuters in Beirut.
“Our sources working on the inside confirmed these elements are getting joint training with elements of Jund al-Islam aimed at carrying out special operations against American interests in the world and with material financing from the Iraqi regime,” said the statement.
The statement came days after six Iraqi opposition groups, including SCIRI, agreed to meet later this month in London to prepare to take power if Saddam is removed. “

At least you’re not one of the cringing, superior doves who has to shut
out unpleasant realities in his psyche in order to, at all costs,
remain innocent. As you have told me, none of us are. But there’s an
annoying anti-war type that can’t commit to being possibly responsible
for someone’s misery or death across three continents. They never admit
to doing harm. They possess a pure, “achieved” innocence by saying “no
to war.” Yet they drive an SUV.

these people are worse than either saddam or bush. they have no sincerity.
new age brutius’s- and he was an honerable man

since you’ve proven you’re a berserk nihilist, I’ll make a confession.
Before the war started I dreaded and hoped for some conflagration.
Something in me craves the final confrontation. I’m strangely excited
by the fact that someone just flipped the fast forward button on
history.

now the rest of the world is going to figure out how it is going to control
its security guard gone awry.
what happens when the good cop/ bad cop game gets to the level that the
good cop is treatened. It seems to me the europeans love playing the good
cop while i am sure they do little to stop the bad cop beatin up those in
the hood they don’t like.

If the Iraqis hate Americans more than they want freedom from Saddam’s
acid baths, then I guess there’s nothing we can do to help them

we could leave as soon as possible. Actually the big irony would be to give
it to kuwait since it all used to be one country and this would “reconcile
that mistake- in the opposite way of ol’SH

And if you send someone this e-mail I’ll deny I wrote it. The FBI will
come to YOUR house.

There are already here and they say either you become a morman or its
off to the druding the great salt lake for you!

—JD

On Thursday, March 27, 2003, at 09:05 PM, Kraig Grady wrote:

Actually don’t we have a million in the area, and when it comes to war
and you know you are the underdog , you might just see what the
underdog
used to win. In war there are no rules but to killl in anyway possible
until you have broken the will of your opponent.

Like right now i hate bush maybe as much as they hate saddam but if
China
started landing troops here to free us frm Bush, i might blow up an oil
refinery before they got to it, or at least store up on coke bottles,
oily rags and gasoline with a little Mcveigh fertilizer thrown in.
and some metallic powders and blockade the 4 level before they got
there.

But glad we are not in this position

It is surprising they haven’t blown up there own bridges as they
lose
ground, not unless they are planning
THE BIG COUNTER ATTACK.

remember they’re alot of our “allies” that might help the otherside
just
to put us in our place.
like russian jamming devices and such. the russian mafia has a lot to
sell.
that red line in the sand, wll forget germ warfare, it’s probably the
exstent that his nuclear bomb in bagdad will reach
in case he has no way out. looks like the size of a nice sized h bomb
to
me.

Even Hillman knows that nuclear weapons have always been societies way
of
keeping mass suicide an option.

jim jones koolaid
hemlock tea
the end of this world
means nuttin to me
-jimmy snack

John Dentino wrote:

get ready for war alla algeria

there were about one million French in algeria and the Islamic rebels
wanted their land back from the rich frog landowners, so our war’s not
going to be THAT bad. This is imperialism lite compared to the French

they may think they know what we’re up to, but I think they’re
projecting their own imperial past on the U.S.

-- -Kraig Grady
Hey John,
Yeah I’d already decided not to. Little story for you: back when I was
footloose & horny I took this very cute little ‘alternative nation’
receptionist (she had big boobs and favored the popular style of the day,
bib overall jeans with one strap unattached, tight thin tee underneath, you
get the picture) to a screening of one of my all-time faves, Last Tango.
During the scene in which Brando ‘expands Maria Schneider’s anal horizons’ I
noticed my date had her head bowed and her eyes shut tight. I leaned in and
whispered, “Is anything wrong?’ to which she replied “I can’t stomach images
of rape in films.’ Though she grinned and bore it for the remainder of the
film, needless to say the buzzkill effectively shut her down to my own
devious and perverted schemes and fantasies. I often imagine how much of
that sweet pussy I’d have gotten if I’d simply chosen Groundhog Day. But
hey, it’s all in the past now… irreversible. One man’s art is another
man’s degradation of human dignity. I did love I Stand Alone, but I found
Memento annoying, and for that reason nixed Irreversible. Go figure!
--Owen

John Dentino wrote:

I see now that there’s a parallel shadow government run by
skull-and-bones overlords

yep

and ex-Nazi Dutch high financiers

yep

, and
consequently I’m beginning to see why this war is absurd. I know it is
because I’ve dreamed it. There is a secret history of the United
States, one in which Trilateral fiends are preparing to enslave a
docile population.

done for the most part

For the sheer political power and total control of
the world’s resources, our own government, lead by the hunchback
Cheney, will, in the near future, strike us in the underbelly.

done

It seems
like nothing more than a mass hallucination, a David Lynch film, a
pseudo-memory like the one implanted by the McMartin School
investigators. But it’s very likely true, almost predestined. The war
is a theatrically orchestrated Armageddon scenario dreamed up by the
fundamentalist Condoleeza Rice, and of course, G. W. Bush.

tip of the ice berg

This dark, new alternate reality is like a vague memory of a ritual
child abuse. I’m suddenly aware that malign forces lie just at my
vision’s edge—the Freemasons, the Knights Templar, the Aliens, the
Mafia, Mengele, the Medellin Cartel, the Elders of Zion.

I’ll pass on these, they moved on long time ago

From now on I’ll train all my anger and mistrust on the United States
government.

OK look at a personal level. look at the abuse some of your artist friends
were subjected tovia the NEA blacklist. They claimed war on you long time
ago. all you have to do is stick your head a little higher. but they have
already taken care of most of us by keeping the ommunity as an economic
sacrifice. More and more the artist in the lime light are from the upper
class in order to have something to point to and say that art exist.

Maybe we can, with enough burrowing anarchy, bring down the
largest juggernaut of greed, deceit, corruption, and child buggery the
world has ever known.

noway, this sounds like our police dept. and the gangs are down at the end
of my driveway as we speak.

The Americans are the enemies of world peace, and Hussein and bin Laden
are just straw men; scapegoats; sacrificial lambs.

The US like all the other govt. is interested in peace only if it is more
profitable than war.

How could I have been so foolish?

i’ll forgive you the other option is that a pirate organization can infiltrate a govt. and use its resources. there is the “mole” who fired at the pentagon and sent messages to air force one forcing the little rabbit to run, getting John o neill a job at the WTC, sending the amtrax letters and covering up their source. also the ISI is not a govt , but the secret police which like the one here, is mutually independent of the gov’t and probavbly controls it. the obsession with Atta, why? he is the only one they can indentify really, the others used interchangable names to cover up who they were. if fact none of these people are listed as passengers on theese flights so you might consider they might not have been arab at all. all they would have needed to do was place a remote control in the cockpit and someone else could have driven it from the ground or from above as
some of those drudge pictures showed on that fateful day, you might remember

I agree and think it is a good analogy. political systems have replaced religion as far as acheiving “paradise” and the zeolots seem to crawl out of the wood work to “convert” the misguided. Remember though that Napoleon killed more frenchman than the revolution.

the war is really getting to me , kids with missing arms followed by female pilots talking about what a great carreer opportunity the air force is after her 30 missions. the two missle attacks on al jazeera. Damm the number of dead press in relation to our troops must be 10%!

I was listening to Symphony of psalms and it brought me to tears

John Dentino wrote:

The Executioners of May 3, 1808. The painting is by Goya, to whose thematics many have compared to Bunuel’s [in “Phantom of Liberty"].
It depicts the execution of Spanish resistance fighters by Napoleonic invaders bringing French empire to Spain in the name of the professedly enlightened values of the French revolution. After suggesting we are entering into a painter’s retelling of a historical moment almost two hundred years old, the film moves into scenes of execution, with Spaniards shouting “Vivan las ca’enas!” or “Long live our chains!” before dying. The resistance fighters choose autonomy as a monarchist state over the liberty offered by the French, at the cost of death.

I get it—we ARE the French!

War has the effect of tribalising people and “we and them” inevitably creeps in.
Day by day I feel that I want Saddam Hussein to win despite the fact that I have spent the
last twenty years despising him and fighting against him.

Saddam may be a horrid Beast, but he’s our horrid Beast!

This resistance has a great historic dimensions, it transcends the Iraqi
regime, as it will force the Americans to rethink any new aggression.

Long live the pride of the vanquished!

I believe that the majority of the people in the Iraqi opposition are true
democrats and love their country; they have suffered the wrath of Saddam
Hussein and his regime. They have despaired in their attempt to change the
situation and as such they allied themselves with the most reactionary force
in our planet.

True democracy for the weak and oppressed can only truly be won by their endless suffering and martyrdom!

The Americans however have treated them with contempt and
marginalized them even further than what they are. I genuinely believe that
even the Iraqi opposition will turn anti American once the American on the
helm if not before.

Long live our culture heritage and the purity of our bloodlines!

It is really up to [the Iraqi opposition] in deciding
at this juncture as to whether they are part of the people or lackeys for
the invaders. They will be dealt with as traitors and will be isolated no matter
how much they aspire to democratise their society.

Down with Liberty!

John Dentino wrote:

OK, Kraig, enough is enough.

cheap plastic tranparent theater obvious to any one who looked at the
crowd and just didn’t swallow what they
were told to think while looking at it.

you’re wrong, Kraig. But we’ll all see soon enough. I bet this
situation is more on the order of the Berlin Wall coming down or the
Soviet Union leaving the Eastern bloc than Chile, Viet Nam or Panama.

The people tore down the belin wall and there were mobs. not like this
little display, they could even tear it down

Saddam Hussein was a totalitarian fascist. The American Left used to
fight fascism. Now it’s just against anything the U.S. does. All evil
does not emanate from this country, Kraig.

swallow your shadow john and whether the question if ALLcome from here is
absurd. the point is more than enough.
It seems you will not fight fascism if it is sonmeone elses. It is right
here john

You condescend to the “third world” and its tribalism. The more
primitive and hate-filled they are, the more comfortable, it seems, you
are. Is their “other"ness that comforts you?

you’re are the one condescending these people John ejactulated your standard
of what right and wrong are. If LA right now was in the exactly same
situation as Bagdad and i had to choose between the two as a place to be.
i could be there. cause the populace would turn their guns on their
neighbor in a wink. already if someone stalls for 5 seconds at a stop sign
, fights break out. Primitive, this is primitive john. and you can sit in
front of this computer, radio car, and a few sbnake oil medicines, but
these are the only civilazation you have. It is not these people. look at
the level of people in pision cause basically it is nothing more than a
pack of criminals I don’t see them as primitive as all. I’ll take their
music over any of the half baked crap coming out of here

What if — just what if — they weren’t that primitive or filled with
ethnic and regional pride?

there is something sick to associate these two. the lack of tribalism is
here is the result of all the cross marrage here but that is not any sign
of civilization.

Would you be disappointed?

they are not as primitive as us . Gadgets doesn’t make anyone least
primitive as the Germans in the 30s show.

What if they
didn’t hate the West as much as YOU do?

look at your inflation. The US is not the West, and the rest of the world
sees us as wrong so i guess that means that everyone but the US war lords
are primitive. Hmmmmmm

Would they be disappointing
savages?

like the eintire west of the world with their pimitive concepts of how
things should be done.

Bottom line: The “third world” deserves to be freed from monsters like
Saddam

can 3rd world monsters free them selfs from other 3rd world monsters

— monsters we helped put in power.

look at how ridiculous that is, so we will put in another pig responible
for killing 10,000 Kurds. or a bank robber

What more appropriate force
is there to depose him than the one who helped him stay in power?

force is primitive.
--Kraig Grady

John Dentino wrote:

The U.S. forces acted more
civilized than any other conquering army has probably ever acted.

yea john CNN shows you a few poorly set up little displays of people
smiling on the side of the road.
such scences one would laugh at in a B movie as slopply as any corman
film
next you will be telling me how humane the atomic bombs were.

The Baghdad civilians are cautious now because they know that anarchy
reigns, but when they feel safer, I believe they will celebrate in
their own way, not because of the American presence but because saddam
is gone.

agreed

swallow your shadow john and whether the question if ALLcome from here
is
absurd. the point is more than enough.

I hold my nose and kiss my shadow every day, Kraig. And yes, there is a
fascist element in this country—of course. But isn’t there just a
slight possibility that we could, even accidentally, be on the just
side of a war?

we are the war. but if you want me to say that saddam’s overthrow is just
on the level of some sort of future on the globe yes

the other option is that a pirate organization can infiltrate a govt. and use its resources. there is the “mole” who fired at the pentagon and sent messages to air force one forcing the little rabbit to run, getting John o neill a job at the WTC, sending the amtrax letters and covering up their source. also the ISI is not a govt , but the secret police which like the one here, is mutually independent of the gov’t and probavbly controls it. the obsession with Atta, why? he is the only one they can indentify really, the others used interchangable names to cover up who they were. if fact none of these people are listed as passengers on theese flights so you might consider they might not have been arab at all. all they would have needed to do was place a remote control in the cockpit and someone else could have driven it from the ground or from above as
some of those drudge pictures showed on that fateful day, you might remember

It seems you will not fight fascism if it is sonmeone elses. It is
right
here john

Cop fascism exists here. I support resisting the drug war and I’m
against the three strikes law and I believe in the ACLU and I know we
need lots of trial lawyers to defend people against greedy corporations

and overzealous cops. I’m for socialized medicine, against the
petroleum and automotive industries’ foot-dragging on alternative
energy....blah, blah, blah, blah. I’m still a fucking liberal and I
won’t vote for Bush next year.

well i am happy to at least you bring these to the table

But I don’t hate Republicans like I used
to. I can talk to them. They’re your neighbors, Kraig, deal with them.

I talk to republicans every day at work. the worse kind to. Im not out to
kill Em.
But they are hell bent on enslaving us all. Its not like we aare dealing
with nixons and reagans, we are dealing with fundementalist who want to
make this the christian version of Iran. And they will start ww3 to prove
that their god is right.

If the situation were reversed and a larger power took over L.A., yes,
you’re right, the anarchy would be worse. that’s what I’m saying: The
Iraqis ARE civilized. so they didn’t deserve Saddam

can’t there ever be a
reason for the use of force?

a just cause is the worst reason to kill anyone.
if we as a species are going to do such things, don’t you think their
should be some protocol?.
I’ll take this further. As much as i am against Capital punishment, I can’t
say i like the idea of putting people in a cage for their whole life where
they are subjected to daily torture. Is this more humane? no . but i guess
the point is you don’t institutionalize a punishment if you say that it is
wrong. but could we not call imprisionment, kidnapping?. If we have the ten
comandments and god tells abraham to kill his son the answer should be , go
fuck yourself god, but instead “god” or some higher authority gives us a
right to do the right thing? We have an opportunity to progress our
adolences as a species and deal with such things in a way that would
benefit the race more in the long term. It is a shame we missed the
opprtunity. It will possibly appear soon enough, hopefully before a blood
bath in syria (they have so many there as it is) or Iran which you will
have a hard time convincing me of this place being so totally evil. Despite
the control of the church there, it seems to be moving away from this on it
own, at least as much as China! And to be perfectly biased. they have the
best music in the area.

-- -Kraig Grady

out goes Hitler, in goes Stalin

as if this is or was the problem facing us all

we can’t solve any of our problems so lets go bust into
our neighbors house and break up the domestic violence.

this is psychotic mental illness

John Dentino wrote:

Liberation day
Even those opposed to the war should celebrate a shining moment in the history of freedom—the fall of Saddam Hussein.

john,
i’ve seen pictures on al-jazeera of some of the iraqi children we’ve
liberated. we have a long and glorious history of fighting wars of
liberation, aiding the oppressed of the world. when did we start believing
our government in matters such as this, and how is it that such a towering
moral and intellectual figure as dubya is able to get it right while the
rest of the world is wrong? wasn’t that a tremendous performance the other
day by our secretary of war.... errrr, defense, rummy: “henny penny, the
sky is falling.” the fatal flaw of this administration is their lack of
appreciation for irony, as they speak with apparent naive sincerity (i
think not, but let’s give them the benefit) of winning the “hearts and
minds” of the iraqis. my commentary on this matter is also pertinent to
the article you sent me a couple of weeks ago drawing parallels with the
bush crowd with hitler and his boys: historical events occur first as
tragedy, then repeat themselves as farce. on to damascus!

Take up the White Man’s burden --
Send forth the best ye breed --
Go, bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives’ need;
To wait, in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild --
Your new-caught sullen peoples,
Half devil and half child.

Take up the White Man’s burden --
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain,
To seek another’s profit
And work another’s gain.

Take up the White Man’s burden --
The savage wars of peace --
Fill full the mouth of Famine,
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
(The end for others sought)
Watch sloth and heathen folly
Bring all your hopes to nought.

Take up the White Man’s burden --
No iron rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper --
The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go, make them with your living
and mark them with your dead.

Take up the White Man’s burden,
And reap his own reward --
The blame of those ye better
The hate of those ye guard --
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light: --
“Why brought ye us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?”

Take up the White Man’s burden --
Ye dare not stoop to less --
Nor call too loud on Freedom
to cloak your weariness,
By all ye will or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent sullen peoples
Shall weigh your God on you.

Take up the White Man’s burden!
Have done with childish days --
The lightly-proffered laurel,
The easy ungrudged praise:
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years,
Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgement of your peers.

bid the sickness cease,

in friendship,

Marc Ferguson

I would celebrate that the fighting and bombing stopped and allah let me
live!

John Dentino wrote:

Ok, you may have been right about that statue being pulled down being
staged.

But the subsequent celebrations I’ve seen are real.

apply it where you will

Sartre points to the real issue
at stake:

“This rebellion is not merely challenging the power of the settlers, but

their very being. For most Europeans in Algeria, there are two
complementary
and inseparable truths: the colonists are backed by divine right, the
natives are sub-human. This is a mythical interpretation of reality,
since
the riches of the one are built on the poverty of the other. In this way

exploitation puts the exploiter at the mercy of his victim, and the
dependence itself begets racialism. It is a bitter and tragic fact that,
for
the Europeans in Algeria, being a man means first and foremost
superiority
to the Moslems. But what if the Moslem finds in his turn that his
manhood
depends on equality with the settler? It is then that the European
begins to
feel his very existence diminished and cheapened.”

-- -Kraig Grady

Funny along thee lines is when i saw the monk cells in italy done by fra
angelico they all had these torture scence on the cross and what have you
until you got to medici’s which was the three wise men bringing gifts!

John Dentino wrote:

they weren’t really Christians. Christ said, “It is easier for a camel
to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into
the kingdom of God.”

i know it’s time to talk about music when I start quoting scripture.

There is no confusion about this. Jesus made them rich because they are
more spiritual than the masses. I remember my father who worked on a
few
individuals in this bracket. and this is what some thought
-- -Kraig Grady

shadows+clouds

Iraq Armchair War Diaries