by von
Moe Lane, who deserves (and will always have) my respect as the founder of this Blog and an all-around good guy, serves up a softball on RedHot:
…I link to this Captain Ed article on Sen. Kerry and Davos. Only nostalga, though. Fortunately for everyone, Kerry was not elected in 2004; and he seems to have grokked the central reality that the Democratic Party does not forgive failure.
And the Republican Party, sadly, forgives repeated failures of the highest magnitude over and over and over again ….
Surely there should be a middle ground in here?
The party of Jesus Christ will always forgive, as we have been forgiven. The party of Molech, not so much.
Speaking of which, did you see the latest Gallup poll out of Iowa? Edwards leading the pack and Hillary in FOURTH! So much for her as the frontrunner. That’s too bad, because I wanted a shot a her.
Woo Hoo! Party of Molech, comin’ at ya’ baby!
OK, Charles: “party of Molech” gets you banned. If the rest of the HiveMind disagrees, just email.
Can I be Abbadon? I’d like to be first in line for the Apocalypse (after the aardvarks).
The party of Molech
It’s “Moloch.” And, yes, Hilzoy, I disagree with the banning. This was a rhetorical excess.
Didn’t they sacrifice babies to good ol’Moloch?
I don’t know, Gore might win the nomination if he ran this time (though maybe he didn’t “fail”).
I thought it was a joke. But, ah well.
I’m just scratching my head at the idea that the Republican party constantly forgives failure. In the realm of ‘failure to advance the Party’s goals with sufficient vigor,’ quite the opposite is true.
Rhetoric divorced itself from reality a long time ago; Moe’s post just seems to be a throwaway reiteration of Republican dogma. The “big tent” doesn’t exist: it’s just another way of saying they won’t prevent anyone from voting Republican, even those they actively demonize.
And, yes, Hilzoy, I disagree with the banning.
I’ve reconsidered. Someone who deploys “Party of Molech [sic]” without actually knowing how to spell Moloch is immature enough to benefit from a time out. I concur with a one-day ban. (If we’re talking about more, let’s chat offline.)
“This was a rhetorical excess.”
Wasn’t it a comment by someone recently banned? Or else someone using another commenter’s name (practically), hence bannable?
As I said to Von earlier when he merely threatened a banning, I believe it’s preferable for bans to be implemented by the people closer in political beliefs to the bannee, so it would be better if Charlie could be banned by someone else, especially since he’s apparently changing his name in order to avoid the Greasemonkey script being used by people attempting to keep his words from appearing on their computer screens (though I’m not using it).
And I doubt think there’s going to be one Charlie comment you can point to as a reason for banning. You have to look at the larger pattern.
…especially since he’s apparently changing his name in order to avoid the Greasemonkey script being used by people attempting to keep his words from appearing on their computer screens (though I’m not using it).
There’s a fix for this available for those who are using the script. The only thing that I’ve seen Charlie post on this thread are “Who can argue with pie? Not me.” and “I think that pie may be one of the best foods we have. No, wait, the best food we have.”
Which I find delightfully pleasant.
Back to the subject at hand (well, sort of) it’s been my observation that Moe will take any cheap shot he can at the Democrats, at least on matters of process. That, and bullying commenters who don’t conform to Redstate’s doctrine of political correctness, seems to be his preferred avocation of late. If the Democrats looked to be poised to give Kerry a second chance he’d be cracking wise about how stupid it is to support a proven loser. I guarantee it.
The pattern I see with rightwing commentators is that the things they say about the liberals are usually more true about them. Sure, no one wants Kerry to run, but it is the rightwing that is engaged in a circular firing squad right now: consider what Eric the Red said about all of the Republicans running for their nomination. Democrats supposedly can’t manage the nation’s money responsibly, Democrats are for big government, Democrats don’t take responsiblity, Democrats are always blaming, Democrats are too partisan, Democrats are less moral and ethical …all statements which are true if one is considering the behavior of the Republicans in Congress over the last decade. Whatever the current meme coming out of the rightwing may be, you can be pretty sure it’s more true about their politicians, not ours. I don’t know if it is a deliberate deception or just part of the effort to deal with cognitive dissonance involved in maintaining loyalty to a depraved and reactionary political movement.
There was an exchange between Von and Thomas on RedState the other day in which Thomas claimed that Moe was “scourged” from ObWi. I’m old and creaky, and my memory may be failing, but that wasn’t how I remembered it going. I recall that Moe wasn’t having fun posting here anymore, and was displeased with his short temper in some debates.
Was there other stuff going on?
So, wait, what the heck are von’s banning criteria? Inserting ellipses in a comment gets me a ban threat, but calling Democrats the party of the devil is rhetorical excess?
Von, “Moloch” or “Molech” are acceptable spellings.
In fact, if Wikipedia is correct, “Molech”, in the context of this thread, is the more clever of the spellings — “Moloch” meaning King (Democrats as King; I like it!), while “Molech”, which is Hebrew, contains within its spelling the meaning “shameful thing.”
I have no opinion on banning.
On Moe Lane: I thought his talents were much more effectively employed at Obsidian Wings. Cleverness in support of the monolithic mindmeld at Red State seems too easy. He should come back here and go at it.
Party of Moloch…
does that mean the Clintons can drop “Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow” as their theme song, and start using “Running with the Devil” ?
*rimshot*
mmmmm… succulent babies [in the voice of Olof]
Well, “Moloch”, of course, is Hebrew, too.
Anyway, the name refers to Ba’al, and has its manifestation as a man with the head of a bull.
I think Woody Allen referred to someone in a long ago movie as having the body of a cockroach and the head of a social worker.
See, Charlie, humorous insults are not bannable material.
Hire some new writers.
I associate “Moloch” with the worship of money, but maybe I am confusing it with “mammon”. One of the disadvantages of a Unitarian upbringing is that I can catch more references to the relgion of ancient Greece than the Bible.
Lily:
I made the same mistake. I was worshiping Moloch for years, only to find out way too late that it was Mammon I should have been sacrificing to. Besides, the costumes are better. Wearing a bull’s head around at drunken orgies can get hot and itchy.
Dang it!
Now I worship Merlin, who lived life backwards so as to know these things ahead of time.
“If I have only one life to live, why couldn’t someone tell me to buy Amgen at $.10 a share?”
In GOP Land, the only failure is the failure to remain ideologically true to the party line. Electoral failure can be blamed on the “voter fraud” and Dem dirty tricks, administrative failure can be blamed on underlings, personal/moral failure can be blamed on “youthful indiscretions” and alcoholism.
Was there other stuff going on?
Well, two things: 1) it wasn’t just Moe’s short temper, he got fed up with the political fighting spilling over into non-political threads and 2) he took a lot of heat over his position on Abu Ghraib and our treatment of prisoners in general. But anyone claiming he was “scourged” from here is engaging in revisionist history; until he reappeared at RedState in full-on “f*** the Democrats” mode, most people here were rather sad about him leaving.
If you haven’t done so already, check out John Cole’s “You Got to be Kidding Me, Chick” post on BalloonJuice. It’s hilarious. Sorry, no link, I misplaced my written how-to instructions.
Molech (in the wikipedia entry) is associated with the sacrifice of children. Maybe in some circles the “party of Molech” refers to the Democratic Party’s position on abortion.
In some other circles, the “party of Molech” might refer to the Republican Party’s position on Iraq.
Here’s the Cole link: Ya Gotta Be Kidding Me, Chuck
‘But anyone claiming he was “scourged” from here’
I certainly don’t recall a general scourging, but a scourger, yes.
Of course it was an extraordinarily difficult time for a multi-partisan site.
Of course it was an extraordinarily difficult time for a multi-partisan site.
Ain’t that the truth. I give a lot of credit to all the front-pagers here. It’s daunting enough to comment sometimes, I can’t imagine posting to the front page and then having to defend your post for several days in the comments. The fact that ObWi attempts to maintain some political diversity is what draws me here. I think that a lot of sites have tried that and failed. Politics and religion…
It’s a rough world out there.
The really amazing thing about “party of Molech” is that it’s the more defensible sentence of that post.
To me, the “disrupt meaningful conversation for its own sake” rule should not be as thrown by the wayside as it has been. But I recognize that that one’s more subjective.
The fact that ObWi attempts to maintain some political diversity is what draws me here.
The trouble with political diversity these days is that conservatives like Andrew Sullivan and John Cole are being defined as leftists by some because of their lack of ideological servitude to the current administration. Even if they were to post here, ObiWi would still be critiqued as a moonbat site.
The RedState discussion between Von and Thomas was quite illuminating, although I would have been infuriated were I Von.
rilkefan: That seems to be a gratuitously nasty post by Digby, for no reason I can see. Which part is Digby implying is either not true or exaggerated or taking issue with (or what)? That he is a combat vet? That he lost his leg? That he received that awful card? That he was spit at?
Writing that post at all was pretty damned sad if you ask me (I realize you did not).
OCS – it seems to me that either there is a high enough rate of unacceptable behaviour towards disabled vets that one guy got hit three separate times by it, or there’s one guy out there getting outrageous baseless smears of war opponents into the papers. Either way it’s pretty awful, and not indicative of a world where people on opposite sides of the issue are going to find it easy to have a civil conversation.
(Note that Digby has Occam on her side.)
To my knowledge nothing else was going on.
Thanks for the correction on Moloch/Molech. I had never seen it spelled Molech before, which still looks odd to my eyes.
Phil, it’s not the use of elipses. It was the the fact that you strang together a comment from me to one poster with a comment from me to another, creating a false impression regarding the substance of both comments; when I asked you to take a look at it again, you didn’t offer a defense but rather made the misleading statement that it was all part of one comment — which was hardly the point.
Anyway, all you got was a warning. I consider the matter closed.
There was an exchange between Von and Thomas on RedState the other day in which Thomas claimed that Moe was “scourged” from ObWi.
Thomas belongs to the school of rhetorical thought in which it’s perfectly appropriate to make whatever comment you wish, so long as you actually don’t know that what you’re saying is false. Its a bit frustrating — and I don’t think it’s a very way to gain credibility as a blogger — but I don’t hold it against him. He has a role to play (as do we all).
Only Moe can say his reasons for leaving, but I’m aware of no scourging. Here’s Moe’s farewell post: http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2004/10/im_done.html.
Ditto on Moe and scourging. Though, in all honesty, I always assumed that it was possible that he felt scourged and I didn’t know.
Its a bit frustrating — and I don’t think it’s a very way to gain credibility as a blogger — but I don’t hold it against him. He has a role to play (as do we all).
Whereas I cannot think of anything more destructive of reasonable and useful discourse. I’m actually rather flabbergasted that you think it’s okay, von.
dpu: The trouble with political diversity these days is that conservatives like Andrew Sullivan and John Cole are being defined as leftists by some because of their lack of ideological servitude to the current administration.
Based on that I am a barking moonbat 🙂 I don’t care much about abortion or gay marriage (I’d prefer to have the legislature decide these types of issues vs. the judiciary, even better, let states decide) and I think that the religious right has subverted what was once my party. On domestic issues, other than taxes, I am more closely aligned with your typical ObWi commenter than I am with the GOP. Big tent my ass.
rilkefan: I appreciate the clarification. Valid points.
OCSteve: One of the (few!) things about the debate about the Iraq war that I’ve found really heartening is that this time, pretty much everyone seems to be completely clear on the difference between supporting the war and supporting the troops. Not only that, people seem to be going out of their way to emphasize it. I suppose that sometimes that might be to avoid political consequences, but it’s hard to see that being a compelling motivation for, say, bloggers and random citizens. Certainly in my case, I’ve tried to be clear about it, and the motivation was really that if I was going to be against the war, I didn’t want that to be misconstrued by any troops who might encounter this blog in a way that was needlessly hurtful.
(I mean: when I do think that someone is doing something wrong, I will normally say so, but when I don’t think someone is doing something wrong, and moreover that someone is making an enormous sacrifice on behalf of my government, and (even though I didn’t ask for the war) on behalf of me, making it clear that I appreciate that and do not think ill of that person, regardless of my views about the war, seems like — well, less than the least I could do.)
I am sure that somewhere there is a leftist who has done something awful to a soldier who has returned from Iraq. (I am also sure that somewhere there’s someone on the right who has done so. Why? I assume that in any large group of people, there is at least one idiot.) But I hope that, in general, we have learned something.
He has a role to play (as do we all).
I read that more as “we are all God’s creatures, even the incomprehensibly weird ones,” Josh.
Certainly in my case, I’ve tried to be clear about it, and the motivation was really that if I was going to be against the war, I didn’t want that to be misconstrued by any troops who might encounter this blog in a way that was needlessly hurtful.
Hilzoy – certainly for me, you have no explanations to make. You have done more to broaden my thinking than any other blogger, of any political bent. You alone caused me to leave behind my knee-jerk reaction to anything left of center. You are a star – believe it or not 🙂
(I am also sure that somewhere there’s someone on the right who has done so)
and, just in case anyone needs an example: Fred Phelps.
Re the “scourging”:
This post shows Moe taking a lot of heat for continuing to support Bush; this thread was an attempt at peace through poetry which veered back into politics (regrettably instigated by me, though I wasn’t trying to be partisan), prompting his “I’m Done” post that hilzoy cites.
Anyway, the first of the two is probably the primary source for the sense of some on the right that Moe was driven off by lefties, though to my knowledge he never publicly blamed anyone.
OCSteve: Do you feel that your ass needs a big tent? Considered Weight Watchers? Sorry sorry sorry. 🙂
Bruce: I guess I asked for that :).
I could lose 20 pounds for sure. Weight Watchers – no way. I’m more of an Atkins guy (the 4 food groups are beef, pork, chicken and fish). Actually I just need to get my butt away from this computer for a couple hours a day.
I’ve had best results with Weight Watchers, but I’m a big believer in “try several things and see what works”. I have a lot of respect for diverse biochemistries and annat.
This is all a digression, of course. The real question is whether Our Enemies are sabotaging our precious bodily sweeteners.
Whereas I cannot think of anything more destructive of reasonable and useful discourse. I’m actually rather flabbergasted that you think it’s okay, von.
Ehh. I’ve seen worse when actual things are on the line (as they frequently are in litigation).
In any event, I’d rather my debating opponents adopt a foolish style: these sorts of tactics inevitably backfire.
The admission that things aren’t actually on the line at Redstate is … interesting.
This is all a digression, of course. The real question is whether Our Enemies are sabotaging our precious bodily sweeteners.
Hah. I’m feeling very metro-sexual just having this conversation. I need to go watch football now and have a beer and some wings 🙂
The admission that things aren’t actually on the line at Redstate is … interesting.
I don’t speak for RedState, and have become quite disappointed in it. I had hoped that it would work to broaden the party, when, instead, it seems determined to make the Republican party a party of white Southerners. It’s a shame.
Ehh. I’ve seen worse when actual things are on the line (as they frequently are in litigation).
Except that this is life, not litigation. The effects of the kind of behavior you accuse Thomas of are limited when you’re talking about litigation, but they’re rather more corrosive in broader discourse. (Have you read On Bullshit? This is exactly what Frankfurt’s talking about.)
In any event, I’d rather my debating opponents adopt a foolish style: these sorts of tactics inevitably backfire.
TBH, that strikes me as wishful thinking more than anything else.
I don’t speak for RedState
Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that you did, it is just that they seem to take themselves so seriously that your admission would be taken as tauntamount to trolling. Apologies for the crypticialousness
the 4 food groups are beef, pork, chicken and fish
I thought they were what you get in Irish coffee: alcohol, caffeine, sugar, and fat.
kenB:
Re the “scourging”:
This post shows Moe taking a lot of heat for continuing to support Bush
Read through it — pretty mild as “scourging” goes. Plus what is notable is Moe’s attitude that he would not be persuaded about wrongdoing by the Bush administration unless he got what I would describe as an extraordinary level or proof.
‘pretty mild as “scourging” goes’
Note that it was in the context of perhaps a half-year of sometimes personal criticism. I don’t think that’s worth going into, though.
Plus what is notable is Moe’s attitude that he would not be persuaded about wrongdoing by the Bush administration unless he got what I would describe as an extraordinary level or proof.
i’m reminded of O’Reilly’s “if they don’t find any WMDs, I’ll never believe a word from the Bush Administration again”.
some things are bigger than oaths.
I’m sorry that Moe doesn’t post here any more. A rereading of “the scourging”, incredibly mild as it is, reminded me of his best qualities. ObiWi lost a lot when he left, he truly was a conservative that I deeply admired when he posted here, even if everything he thought was completely wrong 🙂
And he could do far better than RedState.
What dpu said.
My god this is foul.
rilkefan: sheesh.
And a bit below, Instapundit links to a post that wins my personal “jeez, THINK before you write that sentence!” award for tonight. It begins:
Never? Not once? Why, I alone have praised the US and its allies for liberating Afghanistan from the Taliban several times, and I’m just one self-proclaimed “progressive” liberal! I suppose that in his exhaustive survey of s-p “p” ls, Gay Patriot (who wrote this) somehow overlooked me — I don’t recall him asking me, or (now that I think about it) any of my s-p “p” l friends. Maybe he left other people out too. Maybe even a lot of them.
Maybe — just maybe — GP didn’t bother to check how many s-p “p” ls actually praised the US for extending human rights to Afghanistan and (briefly) Iraq. Heaven only knows how many instances of praise he would have found if he had asked, oh, ten or twenty of us!
Are you referring only to the antiwar side, or does “pretty much everyone” exclude all the comments by various Freepers, Redstatists, other right-wing bloggers and commenters, radio talk show hosts, columnists, and other members of the prowar noise machine who’ve been more than happy to accuse war opponents of not supporting the troops?
KC: oh. right. — Actually, I was thinking that no one who opposed the war seemed inclined to think that that somehow involved opposing the troops; I wasn’t thinking so much of the opinions people attribute to others. But of course you’re right; there is that. Although how much it’s a confusion about what’s involved in opposing the war and how much it’s just a reflexive leftover from caricatures of the 60s, I don’t know.
Sorry, guys, but I didn’t mean to offend anyone above. I was simply answering the question posed above: “Surely there should be a middle ground in here?” I don’t think there is middle ground on this — either you are for us or against us.
That’s great. Anyone have any pie?
yup. i made a yummy apple pie last night – Granny Smith and Cameos. it was hot pie action at the La Maison d’Cleek, last night.
“i made a yummy apple pie last night – Granny Smith and Cameos.”
But did you bring enough to share with the entire class?
While you guys discuss pie, George Bush is busy saving your butts, whether you like it or not.
I had a nice lemon meringue last night.
You know, maybe I do hate America, because I actually prefer most other pies to apple. Blueberry, for example.
Plus I find baseball boring.
But Mom seems nice enough.
Baseball is boring.
I had some nice coconut creme pie last night. Mmmmm…pie.
Why do I like cherry pie, and don’t like cherries, but don’t like peach pie, although I love peaches?
Baseball is boring
hear hear!
But did you bring enough to share with the entire class?
sure. it’s right here on my desk. come getcha a piece!
Baseball is gloriously boring. Like C-span.
Sorry, guys, but I didn’t mean to offend anyone above. I was simply answering the question posed above: “Surely there should be a middle ground in here?” I don’t think there is middle ground on this — either you are for us or against us.
In what sense? My point — to the extent it’s fleshed out at all — is that the Republicans have tolerated incompetence from this Administration on an staggering number of things. It’s not having the wrong goals — though there has been some of that — it’s the utter failure to execute on those goals. The President’s heart may very well be in the right place, but it does none of us any good if he doesn’t get his brain there too.
“Actually, I was thinking that no one who opposed the war seemed inclined to think that that somehow involved opposing the troops”
I have been thinking on this for at least several days. There are political strategies involving demoralization and alientaion of the troops to the point of desertions,insubordination,indiscipline, etc.
The object is to, like, end the war and save lives…not win “Sweetest Protest Person in the Whole Widest World”
If spitting on a troop saved a thousand lives, heck if spitting on one soldier caused him to say “TThe hell with America, I am going to Canada” and saved one life…Naw that would be wrong.
Best he goes to Baghdad without his feelings hurt, huh.
Why do I like cherry pie, and don’t like cherries, but don’t like peach pie, although I love peaches?
Because pie is so good. *celebrates pie*
Jes,
That explains the cherry part, but not the peach part.
Why do I like cherry pie, and don’t like cherries, but don’t like peach pie, although I love peaches?
Probably has something to do with the flavor of the fruit.
Peaches, when baked, slide down the throad wonderfully, but have lost some of the snap – the high tones – in their flavor.
Cherries, when baked, also slide down the throat wonderfully, but if anything taste even more “cherry-ish” after baking, with even more high-tone snap.
That’s my theory, anyway.
Whole Foods put out free samples of its pies, little dixie cups with chunks of pie in ’em. I tried a bit of cherry pie… then I grabbed a poor bakery counterperson by the front of the apron and demanded to know where the cherry pies for sale were. Lordy, that was Most Excellent Pie!
That explains the cherry part, but not the peach part.
Ah. I’d overlooked that, because I’ve never had peach pie, and am not really sure it exists except as a concept – like brown sugar pie that’s surely the same kind of American joke as deep-fried Mars bars are a Scottish joke. Deep-fried Mars bars, however, are not pie, and I wouldn’t want this thread to go off topic.
Caseyl’s theory seems an excellent one. Mmmm… cherry pie.
Anybody here ever tried molteberries (aka cloudberries)? Damned difficult to get outside Northern Scandinavia. Good raw, in yoghurt or cream. And not too sweet! I always bring as much back from vacation in Norway as possible.
Behold,
A ram caught in a thicket by its horns;
Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.
But the old man would not so, but slew his son. . . .
……..
Nor there if they yet mock what women meant
Who gave them flowers.
…….
He’d seen men shoot their hands, on night patrol,
Their people never knew. Yet they were vile.
“Death sooner than dishonour, that’s the style!”
So Father said.
….
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
…
Yes yes we must honor and encourage the soldiers;that will end the war. We must be sure Andy has the courage and confidence to ride point into Sadr City, and so he doesn’t hesitate when Riverbend sticks her head out the window.
And lay the flowers on the grave, with the young boy beside us watching and learning: Oh, what a grand thing it is to die for one’s country!
I’ve never had peach pie, and am not really sure it exists except as a concept
it’s fairly popular down here in the southeast US. it can be good.
for me though, apple pie is the standard fruit pie. all others are just things people throw together when they find themselves without 5 large, fresh, apples.
over dinner, a few weeks ago, a friend told us of an unusual pie her mother once made: grapefruit. that’s right: grapefruit segments baked in a pie crust. she said it was as awful as it sounds.
but, and not to get off topic, it wasn’t the worst thing she’d ever made; once she made “chicken skin casserole” – potatoes, cheese, flour, some kind of cream soup, and chicken skin.
I want me some caffeinated donuts, thank you.
On child sacrifice – the Phoenicians engaged in it, as did a number of other groups. The idea that child sacrifice is obviously evil seems to me a little sketchy. If you concede that there is a god who is propitiated by sacrifices, and the greater the sacrifice the greater its effectiveness, the obvious thing to do in a crisis is to sacrifice the things most precious to you – your children. The Phenicians were perfectly rational about this – the children sacrificed weren’t slaves. They were the children of the upper classes, precisely those considered most precious to the community.
People who believe in propitiation through sacrifice but draw the line at children are hypocrites, though usually they are sufficiently self-aware to disguise their hypocracy in theological mumbo-jumbo.
“the obvious thing to do in a crisis is to sacrifice the things most precious to you”
Not a problem, dude. We deck the kids in flowers and finest linen, sing beautiful songs, drink good wine and feed them sweetmeats. We smile and laugh as if it were a party.
We mustn’t scare the children, and always make sure they know how very precious they are, how appreciated, the most mostest precious things in the world as we toss them into the flames, wipe the tears and get back to business.
People who believe in propitiation through sacrifice …
are also known as Christians.
People who believe in propitiation through sacrifice …
are also known as Christians.
As pointed out in Stranger in a Strange land we’re also ritualistic cannibals, so that’s cool too.
In my mind I hear Judy Collins singing it, but of course it’s a Leonard Cohen song.
I kept trying to figure out what “propitiation through sacrifice” referred to in a Christian context – guess that’s Christ’s crucifixion, kind of a one-time-only deal, so I wonder about the applicability.
rilkefan – the Christian propitiation sacrifice is the ultimate. It’s one thing to sacrifice a child, but sacrificing God himself? – that’s commitment.
“…propitiation through sacrifice” referred to in a Christian context – guess that’s Christ’s crucifixion, kind of a one-time-only deal”
Well, the theory was already quite sophisticated when the Gospelers got a hold on it, and been further complicated by 2000 years of explication. So never mind.
But in practice some kinds of “propitiation thru sacrifice” have been continued:including monks praying for departed souls, monks being paid to pray;bloody pogroms and crusades, flagellants and fasts as responses to the plague years. These aren’t quite classic human sacrifices, but certainly are’t completely symbolic, either. “Dusseldorf has plague so let’s kill the Jews” can be interpreted in several ways.
In a animist(?) context of “bad thing happened — must spill blood” 9/11 and Iraq make an interesting study. Iraq making little sense as either an offensive or defensive war can make sense as a blood sacrifice in response to a barely comprehensible event.
“He died for Democracy” or “He died for America” are easily as abstract and magical as anything Aztecs or Cartaginians did.
Don’t forget Abraham and Issac. Note the ‘ok, do it now, whoops, stop, I was just checking to see if you would’. The evolutionary step of here was to transfer sacrifice from external to internal context, so that if you were willing to give everything up, regardless of whether you did it or not, you were a good egg.
“the Christian propitiation sacrifice is the ultimate. It’s one thing to sacrifice a child, but sacrificing God himself? – that’s commitment.”
This is what I don’t get about xianity – God has a bad 8 hours (whether harder than a difficult labor or dying of cancer I couldn’t guess) but then he’s fine. If (a la Borges) He ended up in Hell forever – now that would be a sacrifice.
I don’t see how the Isaac thing makes sense post-Jesus – “least among you” and so forth.
Von, since I’ve disagreed with you in so many posts lately, I wanted to note my complete agreement about competence and incompetence, and how they complicate “for us or against us” thinking.
lj, click the link above 🙂
Whoops, sorry, I just skipped over that. Thanks ral.
There are some theologians (sorry, can’t give links on that) that think that Abraham actually failed the Isaac test and should have said “no” from the start.
There is also discussion whether the Phoenicians/Carthagenians actually sacrificed children that were alive. All sources on that are not actually unbiased.
On the other hand the last proven human sacrifice in Rome was after the defeat at Cannae, the last alleged in Carthage several decades earlier. The Romans buried some slaves alive together with a Vestal Virgin that lost her job qualification.
Those seem like pretty big ifs, Bob.
Bob: If ‘Andy’ was Andrew, then it shouldn’t have been. Direct comments to him, of course, but don’t use his personal situation to make points in an argument. His situation is his to bring up or not. Don’t make him regret having told us at all.
It’s like going on about OMG how can Seb be a Republican, only worse.
Although I tend to agree that Bob went a little too far, I think what he wrote, including the part about Andy, must be viewed at in the context of what he started with:
“There are political strategies involving demoralization and alientaion of the troops to the point of desertions,insubordination,indiscipline, etc.
The object is to, like, end the war and save lives…not win “Sweetest Protest Person in the Whole Widest World” ”
Everything flows from that.
BTW, I am not in agreement with the premise, but it is a legitimate POV to discuss.
If the big ifs in bob’s comment are realities, then his andy comment, as uncomfortable as it is, is appropriate to the context and his point. Which I take as: maybe we shouldn’t be grimly polite and deferential to ritual as the children (our children) are led into the arms of Molech.
Model 62: Which I take as: maybe we shouldn’t be grimly polite and deferential to ritual
I didn’t object to Bob’s comment when I read it because I slid right over “Andy” as a generic name like “Tommy” or “John”.
If Bob intended it as a personal comment aimed at a regular poster/commenter who is indeed off to Iraq, I object to it strongly, for what ought to be obvious reasons.
I also think that if someone spat on me to show me what they thought of my views, I would be most unlikely to change my views because of their spittle.
Model 62: I’m fine with not being deferential to ritual. It’s not being respectful of Andrew that I have a problem with. (And part of respect, I think, is: leaving it up to him whether to make his life part of the argument.)
There are some theologians (sorry, can’t give links on that) that think that Abraham actually failed the Isaac test and should have said “no” from the start.
IANAT, but I agree with this. I wonder about the contrast between Abraham’s attitude here and his earlier bargaining with God over the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
The one case seems to call for unquestioning faith, the other for challenging God and debating right and wrong with Him.
I’m sure Bob will arrive sometime and explain his comment (and do it much better than I can).
I assume he aimed the comment at us, and not Andrew. What value is our respect and decorum if it helps people we know and love get killed (or worse)?
“Yes yes we must honor and encourage the soldiers;that will end the war. We must be sure Andy has the courage and confidence to ride point into Sadr City, and so he doesn’t hesitate when Riverbend sticks her head out the window.”
Bob, that was ridiculous. Absolutely vile. I know we all have rhetorical excess from time to time, but that is just ARGGHHHH.
I’m speechless, and that doesn’t happen.
Reserving judgement until Bob follows up. The fact that this kerfuffle was initially sparked by DaveC trying to score ideological points (um, how many times has he gotten worked up over nothing? I note this with affection and out of Christian charity, of course) certainly gives me pause.
Would hope others would also take a breath before commencing with the pearl clutching and condemnation.
“My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.”
Poems of Wilfred Owen
A far far better man than I or most here wrote those words. His best friend, Sassoon, tried desperately to keep Owen from returning to the front. Owen died in the last week of the war. He and his words and intention deserve my respect, and more.
Sure I “broke the rules” tho not I think the posting rules. My words were directed at everyone and at Andrew Olmstead. I, AFAIK, am the only one to ask him not to go to Iraq.
I did not imagine I would be liked, or approved, or agreed with for my comments.
“Absolutely vile.”
Vile, Sebastian? What do you imagine my intentions are? Has it not crossed your mind that Andrew may in a position where either he or Riverbend will die? (Or someone like him, or someone like her) This is so very obviously a bad war that Andrew himself would stop it if he could.
Many if not most wars end when soldiers lose their motivation for fighting. Vietnam is no exception. If “supporting the troops” means encouraging and supporting their sense of duty and comradeship and righteousness and whatever else you are not going to end this war or all the wars to come.
But “Dulce et Decorum” is the refuge of civilians as well as soldiers.
I ain’t throwing garlands at Andrew’s feet as he embarks. I don’t even care if he understands me. Let us hate each other, and let Andrew hide out in an FOB because he thinks I despise him. Whatever it takes.
“Vile, Sebastian? What do you imagine my intentions are?”
I’m not interested in your intentions. Your words were vile.
War is vile. My Great Uncle Lloyd (a charter member of the so-called ‘Greatest Generation’) was driven to the brink of madness by what he saw/did as an infantryman during WWII – ‘shell shock’, as they called it back then. He was a good man who probably did many vile and disgusting things that afterwards he couldn’t justify nor forget. Years of electro-shock treatment and serial trips to the mental ward were the glorious rewards for his honourable service.
If Andrew chooses to take offense at what’s been said I certainly won’t hold that against him. He’s made his decision, and I respect him for it (even if I think his sense of duty has put him on a perilous path.) But I also won’t condemn bob for speaking the ugly, vile, disgusting truth about what potentially awaits Andrew in Iraq.
I’m sure Andrew is already all too aware, regardless. I hope he comes back alive and unscathed.
Dulce et Decorum Est”
Wiki article on one of the greatest and most important poems ever written. Not that anybody really listened. Not that his entire work is genius. There are much nastier poems.
“Throughout the poem, and particularly strong in this last stanza, there is a running commentary, a letter to Jessie Pope, a civilian propagandist of World War I, who encouraged—”with such high zest”—young men to join the battle, through her poetry.” …Wiki
“Dulce et Decorum est
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! — An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime. —
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams before my helpless sight
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin,
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs
Bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, —
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.”
Owen died almost to the hour one week before the signing of the armistice. His mother received the news on Armistice Day, to the noise of church bells tolling in celebration.
(for those who don’t read Latin, it’s from Horace:
“How sweet and lovely it is to die for your country”)
Owen said it’s a lie.
“A far far better man than I or most here wrote those words.”
Being a good poet doesn’t make one a good person.
And for the record, I pay little attention to DaveC. I started at 3:10 with an unattributed quote by hilzoy.
I was aiming at the ethicist, and the ethicist can ban me as she likes.
Bob: there are a lot of ways to make that point without dragging Andrew into it. A lot.
We don’t have to choose between respect for people here and opposing the war. We can do both, if we try. Which is why, to my mind, Matttbastard’s reply is not to the point. (Completely uncharacteristically, imho.) War is vile. It’s completely horrible. But lots of people, including Wilfred Owen, have made that point without referring to Andrew. I suggest we emulate them.
It would actually be very spooky if Wilfred Owen had referred to Andrew, since Owen is supposed to have died about 50 years before Andrew was born. Perhaps Andrew is a timetraveller. Perhaps Owen is. Perhaps they both are. Torchwood could be involved. Or Captain Jack Harkness. If so, both Andrew and Wilfred would probably be thoroughly snogged.
I have eaten a sandwich in the chapel of the nursing home where Wilfred Owen convalesced during WWI. It isn’t a chapel any more, I don’t think, though the Stations of the Cross are still painted on the walls in gory detail to entertain students as they take exams. It isn’t a nursing home any more, either.
Hil – a tip of my hat to your somewhat backhanded compliment. I try to stay out of discussions relating to war (especially the war in Iraq) precisely because family history inhibits my objectivity (and good sense, apparently;-)).
As this is a bit too personal (for all involved), I withdraw from the discussion, and withdraw my previous comment, except for the last sentence.
Jes: I admit it would have been odd if Owen had referred to Andrew, but that just goes to show how very, very easy it is to passionately oppose war without dragging him into it. After all, for most of human history there was no Andrew, and that hasn’t gotten in anyone’s way, really.
mattt: don’t go. Unless you want to, of course. It makes me crazy too.
“I have eaten a sandwich in the chapel”
I have been outside a church in Italy with a façade listing the local soldiers who died for the glory of fascism.
I’ll withdraw from this discussion, at least until Andrew responds (if he so chooses). A preemptive apology if anything I’ve said has offended or shown disrespect to you, Andrew.
There’s so much blood on all our hands; so much left to be shed.
hilzoy, I read 6:37 as you wrote it, and have been thinking about it since. Still thinking. And being careful.
If anyone can point to where I have specifically criticized Andrew, or said…
In any case, my comments were mainly directed at the group, who have actual names and bodies and stuff. Obviously I felt peronalizing the war served a purpose or purposes. However long ago, I decided to personalize the war by asking Andrew not to go. Hard to explain why it became my business, and why Andrew both was and was not the point.
I think keeping it abstract keeps the soldiers, more rather than less, means not ends. The unkonown soldier is the noblest soldier of them all.
Emily never really got it til her teenage son tried to enlist.
I mean, to say:”I know this may hurt the feelings of soldiers and their families, so I won’t name any soldiers by name. Okay?” didn’t quite work for me.
Sorry. I will keep thinking on it.
The Troops Need to Support the American People …Bill Arkin
“Next up was Staff Sergeant Manuel Sahagun, who is on his second tour in Iraq. He complained that “one thing I don’t like is when people back home say they support the troops, but they don’t support the war. If they’re going to support us, support us all the way.”
Next was Specialist Peter Manna: “If they don’t think we’re doing a good job, everything that we’ve done here is all in vain,” he said.”
Sergeant Sahagun’s feelings are real, and he doesn’t separate support for the troops from support for the war. I don’t think he represnts a tiny minority, or that he is insincere. Bill Arkin wasn’t afraid to use Sahagun’s name, and then dress down the troops for their…umm…whatever. Read it.
This ain’t gonna be easy.
“…and so he doesn’t hesitate when Riverbend sticks her head out the window.”
Bob, that was ridiculous. Absolutely vile. I know we all have rhetorical excess from time to time, but that is just ARGGHHHH. …Seb
You weren’t clear, but my thought at the time I wrote it was that if Andrew hesitated, he was dead. I suspect it happens every week in Iraq. This isn’t police training, where the cardboard baby carriage pops around the corner.
I am very, and I think justifiably worried for the safety of Riverbend. And I have no reason to trust the restraint of the Iraqis he will be working with.
There are some theologians (sorry, can’t give links on that) that think that Abraham actually failed the Isaac test and should have said “no” from the start.
Oh go tell it to the Dead Sea, you gnostic :p
There is a part of me that doesn’t have much respect for the judgement of people who say they are defending our country in Iraq. They aren’t and it is irresponible to kill people without doing the homework to acquaint one’s self with the basic facts about a war. Also I don’t feel much respect for the judgement of people who think they are fighting the 911 terrorists or fighting them there to keep them from coming here. Issues of killing and dying should demand more thought than the simpleminded adoption of a Faux News slogan. People who are grown up ennough to learn to handle weapons annd kill other people ought to be grown up enouugh to understand thht they have a responsiblity to be well informed and to thinnk carefully about their actions.
But those aren’t the only reasons people go to Iraq. If I understood Andrew correctly, he is gonng out of a sense of responisblity, the belief thhat if it is at all possible to stabilize Iraq, then for the sake of the people there and for the sake of cleaning up our messes, we should go try. That is a point of view I do respect even if I don’t think the odds are very good. Also some people feel a duty toward their decision to enlist: they signed up to serve, so they feel that they have to serve. I can understand that. Many soldiers feel very loyal to the guy or gal next to them. That can be good if it means helping thhat gal or guy survive. it can be bad if it means going along with something they shouldn’t. I remember reading an embed’s story about a soldier who shot an innocent Iraqi man and the supervising officer who was heartbroken, literally heartbroken about it. There are people over there who really truly want to bring peace and order to Iraq so that the people living there can have a better life or so thhat thhe people who died didnn’t die for nothing. I don’t agree withh that but it is a responisble point of view.. Also it is important to remember that many soldiers are young. You annd I hhave thhe advantage of having lived throuugh thhe Viet Nam era. Cynicism is easy for us. I can disagree or think they are mistaken or whatever but I don’t feel like disrespecting the motives of people who want to make things better in Iraq before we leave.
I love the Wilfred Owens poem and I hate the propaganda about dying for one’s country since it really means dying and killinng for the mistakes of politicians.I didn’t think of Andrew when I read your post. I thought you were being sarcastic about a generic Anysoldier, but that bugged me because I don’t think there is an Anysoldier. I mean some, maybe many, soldiers believe they are fighting for their couuntry blah, blah, blah, which means they aren’t thinking enough, but, according to the Military Times polls, at least half do not.
So yeah, I think it is possible to oppose the war, repudiate jingoism, and still support the people who are over there dealing with it as best they can.
it is irresponible to kill people without doing the homework to acquaint one’s self with the basic facts about a war. Also I don’t feel much respect for the judgement of people who think they are fighting the 911 terrorists or fighting them there to keep them from coming here. Issues of killing and dying should demand more thought than the simpleminded adoption of a Faux News slogan. People who are grown up ennough to learn to handle weapons annd kill other people ought to be grown up enouugh to understand thht they have a responsiblity to be well informed and to thinnk carefully about their actions.
I’m pretty uncomfortable with this attitude, thinking back to my own youth and military experience.
I was in the US Army at the height of the VN War, and although I never went to VN, I thought a lot about it at the time (as you might expect). And my recollection is that although I was significantly older than the average draftee, and knew way more about Vietnam than he did, I really didn’t know what I would do if I actually got orders for Vietnam.
(Well, that’s not quite true. At one point I did get orders for Vietnam, and what I did was manage to convince them that they’d made a mistake, so the orders were retracted, and I never went.)
Had I gone, what would I have done? What were the alternatives? Would I have shot at anyone? I’d like to think not, but as one drill sergeant pointed out: “The Army doesn’t make you shoot anybody. They just give you a rifle and put you out in the jungle where other people are shooting at you, and lets you make up your own mind.” Would I have tortured anyone? No, I’m pretty sure. Would I have stood around while just out of sight my ARVN counterpart tortured a “VC” suspect, and then afterwards translated what he said? (I was training in Vietnamese language at the time.) Who knows? I envy anyone who can say with certainty what they would do under such extreme conditions, but that wasn’t me, nor was it most of the men I served with.
Now I didn’t go down and volunteer for the Army out of patriotism or a sense of adventure, or to Be All That I Could Be, which hadn’t even been invented then. So maybe, just maybe, my uncertainty can be partially excused, at least relative to today’s all-volunteer army. It wasn’t my choice, in an active sense. (In a passive sense, of course, I could have tried to claim conscientious objector status, or fled to Canada, or tried one of literally hundreds of other ways of avoiding service, but there were problems with all of these options; certainly none was an obvious alternative.)
Still, I’m pretty much of the view that ragging on young men (many just out of their teens) for their lack of political or moral analysis of war is not particularly helpful, or even appropriate.
It’s NOT just a matter of “doing one’s homework” about the “basic facts” of the war – the average American, in 1967, who “did his homework” about the war would have been reading/listening primarily to sources which told him that he was fighting for freedom, that America was doing the right thing in Vietnam, that the “VC” were evil communist bastards. To oppose the war based on “homework” would have involved a more sophisticated analysis, “reading against the grain,” questioning the received wisdom in ways that most college students – and most of these draftees were not that – cannot do with ease today.
Obviously some of us were more foolish, ignorant, and/or bloodthirsty than others. Maybe few of us were “responsible” in the way you’d like us all to be – but if you can’t be young and foolish when you’re young, when can you be?
This is not in any way to suggest that there is no moral responsibility attached to military service, especially when it comes to actual combat. Clearly some individual soldiers, caught up in such a dire situation, may do terrible things, and for this they should be held responsible (though not always by us).
But others do not, and to claim they should never have put themselves into such a situation in the first place is to lapse into the kind of self-righteousness that often made the anti-war movement so annoying to the rest of America . . . even after all these years.
I heart dr ngo.
I do wish people would read me more carefully. I have not, to the best of my ability, criticized soldiers as soldiers. Although certainly soldiers are also citizens. But for instance, the Blackwater employess in Iraq are not my concern.
But soldiers as soldiers do not wage war, the fight and other soldierly stiff.
Nations and citizens wage war. I cannot say that this war is Bush’s war, and Dr Ngo’s decision was his decision alone. Iraq is my war, and Dr Ngo, presuming he was an American at the time, was put in a context by me and my fellow citizens.
Do I elect my representatives and then go shopping? Do I have neither the responsibility or the right to make any decisions after that? Leaving aside the longer term and cultural glorifications of war, from John Wayne movies to the Black Wall, what is my relationship to Dr Ngo as a citizen to a soldier? Nonexistent? Gratitude? I claim to have one, at least politically. I claim the right to tell Dr Ngo to his face it is a bad war, and to tell him not to go. It is not Dr Ngo’s war, it is mine.
The whole idea of Bush as DECIDER is despicable, and not merely that he arrogates the power to himself, but that he thinks he can take it from me, and that he thinks I will abrogate it.
Making opposition to war and/or a particular war personal is at least as old as Lysistrata. And it can’t get any more personal and painful that that.
Andrew is not a mercenary fighting when and where and why he chooses. He is a United States soldier. He works for me, and fights when and where I tell him to.
Now if I could only find a 100 million others.
Bob, it may be worth your while to write up a lexicon and find some freebie web site to host it. Your personal usage has become basically incomprehensible, at least to me – it’s possible that I’m just being unusually thick-headed and that others are okay with it [fn1], but I’m well past the point of being able to count on any key term in your posts meaning anything like what I would expect, not even the insults, apparently.
1: That is not an attempt to be coy, that’s an acknowledgment of real cognitive problems I have. Someone’s got to be the outlier and I don’t mind if it’s me.
A TiO post seems to be appropriate here.
Possibly writing more carefully would aid you in getting your wish.
And I’m completely aware of how well that applies to me, thank you.
I’m still a little disconcerted that it’s the things you write most in earnestness, bob, that I regard as most deeply disturbed. I mean, if you think it’s ok for you to make it personal with Andrew, just because you think so, how ok is it for him to make it even more personal right back at you? Replace Andrew with anysoldier in the above, in case it looks as if I’m speaking for Andrew in particular.
That aside, I’m completely willing to be done with this, coming out the other side with seeing bob in an entirely and permanently new light. And no small amount of headshaking.
Bob: it’s quite possible to make it personal without naming an actual person, let alone someone on this blog. You can try talking, anonymously, about someone you know. Alternately, you could try writing about it hypothetically, but writing it well enough that for anyone who read it, it would be personal. Consider this by this by Spencer Ackerman:
The idea that there’s a choice between (a) opposing the war, or the escalation of it, only in abstract terms, and (b) dragging Andrew into it, is just wrong.
Bruce, if I were truly incomprehensible everyone would be unoffended. Please cite examples, with misinterpretations. Sebastian simply quoted, said “vile”, without really saying why he thought it was vile. Appears to be a lot of substance free criticism floating around.
I do use hypotheticals and metaphors sometimes. It is not enough to say I am outraged, I feel I musr express the rage, make it felt by the reader. As rilkefan apparently saw Wilfred Owens inchoate rage and felt Owen a bad person, some people when in rage’s presence assume it is directed at them or somewhere undeserving, or simply think it unacceptable in public discourse.
lj, i expect only a little special treatment, based on seniority and people’s experience with me. If I have really “shredded” the posting rules, I would expect that pointed out in detail, and at least a suspension or a strong reprimand.
slart, were you around when, in another forum, but called on it by seb here, called on everyone to boycott Moe’s wedding? The long time members don’t see me in a different and new light. As far as the soldiers are concerned, did you follow the link to Bill Arkin? Many soldiers feel any criticism of the war is an attack on them and their motives.
Is this over? Is this war, and are all the wars to come, over? I have just been thirty years out of practice.
bob: Making opposition to war and/or a particular war personal is at least as old as Lysistrata. And it can’t get any more personal and painful that that.
I would ordinarily hesitate to speak for Andrew, but in this matter I do believe I can make a good guess: I very much doubt that if you’d declared you’d never have sex with him again until he refused to fight in Iraq, that he would have found that refusal either personal or painful.
Just a guess.
(Everyone here does know the plot of Lysistrata, yes?)
??? There’s definitely some miscommunication around here, but perhaps it’s me.
I saw RF perhaps implying that Owen was not “a far far better man than I or most here”, but that’s not at all the same as being a bad person.
Bob, what I mean is that I find myself never quite getting what you mean by “war” and “necessary” and what you regard as inevitable and what you think desirable, or why, or anything of that sort. But no, I’m not going to rustle up documentation for someone who’s insulted my concern with actually existing individuals so often. You are, after all, just another individual in the mass tide – why do you get special consideration? What are the facts of one case, more or less, when ineffectual protestors like yourself are feeding the propaganda mill such useful quotes with which to fill the scare press? Ask someone you haven’t already dismissed.
KCinDC: I saw RF perhaps implying that Owen was not “a far far better man than I or most here”, but that’s not at all the same as being a bad person.
I thought of pointing out to RF that Bob was saying that Owen was a better man than he was “or most here”, not that he was a good man. But then I thought, RF might claim he was just repeating a truism – a good poet isn’t necessarily a good man, hello Ezra Pound. Or something.
It didn’t seem particularly important, though. Wilfred Owen is a great poet, which, so long after his death, matters much more than whether he was a good man: and, so long after his death, even if we could work out a quantative scale for who’s better than others, which I doubt we could – how on earth would we agree on terms, let alone work out the formula? it would be difficult to give marks to someone who is (a) dead (b) not someone any of us personally knew when he was alive.
Unless someone’s been holding out on us.
“…but that’s not at all the same as being a bad person.” …KC
“Being a good poet doesn’t make one a good person.” …rilkefan
Oooh, it is so fun to speak elliptically.
It is not merely Owen’s craft I admire, but the content of his poems and the way he lived his life. Within merely the content of the page above, I admire Owen for wanting “Dulce et Decorum” published (and really disapprove of Sassoon), and for returning the the front when very few would have criticized him for staying home.
If rilkefan thinks that “The old lie:Dulce et Decorum est…etc” is a bad thing to say, let him say so. That is the impression I got.
Well put, Jes. Fun as it sometimes is to assess the character of the gone, there’s no certainty in it.
(For an absolutely beautiful presentation of this, I recommend Charles Pellegrino’s book Ghosts of the Titanic. Early on he takes a moderately famous story of a man who whispered something to his child just before putting it into a liferaft, about what a search into the man’s history suggested as going on, and then about finding out what the man actually said and how it transformed the whole story. It is a lesson in humility before the past, which is just what Pellegrino wants to talk about with regard to science and engineering, too.)
bob: I admire Owen for wanting “Dulce et Decorum” published (and really disapprove of Sassoon), and for returning the the front when very few would have criticized him for staying home.
Actually, the fact that Wilfred Owen decided to go back to the front instead of staying in the UK and joining the pacifist movement is one of the reasons I’d have for thinking he was a bit of a hypocrite: he knew the war was evil and pointless, but he didn’t have the courage of his convictions.
It seems extremely odd to me that you should admire Wilfred Owen for going back to the front lines, but disapprove of Andrew for doing the same thing. Be consistent, at least.
The Wilfred Owen stuff I basically ignored. Poetry can be used to make points in debate, I suppose, but I’m not a big fan of that, so I generally ignore it.
No, what got my attention was the insinuation that if Andrew paid attention, bucks himself up as it were, he just might get a chance to kill Riverbend:
If that wasn’t your meaning, this is where the writing-more-carefully suggestion I made upthread applies. Unpacking the above would probably be a good and useful thing to do, in any event.
I like to think I am able to at least gain some sense of a person from his words and apparently, as evidenced by this thread, I am not unique.
I like to think I am able to at least gain some sense of a person from his words
People frequently do think this, and as any writer of fiction or poet or playwright will tell you, readers are not only usually wrong, they’re usually rather annoyed with the writer for not being what the reader “sensed” them to be.
I wouldn’t look at Wilfred Owen’s poetry to get a sense of what he was like: I’d read his letters or biographies about him. Even then, as Bruce says, it’s all too easy to get it wrong.
I think it’s not very nice to use another person, a real live person whom we know and respect, as a prop in an argument. That tactic, even when done with good intentions, reduces the person to a means, and there’s enough of that reducing to a means going on without our participating in it.
“he just might get a chance to kill Riverbend”
Your phrasing. My phrasing would be that he might have to, might accidentally do so, or be embedded with a unit comprised of Kurds, Mehdi Army, and Badr Brigade not completely in his control, i.e., watch helplessly as it is done by others.
Healing Iraq …article link not working;scroll down to “So What Happened in Najaf”
…zeyad of Healing Iraq can only be marginally relied on more than others on what happened this last weekend, but his second-hand or third-hand account seems no less credible than many others I have read. There was a time zeyad was considered a fair observer.
Lord, this is a horrible war.
Hilzoy’s clarification of the rules helped some (make it personal, but don’t make it about Andrew), but I still don’t understand what bob has done that merits so much vitriol.
If Andrew has asked that the group refrain from discussing his situation, then bob’s comment would be disrespectful of that wish. Beyond that, I don’t see an insult. Bob’s comments instead express concern for Andrew, the dangers he now faces (he may be killed; he may be forced to kill others), and his thoughts about how best to end the war.
“reduces the person to a means”
I went thru that above once, and said I felt that keeping the soldiers nameless and faceless was worse. They are not abstractions, and the war should not be confronted abstractly.
Certainly as we have learned the names and stories of Maher Arar and the Uighers those issues have become more pertinent and personal to us.
bob: ‘If rilkefan thinks that “The old lie:Dulce et Decorum est…etc” is a bad thing to say, let him say so. That is the impression I got.’
Well, I think it’s a powerful poem in its genre, but I think the “lie” bit, taking off from Horace, is bombastic. The value of dying for one’s country depends in some complex way on one’s circumstances and values and personality, or so it seems to me. I learned poetry in part from poets who had read Auden’s comment on his beautiful “We must love one another or die” – “that we must die anyway”.
Now it’s smacking of a sort of ghoulish wishful thinking, bob.
And now that I can’t do much other than backspace over what I have to say next, I’m out of this conversation. Posting rules forbid me from saying anything else.
Bob, it would have been entirely appropriate (in my view) for you to point out that someday an American soldier or an American bomb may kill Riverbend. That is personalising the issue with concern for the person.
It is entirely inappropriate for you to personalise the issue with hostility for the person.
The difference between saying “I’ll dance at Edward_’s wedding!” and “Edward_ is trying to destroy marriage by getting access to it!”
One is personal-friendly. The other is personal-hostile.
Is it really possible you don’t understand this?
Hmmm, ‘shredded’ is from the post at TiO, and I am loathe to go into it here. But I will say that Posting rules are things that are not done, not things that cannot be done. An attempt at a parallel example. I meet my head of department, along with his wife. I directly inquire about the quality of the love life in detail. When asked what I was thinking when I asked that, I explained that I am tired of the hypocrisy surrounding matters sexual, and it seemed to me that a direct question would enlighten all of us. But there is some point where we keep a respectful silence. To not do that is to ‘shred’ the rules. Again, everyone is invited to TiO to chew this over in a less worn corner of the internets.
Jes, I don’t see why you think Bob’s concern for Andrew is personal-hostile. Look at his 12:07. I’m not sure your distinction gets at the cause of the outrage.
“Ghoulish wishful thinking” ???
Wow.
Jes, show me the hostility, toward Andrew or any other soldiers. Well, ok I disagree along the lines of Bill Arkin’s article, and I do not work for the soldiers. It is my war, and civilians get to make that decision.
And good grief, the Edward analogy is just weird. Where did that come from?
Bob, your earlier comment about spitting may have suggested some hostility, though I’d guess you’ll say it falls into being cruel to be kind.
I think what upsets people about it is the implication that Andrew is going to be killing innocent civilians in Iraq. It smacks of the “baby-killer” slur of the Vietnam era. Going to war is bad enough, particularly when you recognize that it’s a misguided and futile war. I think it’s pretty callous to imply to someone being deployed that they’ll probably be responsible for the deaths of noncombatants while there. Whether or not it’s a horrible war is beside the point, as is whether or not innocent civilians do in fact get killed by US soldiers. The problem is the choice to focus on a specific soldier, and especially on one who is a member of this community.
Also, I’d like to hear an answer to Jes’ question about the apparent contradiction between bob’s admiration for Owen’s return to the front with his desire that Andrew not deploy.
bob: Jes, show me the hostility, toward Andrew or any other soldiers.
That sounds exactly like your average homophobe saying “Sure, I think your wish for legal marriage is going to destroy society – but that doesn’t mean I’m hostile to you!”
If you didn’t intend hostility, that’s surely how your comments came across to me. And, if to me, probably to Andrew too (if he’s reading this thread).
Larv: Please follow the zeyad link, and scroll/read down past the photos. The Iraqis called in US helicopter gunships against, well, who knows who. Petraeus is very upset that the Baghdad program is under “dual commands”. To my mind Dawa & SCIRI make Ky and Thieu look like admirable partners. At least the Vietnamese were not, to any large degree, engaged in a civil war against multiple factions not even necessarily ethnic or sectarian.
“pretty callous to imply to someone being deployed that they’ll probably be responsible for the deaths of noncombatants while there”
I don’t know what Andrew’s assignment is, he may be desk jockey in the green zone. Soldiers sharing responsibility for the deaths of non-combatants? The US gov’t is responsible, which means me. I set a fairly low bar for what I criticize soldiers for under combat conditions. Is it better to not think or talk about the non-combatants and collateral damage?
This is an unspeakable situation in which to put soldiers. Crazed civil war in a major metropolis, where there are no allies with even a hope of dominance.
“Also, I’d like to hear an answer to Jes’ question about the apparent contradiction between bob’s admiration for Owen’s return to the front with his desire that Andrew not deploy.”
I feel that telling Owens not to go requires much less justification than telling Owens to go, or supporting Owens in his decision to go. Owens wrote the poem as a letter to a chickenhawk. I admire many things I have no right to command or recommend.
I can admire Andrew while having an obligation to stop the war.
Bob: I feel that telling Owens not to go requires much less justification than telling Owens to go, or supporting Owens in his decision to go.
Well, sure, Owen’s dead and WWI is long over (except for the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, which is still at war with Germany, though I don’t believe they’ve resumed active hostilities yet). No point telling Owen to do anything now: he’s done. Expressing admiration for him for doing something he knew was wrong and pointless, however, puts you in the odd position of admiring someone who knowingly does evil because he hasn’t the moral courage to stand up, do the right thing, and not worry about becoming a pariah.
I don’t say I’d have that kind of moral courage, either. But I can’t admire the lack of it.
“that’s surely how your comments came across to me.”
Then that’s your problem, and apparently slart’s. And as the Arkin aticle demonstrates, opposition to the war will quite often be interpreted as hostility and disrespect of the soldiers, by the soldiers.
I am getting tired.
When Jonah Goldberg wrote that we should throw crappy little countries against the wall to show how macho we are (or words to that effect) he was roundly condemned right here on this site. If my neighbor’s son killed someone here on the island for a stupid reason we islanders would condemn him. However if he, a twenty-five year old married adult, kills people in Iraq and says he did it because (and I am quoting here) “The Iraqis hate us and they want us to leave but we have to fight them over there or we will be fighting them here”, I am not supposed to question his judgement?
I think that if I question his judgement I am showing that I respect him enough to assume that he has a capacity for making moral choices.
Maybe we wouldn’t get into so many unnecessary wars if people were taught that they had a responisblity to be well informed about wars, intelligently skepitcal about the decisions of politicians, and to seriously consider the very serious moral issues raised by the decision to go to war. For some reason it is assumed that people who are old enough to go to war can’t be expected to actively try to learn about the war or to actively question it or make sure they can provide a substantive explanation for their decision to take part in it. Why not? In the case of Iraq it doesn’t even require active learning or thinking to notice that the Iraqis didn’t attack us directly or indirectly, and that there are no WMD’s.
I would not say anything rude to my neighbor or his son, and I am not equating him with all soldiers or all soldiers with him. But I do think that people, politicians, soldiers, whoever, who support a war for stupid resons should be challenged.
“Expressing admiration for him for doing something he knew was wrong and pointless, however, puts you in the odd position of admiring someone who knowingly does evil”
All sorts of words attributed to me that I have not said. which is why I am getting tired.
FWIW – probably not much at this played-out stage – my contribution above was not inspired/provoked by anything you said, Bob, but by Lily’s comment, immediately above mine. Any applicability to your points you must supply (or deny) yourself.
Shorter Bob–The Iraq War is wrong and therefore, Andrew, I don’t think you should go, because you might find yourself in a firefight and either get killed or accidentally shoot someone like Riverbend.
Not my style for various reasons, but I think I’d call it a mistaken approach rather than vile.
I liked lily’s 11:07 comments, but then liked dr ngo’s response and haven’t decided which is more convincing. That’d be worth arguing about, if this thread continues and we can wrench ourselves away from the all-important question of whether this thread should permanently alter our opinion of Bob. (Lord, I hate that kind of talk.)
I understand Dr. Ngo’s perspective. That’s why, in all seriousness, I don’t think people should be allowed to serve in the armed serrvices unless they are over thirty and have kids and a mortage. It’s a ridiculous state of affairs when a society simultaneously decides that eighteen year olds are too young to be held accountable for misjudgements about life and death situations, but old enough to armed and sent off to fight!
My reach bitch is with the prevailing cultural attitude that killing for slogans is acceptable behavior, even laudable behavior. It isn’t, especially when the slogans are generic and applied predictablely to nearly every war. We are always fighhting for our country, defending democracy, fighhting them there so they won’t come here etc. Is it asking too much to expect people to think beyond that level when it comes to killing other people?
It seems to me that the assumption that soldiers can’t be expected to know much or think carefully about a given war is pretty insulting to the soldiers. Why is it acceptable that the standard of moral decision making be lower for them? Seems like it ought to higher, if anything.
hilzoy: I heart dr ngo.
If you want to have his babies, I’m available most weekends for a nominal fee. 🙂
AMERICABLOG has a video of some American soldiers torturing a wounded dog. I do not support those troops. Not one bit.
Choices
“For a warrior there is no other end to the journey.” — Alyt Neroon, Babylon 5 Geez, I’m sick for a few days and I miss a thread where I’m actually a featured player. I’m going to lose my egotist’s…