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Subject:
From:
Daniel Pearlman <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
- Ezra Pound discussion list of the University of Maine <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Thu, 13 Feb 2003 02:23:51 -0500
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Way to go, Brennan.  I dub your email a Lesson for Liberals.
==Dan

At 12:59 AM 02/13/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>What then, should America have done in response to the horrors of Sept. 11?
>Should the Taliban still rule Afghanistan? Should Osama bin Laden be free to
>build bigger and better bombs with which to kill non-muslims? Is not Saddam
>Hussein himself a warmonger of the worst ilk? What is the pacifist response
>to men willing to use unlimited aggression to maintain their ironfisted
>rules?
>
>We may not agree with President Bush, but he was elected to his office.
>There was no military coup. Ballots were cast and they were counted to the
>best of our ability. And if Bush's actions displease the voters, another
>will take his place. So he cannot be equated with the likes of bin Laden,
>Hussein and Kim Jong Il.
>
>Furthermore, the disarmament of Iraq is not the will of the United States
>alone. It is a repeated resolution of the United Nations, which is as close
>to global government as we have presently. Yet, as has happened other times
>in our history, only America is willing and able to take up the challenge.
>How ironic that France and Germany protest and stall. There were warning
>signs from Hitler, you know, before he invaded Poland. Sadly, the world
>waited too long and millions and millions had to die for history to teach
>its lesson.
>
>With great power comes great responsibility. America cannot simply turn a
>blind eye to the vipers in the grass. Nor can it turn its cheek and accept
>the bites of tyrants. Our freedom is bought with blood. We could not even
>have a similar discussion in Iraq. To openly criticize Saddam is to lie down
>in a pine box.
>
>Of course oil is involved in the present confrontation. It is in the world's
>interest to have a stable Middle East. It serves no nation to have a
>threatening dictator smack in the middle of the world's energy reserve. We
>cannot even imagine a modern civilization without asphalt roads, combustion
>engines, plastics and computers. The time will come when the oil will run
>out, but for now, it's all we have.
>
>Are we willing to give up our way of life?
>
>>From: Tom White <[log in to unmask]>
>>Reply-To: - Ezra Pound discussion list of the University of Maine
>>    <[log in to unmask]>
>>To: [log in to unmask]
>>Subject: Re: laureates against the war
>>Date: Wed, 12 Feb 2003 21:42:16 -0600
>>
>>My response to the below post takes off from Ezra Pound's flat-out
>>detestation of war, which has been attested to on this list just recently
>>with a posting of relevant verses from the Cantos, and which was what
>>attracted me to him in 1950 and has kept me convinced ever since that the
>>warfomenters in the West are the real betrayers. That our true Western
>>(certainly American) instinct as to "les autres" is to live and let live.
>>It
>>is enough to see to one's own conduct. To take a God-like stance and
>>presume
>>to know how history is to be managed and what "must" be done violently to
>>save the day, is as near madness as I care to come. 1600 years ago
>>Augustine
>>wrote about the two cities, man's and God's, and the hallmark of man's is
>>the desire to dominate, libido dominandi, the lust for, the thrust to,
>>power
>>and wealth. We now are at the end of the Nietzsche anti-Christ craziness
>>which puts madmens' drive for control in place of any reverence for the way
>>or the Tao or the truth. We have given up principle for gross economic
>>expediency and are giving up liberty for God alone knows what, and the
>>probable payoff in blood and ruin is beyond imagining. Presumably the
>>juggernaut is unstoppable, but if Pound had been listened to in the 1940s
>>and 1050s or at any point since, we would not be in the present mess.
>>Anti-semitism is the biggest red herring in the whole business. Forget
>>that,
>>and concentrate on war makers, war mongers, munitions makers, and usurers.
>>No doubt vastly more nominal Christians, or at least goys, in that lot than
>>nominal Jews, which I rather think is all that Perlman is. I would give
>>much
>>(if I had it) to stop the present rush to war. If we turn out the Western
>>light of reason and charity and faith and hope and humility, what
>>conscience
>>could we be said to have left? Tom White
>>
>> > From: bob scheetz <[log in to unmask]>
>> > Reply-To: - Ezra Pound discussion list of the University of Maine
>> > <[log in to unmask]>
>> > Date: Wed, 12 Feb 2003 22:14:34 -0500
>> > To: [log in to unmask]
>> > Subject: Re: laureates against the war
>> >
>> > Daniel Pearlman writes:
>> > Gentlemen,
>> >> moral issues take a back seat here.  We are witnessing a life and death
>> >> struggle for the survival of the Western way of life against an
>>absolutely
>> >> relentless militant Islam ...
>> >
>> > Dan Pearlman is right.  Saddam/WOMD' s are just a convenient bogey for
>>the
>> > pavlovian masses.  The elite think tank'rs (Richard Perle's group) see a
>> > malthusian oil supply situation in the next 25 yrs with no possibility
>>of
>> > averting it with new tech.  Central asia and the middle east are the
>> > strategic real estate and long before 9/11 the bush team had determined
>>upon
>> > the need to create a new world order that would see the re-colonization
>>of
>> > that area.  So the question you have to answer is, Are you willing to
>>pay
>> > for your good conscience with turning out the light of Western History?
>> > ...are you will to accept it is our turn to be the fellaheen civ?
>
>_________________________________________________________________
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=====================================================
Dan Pearlman's home page:
http://pages.zdnet.com/danpearl/danpearlman/

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"Perfectly-crafted gems": Jack Dann, Nebula & World Fantasy Award winner

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