Max, Angela, Chris, DL

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Sat Apr 10 08:54:53 PDT 1999


Doug Henwood wrote:


> D.L. wrote:
>
> >To say that the Balkans are filled with thugs and political opportunists
> >willing to incite ethnic prejudice is simply obvious
>
> There's usually a long history to "the obvious," isn't there?

Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote a fine poem which was a scathing attack on the United States for slavery, but having a bit better sense of proportion than DL and the like, she gave the poem an interesting frame. An Angel appears to her and asks her to write a curse against America, and for many lines she demurs, her position being how can anyone from as slimy a nation as England dare to criticize any other nation, even one as detestable as America.

Carrol



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