[lbo-talk] FW: Edward Said passed away yesterday

[Kelley]

At 09:46 PM 9/25/03 -0400, Brian Siano wrote:
>On Thu, 25 Sep 2003 15:00:44 -0700, Brad DeLong 
><jbdelong at uclink.berkeley.edu> wrote:
>
>>Will the means, and you will the end. Edward Said willed the end of Oslo--
>>which end he (naively?) saw as a means to a "better" peace--and so he 
>>willed our highly predictable current situation: we may have lost our 
>>last chance to get off the road that leads to the expulsion of the 
>>Palestinians and the nuclear destruction of Tel Aviv.
>
>Again, I'm stymied here. How could Said have "willed" anything on that 
>scale? Heck, I'd love to "will" the impeachment of Dubya, and if I could 
>"will" him to the cornfield a la the _Twilight Zone_, I'd be happy to do it.
>
>I mean, did Said possess amazing psychic powers that shaped the minds of 
>the Knesset and Arafat's crowd? Was he come kind of diabolical Sax Rohmer 
>genius of crime who would bend strong men to his "will" through strange 
>occult means?

interestingly enough, your argument here is similar to the one Yoshie and 
Carrol advance to explain why they criticize the US, but don't waste a lot 
of energy on the imperial aggression elsewhere. _What_ exactly can they/we 
do to get rid of Saddam (or ______)? Nothing that wouldn't entail 
supporting US aggression against Saddam (or _____) and, in their book, that 
would inevitably be worse.

And, Brad, I wished you hadn't apologized. The comment about Said was so 
obnoxious. And then you went and proved that you could be a righteous guy 
and admit you messed up. Can't you just be an asshole all the way around? :)

Kelley