He is not hate filled but he is angry. He has more than every right to be angry."
John Thornton, from
<http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20050131/002784.html
>
"Once again, I feel like I am supposed to be threatened by being accused of complicity in something I loath--the US empire. Well, I am not threatened, I am complicit--I live here, I work here and I haven't done much to rid the world of it, so yeah. Then, should I expect a deferment? Hardly. When the US empire is attacked for being the US empire, what should I do?"
Chuck Grimes, from
<http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20050131/002778.html
>
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Although I sympathize with Mr. Churchill's critics - the "little Eichmanns" comment was a terrible misfire and could only attract condemnation - I must admit to not finding the passion directed against him very compelling. Understandable? Yes. Important to put on record? Perhaps. But not compelling. No.
Of far greater interest is the description of a real problem which pulsates at the heart of his flawed essay -- what is our culpability? How innocent are we really?
And what to do with the anger that flows through us when the scope of criminality is fully acknowledged and everyday forms of all American I-don't-give-a-damn are confronted?
Of course, I don't want to be blown to pieces and I don't want anyone else to be blown to pieces so it's useless to accuse me (as someone may be gearing up to do, even now) of rooting for terrorism or some other bit of by-the-numbers denunciation. So no, I'm not eagerly awaiting the next act of super destruction by nihilist adepts.
But millions of Americans are in a deep and morally troubling sleep - unable or unwilling to understand cause and effect. What will wake them up?
When I read Churchill's essay, I remembered the following...
On the first or perhaps second day of the American bombing campaign against Baghdad -- the celebrated (is there any other honest way to describe it?) strategy of "shock and awe" -- a large, Samsung plasma screen television, linked to a cable television line, was set up in a slick conference room of the office I work in.
On the screen, a live image from CNN -- a video feed from the rooftop of what was then the Iraqi Ministry of Telecommunications (or some similarly named ministry) -- provided us with a view of bright orange explosions reducing government buildings and surrounding neighborhoods to smoking rubble.
A lovely young woman with a sunny disposition came into the room. She sat down for a moment and laughed with some of her co-workers about the destruction on display. She wondered aloud whether or not this was the much advertised shock and awe. Others wondered too. One man commented that he expected a more "blitzkriegy" kind of "show" i.e, total devastation perhaps like the sort of thing you'd see in a Hollywood blockbuster about alien invasion.
After a few minutes the young woman sudeenly got up, remembering that she'd forgotten to get her lunch (a healthy salad - it's important to maintain one's weight after all). She left, saying that she "hoped nothing big happened" while she was gone.
After a little while she returned, placed her salad in her lap and sat eating quietly while watching bombs - 'smart' and not so smart - explosively impact on Iraqi soil and Iraqi lives.
She seemed to me, at that moment, like a Roman spectator, enjoying an afternoon's entertainment of bloodsport.
I sat down next to her. She smiled warmly. "You understand," I said, "that people are dying." She shrugged her shoulders. "Well, only Saddam's people" she calmly told me. "The bombs are really accurate." Almost everyone else agreed.
...
Of course, in the strictest sense of the word she's quite innocent as she played no role in planning or executing War Plan Iraq. Still, it's not difficult to imagine the reaction the recipients of the US Air Force's attentions might have to the sight of a group of well heeled Americans observing their discomfort in complete safety and without any apparent concern.
They might, we can suppose, grow angry; yes, very angry indeed and say - and indeed do - quite terrible things.
It's a species of this anger that comes through in Mr. Churchill's essay (and perhaps other works of his though I can't say for sure, not having read anything else - yet).
And I think this is what makes so many of us uncomfortable - this bonfire of rage that inspires terrible thoughts and words and deeds. We hope for a peaceful reigning in of Washington's deadly antics. We hope that getting the word out and inspiring our fellow Americans to choose their better nature - instead of relentlessly cheering on the sword thrust to the solar plexus - will bring about a more just and peaceful world.
But maybe, just maybe, no amount of gentle persuasion will do and the fire will come, regardless of our efforts. This is the disquieting possibility that Churchill's describing - a whole planet surrendered to the hard logic of the occupied territories of Palestine or the troubles of N. Ireland.
So long as there are many millions of Americans willing to contentedly sit down and enjoy a meal while watching their tax dollars at work pulverizing other people it's difficult to imagine any other outcome.
We can hope. We can work to avert this future. But my reading of Churchill is that we shouldn't be surprised if that's the world we find ourselves in.
.d.
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