[lbo-talk] and then there's always war movies....

[Carrol Cox]

I'd better check with others my memory of All Quiet... It's been over 50
years since I saw it. Very near the end, the sergeant is carrying a wounded
man slung over his back. One sees, very small, an airplane in the upper
corner of the screen, then hears the soft rattle of machine gun fire. The
sergeant trudges on, unaware that the wounded man is now dead.  Then in a
few moments the final episode of soldier, butterfly, & sniper. Is this
correct?

Assuming it is correct, put Yeats's airman in that plane, expressing himself
in his pointless slaughter of a wounded man after the ear is, in material
fact, over: and for the Airman that slaughter was pointless _and known to
be_ from the beginning:

Those that I fight I do not hate, 
Those that I guard I do not love;

I am always reluctant to use the word, "fascist," but I think Andie's
application of it here is valid.

There is a sort of horror also implicit in Yeats's "terrible beauty": The
Easter Rebellion was _also_ a cry of protest against The War, and as such
the 16 dead men stand with Debs & Luxemburg & Lenin against that 'terrible'
slaughter. It's achingly beautiful, & equally vile.

Carrol


> -----Original Message-----
> From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org]
On
> Behalf Of madhavan kutty Nandeilath
> Sent: Tuesday, October 30, 2012 2:17 AM
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] and then there's always war movies....
> 
> A terrible beauty as Yeats himself put it.
> 
> On 10/30/12, andie_nachgeborenen <andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > This is beautiful the way Reifenstahl is beautiful, I have to agree with
> > Carroll. It _is_ beautiful. And deeply fascistic. I prefer 1919 myself.
> >
> > Sent from my iPad
> >
> > On Oct 29, 2012, at 12:44 PM, 123hop at comcast.net wrote:
> >
> >> I could not help but fall in love with Yeats' poems: here's Irish
Airman
> >> Forsees His Death
> >>
> >> I know that I shall meet my fate
> >> Somewhere among the clouds above;
> >> Those that I fight I do not hate,
> >> Those that I guard I do not love;
> >> My country is Kiltartan Cross,
> >> My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,
> >> No likely end could bring them loss
> >> Or leave them happier than before.
> >> Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
> >> Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
> >> A lonely impulse of delight
> >> Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
> >> I balanced all, brought all to mind,
> >> The years to come seemed waste of breath,
> >> A waste of breath the years behind
> >> In balance with this life, this death.
> >>
> >> ----- Original Message -----
> >> Yeats's "Irish Airman" reeals its core vileness (along with its
greatness)
> >>
> >> only to those who have watched the final scenes of All Quiet on the
> >> Western
> >> Front. You have to see that airplane up in the corner of the film.
> >>
> >> Carrol
> >>
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