"it could be worse--if some other country were doing this, would they let the prisoners exercise their religion?"
Let.
Let?
LET??!!
OK. It could be worse. I hear people saying this. Um, how exactly? Note that I am neither a US citizen nor even a US resident and therefore "they could be doing it to citizens" (or "to citizens who were born here") does not actually meet my criteria for "worse."
Signatories of the Genva Convention do not LET prisoners practice their religion. They recognise their right to do so.
You know, promptly every time that Amnesty International releases their human rights abuses data, the US comes out poorly. Not worst by any stretch, but much worse than they ought to.
And promptly every time, commentators jump all over this AS EVIDENCE OF EXTREME POLITICAL BIAS WITHIN AMNESTY.
I know. No one here has expressed or implied such things. I do not mean to imply that they have.
"I should prefer the situation where people are saying, very rarely, because it doesn't come up much, "of course they are not shooting people. What in Hell would they be shooting people for?"
Addendum; I fell into a habit there which I abhor and consider dangerous: the IDEAL construction is "Of course WE are not shooting people."
The notion that government is something that happens to people is IMO one of the most dangerous ones one can wilfully propogate in a representative democracy, as it simultaneously makes us feel helpless and allows us to feel blameless. I try hard not to do it
"There's a kind of extraordinarily cheap, stupid realism that says "What are you worried about? You're acting like they're monitoring the library books you're reading, but they're simply not doing that. Take a deep breath."
Yes.
There is the situation you have when they are shooting people.
And then there is the situation you have when people are going around saying "at least they are not shooting people". Which is the same situation where other people are going around saying "it's not like they are shooting people."
I should prefer the situation where people are saying, very rarely, because it doesn't come up much, "of course they are not shooting people. What in Hell would they be shooting people for?"
I dunno. Anymore, I have a crisis of conscience every time I cross the border. We picked a Hell of a decade in which to have a US citizen as a partner, that's all I'm saying.
I confess that of all the things one could call That Bastich, "Rumi" gives me the grievous flinchies.
I am really very fond of Rumi, and of his works.
Andf not fond at all of Rumsfeld.
We could call him Rummy, were it not for the fear of insulting perfectly respectable itinerant heavy drinkers.
The Ford Focus was worse... MUCH worse.
I am forced to admit that I own a pair of Aerosoles.
They're actually quite good shoes.
See, if you're Canadian, of course you say "arrow-souls" and the issue don't arise.
"So, laugh away at the joke, Mr. Rosenberg. It's only Iraqis and the odd
US soldier dying."
Bet they're making some pretty rough jokes, too. A talent for truly macabre humour can only be an asset to the thinking person in these times. Better than going batshit.
By the way, since I'm not hugely up on the ettiquette of blogosity, if a person is planning on sticking around, do they introduce themselves or something? Or is this one of those parties where you just wander in and find yourself a drink and a piece of wall and a conversation?
Somebody asked about British coverage and lo and behold while I was looking for the piece I meant to post there was this, which I though worth tossing into the mix:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/antiwar/story/0,12809,934510,00.html
But what I was looking for was this, for Andrew:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,932679,00.html
I was especially struck by this:
"So the president seizes on the welcome US and British troops are now receiving in Iraq, as if that augurs an amicable, long-term relationship. His in-flight briefing material should have told him that Northern Ireland's Catholics welcomed British troops, too, back in 1969 - and look where that led. "
I should have said, if you actually want the answer.
If you're doing a bit of intervention, trying to get the Guards themselves to think about what they're doing, what you did was pretty much spot-on.
But I can see both sides, a bit -- from their perspective, you could have been trying to get them tangled up in conversation to create a distraction, and that's something they're not supposed to allow.
You know, I have a great urge to agree with you wholeheartedly. Because I mostly do, you have every right to get that question answered.
But I have a lurking suspicion that you really did ask the wrong people and that they really ARE doing their jobs.
It's not a great idea for men and women on duty like that to allow themselves to get into ANY conversations. With anyone.
Now, if you ask Pataki's office and get told you don't need to know, that's another thing.
Speaking of out-of-context:
'The Saxon is not like us Normans
His manners are not so polite..."
Marna.
PS -- that email address is not fictitious, just down.
I don't know if this makes any sense at all. But this is how I see
it, and this is what I know about myself. Oh, well, at worst, perhaps
you'll all be pleasantly distracted for a minute trying to sort out
what the heck I'm on about.
It's not what you care about. It's what you can IMAGINE. It's what
you can comprehend. It's what you can, however imperfectly, encompass,
or what you are able to talk about. Most importantly, it's what you
can FEEL about.
Now, maybe some people CAN feel for people they don't understand,
don't have much in common with, can't imagine being or even knowing,
just the way they can for people they do. In fact, obviously, some --
many -- people can. Thank all the gods. We need as many people like that as we can get.
I can't, though. I start second-guessing myself, because I live in fear of broad and inclusive empathy becoming easy sentimentality, contradiction, shameful inaction.
To this day, if somebody asks me about September 11, well, like
everybody, I could go on for a very very long time. On any number of
levels. In any number of ways. I try not to. I don't really feel
entitled to.
But if I want to say something that I know is absolutely honest,
really true, all I can do is talk about one thing. One person, one
moment. About how it was, to see a woman I love dearly fold slowly
onto a kitchen floor in New Hampshire at the sight of a carton of ice
cream, broken, for that moment, that day, into shards, and to be
looking into her eyes at that moment.
Not because that is any sort of adequate response, but because that is
the largest thing I can hold within me without having to resort to
some sort of abstraction. And abstractions are always, to some
degree, wrong, less than, distanced. It's not everything, maybe it
isn't anything, but it is the biggest truth I know for sure. It's the
biggest thing I can really feel.
And so it is my starting point. There are dangers -- parochialism, in
all its forms, bigotry, in all its forms -- to that approach. The
only way is to try to use it as a starting point -- to make yourself
go from "not MY friend, not MY child", to "not ANYBODY'S friend, not
ANYBODY'S child." Or at least to go as far down that road as you can
force yourself to go, everytime.
But everybody needs a starting point. Everybody needs some way to
remember that it's not about little lights on a computer screen,
little bright explosions on a tv screen, little graphics in the
newspaper. You can't skip the starting point, and the starting point
for staying human amidst horror is whatever you can take in and try to
bear close to your heart, to remember pity and fear and love by.
Because ANY abstraction that is not leavened by these things becomes
inhuman, inhumane, very quickly.
I CARE that there are people in harms' way over there. I care that
there are people in harm's way all over the world, right now. I try to
live that care every day, as best I can, and it's never quite enough,
worse, it's never quite RIGHT. Especially when I try to deal with
that in the context that some of them are shooting at each other.
I KNOW people like James Riley. Three or four SF fans, who are also
serving members of the US military, one of whom is both liable to
deployment herself and freshly married -- freshly married because her
love is deployed and she wouldn't let him go without that extra bit of
magic -- and who are despite my known Quakerish Canadian Pacifist
ways, are dear and true friends, people I know and love, are in or due
to go into this mess.
I can talk about what I think the peace movement or my country or your
country or our shared culture or our world has on the board in this
devil's game, but it all feels like useless words. And I might be
wrong about all of it, and never know. But I know what I, personally
have on the board. That much I can be sure of.
We all, every side and group, seem to have blundered into this, all of
us firmly convinced that We Had A Plan and Reality Had Read The Plan,
and reality hasn't read the plan -- as always -- and now apparently we
shall have to keep blundering until we blunder back out. Assuming
that there is such a place as out, and not just The Next Crisis. I can
talk about something like that. I can care about it. I can think about
it. But I cannot FEEL about it. it's so big, it just leaves me blank
and despairing and paralyzed.
But I understand what the fact that James Riley is an sf fan and maybe
a SCAdian and that now he is a POW means. I can even think of one or
two unambiguously positive and real things that a person might DO
about that fact. Most of which have already been suggested.
I understand that there are probably going to be some empty places and
some full eyes at Worldcon and Pennsic this year, and that some of
them might be staying empty. I can actually understand what that's
going to feel like, and what it means.
And from there, maybe I can see a little further. And if not, at
least I can pray for James Riley and indulge my irrational belief that
the Gods do better if you make your requests specific, and have some
kind of faith that everyone embroiled in this mess has somebody, or
many somebodies, praying for them in the same way.
Marna.
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2004 | 1 |
| 2003 | 11 |
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