Re: Politics on Eldritch Dark
Posted by:
Scott Connors (IP Logged)
Date: 5 April, 2003 02:36AM
>>Quick one, Kevin:
Curiouser and curiouser! The emotional vehemence of the tone of this thread continues to amaze me.
>>Well, little things like Good and Evil have a tendency to arouse strong emotions. So do things like having 19-yr old girls tortured, although I'm happy to say she capped several of their buddies before she ran out of ammo. Difference is, we take someone prisoner of war they end up in better shape than they were when we captured them, whereas Saddam's thugs regard them as opportunities for working out all their issues with their parents from the time they were being toilet-trained.
Scott:
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This is the type of bullshit that has no place on a website devoted to a kind and gentle dreamer.
As I mentioned, above, on this we agree, although I wouldn't put it nearly so violently, nor would I use quite the same epithet to epitomize Ashton Smith's personality.
>>Smith's personality, insofar as I can reconstruct it from speaking with those who knew him, was indeed that of a kind and gentle dreamer. This was most recently put across to me by Voorhees Schenk, Marion Sully's husband, with whom I spent Thursday afternoon. And while I command a vocabulary almost as rich as that of CAS, sometimes words of Anglo-Saxon derivation convey the emotional aspects of my message better than more latinate ones.
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but having lived abroad for several years I can at least make a comparison, and compared to Europe, Asia or the Middle east, America is indeed #1 in everything except supporting poets.
I lived in Europe during the '80's, and was based in--let's hear the boos and hisses!--France. I, too, can make a comparison. In my opinion, and according to my values and tastes, the way of life there is superior in most respects to that of the U.S. (And, please, no "Why don't you move there?" remarks. If it were that easy, then I'd have done so years ago, but one of the things that make Europe such a better place is its relatively tighter immigration policies). Of course, I'm a poet, so I suppose that my sentiments are all too predictable.
>> As I said, "in everything except supporting poets." With all due respect, though, you are about 19 years old, are you not? That would mean that you were in France in your grammar school years, whereas I lived in Austria and Germany (shows, doesn't it?) in my early twenties, when my critical reasoning skills were just coming up to speed. Europeans are taxed too much, their economies are too controlled and sluggish, their electoral systems designed to fragment societies along social and class boundaries, and they're still willing to kill over something done five hundred years ago. Also, if you defend yourself against a criminal there, you are locked up, meaning that your life belongs to the State since it can deny the most basic right of all, that of self-preservation, "in the interests of society." Of course you also mention another difference between Europe and the US, we'll take just about anyone in (although I do wish they'd do so the proper way, and don't care for illegals). Also, just about everyone wants to come _here, not France.
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It's up to _you_ to learn to live with _us_. Arrogant? Tough shit. Deal with it.
And you criticize Boyd's attitude regarding his Web site???
Well now, I said that if he wanted to put up the banner that was fine. That's an opinion, everyone is entitled to that. I wasn't pissed off until I discovered it linked to the Daily Worker or such trash. This is enemy propaganda, and so far as I am concerned it serves one function and one function only: to kill Americans. Now I'm not going to try to shut Boyd down, although I probably could make a damn good try if I wanted to (which I don't), but so long as the link is active I chose to exercise my right by not contributing anything else to the site. Fact of the matter is, Boyd needs people like ROn and Bill Farmer and me more than we need him; we can easily set up a website featuring just about everything he has, without any of his less charming features. I'd prefer not to do this. Boyd has been a great deal of help to me, and I am grateful to him, but I am an American first, and to be exact I am a "Red" American, ie from the huge portion of the country that in the last election showed up in red on tv election result maps. The world comes to us because our economy runs theirs, because our cultural products beat the crap out of theres in the marketplace, because we have the most productive workers, etc. Like I said, we're here and we're not going away, and the rest of the world needs us more than we need them. So yeah, deal with it.
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Incidentally, CAS's being down on America was of course only relative, as he generally regarded the entire human race as being made up of half-shaved chimps, a view which I find perhaps overly charitable.
Here, we also agree, albeit perhaps for different reasons. Nevertheless, this fact hardly vitiates my previous point.
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don't expect any more contributions from me.
That's a shame. I, for one, shall miss your contributions to this site.
>>It's the leverage I choose to exercise.
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besides, I like frightening the bourgeosie.
????
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Death to Saddam, Osama, and anybody else who believes murder is a tool of state policy!
Including, I assume, all the dictatorial, human rights-abusing client states, past, present, and future, supported by the United States?
>>Most definitely! I have always been infuriated that the demands of realpolitik forced upon us by the Cold War made it necessary for us to tolerate scum who should have been the object of a visit from a Marine Expeditionary Force. Don't think we're supporting any at the moment, and I doubt if we will in the future. Of course popular government and democratic government aren't necessarily the same, viz. Algeria, where an Islamist party was voted in but immediately overthrown by the military on the grounds that if the Islamists took power that would be an end to elections. I support extending the part of the constitution guaranteeing each state a republican form of government to foreign policy.
(To anticipate the ad hominem flames that this last statement may incite: I am no Leftist. I agree with the person who wisely observed that politics is not worthy of serious thought, but, to the extent I have any such views, I suppose that I advocate the return of a modernized form of aristocracy. Yes, this puts me foursquare in opposition to democracy, liberal humanism, and capitalism, but it also makes me a reactionary, if anything, and therefore farther to the Right than the lot of you! )
>>I personally prefer Heinlein's system from STARSHIP TROOPERS, but basically any republican form that allows upward mobility and limits the tyranny of the majority suits me fine. And I don't do ad hominem. Note that I have not attacked Boyd directly, only his poor judgement in linking the site to enemy propaganda.
Time to bow out of this, unless anyone addresses me directly. Do all the Ashton Smith aficionados here remember the Forrest Ackerman-inspired "Boiling Point" controversy, by chance? Wasn't that a productive exchange of ideas!
>>Allow me to add this. One of the people with whom Ron and I worked on the Boulder Relocation Committee is a real Bay Area liberal. Outside of occassionally teasing him (for instance, whenever he talks about the plight of the Palestinians I immediately deny the existence of any Palestinians since they are an artificially-created minority forged by Arab refusals to assimulate their brethern in a desire to keep old wounds open, etc.), we get along well by agreeing not to discuss those issues which might cause us to have to kill one another. I've been aware of Boyd's views for sometime, and he of mine, and outside of a little joshing we generally get along well by concentrating on what we have in common, namely Clark. I could even tolerate his banner, after all he does a lot of work on the site and I am more than willing to cut the man some slack. Then I discover that this is a link to what I regard as an attempt to destroy morale on the home front (fifth objective of war, according to von Clausewitz, and the only one that the North Vietnamese beat us on, but it won them the war), and then Boyd gets rude with Ron and Bill Farmer. Not good. The unwritten rule has been violated, and Boyd is the culprit. If this arouses strong, nay even violent emotions, so be it. So no more goodies. And it looks as if I may be about to discover a lost CAS story too. ("The Face by the River," to be precise.)
Scott (other discussions off list)