Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2003 08:55:10 -0500
From: hbone <hbone-AT-optonline.net>
Subject: Re: Adieu's Beckett and all



Dear All,

We have such amazingly different perspectives.  The War on Terror is so
small in deaths compared with
World War II.  The victors of WWII deliberately killed tens of thousands of
civilians in the cities of Germany and
Tokyo - 79, 000 died in a single "conventional " fire-bombing raid over
Tokyo,
(according to McNamara) not to mention Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

The War on Terror has no rules.  There is no individual or group whose
surrender would end it, since it is global
in scope.  Israel has fought it unsuccessfully for 50 years, and it will
continue so long as U.S. taxpayers give Israel  money and munitions, but
deaths are numbered in hundreds, as are U.S. deaths in Iraq.

Compared with the War on Aids, the War on Drugs, the War on Crime, the War
on Terror costs only a handful
of lives, and if its not on TV, it didn't happen.   How many Iraqui
civilians were destroyed in the phase of
"shock and awe?   A hnndful compared with WWII.  But millions continue to
die each year because of Aids, Drugs, Crime, Poverty.

regards,
Hugh

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~




> Lydia wrote:
>
>
> PS: Since it's that time of the year, maybe we could come up with our
> own
> lists of "the greatest philosophical disappointment of the past year",
> the
> "best Lyotard neveu of the year", the "worst (Zizek's?) jokes", the
> "least
> feminist leftist thinker", or what have you.
>
> Lydia and all:
>
> First of all, thank you for writing the pieces on Beckett.  He is one of
> my favorite writers and Badiou is quickly becoming one of my favorite
> philosophers, so I appreciate your comments ahead of the curve for when
> this book is finally published in a paperback English translation.
> Badiou's book on Paul was certainly one of the most stimulating books I
> read this year.  (I was also lucky enough to have the chance to see a
> lot of Sondheim productions this year, including Sweeny Todd, Sunday in
> the Park with George, Company, and Assassins. I truly love his musicals.
> I think Sondheim is a songwriting genius who manages to be tender, sad
> and ironic; sometimes in the same stanza. The revival of his musical
> 'Assassins' was a special inspiration to me. If you ever get the chance
> to see a performance of this, you should drop your philosophy books at
> once and just go. It is an amazingly dark musical with a lot to say
> about US culture.)
>
> Your question about philosophical disappointment stumped me at first. I
> can't really think of any particular books I've read this year that
> struck me this way. In a naïve way, however, I must say I was very
> disappointed in Matrix II and III. The first movie astonished me because
> it managed to deal with philosophical issues such as the brain in a vat
> problem in interesting and humorous ways, while remaining at the level
> of popular culture. At its best it was the cinematic equivalent of a
> book by Zizek. Its politics also were suggestive. Here at last was a
> movie that dared to confront the society of the spectacle.
>
> The sequels, however, descended to the level of the old biblical epics
> from the fifties and sixties. Instead of wry observations we were merely
> handed a cybernetic rehash of Demetrius and the Gladiators. The politics
> seem to suggest as much insight as the ugly retribalization of the Don't
> Blame America Firsters. A great disappointment!
>
> On a completely different note, I've noticed lately when I look into the
> philosophy section at a store like Borders, the books that are most
> prominently displayed are meaty tomes with titles like 'Seinfeld and
> Philosophy', 'The Simpsons and Philosophy', 'Buffy and Philosophy' and,
> of course, 'The Matrix and Philosophy'.  I don't want to condemn these
> things out of hand, but I wonder has anyone here actually looked at
> these things and do they have any merit? I sometimes wonder in the still
> of the night if these books will not prove to be the best-selling
> philosophy books of 2003.  That I suppose would be classified as a
> disappointment.
>
> On a more political level, 2003 will always be for me the year of lies
> and the war in Iraq.  As a US citizen I am frightened that my country
> appears to have been taken over by a right-wing junta, as comical as
> Mussolini, who has lied to the American people over the reasons for
> going to war, over the economy and taxes, over the environment, over the
> loss of civil liberties and incarceration without legal rights, over
> unions and overtime, over health and education and over the role that
> God should play in our domestic sexual life. It is simply the worst I
> have seen in my lifetime (and I am old enough to remember Nixon) and it
> appears that they are getting away with it. A huge disappointment.
>
> I'll leave the bad Zizek jokes and chauvinistic leftists for others, but
> on the subject of Lyotard very briefly, let me just say that I became
> very interested in Machiavelli this summer; not just the sound-bite
> Machiavelli of the end that justifies the mean, but Machiavelli the
> rhetorician, the playwright, the lonely exile, the Machiavelli of
> Gramsci and Althusser, the Republican Machiavelli, the last great
> Renaissance thinker and the first modern, the man who foreshadowed
> Nietzsche in so many ways.
>
> I think there are certain affinities between Machiavelli and Lyotard,
> but I gone on long enough. That is a subject for another time perhaps.
>
> Happy New Year everyone!
>
> May 2004 prove to be the year the US gets out of Iraq and Bush gets out
> of the Whitehouse.
>
> eric
>
>
> http://flash.bushrecall.org/
>
>
>
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