Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    <scribbled by silly Sat 7 Jul 12 16:23>
  

    
I recommember somewhere back in my student days a professor saying
that ethnic nationalism was a killer virus, but at the time, we all
thought it was romantic and that everyone ought to own one. I realize
that (silly) is trying to be helpful, but what does he mean? that we
should all just read that URL and not talk about this anymore? that we
should move on and talk about something more substantive, that we
should look at "Wag the Dog" again and maybe again and figure out how
other countries play out the same scenerios?


These are dangerous times, doubly dangerous to think that there are
sijmple ansers to complex problems. Go back and read "The Decline of
the4 Hapsburg Monarchy" by Gordon Craig (I think), read about the
first, second and third Balkan Wars from 1908-1912, the decline of the
Ottoman Empire, the HOly RomanEmpire to understand the complexity of
the situation. I hate to say it, but man is damned---he goes one step
forward, two steps back. Now think about this "controversy" and put
tactical nukes into the picture, atomic terrorists with suitcase bombs,
curiouser and curiouser said the catipiller to Alice---
  

    <scribbled by silly Sat 7 Jul 12 16:24>
  

    
I don't know what the point of it is for one thing, but maybe that's
because it isn't exactly "linear" in the printwise sense. See, I don't
think like that piece plays, usually I see it all at once as with text
and illustrations. Maybe the problem has to do with how information is
conveyed in ths medium.
  

    <scribbled by silly Tue 13 Apr 99 14:30>
  

    
My point is: How can the USA help the Yugoslavs if we can't even help
ourselves?
  

    
First, what makes you think the USA is helping the Yugoslavs?
 
  

    
If we're going to be perfecting honest about all of this, it's like
that Bill Mauldin WWII cartoon about the two GI's looking at the rubble
of a village and one sayhing to the other,"We sure liberated the hell
out of this place."

We're probably helping ourselves,but then again, all nations work
their diplomacy for their own self-interests. For my money I'ld liek to
know what the "strategic interests" are in the Balkans (but then again
that's a question which has been asked for over a hundred years by the
West (England and Russia, and of course, the Ottoman Empire). Into
this mix is thrown Kurdish nationalism which spans that whole area.
There are nations and then there are people of those nations and many
times their interests are antithetical. If we're gong to jaw abourt
American Foreign policy, it's been remarkably consistent over the last
half century (thank god I"m working on Hebert Feis whose speciality was
this particular perioopd of American diplomatic history)---we're
suffering from that letdown, and no, it's not"The End of History" which
Francis Fukayama talks about either.

What's gong on in the Balkans, and NATO's rpsopnce has to do with a
kind of cultural myopia concentrating on the great Red Menace instead
of the holism or synergy of all kinds of nationalisms (linguistic,
cultural, geographic, etc.)---

Still, if yoiu want to know my personal viewpoint I think that
Slobadon Milosovich is a criminal, big time. The problem is that we
keep fgighting WWII and Hilter's appeasing Hitler's action in Poland
and Czechoslovakia--- once you start drawing lines in the sand and
someone steps over it, you must act---or maybe, and here's a thought,
maybe their's a feminist criticism of American foreign policy, or
betteryet a feminist slant on diplomacy which hasn't been aired out yet
and ought to be, that one could consider all of this stuff just like
Goerge Carlin described it as "big dickism"---my missile's bigger than
ours.

What would happen if they gave a war and nobody came?
  

    
What if they gave an orgy and nobody came?

It is ostensibly a humanitarian mission, Carol.  Help Bosnia, rescue
the Kosovars, we are not against the Serbian people, only Slobodan
Milosevic, blah blah blah.

Have a Nice War.
  

    
I'm sure we will, and a lot of medals too and a "Wag the Dog" memorial
song, and all the rest, and a new service badge for the aremd forces
too.
  

    <scribbled by silly Sat 7 Jul 12 16:48>
  

    
The Feminist Criticism? Well, there's exactly one woman involved in
all of this decision-making, near as I can see. Maybe she'll unleash
the Bimbo Feminist Pussy Bomb and we'll be done with all of this.
Though I suspect her legs ain't great.
  

    
By the way, Carol - I'm in Maine, too. 
  

    
re #233 -
What in gopod's name does Kurdish nationalism have to do with the Balkans,
David?
  

    
Kurdish nationalism is what stitches together Iran, Iraq, Indian and
that general are, oh and I forget to mention Turkey. This stuff is
Bosnia is just so much small beer compared to the Kurds and what they
can sitrr up, and come to think of it, keep tuned.

and yes, Claude, there's nothing like "Trouble Coming Every Day" to be
"the" song of the Millenium. I thought it was one of the most powerful
protest songs ever written by anyone. That's what drew me to FZ and
encouraged me to write about him.
  

    
 A friend of mine heard Chomsky on Christopher Lydon's show  in Boston
point out that one reason holding the Russian hand was that unsigned
check from the World Bank that Primakov was going to pick up in
Washington, before he turned his plane around in "midair."  It's not
only the Serbs who are being humiliated in this united NATO assault but
the Russians too.  
re feminism: you don't have to be a woman to see the little boy's
games involved in all wars.  Men know it first hand.  And if Madeline
Albright is as rigid a warmonger as America has produced in years, does
that surprise anyone?  She just tries harder.
Meredith--where in Maine? I'm in midcoast, near Damariscotta, a
village called Walpole, pop. 700.
I'm off to Burligton, VT. for a couple of days.
  

    

The Russians aren't being "humilated" by the US. They are
as tired of  Milosovic as we are. Well, the ones who
aren't raving nationalists, or drunks.
  

    <scribbled by silly Sat 7 Jul 12 16:27>
  

    
I wish I could be of more help on public education. As it was, I was
kicked out of kindergarden for wanting to read (so 'tis said), wound up
in a private country day school for 11 years---still I had a normal
life. What I wrote about in TNB was just observing the results in
everyday life, ie. how high school seems to be the most common
denominator, so life in these united states becomes high school, the
full-field metaphor. TNB talks about the reasons most Americans never
leave high school: because the values inculcated there are merely
expatiated upon by the advertising world---you can see that for
yourself.

I am, however, the product of a public, state college, Rutgers
University and damn happy to be that---when I was going to school, the
attrition rate was about 15%, itmight have been a little eaaseir for
in-state residents to get in, but if you didn't do the work, you were
bounced. Best deal I ever had, especially as a history major during the
middle Sixties---we went from civil rights to acid in the four years I
was there, had one hell of a radicalhistory department, they used to
call Rutgers, Berkeley East.

If Im going to make a fool of myself and actually talk about this, I
should say that I feel that  public educaiton would be helped by the
merit system, by pay commensurate with crucial responsibilities of
inducing students to think (for fun as well as for profit), to make
teaching a profession which is not devalued by ther soceity at large.
I think that teachers should be allowed to teach as they see fit, that
those who don't want to go to school, shouldn't make it horrible for
people who do. If that's an elitist concept, then fuck it, I"m an
elitist.  
  

    
Carol...I'm a former Midcoaster, myself (Camden) but I now live in
that booming metropolis known as Augusta.
  

    
re #240 -
OK, David. I think I can extract from the bloviation that Kurdish
nationalism doedsn't affect the Balkans after all.

After a sigh of relief, I must ask how it effects India.
Did they somehow sneak across Afghanistan and Pakistan while we weren't
looking?
  

    
the point about kurdish nationalism is that it is a movement without a
country, rather it covers four or five. There are kurds in the
northern part of India, Pakistan. IN truth, there is NO kurdish
homeland, but a linguistic natinality which spreads over many borders.
It's a problem just as perplexing as what is happening in yugoslavia
with its ethnic minorities and majorities. Although I'm a historian of
sorts, my "field" isn't particularly that part of the world---modern
europe 1870-1914 yes, americancultural studies, yes. YOu'd have to ask
some real heavy hitter to explain it to you. All I know that it that
our boys in the State Department, when there was a lecture on the
Balkan Wars of 1908-1914 were playing hookie in Foreign Service School.
Anyone who attended knows that the Balkans is a no man's land of
sanity, that no one has been able to figure out the reagon for more
than 700 years, that anyone with any sense, especially nation states,
gives it a wide berth.
  

    
IMHO the Kurdish homeland "problem" isn't perplexing at all; they'd have a
homeland now if the victors of WW I had given them one when they were
dividing up the Ottoman Empire. It would comprise the contiguous area
where they're a majority - Turkey, N. Iraq and NW Iran.

As to Kurds in India and Pakistan I suppose there are some (but I'd bet
fewer than there are in New York or Detroit)

And as to the State Dept. boys playing hookie when Balkan history was
lectured about, some may have been, but nat Albright (her father was Czech
ambassador in Belgrade) and not Dick Holbrooke or Chris Hill either.
  

    
that may be so, Peter, about Albright, Holbrooke, but I"m talking
about the rank-and-file members---but, and here's a topic worthy of
discussion, history is not a subject which has been in much high repute
on college campuses; most students are bored to death with history as
they say, "there's no such thing as boring history, merely boring
historians"---and it's a shame that this is so because history is the
spione of every discipline. The study of history gives one at least a
fighting chance when the knock comes on the door at midnight and they
want to take you away. NOt that it would have helped in the Thirties
with the Jews (I'm not going to get into that right now).

I think that your analysis of the Kurdish "problem" is a little
simplistic, it goes back further than the aftermath of WWI. But do tell
me, where would the "homeland" of the Kurds be if they had been
allowed opne by the powers that were after WWI? once we nail that down,
perhaps we can discuss why having theirs wouldn't be a wonderful idea
for the Turks, Afganis, Iranians, etc who's territory coincides within
their "homeland"?
  

    
> (#249)Where would the "homeland" of the Kurds be if they had been
 allowed opne by the powers that were after WWI?

> (248) It would comprise the contiguous area
 where they're a majority - Turkey, N. Iraq and NW Iran.

As to the Turks, Farsis and Iraqui Arabs, we don't know how life would
have been for them, but we do knaw that they formed exceedingly small
minorities in the Kurdish "homeland" area in  1918.

As to the ""Afghanis" no part of Afghanistan has ever been claimed by the
Kurds as part of their "homeland"