"We are at war because it sounds good." (Richard Lapauvre)

[skip fox]

the reason we are at war

“The reason we are at war is because it sounds good.”
–Richard Lapauvre

One war-besieged Londoner looks to another from beneath her umbrella, waiting for the same evening tram. What does she say about the blitz or all the children in the country in the darkening light of early winter? We are at war because we’d rather be at peace, but we found that out too late, only after three years and 2,464 American deaths (not to mention the wounded and the dead and wounded from other countries). So a few voices don their microphones and drone on “We’re at war,” “We’re a nation at war,” we have “war-time president,” and it still sends cheap theatrical chills down the simulacra of of fellow creatures’ spines and echoes in the emptiness of their craniums (since it rhymes with Christ and the lottery).

“We are at war because we’re stuck.”
–idealized verbalization of our miscreant leadership

“. . . and the middle east will explode” or “we’ll be cast out for fifty years” or “we’ll have to do without oil” or . . . whatever. Imagine them saying this might be the result of our incursion in late 2002 or early 2003? “Were going to go in so that we won’t be to able leave without horrific results.” Yet the latter is now their primary argument. Just like their earlier primary argument was based on Sadam’s control of WMDs. (ftnt. 1)

What is it to live in a time that thinks it’s like no other? And to see fellow citizens on the roads and highways where, masked by autobody, they make a display of their petulance, mindless rapacity, and loss of viable human connection! Those in the provinces, as here, say “At least we have internet and cable.” Then they can listen to more of these barely mindful lies and discuss them in a “logical” way. (ftnt 2)

The country I propose would be “all country” in its truest sense, where we are absolved from ourselves, where we disappear, released from the weight of eyes that is the city. Anywhere (even in the city) where we might be precisely not at war, not thrilled and stuck with such meagre ways of being’s life and thought. The world is a multitudinous and ever-changing place, and we are such creatures within it if we would. Nothing to be frightened of, bored by, or chained in allegiance to. Where we might disappear, as in Anny Ballardini’s “Absolved,”

becoming colors awakenings wet leaves & tall trees


(Ftnt. 1) If we ignore the one they told about Saddam’s close relationship to al- Qaeda when it turns out that there was none at all.

(Ftnt. 2) By which they usually mean binary, dualist, dialectical, and/or teleological.

[foo_bar]

1. I was with you until Foughtnot #2

What is it to live in a time that thinks it’s like no other?

In fairness to people, their time is always perceived to be the "end of history"; Fukuyama and Marx, the Book of Revelation and the Last Prophet Mohammed ("Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand." -Yeats). It's Lebensraum in the Vaterland, news at 10 after American Idolatry, O brave new whirl that has such freepers in it: the premise of historical exceptionalism is far from exceptional.

Nothing to be frightened of, bored by, or chained in allegiance to... 'becoming colors awakenings wet leaves & tall trees'

So we should become a Claude Monet painting?

[skip fox]

2. To lose such a self as we are burdened to carry, Monet would be a

charity. For some reason everyone goes crazy defending the dialectic. A good sign it points to the blindness of our self deception.