Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post

roachboy · 12-16-2004, 09:19 AM

powerclown:
sob's list had nothing to do with history.
it was more a david duke-style list focussed on abritrary features that functioned solely to reinforce a racist disposition: no context, no real information, no explanation, no interpretation: just factoids strung together to "demonstrate" non-argument. that is not history. that is what we in the trade refer to as bullshit.

if you want to deal with matters straight on, and not create phantoms, you might start by yourself looking at that list and wondering, for a minute, if anything really connects the various incidents he adduces: each had a sperate situation behind/around it, from the israeli/palestinan conflict to the rise of early variants of "fundamentalism" in egypt to the war on afghanistan (there are others)--you might wonder how, if you strip the racist veneer away for a minute, you could really connect these incidents. of course, racism works this way too often: simplification, the creation of false linakges, the motoring of otherwise absurd arguments...
but you would have to be an idiot to imagine that the explanatory feature in any of it was the fact that the folk who carried it out were muslim men between 17 and 40.

if you want to look at things straight on and not be caught in the play of fantasies, maybe start by not lumping all muslims together.
you might start by trying to maybe even think about the causes for various "terrorist" acts...
you might wonder how these causes could be eliminated, and how it is that the process of eliminating causes, which seems a rational response, squares with the erecting of the whole bushworld-specific pseudo-security apparatus.
you might wonder what exactly a terrorist is.

as for the quintessence of bushworld remark:
i think your attempt to project dynamics particular to this period in the us onto other situations is simply wrongheaded. the manipulation of fear and the erecting of pseudo-reponses is fundamental to how the bush administration has acted since 9/11/2001....it was one of the central elements in the last campaign...it is basic to the entire bush/rove m.o. i do not see who you can argue against that. nor do i see what function you imagine blaming the phantom "enemy" for it serves. maybe you could explain?

12-16-2004, 09:19 AM	#65 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	powerclown: sob's list had nothing to do with history. it was more a david duke-style list focussed on abritrary features that functioned solely to reinforce a racist disposition: no context, no real information, no explanation, no interpretation: just factoids strung together to "demonstrate" non-argument. that is not history. that is what we in the trade refer to as bullshit. if you want to deal with matters straight on, and not create phantoms, you might start by yourself looking at that list and wondering, for a minute, if anything really connects the various incidents he adduces: each had a sperate situation behind/around it, from the israeli/palestinan conflict to the rise of early variants of "fundamentalism" in egypt to the war on afghanistan (there are others)--you might wonder how, if you strip the racist veneer away for a minute, you could really connect these incidents. of course, racism works this way too often: simplification, the creation of false linakges, the motoring of otherwise absurd arguments... but you would have to be an idiot to imagine that the explanatory feature in any of it was the fact that the folk who carried it out were muslim men between 17 and 40. if you want to look at things straight on and not be caught in the play of fantasies, maybe start by not lumping all muslims together. you might start by trying to maybe even think about the causes for various "terrorist" acts... you might wonder how these causes could be eliminated, and how it is that the process of eliminating causes, which seems a rational response, squares with the erecting of the whole bushworld-specific pseudo-security apparatus. you might wonder what exactly a terrorist is. as for the quintessence of bushworld remark: i think your attempt to project dynamics particular to this period in the us onto other situations is simply wrongheaded. the manipulation of fear and the erecting of pseudo-reponses is fundamental to how the bush administration has acted since 9/11/2001....it was one of the central elements in the last campaign...it is basic to the entire bush/rove m.o. i do not see who you can argue against that. nor do i see what function you imagine blaming the phantom "enemy" for it serves. maybe you could explain? __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 12-16-2004 at 09:36 AM..