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this really does not seem to be the most important grounds on which to talk about this simply because this phase of the conflict is already over effectively (this despite the "slow withdrawal" that might at some point become an occupation but who gets to decide this sort of thing?) and a new and rapidly evolving/devolving situation has taken shape in the wake of it. there were reports in the french press today that the general understanding of this situation that obtains in russia has little to do with how that same situation is being understood everywhere else, much in the same way that the understanding of the iraq debacle was not the same for alot of folk in the states as it was everywhere else on earth. in both cases, the result apparently is widespread support for what putin et al have put into motion. the allegations of nato and american ships floating about in the black sea for a "previously scheduled exercise" are alarming, as is the talk floating about europe today that some sort of sanctions regime should be imposed on russia, and this because it address only some of the situation, not all of it.
meanwhile, the missle deal in poland remains operative, despite intense internal opposition to it; the curious relation between this move on the part of the bush people and nato has not in any way been addressed, the idiotic recycling of the 1930s put into play by the bush people in the context of selling their "war on terror" is turning up again in the british government's demand that the eu "stand up to russia"---and at the same time, today putin argued that this whole situation was orchestrated by the bush administration in order to set up a new cold war scenario with the tactical objective of bolstering the mc-cain campaign and the strategic objective of bolstering its client network in the form of military contractors in the states.
so it's all quite confusing and quite alarming.
in a curious way, the fact that alot of americans are glued to their television watching the extension of sports which began with the olympics and now extends through the political conventions is a lovely allegory for much of the past 4 years, but that is another matter.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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