ourtropes

i really like the instructor. he seems to really be passionate about the subject, and very knowledgeable. i can see this class being great for someone who’s really into history and social movements, but i’m not. i just took it for my social history core. the lectures and readings are thoughtfully planned, and i’m sure if you wanted to you could learn a lot from this class.

Basically: If you like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing you might like. Truth be told, I don’t think there’s much higher praise from an admittedly indifferent student than “i’m sure if you wanted to you could learn a lot from this class.” 

youlikemealready:

“If somebody told me I only had an hour to live, I’d spend it choking a white man. I’d do it nice and slow.”

—

— Miles Davis, friends, who’s 85th birthday would’ve been today.

Reminds me of Clay’s monologue from Dutchman: ”If Bessie Smith had killed some white people she wouldn’t have needed that music. She could have talked very straight and plain about the world. No metaphors. No grunts. No wiggles in the dark of her soul. Just straight two and two are four…Murder. Just murder! Would make us all sane.”

buffleheadcabin:

“The tragedy of the Middle East is one where we proved incapable of communicating in any other language than the brute and brutal force of empire.

And empire finally, as Thucydides understood, is a disease. As Thucydides wrote, the tyranny that the Athenian empire imposed on others it finally imposed on itself. The disease of empire, according to Thucydides, would finally kill Athenian democracy. And the disease of empire, the disease of nationalism … these of course are mirrored in the anarchic violence of these groups, but one that locks us in a kind of frightening death spiral. So while I certainly fear al-Qaida, I know it’s intentions. I know how it works. I spent months of my life reconstructing every step Mohamed Atta took. While I don’t in any way minimize their danger, I despair. I despair that we as a country, as Nietzsche understood, have become a monster that we are attempting to fight.”

— Chris Hedges (via azspot)

lowendtheory:

minou:

I mean I am as much of a cynic about America and all the attendant “victory” rhetoric as the next guy, if not more so. But can we leave off with this maybe for one night? Think about your urge to be edgy, and then think about the families of dead service men and women, the families of people who died in 9/11, and everyone else who has very good reasons that we (or maybe just I) can’t even know about or imagine, and what this event might mean, symbolically to them. And then maybe just let that be for one night? Can we maybe just do that? Let people who might need peace feel it for a moment, until it’s gone again, which it will be, but for now, can we let this not have to belong to our need to make a point?

(Related: Any reports of what it looks like at the WTC site right now? Video or pics?)

I don’t know.  I rarely see myself as being edgy. But I do aspire to be ethical.  I need peace, too.  But we are at war.  Those of us in the U.S. are not even on the business end of the drone strikes that we continue to launch.  Don’t they, too, need peace?  For me the important question is: whose suffering matters?  Whose suffering counts?   Whose needs count?

Since 9/11, I’ve been asked to do nothing but empathize with the “victims”—at least, the documented ones.  In fact, I was told that as an “American,” I was a victim!  But that’s not all.  I’ve been asked to translate that empathizing, and that sense of being a victim, into an alibi for war, murder, and an intensified racist imperialism.  Empathy is important.  In noting that, I should say that I have very rarely been asked to empathize with the approximately 100,000 Iraqi people who have died in the war in Iraq, except in the case when I was being asked to support dropping more bombs. Instead, I was told that their suffering was evidence I was somehow helping to save them.

Having actually lost friends and acquaintances in 9/11, and knowing people who have died in military service, the celebration of Bin Laden’s death does not reduce but rather intensifies my disgust.  The joy and glee and flag waving and even the tears expressed all do the work of guarding a national symbolism that has proven murderous. Our capacity for, or labor of feeling is being exploited.  And while I can empathize with people who feel drawn and compelled by that symbolism, I’m done attempting to guard it, or to protect its legitimacy.  Not edgy, but hopefully in the direction of ethical.  I don’t think there’s a more important moment for that than now.

lowendtheory, perfect, as usual. 

all i can think of as i read @maddow ‘s tweets right now is that scene in bob roberts when the crazy-eyed vigil learns bugs raplin died

that there are masses of flag waving white people gathering in the streets outside the white house (and possibly other places) may be the most unsettling revelation of the night.