tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post5531530137060936384..comments2024-03-29T03:13:58.789+00:00Comments on call me ishmael: EMPIRE BURLESQUEcall me ishmaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14369028864168461729noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-59153329295730619452009-08-26T01:26:47.954+01:002009-08-26T01:26:47.954+01:00Quite a spiel Ishmael but very interesting. It mu...Quite a spiel Ishmael but very interesting. It must have taken you ages. I get bored around 200 words. I look forward to the next part.Dark Lochnagarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09086636653505467565noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-26931824578135245262009-08-24T19:35:11.985+01:002009-08-24T19:35:11.985+01:00It has to be the case that there is some kind of d...It has to be the case that there is some kind of distinction between then & now. The search for knowledge is insatiable but this kit here - this kit that we type on that provides the best library at our fingertips is surely all we were searching for all along. Why now fight instead of purchase? <br /><br /> I guess when the British conquered before the airplane, wars were still assymetric but not beyond hideous. These days they can have a cup of tea in one hand and wipe out 1,000 people with the other and it doesn't make the news. If we've been in Iraq since 2003 and there's been a million deaths in total, well, lots of tea's been drunk. Soldiering can be noble. Calley is an evil man but at least he did it face to face - at least he smelt their death. What of the logistics chap? What of the guy who presses the button and destroys and then goes for a wank? I bet some of them do? <br /><br /> York Minster or St Pete's as locals call it is more than religion. It took over 100 years to build the current version and it burns down on regular occasions.Dick the Prickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02683095612320513712noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-6897829374110439202009-08-24T14:06:14.792+01:002009-08-24T14:06:14.792+01:00Mr Ishmael, Dick the Prick,
Power corrupts, Gentl...Mr Ishmael, Dick the Prick,<br /><br />Power corrupts, Gentlemen. We will make a glass desert and call it Pax Americana. It's what empires do. Fortunately, the over-reaching, the hubris and the ever-increasing need to square everything with "the vision thing" means that they are all dust in the end. Squalid and spent, viciously shagging each other's everyone else, scratching the names of their enemies from the temple walls, desperately writing their own histories before it is too late and the Vandals are at the gate. And then, bang, it is all gone.<br /><br />Eventually we learn to live sensibly - like the Greeks or the Romans do now - empires and power long-fled, quietly they rock their children to sleep, a siesta and a glass, a pretty girl passes an ancient arts-and-crafts symbol of political glories long-forgotten. And today becomes tomorrow.<br /><br />And I would rather have Chartres or Stonhenge or the Acropolis than what? The Hannah Bleedin' Montana boxed set? <br /><br />If the Tommies could only set down their bag of imperial rocks and understand that Hamburg or Dresden or the Highland Clearances or the invisible slaughter of the Autralian aboriginals or the potato famine or... Well, need we go on? Not as efficient and Mom-and-apple-pie-we-don't-have-to-even-bury-them clean as instantaneous vaporisation but no less deliberate. They are all at it. Be it in the name of God - "I was afraid to say this but now [blink] I am more afraid not to. [choke],[sob] God Bless America", the vicious old fraud - or at it in the name of Queen and Country. Or, and surely the saddest, in the name of some vile, deranged political construct - Communism, a fire'n'brimstone Catholicism for the twentieth century. Who cares? The mad bastards. <br /><br />The Titanic sails at dawn and everybody is shouting "Which side are you on?".mongoosenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-61990157246979416622009-08-24T14:06:09.667+01:002009-08-24T14:06:09.667+01:00Thank you Mr Ishmael. I will look for the saga you...Thank you Mr Ishmael. I will look for the saga you mentioned.<br /><br />As for what inspires great art and impressive architecture, I draw a distinction between a kind of spiritual imperative (that seems to drive many human beings) and religion. I think it is the former that is often responsible for the most awe-inspiring productions of the human mind. Religion, on the other hand, excels at generating hatred, bloodshed, and books - lots and lots of books.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-62870679763281201992009-08-24T11:37:42.316+01:002009-08-24T11:37:42.316+01:00You paint a grim picture, Mr. Ishmael but I guess ...You paint a grim picture, Mr. Ishmael but I guess that if the full truth were known, it would be grimmer still. I suspect that there are, and have been for some time, and for want of a better term, dark forces at work on both sides of the Atlantic and these 'forces' are at the very core to 'our' - not yours or mine - special relationship with America. Hence the incomprehension to most sane minded people why we - a few chosen people 'in' Government and not you and me - are always so willing to go along with Uncle Sam regardless that it appears to go against our - yours and mine not theirs - national interest.Caractacusnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-15865251680378928632009-08-24T11:28:18.527+01:002009-08-24T11:28:18.527+01:00I didn't forget, mr anonymous I just omitted t...I didn't forget, mr anonymous I just omitted the name, hoping another might mention it. I did mention the associated ongoing toxicity of American aerial bombardment making it difficult to properly count the dead - the same sort of chemical warfare for which we publicly hanged the late Mr Saddam - and for which Secretary Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize - only much more intensive; EarthCrime, brought to you by GlobaCorp.call me ishmaelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14369028864168461729noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-36415720410102141812009-08-24T11:20:53.486+01:002009-08-24T11:20:53.486+01:00Thanks Mr DTP. These corners are everywhere, a wil...Thanks Mr DTP. These corners are everywhere, a wilderness of corners, every time a man opens his mouth, a corner jumps in. I think it's just in the nature of Rebuke that much of it can be self-reproachful, also, but just because I am not without sin doesn't mean that I shouldn't cast a stone in Uncle Sam's direction.<br /><br />It is hard to look at, say, Yorkminster or Chartres or even Stonehenge or hear the Messiah or Mozart's Requiem and remain entirely anti-religion; without its force what else would have harnessed such industry, inspired such art but the Idea of God, of Judgement, Repentance and Redemption? Ithink GBS said that Religion was a sop to Man's innermost fear of finity, by which we make sense and draw comfort from what would otherwise be totally incomprehensible - existence. Be that as it may, is there anything more benign and pragmatic, in personal and planetary terms, than the Sermon on The Mount?<br /><br />It is very tricky, despising the corporate practice of Religions Inc, as they bless the bombers and rubberstamp Tommy's soul for God, whilst appreciating its Arts & Crafts divisiuon, wondering at its buildings and paintings, nodding at its scriptures, its proverbs, its psalms.<br /><br />I think your worst is the likeliest, Mr Edgar. If you haven't, then google the Saga of Gordon The Ruiner, books one and two, by stanislav, a young Polish plumber, or go to The Daily Politics of Mr Swiss Bob, who has them stashed and illustrated, if you have the time. I do believe that thay say as much about the rituals of Faith as they do about Ruin.call me ishmaelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14369028864168461729noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-18132521830405629332009-08-24T11:05:47.565+01:002009-08-24T11:05:47.565+01:00You forgot to mention how the slopes, ungrateful f...You forgot to mention how the slopes, ungrateful fuckers reacted to Agent Orange. Still making its mark now on stillbirths and deformities.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-16936172410132063922009-08-24T08:33:41.390+01:002009-08-24T08:33:41.390+01:00Echellente Mr Ishmael. Whilst Blighty is, ya know,...Echellente Mr Ishmael. Whilst Blighty is, ya know, shit on many levels at least we're not that shit. I guess it's just the point in time that we find ourselves and your mention of cluster bombing anything that moved in the early 20th century shouldn't be forgotten, our 'invention' of concentration camps, our wholesale massacres in India or wherever the fuck Tuesday was - well, at least we're willing comrades in the sociocide that is Iraq and Afghanistan...hmm...I think i've just walked into a corner. What difference between us and them? 80 years? 70? Just 1 lifetime and a few million souls? Cheers again.Dick the Prickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02683095612320513712noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-32299889329235307602009-08-24T05:44:09.031+01:002009-08-24T05:44:09.031+01:00What is the worst that can happen? A worldwide blo...What is the worst that can happen? A worldwide bloodbath of the various Monotheistic Faithful? Global destruction that sets back 'Civilisation' a thousand, or ten thousand years? A planetary bonfire lit by the appallingly-certain Floggers of Faith and stoked by the equally-unwavering Producers of Products? No, that is not the worst that could happen.<br /><br />Religion is a tool: a tool of oppression, a tool of destruction, a tool of justification. The worst that could happen is that the world could burn and bothing significant would change. Nothing, that is, that would make that most despicable tool forever useless.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com