A PERSONAL NOTE ("The Guns of August")

[Zlatko Waterman]

When I was a naive young teacher, fresh from graduate school in my mid-twenties, ( 1969) I liked to teach Joseph Conrad's masterpiece, "Heart of Darkness."


http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/de ... ce&s=books

( Amazon.com posts 355 reviews)


This work, I thought, had many advantages for classroom use: it was short, only about 90 pages, yet possessed the power of a novel; its themes were readily apparent, and dealt with universal and resistant human striving; its characters were vivid and, in the case of its narrator, readily identifiable for young readers.

Over thirty-five years later, I would not be so eager to plunge into Conrad with my students. Now I can see that Conrad's great novella cannot be appreciated, except superficially, by young readers. This has nothing to do with intellect, and it was my privilege occasionally to have come across bright young people from whom I learned more than they learned from me, and not always about classroom subject matter.

"Heart of Darkness" treats of the acquisition of the most wished-for human powers: power over nature; power over one's fellow humans, albeit that they are from "lower" races than one's own; power over the natural order of things, power to reorganize the whole microcosmic world to suit one's desires, etc..

The desire for these powers leads Kurtz, Conrad's anti-hero, and his Boswell, Marlow, into the dark currents of human evil. Kurtz's zeal for "reform" ( "regime change"?) and "raising" of his fellow creatures has ironically entailed the descent to cannibalism and conquest. Only it is he who has been conquered, by the darkness that always surrounds us, a darkness that has come to be called, partly in reference to this short novel, "Conradian."

Understanding one's own corruption takes time and such understanding, if won, often comes too late to save us. And then there are the questions about the agency of that salvation.

But, as Sky King used to say on my Saturday morning radio programs of the Fifties, "That's another story."

http://members.cox.net/skykingtv/skyking.html

( this link is to the tv version of "Sky . . ."-- my first version came on radio . . .)

So, in my latest stage of shambling toward some sort of understanding of my own and general human greed, delusions of grandeur and pursuit of power, I have begun ( or re-begun) another book, always my solution to the yawning abyss of "darkness" that surrounds all of us.

I'm reading a book I first took up and didn't finish, forty years ago when I was a highschool junior, "The Guns of August" by Barbara Tuchmann.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/de ... ce&s=books


Tuchman's book appeared in 1962, when I was a highschool junior. I began reading it, then was interrupted by the emotional trauma of the events leading up to the Cuban Missile Crisis, which left a deep impression on me as a teenager.

http://www.hpol.org/jfk/cuban/

Today, at 60 years of age, Tuchman's description of the hubris and greed which preceded World War I, the precipitant, strutting assumptions of supremacy which imbued both the French and the Germans and the fatal acquiescence to war, seems familiar.

"Conradian", one might argue.

This brings me to my reason for writing.

I have, to some of you, probably appeared a Jeremiah-like prophet of doom in the postings I've made to the "CULTURE" board these past few months. My interest in the doings of my government ( and I use the possessive pronoun in the Constitution's sense) and in the use of my tax dollars has always fascinated me, whether I was teaching or not.

I have posted the results of my daily reading in the fields of war, politics and unfolding history here in the hope of supplying my own countercurrent to the lies promulgated by my government, though I certainly don't entertain the fantasy that I am "educating" anyone in doing so. I gave that up a long time ago; finding enlightenment involves a deeply personal search.

A sort of climax was reached for me recently when Jimboloco, one of the few among us who has been involved directly and personally in the business end of a real war, posted some photos of maimed and murdered children in Iraq, many rendered into that tragic state by American weapons.

Those photos ( though I had seen similar ones before) had a powerful effect on me. I found those images invading my art, and rightly so. I used to make political cartoons regularly for college newspapers, and those pictures prompted an impulse to do so again, though this time my "cartoons" came out as paintings and drawings.

After seeing the photos Jim posted, one might exclaim, with Conrad's Kurtz:

"The horror! The horror!"

("Daily Epiphany's" gloss on Conrad and Coppola's film, "Apocalypse Now")


http://www.dailyepiphany.net/2004/apr/5.htm


And so I finally come to the point ( old men maunder so . . .).


I am taking a sabbatical and probably retirement from reading AntiWar.com. DemocracyNow, Common Dreams and other "progressive" news and sharing my reading with all of you.

Though I shall still read these sites, of course, and more.

Writers I admire who have revealed truths about the Iraq War, its attendant lies and finagling

http://www.freesearch.co.uk/dictionary/finagling

( now reaching the stage of a Federal grand jury indictment for government lying-- to say nothing of revealing a CIA agent's identity . . .), such as Karen Kwiatkowski, Scott Ritter, Robert Fisk, Tom Englehardt, Norman Solomon, Ray McGovern, Jim Lobe, Amy Goodman and others, are accessible to everyone.

I am returning, with Doreen's permission, to "Zlatcomix", which I'd like to re-activate.

I shall post three new cartoons today.

Thanks for reading and responding.

Zlatko

[gypsyjoker]

strutting assumptions of supremacy which imbued both the French and the Germans and the fatal acquiescence to war, seems familiar.

I was a college sophomore in 1962 when I read that book, I read it straight thru day and night until I finished it. You forgot to mention Great Britian among those strutting powers. Poor Microbe, as much an anglophile as I am I still count all of Queen Victoria's grand children resonpsible for that war between the cousins.
And the history of how that war was sold to the American Public has lessons for today. The secrete deals, the demonization of Germans, sorry I got to stop, I feel a rant coming on.
Barbara Boxer the closest thing we got to a Red Emma today. I like a Jay Rockefeller/boxer ticket, or visa versa. Meanwhile have you read Ellen Goodman's column today on Alito?

here is a little highlight.

Alito argued that most woman told their husbands anyway. He brushed aside the idea that this requirement would be a burden on women with abusive husbands with a wink, a nod and a footnote, he even implied that the law would be easy to get around "difficult to enforce and easy to evade."

I have a real rift in my family over those pictures jimboloco posted, I used to get happy mail from my christian relatives about the war in Iraq, and I send them pictures from stuff that jimbo posts. They were outraged that a fifteen year old girl saw some of the baby pictures. They told me pretty much that I was a creep and not patriotic. . These are are fanatical true believers in our president of good and evil. I imagine you might find them picketing a planned parenthood office carrying pictures of aborted human fetuses. I am going to miss the columns. So many eyes here, we need everyone on the look out for the news. I wish you would keep them coming when ever you can.

So many things going wrong, so many back wards steps, I don't see anything that can be done about the war now except keep on speaking truth to power. Maybe building a base for the 2006 elections. But this Alito thing is happening now and I keep hoping there is still time left to stop it or stall it. Texas just voted for a state constituitional ammendment defining marriage as a union between a man and woman. Kansas just voted for creatinism, intelligent design, oh yes, whose intelligence? Bad science and religion, equals another dark age where priests wear white lab coats with pocket protectors and carry clip boards. Welcome to the future fair. It is no fair to anyonefiresign

But maybe everything is peachy and I am a bitter old man. I could care less about truth, I would like to try reality.

[Zlatko Waterman]

Dear Gypsy:


You're certainly right about the British swaggering and swelling up.

Enter the nave of any Church of England today in Britain and you're in a shrine to war.

Have you read Jonathan Faulks's excellent WWI novel, "Birdsong"? It's a remarkable book.

http://www.randomhouse.co.uk/offthepage ... 0099387913


We've both joined the "bitter old man club" if I understand what you might mean.

But I think dissatisfaction is a sign of health.


Thanks for your comments.


--Z

[whimsicaldeb]

Change is good

I'll miss not seeing your daily postings because you have such a good eye for just the right article; but your consistency did make me a bit lazy ... I knew I could come here and find the latest because of your work. Now, it's back to me researching (more) on my own; and that's good too! I can do that ... no problem.

I'm happy to see you back doing your "Zlatcomix" again, especially now that I'm no longer dial up!

I do have a favor to ask; you are so well read; concerning books; please continue to post about books that you think or feel "fit" in, or you find interesting (like you’ve done here) where ever and when ever you can ... thank you.

Much success to you … and thank you.

[gypsyjoker]

No I have not read it. The last war novel I read was Short Timers. I do not think I will ever read another war novel.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/de ... 2?v=glance
Leonard Pratt grins.

Outside, I point to a wasted NVA hanging in the wire. "War is serious business, son, and this is our gross national product." I kick the corpse, triggering panic in the maggots in the hollow eye sockets and in the grinning mouth and in each of the bullet holes in his chest.

[mnaz]

Zlatko...

I hear you. Take a well-deserved break. I've appreciated your posts, even if I haven't always commented.

And I'm with you. This ongoing brutality against Iraqi (and Afghan) civilians has to stop. Dress it up in whatever euphemistic term you want, and rationalize it all you want (more "precise" munitions, etc.), but it has to stop. The U.S. cannot participate in it any longer.... should never have gone there. I won't buy that worthy "collateral damage" shit anymore.... "two-thirds-hell-is-better-than-the-hypothesized-full-hell-if-we-didn't-wage-war" arguments.

From now on, I will not support any candidate that doesn't specifically call for an immediate, monitored drawdown of troops. I've seen enough.

Thanks for your diligence these past several months.