BUSH AND THE MEANING OF SACRIFICE

[Zlatko Waterman]

George Bush and Tony Blair gave a joint press conference I didn't watch, on TV. As most of you know, I don't use that box.

But I read the text on the Internet.

Some musings occur to me:

Does George mean " . . .the sacrifice was worth it . . ." in the sense that 2,460 deaths of American armed forces fighters ( so far), thousands maimed, permanently in wheelchairs, blinded, paralyzed, and over a hundred Brits dead-- not to mention thousands of Iraqis-- does he mean "their" sacrifice was worth it? And what is the antecedent of "it", this old English teacher asks?

Does George mean this kind of "sacrifice" is "worth it"?
(read articles below)

(link to articles about the Haditha incident)

http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/nws/latimes38.htm

and

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0, ... 70,00.html

(????)

And here is the appraisal of "sacrifices" made by George W. Bush, self-proclaimed "wartime President" written by the grandson of a wartime President.

A real wartime President.

( link)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6364551/site/newsweek/

Such questions linger with me when I hear George W. Bush speak of "sacrifice."


--Z

[stilltrucking]

Bush is not speaking to you. He speaks in code. He speaks to the true believers. Have you ever heard of Leo Strauss?

Paste:
"A government would collapse if it spoke nothing but nonsense. Under
George W. Bush the government has learned to speak on two levels at the
same time. What appears to be non-sense to most people makes perfect
sense to those who are initiated into a way of thinking and a certain set of
references, many of them biblical. From the constant use of the word "evil"
to subtle references to the Book of Revelation, the favorite text of endtime
thinkers on the Christian right, Bush's remarks and speeches have carried an
esoteric message."

http://www.studioeight.tv/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=7170

[mnaz]

This is utterly disgusting.

The thing that pisses me off most about our own mounting atrocities (of war) is that the hawks either flat-out deny them as fabrications of the "liberal media", or they complain that not enough equal coverage is given to the "positive" things-- the "rebuilding", or "winning of Iraqi hearts and minds", and such. Winning of Iraqi hearts and minds? Sorry, folks. That window closed long, long ago....

[stilltrucking]

It is way beyond reason at this point.

It is about the sacred blood of Jesus.

I am not disgusted.

Only sorrow

Sooner or later those soldiers are coming home.

Bringing what with them?

The horror will not end in Iraq.

And the VA is not going to help them much. Hospital closings. What did the general call it a Moral Breakdown?

All this makes our combat Veterans a precious resource. They been there done this.

"The horror" wasn't that a line from some novel?

Why are you disgusted?
What did knip say about wars getting less destructive?

I will never forget my trucking buddy who shot the drunk in the alley behind that bar. He warned the guy three times to back off. At what point does killing become a reflex.

The wrath of Achilles.

What a horrible holy day. Old men standing at attention with tears running down thier faces. No I am not disgusted, I only wish my tears could flow with them. But I am cried out. God bless them.

[jimboloco]

wearing my vets for peace shirt today
wondering when someone will give me a rude remark and wondering when i will go ballistic. intercontinental ballistic missive.
35 years ago, may 1971
i was flying a hearse in a stupid war declkared by intransigent morons with power, but the intransigence remains in power today blessed by moron idiots who constitute the silent majority, so this is cultural indeed, am not really feeling peaceful today, butvery glad youall are here, staying subliminally connected and resilient.

There's a vigil tonite in Tampa, I may go there, will see. It is not something I relish, but what the hay.

[mnaz]

If only the vets who still support Bush's war (of choice) might recognize how much our soldiers/vets have been screwed over by the current Administration.

[Zlatko Waterman]

Dear ST:

The line:

". . .the horror! the horror!"

( is from) HEART OF DARKNESS by Joseph Conrad

( spoken by Kurtz, the corrupted outpost commander who began writing a discourse on "The Suppression of Savage Customs" and ending practicing cannibalism personally . . .)

(a nice link-- below)

http://dir.salon.com/story/books/featur ... index.html

By the way, even though APOCALYPSE NOW is an interesting
( some say a good) film, the version on film of Conrad's tale that really shines is the one featuring John Malkovich as Kurtz.

--Z

[jimboloco]

Is thisa the one set in Afrika? You sayin that Malcovich outdid Brando? What's the other film exactly, amigo.?

The essay is right, we think we got moral impunity, why we won't subject ourselves to the international court. Thank Gawd the rest of the world is still out there.

Here is an editorial from today's St Pete Times, thinking about writing a lertter response and am wondering if anybody has a good rant or more reasoned response, from which I might conjure up something with prescience and bite.

Show troops you care

Got out my "BUSHWACKED" sign and my candle and am gonna go to the vigil in Tampa. If I don't get back at ya ya'll lll know I got whacked. It's been real, folks.

[stilltrucking]

Oh jimboloco I got nothing to say about that editorial.
I am sure the guy who wrote it will sleep good tonight. After all he has done his part to support the troops. I bet he even has a 99 cent made in China yellow magnetic sticker on the back of his car.. Please don't get wacked. We need you now more than ever.

Z I knew where that line came from. Just my confusing writing style. If you could by any stretch of the imagination you could say I have any style at all. Sorry about the confustion. Please don't tell whimsical deb.

e-dog had a post about why there are no novels coming out of the war on Iraq. A complete lack of political fiction these days.

Full Metal Jacket is the last war movie I have seen. I will not see another war movie. It is based on the novel Short TImers by Gustav Hasford. May he rest in peace.


You can read the novel at this web site


http://www.gustavhasford.com/ST.htm

Here is the dedication and Table Of Contents.



Dedicated to
"Penny"
John C. Pennington, Corporal
Combat Photographer, First Marine Division
KIA, June 9, 1968


Adieu to a Solider

Adieu, O soldier,
You of the rude campaigning, (which we shared,)
The rapid march, the life of the camp,
The hot contention of opposing fronts, the long manoeuvre,
Red battles with their slaughter, the stimulus, the strong terrific game,
Spell of all brave and manly hearts, the trains of time through you and like of you all fill'd,
With war and war's expression.

Adieu, dear comrade,
Your mission is fulfill'd--but I, more warlike,
Myself and this contentious soul of mine,
Still on our campaigning bound,
Through untried roads with ambushes opponents lined,
Through many a sharp defeat and many a crisis, often baffled,
Here marching, ever marching on, a war fight out--aye here,
To fiercer, weightier battles give expression.
Walt Whitman, Drum Taps, 1871




Table of Contents

The Short-Timers
The Spirit of the Bayonet
Body Count
Grunts


http://www.gustavhasford.com/ST.htm


>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
He paid the largest fine for overdue books in the history of library science. I think he did six months in jail too.


Alabama screenplay writer sought in connection
with 10,000 recovered books
ASSOCIATED PRESS, March 21, 1988
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (AP) -- An Alabama-born author up for an Oscar for co-writing the screenplay Full Metal Jacket was being sought for questioning after thousands of books from libraries as far away as Australia were found in storage lockers, police said.
An estimated 10,000 books were recovered from a pair of lockers rented in the name of Jerry Gustav Hasford, author of the novel The Short Timers, said Detective Ray Berrett of California Polytechnic State University campus police.
The book was adapted into the 1987 Vietnam war drama Full Metal Jacket, directed by Stanley Kubrick from a screenplay written by Kubrick, Hasford and Michael Herr. The three share an Academy Award nomination for the screenplay.
The raid was staged Thursday by university police, who were seeking 87 overdue books that had been checked out from the Polytechnic university library in Hasford's name. Fines totaled $3,000.
"We found a lot more than we bargained for," said Wayne Carmack, another campus investigator.
In addition to books and periodicals from the university, they found thousands of books marked as belonging to libraries as far away as England and Australia, including leather-bound works on Edgar Allan Poe and the American Civil War that were printed in the 1800s, he said. Also in the lockers were books missing from libraries in Sacramento and St. Louis.
Police said they had not yet contacted foreign library officials to confirm whether those books were stolen.

http://www.gustavhasford.com/books.htm

[Zlatko Waterman]

Dear ST:

I didn't mean to insult your level of erudition, my friend. I apologize if I did. Just trying to be helpful.

I like FULL METAL JACKET too. Another fine (anti-) war film is GO TELL THE SPARTANS, also about Vietnam, with fine performances by Burt Lancaster and Craig Wasson ( an actor who never became a star but deserved to be one . . .):

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/630236 ... e&n=404272

Jim:

I think whether you like the Nicholas Roeg version of HEART OF DARKNESS or not hangs on whether you like Nick Roeg's style. I do, generally speaking. Some don't. Here's the link to the film:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/custom ... s.start=11

on Amazon.com.

And here are two different ratings by the viewing audience. I would give the film three and a half stars myself. I saw it on VHS tape when it was released ( made in 1994 for HBO).:

( paste)

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

( five stars--highest rating)

DARK BEAUTY, June 9, 1999
Reviewer: Bluemax@firemail.de (Germany) - See all my reviews

This film may differ somewhat from Conrad's book but hey the story isn't the thing it is the atmosphere that counts and this nightmare of a trip to the Heart of Darkness comes across just as Conrad intended it- that's for sure! Tim Roth as Marlowe is heartbrakingly fragile and John Malkovitch is excellent, too. See this as an independent piece of art. Then it works.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:



( one star-- lowest rating)

Deservedly Outcast, April 5, 2000

Reviewer: "torero" (Switzerland) - See all my reviews

Conrad must have shuddered from yonder heaven when this miserable adaptation graced the screen. That such prestigious actors should prove so totally incapable of portraying with some semblance of integrity such great characters and that the director could permit-or initiate- such a total "rape" of this great work speaks volumes on the cultural level of Film today. I had hoped to use it in my class but I will stick to "Apocalypse Now".

(end paste)

I should add that many reviewers found Conrad's novella "boring." I suppose it is in comparison to , say "Batman Begins" ( which I enjoyed for different reasons).

Brando and his co-actors are another thing, of course. So is Coppolla, a director I like a lot at various points.

His DRACULA is a fine translation of Bram Stoker's novel into film, for instance. Dracula kind of "dies for all our sins" in that one. Somebody ought to show it to GW Bush.

"Apocalypse Now", while a bit confused at times contains memorable scenes and is handled with virtuosity and doesn't wallow in gore like Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan." Yes, I know the argument-- Omaha Beach was like that . . ." etc. etc..

I like films like "Brief Encounter", which I can watch with my wife.

I don't flinch at the realistic depiction of violence with a good reason, mind you.

No accounting for taste, my friends.

--Z

[Zlatko Waterman]

Jim:

Since we two artists are on the subject of movies, have you seen Tim Roth ( the "Marlowe" of H of D) play Vincent Van Gogh in Robert Altman's film, "Vincent and Theo"?

Have I asked you this before?

I found it an excellent film, and I actually believed in Roth's Vincent.

Not to slight sainted Kirk Douglas ( Issur Danielovich Demsky) in his role as Vince, but Roth was my idea of a soiled, confused and burning Van Gogh.

Try it sometime if you haven't already seen it. The focus on Theo, Van Gogh's brother, is also imaginative and true to their relationship.

(link)

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0009X ... ance&n=130


--Z

[stilltrucking]

No insult taken Norman. I was just apologizing for the ambiguous writing.

[hester_prynne]

Indeed, Full Metal Jacket is one of my favorite movies of that genre too....I thought it was incredible, in fact I havent' seen that movie in so long I think I'll rent it and watch it again....

AS for George Bush and sacrifice.....I really think his idea of sacrifice is in the context of the word only, he has no self-realization of it...what I mean is that he attaches all "sacrifice" as inherently meaning something that is always done by someone other than himself...
Fuck.
I so can't believe what has transpired and continues to transpire within our Country's governing sector.
Amazement, disgust, dejected amusement, man, I been caught in the wry....

I hear you Zlatko, loud and clear. I suppose that's really all I needed to say....

H

[e_dog]

MEMORIAL DAY, American Holiday


Honor The Dead. Drink More Beer.





This message brought to you by Core's, official sponsor of the Republican Party and the Iraq War.

[stilltrucking]

I always kind of hoped that you would hear me.

e-dog gimmee the beer and hot dogs. I like to think of surfer mike kicked back on a beach somewhere drinking a cold beer and looking at the setting sun. Skip the speeches. The best memorial day services I saw were in Europe. A few people who still seem to have some respect left for america. I wonder if any other country has so many dead soldiers buried on foreign soil?