Percy-L: Literary, Religious, Scientific, and Philosophical Discussion of Walker Percy

[J Rivas-Pita <juliorivas AT gmail.com>]

Further on a thorny issue...

Published on Sunday, July 17, 2005 by the New York Times  
Follow the Uranium  
by Frank Rich 
  
"I am saying that if anyone was involved in that type of activity
which I referred to, they would not be working here."
- Ron Ziegler, press secretary to Richard Nixon, defending the
presidential aide Dwight Chapin on Oct. 18, 1972. Chapin was convicted
in April 1974 of perjury in connection with his relationship to the
political saboteur Donald Segretti.

"Any individual who works here at the White House has the confidence
of the president. They wouldn't be working here at the White House if
they didn't have the president's confidence."
- Scott McClellan, press secretary to George W. Bush, defending Karl
Rove on Tuesday.

Well, of course, Karl Rove did it. He may not have violated the
Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, with its high
threshold of criminality for outing a covert agent, but there's no
doubt he trashed Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame. We know this not
only because of Matt Cooper's e-mail, but also because of Mr. Rove's
own history. Trashing is in his nature, and bad things happen, usually
through under-the-radar whispers, to decent people (and their wives)
who get in his way. In the 2000 South Carolina primary, John McCain's
wife, Cindy, was rumored to be a drug addict (and Senator McCain was
rumored to be mentally unstable). In the 1994 Texas governor's race,
Ann Richards found herself rumored to be a lesbian. The implication
that Mr. Wilson was a John Kerry-ish girlie man beholden to his wife
for his meal ticket is of a thematic piece with previous mud
splattered on Rove political adversaries. The difference is that this
time Mr. Rove got caught.

Even so, we shouldn't get hung up on him - or on most of the other
supposed leading figures in this scandal thus far. Not Matt Cooper or
Judy Miller or the Wilsons or the bad guy everyone loves to hate, the
former CNN star Robert Novak. This scandal is not about them in the
end, any more than Watergate was about Dwight Chapin and Donald
Segretti or Woodward and Bernstein. It is about the president of the
United States. It is about a plot that was hatched at the top of the
administration and in which everyone else, Mr. Rove included, are at
most secondary players.

To see the main plot, you must sweep away the subplots, starting with
the Cooper e-mail. It has been brandished as a smoking gun by Bush
bashers and as exculpatory evidence by Bush backers (Mr. Rove, you
see, was just trying to ensure that Time had its facts straight). But
no one knows what this e-mail means unless it's set against the
avalanche of other evidence, most of it secret, including what Mr.
Rove said in three appearances before the grand jury. Therein lies the
rub, or at least whatever case might be made for perjury.

Another bogus subplot, long popular on the left, has it that Patrick
Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor, gave Mr. Novak a free pass out of
ideological comradeship. But Mr. Fitzgerald, both young (44) and
ambitious, has no record of Starr- or Ashcroft-style partisanship (his
contempt for the press notwithstanding) or known proclivity for
committing career suicide. What's most likely is that Mr. Novak, more
of a common coward than the prince of darkness he fashions himself to
be, found a way to spill some beans and avoid Judy Miller's fate. That
the investigation has dragged on so long anyway is another indication
of the expanded reach of the prosecutorial web.

Apparently this is finally beginning to dawn on Mr. Bush's fiercest
defenders and on Mr. Bush himself. Hence, last week's erection of the
stonewall manned by the almost poignantly clownish Mr. McClellan, who
abruptly rendered inoperative his previous statements that any
suspicions about Mr. Rove are "totally ridiculous." The morning after
Mr. McClellan went mano a mano with his tormentors in the White House
press room - "We've secretly replaced the White House press corps with
actual reporters," observed Jon Stewart - the ardently pro-Bush New
York Post ran only five paragraphs of a wire-service story on Page 12.
That conspicuous burial of what was front-page news beyond Murdochland
speaks loudly about the rising anxiety on the right. Since then, White
House surrogates have been desperately babbling talking points
attacking Joseph Wilson as a partisan and a liar.

These attacks, too, are red herrings. Let me reiterate: This case is
not about Joseph Wilson. He is, in Alfred Hitchcock's parlance, a
MacGuffin, which, to quote the Oxford English Dictionary, is "a
particular event, object, factor, etc., initially presented as being
of great significance to the story, but often having little actual
importance for the plot as it develops." Mr. Wilson, his mission to
Niger to check out Saddam's supposed attempts to secure uranium that
might be used in nuclear weapons and even his wife's outing have as
much to do with the real story here as Janet Leigh's theft of office
cash has to do with the mayhem that ensues at the Bates Motel in
"Psycho."

This case is about Iraq, not Niger. The real victims are the American
people, not the Wilsons. The real culprit - the big enchilada, to
borrow a 1973 John Ehrlichman phrase from the Nixon tapes - is not Mr.
Rove but the gang that sent American sons and daughters to war on
trumped-up grounds and in so doing diverted finite resources, human
and otherwise, from fighting the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11.
That's why the stakes are so high: this scandal is about the unmasking
of an ill-conceived war, not the unmasking of a C.I.A. operative who
posed for Vanity Fair.

So put aside Mr. Wilson's February 2002 trip to Africa. The plot that
matters starts a month later, in March, and its omniscient author is
Dick Cheney. It was Mr. Cheney (on CNN) who planted the idea that
Saddam was "actively pursuing nuclear weapons at this time." The vice
president went on to repeat this charge in May on "Meet the Press," in
three speeches in August and on "Meet the Press" yet again in
September. Along the way the frightening word "uranium" was thrown
into the mix.

By September the president was bandying about the u-word too at the
United Nations and elsewhere, speaking of how Saddam needed only a
softball-size helping of uranium to wreak Armageddon on America. But
hardly had Mr. Bush done so than, offstage, out of view of us civilian
spectators, the whole premise of this propaganda campaign was being
challenged by forces with more official weight than Joseph Wilson. In
October, the National Intelligence Estimate, distributed to Congress
as it deliberated authorizing war, included the State Department's
caveat that "claims of Iraqi pursuit of natural uranium in Africa,"
made public in a British dossier, were "highly dubious." A C.I.A.
assessment, sent to the White House that month, determined that "the
evidence is weak" and "the Africa story is overblown."

AS if this weren't enough, a State Department intelligence analyst
questioned the legitimacy of some mysterious documents that had
surfaced in Italy that fall and were supposed proof of the Iraq-Niger
uranium transaction. In fact, they were blatant forgeries. When
Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the International Atomic
Energy Agency, said as much publicly in the days just before "shock
and awe," his announcement made none of the three evening newscasts.
The administration's apocalyptic uranium rhetoric, sprinkled with
mushroom clouds, had been hammered incessantly for more than five
months by then - not merely in the State of the Union address - and
could not be dislodged. As scenarios go, this one was about as subtle
as "Independence Day" and just as unstoppable a crowd-pleaser.

Once we were locked into the war, and no W.M.D.'s could be found, the
original plot line was dropped with an alacrity that recalled the
"Never mind!" with which Gilda Radner's Emily Litella used to end her
misinformed Weekend Update commentaries on "Saturday Night Live." The
administration began its dog-ate-my-homework cover-up, asserting that
the various warning signs about the uranium claims were lost "in the
bowels" of the bureaucracy or that it was all the C.I.A.'s fault or
that it didn't matter anyway, because there were new, retroactive
rationales to justify the war. But the administration knows how guilty
it is. That's why it has so quickly trashed any insider who
contradicts its story line about how we got to Iraq, starting with the
former Treasury secretary Paul O'Neill and the former counterterrorism
czar Richard Clarke.

Next to White House courtiers of their rank, Mr. Wilson is at most a
Rosencrantz or Guildenstern. The brief against the administration's
drumbeat for war would be just as damning if he'd never gone to
Africa. But by overreacting in panic to his single Op-Ed piece of two
years ago, the White House has opened a Pandora's box it can't slam
shut. Seasoned audiences of presidential scandal know that there's
only one certainty ahead: the timing of a Karl Rove resignation. As
always in this genre, the knight takes the fall at exactly that moment
when it's essential to protect the king.

Frank Rich is an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times. He's been
with the paper since 1980.

 
 


On 8/24/05, Karey <karey AT kareyperkins.com> wrote:
> See below:  
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: Robert_Pauley AT oxy.com 
> To: percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org 
> Sent: Wednesday, August 24, 2005 8:23 PM
> Subject: Re: [percy-l] U.S. : Terrorist SuperPower?
> 
> 
> 
> Karey:  I'm not sure what your preamble on Hitler Youth Corp means, except
> perhaps as an attempt to bring Walker Percy into the discussion. I suspect
> it is a technique of invidious association, though in what sense our country
> has found a like expression among our youth or in some other sector, escapes
> me. I would enjoy some clarification on what our current version of the
> "Hitler Youth Corps" may be.   
> 
>  
> 
> It is a direct reference to Julio Rivas-Pita's comment "that Mr. Bush, à la
> Hitler, invades countries using fake arguments" and to the fact that what,
> in retrospect, seems obviously misguided and even evil (Hitler's cause),
> often, at the time, seems to have many good points.  
> 
>  
> 
> The comparison is that WE are the Hitler Youth, not the youth of our
> country.   Has anyone seen the movie, "The Wave"?  
> 
>  
> 
> As for The unjust war doctrines are unscientific formulations from the
> good-faith debates of ethicists. 
> 
>  
> 
> Ah, science is the foundation of our ethics and thought?   
> 
>  
> 
> We can all find one to our liking. 
> 
>  
> 
> Logical fallacy - just because other options are present, doesn't provide a
> logical refutation of the argument just presented.
> 
>  
> 
> I've found a few who endorse the war in Iraq, as I do. It may just as
> persuasively be argued that military action to remove an international crime
> lord with the equivalent of 17 warrants for his arrest, 
> 
>  
> 
> What?  No other international criminal leaders in other countries?  No other
> genocidal maniacs?  In fact, there are dozens.  Why don't we take THEM out? 
> Why Saddam Hussein?  Think about it.
> 
>  
> 
> who had invaded an ally, 
> 
>  
> 
> Ten years ago, that war was over.
> 
>  
> 
> refused to honor the terms of his surrender from that unprovoked invasion,
> directed fire against allied planes in a buffer zone designed to protect the
> northern Kurdish regions of his own land from continuing genocide with toxic
> weapons, killed more than 250,000 of his own people, some likewise with
> toxic weapons (a conservative estimate), provided sanctuary to the first
> bomber of the twin towers, as well as the current second most notorious
> terrorist in the world, 
> 
>  
> 
> Again - no less than what has been done by dozens of dictators of less
> politically important countries.  When did Sudan become important? When oil
> was found nearby.  
> 
>  
> 
> Did anyone see Dateline NBC's special on Uganda a couple of nights ago?  If
> we want to help, there are far worse and more chaotic places to help. But,
> oh wait, Uganda doesn't have any valuable national resources or political
> importance to the U.S.
> 
>  
> 
> and, if you are to believe the testimony of his chief physicist, had every
> intent to develop an atomic weapon, 
> 
>  
> 
> Read "Follow the Uranium" before commenting further.  July 17 New York
> Times.
> 
>  
> 
> and indeed was in negotiations with North Korea as late as the winter of
> 2003 to purchase one "off the shelf." 
> 
>  
> 
> And, what are we doing about North Korea by the way?
> 
>  
> 
> That is plenty of reason to me. In fact, we were 10 years too late in
> acting. 
> 
>  
> 
> As for the Pope condemning the Iraq War, I'm afraid that doesn't have much
> moral heft to me. 
> 
>  
> 
> If I'm correct, the Catholic Church went out of its way to comfort the
> Nazis. If the Catholic Church lacks the moral clarity to recognize that the
> serial and grotesque rapacities of a dictator demand forceful interdiction,
> I'm sorry, but I have no intention to wait around for them to catch up to
> me. Anyway, I believe such catch-up is inevitable; I'm sure Catholicism is
> not too far down the "to-do" list of Islamicist fury. 
> 
>  
> 
> As for Abu Ghraib, I believe you are incorrect. 
> 
>  
> 
> I am not incorrect - evidence abounds and I'm fairly certain any information
> I have is not classified - it's common knowledge.  In addition, my father
> was in charge of the Reserves in the South ten years ago and wrote a paper
> on their "unreadiness" to go to war that was roundly ignored.  The things
> that were done in Abu Ghraib were done also in Guatanemo Bay, and other
> places - and the ways they were done were similar in fashion and type to
> each other.  And if you don't want to accept that at face value, common
> sense tells you that is how all scandals work - and military scandals as
> well, and other than the fact that the Geneva Convention was denounced by
> the administration as "antiquated" and Senator Joe Biden chastized similar
> comments in Congress - saying his son was in the military - were he to
> become a prisoner, what would happen? 
> 
>  
> 
> It was isolated and was not connected to a higher chain of command. If I am
> wrong, I would be interested in proof. It was brutish and obscene of course
> but hardly characteristic of our treatment of prisoners, there or elsewhere.
> Obviously it cannot be compared to how "prisoners of war" are treated by
> Islamicists, as those poor souls get their heads sawed off -- something
> perhaps closer to "a gross and unapologetic abandonment of the Geneva
> Convention"? Moreover, our incidents of abuse are followed by swift
> remediation. We are now constructing a new holding facility in Guatanemo
> Bay, Cuba. 
> 
>  
> 
> After many years and many lawsuits filed and much publicity - that has been
> no swift remediation, it has been a reluctant and forced change.
> 
>  
> 
> It is one of the most salutary aspects of our nation that we learn from our
> mistakes.
> 
>  
> 
> Vietnam?
> 
>  
> 
>  Anyway, in the historic scheme of wars, Abu Ghraib barely amounts to a
> scandal. 
> 
>  
> 
> You are talking out of both sides of your mouth - one, you say it is
> horrible and not characteristic, then you say it really wasn't much of a bad
> thing at all.  The problem is people were trained and condoned, then blamed,
> for this when it became known and political.  Whatever happened to "the buck
> stops here"?
> 
>  
> 
> And then of course, there is the same old claim that we are all being "spun"
> as a part of a "fascist" fear-mongering. We are manipulated by Karl Rove and
> "swept along" by vulgar mob sentiments. I can only speak for myself, but I
> am not. I wonder why it so bewildering to so many to think that people can
> reasonably and on their own arrive at the decision that a war against
> terrorists, 
> 
>  
> 
> But wait, the terrorists weren't basing their camp and cause in Iraq!!  If
> there was an association there, it was only secondary or tertiary - after
> Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia.  You have been "spun" if you are still
> associating the Iraq with 9/11 terrorists intent to wipe us from the face of
> the earth!
> 
>  
> 
> who have declared their intent to wipe us from the face of the earth, makes
> basic sense? Somehow we must be "influenced" to believe this? Anyway, I'm
> curious who is being swept anywhere. More than half of the population
> currently opposes the war in Iraq. The overwhelming majority of the media
> opposes it. Most of the free world opposes it. The president has collapsed
> in the polls. That's a pretty poor job of fascist brainwashing, if you ask
> me. Karl Rove should be fired. 
> 
>  
> 
> If you ask me, yes, I completely agree, Karl Rove should be fired.  For
> different reasons.
> 
>  
> 
> As for Ernest Becker's meditations on the neurotic roots of war, nothing
> better underscores, with all due respect, the abstractions of academia. 
> 
>  
> 
> Read the book, then we can discuss it.  Before you determine it to be a
> postmodern rumination on gender deconstruction or some abstract
> navel-gazing, read it.   And it in fact relates to Percy's concerns and
> pursuits more than anything else in this conversation - the meaning of life
> - and key to the psychological motivations of most humans.
> 
>  
> 
> If I have a neurosis it is to guarantee that I and/or my fellow citizens
> don't get our heads chopped off. And my fear or concern doesn't spring from
> any dark, Freudian recess of anxiety responsible for phantasmal projections
> of psychosis. It springs from people chopping our heads off. If killing my
> enemy gives me meaning and purpose, it is a good meaning and purpose, and
> reflects total sanity, and I am glad of it. Becker belongs high on the
> bookshelf in this conflict. 
> 
>  
> 
> And to Julio: I would read Orwell a little more closely, especially his
> essay on wartime England, "The Lion and the Unicorn."  You might find his
> scorn for pacifism rather interesting.  
> 
>  
> 
> Nowhere in your disquisition on our "fascist" state do you address this
> fundamental question: what do we do in the face of a nihilistic, barbarous,
> and genuinely fascist movement that wishes both literally and figuratively
> to decapitate us. 
> 
>  
> 
> If we become like them, by engaging in their tactics and arguments, the
> problem multiplies.  This is true of individuals as well as nations.
> 
>  
> 
> A movement which has no interest in sharing this planet with us, and will
> accept massive self-immolation as a price for our destruction.  
> 
>  
> 
> You discuss, you talk, you converse, you deal, you understand, you listen,
> you meet needs on both sides.  Look at how we handled the end of WWI  vs.
> the end of WWII. And one determination of a "just war" is that it is always
> as a last resort.  The Just War doctrine you would like to portray as some
> abstract ineffective liberal agenda, but in fact, it is a reasonable and
> effective and practical way to determine when to go to war.  
> 
>  
> 
> Until the anti-war movement can address, even admit this, I cannot take any
> of these arguments seriously – any protests against Don Rumsfeld or Karl
> Rove or Dick Cheney man nothing to me. They are merely ideological
> fulminations -- elegant and theoretical and nugatory. 
> 
>  
> 
> No one at a top level in the Bush administration ever served time in combat
> - not Bush, not Cheney, not Rumsfeld, not Rice.  (Colin Powell did, but he
> is gone - I think for a reason.)   So, having never seen war, they can
> easily send other's sons and daughters to war - for abstract causes.  Who is
> the abstracted one now?  I imagine many or most of us teach in college - and
> many of our students have been soldiers.  I have many in my class who tell
> me what it is like over there - one woman retired after 25 years (why 25? 
> you retire after 20, for 1/2 your base pay, or 30 or 2/3 your base pay, but
> not 25) because of changing military polices and the situation in Iraq now
> (very dangerous, and more so every day.)
> 
>  
> 
> They do not help me understand the real threats to my culture or how to
> answer them. 
> 
>  
> 
> This has been said to be a war of "non-sacrifice" by America's citizens.  In
> WWII, we gave up things, and lifestyles, and people, to help the war.  We
> feel it not one bit here.  How is your life different from before the war,
> other than the content of your daily news (unless of course you have a son,
> daughter, or relative there).  What are you going to do to help preserve
> your culture?  
> 
>  
> 
> I guess the major "cognitive" divide is simple. Either one takes the
> position that we are at "war" or we are not at war. 
> 
>  
> 
> Either-or fallacy.  Oversimplification.  (You can tell I teach logic and
> critical thinking!!)
> 
>  
> 
> I believe we are at war. 
> 
>  
> 
> With whom?  Or is it an abstract?  Terrorism?  The comparison of Iraq has
> been made with the Vietnam war - both were wars against abstractions - the
> one, communism; the second, terrorism.
> 
>  
> 
> I believe we will be for many years to come.  I also believe that within the
> next five years most of the world – with the possible exception of academia
> -- will understand this, to the point at which there will simply won't be
> too many articles about Abu Ghraibs, or WMDs, or fascist propagandists, or
> anything of the like. Not to say that there should not be. But it will be
> widely understood that we are in a war for the survival of all that we value
> and cherish in western civilization. 
> 
>  
> 
> REALLY???  
> 
>  
> 
> This is the first stages of that war. That is simply my opinion.
> 
>  
> 
> Now, as for what Walker Percy would say to our current problems? I do not
> know. I only know that he prized and defended western liberal values,
> science, art, education, freedom of speech, "truth and beauty and suchlike."
>  I can't help but think he would have had some form of intelligent and
> forceful response to a barbaric movement dedicated to snuffing them all out.
> It may very well be that he would have opposed the war in Iraq as either
> impracticable or stupid. But he would have offered some kind of alternative.
> 
>  
> 
> Exactly what the Bush administration did NOT consider. (Alternatives, that
> is.)  And exactly what a Just War demands.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: percy-l-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org
> [mailto:percy-l-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of
> Karey
> Sent: Wednesday, August 24, 2005 4:21 PM
> To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion
> Subject: Re: [percy-l] U.S. : Terrorist SuperPower?
> 
> Yes, I saw the apology!  A wise political move of Robertson's part! It is
> telling that Robertson's comment was not condemned by the administration,
> since it is a political comment, but then, they might lose their
> fundamentalist voting base (Rove is practical).  Perhaps the apology had
> political encouragement and prompting.  I didn't (forgot to) overtly refer
> to Pat Robertson below, but clearly his actions were meant to be interpreted
> through Becker - any fundamentalist (Christian or Muslim (or other) - they
> actually have more in common with each other than they do with moderates of
> their own faiths) is devoting himself to a non-transcendent "causa-sui,"
> though clearly mistaking it for a transcendent one.  
>  
> Eric Rudolph was just convicted yesterday in Atlanta (the Olympic bomber,
> also abortion clinics and gay nightclub bombings) of life X several lives in
> prison - he showed no remorse, despite the loss of innocent lives due to his
> actions.  He felt he had a "cause" - and that history, if not the truth,
> will eventually exonerate him.  Percy's Lancelot operated under the same
> assumption - of all Percy's heroes, Lancelot was the one who was the most
> "off."
>  
> There is a T-shirt for American travelers:
> http://www.cafepress.com/americanapology.6120915?zoom=yes
>  
> KP
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: J Rivas-Pita 
> To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion 
> Sent: Wednesday, August 24, 2005 6:39 PM
> Subject: Re: [percy-l] U.S. : Terrorist SuperPower?
> 
> Dear Karey,
> 
> Thank you very much for your most detailed and lucid analysis.
> Needless to say, I fully agree with you.
> (By the way, my grandfather on my mother's side lived most of his life
> in the U.S., was an American citizen and is buried in Irvington, N.J.,
> and I grew up in Spain believing, perhaps somewhat naïvely, that the
> U.S.A. was what he said it was, 'the greatest country in the world').
> 
> Also by the way this is "Reverend" Pat Robertson's last -but probably
> not final- word on Mr. Chávez's assassination proposal and AP's
> "misquote":
> 
> http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/08/24/robertson.chavez/index.html
> 
> With all best wishes,
> 
> Julio
> 
> On 8/24/05, Karey <karey AT kareyperkins.com> wrote:
> >  
> > As you all know, Percy, in his younger days, visited Germany - in the
> early
> > 1930's I believe?  Correct me on this if I'm wrong - (a simple check in
> > Tolson or Samway would tell me, but I'm much too comfortably ensconced at
> my
> > desk to get up right now!)  At any rate, as you also all know, while he
> was
> > there, Percy met and was much enamored of the "Hitler Youth" for their
> > loyalty, devotion, sense of purpose, sense of meaning and direction in
> life.
> >  And Percy was an intelligent, clear-thinking man - he must have had a
> real
> > reason to feel that way - real concrete evidence that these youth had
> > something that stood out.  Then WWII happened, and one can only imagine
> what
> > he felt inside about his earlier misguided admiration for the Hitler
> Youth. 
> >   
> > The Iraq war has been declared by the Pope to be an unjust war according
> to
> > Catholic Just War doctrine.  (A guideline used not just by the church, but
> > by the government and the military as well, by the way).  Jimmy Carter
> > declared it an unjust war - right up into the night before we attacked,
> when
> > he reneged in a front page article in the Atlanta Journal and
> Constitution,
> > I can only imagine due to political pressure.  What makes it unjust?  On
> > almost every point of the doctrine, including what Julio Rivas-Pita states
> > below:  The United States was an aggressor - and, worse, it was an
> > aggression built on lies.  Today, it is not only extreme leftists such as
> > Michael Moore who will question whether WMD were in Iraq.  Evidence
> > continues to be uncovered-  that the Karl Rove political genius-machine
> was
> > extremely effectively at manipulating public perception and spinning the
> > message to hide the real situation...  that in itself is a dissertation
> too
> > lengthy to document here, but articles such as "Follow the Uranium" in the
> > July 17, 2005, New York Times only begin to scratch the surface of it.  In
> > fact, most people acknowledge that a false link was made between 9/11 and
> > Iraq - the only question up for debate was how knowingly false (on the
> > administration's side) was it?  In fact, the Iraq war has sidetracked us
> > from the real 9/11 cause (the hunt for bin Laden in Afghanistan) and
> > increased terrorist activity, as well as further incited hard feelings
> > towards American - even our allies are starting to hate us!  Since when
> did
> > France become a country to despise?  Hence, I find Julio Rivas-Pita's
> e-mail
> > not at all unusual, rather, it is very much the norm overseas, and rather
> > than asking him to take a drink of Early Times, I think a far better
> course
> > of action is for Americans to put down their own bottles of Early Times
> and
> > take a close look at themselves and the actions of their government and
> > think very carefully before they cast their vote in the next election. 
> >   
> > Then we have the Abu Ghraib prison scandal - a gross and unapologetic
> > abandonment of the Geneva Convention - and while scapegoats are being used
> > (the MP reservists involved) to take the blame, in fact, it was not an
> > isolated incident, it was sanctioned from above (how far above?), and
> these
> > enlisted reservists were merely part-timers whose real career was
> something
> > far different - they learned such torture techniques because they were
> > trained (by the CIA and the military) in such techniques, and the higher
> ups
> > have said what to this and to similar practices in Guatanamo Bay (and who
> > knows where else)?  That the Geneva Convention is "antiquated."  This by
> the
> > way is just what we know - we were never shown the "worst" abuses; those
> > pictures were withheld from us, and do you think that just because playful
> > digital cameras have not caught other events, they do not exist?  
> >   
> > By contrast, I am incredibly impressed with Anthony Principi, Chairman of
> > the Military Base Realignment and Closing Commission (www.brac.gov).  He
> was
> > on C-SPAN last night.  The integrity shone - with Principi vowing (and
> > delivering) "honesty and transparency" in all the commission's
> deliberations
> > and decisions.  By the way, Rumsfeld's recommended base closings more than
> > doubled the recommended closings in 4 previous rounds of base closings -
> > combined. Why?  Financial reasons. The Iraq War has not strengthened the
> > United States from future attacks, it has weakened us - and our economic
> and
> > military strength - considerably. 
> >   
> > The American people accept this because of they are being "spun" - the
> > logical fallacy "appeal to fear" - which by the way, is a characteristics
> of
> > fascist states - the building up of nationalism and military fervor
> through
> > inciting fear in the people.  In fact, terrorism has gotten worse since
> and
> > because of the Iraqui war.  You get what you give.  But, as part of the
> > package and by necessity to accomplish the objective, a sense of loyalty
> and
> > group camaraderie (patriotism) is incited - but not one that is examined
> > carefully, logically or critically.  We are swept along with the emotions
> of
> > the moment, like a winning crowd at a college football game or the Hitler
> > Youth. (Ahh, Percy's "totemism" no less.)  We don't even WANT to think
> > critically about it, for it satisfies a deep need inside of us - but
> > insidiously so. 
> >   
> > The answer to Percy's Hitler Youth question can be found in Ernest
> Becker's
> > Pulitzer Prize winning book, The Denial of Death.  What compels us most,
> > what determines our actions and motivations and neuroses and desires most,
> > is our sublimated terror of death - our individual deaths - which we all
> > know is coming, yet rarely think about consciously (or most of us rarely
> > think about).  So one answer is to find a "causa-sui" - a cause larger
> than
> > ourselves for which to live.  To quote Becker:  "it is a world-view, some
> > kind of affirmative collective ideology in which the person can perform
> the
> > living drama of his acceptance as a creature.  Only in this way can the
> > neurotic come out of his isolation to become part of such a larger and
> > higher wholeness as religion has always represented" (Becker, 198-1999). 
> > Out of this, comes meaning, purpose, comfort, identity,
> self-actualization. 
> > The problem is this - if the purpose for which we live is not transcendent
> > (and not even religion is transcendent; religion, as in religious
> > denominations - Protestant, Catholic, Muslim, etc.,- is not, only God is),
> > then we must logically be on the other side of something else - we have
> > enemies.  (The defeat of our enemies gives us meaning and purpose.)     
> >   
> > But, more importantly, if we devote ourselves, find our meaning in life,
> to
> > a non-transcendent cause, our cause is false.  Just like the Hitler Youth.
> > Has anyone noticed the great purpose and conviction with which Bush and
> his
> > cronies proceed forward?  Little reflection, lots of purpose.  That has
> been
> > spun as positive - in fact, it's quite insidious.  Kerry's globalism (a
> > foreign wife no less) and thoughtful reflections were spun as a detriment,
> > when it was just what America needed.  
> >   
> > Today, even our friends (allies) are becoming enemies - (even our own
> > citizens are "enemies" to the administration - we are closely monitored
> and
> > have lost many of our rights to privacy). Nationalism, most obviously, is
> > never transcendent.  The patriotism in America today - at the expense of
> > others' (yes, even prisoners') rights and humanity - smacks of that. 
> Julio
> > Rivas-Pita is on the money, in my opinion.  We Americans can't see it.   
> >   
> > But whether anything I've said here is true or not, we would do well to
> act
> > with humility, to not pompously scoff - to pay careful attention to what
> > others - Europeans, Middle-Easterners, South Americans, Asians - feel and
> > think about our country.  In a global economy, to act as though we are
> > cowboys from Texas - claiming what we want through might and force - is to
> > act as though we are brutes and boors.  It is also to eventually fail
> > because the might and force we think we have is, quite simply, not there. 
> > Our days of global supremacy are coming to an end - the Euro is now higher
> > than the dollar, Japan is more economically successful than the U.S.,
> > China's economic growth and promise has been compared to America's in the
> > 19th century.   The Bush administration has done nothing to consider any
> of
> > that - it is not a forward thinking administration, it is a backward one. 
> >   
> > Gas prices are $3 a gallon in Atlanta - I've heard they're $5 in
> California
> > (any Californians care to comment?)   Has no one made the connection? 
> >   
> > Karey 
> >   
> >  
> > ----- Original Message ----- 
> > From: J Rivas-Pita 
> > To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion 
> >  
> > Sent: Wednesday, August 24, 2005 6:36 AM 
> > Subject: [percy-l] U.S. : Terrorist SuperPower? 
> > 
> > Dear friends,
> > 
> > In a quite Percy-vein, let me ask those of you (the majority, I
> > suppose) who live in the U.S.: Do you realize that you may be living
> > in a terrorist superpower, by now?
> > 
> > Not only in the sense that Mr. Bush, à la Hitler, invades countries
> > using fake arguments, but also in that people like this
> > "televangelist" Pat Robertson -who clearly belongs into some nuts
> > asylum- can get away with TV appeals to assassinate Venezuela's
> > President without even blushing, saying that Venezuelans supossedly
> > are within U.S.'s "sphere of influence"?
> > 
> > And all Mr. Rumsfeld and the State Department can say is that
> > Robertson is "a private citizen" entitled to his views... Owning a
> > large fundamentalist "Christian" TV network that reaches a vast
> > audience, by the way (which both Rumsfeld and the State Department
> > conveniently forgot).
> > 
> > What would you say, for instance, if someone here in Caracas ventured
> > a similar proposal to "take out" Mr. Bush -assuredly a far greater
> > risk for all of us than President Chávez, if only because he has
> > control over thousands of nuclear warheads?
> > 
> > With all best wishes,
> > 
> > Julio
> > 
> > PS. Not a Chávez fan, by the way...
> > 
> > -- 
> > Be Happy! (Fr. Benito Ballesteros, OSB, 1924-1996)
> > Sé feliz! (P. Benito Ballesteros, OSB, 1924-1996)
> > --
> > An archive of all list discussion is available at
> > http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/
> > 
> > Visit the Walker Percy Project at http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy
> >  
> > --
> > An archive of all list discussion is available at
> > http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/
> > 
> > Visit the Walker Percy Project at http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy
> > 
> > 
> > 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Be Happy! (Fr. Benito Ballesteros, OSB, 1924-1996)
> Sé feliz! (P. Benito Ballesteros, OSB, 1924-1996)
> --
> An archive of all list discussion is available at
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/
> 
> Visit the Walker Percy Project at http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy
> 
> 
> ________________________________
> 
> 
> --
> An archive of all list discussion is available at
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/
> 
> Visit the Walker Percy Project at http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy
> 
> 
> 
> --
> An archive of all list discussion is available at
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/
> 
> Visit the Walker Percy Project at http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy
> 
> 
> 


-- 
Be Happy! (Fr. Benito Ballesteros, OSB, 1924-1996)
Sé feliz! (P. Benito Ballesteros, OSB, 1924-1996)