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Post 0

Monday, October 22, 2007 - 6:05pmSanction this postReply
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I saw this headline come over the AP wire last night.  I couldn't bare to read the article.  Yuck.

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Post 1

Tuesday, October 23, 2007 - 12:04amSanction this postReply
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Context is everything.

"Do you know what people forget? That the IRA attacked with bombs against our government; it killed several people while a Conservative congress was being held and in which the prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, was (attending). People forget," she said.

Nearly 3,000 people were killed in the Sept. 11 attacks. About 3,700 died and tens of thousands of people were maimed in more than 30 years of violence in Northern Ireland. The Irish Republican Army guerrilla group, which caused most of the deaths, disarmed in 2005.
It is easy to condemn islamo-fascists and to ridicule a culture where women cover themselves, rather than uncover themselves.  Here in Ann Arbor, I think it is pretty revealing (!) to see a nun and a muslim come out of a classroon together.  Even the rosary was imported to Europe from islamic contacts. Yet, where on RoR or within Objectivism do we find ringing condemnations of Christianity, Catholicism and the terrorism carried out by Irish nationalists?  

My daughter is bartender.  She has a pretty good story about someone really from Ireland crying in his beer on St. Patrick's Day, surrounded by people who momentarily glorify an Irish ancestor... whether they actually have one or not.  So, no one gets very far here in America condemning the IRA.  Riverdance and Enya empower the IRA in America.  Of course, it is easy to identify with their struggle against English imperialism, but the cases are no more consonant than the American and French revolutions.  Colonial Americans wanted only their rights as Englishmen.  Read the English Bill of Rights of 1688.  What does the IRA want -- and how did they seek to achieve it?

For Objectivists, the IRA and Ireland should be perfect targest: torn between Marxists and Catholics.  Nationalism is collectivism. I need say nothing here about Marxism.  I point out, however, that the Palestinian situation is almost perfectly parallel, as "Arab nationalists" are divided between Marxism and Islam.

What kind of a nation is Ireland? "Abortion is effectively illegal in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland." (WIkipedia) So, basically, among other agenda items, the IRA killed 3700 people for the right to keep abortion illegal.

I do not think that the IRA is "worse" than Al Qaeda (except in the arithmetic of murder) but they are surely equivalent in mysticism, altruism, collectivism, and terrorism.   

As for Lessing herself, I have no judgment.  She was a Marxist, married to an East German diplomat, and dabbled with Sufism.  That she is a mixed bag of contradictions (most of them bad) is not surprising since most people seem to be that.  Yet, within that roil of internal denials are some gems.
What the feminists want of me is something they haven't examined because it comes from religion. They want me to bear witness. What they would really like me to say is, 'Ha, sisters, I stand with you side by side in your struggle toward the golden dawn where all those beastly men are no more.' Do they really want people to make oversimplified statements about men and women? In fact, they do. I've come with great regret to this conclusion.
– Doris Lessing, The New York Times, 25 July 1982
She also writes science fiction. 


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Post 2

Tuesday, October 23, 2007 - 6:11amSanction this postReply
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What Michael said.

While I don't necessarily agree with everything the woman says, she calls 'em as she sees 'em -- without pulling any punches. For instance, here she is on A-jad (from the article) ...

"I hate Iran, I hate the Iranian government, it's a cruel and evil government," she was quoted as saying.

"Look what happened to its president in New York, they called him evil and cruel in Columbia University. Marvelous! They should have said more to him! Nobody criticizes him, because of oil."
I'm enamored by her words here. And what can I say about that? Well, I guess I just have 'a thing' for authentic women.

Ed


Post 3

Wednesday, October 24, 2007 - 12:51pmSanction this postReply
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     As with Ed, I'll give Doris her due respect in that she 'calls 'em as she sees 'em.'

     However, to compare One stupendous initiated-attack in the US whose death-numbers match the Mucho-Decades attacks by the IRA in GB in terms of horribleness, knowing that that's not the end of it yet for the US? --- I think she yet needs to learn how to use a bit of a sense-of-proportion  in comparing here. How about comparing one attack of one to another? (I'm surprised she didn't bring up Hiroshima.)

LLAP
J:D 


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Post 4

Wednesday, October 24, 2007 - 12:57pmSanction this postReply
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~ When the Muslim terrorists disband as the IRA has, and our attackers have stopped, then let's proportionately compare totals to totals (plus our military); until then, 'not as bad as' is a bit ignorantly a phrase to use.
~ Besides, are number-comparisons even relevent here? I think not.--- I find the 'reasons' for the fighting more relevent: Even the IRA had an understandable 'rationale' about their fighting: it came out to "Leave us alone, or else!"
~ The Muslim fundies' is "Accept our rule, or else."
~ THIS difference is what makes Sept-11 more horrible; the latter is no different in intent than other 'empire'-maker wannabes in our history...but this time they reached American soil.

LLAP
J:D 

(Edited by John Dailey on 10/24, 1:09pm)


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Post 5

Wednesday, October 24, 2007 - 7:54pmSanction this postReply
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And to add to that John, Americans have been killed by Islamo-Facist scum for almost 30 years. She and many others act as if 9/11 was the only time America was attacked by Islamists. It took 9/11 for America to finally react but it was by no means the first attack.

Post 6

Thursday, October 25, 2007 - 5:39pmSanction this postReply
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Make that: more than 200 years. See Jefferson's Report Concerning the Barbary Pirates

and

America and the Barbary Pirates: An International Battle Against an Unconventional Foe

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Post 7

Friday, October 26, 2007 - 10:23pmSanction this postReply
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Granted they blew it on the peace prize; surprise! But the Nobel committee has been pretty good in awarding its prize for literature. I find Doris Lessing to be a fine writer; "Descent into Hell" and "The Summer before the Darkness" are both excellent books dealing with neuroses and madness. Laure, do you object to Doris Lessing's politics, or her writings?
(Edited by Rufus Robertson on 10/27, 5:56am)


Post 8

Saturday, October 27, 2007 - 11:04amSanction this postReply
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I was only able to make it through about 40 pages of a Lessing novel before I tossed it away. Given the state of the arts today, sadly, I'm not surprised that Lessing's pulp was awarded a Nobel Prize in literature.

K


Post 9

Sunday, October 28, 2007 - 11:22amSanction this postReply
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Laure, do you object to Doris Lessing's politics, or her writings?


Just her politics; I don't think I've read any of her work.  Wasn't the literature winner last year also anti-war/anti-Bush/anti-Blair?

*edit* I was thinking of Harold Pinter, 2005 winner.


(Edited by Laure Chipman on 10/28, 11:31am)


Post 10

Wednesday, October 31, 2007 - 12:20pmSanction this postReply
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I was assigned a Lessing novel in 1988 "Honors" English.  It had something to do with a woman wandering through an empty landscape of partial buildings with an eerie wind blowing through them, as if it were a dream,m or a post-nuclear holocaust vision, or some sort of private psychosis.  The story was meaningless, but the writing was crisp and attractively visual.  I always wondered if she ever wrote anything actually worth reading, but I've damn little incentive to find out.

Ted


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