Avert Your Gaze

Stanley Crouch writes:
"One thing we can be sure of is that the sort of hysteria we find very common in Muslim countries will not take place in America or in England. We have both exhibited as much violent hysteria as possible in our separate pasts, but seem to have evolved beyond the primitive levels of violent outbursts at those whose only crime is being a symbol of a hidden threat. There will be no Muslim businesses burned, no Muslims burned alive before cheering crowds, no retaliatory murders of noncombatants."

And absolutely, in no circumstances whatsoever, would we invade a country that had nothing whatsoever to do with any terrorist attack on the US and Britain, murder over 100,000 of its noncombatant residents, and randomly grab its people off the street, stick them in prison without charge, and torture them because they are "a symbol of a hidden threat." Nope, we have evolved way beyond that level.

Comments

  1. Anonymous4:59 PM

    Gene has it right on the nose. If anything,
    we have "evolved" into something worse,
    for although burning a person at the
    stake was cruel, at least the cruelty
    was selective.

    Now we bomb the home of a child, kill both
    of his parents and burn his arms off. And
    keep on doing it. Our means have evolved;
    our leadership has degenerated. And has
    taken too many of us with it.

    Jack Dennon
    jdennon@seasurf.com

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous2:33 AM

    Gene, maybe Stanley Crouch is talking about some other country, not US or UK. Maybe a different species even. Or an altogether different plant! He sure doesn't live in my world.

    Cheers!

    ReplyDelete
  3. In fact, I believe that essentially the same impulse takes on different forms depending on the political circumstances in which it arises: if one is a citizen of a "weak" nation, one has to blow up objectionable foreigners for oneself, while the citizens of powerful states can rely on their government to do it for them.

    ReplyDelete

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