[PEN-L:6151] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: A note of thanks to all

["Henry C.K. Liu" <hliu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

In posting to lists written in English and populated predominantly by Americans, I
often have to remind myself of American/English-speaking cultural and language
imperialism.
American humor is generally built on crude personal taunting, making fun with
people's names, appearances and non-Americaness and above all equating violence
with fun.  One can see that in American cartoons in which laughter is sought by
having a character beaten up, blown to pieces or endure bloody accidents.

For example:

Max Sawicky wrote:

> To H:
>
> Economizing on keystrokes:
> Henry, C. if you can get a K.Liu.

I fail to see the humor in that.

I suspect American's can see humor in cilivians getting killed because modern
warfare in which civilians are the targets have yet to appear in America except on
TV screens.  Americans love WWII movies because to them such movies are
entertainment no different than a football game.  Most Europeans and Asians who
have lived through the horror of war as helpless civilians take a very different
view.

Two misguided teenagers killing 12 people shocked America to its roots.
A few days ago, I posted on another list the following:

For a brief moment, I am caught involuntarily with an insight of irony on how the
despicable savagery of murder on an individual scale can be transformed into the
nobility of military glory through mass slaughter in the name of organized
warfare.
Civilization does not deliver man from evil.  It merely makes evil
tolerable through the development of detached technological style and dubious high
purpose.
Apparently, criminality declines with the escalation of scale, diminishes with the
intensification of violence and vanishes with the wholesale rationalization of
moral justice.
It is plain wrong to save a person by shooting him/her, just as it is
wrong to save a country by bombing it.

Violence does not occur in isolation.  It is part of the culture.  Just like the
drug scene, America will finally wake up to its destructiveness when it hits the
suburban White middle class.

Henry C.K. Liu

Go ahead, make fun of that.

Henry

>Charles Brown wrote:
>
>> Jennifer and Wojtek took some of the words right out of my mouth. It
is
not farfetched to speculate that the high school students who committed this
genocidal assault were triggered or psychically released in some sense to do
this by the example of Clinton seeking to resolve conflict in Iraq and
Yugoslavia with guns and not words.
>>
>> The other bourgeois right and liberty implicated in what one report
says
was murders targetting Black students or other students of color by
race/nationality is the nurturing and fomenting of racist murder by fascist
racist organizations protected by the  U.S. First Amendment freedom of
speech
and assembly. What are the probabilities that these Denver students are
plugged into racist fascist cyberspace ?
>>
>> To paraphrase what I said in an article "For Outlawing Fascistic
Racist
Speech", (_Crossroads_ Dec/Jan 1993) those liberals ,left-liberals and civil
libertarian absolutists who defend fascistic racist speech and organization
fail to address or discuss the harm that acutally existing fascistic racist
organizations do in non-fascist, capitalist countries, especially the U.S.
They do not compare this harm, including to freedom of speech of
individuals
in groups targetted by the KKK/Nazi types, with their speculation about the
indirect harm to non-fascists of outlawing fascistic racist speech and
organization.. Assume for argument that the liberals and absolute civil
libertarians are correct: outlawing fascist racist speech also results in a
crackdown on the left, the advent of a new McCarthyism, a horrendous
assault
on the First Amendment (freedom of speech, assembly and "thought") of
communists, socialists and left liberals. They do not compare this harm with
the ongoing moder!
>n !
>> form of lynching which is racist and anti-gay murders, regularly
perpetrated by the KKK, neo-Nazis, Aryan Nation and
independent/libertarianist violent racists. This includes many cases of
police murder and brutality because many police departments have secret
KKK
and Nazi members, like Mark Fuhrman from the O.J. Simpson saga. This
includes
the murder of Martin Luther King, which the KKK no doubt organized. The
tolerance of genocidal fascist organization and culture chills all of the
civil liberties and rights  of the target groups of genocidal fascists, who
serve as privatized members of the repressive apparatus of the capitalsit
regime. The civil libertarian freedom of speech absolutists are not concerned
about these civil liberties and rights. For them the freedom of speech is a
higher civil liberty and right than freedom from organization of genocidal
and homophobic murder and terror. Fortunately, there is the possibility of
outlawing fascistic racism without a new McCar!
>th!
>> yism. But if that were the price, are we certain we shouldn't pay
>> ideological priority of the struggle against advocacy and oraganization
fo
racist and homophobic murder and terror.
>>
>> Outlaw the KKK and Nazis !
>>
>> Charles Brown
>>
>> >>> Wojtek Sokolowski <sokol@xxxxxxx> 04/21/99 10:42AM >>>
>> At 03:17 AM 4/21/99 -0500, Jennifer wrote:
>> >
>>
>> >I had to choke when president Clinton said in response to the
tradegy
that
>> >we simply must teach our children that conflict should be resolved
with
>> >words not guns.
>> >
>>
>> You are absolutely right. The criminologist Dane Archer (_Violence
and
>> Crime in Cross-National Perspective_, New Haven: Yale U Press,
1984) notes
>> upsurges of violent crimes in the aftermath of wars and armed
conflits
>> among nations.  That tendencey is especially pronounced in victorious
>> nations.  He explains that government use of violence legitimizes it, in
>> eyes of citizens, as a means of conflict resolutions.
>>
>> Our fearless leader has been using violence very casually, unleashing
>> cruise missiles and bombers on pharmaceutical plants, trains, and
refugee
>> convoys each time his popularity is threatened.  So it should not be
very
>> surprising  that a few deranged kids followed his footsteps and went
ona
>> shooting spree to boost their own dwindling popularity.  What else can
you
>> expect from the deadly combination of alienation caused by suburban
living,
>> and infatuation with violence and celebrity cult that permeates pop
culture?
>>
>> Talking about gun control in this context is changing the subject.
Both
>> liberals and NRA-types view guns as fetishes which can destroy or
save our
>> society while ignoring social conditions that encourage violence.
>>
>> BTW, NRA is a living proof of a deadly attraction between guns and
>> psychopaths.  Ordinary criminals appear are paragons of
purpose-rationality
>> vis a vis NRA crazies.  It is not criminals with guns that I fear, but the
>> law abiding NRA psychopaths.
>>
>> Wojtek
>






Thomas Kruse wrote:

> At 10:27 PM 28/04/99 -0400, you wrote:
> >I never once attacked Max personally for taking a position I disagree
> with, much
> >less accused him of being evil.
> >Read my post.  Max was not mentioned.
> >I stand behind every word in my post.
> >Innocent people are getting killed.
> >The bombing attacks are evil (my opinion but I even allowed in my post
> that an
> >opposite opinion exists).
> >Humor is not redeeming in supporting evil (be it for or against bombing).  It
> >merely trivializes.
> >However, personally speaking, Max would have to "forgive his weird take on
> the
> >war" himself.
>
> Can I insert an observation on culture here?  In Nicaragua, in the midst of
> the war, humor was absolutely central to exchanges between Nicaraguans in
> the thick of it; the narrative mode and medium through which things were
> chewed over, questioned, explianed, criticized, accepted, etc.
>
> Here in Bolivia, however, the use of humor in considering serious stuff
> like labor history, violence and death, etc., almost always falls flat
> among those "in the thick of it".  For example, at union meetings,
> teach-ins, etc. there is always an intervention from somone in a
> testimonial mode, reminding people of sacrifices made, for example,
> invoking the massacres of the 1940s as the "price paid" for the labor
> legissaltion now on the books.  Often these testimonials are very moving,
> and long, and NO ONE interrupts.  In short, humor here would be totally
> inappropriate, disrespectful.
>
> On the other hand, I find that in academic-ish US culture (like this list)
> humor is ubiquitous and often quite healthy.  Yet sometimes, upon returning
> to the US -- or just downloading email -- I am sometimes blown away by how
> horrific events can be addressed in a humorous mode; I guess I'm not used
> to it anymore.  But I see this more as a reflection of the (cultrally
> sepcific) discursive currency in ciruculation, and not a problem of morally
> irresponsible speakers.
>
> Tom
>
> Tom Kruse
> Casilla 5812 / Cochabamba, Bolivia
> Tel/Fax: (591-4) 248242, 500849
> Email: tkruse@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx