Nick Hamilton · 12 April 2003

I am not in agreement with the submitter. He has a right to be stupid, = and I will fight to the death for that right. But, after all is said, = he (or she) is still stupid.

Nick Hamilton

Patrick O'Dwyer · 13 April 2003

I am not in agreement with Mr. Hamilton

I do not think that Aseem Kaul is stupid

Nor do I think that Mr. Hamilton is stupid

I think that 41 million people without health insurance

in the worlds richest country is stupid,

I think that the promotion of Libya from the relegation zone

of evil countries after it signed an oil agreement

with Europe and America is stupid

I think that the destruction of Central America through

Dictatorships that were never a threat to Europe or America

was and is stupid

I think that the dismissal of anybody who criticises

America as anti American is stupid

I remember when we laughed at the Soviets

when they called their dissidents anti Soviet

I think that only criticising America and thinking

that Europe is always good is stupid

I think that George Bush and Henry Kissinger

are anti American

I think that Allen Ginsberg is a true American

I think that stupid is an ugly word

But I think that maybe I am the one who is stupid

Dan Pilkington · 14 April 2003

Ginsberg’s poem makes me feel bad for the endangered forests of the earth. Such a haunting juxtapositioning of nature with the awesome self-destructiveness of man.

I feel bad for conscripted Iraqi soldiers who had no real choice in the matter, but feel even worse that the coalition forces couldn’t take the time to protect the Baghdad Museum (5,000 years of human history) from looters.

To paraphrase Merwin, “when there are no relics, that will be our relic”.

Acynta · 20 April 2003

I feel bad for conscripted Iraqi soldiers who had no real choice in the matter, but feel even worse that the coalition forces couldn’t take the time to protect the Baghdad Museum (5,000 years of human history) from looters.

This comment reminded me of an old Linda Pastan poem from my fifth grade English class. I make no claims for its greatness, but it has stuck with me over the years:

ETHICS

In ethics class so many years ago
our teacher asked this question every fall:
if there were a fire in a museum
which would you save, a Rembrandt painting
or an old woman who hadn’t many
year left anyhow? Restless on hard chairs
caring little for picture or old age
we’d opt one year for life, the next for art
and always half-heartedly. Sometimes
the woman borrowed my grandmother’s face
leaving her usual kitchen to wander
some drafty, half-imagined museum.
One year, feeling clever, I replied
why not let the woman decide herself?
Linda, the teacher would report, eschews
the burdens of responsibility.

This fall in a real museum I stand
before a real Rembrandt, old woman,
or nearly so, myself. The colors
within this frame are darker than autumn,
darker even than winter–the browns of earth, though earth’s most radiant elements burn
through the canvas. I know now that woman
and painting and season are almost one
and all beyond saving by children.

Having done some work in archaeology myself, I’m consistently moved by what’s survived millenia. Painted caskets and door handles and coins dropped on roads. There’s rarely any gold left - that’s always plundered early on. What’s always seemed meaningful to me are the bits and pieces - a smashed pithos with a metal scoop still inside; a paved floor in an anteroom; the things with which humans construct their lives, rather than the things with which we adorn them. Of course art is important, and so is history. But people must always be more important, simply because there is no purpose to a painting if there is no one to look at it.

Also I like this poem because it taught me the meaning of the word “eschew”, which went on to be a particular favorite.

carlynn

Benjamin A. Okopnik · 20 April 2003

Hi, Martin -

As opposed to this war as I am, I REALLY do not think that anti-American ranting belongs on this list. Reading this, in this tense time, was rather like discovering a drunken imbecile staggering around with a torch in a powder magazine. I would certainly appreciate it if you would extinguish his flame.

Regards,
Ben Okopnik
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- For every disciplined effort, there are multiple rewards. – Jim Rohn

Patrick O'Dwyer · 20 April 2003

We have to watch what we say

So

I devised a rearview speech mirror

And affixed it to my skull

But no one wanted to talk with me

While I watched what I said

In despair I abandoned the act of speech

And devoted myself to a life of ..

{silence}

I am watching what you say too

So far I haven’t noticed anything new

–Gwendolyn Albert

Aseem_Kaul · 23 April 2003

Wow! talk about setting off a powder magazine.

First, a clarification - in my commentary I used the word American (simply out of convenience, and to go with the poem) to stand for the coalition of forces in Iraq and all those in the Western world that support them. My apologies therefore to (IMHO) right-thinking americans who are against the war. My apologies also to the UK and other countries that support this war that justly deserve the same criticism and didn’t get it!

Second, reading through the comments I’m less concerned by people calling me stupid (I did say arrogance, remember) and more by those who feel that this is not the right time to talk about this! I would think this is precisely the right time to talk about these issues - rather than waiting another 50 years and then looking them up in some history book as something no one cares about anymore. Or perhaps Mr Okopnik thinks that poetry isn’t the right forum to talk about ‘serious’ issues and that we should restrict ourselves to poems about flowers and hummingbirds. Or believes that if we all keep very quiet the war will go away and he won’t have to be against it anymore. If that’s being ‘sensible’ than I’d rather be drunk and imbecilic. And what’s more, having read Ginsberg, I don’t think he’d have a problem with burning torches near powder kegs. I think he’d enjoy throwing them in.

Aseem

M. McCrary · 24 February 2004

i can’t stand listening to a bunch of liberals. i am a conservative and i like George Bush for the most part. he is a man of morals and i think people in this country have lost their conscience. i support the war because it is the right thing to do. The War on terror is a just war and i support George Bush for taking a stand and protecting the common people.

Kyle M.

DrSlony · 23 March 2004

If indeed it was a war against terrorism, the aforementioned Dark Lord’s best move towards victory would be suicide.

Chellappa Mallika (Mallika) · 3 August 2006

Gosh - I wonder how I missed this exchange!

It’s a pity that one can’t have an honest opinion anymore without being lumped with this group or that. Even if that opinion turns out to be wrong, it is one’s right to hold it until one learns better.

So to some a bleeding lib is the worst thing to be.

Others live by the credo - “I don’t agree with your position, but I will fight to the death for your right to hold it”.

I always hark back to EM Forster’s words:
“If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country”

Laws and boundaries change, but some things are fundamental. The problem is we don’t agree on which!

Mallika