RE: [Futurework] Playing with fire

[Karen Watters Cole]

Title: RE: [Futurework] Playing with fire

Absolutely, Brian, we are forsaking a critical teachable element of culture by denying students of formative age the chance to learn Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar as well as Romeo and Juliet.  I’m thinking also thinking Dostoyevsky no later than 8th grade, and Don Quixote for 6th graders.  Perhaps the Texans who have seen or read about body parts falling from the sky this weekend will have a realistic if gruesome new appreciation for warfare.  We should.  High tech weapons still produce low tech dead body parts.    I am sorry that I did not elaborate on the Iraqi point of view (henceforth, POV) ie. their weariness and the rallying that will occur if and when they are attacked in their homeland.  I presumed that was understood, and regret that I did not elaborate for clarification.   In all honesty, comparisons to the guerrilla warfare in Vietnam and what has occurred in Iraq have limited application - so far.   There is an interesting social engineering article (you knew I had one) in today’s Washington post titled Stockpiling Popularity with Food that describes Hussein’s excellent distribution and databasing of the Iraqis for the long-term embargo rationing of food.  You can read it @ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16499-2003Feb2.html or check with me for a word version (4 pages), but they have a system in place.  Nevertheless, all it will take is taking down the computers and most of the population will be in distress within a month.  No telling what else we are capable of taking down, alone or in partnerships.   Also, I wouldn’t make too much the draping of a famous artwork depicting the chaos of war.  It is offensive to those of us who catch the symbolism but it’s probably not the domestic audience they are shielding but the overseas audience who may see only that segment on satellite TV and think all our buildings and art glorify war.  Of course some do, and some don’t.  Just like almost everyone else.    I am not a pacifist, but I will not support aggressive war.  I oppose this radical departure from previous stated and historical references.  A preemptive war will change the nature of what most Americans see as our national identity, the good guys who ride out to rescue those under attack.  Those polls showing that half of Americans support a war even without UN support are identifying everyone who just bought a shiny new car but didn’t read the fine print on their finance papers.  Bush will need to act before they do.  – Karen   At 9:29 AM -0800 2/3/03, Karen Watters Cole wrote: Americans are weary from economic loss and anxiety, still in shock from 9/11 and alarmed about further terrorism, more suspicious after corporate scandals, increasingly jealous of the vigor in the military-industrial-technology complex, while facing a dreary private and public work life as consumers in the cogs of the wheel of free market capitalism.   Hi Karen, I keep hearing and I believe I understand how Americans are feeling. Would it be fair to say that the Iraqi people are likely to be significantly more weary from economic loss and anxiety, still in shock from the gulf war and the sanctions and regular bombings since then and very alarmed about further terrorism (the pentagon's 'shock and awe' cruise missle attacks for day one of the pending war)... I think you get my point. Nel Noddings, a philosopher at Stanford University, wrote in an essay "Ethics and the Imagination" that the Arts, and literature in particular, should be taught in such a way as to have students be able to ask and feel what other people are going through. Perhaps that is why the UN in New York has covered Picasso's Guernica. (see my posting sent early this morning) They must not want any empathetic feelings being stirred as Powell beats the war drums on Wednesday.   Take care, Brian