I'MMA LET YOU FINISH
The title: "turning and turning in the widening gyre" -- isn't that in reference to a poem (the title escapes me)? Something about Spiritus Mundi in the desert and the coming of the apocalypse. Ring a bell for anyone? Was it Keats?
Anyway, it was a cool reference.
"...the falcon cannot hear the falconer..."
"...things fall apart...."
I read it in High School, I just forgot the name of the poem....
It was WBYeats: "The Second Coming"
The Second Coming -- W. B. Yeats
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
thanks everyone -- cool poem, isn't it?
If you want to cite a fucking Stalin apologist as an authority about anything, you may as well start citing David Duke, you fucking cunt.
Shaw - you left out a line:
"Dogs sleep with cats,"
Trash - you eat with that mouth?
The brownshirts get so cranky before their nap!
Yeas, cool poem.
I've always loved Shelley:
Ozymandias
I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read,
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed,
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Does man realize, at the end, that history will determine his worth?
The evil men do lives after them...
The evil that men do lives after them.
If you want to cite a fucking Stalin apologist as an authority about anything
When you're a facsist everyone sounds like a Stalin apologist.
Brash will work himself into a frenzy here, then go masturbate to photoshopped pictures of the Olson Twins, followed by a long nap.
You know, a typical Saturday for a Young Republican.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/...6/13/
2003055070
US voted out of human rights body in symbolic rebuke
NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE
Friday, Jun 13, 2003,Page 7
In a symbolic rebuke to the Bush administration, the member nations of the Organization of American States (OAS) have for the first time voted to exclude the US from representation on the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, considered the most prestigious human rights monitoring body in the Western Hemisphere.
The decision came at the end of the three-day annual assembly of the OAS, held this year in Santiago, Chile, and attended by Secretary of State Colin Powell. Addressing the conference on Monday, Powell sharply condemned a recent wave of executions and imprisonments in Cuba and urged the 34-member regional group to help "hasten the inevitable democratic transition in Cuba."
Thought this snippet at the end of the story was relevant.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/...6/13/
2003055070
US voted out of human rights body in symbolic rebuke
But the negative vote also reflected widespread doubts about the qualifications of the American candidate, Rafael "Ralph" Martinez.
"Clearly, the person they put forward, whatever his merits, did not have a very impressive background in human rights," said Michael Shifter, vice president for policy at Inter-American Dialogue, a research group in Washington.
Martinez's nomination, he added "showed not just a sort of indifference to a major regional political organization on the part of the administration, but also the growing distrust on the other side about what the US agenda and motives are."
http://reuters.com/
newsArticle.j...storyID=2929474
France Chides Washington Over 'My Way' World View
Sat June 14, 2003 01:28 PM ET
By Tim Hepher
PARIS (Reuters) - France's defense minister took a double swipe at the United States on Saturday, accusing her counterpart Donald Rumsfeld of American supremacism and U.S. industry of waging "economic war" on Europe.
Michele Alliot-Marie's remarks, in a newspaper interview, were the bluntest criticism of Washington by a French official since presidents Jacques Chirac and George W. Bush skirted around their differences on Iraq at a summit two weeks ago.
"The American Defense Secretary (Donald Rumsfeld) believes the United States is the only military, economic and financial power in the world. We do not share this vision," Alliot-Marie told Le Monde newspaper in the interview published on Saturday.
The suggestion of superpower arrogance comes days after Rumsfeld revisited the scene of recent bickering over France's opposition to the Iraq war by distinguishing between "old" and "new" Europe -- language which had infuriated Paris in January
.....
Alliot-Marie's remarks reflect a widely held view in France that Washington wants to be the sole referee on the world stage. In contrast, senior U.S. officials such as national security adviser Condoleezza Rice have questioned why France wants to counterbalance U.S. power.
I'm interested in the "militarisation" comment; I think we've undeniably seen an upswing in nationalism as a result of the war and the build-up to it; and while I agree that Americans might not be interested in running the world, as long as we're convinced that our failure to do so could result in another 9/11, we're easily pliable.
Brash, can you believe these people are so stupid they don't even know that Eric Hobsbawm is an unrepentant Stalinist and proud of it!?
You know, anyone, I mean anyone, who cannot appreciate William Butler Yeats, is not human.
Gil Smart - good point. That's the really scary part of this whole thing, how Bushco has used and continues to use 9/11 to sell this worldview. Fear is the name of their game.
I have reservations on Yeats as a man, but he's a great poet.
As someone who works in the field, Hobsbawm is a smart man and a good historian. That's a pretty incisive review from him.
From the
From the article on Hobsbawm:
The purpose of all Hobsbawm’s writing, indeed of his life, has been to certify the inevitable triumph of Communism. In the face of whatever might actually have been happening in the Soviet Union and its satellites, he devised reasons to justify or excuse the Communist Party right to its end—long after Russians themselves had realized that Communism had ruined morally and materially everybody and everything within its reach. He loves to describe himself as a professional historian, but someone who has steadily corrupted knowledge into propaganda, and scorns the concept of objective truth, is nothing of the kind, neither a historian nor professional.
And you cite this Stalinist's critique of America!? What's next from you idiots, David Duke on the Great Migration?
Fuck off, Brash. I was appreciating a great piece of literature....you know, some of us do that every once in a while -- you should try it.
Americans might not be interested in running the world, as long as we're convinced that our failure to do so could result in another 9/11
You're not convinced of that? Thank God GW Bush is running the country...er world, not you.
Has someone had WC locked in a closet since the 50's? I haven't noticed so much terror at the mere thought of the big C for maybe 40 years.
Tiernan (aka walter closet),
You must be a proud numbskull,eh?
known as a dipshit troll is a kind reward, eh?
I haven't noticed so much terror at the mere thought of the big C
The point, Tina, is that Hobsbawm is a completely discredited source to cite unless you are writing for the Workers World Daily...or if you're still getting protest info from the Stalinists who you marched with this spring to support keeping Saddam Hussein in power.
John Isbell - As for having reservations about Yeats as a man -
That's the problem with getting too familiar with artists' lives. Robert Frost was a miserable bastard who brow beat his wife and was generally unlikable. But his work stands by itself as transcendant. All great work does. Yeats wasn't so bad. And he is the greatest poet ever, IMO, although Seamus Heaney looks as though he may overtake him for that distinction.
Excuse the rantings of Brownshirt W... he hasn't had a good night's sleep in months, what with waking up every five minutes and checking under the bed for commies.
But he's drinking a lot of pure rain water and grain alcohol...
great poems. thanks to the people who posted them.
"Brash will work himself into a frenzy here, then go masturbate to photoshopped pictures of the Olson Twins, followed by a long nap."
Then it's off to the Saturday night Vast Right-Wing Circle Jerk at Uncle Walter's house...
I seem to recall from what I've read that Hitler roused the populace against the Jews by playing on the fear of communism, and by claiming that the Jews were communists. Nothing like a little red baiting to get a fascist's circulation revved up.
Funny how no one here is discussing the issues that Hobsbawm raised.
Maybe I shouldn't have used the Yeats headline.
As for Hobsbawm's past, whatever it is, you may have noted I quote from wingers at military.com too, since they have something to useful to say.
So -- do we have an empire? Do we want one? If we want one, how should we run it? Are Rummy and aWol doing a good job of it?
And so forth.
Sorry Lambert - you're right. We've been bad little Eschatonians. I don't want an empire - I think they make for bad governments and a lot of rationalising of bad policy. And they always crumble or explode. Best to mind one's own house and try to do it as well as possible.
"I seem to recall from what I've read that Hitler roused the populace against the Jews by playing on the fear of communism, and by claiming that the Jews were communists. Nothing like a little red baiting to get a fascist's circulation revved up."
Oddly enough, I've seen some rabid anti-communist postings to rense.com. Like McCarthy was proven right.
I gather Andy Rooney did a so-the-fuck-what-that-i-am-a-greedy-american-
bastard
rant on a recent 60 minutes.
Are we even capable of empire, at this point? Maybe empire-by-proxy, or empire in absentia. But a true empire, where the U.S. direct provenance over widespread territory? I don't think we have the wallet or the stomach for it.
All Eschatonians are good Eschatonians!
Lots of ranting these days, it seems. People have kind of gone off the deep end - I wonder why? Lots of truly absurd notions floating around. Lots of strum und drang and nothing behind it, and a lot of people who have ceased to trust their own eyes and ears.
Lambert - I'm not sure that we have an empire right now. I think that Bushco wants one. As Hobsbawm points out, we've had satellites, but that isn't exactly the same thing. Look what trying to maintain an empire did to the USSR. It just can't be done. It always fails. It doesn't necessarily mean the demise of the mother country, obviously. But it doesn't do the mother country any good in the end, either.
Dixie Chicks
Goodbye Earl
Mary Anne and Wanda were the best of friends
All through their high school days
Both members of the 4H Club
Both active in the FFA
After graduation Mary Anne went out lookin'
for a bright new world
Wanda looked all around this town
and all she found was Earl
Well it wasn't two weeks
after she got married that
Wanda started gettin' abused
She put on dark glasses and long sleeved blouses
And make-up to cover a bruise
Well she finally got the nerve to file for divorce
She let the law take it from there
But Earl walked right through that restraining order
And put her in intensive care
Right away Mary Anne flew in from Atalnta
On a red eye midnight flight
She held Wanda's hand as they
worked out a plan
And it didn't take long to decided
That Earl had to die
Goodbye Earl
Those black-eyed peas
They tasted all right to me Earl
You're feeling weak
Why don't you lay down
and sleep Earl
Ain't it dark
Wrapped up in that tarp Earl
The cops came to bring Earl in
They searched the house
high and low
Then they tipped their hats
and said "Thank You ladies
if you hear from him let us know"
Well the weeks went by and
Spring turned to Summer
And Summer faded into Fall
And it turns out he was a missing person
who nobody missed al all
So the girls bouth some land
and a roadside stand
Out on Highway 109
They sell Tennessee ham
and strawberry jame
And they don't
lose any sleep at night 'cause
Earl had to die
Goodbye Earl
We need a break
Let's go out to the lake Earl
We'll pack a lunch
And stuff you in the trunk Earl
Well is that all right
Good Let's go for a ride
Earl hey
Dixie Chicks
Goodbye Earl
Mary Anne and Wanda were the best of friends
All through their high school days
Both members of the 4H Club
Both active in the FFA
After graduation Mary Anne went out lookin'
for a bright new world
Wanda looked all around this town
and all she found was Earl
Well it wasn't two weeks
after she got married that
Wanda started gettin' abused
She put on dark glasses and long sleeved blouses
And make-up to cover a bruise
Well she finally got the nerve to file for divorce
She let the law take it from there
But Earl walked right through that restraining order
And put her in intensive care
Right away Mary Anne flew in from Atalnta
On a red eye midnight flight
She held Wanda's hand as they
worked out a plan
And it didn't take long to decided
That Earl had to die
Goodbye Earl
Those black-eyed peas
They tasted all right to me Earl
You're feeling weak
Why don't you lay down
and sleep Earl
Ain't it dark
Wrapped up in that tarp Earl
The cops came to bring Earl in
They searched the house
high and low
Then they tipped their hats
and said "Thank You ladies
if you hear from him let us know"
Well the weeks went by and
Spring turned to Summer
And Summer faded into Fall
And it turns out he was a missing person
who nobody missed al all
So the girls bouth some land
and a roadside stand
Out on Highway 109
They sell Tennessee ham
and strawberry jame
And they don't
lose any sleep at night 'cause
Earl had to die
Goodbye Earl
We need a break
Let's go out to the lake Earl
We'll pack a lunch
And stuff you in the trunk Earl
Well is that all right
Good Let's go for a ride
Earl hey
Lambert - "All Eschatonians are good Eschatonians" -
Thanks, and thank you so much for your great posts while Atrios has been gone. You and Leah and farmer and everyone have been fabulous. Really.
Brash, can you believe these people are so stupid they don't even know that Eric Hobsbawm is an unrepentant Stalinist and proud of it!?
Ya know Walter (and [T]rash), using an unrepententantly right-wing journal of opinion as your standard bearer for fact might not be the best way to convince anyone. About the merits or lack of them of Hobsbawm's thinking. Or anything else.
F'rinstance, just to put the boot on the other foot for a moment--would you care what the Nation had to say about Bill Buckley? Would you lend it much credence?
Try to come here with facts, not opinion, next time, if you care to actually change minds, and not just troll.
(s) The always off-topic
"Try to come here with facts, not opinion, next time, if you care to actually change minds, and not just troll."
You might want to add "the incredibly hilarious" to your sign off, Doc....
Ahh yes, from that article on Hobsbawm, the very first lines state;
"Eric Hobsbawm is no doubt intelligent and industrious, and he might well have made a notable contribution as a historian. Unfortunately, lifelong devotion to Communism destroyed him as a thinker or interpreter of events. Such original work as he did concerned bandits and outlaws. "
Now then Walter, I think we can safely assume you've never been trained in the use and evaluation of source material (I suspect your education mainly consists of biology, in particular the study of the republican anal tracts via the inserting of one's head), but if an article starts with those kind of lines, then an intelligent researcher would automatically spot that there is a distinct negative bias involved here... Not you of course, because you are dumb as fuck, but intelligent people would already be evaluating just how seriously we can take the rest of that article.
Here is a more sympathetic slant from the Guardian;
http://education.guardian.co.uk/
...,791760,00.html
We could attempt to compare the two perspectives now, but I don't need to tell my fellow posters here that; Let's be frank, I post it just to get Walter shouting about Stalinism again... Hey Walter! We European's LIKE unreconstructed lefties! Hobsbawm had quite a career in England, didn't he? And did more with his life than you can ever hope to achieve too... Go on Walter, dance your angry little commie-hating dance for us again; won't change a damn thing, Hobsbawm's already had a career as an extremely influential historian, the Guardian is still printing supportive pieces on him, making a new generation of lefties... and your beloved Administration is fucking up beyond all measure in Iraq, and you know it. Go on! Dance, muppet! DANCE FOR YOUR INTELLECTUAL SUPERIORS! Ha ha ha haaaaaa
I'm not sure about it, but Auden wrote a lovely poem about Yeats-the-poet-and-Yeats-The-Man when WBY died. It talks about time pardoning people for their sins, and it ends, I think...
"And will pardon Paul Claudel/ Pardon him for writing well."
Hitchens used to quote this poem a lot, back in the days before he was abducted and replaced with the alien pod.
I'm not sure about it, but Auden wrote a lovely poem about Yeats-the-poet-and-Yeats-The-Man when WBY died. It talks about time pardoning people for their sins, and it ends, I think...
"And will pardon Paul Claudel/ Pardon him for writing well."
Hitchens used to quote this poem a lot, back in the days before he was abducted and replaced with the alien pod.
"You were silly like us; your gift survived it all" ....
In Memory of W. B. Yeats d. Jan. 1939
1
He disappeared in the dead of winter:
The brooks were frozen, the airports almost deserted,
And snow disfigured the public statues;
The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day.
0 all the instruments agree
The day of his death was a dark cold day.
Far from his illness
The wolves ran on through the evergreen forests,
The peasant river was untempted by the fashionable quays;
By mourning tongues
The death of the poet was kept from his poems.
But for him it was his last afternoon as himself,
An afternoon of nurses and rumours;
The provinces of his body revolted,
The squares of his mind were empty,
Silence invaded the suburbs,
The current of his feeling failed: he became his admirers.
Now he is scattered among a hundred cities
And wholly given over to unfamiliar affections;
To find his happiness in another kind of wood
And be punished under a foreign code of conscience.
The words of a dead man
Are modified in the guts of the living.
But in the importance and noise of tomorrow
When the brokers are roaring like beasts on the floor of the Bourse,
And the poor have the sufferings to which they are fairly accustomed,
And each in the cell of himself is almost convinced of his freedom;
A few thousand will think of this day
As one thinks of a day when one did something slightly unusual.
0 all the instruments agree
The day of his death was a dark cold day.
2
You were silly like us: your gift survived it all;
The parish of rich women, physical decay,
Yourself; mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.
Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still,
For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives
In the valley of its saying where executives
Would never want to tamper; it flows south
From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs,
Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives,
A way of happening, a mouth.
3
Earth, receive an honoured guest;
William Yeats is laid to rest;
Let the Irish vessel lie
Emptied of its poetry.
Time that is intolerant
Of the brave and innocent,
And indifferent in a week
To a beautiful physique,
Worships language and forgives
Everyone by whom it lives;
Pardons cowardice, conceit,
Lays its honours at their feet.
Time that with this strange excuse
Pardoned Kipling and his views,
And will pardon Paul Claudel,
Pardons him for writing well.
In the nightmare of the dark
All the gods of Europe bark,
And the living nations wait,
Each sequestered in its hate;
Intellectual disgrace
Stares from every human face,
And the seas of pity lie
Locked and frozen in each eye.
Follow, poet, follow right
To the bottom of the night,
With your unconstraining voice
Still persuade us to rejoice;
With the farming of a v
With the farming of a verse
Make a vineyard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress;
In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountain start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.
Hitchens used to quote this poem a lot, back in the days before he was abducted and replaced with the alien pod.
There someone goes mentioning Christopher Hitchens again, that Stalinist apologist.
Oh, wait...
That Auden poem is so fucking amazing. My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness fills my brain, as though of hemlock I had drunk. Good poetry does that to me.
Thanks, Shaw.
I have to say I also liked "Dance for your intellectual superiors." There's nothing like crushing elitist put-downs.
Shaw - thank you so much. I don't have any of my poetry books up here and I really feel their absence, like water or air. Thank you.
"And we have all bent low and low
and kissed the quiet feet
of Kathleen, the dauther of Houlihan."
WB Yeats - Kathleen ni Houlihan
Characters Remaining:
Commenting by HaloScan
