My War

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Damnit! We'd never be able to guess either. That's a real pisser Rog.

I didn't write the book, I just enforce it.

[Genocide Device]

It's been my experience that ignorant people won't respond to anything, even violence.  The only seemingly logical options are to kill them, imprison them or accept them.  None of which will further the war.  The first to options makes you one of them, the last option makes you apathetic.

The only option I've ever seen work is to get involved personally, infiltrate and rewire the hard drive.  In this instance, push them out of governement in favor of greater acceptance, which, unfortunatley woud include them.

It's a lovely catch 22.  I always have to wonder how people with such limiting beliefs manage to achieve so much.  It makes me think I'm doing something wrong.

Indeed, you try to reason with the opposition and they get indignant.  You try to yell at them, they yell back.  You bring reason, they bring lies.  I gave up,Ķ I just hit them nowadays then run before the cops show up.

You can,Äôt change a mind that,Äôs happy being a bigot,Ķ you can simply prevent that mind from influencing others.

[Lies]

Yeah, I completely understand where you are coming from Hunter.
Myself, I am poet, but to me, poetry in motion is a brick going through a bank window.

Hell, war itself is an act of poetry.
The art of war by Sun-tsu Prooves this.

[Jenne]

Well, Hunter...this is the very subject that got me and my husband flown to Oprah in late Sept of '01.  You see, well, I'm married to an Afghan Muslim, and after 9/11, I was told by my own relatives to not go out and about and do my shopping or whatnot for fear of being beaten or attacked like the Iranian gas station owner down the street.  (ETA: tho we were taken to the show, my husband only ended up on the after show parts b/c Jesse Jackson took up too much time during the live taping)

I don't look Muslim (I'm not, though I do look "ethnic" as "white folks" around here call it, esp when I stand next to my husband--funny how "guilt by association" works in peoples' minds), and no one knows what my married name is, so I didn't hide in fear as my family wanted.  I will, however, fight tooth and nail when I see and hear bigotry against Muslims in general.  It's so pervasive in our popular culture, that it's REALLY tough to defeat.

But it's like anything else, really, that's considered "other" in society.  We see it with the Latino cultures here...they are discriminated against left and right, and they are heralded as the worst of the worst, when they are really the best of what we have around here (I'm in San Diego).  But they are feared because they are cohesive and pervasive.  They got it goin' on.  That scares folks who should know better and should be more secure in what they already got.

And that's the crux of it, to me.  It's fear.  It's not knowing who your neighbor is so shoot first, ask questions later.  Fear stems from ignorance, and this is what I always come back to.

I fear for my kids, being half-Afghan.  But then I also know that I'm raising them WITHOUT that same fear, so they will be ok.  My kids are pretty well color-blind and religiously blind as well.  But socially aware.  I hope that stays with them all their lives, I truly do.  I make sacrifices on their behalf to keep this going.

It's a war I've been in without even knowing I was fighting, til it was too late and there I was right smack dab in the middle of it.

[Triple Zero]

Hell, war itself is an act of poetry.
The art of war by Sun-tsu Prooves this.

nononono it doesn't "prove" this.

because the art of war is a book.

and a war is a thing in which lots of really real people die and it's ugly and messy and books get burned and poets raped.

and yes, you can write about war, you can make a movie about it, which can be poetry. but war "itself" isn't.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Hell, war itself is an act of poetry.
The art of war by Sun-tsu Prooves this.

nononono it doesn't "prove" this.

because the art of war is a book.

and a war is a thing in which lots of really real people die and it's ugly and messy and books get burned and poets raped.

and yes, you can write about war, you can make a movie about it, which can be poetry. but war "itself" isn't.

Yep.  Let's take a closer look at that:

Litany for Dictatorships
A poem by Stephen Vincent Benet


For all those beaten, for the broken heads,
The fosterless, the simple, the oppressed,
The ghosts in the burning city of our time,Ķ

For those taken in rapid cars to the house and beaten
By the skillful boys with the rubber fists,
-Held down and beaten, the table cutting the loins
Or kicked in the groin and left, with the muscles jerking
Like a headless hen's on the floor of the slaughter-house
While they brought the next man in with his white eyes staring.
For those who still said "Red Front" or "God save the Crown!"
And for those who were not courageous
But were beaten nevertheless.
For those who spit out the bloody stumps of their teeth
      Quietly in the hall,
Sleep well on stone or iron, watch for the time
And kill the guard in the privy before they die,
Those with the deep-socketed eyes and the lamp burning.

For those who carry the scars, who walk lame - for those
Whose nameless graves are made in the prison-yard
And the earth smoothed back before the morning and the lime scattered.

For those slain at once.
For those living through the months and years
Enduring, watching, hoping, going each day
To the work or the queue for meat or the secret club,
Living meanwhile, begetting children, smuggling guns,
And found and killed at the end like rats in a drain.

For those escaping
Incredibly into exile and wandering there.
For those who live in the small rooms of foreign cities
And who yet think of the country, the long green grass,
The childhood voices, the language, the way wind smelt then,
The shape of rooms, the coffee drunk at the table,
The talk with friends, the loved city, the waiter's face,
The gravestones, with the name, where they will not lie
Nor in any of that earth.
Their children are strangers.

For those who planned and were leaders and were beaten
And for those, humble and stupid, who had no plan
But were denounced, but were angry, but told a joke,
But could not explain, but were sent away to the camp,
But had their bodies shipped back in the sealed coffins,
"Died of pneumonia." "Died trying to escape."

For those growers of wheat who were shot by their own wheat-stacks,
For those growers of bread who were sent to the ice-locked wastes.
And their flesh remembers the fields.

For those denounced by their smug, horrible children
For a peppermint-star and the praise of the Perfect State,
For all those strangled, gelded or merely starved
To make perfect states; for the priest hanged in his cassock,
The Jew with his chest crushed in and his eyes dying,
The revolutionist lynched by the private guards
To make perfect states, in the names of the perfect states.

For those betrayed by the neigbours they shook hands with
And for the traitors, sitting in the hard chair
With the loose sweat crawling their hair and their fingers restless
As they tell the street and the house and the man's name.
And for those sitting at the table in the house
With the lamp lit and the plates and the smell of food,
Talking so quietly; when they hear the cars
And the knock at the door, and they look at each other quickly
And the woman goes to the door with a stiff face,
      Smoothing her dress.
"We are all good citizens here. We believe in the Perfect State."

And that was the last time Tony or Karl or Shorty came to the house
And the family was liquidated later.
It was the last time.
We heard the shots in the night
But nobody knew next day what the trouble was
And a man must go to his work.
So I didn't see him
For three days, then, and me near out of my mind
And all the patrols on the streets with their dirty guns
And when he came back, he looked drunk, and the blood was on him.

For the women who mourn their dead in the secret night,
For the children taught to keep quiet, the old children,
The children spat-on at school.
For the wrecked laboratory,
The gutted house, the dunged picture, the pissed-in well
The naked corpse of Knowledge flung in the square
And no man lifting a hand and no man speaking.

For the cold of the pistol-butt and the bullet's heat,
For the ropes that choke, the manacles that bind,
The huge voice, metal, that lies from a thousand tubes
And the stuttering machine-gun that answers all.

For the man crucified on the crossed machine guns
Without name, without ressurection, without stars,
His dark head heavy with death and his flesh long sour
With the smell of his many prisons - John Smith, John Doe,
John Nobody - oh, crack your mind for his name!
Faceless as water, naked as the dust,
Dishonored as the earth the gas-shells poison
And barbarous with portent.
      This is he.
This is the man they ate at the green table
Putting their gloves on ere they touched the meat.
This is the fruit of war, the fruit of peace,
The ripeness of invention, the new lamb,
The answer to the wisdom of the wise.
And still he hangs, and still he will not die
And still, on the steel city of our years
The light falls and the terrible blood streams down.

We thought we were done with these things but we were wrong.
We thought, because we had power, we had wisdom.
We thought the long train would run to the end of Time.
We thought the light would increase.
Now the long train stands derailed and the bandits loot it.
Now the boar and the asp have power in our time.
Now the night rolls back on the West and the night is solid.
Our fathers and ourselves sowed dragon's teeth.

Our children know and suffer the armed men.

[Lies]

Hell, war itself is an act of poetry.
The art of war by Sun-tsu Prooves this.

nononono it doesn't "prove" this.

because the art of war is a book.

and a war is a thing in which lots of really real people die and it's ugly and messy and books get burned and poets raped.

and yes, you can write about war, you can make a movie about it, which can be poetry. but war "itself" isn't.

I'm sorry, but the way that I see things, I'd have to say, war is a type of act of poetry...

* Lysergic puts on anal retentive hat for a  minute

ok, dictionary defines "poet" as,

1. a person who composes poetry. 
2. a person who has the gift of poetic thought, imagination, and creation, together with eloquence of expression. 

and "poetry" as

1. the art of rhythmical composition, written or spoken, for exciting pleasure by beautiful, imaginative, or elevated thoughts. 
2. literary work in metrical form; verse. 
3. prose with poetic qualities. 
4. poetic qualities however manifested: the poetry of simple acts and things. 
5. poetic spirit or feeling: The pianist played the prelude with poetry. 
6. something suggestive of or likened to poetry: the pure poetry of a beautiful view on a clear day. 

Now, what I can garner from this is, what exactly a poet and poetry is, seems to be a little ambigous.

Arguable, I could say all the warmongers of the world are poets, because they have the ability to use thought, imagination, and creation to put forth an expression that will pull at the heart strings of the people.
Poetry isn't just writing shit and singing it, it's a verb, an action, "The Poetry of simple acts and things".

Poetry doesn't always have to be beautiful, but it it's supposed to do is influence the emotions of those recieving the poetry.

Thus, I propose that war is an act of poetry, and poems can be written about it, and can be it itself.

To create an image in ones mind and shape the way they act and think, this is poetry.
War is the result of a type of poetry, and is poetry in itself.

And then again, I propose the question, mainly to myself, but also to all those who are following my line of thought... What *isn't* poetry, if that is case?

[Lies]

Hell, war itself is an act of poetry.
The art of war by Sun-tsu Prooves this.

nononono it doesn't "prove" this.

because the art of war is a book.

Also, look at the title of the book. The "ART" of war.
Big hint there.

[Triple Zero]

1. the word "art" refers not to anything artistic in this title. it's more to do with the word "artisan". like "the art of building chairs", which doesn't mean building really fancy chairs that evoke emotions in people, it means building chairs and just being damn good and skillfull at it. (anal right back at ya)
also i just looked at wikipedia, and it seems this book is also referred to with other names, which have nothing to do with art: Sun Tzu's Book of Military Strategy, etc

2. i get what you're trying to say though. except i disagree with it because

a - i think war is way too ugly and senseless to be considered in this manner. the "warmongers" you speak about are also just people who happen to be there making highlevel decisions that get lost in the noise as it trickles down the hierarchy as others carry it out. who is being the artist then? sometimes wars get started over a misunderstanding, sometimes "warmongers" fail miserably and create far worse stunted stumbling suffering situations than even they would deem "necessary". war is a big mess. it's when the Machine decides there needs to be some high-level reordering done, and on this level hu-mans are just gears and statistics, to be burnt, shot, trampled on, thrown away and replaced with new ones. i really fail to see the poetry in such cold uncaring grinding of the wheels of the Machine.

b - like you say, if you consider *that* poetry, you might as well consider everything poetry. which makes the statement meaningless IMO. kinda like the "All is One" Ultimate Conversation Stopper^TM.

[Cain]

War is a bone breaking, blood splattering undertaking.  Bullets rip through muscles that support the body and cause infections among the survivors that require months of surgery.  Bombs burn and half vapourize men, women get raped and children get tortured to give up their parents as combatants.  Victory is stumbled to instead of taken with skill and everything is considered justified in order to reach that goal.

[Triple Zero]

that is so poetic, it makes me sick

[Lies]

1. the word "art" refers not to anything artistic in this title. it's more to do with the word "artisan". like "the art of building chairs", which doesn't mean building really fancy chairs that evoke emotions in people, it means building chairs and just being damn good and skillfull at it. (anal right back at ya)
also i just looked at wikipedia, and it seems this book is also referred to with other names, which have nothing to do with art: Sun Tzu's Book of Military Strategy, etc

2. i get what you're trying to say though. except i disagree with it because

a - i think war is way too ugly and senseless to be considered in this manner. the "warmongers" you speak about are also just people who happen to be there making highlevel decisions that get lost in the noise as it trickles down the hierarchy as others carry it out. who is being the artist then? sometimes wars get started over a misunderstanding, sometimes "warmongers" fail miserably and create far worse stunted stumbling suffering situations than even they would deem "necessary". war is a big mess. it's when the Machine decides there needs to be some high-level reordering done, and on this level hu-mans are just gears and statistics, to be burnt, shot, trampled on, thrown away and replaced with new ones. i really fail to see the poetry in such cold uncaring grinding of the wheels of the Machine.

b - like you say, if you consider *that* poetry, you might as well consider everything poetry. which makes the statement meaningless IMO. kinda like the "All is One" Ultimate Conversation Stopper^TM.

1. Yeah, I suppose you have a point with that whole Chair thing...

2. Yeah, look, it's fair enough that you don't see war as poetry, I get where your coming from, it's just that something in my logic centre tells me that War is a Type of Poetry, because poetry is just as ambigious as what "art" is as well.

I guess it comes down to the whole "True in some ways, False in Someways, Meaningless in Someways" Bobbie thing.

[Triple Zero]

2:

yeah but that's what i was talking about. i get where you are coming from too, the only problem with it is that if you consider everything that evokes an emotion as "poetry", the word "poetry" itself becomes quite meaningless.

hence i think a littlebit tighter definition of "poetry" desirable.

and whatever this definition might be (it's an ambiguous thing, i'll give you that, so i'm not going to try) i really don't think you can fit "war" in there, or the definition will again become "everything".

hope i made myself clear as to without defining "poetry", arguing why "war" isn't.

thanks

[Lies]

2:

yeah but that's what i was talking about. i get where you are coming from too, the only problem with it is that if you consider everything that evokes an emotion as "poetry", the word "poetry" itself becomes quite meaningless.

hence i think a littlebit tighter definition of "poetry" desirable.

and whatever this definition might be (it's an ambiguous thing, i'll give you that, so i'm not going to try) i really don't think you can fit "war" in there, or the definition will again become "everything".

hope i made myself clear as to without defining "poetry", arguing why "war" isn't.

thanks

Oh yeah, I definitely get you there, I hope I made it clear that in my own personal definition of "poetry", why I think "war" is 

[P3nT4gR4m]

Everything can be viewed as an artform. Warfare no less so than impressionist painting. But it's a subjective thing. More people see the art in Pink Floyd or Matisse. Less see the art in a haze of blood and bullets but that doesn't mean it's not there, waiting to be discovered.

Read three kingdoms or art of war and it's not hard to see the artistry there. Chairs can also be a work of art, ask Van Gough. You just have to see it.