On what was intermittently a good tempered and interesting thread about nationalism and identity in the context of Anzac day, I posted this comment just at the point that it was swamped by the usual tedious leftie bashing from our good friends the RWDBs:
I also have an odd relationship with nationalism, because of my family heritage and where I’ve lived. My dad was an American diplomat, and I lived all over the shop as a girl. My mum was Portuguese, and when my parents separated, moved to Australia as she had rellos here. I went to high school and uni (u/g) in Brisbane, then took advantage of my American citizenship and went to California to do postgrad stuff, and stayed on for quite a bit, til I came back here a couple of years ago. I’ve also lived in Europe. So I don’t feel myself to be particularly exclusive in who I am. I’m very fond of both Australia and America, and feel like I’m a bit of both. I speak with a Californian accent. I don’t feel particularly patriotic as such, but there are freedoms and values in America I’ll defend strongly, just as there are aspects of Australian-ness I think are wonderful.
I may be reading too much into it, but what interested me about the lack of response was that just as I find it difficult to pigeon hole my nationality (and am accordingly ambiguous about nationalism and patriotism), so too it’s hard to write the stories of those who come from more than one place into these heavily politicised discourses about “how to be (un)Australian”. There’s no doubt that we live in an increasingly cosmopolitan world. One of the paradoxes of globalisation is backlashes against the free movement of labour and the erection of literal and metaphorical border fences. This, of course, is quite contrary to the promise of globality.
Similarly, cosmopolitan doctrines of international humanitarian law increasingly assert that citizens, by virtue of the universality of human rights, have recourse against tyrannous states. Both the intervention in Kosovo and (to a lesser degree) in Iraq and Afghanistan were justified in these terms. Yet (many) of those who will argue the case for military intervention to protect rights seem in practice to deny the common humanity of those who are ostensibly the subjects of those rights, should they choose to seek asylum in Australia.
We’ve also seemingly fallen into a pernicious habit of seeing everything in terms of civilisational and religious identities. On one hand, we’re ever ready to give “Western” norms of liberty a pat on the back, but we refuse to judge others as individuals, but as Muslims or Arabs. This blind to the fact that it’s probably a better question to ask how we can work with the grain of the desire for freedom and the capability for public reasoning that exists everywhere, rather than bizarrely claiming that all people of a particular faith “must” have the potential to be violent because that’s how we, or crazed Islamic fundamentalists, read that religious tradition. I hope that I’m not naive in thinking that those of us whose identities literally stretch across borders might have some insight into what humanity as a whole shares. Or that we might rediscover what global solidarity means.
But I know it’s an uphill battle, as the tendency everywhere at the moment seems to be to violently reinforce narrow identities, whether national, ethnic, civilisational or religious. We can do better than that.
“But I know it’s an uphill battle, as the tendency everywhere at the moment seems to be to violently reinforce narrow identities, whether national, ethnic, civilisational or religious. We can do better than that”
Typical banana-bender rubbish! You bloody Quincelanders -who do you think you are, Diogenes of Dutton Park?
Seriously though, Kim, I was most interested in that comment, but was waylaid defending the Kokoda vets from Barton and the culture warriors.
(Having said that, it seemed to be that we were in rare agreement with our RWDB friends on this one. This is a dud culture warrior campaign - the righties dont even like it: rightly, I might add. I declare Barton to have launched a ‘non-decisive’ camapaign.)
So, fala voce Portugues, Kim? I love the language - especially in song. I really wish I could learn it, but as a moderately fluent Spanish speaker, I just get too confused and start babbling incoherently in some weird hybrid, and then my brain starts hurting.
But to get to your point: I think the binational have an interesting perspective in all this. How do they handle it, given nationalism’s inherent exclusivism? Somebody should do a study.
Heh!
Sadly, I know no Portuguese. Mum used to talk to me in it when I was a little girl, but it’s all gone now. A project for the future perhaps!
Wellllll, as someone who has had citizenship in two other incredible multicultural countries (Guyana, South America, and Canada) I think I may have a few thoughts.
I am constantly challenged by my sense of place, I feel I have no real place and see my self as being from everywhere. I think it’s made me a pretty flexible person as far as cross national differences and points of view are concerned. In fact I think I could live and love pretty well anywhere, even though it appears Australia is my final landing place because growing up as a wild colonial boy I’ve become comfortable wrapped in the skins of a rough hewn and new nation that has defeated it’s indegenious peoples and exploited it’s riches.
As a result of this happy accident I’ll have no truck with the hysterical nature of the debate by those on the right on the motives of various nationalities/cultures, understanding that I do that prople are the same pretty well everywhere.
I am a big globalist in all things, but especially in the free movement of peoples. If money can flow at will why can’t people? It’s something the world must address.
Crikey had a piece about that advert placed in the papers on immigration supplementing population growth not replacing it, and I had to ask myself why shouldn’t it? As a two times benificiary of immigration I’m a fan of opening the taps and letting the people flow in.
Or is it that we prefer green rather than brown?
Actually, that is one thing my serial migration has taught me. Brown is a problem. Race tensions and racial misunderstanding exist everywhere and it’s this that is the enemy of proper functioning societies, and it this that is often exploited by sociopaths, demagogues and tyrants for political gain.
I watched as Guyana was slowly destroyed after independence by a virulent strain of race based politics (black on indian) that the country has never recovered from, it’s wealth has gone wasted and it’s people have been left with a bitter legacy seemingly impossible to overcome.
Canada on the other hand, appears to have coped well from masive migration patterns and it’s stated multiculturalism has also delivered a societal flexibility that has made this succeed. Luckily it’s politicians have largely avoided the urge to frame the political life of the country in terms of race or the other - with the exception of the internment of Japanese Canadians during WW2.
Australia has also followed this successful pattern, but as I see it, this is being deliberately disrupted by a range of nasty actors (John Stone for example) whose language bears a striking resemblance to the rabble rousing race baiters in the Guyana of the 70’s.
But I do go on, it’s too a huge topic to discuss in one comment so that’s my small effort for the evening…………it’s off to bed.
BTW, my grandparents on my mothers side were Maderian Portuguese.
Thanks Phil for sharing your story and thoughts.
So how do cosmopolitans view those of us with strong sentimental attachments to our land and culture?
With empathy, observa. Because I have a strong emotional attachment to a number of lands and cultures. I just wish there was more empathy all round. Sheesh, I really had better go to bed. I’m starting to sound like Dr Phil or Oprah.
Yes, observa, it’s all about you.
Personally, my strong sentimental attachment to the childhood landscape my family had been farming since 1855 makes me acutely aware of the strong infinitely-more-than-sentimental attachment to it felt by the people who were displaced by my family and people like them. But something tells me that that’s not what you wanted to hear.
“Both the intervention in Kosovo and (to a lesser degree) in Iraq and Afghanistan were justified in these terms.”
Some may argue that, but the actual humanitarian situation in Kosovo (see here http://www.libertarian.org.au/blog/readArticle.jsp?articleID=9979549 for example) prior to NATO’s intervention was not even remotely comparable to the Taliban’s Afghanistan or Saddam’s Iraq, and even if it was, there would still be no justification for intervening.
In fact Turkey’s treatment of the Kurds easily rivals Milosevic’s treatment of the Albanians…and yet Turkey was an active participant in NATO’s 1999 “humanitarian” air-war!
I note that the situation in Sudan is probably worse than all of the above put together, but no notions of air raids against Khartoum are even on the radar.
As we sit here and ponder these matters we learn that yet another two Australians have become casualities of Islamist terror- in Egypt. It is worth bearing this in mind. The casuality count since 9 September 2001 creeps inexorably upwards. Two dozen Muslim Australians have been convicted or are currently facing terrorism charges. The Grand Muftii of Australia, Sheik Taj el-din el-Hilali, hailed the September 11 attacks as “God’s work against oppressors”. He also said that the Lebanese pack rapes were caused by “Australian Society”
Usman Badar, president of the University of NSW Muslim Students Association, told a gathering of 300 mostly young people that “Western values are not worthy of human subscription”. Sadly, the list of Autraliam Muslim leadership figures who make similar statements goes on and on and on. We are not talking about one or two rotten apples in the barrel; the rot is deep and the barrel stinks.
I would like to think that I am also cosmopolitan. I’ve travelled overseas, more than half my friends were born overseas and my partner is Vietnamese. I even dated a Pakistani Muslim in my early 20s. I enjoy the company of people from different cultures and I believe they enrich my life. I have no problem with migration. However I do acknowledge that there is a fascistic current that runs through much (not all) of Islam and that transforms all too easily into violent, Western-hating fundamentalism.
Until the current wave of Islamist madness subsides, Australia must drastically reduce its intake of Muslims from those cultures that have demonstrated a propensity to spawn Islamo-fascism.
Should we drastically reduce our intake of South Africans because their country (and “culture”) has one of the highest murder rates in the world and is incredibly violent?
I don’t think you’ve stopped and reflected on the call to reject cultural determinism in the post at all, steve.
Mark, you are implying that criminality is comparable to a fascist ideology. I note with interest that Walid Aly also tried to conflate criminality and Islamo-fascism in one of his apologetics in “The Age”. Are you truly unable to tell the difference between a man who wants to steal your grandmother’s purse and a man who thinks she is an infidel kafir who deserves death?
Are you aware of the mass exodus of Jews from France over the last six years? The massive rise in hate crimes? Are you aware that Jewish schools now have bomb-proof glass, fortifications and security guards? Are you aware that the schools forbid the children to look Jewish so as not to attract attention? This is a tragic consequence of the influx of so many Muslims who despise the norms of Western society and the cultural relativists who have encouraged the influx yet turn a blind eye to the results.
http://www.canada.com/national/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=d81b7fd5-743a-4534-b5ec-eed3251d0b2e&p=4
Take a chill pill, steve.
It’s logical to assume that if culture is so strong that it leads to what you describe as a “fascist ideology” that it would also be the cause of criminality. I’m sure you’re well aware that the rate of violent crime varies radically but also relatively consistently across different societies. This implies that crime is not an individual deviation, but also has social and cultural causes.
The other logical conclusion from your premises is really despair. It’s quite correct to suggest, as Kim does in her post, that there is a blindness here both to the possibility that individuals may not feel comfortable with cultural and religious identities which are to a certain extent pre-given, and may be persuadable to adopt different political views and stances towards violence. So again, just as we recognise that crime has social causes and attempt to mitigate those, so too do we believe that individuals are nevertheless capable of resisting violent impulses and of shifting their views and behaviours.
What you are trying to do is reinforce the identity from which violence derives in the first place by putting people into a neat box labelled “dangerous and pathological”. That’s no solution.
As to French anti-semitism, a lot of it is perpetrated by white people associated with Le Pen’s mob. I don’t see you calling for their expulsion from France.
On the South African parallel, there was also a fascist ideology there, supported by many (but no means all) white South Africans. If people had treated it as immutable, it would probably still be there. But appeals were made both to rational persuasion and to people’s better angels, and it now has only a small minority of support.
I have a good friend who’s South African. I’m sure she’d be offended (and rightly so) if anyone assumed because she’s white, you could read something off that about her political and social views.
There was no problem of Islamic terrorism 40 years ago. There may not be in 40 years time. It depends, among other things, on how we choose to perceive the issue and engage with the very many people who are faithful Muslims but deplore violence.
I’m disappointed you’ve introduced this tone into a discussion which could be quite interesting about cosmopolitanism and plural identities, and I hope that it gets back on track. I won’t have time to participate further due to work demands today.
Leading figures in the Muslim Australian community, up to and including the Grand Mufti, have expressed support for Islamist violence and cultural chauvinism. If significant numbers of opinion makers and leadership figures in the Afrikaner community in Australia were inciting rascist violence and white supremacism, I would adopt the same attitude to them. In other words, drastically curtail white South African immigration.
I’ve also known a white South African of English descent for a number of years. Her view is that it was predominantly the Afrikaner’s, not all whites, who supported apartheid.
Since it is Kim’s post that raises the issue of cultural identity and Islamism, I’m not sure why you view my comments as peripheral to the main topic.
Who says they’re “leading figures”, steve?
We do, that’s who. Multicultural policy as practiced by governments in Australia has always looked to “community leaders” to be intermediaries - many of whom are unelected and unrepresentative. The media focuses on the pronouncements of the Mufti - but no other country in the world has a “Grand Mufti” and lots of Muslim communities don’t recognise him as their leader. John Howard appoints all these people to some sort of official advisory council. In so doing, as I’m trying to argue in the post, he emphasises and reinforces the religious identity, at the same time as seeing it as problematic. Why not appeal to people on the basis of their identity as Australians, as citizens, as employees, as women, whatever. That’s what would be smart if we wanted to de-emphasise religion and work towards communal integration. But we do the exact opposite - or rather, you do. If you box people in as unique and different because of their religion, how do you expect them not to feel that they’re being treated as suspect?
Kim says: “John Howard appoints all these people to some sort of official advisory council. In so doing, as I’m trying to argue in the post, he emphasises and reinforces the religious identity, at the same time as seeing it as problematic.”
Howard’s public statements haven’t supported the notion that Islam per se is the problem at all. This is a false claim. He has repreatedly said that the Muslim community at large isn’t the problem. I could ask for evidence, but as I’ve noticed previously, the inevitable response to such requests is akin to the one Oliver got for asking for another dob of work-house gruel. What? evidence? How dare you!
Anyway, so we abolish the Reference Group without even bothering to ascertain whether most Muslims think it is a good idea. Then what? What is to be done?
ps. pls excuse the Oliver reference, but I luv a bit of drama
What sort of evidence would suffice for you, Steve?
I experience a constant barrage of evidence that Aussie Muslims are regular folks, going about their work and private lives with honour and a sensitive regard for broader Aussie culture. I hate to agree with Rattus Rattus (assuming he was being genuine) but I do.
If your picture of Muslims is of extremists and ‘west-haters’ then that’s all you’ll see.
In any case, Kim wasn’t referring to Howard’s explicit statements, rather the effect (intended or otherwise) of his approach to the problem. Anyone wanting to know what the little turd really thinks should avoid his public statements like the plague.
Take my neighbours, for example, to whom I’ve referred before when they helped me learn their method of olive preservation for my tree out the front.
They are quite observant in the religious sense, but are no more disapproving of my house’s manifest drinking problem than our mothers would be. They ‘give us shit’ about it in a very matey, Aussie fashion - clucking their tongues theatrically at the pile of empties.
When I lived in Brunswick, this sort of thing was rife. The halal butchers all had a collection plate for the Mosque; one of them had a little sign in broken English that said “we love Australia and Australians” - presumably so that bigots wouldn’t think the money goes to Osama.
On the number 19 tram up Sydney Rd, I once caught the arm of an elderly Muslim woman to stop her falling, and after thanking me she explained that touching her was not okay. I said “so next time I should let you fall?” and she said “yes, I’d prefer that”.
This is what we want, no?
How is tarring everyone with the same brush supposed to help, Steve?
F David Bower says: “If your picture of Muslims is of extremists and ‘west-haters’ then that’s all you’ll see.”
You need to learn to read, David. I have clearly said with tedious monotony that most Muslims are unlikely to cause any problems.
You then say:
“On the number 19 tram up Sydney Rd, I once caught the arm of an elderly Muslim woman to stop her falling, and after thanking me she explained that touching her was not okay. I said “so next time I should let you fall?â€? and she said “yes, I’d prefer thatâ€?.”
That is fucking depressing. Old women often have osteoporisis and this is much more prevalent amongst Muslim women who cover up. I have previously cited on this blog some Google Scholar research that shows rates at 4 to 5 times the rates for European women.
It reminds me of the American Civil War slaves who returned to their masters because they couldn’t cope with freedom.
Yes, I’ve noticed, steve.
And what F. David said. I didn’t mention Howard’s public statements. What I’m talking about is speaking to people in their capacity as citizens, not as Muslims (or Buddhists or whatever). On one hand, you claim that you agree that “most Muslims are unlikely to cause problems” and then on the other you say “there is a fascistic current that runs through much (not all) of Islam and that transforms all too easily into violent, Western-hating fundamentalism”.
There’s either a contradiction here, or at the very least, a large amount of tension.
Kim - “There’s either a contradiction here, or at the very least, a large amount of tension.”
Not really. There’s a current that runs through revolutionary Marxism that transforms all too easily into violent Western-hating fundamentalism too. However, most Green Left vendors and campus red-raggers seem pretty harmless and some of them are really quite nice.
Kim, on Cristy’s previous thread I quoted Australian Muslim Mustapha Ali who reckons that as much as 20-30% of Australian Muslims are Wahabi or Wahabi influenced during a ABC RN Religious Report interview.
As you are probably aware, Mustapha Ali is a representative on the prime minister’s Reference Group.
What I have said is completely in line with Mustapha Ali’s views. It seems odd to me that when I reflect the views of liberal Muslims like Irshad Manji and Mustapha Ali the tedious allegation of Islamophobia inevitably pops up.
I’m Irish but I’ve lived here since I was a teenager, married an Aussie and had two little aussie kids here. I love Melbourne, but don’t really feel “Australian” - nothing to do with divided loyalties or anything like that, more I think just a sense that even though I have put down roots here I wasn’t born here so I feel a bit different.
I do feel more than a vestige of sympathy for the average Muslim walking around at the moment minding their own business because when I was growing up, it really wasn’t all that comfortable being Irish, especially if you had reason to travel to England, just being in the wrong pub or talking to the wrong guys could get you arrested and the police could hold you for a long time without charge. You would often feel as though you couldn’t express your views without them being misunderstood - for example, you might not agree with the British army occupying your country, but you wouldn’t want to say that and have people think you supported the terrorists. And of course there was an awful lot of anti-Irish prejudice left over from the days when it was quite acceptable to have “No Dogs, No Irish” on the door of your shop, pub, hotel etc.
This means that I am more likely to understand the frustrations of Muslims in our community maybe than people who have never been outside this country and their own culture and experiences. It shouldn’t have to be like that though. Really any sensitive person who reads a bit and listens to others should be able to use their imaginations when it comes to trying to understand other cultures.
Kim there are sixteen countries with a Grand Mufti http://www.answers.com/topic/grand-mufti
I agree with the rest of you comment. I’ve always been troubled that multiculturalism as practiced in Australia pigeonholes people and gives legitimacy to unelected and unrepresentative “community leaders” who supposedly represent the concerns, interests and aspirations of their “community” rather than recognising that people have multiple concerns, interests and aspirations based on their identity as Australians, as citizens, as employees, as women or whatever despite whatever their ethnic heritage or religious affiliation is.
I see no tension either. I basically agree with both of Steve ‘Maverick’ Munn’s statements although I’d qualify that bit about ‘much of Islam’. Southeast Asian Islam is no way as feral as all that, but Maverick is correct insofar as most of the Muslims in Australia are from the Middle East where, excluding Turkey and the other nice Sufi bits, Islam is every bit as feral as he suggests.
GregM, thanks for that. My recollection was from an op/ed by Waheed Aly (I think) a while back when a number of Muslim groups were either trying to de-GrandMuftify Al-Hilali or dispense with the title altogether.
Thanks, funkypaws, for the comment. That’s an interesting parallel.
Kim, I know perfectly well that the Grand Mufti isn’t regarded by every Muslim community in Australia as the leading spiritual figure. Nonetheless he is for a sizeable portion of our Muslim community.
If Pope Benedict or the Archbishop of Cantebury or a local bishop or priest was to hail a suicide mission against a civilian target as a great event, a strike at the heart of “God’s oppressors”, he/she would be denounced and out of office in five minutes flat.
Was there such an uproar in the local Muslim community in respect of Grand Mufti’s comments? No. Instead we heard other Muslim community leaders like Keysar Trad also make vile public statements. Only a few liberal voices of dissent were raised- and these are the people we must nurture.
I agree with Jason about SEA Muslims. The few that I have met seemed fairly cosmopolitan. That is why I said immigration should only be restricted from certain Muslim communities rather than all. Even then, when the cult of the suicide bomber comes to an end, as surely it must, I will gladly welcome them with a red carpet at the airport.
Prominent Liberal Party member and mining tycoon Hugh Morgan delivered a speech at Deakin University yesterday in which he said the following about dual citizenship:
“I am convinced that if we took Australian citizenship seriously, we would not tolerate this bipolarity. If you are an Australian then that should be the end of the matter” http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/dual-citizenship/2006/04/26/1145861420335.html
Even for me, an Islamophobic patriot, this is going too far.
Including our British head of state, Hugh?
I’m on 4 days of unexpected forced minimal physical activity, so while I’m here I thought I’d share this one:
That’s Andre Vltchek on malls in SE Asia and the homogenous materialism of the aspirational monied elites together with the consolidation of a strongly layered social class structure.
If what he says is true I’d prefer a society that was more open to diverse influences and was fertile ground for people to be what they want to be.
It was very noticeable the other night on SBS’ Insight (on Australian values) that some on the right were very intolerant and disrespectful of diversity.
Kim, first of all are you actually trying to “pigeon hole” yourself?
On the premise that you are - don’t confuse nationality with ethnicity - you mentioned your mother was portuguese and you had relatives here and that’s why you’re here but never mentioned that again and predominantly ID’d yourself as American and Australian.
Given the values of both nations as portrayed on the international political scene are similar I think you’ve got your answer.
No, not really, Vee, I’m pointing out it’s not that easy to pigeon hole myself.
And the values are a bit more dissimilar than most people think.
A very endearing one, if I may be so bold.
The wisdom of Steve ‘Pinochet’ Edwards
http://badanalysis.com/catallaxy/?p=1734#comment-49928
!!!!!!!!!!!
Kim: “…I speak with a Californian accent…”
Dude. Like, which *one*? (by which I mean, perhaps: Oaxacan, or Guadalajaran? Ain’t been back to Cali too recently, have ya, lassie…)
Si, es mejor el accento de California Baja, chingones!
Viva Villa Cabrones!
Lefty E.: “…Viva Villa Cabrones!…”
Ah… so easy to say; so hard to do. By all means, Lefty E: do come here and work double-shifts in a bankrupted, overcrowded ER full to the rafters with clueless illegals, and we’ll see how long the ‘Vivas!’ last…
Que Viva Mexico — el Estupido, el Corrupto, el Overpopulato y Backwardo! Si!!
You sound embittered, JPZ… What’s up? Are you a doctor in California? Too many wetbacks? You know, it used to be all Mexico thereabouts, so I figure what the hell.. Or is it the underfunded, second-rate US health system pissing you off? I fear we’re on the same track here.
By the way, get down to Chetumal sometime, and see the Guatemaltecos trying to get into Mexico pa’ la buena vida. Its all one long chain of economic misery.
j_p_z, once I get this file sharing thingie sorted you can hear my dulcet tones and pick it yourself!
Oaxaca isn’t in California, last time I looked? Or do you mean peeps from there who’ve moved to California?
I’m San Franciscan.
Kim: “…and pick it yourself…”
Speaking of pickin’, I’ve been majorly grooving on some old Doc Watson lately. Highly recommended. Man, these blind musician folks! If only Doc, Stevie Wonder, and the Five Blind Boys from Alabama had adapted some Homer (sorry, but I guess Lee Breuer and the Five have already done the Sophocles thang!), then wouldn’t that be a thang to hear…
Lefty E.: “…too many wetbacks?…”
How depressing. One watches you leftish folks chase instinctively after the ‘you’re a racist!’ bait w/ such numbing regularity, one doesn’t even have to leave it laying out there any more as a decoy in the first place. Sigh. (Oh, and the ‘embittered’ thing… don’t you know they *teach* that now, in Introduction to Elementary Combative Blogging Rhetorical Strategies 101, in most good community colleges? Well, not the ones in Cali, of course; ‘too many wetbacks’ there, as you so generously offer…)
It’d truly be nice to not categorize people and their thought so quickly, but you just make it so darn *easy* to do. Nevertheless, I really do suspect your fine Australian blog is not the place for a foreigner like me to begin a giant stuff-up about the immigration policy (or lack thereof) of us foreigners. So I’ll let it lie. But I will say this…
In all seriousness; one of these fine days, if I can find the time, I’ll start a blog of my own on this very subject; and when I do, I will cordially invite you (and no sarcasm at all implied) to come visit, and argue with me about it there. Does that sound fair?
Actually JPZ, I was just trying to figure out what your original point was.
Cant say I have - but it doesn’t really matter.
Night all!
Where in CA are you at/from, j_p_z?
Have you read Joan Didion’s Where I Was From?
I’m tempted to start a thread about people’s favourite books from/about California….
I note that one can read Frank Norris’ The Octopus online.
Night, Lefty E!
xx
Lefty E.: “…too many wetbacks?… You know, it used to be all Mexico thereabouts… the underfunded, second-rate US health system…”
Followed, in a later post, by [bien sur], “…Actually, JPZ, I was just trying to figure out what your original point was…”
Ah, — the Tweety Bird defense! (”I said all these things, but I didn’t mean it!”) Well ya know, Lefty E., perhaps I shoulda just posted as ‘Bad Luck Streak in Cock-Fighting School,’ meself.
For those of you who didn’t grow up reading Cicero, and so may not know how to spot LE’s (sorta elementary-level) games of bait-and-switch in plain English, I offer the above pronouncements in their original glory. (And even *that’s* a rhetorical game, peoples; but this time on *my* part: have ya had a look at Antony’s speeches in ‘Julius Caesar’? It just keeps going round and round…)
Ultimately, I can’t say I care all that much, at least *here* — as US immigration worries probably ought not to be debated at this particular length, on this particular blog…
But I thought it was a good chance to point out a fine example of an old, old trick. Take it however you like! Turn it against me, if it pleases you… The point is, kids, to try and find out what the truth might be… even if ya don’t like the package it comes in. Maybe even especially so.
Meantime, Lefty E., you naturally have raised a lot of interesting and legitimate questions. No need to play games to have them be fascinating, and important to how the current world proceeds, given the shape it’s in. I suspect I don’t agree w/ a lot of your assumptions, but I can see nothing but good coming from a healthy, polite debate about them… assuming a healthy amount of time and space can be devoted to the thing. And as I say, if that can’t be done in this blog context, then eventually I’ll just put it up myself, and invite you –and others– over for a chat… Cheers….
“If only Doc, Stevie Wonder, and the Five Blind Boys from Alabama had adapted some Homer (sorry, but I guess Lee Breuer and the Five have already done the Sophocles thang!),”
I could get into Stevie Wonder doing a off Broadway Euripides song cycle musical thang. ’sppecialy when it came to an Oedipus/Orpheus riff.
“about people’s favourite books from/about California….”
Vineland
A Scanner Darkly
Day of The Locust
The Long Goodbye
You’ll Never Eat Lunch In This Town Again
The White Album
Has there been any better California gothic in print?
“reading Cicero”
That fucking trimmer. Gaius Julius Caesar had his number alright.
Nabs..in utter amazement and awe.
How do you manage to read and drink and work so much?
I like this focus on CA today.
“How do you manage to read and drink and work so much?”
Intense, relentlessly focused, disciplined, unremitting, undeviating and throughly committed training schedules.
And lotsa booze. Steroids are good too.
With you on the intense, focused and booze assisted literary training.
Though I’m not Australian, may I interject alcohol as one of the essentials on being Aus. Though you have already. But steroids?
Dear me, dont be such a roundabout tease JPZ - just tell us your views. That’s all a bit pass-agg for me, and rather lengthy for someone with no time for the points of actual interest. Viz - what accounts for your anti-Mexican outburst, after my rather joyful, pissed detour into Castillian?
And read backwards to see who got all cheesed first. No era yo, compadre…
Lefty E.: “…rather lengthy for someone with no time for the points of actual interest…”
He shoots, he scores!!
Seriously, though, fair point… you’d have no way of knowing, naturally, but my ‘views’ on these topics are enormously complex, and would require a tremendous amount of verbosity to set forth clearly… something I have no right to presume an Oz audience has any interest in. Which is why I offered an invite to my hypothetical blog instead. [You have no idea how long something as simple as strict ‘definitions of terms’ might take; to say nothing of the historical backtrack required just to clarify certain issues in American/Comanche/Mexican/’Chicano’(what a word!)/Hopi/Navajo relations, which may be clear to me, but not to the good people of the South Pacific…]
w/r/t yr ‘joyous outburst in Castilian,’ guess I’ll have to plead guilty. I read it as a Pancho Villa reference, as a quick Google search might tend to support. Mes apologies. As I say, it’s all quite an interesting conversation, but one which I have no right to subject the good people of LP to…
if we’re (pace Kim) on the subject of CA ‘literature’…
Dr. Dre — The Chronic
Ridley Scott/P.K. Dick — Blade Runner
Mike Davis — City of Quartz
Marc Reisner (sp. ?) — Cadillac Desert
Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band — Trout Mask Replica (!!!)
Zappa/Mothers — We’re Only In It For The Money, Freak Out!, Uncle Meat, Just Another Band From L.A.
Jaime Hernandez — the entire ‘Locas in Love’ comix saga, but specifically, if you’re just buying individual volumes:
–Music for Mechanics
–Las Mujeres Perdidas
–House of Raging Women
–Flies on the Ceiling (!!!)
–The Death of Speedy (!!!)
–Wig Wam Bam
Victor Davis Hanson — Mexifornia
“It’s a bush recording. We’re out recording a bush.”
– Don Van Vliet, aka Capt. Beefheart, “Trout Mask”
Nice list, j_p_z
I’d add Denis Johnson’s Already Dead.
Sometimes I speak with a Californian accent too - the one I picked up in Vienna.
(btw, nice post Kim!)
Oh, almost forgot… w/r/t required Cali ‘lit’…
The Minutemen — Double Nickels On The Dime
Mike Watt and D. Boon, way back in the sunny open-handed days of 1984 or there’bouts, were really rather classical; and definitive. Dig it. (one might also groove on X’s “Under The Big Black Sun,” too, and of course ya gotta grok yr John Muir… but it’s not quite ‘required’ reading, in quite the way that Xaime & Beto and Trout Mask are…)