Skip to main content

RIGHT THOUGHTS, RIGHT WORDS, RIGHT ACTION?

Today is a day for British citizens - and I am one of them - to pause, and reflect on what their politicians have done in their name.  For this morning, Britain is - depending on your politics of war - either a seriously diminished, paltry thing, isolated and deflated - or a nation that has shown it is nobody's lapdog, and that parliament is indeed in charge.  This is the day that lays to rest Labour's sins under Blair, and that dodgy dossier - or, makes Ed Milliband the new Neville Chamberlain.  For make no mistake, yesterday's vote against the PM's declared aim to take Britain into war against the Assad regime is historically momentous - never before has a British Prime Minister had their war plans kiboshed in such a way.  It is, depending on your view, a humiliation or a triumph, or maybe both.

 Eyewear's view is that it is a potential tragedy, for the following reasons: while it is good that the primacy of parliament was upheld, it is not clear such a domestic aim is so noble when one considers what has been voted against - a plan to aid allies to punish a terrible war crime - a gas attack that killed 1,000 people a few weeks ago, many of them children.  Should this vote change minds in Washington - and this could still happen - and no attacks occur against the depots and soldiers who deployed the terrible chemical weapons - then a very evil group of men has got off Scott free.  One can't give too many blank cheques to wicked people before ever worse crimes against humanity occur.

 Syria, that great nation, currently facing so much hardship, is likely no better off this morning.  And Britain?  She has a strong democracy.  And a weak foreign policy.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A  poem for my mother, July 15 When she was dying And I was in a different country I dreamt I was there with her Flying over the ocean very quickly, And arriving in the room like a dream And I was a dream, but the meaning was more Than a dream has – it was a moving over time And land, over water, to get love across Fast enough, to be there, before she died, To lean over the small, huddled figure, In the dark, and without bothering her Even with apologies, and be a kiss in the air, A dream of a kiss, or even less, the thought of one, And when I woke, none of this had happened, She was still far distant, and we had not spoken.
Post a Comment
Read more

Poetry vs. Literature

Poetry is, of course, a part of literature. But, increasingly, over the 20th century, it has become marginalised - and, famously, has less of an audience than "before". I think that, when one considers the sort of criticism levelled against Seamus Heaney and "mainstream poetry", by poet-critics like Jeffrey Side , one ought to see the wider context for poetry in the "Anglo-Saxon" world. This phrase was used by one of the UK's leading literary cultural figures, in a private conversation recently, when they spoke eloquently about the supremacy of "Anglo-Saxon novels" and their impressive command of narrative. My heart sank as I listened, for what became clear to me, in a flash, is that nothing has changed since Victorian England (for some in the literary establishment). Britain (now allied to America) and the English language with its marvellous fiction machine, still rule the waves. I personally find this an uncomfortable position - but when ...
15 comments
Read more

IQ AND THE POETS - ARE YOU SMART?

When you open your mouth to speak, are you smart?  A funny question from a great song, but also, a good one, when it comes to poets, and poetry. We tend to have a very ambiguous view of intelligence in poetry, one that I'd say is dysfunctional.  Basically, it goes like this: once you are safely dead, it no longer matters how smart you were.  For instance, Auden was smarter than Yeats , but most would still say Yeats is the finer poet; Eliot is clearly highly intelligent, but how much of Larkin 's work required a high IQ?  Meanwhile, poets while alive tend to be celebrated if they are deemed intelligent: Anne Carson, Geoffrey Hill , and Jorie Graham , are all, clearly, very intelligent people, aside from their work as poets.  But who reads Marianne Moore now, or Robert Lowell , smart poets? Or, Pound ?  How smart could Pound be with his madcap views? Less intelligent poets are often more popular.  John Betjeman was not a very smart poet, per se....
3 comments
Read more