Just finished reading the original of The Bacchae which I had read in translation at school. What a masterpiece of perception about the human condition and psyche to be coming down from 408 BC. Euripides wrote it when he had moved from the warmongering atmosphere of Athens to the cool hills of Macedonia - a location which makes an appearance in the play, even perhaps in the rhythm of the verse. The feel and thrust of the narrative and poetry is palpably influenced by his contemplation of nature in the tree-lined hills. To my mind it is not a play, as early critics have claimed, which exhibits his conversion to conventional contemporary religion in Greece as it was evolving. My take is this:
Euripides came to the conclusion in later life that there was a conflict in the human soul between the desire for order and 'decorum' and the desire for pleasure and freedom and this was irresoluble. Civilisation vs 'being at one with Nature'. Aeschylus or Sophocles would have come down on one side or the other. Nobody wins in The Bacchae other than Dionysius who represents some kind of fatalism. But he is no more brutal in his victory than Pentheus, his victim, would have been had his law and order ideology prevailed. There is no 'good' faction. The struggle between the natural world and the civilised, city-state world is a zero game. A fool's game but one where there is no choice but to be involved. The encroachment of the eastern, Dionysian religious cult had already happened by the time Euripides wrote the Bacchae. I think he is saying 'fundamental traditional beliefs are changing. So what - life will go on'. Each side of human nature fears the other but still exists in the same person. There is a suggestion at one stage in the play by the Maenad women that the world of Nature is the truly sane world. But how can this be a reliable view when the the very women who espouse it are portrayed as being in thrall to ecstatic wine-fuelled dancing, ritual and trance. Theirs is a secret, hidden ceremony. But it becomes clear, as it does in the predatory Nature of the food-chain itself, that this way lies violence and bloodshed. I was reminded of Werner Herzog's description of Nature in its unspoiled (Amazonian) wilderness state as 'an obscenity of murder and fornication'. Even the spirit and sustenance of life relies on death elsewhere. There is no resolution and no redemption by the gods, old, new or non-existent. There is no final answer in Mother Nature herself. Even the stars and the planets are in the process of dying in cosmic time. The background music of the universe and its clustered galaxies is not radiation from the big bang. It's an empty echo chamber. Euripides has taken a timeless theme and clothed it in a timeless form, the Greek drama.
Austin led the US 3rd infantry division at the disastrous start of the Iraq invasion when carnage and chaos were the keynotes. Spray and pray. Abu Ghraib. Torture. Shock and awe. War on Terror. Collective reprisals. Depleted Uranium. Humanitarian catastrophe in Fallujah. Yes, why not promote him.
US Iraq war general tapped to head CENTCOM | Pajhwok Afghan News:
Why to Say No to Susan Rice
December 3, 2012
Exclusive: Key Republicans object to Susan Rice getting a promotion from UN ambassador to Secretary of State, citing her flawed account of the Benghazi assault. But a more legitimate concern is her lack of judgment on the Iraq War and other foreign policy decisions, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
By Ray McGovernPresident Barack Obama should ditch the idea of nominating U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice to be the next Secretary of State on substantive grounds, not because she may have – knowingly or not – fudged the truth about the attack on the poorly guarded CIA installation in Benghazi, Libya.
Rice’s biggest disqualification is the fact that she has shown little willingness to challenge the frequently wrongheaded conventional wisdom of Official Washington, including on the critical question of invading Iraq in 2003. At that pivotal moment, Rice essentially went with the flow, rather than standing up for the principles of international law or exposing the pro-war deceptions.
Read more.
The Reaper Presidency: Obama’s 300th drone strike in Pakistan: The Bureau of Investigative Journalism:
"A US drone strike in Shin Warsak, South Waziristan on December 1 2012 marked the 300th drone strike in Pakistan of Barack Obama’s presidency, according to Bureau research.The attack was the second since President Obama’s re-election on November 6. It reportedly killed Abdul Rehman al-Zaman Yemeni, described as an al Qaeda commander, along with up to three others.
Although the pace of strikes has slowed considerably this year, CIA attacks have struck Pakistan’s tribal areas on average once every five days during Obama’s first term – six times more than under George W Bush. Here, we look at the key moments of Obama’s drone campaign."
Sami, my host from Najaf and part of the Muslim Peacemaker Team, stood and shared. He told the story of how, after the U.S. bombing assaults on Fallujah, he and others came from the Shia cities of Najaf and Karbala, to carry out a symbolic act of cleaning up rubble and trash in the streets of Fallujah. This gesture, he said, melted hearts and healed some of the brokenness between Sunni and Shia. He
spoke of the delegation of peacemakers from the United States who were just in Najaf for twelve days, of the work to build bridges and seek reconciliation.
LINK
Craig Murray » Blog Archive » Leveson: Wrong Answer to the Wrong Question: "The only answer to this is to break up the corporate structure of the UK mainstream media. The legislative framework to do this is not difficult. What needs to be changed are the criteria. I would propose something like this; no organisation, state or private, should be allowed effective control of more than 20% of the national or regional newspaper market or the television market, or more than 15% of those combined markets."
