http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Washington-Post-Why-I-Published-Those-Cartoons-tp521421p521497.html
was way too much about me and not enough about the issues. While I'm
weeding however, I want to say "Thank you. You're a gentleman and a
> Dede and list -
>
> I apologize if Lux's poem was too graphic and too blunt. I remember
> the first time I read it and it did raise the hair on my entire body
> (no small thing on my body!) and recognize that it is very visceral.
> Perhaps it *should* come with warning labels! My apologies.
>
> The point of my submission of this poem was that it is the very best,
> most graphic (sorry), concise, and pointed expression I've ever come
> across of what I believe is the fundamental driver for our collective
> bad behavior as a species.
>
> Tit for Tat, as it were.
>
> I'm not a christian by any stretch of the imagination, but the point
> about "turning the other cheek" vs "an eye for an eye" would be quite
> apt here. I believe that most bad behavior by humans is either driven
> by or hidden behind the innate desire to "get even" for some wrong.
> This almost always leads to a runaway, positive feedback loop and
> almost never remains contained between the proverbial Hatfields and
> their proverbial Nemesis' the McCoys...
>
> An eye for an eye always escalates to an eye *and a pound of flesh* for
> an eye... and spreads via.. "yeah!, and same to you and every one who
> looks like you!"
>
> As a large, educated, white, male, I've endured a lifetime of rejection
> and abuse by others who felt rejected and abused by the large, the
> educated, the white or the male. Find me more than a handful of
> people who haven't been experienced bullying from at least one of those
> classes. I've struggled very hard since I became aware of this
> position, not to respond "in kind", turning this into an excuse for
> mistrusting or even abusing "little napoleans", "ignorants", "women",
> "non-whites".
>
> Not all of my large, white, educated, male peers have been as
> introspective or aware of this as I have and have subsequently turned
> the crank on the wheel of reincarnation of misery themselves, taking a
> defensible but not very enlightened position of "they do this, I'll do
> that". I fall into variations of this trap myself from time to time.
>
> One key may be a more precise understanding of who "they" is, what
> "this" and "that" are. "that" is invariably escalated with a bigger
> "THAT" and "they" is usually widened to include many innocents as a
> collective "THEY".
>
> Meanwhile, I've watched just about any other identifiably separable
> group carry their own collective chips on their own collective
> shoulders, just waiting for someone to knock them off so they can,
> themselves, take their collective angst out on some other collective.
>
>
> An eye for an eye, or turn the other cheek?
> Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, or *before they do
> unto you*.
>
> Small but not subtle differences that keep the world in perpetual hate,
> fear, and turmoil. I don't expect the world to come to this awareness
> anytime soon, but that doesn't stop me from striving for it myself and
> spreading it where I can.
>
> To anyone who has read this far, I apologize again for the viscerality
> of Lux's poem... it doesn't pull any punches and I'm guilty of having
> become desensitized to it's power over the years since I first read it.
>
> - Steve
>
>
> On Feb 27, 2006, at 11:14 AM, Dede Densmore wrote:
>
>> Steve,
>> I know you didn't intend it, but that was a rotten thing to do to my
>> morning. I will defend to the death your and Mr. Lux's right to say
>> these things, but I wish you'd warned me first so I could exercise my
>> right not to read them. No, of course I don't want parental guidance
>> labels on FRIAM e-mails. On the other hand, this does raise
>> interesting
>> questions on the umm ... artistic quality? artistic validity? ethics?
>> of adding more really ugly images to a world already filled with them.
>> Is there a thread here? Or one for Friday?
>> Dede
>
>
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