Andrew J. Bacevich has written a book for the ages. His The New American Militarism: How Americans Are seduced By War, Oxford University Press, New York, 2005, ISBN 0-19-517338-4, is the most coherent analysis of how America has come to its present situation in the world that I have ever read. Bacevich, Professor of International Relations and Director of the Center for International Relations at Boston University, is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and holds a Ph.D. in history from Princeton. And he is retired military officer. This background makes him almost uniquely qualified to comment on the subject.
Bacevich admits to an outlook of moderate conservatism. But in ascribing fault for our plight to virtually every administration since W.W. II, he is even handed and clear eyed. Since he served in the military, he understands the natural bureaucratic instincts of the best of the officer corps and is not blinded by the almost messianic status that they have achieved in the recent past.
His broad brush includes the classic period, the American Revolution – especially the impact of George Washington, but he moves quickly to the influence of Woodrow Wilson and his direct descendants of our time, the Neoconservatives. The narrative accelerates and becomes relevant for us in the depths of the despair of Vietnam. At that juncture, neocon intellectuals awakened to the horror that without a new day for our military and foreign policy, the future of America would be at stake. At almost the same time, Evangelical Christians abandoned their traditional role in society and came to views not dissimilar to the neocons. America had to get back on track to both power and goodness. The results of Vietnam on American culture, society, and – especially – values were abhorrent to both these groups.
The perfect man to idealize and mythologize America’s road back was Ronald Reagan. Again, Bacevich does not shrink from seeing through the surreal qualities brought to the Oval Office by Reagan to the realities beneath them. The Great Communicator transformed the Vietnam experience into an abandonment of American ideals and reacquainted America with those who fought that horrible war. Pop culture of the period, including motion pictures such as Top Gun and best selling novels by many, including Tom Clancy completely rehabilitated the image of the military.
The author describes how Evangelical leaders came to find common cause with the neocons and provided the political muscle for Reagan and his successors of both parties to discover that the projection of military might become a reason for being for America as the last century closed.
One of his major points is that the all volunteer force that resulted from the Vietnam experience has been divorced from American life and that sending this force of ghosts into battle has little impact on our collective psyche. This, too, fit in with the intellectual throw weight of the neocons and the political power of the Evangelicals.
Separate from but related to the neocons, Bacevich describes the loss of strategic input by the military in favor of a new priesthood of intellectual elites from institutions such as the RAND Corporation, The University of Chicago and many others. It was these high priests who saw the potential that technology provided for changing the nature of war itself and how American power might be projected with `smart weapons’ that could be the equivalent of the nuclear force that could never be used.
So it was when the war we are now embroiled in across the globe – which has its antecedents back more than twenty years – that all of these forces weighed heavily on the military leaders to start using the force we’d bought them. The famed question by Secretary of State Madeline Albright to General Colin Powell: “What’s the point of having this superb military that you’re always talking about if we can’t use it?” had to have an answer and the skirmishes and wars since tended to provide it.
Bacevich clearly links our present predicaments both at home and abroad to the ever greater need for natural resources, especially oil from the Persian Gulf. He demolishes all of the reasons for our bellicosity based on ideals and links it directly to our insatiable appetite for oil and economic expansion. Naturally, like thousands of writers before him, he points out the need for a national energy policy based on more effective use of resources and alternative means of production.
It is in his prescriptions that the book tends to drift. The Congress must do its constitutionally mandated jobs or be thrown out by the people. Some of his ideas on military education are creative and might well close the gap between the officer corps and civilians that he points to as a great problem.
But it is the clearly written analysis that makes this book shine. It should be a must read for those who wonder how we got to Iraq and where we might be heading as a society. The nation is in grave danger, and this is a book that that shows how we got to this juncture. Where we go from here is up to us. If we continue as we are, our options may narrow and be provided by others.
READ THIS BOOK!
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Sunday, March 20, 2005
Saturday, March 19, 2005
What Went Wrong
In an op-ed column in today’s Washington Post, Andrew J. Bacevich demolishes the neocon ideological underpinnings of the Iraq War. Despite my incompetence with computers, I have worked hard to make sure that today’s posting has a hot button to this extraordinary article. It is a must read for anyone with doubts about the war – or for that matter, those without doubts.
Bacevich is a professor of international relations at Boston University where Wild Bill roamed half a century ago when that great institution still admitted mildly ADHD crazies from Brockton, MA.
Bacevich is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and was awarded his Ph.D. in international relations from Princeton. He served in the army and retired as colonel. This guy understands the military and what has happened to this nation during the period from the end of W.W.II to the present like no one else I’ve come across.
That the professor happens to think very much like me on these matters clearly demonstrates his competence. I wrote to him this morning and complimented him on the fine article. I’ve come to the conclusion that the only difference that I’ve been able to discern between our positions is that he knows of what he writes while I rant from the position of concerned citizen.
His new book, The New American Militarism: How Americans are Seduced by War, that arrived here yesterday and will be reviewed for you as soon as I am able, promises to be a blockbuster.
Please read the article, it is the clearest and most incisive piece on how America went wrong in Iraq that I’ve ever seen.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48480-2005Mar18.html
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Bacevich is a professor of international relations at Boston University where Wild Bill roamed half a century ago when that great institution still admitted mildly ADHD crazies from Brockton, MA.
Bacevich is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and was awarded his Ph.D. in international relations from Princeton. He served in the army and retired as colonel. This guy understands the military and what has happened to this nation during the period from the end of W.W.II to the present like no one else I’ve come across.
That the professor happens to think very much like me on these matters clearly demonstrates his competence. I wrote to him this morning and complimented him on the fine article. I’ve come to the conclusion that the only difference that I’ve been able to discern between our positions is that he knows of what he writes while I rant from the position of concerned citizen.
His new book, The New American Militarism: How Americans are Seduced by War, that arrived here yesterday and will be reviewed for you as soon as I am able, promises to be a blockbuster.
Please read the article, it is the clearest and most incisive piece on how America went wrong in Iraq that I’ve ever seen.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48480-2005Mar18.html
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Sunday, March 13, 2005
A Cold Day on Wall Street
The Used Car Salesman in Chief’s efforts to close the deal on private Social Security accounts is going about as well as Willy Loman’s last road trip. That said he’s changing his pitch. Since the main resistance seems to be coming from geezers like Bill, he’s now running around looking for senile blue haired crowds to cheer when he says they’re protected. Even in this he’s stumbling as sign waving perky old grandmothers shout him down.
It’s all well and good to promise us fogies that we’ll be safe under his program of personal accounts. But presidents can change their minds. “Read my lips, ” was a whopper told by UCSIC’s Dad on the way to tax increase signing in the Rose Garden.
As an aside the UCSIC promised to put 10,000 border patrol officers on the job at the Mexican border over the next several years. His own budget for 2006 cut that baby out. But, even assuming his sincerity in something really important like personally signing the check for Grandma’s dog food, the UCSIC can only keep his promise until noontime on January 20, 2009 – not very far at all into the privatization scheme. The same goes for those honorable boys and girls working on Capitol Hill. As Mark Twain once opined, “The legislature’s in session; lock up the women and children.”
With something like ten trillion borrowed dollars required to fund the switchover to private accounts over the next three decades, who’s to say that even well intentioned government officials will find that difficult if not impossible given whatever crisis de jour happens along. Bumps in the road can happen; some of us remember the Great Depression, W.W.II, Korea, Vietnam, and even 13% home loans under Smiley from Georgia. During each of these little twists, Washington pols did their damnedest to rob Peter to pay Paul.
If in a couple or three decades from now those private accounts head south for a winter vacation when a deep chill hits Wall Street and there’s a three percent cost of living increase due for those millions of folks now fifty-five years old and older who are still around, there’ll be heat on those fine successors to the present incumbents in the Congress to defer that raise until next year.
So while Wild Bill won’t be around to write a nasty little blog calling those charlatans by the names they deserve, take his word for it and don’t rush to call your senator’s office and encourage him to make your grandchild rich. Let’s be cool and just save old FDR’s program. He lashed those nasty representatives of Wall Street plutocrats into voting for Social Security. Don’t let the UCSIC let their grandkids get their paws back in your wallets.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
It’s all well and good to promise us fogies that we’ll be safe under his program of personal accounts. But presidents can change their minds. “Read my lips, ” was a whopper told by UCSIC’s Dad on the way to tax increase signing in the Rose Garden.
As an aside the UCSIC promised to put 10,000 border patrol officers on the job at the Mexican border over the next several years. His own budget for 2006 cut that baby out. But, even assuming his sincerity in something really important like personally signing the check for Grandma’s dog food, the UCSIC can only keep his promise until noontime on January 20, 2009 – not very far at all into the privatization scheme. The same goes for those honorable boys and girls working on Capitol Hill. As Mark Twain once opined, “The legislature’s in session; lock up the women and children.”
With something like ten trillion borrowed dollars required to fund the switchover to private accounts over the next three decades, who’s to say that even well intentioned government officials will find that difficult if not impossible given whatever crisis de jour happens along. Bumps in the road can happen; some of us remember the Great Depression, W.W.II, Korea, Vietnam, and even 13% home loans under Smiley from Georgia. During each of these little twists, Washington pols did their damnedest to rob Peter to pay Paul.
If in a couple or three decades from now those private accounts head south for a winter vacation when a deep chill hits Wall Street and there’s a three percent cost of living increase due for those millions of folks now fifty-five years old and older who are still around, there’ll be heat on those fine successors to the present incumbents in the Congress to defer that raise until next year.
So while Wild Bill won’t be around to write a nasty little blog calling those charlatans by the names they deserve, take his word for it and don’t rush to call your senator’s office and encourage him to make your grandchild rich. Let’s be cool and just save old FDR’s program. He lashed those nasty representatives of Wall Street plutocrats into voting for Social Security. Don’t let the UCSIC let their grandkids get their paws back in your wallets.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Saturday, March 05, 2005
Group Think
According to today’s Washington Post, in 2003 in Samaarra, Iraq, an Army intelligence sergeant went to his commanding officer and dropped a dime on members of his unit concerning abuses being perpetrated on Iraqi detainees. The commander, in turn, accused the sergeant of being delusional and ordered him to undergo psychiatric evaluation in Germany despite having been judged stable by a psychiatrist at his own base.
The sergeant had recommended that the intelligence unit be transferred away from the Samaaran base before members of the unit killed some of those incarcerated. He accused fellow soldiers of asphyxiating prisoners, pulling their hair, striking them, and staging mock executions.
These and similar charges are disturbing and are grist for many opponents of the war. While counting myself among that group and, of course, disgusted by the charges of abuse, I served in the army during and shortly after the Korean War and saw how pressure can influence behavior. In my first novel, A Tattered Coat Upon A Stick, I described an incident in which during war games atrocities were perpetrated by one team against another. That incident actually happened. We diffused the situation before anyone was seriously injured, but it left a vivid impression on me. (I hasten to add that I never served in or even near combat.)
I understand how these things can happen, especially in the climate of fear and pressure described by those court martialled for the Abu Ghraib incidents, and it leads me to a belief in group think. Bureaucracies - public, military, and private – get caught up in a climate of paranoia and can go mad. Think about the Holocaust, the Gulags, and even companies such as Enron and one can only conclude that bureaucratic madness took place in each case – not that these actions were in any way equivalent.
One of my history professors was German born and described to the class how he and his peers were forced to go to Nazi rallies. Of course we’ve all seen newsreels of the prewar rallies in which the fantastic pagan rituals of torch lit parades and mass hailing and saluting of Hitler took place to the sounds of Wagner and powerful martial music. The professor had an inside view and described the feelings of those massed for the event. Everyone was watching everyone else and the climate of fear was such that all feared being turned in as a non-believer and thus performed as madly as possible.
In the Soviet Union, dissidents were often sent to psychiatric hospitals. In the United States we thought that this was a sign of bureaucratic corruption, but in retrospect I wonder if it was not the case of true believers unable to comprehend that their vision of the world was not honest and that of the opposition mean spirited.
While I don’t know the circumstances in this case, I’m more than sympathetic to both the sergeant who appears to have been grounded in reality and the commander who simply could not comprehend anything but the institutional dynamic.
So it is in our larger society today. During the past election we saw and heard some amazing charges made against both candidates for president. These are big boys, so I don’t worry about them, but I have to wonder about their followers who in a different era with little prodding could burn their opponents at the stake.
Well it was something to ponder, but the clock on the wall just struck four and it’s time to go.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
The sergeant had recommended that the intelligence unit be transferred away from the Samaaran base before members of the unit killed some of those incarcerated. He accused fellow soldiers of asphyxiating prisoners, pulling their hair, striking them, and staging mock executions.
These and similar charges are disturbing and are grist for many opponents of the war. While counting myself among that group and, of course, disgusted by the charges of abuse, I served in the army during and shortly after the Korean War and saw how pressure can influence behavior. In my first novel, A Tattered Coat Upon A Stick, I described an incident in which during war games atrocities were perpetrated by one team against another. That incident actually happened. We diffused the situation before anyone was seriously injured, but it left a vivid impression on me. (I hasten to add that I never served in or even near combat.)
I understand how these things can happen, especially in the climate of fear and pressure described by those court martialled for the Abu Ghraib incidents, and it leads me to a belief in group think. Bureaucracies - public, military, and private – get caught up in a climate of paranoia and can go mad. Think about the Holocaust, the Gulags, and even companies such as Enron and one can only conclude that bureaucratic madness took place in each case – not that these actions were in any way equivalent.
One of my history professors was German born and described to the class how he and his peers were forced to go to Nazi rallies. Of course we’ve all seen newsreels of the prewar rallies in which the fantastic pagan rituals of torch lit parades and mass hailing and saluting of Hitler took place to the sounds of Wagner and powerful martial music. The professor had an inside view and described the feelings of those massed for the event. Everyone was watching everyone else and the climate of fear was such that all feared being turned in as a non-believer and thus performed as madly as possible.
In the Soviet Union, dissidents were often sent to psychiatric hospitals. In the United States we thought that this was a sign of bureaucratic corruption, but in retrospect I wonder if it was not the case of true believers unable to comprehend that their vision of the world was not honest and that of the opposition mean spirited.
While I don’t know the circumstances in this case, I’m more than sympathetic to both the sergeant who appears to have been grounded in reality and the commander who simply could not comprehend anything but the institutional dynamic.
So it is in our larger society today. During the past election we saw and heard some amazing charges made against both candidates for president. These are big boys, so I don’t worry about them, but I have to wonder about their followers who in a different era with little prodding could burn their opponents at the stake.
Well it was something to ponder, but the clock on the wall just struck four and it’s time to go.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Friday, March 04, 2005
Our Discomfort
As the sole hyper power, the United States has many unfriendly competitors and more than a few mortal enemies. Even friends and traditional allies find our power and our ability and willingness to project it discomforting. Not only do we have to deal with traditional sources of power, but since 9/11, it has become apparent that the ancient art of terror is now the source of another great worry.
Sadly, by attacking Iraq, we have given comfort to those who wish bad things for us. Our forces are concentrated in a manner that we have very limited flexibility with our ground troops and far less than we should with our air and sea elements. As we pour blood and treasure into the sand in Iraq, we do ourselves little good in the field of fighting terror and we are weakened in our dealings with other national powers.
Our entire defense budget has had to be reprogrammed to support the Iraq War. I’ve pounded on this issue before and won’t go beyond saying that the retirement of the USS John F. Kennedy limits our ability to project power around the world and deferment of a number of weapons systems limits us in other ways.
So as our leaders say things are moving swimmingly in Iraq I find this government-speak quite hollow. We’re $200 billion into the fray and we’re pouring $4.3 billion more into the sand each week, and that says nothing about the human cost to us and the Iraqis. For very modest costs, the Jihadists are tying up the entire military structure of the United States. Not only are they tying up the 150,000 troops in the country – with all of their arms, armaments, and support equipment - but far more in Kuwait, Germany, and other countries around the world, including here at home that are needed to supply and support the mission.
While $4.3 billion a week is an extraordinary sum, I wonder if it includes all of the supporting costs being incurred around the globe? In any event, the terrorists are able to perfect their hostile techniques at low cost and use the war to add to their forces. All the while many traditional nation states cry crocodile tears at our plight. Even our commanders on the ground acknowledge the usefulness of the fight to the terrorists as a source of recruiting.
There are positive signs throughout the Islamic world. The neoconservative view that many of the repressive governments throughout the Civilization have little popular support is demonstrable. That the theocracy is shaky in Iran, that various elements in Lebanon have put aside their differences to pressure the Syrians, that Saudi Arabia is feeling the pinch and pressuring the Baathists are all well and good but provide no assurance that Western style democracies are in the offing.
By going to War in Iraq, our political power against Iran and North Korea – two far more dangerous states – is greatly diminished and our military capability is degraded to the point that the option is not frightening to either government.
Two years ago, our power to dictate to rogue states and to fight terrorists in places like Afghanistan was beyond question, but by attacking a power that had no weapons of mass destruction and which posed little threat to us or our allies, we have weakened ourselves immeasurably. Of course, we’re still the world’s great power, but anyone who thinks we have the flexibility and political clout we had before this mad neocon adventure has found the source of really good stuff.
The Iraq War is a calamity, the greatest since Vietnam. But it is not a completely negative experience. We have been pushed into realizing that we do not live in a world that is ours to do as we please. The president has quietly tried to mend fences with our traditional allies. Every dark cloud has a silver lining.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Sadly, by attacking Iraq, we have given comfort to those who wish bad things for us. Our forces are concentrated in a manner that we have very limited flexibility with our ground troops and far less than we should with our air and sea elements. As we pour blood and treasure into the sand in Iraq, we do ourselves little good in the field of fighting terror and we are weakened in our dealings with other national powers.
Our entire defense budget has had to be reprogrammed to support the Iraq War. I’ve pounded on this issue before and won’t go beyond saying that the retirement of the USS John F. Kennedy limits our ability to project power around the world and deferment of a number of weapons systems limits us in other ways.
So as our leaders say things are moving swimmingly in Iraq I find this government-speak quite hollow. We’re $200 billion into the fray and we’re pouring $4.3 billion more into the sand each week, and that says nothing about the human cost to us and the Iraqis. For very modest costs, the Jihadists are tying up the entire military structure of the United States. Not only are they tying up the 150,000 troops in the country – with all of their arms, armaments, and support equipment - but far more in Kuwait, Germany, and other countries around the world, including here at home that are needed to supply and support the mission.
While $4.3 billion a week is an extraordinary sum, I wonder if it includes all of the supporting costs being incurred around the globe? In any event, the terrorists are able to perfect their hostile techniques at low cost and use the war to add to their forces. All the while many traditional nation states cry crocodile tears at our plight. Even our commanders on the ground acknowledge the usefulness of the fight to the terrorists as a source of recruiting.
There are positive signs throughout the Islamic world. The neoconservative view that many of the repressive governments throughout the Civilization have little popular support is demonstrable. That the theocracy is shaky in Iran, that various elements in Lebanon have put aside their differences to pressure the Syrians, that Saudi Arabia is feeling the pinch and pressuring the Baathists are all well and good but provide no assurance that Western style democracies are in the offing.
By going to War in Iraq, our political power against Iran and North Korea – two far more dangerous states – is greatly diminished and our military capability is degraded to the point that the option is not frightening to either government.
Two years ago, our power to dictate to rogue states and to fight terrorists in places like Afghanistan was beyond question, but by attacking a power that had no weapons of mass destruction and which posed little threat to us or our allies, we have weakened ourselves immeasurably. Of course, we’re still the world’s great power, but anyone who thinks we have the flexibility and political clout we had before this mad neocon adventure has found the source of really good stuff.
The Iraq War is a calamity, the greatest since Vietnam. But it is not a completely negative experience. We have been pushed into realizing that we do not live in a world that is ours to do as we please. The president has quietly tried to mend fences with our traditional allies. Every dark cloud has a silver lining.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Thursday, March 03, 2005
Roses Are Red
For a change of pace, I offer the following:
In practicing the craft of novel writing, I have come upon certain truths – at least for me. The most important is that writing a novel is far more like the job of a craftsman such as an old time shoemaker rather than some sort of pyrotechnic display of creativity and inspiration.
Unless an author is a genius, he or she needs support and guidance. Virtually everyone agrees that reading what the masters have created is a good place to begin. Another good source for me has been the systematic analysis of the masters by competent novelists and teachers of writing. A small shelf in my library is burdened by these books.
Another truth is that I’m not going to make any money from my writing. That’s no big deal; I’m retired and do it because it’s fun and there are certain things that I want to get off my chest and into print. More than 10,000 novels are published every year and the vast majority of them produce very little income for their authors. Some of these books are very good, better than a substantial portion of those that succeed financially. Mine are definitely in that latter category. On the bright side, with the copyright laws now in place, my grandchildren may well be able to have annual pizza parties in my memory for decades to come – of course drinks will be extra and Dutch treat.
Before tiring of it and quitting for lack of adequate financial reward, I used to teach writing and give lectures on the subject for modest honoraria. In the lectures, I invariably described the work habits of some of the greats such as Thackery, Dickens, and Twain. While they were all geniuses, their work habits were those of crazed craftsmen. For example, Dickens committed about 2,000 words per day to paper in long hand. In contrast, when really cranking in mid-novel, I average a little over 500 new words each day.
The point of this posting is that at my last lecture in late 2004, a woman in the audience challenged me on this work bench approach to writing. It seems that she was a poet. (There are no longer poetesses are there?) She said that my workman like approach might well be alright for a pedestrian novelist but that she was an artist who leaped out of bed in the middle of the night to write down a couplet or two that come to her in her dreams.
The fairly large (large is the operative word here) audience sided with me – most of them apparently aspiring pedestrian novelists - but I did not have really good points to refute the poet and said that whatever worked for each person was right.
Only lately did the response that I wish I made come to mind. I have no quarrel with the lady's methodology and work habits and never disputed them. My answer should have been that of a novelist. My books have all come to me in relative flashes. Over the next few days, I refined the stories in my mind and the research necessary to place them in historical context went on from there for whatever period was required, usually months.
Novelists then outline their projects, some on paper and others, like me, in their minds’ eyes. The point is that the inspiration for the couplet comes not much more swiftly than that of the novel, but producing a 100,000 word novel simply takes a lot more time than writing down a sonnet that is running around in one’s head. In the case of a long book, it makes little sense to write oneself into exhaustion and collapsing.
One production example that jumps to mind is War and Peace; I don’t know how long it took Tolstoy to get the job done, but the Mrs. typed the document through six complete revisions. I won’t get into the question of marital devotion but that case must be in the top ten percent
Couplets and long novels don’t take a lot more time in the inspiration phase, but writing down something like Moby Dick takes a little longer than Roses are red, Violets are blue…
Blogging, in contrast, is easy.
Wild Bill
In practicing the craft of novel writing, I have come upon certain truths – at least for me. The most important is that writing a novel is far more like the job of a craftsman such as an old time shoemaker rather than some sort of pyrotechnic display of creativity and inspiration.
Unless an author is a genius, he or she needs support and guidance. Virtually everyone agrees that reading what the masters have created is a good place to begin. Another good source for me has been the systematic analysis of the masters by competent novelists and teachers of writing. A small shelf in my library is burdened by these books.
Another truth is that I’m not going to make any money from my writing. That’s no big deal; I’m retired and do it because it’s fun and there are certain things that I want to get off my chest and into print. More than 10,000 novels are published every year and the vast majority of them produce very little income for their authors. Some of these books are very good, better than a substantial portion of those that succeed financially. Mine are definitely in that latter category. On the bright side, with the copyright laws now in place, my grandchildren may well be able to have annual pizza parties in my memory for decades to come – of course drinks will be extra and Dutch treat.
Before tiring of it and quitting for lack of adequate financial reward, I used to teach writing and give lectures on the subject for modest honoraria. In the lectures, I invariably described the work habits of some of the greats such as Thackery, Dickens, and Twain. While they were all geniuses, their work habits were those of crazed craftsmen. For example, Dickens committed about 2,000 words per day to paper in long hand. In contrast, when really cranking in mid-novel, I average a little over 500 new words each day.
The point of this posting is that at my last lecture in late 2004, a woman in the audience challenged me on this work bench approach to writing. It seems that she was a poet. (There are no longer poetesses are there?) She said that my workman like approach might well be alright for a pedestrian novelist but that she was an artist who leaped out of bed in the middle of the night to write down a couplet or two that come to her in her dreams.
The fairly large (large is the operative word here) audience sided with me – most of them apparently aspiring pedestrian novelists - but I did not have really good points to refute the poet and said that whatever worked for each person was right.
Only lately did the response that I wish I made come to mind. I have no quarrel with the lady's methodology and work habits and never disputed them. My answer should have been that of a novelist. My books have all come to me in relative flashes. Over the next few days, I refined the stories in my mind and the research necessary to place them in historical context went on from there for whatever period was required, usually months.
Novelists then outline their projects, some on paper and others, like me, in their minds’ eyes. The point is that the inspiration for the couplet comes not much more swiftly than that of the novel, but producing a 100,000 word novel simply takes a lot more time than writing down a sonnet that is running around in one’s head. In the case of a long book, it makes little sense to write oneself into exhaustion and collapsing.
One production example that jumps to mind is War and Peace; I don’t know how long it took Tolstoy to get the job done, but the Mrs. typed the document through six complete revisions. I won’t get into the question of marital devotion but that case must be in the top ten percent
Couplets and long novels don’t take a lot more time in the inspiration phase, but writing down something like Moby Dick takes a little longer than Roses are red, Violets are blue…
Blogging, in contrast, is easy.
Wild Bill
Wednesday, March 02, 2005
Next Stop, Funny Farm
Some near and dear say that I must get over Iraq. They indicate that I’m beginning to sound like an opponent of the Mexican War still smarting over it in the eighteen eighties.
So what if Iraq was a violation of international law, if it is costing $4.3 billion per week, that we continue to lose lives and suffer casualties, that our Army and Marines are overstretched as a result, that recruitment is suffering, that we have to retire the USS John F. Kennedy; that weapons systems must be cancelled or deferred.
I’m accused of not being able to read the paper. Isn’t it clear that freedom is indeed on the march? The Syrians are scurrying to get out of Lebanon. Mubarak really is a two party man after all. Peace is at hand between the Israelis and Palestinians. (I gave Bush an unambiguous compliment on this on Presidents’ Day.) Women will be driving cars in Saudi Arabia in just months.
Even the French have thrown in the towel; Jacques and George are raising the dickens with Assad over pulling out of Beirut. The tyrannical regimes in the Arab world are collapsing like houses of cards. George Bush is the most important president since Franklin Roosevelt. The neocons were right all along. Why can’t I get on the right side of history?
I can’t. Bush took this nation to war under false pretenses. The attack on a sovereign power that posed no threat to us and that is bleeding us dry physically and fiscally is a cancer that must be resolved – and it can’t be in the short or medium terms. The war on terror is neglected because of it, and our homeland is more vulnerable due to it.
Red herrings are everywhere: Social Security is in crisis; private accounts are what are needed; freedom is at hand in Egypt; and so on. Each one is drawn across the trail, but nothing stanches the flood of money or blood in Iraq.
Am I wrong? Tell me. I need to hear it.
Bill
So what if Iraq was a violation of international law, if it is costing $4.3 billion per week, that we continue to lose lives and suffer casualties, that our Army and Marines are overstretched as a result, that recruitment is suffering, that we have to retire the USS John F. Kennedy; that weapons systems must be cancelled or deferred.
I’m accused of not being able to read the paper. Isn’t it clear that freedom is indeed on the march? The Syrians are scurrying to get out of Lebanon. Mubarak really is a two party man after all. Peace is at hand between the Israelis and Palestinians. (I gave Bush an unambiguous compliment on this on Presidents’ Day.) Women will be driving cars in Saudi Arabia in just months.
Even the French have thrown in the towel; Jacques and George are raising the dickens with Assad over pulling out of Beirut. The tyrannical regimes in the Arab world are collapsing like houses of cards. George Bush is the most important president since Franklin Roosevelt. The neocons were right all along. Why can’t I get on the right side of history?
I can’t. Bush took this nation to war under false pretenses. The attack on a sovereign power that posed no threat to us and that is bleeding us dry physically and fiscally is a cancer that must be resolved – and it can’t be in the short or medium terms. The war on terror is neglected because of it, and our homeland is more vulnerable due to it.
Red herrings are everywhere: Social Security is in crisis; private accounts are what are needed; freedom is at hand in Egypt; and so on. Each one is drawn across the trail, but nothing stanches the flood of money or blood in Iraq.
Am I wrong? Tell me. I need to hear it.
Bill
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