stegosaurus posted:

lafargue was a total idiot and asshole

another senseless fucking P.C. disabled/minority promotion to make the enterprise seem enlightened

At last, passage paid, and luggage safe, we stood on board the schooner. Hoisting sail, it glided down the Acushnet river. On one side, New Bedford rose in terraces of streets, their ice-covered trees all glittering in the clear, cold air. Huge hills and mountains of casks on casks were piled upon her wharves, and side by side the world-wandering whale ships lay silent and safely moored at last; while from others came a sound of carpenters and coopers, with blended noises of fires and forges to melt the pitch, all betokening that new cruises were on the start; that one most perilous and long voyage ended, only begins a second; and a second ended, only begins a third, and so on, for ever and for aye. Such is the endlessness, yea, the intolerableness of all earthly effort.

But one cannot sustain an indifferent air concerning Fedallah. He was such a creature as civilized, domestic people in the temperate zone only see in their dreams, and that but dimly; but the like of whom now and then glide among the unchanging Asiatic communities, especially the Oriental isles to the east of the continent—those insulated, immemorial, unalterable countries, which even in these modern days still preserve much of the ghostly aboriginalness of earth's primal generations, when the memory of the first man was a distinct recollection, and all men his descendants, unknowing whence he came, eyed each other as real phantoms, and asked of the sun and the moon why they were created and to what end; when though, according to Genesis, the angels indeed consorted with the daughters of men, the devils also, add the uncanonical Rabbins, indulged in mundane amours.

this passage reminded me of zarathustra (excluding the bit about not being of this world)

It does seem to me, that herein we see the rare virtue of a strong individual vitality, and the rare virtue of thick walls, and the rare virtue of interior spaciousness. Oh, man! admire and model thyself after the whale! Do thou, too, remain warm among ice. Do thou, too, live in this world without being of it. Be cool at the equator; keep thy blood fluid at the Pole. Like the great dome of St. Peter's, and like the great whale, retain, O man! in all seasons a temperature of thine own. But how easy and how hopeless to teach these fine things! Of erections, how few are domed like St. Peter's! of creatures, how few vast as the whale!

Ironicwarcriminal posted:

Melville, Conrad, Nietzsche, Faulker and Palahniuk all strike me as the same stew of unreadable gonnisms and deflating, awkward prose; honestly you could replace their books with excerpts from a GBS spooky stories thread and nobody would know.

hmm, yes, well, this list of major figures in the western literary canon is definitely good company for palahniuk to keep, and gbs too, and i will continue to make literary analogies using internet message boards and writers of airport fiction

tpaine posted:

durst. durst never changes.

i'm reading the book "paramilitarism and the assault on democracy in haiti" by jeb sprague

why do you only read books which agree with opinions you already have?

you might as well read alex jones

http://www.infowars.com/paramilitary-gangs-join-un-force-in-preying-on-haitian-population/

HAITI – For several weeks, armed groups of young black men, presumably Haitian and too young to be veterans of the Haitian Armed Forces (Forces Armees d’Haiti, FAd’H) disbanded in 1995, have been parading in military fatigues through Haitian towns. Some politicians and the Haitian press have been calling these men “former soldiers.” For the sake of accuracy, let us forgo this awkward and unfounded label and call them “men” or “gangs.” These marching men claim they want to enforce respect for the national sovereignty and get their back pay. One suspects their priorities are reversed.



These gangs have been around for months, but their more public appearances immediately followed massive demonstrations on February 29 to commemorate the 2004 coup against Aristide. The march had been organized by a new party of Lavalas supporters called “Ghettos-Unis” (United Ghettos). Over 10,000 people marched through Port-au-Prince chanting:

“Yes to democracy, no to reinstatement of dictatorship!”

… and proclaiming

“Intimidations will not make us back down! We don’t need your motorcycles, give your passport instead!”

Understandably, Haitians have focused on the terrible loss of life this month, but sadly, cries of “insecurity” play into the hands of MINUSTAH, which now exists merely to continue itself as part of the growing cancer of the UN “peacekeepers” and wants, more than anything, to renew its mandate. Despite the UN’s record of rapes, child prostitution, trading of food for sex, and killings by gunfire and cholera, this organization still claims to be indispensable for safety and democracy in Haiti.

It is worthwhile to consider how the new armed gangs are supported. Their training camps have been photographed in the Haitian countryside by the western press since before Martelly’s inauguration. The sources of weapons and training may be reasonably guessed because, after all, the U.S. publicly promised to sell arms to Haiti for its presumed drug war, and France formally pledged to train Haiti’s new army (right after Haiti promised to relax its adoption policy). Both of these “friends” of Haiti also wield considerable influence in the UN. So it is hardly worthwhile to entertain some notion that MINUSTAH and the new gangs might somehow be at odds with each other. In fact they reinforce each other: the presence of MINUSTAH is proffered as the reason a “Haitian army” is needed to protect the national sovereignty, and the threat of paramilitaries is used to justify MINUSTAH’s continued stay in Haiti.

i see your downvote. have fun supporting united nations trot imperialism