From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Thu Sep 26 2002 - 22:29:35 MDT
Damien writes
> >"Peachy?" Why the attitude? ;-)
>
> An Aussie's attempt to emulate the `Blackboard Jungle'/`West
> Side Story' tone of the `creaming' parable.
Oh. To me, A creams B doesn't imply anything except
a severe---but probably non-lethal---attack. Perhaps
it even originally came from pie-in-the-face, but if
so, then at least when I was a kid it meant something
like one team winning easily in a football game.
"yeah, we creamed 'em!". You could also say that
the U.S. creamed Iraq the last time, (and hopes to
do it again) or Nazi Germany creamed Poland.
> ...requires all the players to jump outside their
> sandbox and grow up. I hope they do, because I'm
> cowering here in the corner hoping none of the buggers
> notice me and shove my head down the toilet.
I don't get at all where *that* is coming from. If I
lived in a big city like Chicago in the 20's, then
that's how I'd feel. Yes; sometimes I wonder if I'll
be a target of either the police or hoodlums, but it
just never seems to happen.
> The cocky little twerp who runs my own small gang from
> the wrong side of the tracks (the `Take it,It's Yours'
> gang) already has his own head stuck right up the bum of
> the bully, so I'm not expecting any help from that quarter.
I think that you're referring to Australia, and to the
motivations of ministers who enjoy trade agreements
with the U.S. or who don't want to get on its wrong
side for some reason.
But if the Australian people really felt that they
had their collective head up the bully's ass, wouldn't
they just elect new leaders? Don't you think that
most Australians simply would not agree with your
analogy?
> >I perceive the underlying power politics as
> >*exactly* what happens in a lawless barbarian
> >tribe or in a school yard when no teachers are
> >around.
>
> In other words, the biggest bully tends to take
> the other kids' toys when he's used up his own,
> as I agreed.
It depends on the nature of the biggest kid.
Do you think that if Germany had won World
War II, and then a German/Japan war had been
fought in the sixties and the Germans won
that too, and if someone like Hitler or
Goering was still in charge, that it would
be the same as it is now?
Very few times on the playground will the
biggest kid actually be saintly.
> Should the smaller kids, who wish to hang on
> to their own toys, build a sling-shot, they'll
> get creamed before they can deploy it.
Well, despite the non-proliferation treaties,
a lot of small countries like France, China
(at the time), Israel, South Africa, India,
and Pakistan managed to get the bomb. Why
didn't the bully enforce the non-proliferation
concept? Do you think that it was just the
presence of the U.S.S.R.? Why didn't the
two biggest bullies keep all A-weapons to
themselves?
> On some level, the bully assumes that this is the
> proper order of things; in fact you can hear him
> giving sermons every day to this effect--he's got
> some clever sycophants to write his script.
Yes.
> But would he feel that playground might-is-right
> rules are *really* right if he were in the reverse
> position?
Hell, no. The very same "sycophants" would be
vigorously protesting the way that the Third Reich
was keeping everyone else from having atom bombs
(if they were permitted the freedom of dissent,
that is).
> Lee, I think, would reply that this question requires all
> the players to jump outside their sandbox and grow up.
Hardly. What you propose is, sadly, inconceivable.
Suddenly, after 5000 years nations stop acting like
nations?
Now I do agree that nations are much nicer than they
*used* to be, but that's kind of a separate question.
Lee
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