Gaza as repetition and spectacle
History is repeating itself in a tragedy of epic proportions.
Karl Marx's famous pronouncement from The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte has been repeated so often that it seems like an ever-present ghost to us: "Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce."
Today, however, we find historical personages we had assumed were residing in the netherworld of the past reappearing to us with astounding vitality. At least that is the feeling one gets when one witnesses the exhumation of the live bodies of Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, and several other neocons speaking to us not from the grave, but eerily reinhabiting our mediascapes, urging us once again to invade Iraq. Similarly John McCain assures us that we can do it right this time because our military leaders have been there, we know whom to support: "We know these guys."
Their language is haunted by their past lives; their track record does not speak well for such self-confidence. The regurgitated phrases take on an absurd air - it appears as if we are caught in a time warp.
Similarly, John Kerry, someone who surely knows the complexities of the situation in Israel-Palestine, rehearsed precisely the same language Obama used during the 2012 bombing of Gaza. On July 10, Kerry said: "No country can accept rocket fire aimed at civilians and we support completely Israel's right to defend itself against these vicious attacks."
Obama, on November 18, 2012, said: "There is no country on earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders." Of course political phraseology has an extremely long shelf life, but my point here is that the recycling of such language here signals just how entrenched US policy is with regard to this conflict.
INTERACTIVE: Gaza Under Attack
Kerry's statement was especially disappointing given Philip Gordon's comments at Haaretz's international conference. Gordon is the White House coordinator for the Middle East, North Africa, and the Gulf region.
Gaza as repetition and spectacle
History is repeating itself in a tragedy of epic proportions.
Karl Marx's famous pronouncement from The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte has been repeated so often that it seems like an ever-present ghost to us: "Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce."
Today, however, we find historical personages we had assumed were residing in the netherworld of the past reappearing to us with astounding vitality. At least that is the feeling one gets when one witnesses the exhumation of the live bodies of Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, and several other neocons speaking to us not from the grave, but eerily reinhabiting our mediascapes, urging us once again to invade Iraq. Similarly John McCain assures us that we can do it right this time because our military leaders have been there, we know whom to support: "We know these guys."
Their language is haunted by their past lives; their track record does not speak well for such self-confidence. The regurgitated phrases take on an absurd air - it appears as if we are caught in a time warp.
Similarly, John Kerry, someone who surely knows the complexities of the situation in Israel-Palestine, rehearsed precisely the same language Obama used during the 2012 bombing of Gaza. On July 10, Kerry said: "No country can accept rocket fire aimed at civilians and we support completely Israel's right to defend itself against these vicious attacks."
Obama, on November 18, 2012, said: "There is no country on earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders." Of course political phraseology has an extremely long shelf life, but my point here is that the recycling of such language here signals just how entrenched US policy is with regard to this conflict.
INTERACTIVE: Gaza Under Attack
Kerry's statement was especially disappointing given Philip Gordon's comments at Haaretz's international conference. Gordon is the White House coordinator for the Middle East, North Africa, and the Gulf region.
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