Missile Defense Before and After 9-11 The Ultimate.MacGuffin Stuart Davis

Fatal Choice By Richard Butler West view 200 pp., $22.00, cloth

The New Nuclear Danger: George W. Bush’s Military-Industrial Complex Dr. Helen Caldicott The New Press 224 pp., $14.95,paper

An Evening with Dr. Helen Caldicott. Ithaca College, 17 November 2002 A FreeAirProduction CD. $5.00

Way Out There in the Blue: Reagan, Star Wars, and the End of the Cold War Frances FitzGerald Simon and Schuster 592 pp., $30.00, cloth

Weapons in Space Karl Grossman Open Media Pamphlet Series 80 pp., $6.95, paper

When American Flight 77 hit the Pentagon at 9:43 that September morning, the crash interrupted a conference in Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s office on missile defense. (So Newsweek reported; other sources made it a routine intelligence briefing.) The subject was not dropped in the urgency of defending the homeland against airborne or pedestrian terrorists but only adjourned. Within weeks Congress voted to give the President most of the $8.3 billion he had sought for this cause, and the business press had reason to celebrate “the Good News on Missile Defense” (Business Week) and to congratulate the nation on its good sense: since September 11, opined Rupert Murdoch’s Daily Standard in late October, “in the two places where it mat­ Jack Sherman ters most—Congress and the minds of the American people—support for missile Review of January 2002 made MD the cen­ tle-worthy apparatus without the dismal his­ drives it on into the new century? defense has, if anything, increased.” terpiece of and fig leaf for its radical redefin­ tory of operational tests, many of them The question gains piquancy from a fact The Bush administration needed no rein­ ition of U.S. strategic forces as a New Age botched or cooked, conveniently chronicled emphasized by Caldicott’s title and forcement, having never lost the faith. warfighting force. “ And when Bush at the Union of Concerned Scientists’ web­ FitzGerald’s narrative: so much of this has Defense strategists of the Perie-Rumsfeld- announced the first “modest” deployment of site. The cost to international stability and happened before, and if the first iteration bor­ Cheney stamp have cherished Missile ground-based interceptors in Alaska last confidence, writes veteran disarmament dered on farce, the new one brings tragedy Defense (hereafter MD) ever since Reagan December, he cited the 9-11 attacks as negotiator Richard Butler, has been big and much closer. Upon Ronald Reagan’s jaw- days, first as a counterforce to arms control an example of the “unprecedented threats” will get bigger; the “fatal choice” of his title, dropping announcement of March 1983 that negotiations and more lately as a tool for rein­ that called for such a shield. Thus far the for the U.S., is or was between shoring up and the U.S. would research and develop a shield stating Cold War antagonisms in a unipolar recent record. extending existing arms-control law and sab­ against hostile nuclear missiles there followed world. Rumsfeld chaired two pro-MD panels “Modest” in cost and conception is some­ otaging the whole structure with proliferative a cycle of initiatives, hyperbolic projections, before taking office, the first espousing the thing Missile Defense has never been, as measures like, for example, MD. But this is learned debates over the rival merits of “rogue states” theory of nuclear conflict dur­ Frances FitzGerald’s dramatic and detailed what our masters are committed to doing, in unproven technologies, clashes in Congress, ing the Clinton administration's lapse of con­ history of “Star Wars”—the derisory sobri­ the face of resistance both popular and gov­ palace plots, treaty reinterpretations, and fidence in MD and the second threatening a quet for MD, called the Strategic Defense ernmental from our traditional enemies aborted international arms negotiations. Bush “space Pearl Harbor” if such initiatives Initiative under Ronald Reagan—makes (France and the U.K.) as well as our new I maintained the Star Wars commitment with­ waned. Bush campaigned on it; Powell prom­ clear, and modest it will never be, if Dr. Helen friends (Russia and China), and most every­ out materially enlarging it; the Clintonites, ised to get on with it “as aggressively as pos­ Caldicott’s punchy new guidebook to nuclear one else. Further, Caldicott and Grossman after a few years of downsizing, yielded to the sible” at his confirmation hearings; and in late threats old and new, of which MD is only one, contend, current MD plans are a means to pressure of Republicans and scandals and 2001 Bush announced the country’s with­ proves reliable. (Her recorded talk at Ithaca another means, the weaponization and funded a MD development whose deploy­ drawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile College is even punchier in its language.) nuclearization of space, for the sake of ment they left to the folks to come, and with Treaty between the U.S. and the Russians, Americans have spent roughly eighty billion exploiting the stars and ruling the world. their coming the cycle began anew. long an article of international stability. The dollars on MD since 1983 without producing Much of the world, predictably, fears this Defense Department’s Nuclear Posture a “capable” weapons system, a remotely bat­ thing and hates us for trying to build it; what continued on page 9 page 2 The BOOKPRESS April 2003 Letters Realigning the World A friend who formerly lived in Ithaca see Bush as another such. and mutual containment and leaving a world is an asset in terms of domestic politics—it shared with us a letter he sent shortly before They would probably admit that the break­ with one decisive superpower. As the fits well with the American self-image—but the U.S. invasion o f Iraq to his 21-year-old ing up of the Soviet empire was largely a Cheney-Wolfowitz guys see it, they won the combined with a changed attitude toward son, who is studying at the London School of matter of the overextension of the Soviet cold war, by being the last one standing. other nations, foregoing long-term alliances Economics. sphere of influence far beyond a sustainable They believe that they are about to repeat for “coalitions of the willing” and caring less area, and the attempt of Russia to maintain a those triumphs on a much larger scale. Dick about world opinion, it is a liability interna­ Wesley, very large buffer against the West (and the Cheney, on Meet the Press (we sent you the tionally. I wanted to take time today to give you my East) by military force and dominance— tape) laid it all out quite clearly. He compared It happens against a new sense of the shape best understanding of what is happening in which came to ultimate grief in the very part Bush to Reagan, even praising Bush for being of the world. The United States is the remain­ the world right now, as we face imminent war of the world where we are now carrying on sort of a cowboy. He said that he expects the ing superpower, and the people who are craft­ with Iraq. our own adventures. But they think that they Iraqi army to give little resistance to US ing these strategies want to figure out how to Your mother says that when you called played their cards right in the face of that forces, and he even suggested both that the avoid the emergence of a second. The candi­ yesterday, you told her that you are con­ overextension, challenging, supporting rebel Republican Guards might surrender rather dates right now are two: China, and Islam. cerned that if we go to war for moral princi­ forces, supporting the reform movements than fight and that Saddam Hussein might be There are secondary possibilities—Japan, for ples (to depose a dictator, a despot who does within the Soviet Union, and bankrupting the assassinated by his own forces. He clearly instance, or even Europe, but the relevant one bad things) it raises questions of where we Soviets by forcing impossible levels of mili­ thinks that the war will not last long, that it here is Islam. The fear is that the former then draw the line. Many people have said the tary spending. I suspect that conviction is will be acceptable in the level of civilian Soviet Republics, with large Moslem popula­ same thing—what makes this particular dic­ unshakeable. casualties and infrastructure damage, and that tions, might align with Iran, maybe Iraq, tator different from others. They also had what they consider success (he used these words) we will be greeted as Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, etc and create a The answer that his is a rogue state that in the Philippines, where they withdrew sup­ liberators by the Iraqi people. A heady, high­ wealthy, populous, militarily capable bloc. supports or might support terrorism, even al- port from Marcos after years of propping up ly optimistic appraisal—but unmistakably The fear is that with time such an alliance Qaeda, does not differentiate very well— that dictatorship, gave limited support to what he thinks. might become more likely; the hope is to cre­ which is why people supporting peace seem Aquino, and ended up with some increase in But our leadership is not going to fight this ate a turn to the west in the Middle East that to be warmongers regarding North Korea or democracy. war because they can win it. They are fight­ forestalls such an alliance. other countries (if we bomb Iraq why don’t It is worth remembering that the cold war, ing it to realign the world. All this is in the service of creating a world we bomb North Korea, which is a more seri­ which we see as the period of our contain­ First, they think they can realign the in which one superpower can prevent the ous threat), and why so many leaders of other ment of the Soviet Union, could reasonably Middle East. They think by deposing Saddam emergence of others, enforce its vision of nations are asking for evidence of the immi­ be seen as a standoff, a period of mutual con­ they can create an opening toward the West. what the world should be like, and take mili­ nence of the threat. Dick Cheney’s reply that tainment. Two superpowers were opposing Iraq is a relatively well- educated nation, and tary action when necessary to back up diplo­ we can’t be asked to wait until after they each other, with a combination of the threat has a history of ties to the first world nations. matic and economic strength with violent attack is persuasive only if the threat of attack of ultimate force (nuclear devastation) and They want to combine a “model of democrat­ power when necessary. As you have pointed is great and fairly immediate, or if that threat tactical battles. The US saw itself as the side ic reform” in Iraq with out in our past conversations, the threat of will increase fairly rapidly with time, making of peace, freedom, and democracy, up against a Palestinian state (to remove the most violence has always been the underpinning of it imprudent to continue diplomatic process­ communism. My impression is that the lead­ extreme provocation to constant war and power in such a context. And that, of course, es. Our leadership has not convinced the ers of the Soviet Union had fewer illusions— bombings) and most probably a regime is another purpose of this war—to give a world leaders of that premise, though I have although they used the rhetoric of progress change in Saudi Arabia. massive, stunning demonstration of capabili­ little doubt that they believe it, even think and social change, they acted as a power bloc. It is reasonable to think that Wahabbi dom­ ty—perhaps especially after the drawn-out they know it. With diplomacy and military support, our inance in Saudi Arabia is the root of much of process of Afghanistan and the difficulty of In fact, I don’t think this war is about an country supported nations that would align the extremism in the Middle East. It is the chasing Osama Bin Laden and his troops imminent threat, though I think our leaders with us—pretty much regardless of issues result of a remarkable coincidence—the rise through mountains and caves. are convinced they will find biological and such as justice or democracy, and we opposed of a form of Islamic Puritanism in the 18th One of the special dangers facing a nation chemical weapons, and even evidence of a elements that did not align clearly with us, century, its alliances with the Saudi tribe, the with great military might is that those in the nuclear weapons program, when they go in, regardless of their support for justice or Saudi tribe’s rise to dominance in Saudi military (despite their rhetoric of peacekeep­ and that will justify their actions. Nor is this democracy. It was not the pure and idealistic Arabia, and the discovery of oil there. The ing) tend to want to use that might from time a war on moral principles, or a fight for oil, conflict that we thought it was. In a sense two result is a regime which pays lipservice to an to time. Without being unduly cynical, offi­ though both of those factors may motivate superpowers (with a third contender, China, extremely puritanical, fundamentalist reli­ cers in the military rise faster and do better some people with influence. This is a war to brokering between them) faced each other; gion and at the same time indulges in the when there are some conflicts, and the archi­ realign the world. It is a flexing of the mili­ the US with a strategy of alliances and the greatest excesses. That hypocrisy stimulates tects of strategies and weapons systems like tary muscle of a superpower determined to Soviet Union with a strategy of military dom­ extreme reactions. Osama Bin Laden is from to see them used and tested. Thus the power test its ability to shape the future of the world inance in their own sphere of influence and the Saudi upper class; he is an ascetic rebel structure of the military tends to support mil­ political structure—what many call the new support for dissent, trying to establish a adhering to the religious beliefs his family itary actions, and when policy makers choose world order. beachhead, in ours. From time to time, in professes but does not practice. that course they find support there. There is a The key leadership in the Bush administra­ Korea, in Viet Nam, in a few other places— it The present prince who leads the Saudi major new development in American military tion— Dick Cheney above all, Rumsfield, and came to open shooting wars. government is aged and dying. For years now force, right now, driven by two innovations— Paul Wolfowitz, played a key role in the After half a century, the strategy of domi­ there has been talk in the power circles about stealth delivery capability and precision Reagan administration. They think that they nance could not hold together. And it col­ what will happen at his death. It could be a delivery capability of powerful bombs. In won the cold war—won it after years of con­ lapsed during the Reagan administration. turn to the fundamentalist position, strongly WWII a B 17 bomber would have had to drop tainment and conflict. They think that by Reagan called the Soviet Union an evil anti-western. Indeed, that is the expected 800 bombs to have a 90% probability of hit­ standing tall, playing their strengths, they empire—a position not that different from result unless some action intervenes. The pro­ ting a target half the size of a football field. forced the dissolution of the Soviet Union. that of the US for half a century, but using western elements in the country, and the Now one bomb has a 90% chance of hitting They think they did that by advising a more aggressive language because of the “westernized” princes, want to see a shift that same target. And stealth capabilities raise President whom they see as an honest, moral changing world situation. If you listen to toward a more moderate leader. They want it the odds of bombs getting through to their man and who took most of their advice. They Cheney, it is as if he thinks that Reagan stood to be a Sunni leader, not a member of the targets. With those capabilities comes a new T he up and told the simple truth, “the Soviet Shiite branch of Islam. I think there is every strategy: massive parallel attacks, quickly Union is an evil empire,” and the empire col­ reason to believe that the American leader­ destroying key parts of the enemy system and ROOKPRESS lapsed. It did collapse, ending a long standoff ship thinks or hopes that they can engineer a disabling effective response. more pro-western government as a compro­ That strategy was used with restraint in the P ublisher & E ditor mise on the part of the Saudi leadership to Gulf war in 1991. It will apparently be used Jack Goldman cafe dewitt avoid a Shiite challenge. without restraint this time, and knowledge­ A ssistant E ditor Belgian yeast Elizabeth Herrington So they think they will create a more dem­ able people are expecting everyone to be ocratic and pro-western government in Iraq, a shocked by the amount of destruction that P ro du ction & Layout Felix Teitelbaum eggs benedict more moderate and pro-western government will result. If you reflect on the rise in capa­ P oetry E ditor in Saudi Arabia, and a Palestinian state. They bilities I just described, and notice that the Gail Holst-Warhaft pain de mais believe this will make Israel more secure, US is talking about 3000 precision bombs in Contributors stimulate (by example and encouragement, the first hours of the war, then the first wave Steve Coffman, Stuart Davis, Tom lemon souffle Eisner, Gary Esolen, Chris Furst, Joel pancakes perhaps subversion) movements for change of this war will unleash destructive power Ray, David Regenspan. in places like Iran, and make it more difficult equivalent to B17’s in WWII delivering 2.4 Illustrators omelettes with for Syria to play a role in supporting extreme million bombs. And that is with regard to Don Karr, Jack Sherman breadbaskets elements. Cheney even thinks that a strong accuracy—the explosive power of individual military stand by the US in Iraq will gain us weapons will be greater, though the amount The entire contents of T he Bookpress are copy­ andouille hash right © 200 3 by T he Bookpress. Inc.. All rights support from the “Arab Street,” because mod­ of ineffective but destructive power turned reserved. T he Bookpress will not be liable for pain perdu erates will know they have a strong ally and loose in WWII will be reduced. The weapons typographical error or errors in publication. Subscription rate is $12 per year. The Bookpress can stand up will mostly destroy what they are intended to SPECIALS C HA NG E is published eight times annually. March to extremists. destroy. The military, and in particular the Air through May and September through EVERY W E j f December.Submissions of manuscripts, art. and This is a dramatic vision, and I think it is Force, has reorganized around this strategy, letters to the editor should be sent. SASE. to: deeply held in this administration. It is under­ and they want to see it in action and show Tk Bookmess DEWITT MALL, DeWitt Building pinned by an absolute conviction that we are others what it can do. 215 N. Cayuqa Street. Ithaca. NY 14850 the good guys: a selfless nation, morally (607) 277-2254: fax (607) 275-9221 This is the military side of the new world booKpressithebooKery.com right, committed to democracy and freedom, transforming the world into our image. This continued on page 4 April 2003 The JJOOKPRESS page 3 Marching On Third Avenue ridiculous getup. I’d been somewhat uneasy, they’re headed for. march! For a few hours the oil consuming Steve Coffman thinking that maybe I wouldn’t see the Big “Animals get herded into pens, not peo­ vehicles on Third Avenue have stopped to Security Scare as being so transparently ple!” Bobbie bursts out. contemplate. City buses sit empty and at rest, Alternately we doze and chat with simpati- manipulative if I lived here where so much “I’m not getting into any pen, I know their passengers either joining the march or co strangers across the aisle, Elon with his real damage had been done. But now, this that!” I blurt. Equally stunned into dejection, catching another bus a block or two over. nine-year-old daughter Arianna, and in the burst of laughter assures me that, of course, we decide to get a coffee somewhere and try Frustrated car drivers have to wait it out until next seat up Mary from England with her plenty of New Yorkers see through to think this out. they can inch ahead to the first available cross younger daughter Maya. Ours is last in the the fear-mongering, and undoubtedly resent By the time we work ourselves back to street where the police open the barricades to line of six buses from Ithaca, a winding peace being used as point-victims for its Second Avenue, the sidewalk against us is let them pass. In the midst of our group a caravan driving into the snowy predawn endless promotion. packed with cheering, singing, sign-waving trapped cement truck moves in an almost Poconos. While Elon and Arianna busily dec­ When we disembark at Lexington, I find protesters hurrying toward the pens. Maybe other-worldly way, its revolving yellow orate their peace poster with hearts and that the plastic and duct tape outfit is actual­ we’re overreacting. As all the coffee places cement-filled orb moving counter to and moons and stars, Mary asks what we think it ly a bit of a hit, prompting not only laughs we pass are almost as jammed as the pens faster than its wheels; from his cab perch, the will be like, this huge non-march we’re off to, but even a couple of crinkly pats on the back. themselves, we continue on to Third Avenue driver waves sympathetically—when the her English accent already giving it a touch Weirdly, we reemerge to daylight via a sub­ where the jam of people is thicker still. I’ve crowd cheers he honks along in Sousaphone- of international bonhomie. terranean entrance to Bloomingdales where never seen so many people, and all of them sounding solidarity. We have reason to be uncertain. The long our bladders compel us to take advantage of here to protest this goddamn insane malig­ As we struggle slowly onward we have scheduled February 15^ march has been dis­ what might well be this afternoon’s last com­ nant pre-scripted war. Even if we just go ample time to talk with strangers. From allowed by a court injunction: No marching. fortable opportunity for relief. home now, maybe that consolation is enough. Pennsylvania, Brooklyn, Amherst. Within And by police order: No interfering with nor­ In terms both of fashion and purpose what On the other side of Third Avenue, I see our churning area we see Indians and mal traffic or pedestrians. So what are we all an incongruous metaphor we and some young people with an enormous six-or- Pakistanis. Korean drummers. Four black going to do then? Also: No megaphones; No Bloomingdales embody: Yates County us seven-foot-in-diameter GLOBE, so big that girls clapping rhythms. Jews and Palestinians wooden sticks on signs or banners; No magic after eight hours of bus travel in our jeans and it’s completely stopped all pedestrian traffic arm in arm. Two PETA teens. Two white- markers (potential instruments of graffiti winter coats under our plastic-and-duct-tape on that side of the avenue. Police are fussing haired women in fur coats. A small boy cling­ secret code delivery to al-Qaeda or other evil- costumes replete with anti-establishment all around them trying to get them going but ing to his father’s neck looking backwards Hordes-of-Hell). Our government that so messages in this quintessentially class-con­ its too crowded for them to maneuver the big over his shoulder. Members of a Pipefitters blithely speaks about democratizing Iraq (as scious bazaar of American consumer entice­ unwieldy ball. They can’t go forward or back Union. Vietnam Vets. though that were just a Quicky Lube oil ment and imperial opulence. I feel like a and the side streets are all barricaded under We also have ample time to study the signs change) is clearly less interested in protecting plumber's hand stuffed in a lace glove, so far police control. As we inch forward, the and banners, puppets and effigies. About half our own democracy. What’s more, the city is beneath fashion as to almost be fashionable. crowd continues to compact until we finally the signs are mass-produced, half home­ even refusing to provide port-o-potties. Too How lush and immense Bloomingdales is, hear a police megaphone bark out: “ALL made. Some straightforward: “No Blood For dangerous! We're at Code Orange! Someone and how decorously well-hidden are its RIGHT! YOU, GLOBE PEOPLE—IN THE Oil!” “No War In Iraq!” “Not In Our Name!” might hide a bomb in one! Drop a bio-load! johns! Lost and dizzy in the maze of gor­ STREET! GLOBE PEOPLE ONLY! STAY “Peace In The World or The World In Expel a chemical blast! geous goods, we wander from department to AS NEAR THE CURB AS YOU CAN! Pieces!” Others sardonic: “What’s Our Oil From Port Authority, Bobbie and I grab a department, not in search of men’s and EVERYBODY ELSE STAYS ON THE Doing Under Their Sand?” and "Bomb subway to Grand Central Station where we women’s sportswear, men’s and women’s SIDEWALK! GLOBE PEOPLE ONLY! Texas, It’s Got Oil!” A dopey picture of put on our shabby-as-this-war garb. I slip evening clothes, men’s and women’s cosmet­ ANYONE ELSE IN THE STREET GETS George Bush with his head split open like a over my head a large piece of uneven plastic ics or foundations, but simply of Men’s and ARRESTED!” A huge cheer goes up as the coconut, captioned: “Empty Warhead Found sheeting with random duct tape on it, in mid- Women’s Rooms. globe floats over the curb and into the street. In White House!” Our personal favorites back the duct tape arranged into letters When we finally ask for directions, a love­ Almost immediately people in front of it and being: “Asses Of Evil!” and “What Would spelling “NO WAR.” Bobbie puts on her ly cashmered woman spritzes a mist of heav­ behind it step over the curb, too. The police Jesus Bomb?” protest poncho, too, a torn square of old enly perfume on Bobbie’s wrist and conspir- slide over to surrender a lane but try to hold Though, for both of us, most powerful of paint-spattered bed sheet, WAR and POISON atorially whispers: “Perfume for peace. I’m the line. A second lane goes. I hear a distant all are the individual but thematically-con­ scrawled in drippy red marker, a Bushhead for peace, too! Good luck at the rally.” chant arise, sweeping our way like a human nected placard cutouts that six young people skull and crossbones and a few fashionably “Mm, thank you,” Bobbie says. "No one wave at a football game. A third lane falls, are waving, each a different tortured cutout feathered twirls of plastic duct-taped on for ever said that protesting means you can’t the car and truck and bus traffic quickly from Picasso’s Guernica, like jigsaw pieces good measure. smell good, right?” being swallowed like whale food. of the great anti-war masterpiece begging On New York subways I’m always aston­ “Sure, right. Hey, I love the outfits, too.” “Whose street? Whose street?” I think 1 to be put back together into unfractured ished by the human mix, so various that it On the burgeoning streets our relief is hear. artistic unity. seems to obliterate distinctions of race, short-lived. En route east toward First “Our street! Our street!” the reply is clear. By three o’clock or so, Bobbie and I are belief, and nationality right in front of my Avenue where the rally is to be, barricades “WHOSE STREET? WHOSE STREET?” flagging and in need of every kind of relief. eyes, my urge to sort them out instantly arbi­ and lines of police lead and funnel us across “OUR STREET! OUR STREET!’ At 57th or 58th Street, we unplug ourselves trary and absurd: Sri Lankan? Peruvian? Third and Second Avenues until, like Kansas “WHOSE STREET? WHOSE STREET?” from the electric stream and eventually find a Finnish? Mongolian? Cuban-Chinese? And City cattle on their final boardwalk, they From sidewalk to sidewalk, from store­ small deli where we finally get a coffee and at every stop the lineup changes: American? inexorably try to herd us into metal pens! front to storefront with six lanes of traffic something to eat, discuss experiences with Visitor? Immigrant? Alien? Friend? Foe? Bobbie asks one of the phalanx of policemen stopped in the middle, Third Avenue is being marchers at other tables, use the restrooms, What’s-it-to-you-Buddy? Two stops up I’m what this exactly means. With terse polite­ marched upon. “Like this from 45th Street to decide against the subway and begin the long still musing on our continuing American ness he explains that if we go forward we’ll 79th!” a guy with a big radio yells. “Same on chilly walk back to Port Authority and our melting pot . . . when a bundled man in the have to go into whichever pen is currently Second Ave.! Lexington, too!” peacefully weary bus ride home. comer seat next to me exits and I see a being filled. As soon as each pen is filled, it’ll “OUR STREET! OUR STREET!” we all Postscript: Two days later we hear that the bulging shopping bag left under his seat. be closed and the next pen will be opened cheer. Guernica group was among the few arrested “Hey—your package!” I call after him, but and filled, pen after pen until all the protest­ It’s clear we’ll never make it back to First on the march. Later we also hear that on the he’s already gone, doors closing, train jerking ers are contained. Within the pens we could Avenue, never see the stage on the big day Colin Powell made his war-pitch presen­ back into motion. watch the rally on big screens— chant, sing, screens, never hear the speeches. I don’t tation at the UN, a tapestry reproduction of “An abandoned parcel!” a voice warns. whatever. But once a pen was closed it was mind at all. I’ve heard all these speakers Guernica that hangs as artistic caveat outside Not sure what else to do, I carefully pull the closed until the rally was over, and no one before. Bishop Tutu, Julian Bond, Angela of the Security Council was covered up for bag out from under the seat to see what it is. who got out would be allowed back in. If we Davis, Susan Sarandon, the others. They’re the occasion. Guernica—created in memory Hesitantly unrolling its squashed down top, I didn’t go into a pen now, we’d have to go like old friends and seeing them would be of a peaceful Basque village bombed by the can feel the body language of many people back the way we came. No standing. No loi­ good but this little “freedom to assemble” Nazis for the sole purpose of stifling resist­ moving back. tering. No walking in the streets. No protest­ thing seems more important now. Like ance against Franco’s fascism—draped by a Then another voice pipes in: “Hey, don’t ing on the sidewalks. throwing tea into Boston Harbor. Best of all more message-and-media-palatable banner worry, it’s OK—he’s got his protective gear Bobbie and I do not need to speak. would be for us to pour onto First Avenue and of cloudless, thoughtless sky blue. on!” whereupon the whole bomb scare sud­ Auschwitz stabs at the back of my mind, free all our fellow protesters from their pens WHOSE STREETS, DAMN IT? WHOSE denly defuses into a chorus of chortling haunted by Jews being led orderly into spe­ so they could march too! I know that won’t STREETS? laughter. Discovering the shopping bag is cial areas, then crammed into cattle cars. As happen, though. In fact, we’re so thickly only garbage, I push it back under the seat, we eddy our way back against the increasing packed that each short block takes about half then wipe my hands off on my jeans. The flow of oncoming compatriots, I want to an hour to traverse. Just the same, it may not Steve Coffman is a writer who lives on a shared laughter gives me confidence in my warn them; I can’t believe they know what be John Philip Sousa but it sure as hell is a farm in Yates County.

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Lewis self, months later, when the gleam came off By Brian Hall past four to hunt in the still-wild woods along crosses the point of a hill where the the world.” Lewis is a true melancholic, a Viking Press the Potomac. But serving as Jefferson’s sec­ river bends, the roar growing louder— man unprepared for the aftermath. Returning 448 pp., $25.95, cloth retary in Washington City requires Lewis to and so discovers the third falls. Nearly as to the adulation of his countrymen, Lewis is As we near the bicentennial of the Lewis endure society and the torments of dinner grand as the first, fifty feet high (more never quite able to rejoin the human race. and Clark expedition, how do we look upon table conversation. “[Jefferson] valued con­ dead buffalo, pile on the banks), a quar­ Appointed as governor of Louisiana Territory, the leaders of the Corps of Discovery: as the versation above all, and Lewis lacked that ter of a mile from side to side, pitching a task for which he is temperamentally plaster heroes of Manifest Destiny, as men of sort of flair...When Lewis had one of his over a shelving rock with an edge as unsuited, he feels assailed by small men on “undaunted courage” (from the title of black fogs upon him, he felt doubly straight as art might make it. How to the make. He is also a writer who cannot Stephen Ambrose’s book about the explor­ oppressed that he was not being a serviceable describe? (Alas, he must.) Perhaps: write. Despite his best intentions, he ers), men to match the mountains, brave stal­ protege to his patient mentor.” Jefferson’s whereas the first falls, in its tumult and finds himself unable to write an account of warts who carried out Thomas Jefferson’s choice of Lewis to lead the expedition impetuosity, was an expression of sub­ the expedition. vision of reaching the Pacific, or the advance accomplishes “a different and better birth” for limity and the ineffable, this one,falling in While Lewis is depressed, Clark, by con­ party of a flood that would engulf Indian cul­ the younger man and lifts the black fog a single, even sheet, is a vision of ordered trast, meets the world as it is. He is the ballast, tures? Layers of legend and romantic ideal­ of melancholy. beauty. (Did he crib that from Burke?)” the steadying force behind the expedition. ization have made it difficult for us to cut In the West, Lewis can leave behind the Lewis is almost jealous of Clark’s ease, his through the undergrowth of mythic language enclosed world of the East. “Lewis was The rapture of discovery draws him ability to accept what life hands him. Clark and see the captains as human beings. In con­ forced to concede: this was a geography he onward. “And now the trap is sprung. The marries soon after their return, and Lewis trast with earlier fictional treatments of did not understand. And its inhuman size river has led him to this spot, the buffalo has becomes desperate to find a wife. Yet he Lewis and Clark, Brian Hall’s novel is an had begun to— what was the word—oppress stepped forward to empty his gun. Does speaks of women in the abstract—it’s always imaginative act of recovery, rescuing the him? Perhaps even frighten.” Remember that Lewis foreknow the encounter, and act his “the ladies, the ladies,” not a particular explorers from hagiography by concentrating these explorers were men accustomed to part?” A grizzly bear chases him into the woman. To paraphrase a line from John on the fallible men who performed extraordi­ judging distances in the humid East. A moun­ river, but Lewis faces him with his espontoon, Crowe Ransom, Lewis “cannot fathom or nary things. That very fallibility opens up ter­ tain that would seem ten miles away back and the bear runs away. “The man stood his perform his own nature.” Lewis’s suicide ritory for Hall’s exploration. This is not a East might take days to reach in the arid ground and said Come on! Death ran.” He takes on a tragic inevitability. revisionist history of the West, an effort to West. The sheer immensity of space is ano­ encounters an animal that seems “first a wolf, In a novel composed of many voices. Hall pull down icons or write a satire in the man­ dyne for Lewis. He is almost able to leave then some kind of tiger, its rippling coat a takes some of his greatest—and most suc­ ner of Little Big Man. And while the book behind his own weather, his own internal sky, tawny yellow.” He fires and the animal cessful—risks in rendering the language of contains several comic moments, especially as he journeys westward. disappears. Walking on, three buffalo bulls Sacagawea’s narrative. And while it is obvi­ the scene in which Jefferson pedantically The high point of the expedition for Lewis, confront him, yet they flee as well. “The sun ous that he has done a huge amount of instructs Lewis to look for evidence of a and one of the best scenes in the novel, is the is sinking, and he half believes if he spends research, he never allows it to overwhelm the mammoth, its depiction of Lewis’s ultimately discovery of the Great Falls of the Missouri. the night on this enchanted plain, the sun will narrative. tragic fate is one of the finest character por­ “[D]oes Homo louisianensis somehow fore­ rise to disclose his gun and espontoon, the This is not just great historical fiction but traits in recent fiction. He is the real center of know, in his marrowbones, where the Great embers of his fire, but not a bit of him. His great literary fiction as well. 1 Should Be the book. Falls are, and in his selfish heart of hearts will have disappeared like that tiger, called Extremely Happy in Your Company is Brian Lewis is a man who longs to escape. “[H]e does he want to reach them not only first, but away by the river-god and the bear-god. to Hall’s third novel, and his best. spread out the maps again, and opened the alone?” Going upriver the next day, Lewis join their conspiracy.” books, and he lowered himself into them, discovers more falls after the first. After the The expedition reaches the Pacific, but for Chris Furst is the assistant editor of going away.” Immersion in distance is almost second falls Lewis “the hard part was over” and the terri­ Cornell Alumni Magazine. Realigning the World continued from page 2 and thinking, and will be the background of against us elsewhere in the world? which the last time I did the math came to much of your life’s work. You could not be The breadth and boldness of this strategy .69! Under seventy percent, and nothing you order. On the economic side it takes the shape better positioned to explore that question than to realign the Middle East and the world is did was less than 90 percent effective, and you are well familiar with—the enforcement, you are at the London School of Economics, breathtaking. Is it breathtaking arrogance? It half of it was 95% or better. The same thing in the name of financial stability and oppor­ and 1 know you will continue to do so. In fact, reminds me of the dimly remembered Bay of is true of the odds of success in a series of tunity, of a series of measures which Thomas I am confident that you will continue to do so Pigs invasion of Cuba—which was supposed bets or ventures. Even if you rate the odds of Friedman (who is pretty much a cheerleader with great independence and without accept­ to be greeted by defections in the Cuban these “bets” in the high 90th decile, they for the process) calls the “Golden ing arguments from either side without test­ armed forces, an uprising of the people, and accumulate to significant, frightening risk. Straitjacket”—a combination of reforms and ing them against your own (growing) knowl­ the overthrow of Castro. It is fair to say that There is no doubt now that the war will policies to favor international investment, edge and experience of the world. invasion (though it was pressed by a group of happen. We can only wait and watch without which no investment will be made. The second set of problems deals with exiles pursuing self-interest) had many of the the results. You will remember from John Gray’s book whether these assessments of risk and oppor­ same “idealistic” motivations or rationaliza­ Keep reading, keep thinking, keep talking on what he calls the delusions of global capi­ tunity are realistic, and the possible dangers tions as this war and was a product of an ear­ to thoughtful people, and continue to say talism (False Dawn, and isn’t he at LSE of miscalculation. lier generation of quite similar thinking. The what you think is true and do what you now?) some of the objections to that strategy. I saw one article in the Financial Times capacity of people driven by ideology to believe is right. As you pointed out in a recent conversation, suggesting, more than half seriously, that the make mistakes of judgment is axiomatic. the emphasis on wide open free markets has new alliance of France and Germany could be I have deliberately tried to make these —Gary (Esolen) shown some success in certain kinds of as important in the world as the previous one reflections dispassionate and fair. In fact, as New Orleans economies centered on small business, but it of Germany and Italy. I do not expect that to one who lived through some enormous and remains a Chicago School theory in a larger be true, but it is the other side of the “irrele­ tragic missteps by the US government, I think context. And cultural issues and values, and vance of Europe” that the lecturers you have this administration is reckless. They are put­ PIANOS homogenization, and the failure to maintain a told us about are worrying over. ting a lot of chips on one spin of the wheel, decent safety net (much less egalitarian dis­ What is happening in the Far East suggests and for it to turn out well (for the US and for • Rebuilt tribution), and the lack of controls when that the prospect of an unchallengeable the world) they have to be right about a • Reconstructed things go wild (as in the Russian Mafia-style superpower may be stimulating unrest rather sequence of things—right about the Iraqi • Bought capitalism) are all serious concerns. With this than stability. What is happening in Korea army, right about their ability to conclude this • Sold process of globilization comes a decline in could be seen as an isolated nation trying to war quickly, right about the reaction of the • Moved the sovereignty of individual nation states (by insure its position within its region as unas­ people, right about the possibilities for stable • Tuned such means as international compacts to sailable, when it comes (as it might) to con­ government afterward. • Rented restrict the right of nations to impose envi­ flict with the US. Do you remember the work of Jonathon ronmental controls on international busi­ What are the dangers to the US domesti­ Demming, the business thinker who was the ness). This powerful combination—promises cally if the administration is wrong, perhaps intellectual force behind the Total Quality of investment, threats of no investment, and radically wrong, about what will happen Management movement and the Six Sigma the ultimate threat of military force—will when they invade Iraq? What will be the cost Excellence approach of Jack Welch at reshape our world. if the result of this adyenture is a long period General Electric? He pointed out that if you This process creates two different sets of of instability and ethnic conflict in Iraq? have a series of six steps in a process, and problems. The first is whether the world it What if an occupying army is not greeted as they are sequential, each building on the one hopes to create is one we want, and how the a liberator but seen, at once or in time, as an before, it has a dramatic effect on perform­ Ithaca Piano Rebuilders people of the world can affect the shape of oppressor? What if some other elements of ance. If you do the first two processes at 97 (607) 272-6547 310 4th St., Ithaca (Off Hancock St. 2 blocks from Rt. 13) that emerging world, and that is a conversa­ this grand plan go awry? What if the Saudis percent effectiveness, the next one at 95%, tion you and I have been having for some turn toward the anti-western position? What and the last three at 90%, your overall per­ Complete rebuilding services. No job too big or too small. Call us. time. It is the subject of much of your reading if our involvement in Iraq stimulates action formance is .97 x .97 x .95 x .90 x .90 x .90, April 2003 The BOOKPRESS page 5 Can We Talk About Iraq? reevaluating one’s own position. Worse, toral powers by congress to get us out human understanding’. Another friend David Regenspan once unbridled anger is unleashed it of the depression. Thankfully FDR said says that I obviously do not understand becomes hard to channel. On the pro-war HELL NO! The Depression was much that ‘those people’ are different from Now that the war machine has been acti­ side are the far-right Rush Limbaughs who worse than the local terrorism problem us, they have a different government, vated, it seems more important than ever that denounce all protestors as traitors and go on we have.Yet the FED is going all out and and if they wanted to end it, they could, people on either side of the invasion ques­ to spew out their hatred of all things Muslim. rights are starting to fray. but it’s not up to us. I’m powerless to tion be able to have some sort of dialogue On the anti-war side are those of the far left sway them. I’m powerless in my reason­ about the critically important alternatives who use the Iraq issue to justify attacks on He adds that he finds heightened airport ing with them. Their emotional trench­ open to us all, about decisions that can many far-flung aspects of American life and security humiliating and, speaking perhaps es are deep and thorough; no reasoning change the course of world history for better to make excuses for various thugs around the from personal experience, points out that will penetrate. or worse. I for one feel quite impassioned world because they are not “capitalists.” people who have metal pins within them about my stance concerning Iraq, but if I What segment of the population, then, from surgery can find themselves strip- I wrote back to this woman thanking her have no hope of communicating my reasons might be expected to offer thoughtful com­ searched and x-rayed. These are the very for taking the time for a thoughtful response to those who do not agree with me, then ments on either side of the Iraq question? people who are often in the hospital for x- and pointing out that, if one changed only a what is the point of protest? Yet it feels as if Writers, perhaps. Before the invasion began, rays; the writer expresses his outrage at the few of her words, one could come up with a a civil war has begun in America. We are I decided to ask the members of my online thought of being forced to be exposed to statement of how many anti-invasion people polarized. On one side are those who are writers’ community if they would care to more radiation than is necessary. feel. In her reply she did not disagree. She convinced that Bush’s plans for Iraq are describe their own thoughts and feelings. In just three comments, we can see a added that the very same people with whom based on the desire for power, corporate Only a small number responded (perhaps in broad spectrum of fear and rage concerning she argues are still her friends. She felt that domination and the flow of oil on terms gen­ itself an indication that there is a lot of government lies and deceit, economic disas­ her love for them transcended the great erous to the West. On the other side are those dejection out there), but these few offered ter, bodily violation and the perceived nar­ divide over the war question. She did not who are equally convinced that, oil or no oil, some interesting comments. row-mindedness of leaders. There is a theme want to close the door on them. Bush and his associates primarily want to Here are some words from an anti-war in common: a sense of victimization, of loss I did not engage this person on the points end one of the most brutal regimes in world woman who lives in England: of control. I am being swept along, these with which I disagree (for instance, I do not history and eliminate a potential source of writers are telling us. I can do nothing to think the World War II appeasement model weapons of mass destruction and support of I feel completely powerless and unrep­ stop it. Even my bodily integrity is at risk. pertains to the current situation), but I do terrorism. Side one feels that containment resented— I’ve listened to the argu­ One might assume, then, that the pro-inva­ think I understand what engenders her pow­ was working and that United Nations ments for war, analyzed the information sion writers would take a more positive tone. erless feelings. She could not ignore the hor­ inspectors should have been given all the available, looked at all the possible out­ I was struck, however, by one pro-invasion rors of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, the atrocities time and resources they required. Side comes and I just can’t go along with the response that was anything but sanguine (I that are well documented and that few deny. two feels that Iraq has not been in compli­ idea that it's the only—or best—way to should note that in my original question to She feels that her concerns were not ance with United Nations resolutions for deal with the situation. the writers I had asked if they felt depressed, answered in her discussions with her anti­ twelve long years, and that intervention was discouraged or powerless due to post- invasion friends. To her concerns about long overdue. What makes me most angry—and September 11 events): specifics, she got concerns about generalities The issue of war is made vastly more depressed—is the obvious lack of intel­ in return. Yes, America may be concerned complicated by the issue of political ideolo­ ligence in the pro-war arguments. I Depressed?Discouraged?Or about oil or hypocritical in much of its for­ gies. The anti-interventionists frequently don’t mean secret intelligence, 1 mean Powerless? Yes. Yes. And yes. Let’s take eign policy; yes, war is wrong and applied link saber-rattling to anti-democratic poli­ human, reasoned intelligence. There’s depressed first. I’m depressed whenev­ psychology might be of help. But what about cies; they assume that a policy of war abroad such a dearth of insight, such a narrow er I hear people, who I would other­ the here and now? Here is a man who gassed goes hand-in-hand with a policy of repres­ view prevalent at the top of the US and wise regard as intelligent, rational and tortured his people and would no doubt sion at home. The pro-interventionists see British governments, that it frightens human beings, say, ‘Well I don’t think have done much worse if he could. No mat­ security, not repression, behind the new me. These men (and the odd woman) war is right.’ O r ‘I don't want us in a ter what the inconsistencies or hypocrisies of restrictions on civil liberties, feeling they just don’t seem to have the mental war. My nephew is in the reserves.’ Or the United States and its allies, why not get amount to a temporary aberration in capacity or the greatness of mind to be ‘We have always been this power hun­ rid of a terrible dictator, even if we do not do American life that will be corrected once the able to see beyond their one point of gry country who needs to own the oil it for all the right reasons? threat has passed. The first side feels that ter­ view or this one course of action. The wells.’ This ‘line of reasoning’ depresses So, what now? Is a productive debate rorism will never end and that Bush’s “war wider scenario is beyond their grasp, me greatly because it’s not a line of rea­ about Iraq still possible? Can one side of the on terror” is an eternal war, the second that they not only don’t get it, they can’t soning. It’s an emotional reaction used question fruitfully engage the other? Can the war will indeed be won, starting with the even see it exists. as a basis for uninformed opinion. Of intelligent people of good will on either side defeat of Iraq. course no one wants to go to war. of the debate have an ongoing dialogue, even One way or another, all Americans are She goes on to say that she feels, though What kind of person would actually after an invasion has begun? involved in the decision to invade Iraq, if she is living in a democracy, that she is not want mayhem and killing and suffering I do not pretend to know the answers to only because the invasion has been executed represented, and that it feels futile to her to in the world? Wait. I’ve thought of a these questions. I do know, however, that no in their name. It would seem to be of critical even follow the news. few: How about Hitler, Stalin, Hussein? discussion is possible unless each side takes importance, then, to be able to discuss the An anti-war American woman speaks of So other than those few, no thinking full responsibility for the ambiguities of its issue dispassionately and logically. As our her sense of profound fear: person wants to go to war. But the fact own position, and is willing to look into the daily experience suggests, however, that is remains, we must. Even as our parents’ darkest negative possibilities engendered by very hard to do. Sadly, the discourse about I’m thinking we of the comfortable generation looked into the gates of the getting its own way. Iraq is often conducted on the lowest possi­ class—white and not dirt poor—had it concentration camps and saw the price I wrote most of this article before the inva­ ble levels. When I checked into one of the so easy for the past fifty years, with of appeasement that came before 1941, sion actually began. As I am writing these “moderated” discussion lists about Iraq on nothing whatsoever happening that we must look at the face of Saddam final words the tanks are rolling north the New York Times website to gather a few really had a serious negative effect on Hussein and see a man who wants to through the desert and Baghdad is shrouded comments, I saw more name-calling than our daily lives, including Vietnam, that inflict harm and suffering in order to in the smoke of explosions and burning discussion. I read that the anti-war people the pendulum is now swinging with a retain his own power. And a man who buildings. The first American and British are “shameless in their hatred and wrong­ vengeance, and our children are going considers his mission from God to casualty counts are hitting the news. There headedness” or are “appeasers-morons” and to have just the opposite. I believe bring harm and suffering particularly to are “friendly fire” and “fratricide" incidents. “latter-day Nevilles” (as in Chamberlain). nothing Bush says—absolutely nothing. Americans and Jews. After the first jubilant reports of Iraqis sur­ The pro-war people, meanwhile, are “bar­ I sold all our stocks in April 2000, and Am I discouraged?Very. I’m discouraged rendering and citizens coming out to greet barian lunatic righties” (one response to this bought gold and US bonds, and have because these same anti-war people the Americans, the fog of war is thickening. comment: “Being called a barbarian by the been very glad I did. Now I'm moving don't want to think. But the need to debate the war is more likes of you is the highest compliment that 1 more heavily into gold, and thinking of • They want to react. They don’t have urgent than ever, because we can be certain can imagine.”). One sees such name-calling turning some of it into metal I can hide realistic alternatives to allowing the that no outcome will provide unambiguous on the streets. When I marched in the under the house. Iraqi dictator to run unchecked in his justification for either side of the issue. No January anti-war demonstration in development and use of weapons. The question will be mooted. What happens with Washington, D.C. (as I said to my spouse the An anti-war American man expresses his solutions they offer sound as if they the peace will be critical, as will the question other day, protest marching is starting to feel sense of fear and powerlessness concerning could have come from the world of of further war with other countries (there is like a job), there was a group of counter­ what is happening on the home front. After 1939: Let him have this now; we can already some saber rattling about Iran). The demonstrators waving signs that read first explaining that he is not afraid of terror­ monitor him closely; we won’t let it get polarization grows more extreme as one side “Commies!” I felt like 1 was in a Vietnam- ist attacks (because he is fatalistic about out of hand; he’ll be satisfied because screams of fascism and imperialism, the era time warp. One marcher responded such matters) he dashes off an account of his this is all he wants. other declares all dissidents terrorists, and helpfully that, yes, he was a Communist. concerns about the American government: Powerless? You bet. Because the view­ the powers that be in Washington do little to Then he called the counter-protestors fas­ point I’ve described is so closed, so make the dehate more intelligent. And so 1 cists. There was a lot of enlightenment to go What I worry about the most is the myopic, and in some cases, only a mat­ repeat the question. What now? around that day. government’s mentality of, to be safer, ter of fashion. It sees the world through Name-calling is easy; that is why kids in let’s do away with or start filing off as the lens of American culture. I actually the schoolyard do it. It is simple to hunker many of our peoples’ rights as possible. had one of my ‘reasonless friends’ tell David Regenspan a former congregation­ down with like-minded individuals and Knee jerk reactions from our Federal me that if we sat alt the leaders down al rabbi, is completing a novel about Jews excoriate the other side. To view the oppos­ gov is the thing that terrorizes me the and let them talk in an open environ­ and Muslims in medieval Spain. City of ing camp as a group of fiends or fools most. During the great depression our ment with understanding psychologists, Pomegranates. He lives with his family relieves one of the burden of evaluating and then president FDR was offered dicta- they would come to the ‘heart of in Ithaca.

-II f I • i page 6 The BOOKPRESS April 2003 October the beaver dam, because when it overflowed Salutary for whom? I’m reminded of my injunction. In 1972 the hunters traveled to Joel Ray it ran directly into his living room at the bot­ wife’s story, from years ago when she was Montreal and stayed in hotels and ate taste­ tom, his camp not set up on pilings but flush working in the medical school, about the less city food while they waited to testify. Part 2, conclusion from previous issue with the ground. We liked the new swamp doctor who burst into the office one day The Quebec lawyers spoke in French, habitat with its unusual birds and amphibians thrilled that the extremely painful symptoms which the hunters did not understand. Some Swimming to Nemaska and other wildlife, but thinking of my own of his patient’s rare eye disease had returned. of them spoke in their own language, which Water from this lake flows via the south­ battles with water I kept still as he dug. He The anthropologist would now have his had to be translated into French, then into ern outlet, which quickly u-tums, into the seems to have discouraged the beaver, for the pathology to study. English. A Babel, mediated by lawyers, what trout river five miles away which then emp­ swamp is now dry. Numerous pathologies. Minimata disease could be worse? But Mr. Justice Malouf, a ties into the St. Lawrence. My imaginary There are a few abandoned camps in the from the fish laced with mercury leached dark man whose origins were in the Middle paddle-to-the-sea bark, placed in the water big bay, and you can see them sinking, tip­ from the rock by the flooding, loss of power East, listened intently during all those first here, will eventually end up in the Atlantic, ping, the boathouses sinking fastest, the and control over the land, obesity and dia­ days, and he understood the hunters, and after flowing past Montreal, Quebec City, paint all gone, collapse coming soon. betes, animals leaving, depression, addic­ decided in their favor. The three judges who and the Gaspd—and, it pleases me to think, One year you hope for a big snow winter tion, suicide. The Crees in Nemaska must be overturned him, gatekeepers of the real conceivably back north and west through the so the ground won’t freeze so far down and keeping close touch with Chisasibi, the site power in Quebec, were working from Hudson Straits into Hudson Bay and James the rocks will heave less, and you get it, but of the greatest upheaval, on the La Grande, paper—though it is unlikely they read the Bay (where there are Beluga whales), to float your shed roof collapses from the weight of where the symptoms are raging. Perhaps 10,000 pages of testimony, so quickly did on water that has poured into the bay from the snow. The next year, after the snow has that’s why so many in the village had taken they reverse the decision. the Rupert and all the other great west-flow­ been light, you see how the supports under the 200-mile trip north to the wedding. That The hunters told the judge that to dam the x ing rivers that support the Cree. And as there the front porch roof have moved another was where Thomas had gone—I suppose, La Grande would be to end their lives; that is is no inlet to this lake, the water that flows all half-inch away from the house wall. The faced with the choice of entertaining a my interpretation of what they said, which those miles originates right here, in this marble rolls more quickly from the kitchen strange white man, even a friendly one, or was more modest and precise but added up to ground. Some of it is underground water, as to the front door. celebrating the continuity of Cree life in the same thing. I am given to exaggeration, the lake is spring-fed, and some is water that You hope for a big snow winter for insula­ Chisasibi, it was no contest. In the lounge perhaps, but living in a society where you flows down these hills. tion, and you get it, but from May to early during the power outage, I listened as the have to shout to make yourself heard over I healed myself in this water. Learned July the biting blackflies which breed in run­ chief and J-P had a lively conversation about the roar of progress, I can’t help it. The Cree here, at forty, finally how to breathe proper­ ning water are thick as smoke, hunting out the young Nemaska dancers, who traveled inclination, rather, is not to speak beyond ly, and cured my back problem swimming. I every orifice and every fold of clothing for a around giving performances, and who had what they personally know. And when they don’t recall the first plunge into the lake way in. gone to dance at the wedding; the chief had say “the animals are going away,” they because they have all been the same elated You hope the jacking of the back wall of said how very important the dancing was, as expect the listener to understand what that casting-off, ten years and hundreds of head­ the bathroom, sinking all these years into the it diverted the young people from alcohol means. They expect the listener to under­ long plunges into the soft caressing water. It wet ground, has raised and leveled it suc­ and drugs. stand that a promise has been broken, a is a kind of music, swimming; the world dis­ cessfully, but when you come in the spring My son lost a friend of fourteen who had birthright withdrawn. solves and it is all stroke and breathe, stroke the toilet is tipped over, seal unsealed, 4-inch gassed himself in his father’s car, and among I wonder what would bring me home like and breathe, and the shore going by, or the pipe broken. young whites in the 1980s suicide seemed that. What news from Ithaca would send me shore receding as I head for the opposite One of the waterlines is split; you’ve mis­ nearly an epidemic of disaffection, especial­ winging back from here ready to organize side. I like being far from the land. Or in the placed the screw to the footvalve; the pump ly reflected in the anger of punk culture. But and fight, hire lawyers, raise hell? I try to water at night on my back looking at the switch has burned out. considering their longevity as a people there think what would make my life intolerable Milky Way arching from shore to shore. In the spring you feel the grinding of time. is something far more horrific about suicide there and cannot. The layers of comfort are Swimming along the shore 1 feel the sudden Everything is scoured, gray, and soiled, and among the Cree. Only if you could appre­ so many and thick, and the dangers so few... patches of cold as 1 pass over springs. On a the weight of the melted snow has left every hend their lives as hunters, I think, under­ We have come a long way from Conrad, boulder down at the little island the mer­ leaf and stick pressed flat. In the spring you stand with your body as well as your mind writing about the paper-thin restraints of civ­ gansers sometimes roost and they begin to can best imagine this land as it was before the breaking of their delicate web, and the ilization, to our bitter jokes about fishing in (lap their wings and cluck as I approach. human settlement, only a hundred years or loss of use, could you begin to plumb the the hatchery truck. They take to the water with me, heading in so ago. despair. It troubles, embarrasses me, in my Now, with their coming together as a the opposite direction, though not too fast, The Cree are beginning to tell stories ignorance and safety, even trying to think nation for the first time, to meet the threats of keeping an eye on this strange water creature about floods now, that will be part of a new about it. (J-P probably sensed that he was the dams and roads (and intensified mining with swinging arms. mythology for coming generations. I think / taking a risk by telling me. Perhaps he and logging operations that are a result of have problems with water. thought that if I appreciated the blues I Quebec’s recently imposed land-use classifi­ Water, However... would know what that suicide meant.) cations; and the demands of new administra­ Today it is raining hard. The water gur­ Shock Therapy But I do think, flipping this problem tive responsibilities), there is a new self-con­ gles, splashes, off the roof, through the gut­ During one of our talks a man comes to around, about black jazz musicians. As the sciousness entering the lives of the Cree. I ters, down the driveway, under the camp, the locked restaurant door and knocks, and founders of that great music and their imme­ wonder whether this is on balance a destruc­ onto the deck, into the lake from a hundred motions to be let in. J-P waves him away diate successors have passed on, over the last tive process in itself, this transformation into rills and creeks. Here you begin to under­ rather harshly. The man lingers, and J-P sees thirty years (to me, a hemmorhage of loss), I the Cree Nation, when till just two or three stand water and gravity, the idea of a water­ my puzzlement. I had passed the man on the realize now that virtually none have commit­ decades ago— barely a single generation— shed. In the spring you come here to deal road during one of my walks, and he had ted violent suicide. Certainly many eased the they were people who walked along the land, with the water. Camps near shore are at the greeted me in an unusually friendly way. J-P pain of dealing with the white world through usually in small family groups, gathering edge of a huge catch basin, and most of the says, “That man’s not allowed in here. He is alcohol and drugs; some had fallen deeply food. During lunch the second day the chief work that goes on is in some way a fending an alcoholic—you can see it in his move­ into that pit, burned themselves up or over­ asked me whether I thought that joining the off, coming to terms with, water: new roofs; ments. You have to be firm with him.” Then, dosed; and some quit playing for a time. But UN was a good idea; perhaps he had some­ stone sump pits; new stringers for the dock; talking of this disastrous age-old symbiosis I can’t think of any who intentionally took thing like these very misgivings in mind. J-P new pilings for boathouse and camp; stone between whites and Indians, J-P recalls that their own lives. The reasons are surely the had gleefully told me stories of how the Cree driveway; new pump; new piling for the in Chisasibi, since the building of the dams, sustenance of the music, its expression of joy had used this new international status to their sinking chimney; replacing of drain and sep­ the biggest problem has been alcohol, and in being with each other, the deep pleasure advantage, for example traveling to the Rio tic lines; new septic field; reglazing of win­ hash and cocaine among the young people, they take in each other's gifts and presence, environmental conference where they spoke dows; painting; clearing of saplings, bushes, brought, I presume, by the white dam work­ the almost religious obligation to pass the about the dams and embarrassed Quebec in trees, to let the sun in; patching the boat­ ers. No alcohol is sold at the little store in music on. And the still-abiding conscious­ the eyes of the world (including France, he house roof; shoring up the comer of the shed Nemaska. There have been several thefts of ness of having collectively endured the worst said). But I have to tell the chief I can’t where the spring runs from under the boulder beer from the Hydro installation here, he that other humans could do to you. One answer his question. It is the most troubling at the bottom of the driveway and erodes the says— 72 cases the last time. black writer calls suicide “sulking in the face one I was asked during my visit, far more ground; new boards for the exposed deck. In J-P pauses for a bit, as if considering of hope.” The very idea must be a sacrilege if than the questions about magnetic fields. the winter the ground freezes three or four whether to tell me something, then says in a not a joke. feet down and the rocks heave in the spring. low voice that a nineteen-year-old hanged I think hopefully of the dancers, and of A New Road Camps that don’t have deep footers tend to himself in the village two weeks ago. Freddie and the other tallymen, responsible On my walk today, as the rain diminishes, walk slowly toward the lake. The wind and The Innu man gave me a remarkable sta­ for the land and animals; they function I discover that the new owner has bulldozed waves and broken-up spring ice that pound tistic which he took to be very hopeful for like jazz musicians in the community, are a road to the end of the lake through woods down this bay tear at the big dock pilings, the future of the Cree—that 65% of the Cree the keepers of tradition and protectors of that had never been opened before, even by cages of tamarack and hemlock four-by- alive now were under the age of twenty. They the web. They will pass that along to their the loggers who stripped them in the last fours filled with rocks. The road washes out are studying, learning about the law like me, sons and daughters. There are about three century. A road to reach the land which he in places. Burrowing animals take up resi­ he said; they will be better able to deal with hundred of them in this land looking after intends to sell for new camps. He fancies dence in the camp. The lake fills to over­ Quebec than their fathers and mothers. But it the animals. himself a developer, hoping to make his first flowing and docks go under. is the young people, already undergoing tur­ million on the lake. But already he is having Rainwater, springwater, snow water, lake bulent changes within, and feeling the exter­ Out of the Bush trouble with the other camp owners. My water, creek water, frost water, drinking nal turbulence undermine the old communal The Cree heard about the coming dams in next-door neighbor, who was in school with water. Water freezing, thawing, pouring, gur­ stability that would steady them, who are 1971, the premier announcing to the him when they were boys, angrily took him gling, invading, dripping, splashing, con­ having the most difficult time of it right now. province that he was going to embark on “the on for the damage the big dozer did to his densing, heaving. A neighbor down the way During the initial court case the anthropol­ project of the century.” They had to organize driveway—they had quite a set-to up on the took up arms against water by shoveling an ogist who testified for the government had quickly, rounding up people from the bush as road one day, cursing and shouting at each outlet from the swamp on the hill created by said the dams would be a “salutary shock.” best they could, hiring a lawyer, going for an other. My neighbor’s family has had a camp April 2003 The BOOKPRESS page 7 Journal here since the thirties, yet in talking to him I around. They were neither friendly nor hos­ the blunt end, and it twitched for a few ptarmigan. And so he knows when to let the see he is fatalistic, if clear about the charac­ tile, just occupied with their doggy lives, moments and died. I waved the maul threat­ land lie fallow for a year and to arrange for ter of his old school chum, “Chuckie Fuckin’ indifferent to me. At home I can barely get to eningly at the dogs and ran a few steps sharing of traplines. It is his garden, as Job Elroy” he calls him (hah—King Charles!): the end of my country-suburban street with­ toward them, yelling like a crazy man, and Bearskin had called it in Richardson’s book. “He’s just out of the woods for a generation, out being accosted—barking dogs at every they took off. The next day when I went up He is a hunter in a garden. and you mustn’t tell him what he can’t do; other house, in pens, on leashes, in the front to the road, after a night of bloody dreams, But Freddie had written a poem called “A he’ll just do it worse.” Change is inevitable, windows watching for intruders, and some­ the fawn was gone. One of the dogs had been Wounded Hunter,” which was about the he says, and there’s nothing we can do about times running loose. Talking to them only white, big and wolflike. He’d been in the drowning of the hills. I read it later that it. Live and let live, the motto of the north makes them angrier. They are nuclear-family dreams. It shook me now that I had run night, and, melancholy anyhow about leav­ country—sometimes I despise it and some­ dogs. I wonder about their owners, their fears toward him and his hunting buddy, as they ing the next day, I felt the gloom deepen at his lament: “A wounded hunter will have no more the sound of the rapids... Looking back to his land where his joy was... A hunter that will be wounded for the rest of his life until he passes away.” Now he is worried not only about the Rupert being dammed but about a new road from Chibougamau that would go right through his trapline—a road from the south that would carry more white men like the pilot fish and worse, bringing more drugs and alcohol and violence and despair in the wake of the dynamiting of the hills. So they would either be drowned or exploded... Freddie’s big map of his trapline was given to him by Hydro, and it is a good one as maps go, topographic and so showing the twenty-six hills—just small rises but critical to both the animals and the hunters—and the various sources of water and the lay of the land. On this map the Rupert was of course the key feature—the big river entering the bottom of James Bay where the Nonsuch had berthed in 1668.1 liked it that we were look­ ing at the map by candlelight, which seemed appropriate to the land represented on the map, land undisturbed except for fire, and the soft tread of the Cree and the animals, for thousands of years, its thin earth—taiga, muskeg, over the deep rock—still pristine. And the candles and wavering shadows seemed appropriate to the living map, the one which is lit by the interior light of Freddie’s mind. In order to see the land as it is, I would have to take the long walks over a winter with Freddie and Annie and their children. The map is shorthand, an aid to this short-breathed weak-legged whitefella who lives in a city. But more important the map, of a segment of the Rupert area called R-21, is a weapon in a war, enabling strangers ignorant of the land to negotiate it for hostile purposes. Still, Freddie seems proud to have it, as he says, spreading his large hands, “All this, here, is my trapline, the land and water and animals who are in my care.”

The Long Way Around In spring and fall, when there is no one here, I walk the edge of the lake on the paths between the camps that neighbors use to visit each other. These little paths make one big long path around the lake. If someone hap­ pens to be in residence I retreat up to the road and come back down to the next camp and proceed. I gain a sense of the lake’s size and variation from walking the shoreline that Don Karr is like no other—certainly not like being in a boat. The crests and folds, creek beds and times I see it as completely admirable. and their egos, their pride in owning such were ptpbably still feeling the frenzy. Very big white pines and boulders and blueberry Obviously I won’t be able to enlist my neigh­ animals that are socially acceptable projec­ stupid. On the next trip I brought the .22 patches and animal scat and birdsong, the bor’s help in removing the survey flags. tions of their own aggressions. I know back here where it belongs. irregularity and the possibility of surprise I walk down the new road and see the almost no one on my street; we don't meet and discovery as I walk, the ever-changing rivulets beginning to gouge and erode the over dogs. Tallyman vistas over the water (perhaps one day I will steepest parts. I can imagine that in a few Once in the late spring when I was alone at Weather is turning now, though with a low see a deer swimming across the lake, as my years it will be barely negotiable and the the lake, or thought I was, I heard a desper­ fire in the stone fireplace the camp is toasty daughter did), and the feeling of hiddenness owner’s plans for selling lots may well be ate squealing noise back up on the road, and tonight. Freddie and Annie’s place during the there on the shore, in the trees, these are deep thwarted simply by the lay of the land and discovered that a fawn had been attacked by power outage felt so safe and cozy with the pleasures, both in the first encounter and the flow of water. He seems now, as I look at two domestic dogs, let out by their owner, candles lit. We sat close around the dining later in familiarity. the deepening rivulets and think about the whoever he was, to roam and kill. They were table as Freddie showed me his trapline Bruce Chatwin says that walking is not rocks thrusting up next spring in the hastily skulking, bloody-muzzled, down the road, boundaries on the Hydro map. Fifteen by only a basic and necessary human rhythm, cleared roadbed, a mere oaf, and my hostili­ their tails down and heads low, and the fawn twenty miles, five times the area of this lake but a fundamental source of safety and ty begins to wane. He is not after all a cor­ was lying in a ditch under some bushes, and the surrounding woods, his to nurture security. Violence and disease, he writes, poration or government but one man with a thrashing wildly, its hind leg chewed to and attend. He is the tallyman for several follow human settlement. His book has limited imagination, driven by the dream of pieces. Its mother was back in the woods families, the man who keeps track of the ani­ made me wonder whether because of their money, who has probably miscalculated. somewhere. I’d left the .22 in Ithaca, so I ran mals each year and knows what he and the constant walking the Cree have different back to get the maul I use for chopping others can take without diminishing the brains from ours. Dogs wood. The fawn looked wide-eyed and hys­ numbers for the following years. Bear, cari­ Whether the human brain is “wired,” in the There were many dogs in the village. All terical at me as I took aim, its head swinging bou, beaver (Walter told me they count the current lingo, by the earliest accumulation of well fed and none restrained, and I felt no back and forth. No, no. But it was silent pups by touch in their dens), moose, rabbit, threat whatsoever from them as I walked now, and I hit it twice in the head with lynx, fisher, marten, partridge, grouse, continued on page 8 page 8 The BOOKPRESS April 2003 October Journal continued from page 7 grumbles that the work is “no true speech that the stories of a family or community that The government’s accusation that the Cree act” (though she writes the most elegant, fru­ would have been passed along through the are “aristocrats” pleases me more and more sensory experience. A recent piece I read gal definitions of any of us). The dictionary generations become short-circuited by alien for its unwitting truth. Indeed they are. I’m about a child raised in complete silence and concentrates words in a sort of pen, like the forms. Personal stories are crowded out by reminded of an acquaintance who lived in isolation for twelve years and who could not cows in the factory dairy. One of the writers radio, television, films, the computer; people Montreal for a year and on her return sneered learn language as a result brings me back to has a fantasy of the definition sheets in you don’t know who are highly paid choose at the Quebeckers as “jumped-up peasants.” Chatwin’s theme: that the Australian aborig­ the files bursting out at night, after we stories for you. Unless you repeat your own She was an academic snob, but still, I like the ines created the world as they walked have gone home, to schmooze and party with stories, or write them down at least, they die. shapeliness of these two bits of name-call­ through it and named it. The naming was each other. Unless you repeat the stories, you yourself ing, as though the latter confirms the former. metaphor, and so the world is a poem of their When I return I will ask for discussions forget them. I recall a labor historian, making, threaded by songlines. about the meanings of the words “primitive” Herbert Guttman, saying at a writers’ confer­ A Leaf, a Stone When people settle they become mired in and “civilize.” And perhaps “wild” and “cul­ ence that the worst thing to happen to the Perhaps I am a leaf. For fifteen years I had abstraction. Most of my education and work ture” and “cultivate.” And “intelligence.” labor movement was the loss of family and absorbed energy and purpose from the north life has been occupied in learning to manip­ community stories from the first three or country. I had belonged to a strong rural ulate counters for realities of which I have no Everywhere and Nowhere four decades of the century. Loss of a sense community—homesteaders, carpenters, direct knowledge. Perhaps the Cree are not Back in 1984 when I was at camp I read a of what the parents and grandparents had musicians, farmers, small-business owners, inclined to speak beyond what they know long, insinuating essay by George Trow sacrificed, and of what had been done to and academics—and we had worked hard because they have spent their lives walking. which burst in my head like fireworks. He them by the state and the corporations and to preserve the openness and freedom of But now they are a nation, with leaders wrote that the modem world is this: respon­ the police, and of how people had supported the place. who must speak for all—with all the future sible work done somewhere has given way, each other through very harsh times. We held meetings, demonstrated, raised contention that implies. My room in because of the power of money, to work done Guttman’s sorrow at this loss was palpable. money, ran candidates for office, wrote, Nemaska was in the small building that “nowhere” (or “anywhere”) that is intended (I thought immediately of his elegy when, spoke on TV and radio, taught, and organ­ serves as the center of that nation for the for “everywhere.” He was of course engaged later, I heard Mailer call the computer a ized, often effectively, against damaging entire Ungava peninsula, a region the size of in the most rarified of abstractions, but he is “husking machine for culture.”) change such as new highways and bypasses, western Europe, where now, after all the cen­ right. Our dictionary, bound for the every­ the power line, a nuclear plant proposed for turies of dispersal, they must gather periodi­ where of the computer, is a troubling exam­ History the St. Lawrence, prisons, second-home cally in council to determine their battle ple, though not so much as the dams and big It is the story, written by men, of what peo­ development, military expansion—all of strategy, and to speculate about Hydro’s next powerlines, and so is most research at the ples have done to each other. which the north country was vulnerable to move, about the government’s long-range university—intended not for specific After five thousand years, the Cree are because of its sparse population and political intentions. We can imagine the suddenness improvement of a particular place or particu­ now entering what we call history. conservatism and rural diffidence. In the of such a change in our own lives only in lar people but for anyone who can pay for it years just before we left, this camp had been apocalyptic science fiction stories. and make money off it. The result of such Arrival a place of organizing for some of those Or to turn it around: We are the Crees’ abstracted work, said Trow, is usually dam­ After getting off the plane and retrieving efforts. Now, though the community I loved “Alien.” age to specific places. And the people who my fishing rod from the baggage compart­ is still there, I am no longer a daily part of it, do the work that damages those specific ment (the Montreal attendant had called it a and when I come here it is mainly to gain Dictionary places do not have to live in them. “deadly weapon” and so it had to be stowed), refuge from Ithaca. In Ithaca I direct the writing and editing of In big communities, said the poet William I waited for Thomas. He didn’t come, and as We had a big garden and went to country definitions for an English dictionary that will Carlos Williams, men are “theorists and out­ the few other passengers dispersed I was the dances and visited our friends on their farms go onto computers. Though I like my co­ laws.” That applies not only to the power only one left in the little terminal except for (pigs, cows, horses, sheep, chickens, pea­ workers, who are all intelligent, good writ­ companies, big oil, agribusiness, biotech, the the Hydro workers waiting to board for the cocks, dogs and cats) and bought their home­ ers, and clever in coming up with somewhat military, but to the research establishments flight south. I began to wonder what I would made sausage and lamb and beef and eggs, “original” definitions that keep us clear of that feed them. It was such “communities” do if no one showed up. Then I heard a voice and canoed the river and camped and hiked plagiarism, and though I have an aptitude for that came up with the idea of “not in my back calling, mispronouncing my name closely in the summers, and I ran a bookstore that the work, it is highly derivative and seems yard” as a condemnation of specific people enough to know it was me he was looking gave the musicians a place to play and the (he epitome of abstraction. At times I sit and somewhere who opposed technology said to for, and a young Cree man told me he would activist community a place to meet, arid we look at a word—a noun such as “river” or be “needed” by people “everywhere.” Trow drive me the few miles to the village. When greeted the spring, when pheasants would “island,” say—and the thing begins to pulse was attempting to reinvest “not in my back we arrived, the chief met us and told me come to peck in the garden as the bare and change shape into something completely yard” with its rightful, honorable meaning. Thomas “took off’ for the wedding in ground appeared, with elation and thankful­ unrecognizable, or more often it simply goes I wrote him to say thanks and he replied, Chisasibi. He gave me a key and directed me ness. There was a permanence about the dead, until I can’t think what it could possi­ asking if I had looked closely at my “inter­ to the Grand Council building, where, he north country that the fierce winters simply bly mean—or indeed, what it is, these odd esting comer of New York.” A few years later said, J-P would give me a room. There I underscored. By contrast, Ithaca, dominated markings with their broken syllables. One of I wrote him that his piece had connected would wait to be contacted. by the university, seems a way station for the writers, in order to stay sane (he too has some things I had learned living in my inter­ That brief anxiety of arrival seems now to people headed elsewhere. these fits of unrecognition, occurring more esting comer, mainly that the generation, have been an omen, for I feel as though in my A few years after moving there, during a frequently now that we are three years transmission, and use of electricity are the brief presence in the village I was a leaf time when the novelty of the place had begun along), writes limericks about his words, on chief means by which specific places are blowing across a field. What use have I been, to wear thin, Vera and I were sitting here the back of the definition sheets. eliminated. I neglected to tell him that Hydro with my little black box measuring the invis­ under the hemlocks one evening, listening as The dictionary is like a crude map. Quebec was a major force behind the Three ible white noise? But however perversely, Paul sat on the dock playing Monk’s song Everyone in the office is aware of this to Gorges dam on the Yangtze in China, which however unwelcome the insight, this feeling “Crepuscule with Nellie,” and I was talking some degree, and one poet who works for us would displace a million people and destroy helps me understand the resentment about the work I now did, and she said, gen­ hundreds of villages, many of them ancient. Quebeckers must feel toward these dark tly, “I think you are blocked at the cross­ The most disturbing effect, though, has silent people who do not need them and who roads.” A Brazilian, a singer who now lived been on the back yard of personal and com­ want to be left alone to follow their own way. with Paul outside of New York City, she had munal memory. Electricity has enabled a I will write my report, and try not to speak explained to me, the night before, after we “broad-casting” everywhere technology that beyond my knowledge, though perhaps I had sung “Minha Saudade” together, what replaces private memory with highly selec­ have become a part now of the new demands “saudade” meant, and she suffered from that tive versions of history shaped by money, so that force the Cree to speak beyond theirs. melancholy homesickness worse than any­

GUhde Film one I knew. She had made a little candomble 193- 1941 shrine in the woods at Paul’s mother’s place during their visit to the north country, and Light Rhythms: M elodies & she asked me to write my name on a piece of paper, so she could present me to the gods for their intercession. They were different 'biting with Lightning: D.WJGjjffith, Mary Eufn Buts, and Busby Bsfikeify for more info see our from the Christian God; they were gods who flicksheet, call us at 255- evolved with humans, and I liked that idea, A F ing Miracle!: Revolutions in Technique and Form 3522, or visit us on the web: though I was still skeptical in the usual way cinema.cornell.edu of overeducated whites. I wrote my name on a concert the paper and thanked Vera and held her hand of the senses for a moment. Tomorrow morning, I said, T hrone of Blood May 3 & 5 April 17 & 19 let’s get up at dawn. We’ll watch the sun rise April 12 & 14 S«un Ihronicli of Anna IMM'IMI'MII down at the end of the bay. It slants through From the purging of black voters in Hm e n Fortress May 10 & 12 April 24 i . a | | April 19 & 21 Amadeus — Dirsctob's the trees on the hill and shoots through the Florida to to the role of the IMF in High and Lon T he Bh Su ee W ell May 15 & 17 April 30, May 2& 3 mist on the water like a bar of gold. Maybe crashing Argentina's economy to lifflEUSI the osprey will be hunting. Monsanto's cozy relationship with I had gone to Nemaska to see a communi­ the FDA, Palast exposes how our ty that was strong enough to absorb the worst profit-addicted American media April IB, 11,19 & 22 IMEISBlIEll and somehow remain the ancient stone that it ignore hard news. April 23 A a IHMfflSJl was. Looking for miracles. Hardcover Pluto Press♦>$25.00 continued on page 11 , "t •» V t % ' « April 2003 The BOOKPRESS page 9 The Ultimate MacGuffin continued, from, page 1 and Northrop Grumman, and here is he discovered with dismay that “we have Such a thing is a hoax, but it gains ideolog­ Caldicott’s thumbnail of “the Lockheed spent all that money and have all that equip­ ical body—and MacGuffinish efficacy— There are differences, of course, and these Martin Presidency”: ment, and there is nothing we can do to pre­ when seen as an imaginary solution to real introduce some necessary distinctions. From vent a nuclear missile from hitting us.” The problems that have been systematically dis­ the first, the Reagan planners envisioned a A belligerent and ill-informed president official version of the tale leads Reagan, “the guised. The real problem faced in 1983 by the space-based system comprising both kinetic sits in the White House (despite his per­ dreamer, the nuclear abolitionist, the naive” nuclear powers was the existence of large interceptors like projectiles and directed- ceived change of status since September (her words), straight from this epiphany to the arsenals of weapons whose use was morally energy sources like lasers and particle beams 11, 2001), controlled by his corporate Star Wars speech of March 1983, which took lunatic but whose acquisition and mainte­ that would shoot down enemy missiles in staff intent on extracting as much most military and civilian advisors by sur­ nance by adversaries was to a point instru- launch or boost phase or in mid-course tra­ American tax money as they possibly prise and spurred the funding of SDI in 1985 mentaliy rational. The baseline doctrine from jectory or intercept them in terminal phase; it can to build ever more exotic and dan­ and years following, then to the cultivation of which nuclear strategy started in those years was from the first a “national” missile gerous weapons. almost-available technologies, and of course was deterrence through the threat of massive defense system promising protection to the to the breakdown at Reykjavik of negotia­ retaliation that would result in Mutually continental U.S—an “astrodome defense,” in Not only for pecuniary and strategic but for tions that would, but for Reagan’s attachment Assured Destruction (MAD); it took shape in FitzGerald’s words. The systems edging environmental and medical reasons, which to SDI, have resulted in treaty arrangements the sixties on the reliable assumption that toward deployment in the nineties and the she presents with particular authority, “We scheduling the elimination of all ballistic mis­ nuclear war was unwinnable. MAD was not, present decade are ground-based, targeting are headed for a state of global disaster.” siles (by one account) or of all strategic arms FitzGerald rightly insists, an orthodoxy midcourse or terminal-phase missiles with For Caldicott, pure collusion explains (by another). Despite these peripeties—so among defense planners ignored only by a kinetic projectiles alone, and although at least much of this administration's weapons goes the received story—the ending was few right-wing know-nothings; an alternative temporarily modest in scale, they are, splurge, but with MD there is mystification as happy; Reagan’s defense budget and his com­ doctrine of “warfighting,” according to which because of their siting, no less “national” well. Like the incoming bodies MD is sup­ mitment to Star Wars spent the adversary into one adversary could win a nuclear war that in principle than preceding plans; the posed to stop, it has been a moving target, the ground and the Soviet empire (and the was less than total, had always had propo­ ABM Treaty had to go because it prohibited hard to track and easy to misidentify, break­ Cold War) just fell apart. nents, and the situation addressed by MAD such schemes. ing into decoys and surrogates that spoof our FitzGerald deconstructs every episode in was unstable in its stability, given to “threat Theatre defenses, in contrast, protect mili­ critical faculties. Insofar as MD is one thing, this tale without losing respect for its formal inflations” and to arms buildups of greater or tary assets abroad and have been in existence it is less like a missile than a “MacGuffin,” appeal or its roots in American national ide­ lesser symmetry that could never reach clo­ for decades—the Aegis arms aboard the Alfred Hitchcock”s name for “the deliberate­ ology. The Sovs weren’t spent down, only sure, only reach toward it. What was different cruiser Vincennes that shot down an Iranian ly mysterious plot objective—the non-point” alarmed enough by the prospect of weapons about the new Reaganite warfighters, it seems passenger jet during the Iran-Iraq war and the of a film, in his biographer’s words: in his in space to link their every disarmament pro­ clear, was that they projected their own inten­ Patriot missiles that were believed (falsely, as own, “the gimmick if you will, or the papers posal to U.S. adherence to the ABM treaty— tions on their adversary and then resorted to it turned out) to have killed so many Scuds the spies are after.” Does anyone remember until Gorbachev lost his fear of what he came the fiction of a perfect missile shield as the during the Gulf War are examples—but these what the uranium in the wine bottles in to believe an impossible project. Consensus only alternative—one which would, of become strategic weapons when they are Notorious was for? Yes, but only because the disintegrated at Reykjavik more through course, have to prove invulnerable in order to deployed against ballistic missiles, like the picture appeared after Hiroshima and imprecision and bluff than from an American be worth anything and which in its theatre defenses the U.S. is seeking to deploy Nagasaki: if the U.S. had bombed the commitment to SDI, although that was an MacGuffinly way became for a time the dom­ in Japan, Korea, and perhaps Taiwan. Japanese with marzipan, Notorious would element. The necessary technologies were in inant theme of striving and conflict. Yet these distinctions come to look arbi­ still feature a brave girl and a dedicated man no way available to the United States, despite Now go back to Cheyenne Mountain: what trary fast because both administrations, tragically divided in pursuit of an objective the claims made for exotic gadgets like Dr. candidate for the presidency in 1980 could Reagan’s and Bush’s, have merged defenses (what was it?) of overwhelming importance. Edward Teller’s X-ray laser, a “space-fed” possibly have been unaware that, on the rules of different types (and conveniently at differ­ Has anyone a clue about “the Process” in radar, and an electromagnetic “rail gun” for of the balance of terror, no superpower could ent stages of realization) in “tiered” or “lay­ David Mamet’s Spanish Prisoner'? No, but shooting space projectiles, all of which or should do very much to “prevent a nuclear ered” combinations, and the Bush strategists, the gimmick gives shape and force to a deli­ proved worthless. At its best, Star Wars was missile from hitting [it]”? What was the now released from the ABM treaty, have fur­ cious intrigue while remaining, perhaps “a program in search of technologies for an mindset or world view of those who insisted ther obfuscated public awareness by fusing because remaining, perfectly opaque in itself. undesigned system at a price the nation might that nuclear security at the time lay not in a theatre and national defenses in one nominal For our national and human story, MD is a be willing to pay.” fairly even balance of offensive (and unthink­ program. So the grandiose scale of Reagan- similarly powerful source of motivation and What was really going on in the early and ably destructive) weapons but a special set of era proposals, lost during the regimes of Bush mystery, but between fiction and history there middle Reagan years, she shows, was more defensive weapons magically exempt from I and Clinton, has returned in the strategic is a small difference. Stories end, and we for­ complex, a kind of massive politics-driven the competition? projections of Bush II—even while many of get their pretexts. History goes on and has to rhetorical event that grew naturally out of the In fact, there were crucial cracks in the Star the technologies now contemplated are as iffy absorb all the ruinous and unpredictable dynamics of Cold-War strategy. Wars rationale as it developed. Was the mis­ as the old ones. But that may not matter too MacGuffins forced on its plots by statesman Campaigning in 1979-80 with no foreign pol­ sile shield meant to shield populations (in much, because MD systems do most of their and scientist, emperor and clown. In fiction, icy but an archaic anti-communism, Reagan which case it had to be total) or to shield other work in a kind of future tense, subjunctive MacGuffins evaporate rent-free: in history met up with the agenda of the Committee on armaments (in which case partial coverage mood, somewhere on the continuum between they drive deeper scripts with comic or dev­ the Present Danger, a caucus of hawks who was O.K.)? Was it meant to protect the nation conception and deployment. Talk about (pro­ astating consequences. perceived between the U.S.S.R. and the U.S. against a first strike only—or could it work jection of, work on) such strategic weapons, Interestingly, there may have been a a large window of missile vulnerability. Once against a “second” launched by the enemy in being itself strategic, is therefore unstable as crossover; as FitzGerald reports, at least the in office, the Reaganites adopted yet more well as destabilizing, being calculated to packaging of Reagan’s Star Wars may have belligerent crisis rhetoric, achieved the continued on page 10 darken counsel and enhance menace. come from the MacGuffin of another Hitch largest peacetime arms buildup in American For who could keep his or her bearings in film. In Torn Curtain (1966), an American history, and continued to campaign on the the alphabet salad or sandstorm of systems, scientist played by Paul Newman pretends to Soviet threat in 1984. each listed with its pride tag and its principal defect to East Germany in order to learn from Star Wars, as it happens, matured later contractors, in Helen Caldicott’s sixth chap­ a Communist scientist the missing step in the rather than earlier in the conceptual arsenal of ter? In addition to our old friend the Clinton- development of the “Gamma Five” project. an administration peopled by “hard-line era Ground-Based Interceptor (GBI) with its Gamma Five, as it happens, is “a defense defense intellectuals” like Richard Perle and Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV), lower- weapon that will make all offensive weapons Fred Ikld and the national security advisor tier interceptors are commissioned for all obsolete, and thereby abolish the terror of Richard Allen. FitzGerald shows that the ini­ three armed services: the Patriot PAC-3 for nuclear war,” and, in a mad duel of black- tiative addressed at least three problems faced the Army, a Naval Area Defense, and such board-scribbling, Newman fools his German by the government: first, purely strategic puz­ gadgets as AWACS (Airborne Warning and colleague into revealing the secret. What was zlement over how to make the MX missile, Control System, already operational) and J- all this about? How would it work? Who the next wonder weapon in the U.S. arsenal, STARS (Joint Surveillance and Target Attack cares? Newman and his assistant-fiancde “survivable” against a first strike from the Radar System) for the Air Force. Upper-tier Julie Andrews bring the missing secret back enemy; second, how to complicate plans for defenses include THAAD (Theatre High to the West and live happily, etc. the first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, on Altitude Area Defense) and the NTW (Naval But not, perhaps, without laying the eggs the horizon in 1984; and finally, what to do Theater Wide) system, exceeded in techno­ of Star Wars in the brain of film star Ronald about the nuclear Freeze, a broad-based logical sophistication by Airborne and Space Reagan, who seventeen years later called peace movement with vast popular and inter­ Based Lasers (ABL and SBL) and all notion- upon “the scientific community in this coun­ national support, that had been gaining head ally coordinated by Battle Management/ try, who gave us nuclear weapons... to give us from 1980 to 1984. Command, Control, and Communications the means of rendering these weapons impo­ Leaving the ill-fated MX aside (but

(BM/C3) systems driven by computers that tent and obsolete.” (It was the scientists, you responding to the issue of survivability). Star j ■ ti-, i may react to real or perceived threats instan­ see, who did it.) The Reagan of FitzGerald’s Wars deflected and deferred START I and, At once a romance and an intellec­ taneously, eliminating human intervention. study is an actor-narrator of rare skill and FitzGerald suggests, succeeded in coopting tual detective story, Abandon hints Of course these systems, in their turn, will detachment willing to sell any story given the much of the popular support for the Freeze. at the possibility of transformation require early warning of hostile launches by right script, and Star Wars, whatever its real But as the solution to a strategic problem or in love, spirituality and the clash of ground—and space-based sensors with inspiration, provided the right script. window of vulnerability, Star Wars was ele­ names like BMEWS, SBIRS-High, and FitzGerald’s story begins with the visit, gantly and symmetrically vacuous: “the solu­ two world views. SBIRS-Low—and so it goes. The beneficiar­ reported by an early biographer, of presiden­ tion did not exist, but, then, the problem Hardcover ies? They are Lockheed Martin, Boeing, tial candidate Reagan to NORAD headquar­ did not either, so in that sense it was a Knopf <*$24.00 Raytheon, TRW, United Technologies, ters at Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado, where perfect solution.” page 10 The BOOKPRESS April 2003 The Ultimate MacGuffin continued from page 9 the assault on Iraq) with a speech demonizing that Beijing cares enough about this Creating an MD is a defensive counter-pro­ adversaries as an “axis of evil”—just as issue to launch nuclear missiles. liferative measure par excellence. retaliation against a first one from the U.S., Reagan anticipated his announcement of Star “Proceeding with NMD would represent a thus enabling a “third” (from the U.S.)? Or Wars by denouncing the communist bloc as To this point, “our” posture looks defen­ major contradiction to the commitment the was it a gamble on catastophe and not a an “evil empire” (in a speech to the National sive (of an erstwhile ally) and “theirs” offen­ United States has made to work toward the defense at all that the Star Warriors really Association of Evangelicals in early March sive (toward territory it considers historically elimination of nuclear weapons,” Butler wanted? That is consistent with the world of 1983). Is there, for this persistent mentali­ Chinese). But strategy flips the valences: writes. “Instead, it would signal a determina­ view on which FitzGerald thinks Star Wars ty, very much difference between a desire for tion to continue to rely on nuclear weapons was based. It comprised an evangelical universal domination and a nostalgia for the If we have a sufficient insurance policy, a into the indefinite future.” He has particular Protestantism that remained middle apocalyptic possibilities of the Cold War? battery of anti-missile weapons suffi­ contempt for the “rogue states” rationale America’s core religion, with its apocalyptic The MacGuffin of Missile Defense now cient (in theory) to neutralize China’s served up by Rumsfeld and Bush—in which thinking and its polarization of the world into serves both motives without contradiction. two dozen nuclear missiles, we should supposed horizontal proliferation drives the forces of darkness and light, and an “imperi­ Caldicott argues that “first-strike winnable feel much freer to go to war over vertical kind; it not only insults his intelli­ al isolationism” that led American conserva­ nuclear war is the real (secret?) agenda of Taiwan. gence, but bottoms on all the assumptions tives of a Midwestern strain to want to be Star Wars revitalization” but she also sees that his book assails: that nuclear weapons, both omnipotent and remote from the objects that it can create a new, consolidated adver­ Freer, that is, to go to war with convention­ because they cannot be uninvented, cannot be of their power. Such a contradiction, says sary from Russia and China. Such a conver­ al or nuclear weapons, on the assumption restrained; that “human nature” (a concept FitzGerald, cried out for “some magical, or gence becomes possible only on the half-sup­ that China “in theory” won’t go nuclear. that is “both the least precisely mapped and symbolic, thinking... [t]he idea of exerting pressed principle that MD, whether a first- Getting this assumption wrong is of course the most enduring of historicisms”) will power at a distance, or exerting power while strike stalking horse or not, is everywhere and the way to turn a diplomatic standoff or con­ always cheat for narrow national advantage; remaining isolated.” always an offensive weapon. In Times colum­ ventional war into a catastrophe. But the “in that arms accords are a snare and a delusion; Of course the answer was Star Wars, and nist Bill Keller's words, MD “is not about theory” is an important reservation, because and that “the proliferation horse has bolted; its motives survive in our present-day unilat­ defense. It’s about offense,” and this needs to that’s exactly where deterrence lives in the indeed, it is halfway over the hill, and it is too eralists, some of whom have long histories. be thought through. Keller’s China scenario logic of strategy. In the Taiwan scenario, U.S. late to take preventive action to stop it.” Even then it was Richard Perle, an assistant is the most persuasive: strategists would be looking for a situation in The only thing wrong with Butler’s non­ secretary of defense under Reagan, who which we would be able to deter China, cred­ proliferation regime, considered as a solution rejoiced in the “Star Wars” epithet that stung Taiwan decides to risk a climactic break ibly, from deterring us (with nuclear arms) to the problem of nuclear arms, is that (as his president: “Why not?” he asked. “It's a with mainland China. The mainland from intervening. And had we got to that Churchill said of democracy) it’s the worst good movie. Besides, the good guys won.” responds with a military tantrum. point, we might well succeed—but getting except for all the others, and Butler knows it. And even now the President has chosen to America would like to defend the island there is the whole nine yards. Weapons sys­ Premising that "the problem of nuclear accompany his unfolding warfighting initia­ democracy against the Communist tems are built in real time even as they may weapons is nuclear weapons,” he tries to tives (the War on Terror, the revival of MD, giant—but we are backed down by hints exist “in theory.” Beijing’s prior awareness of extract these arms entirely from the bad our strategy would undoubtedly lead it to add matrix of strategic “solutions,” but it must be dozens or hundreds of missiles to those two admitted that non-proliferation requires at dozen it now has, and perhaps even a missile least as large an act of (abstract, good) faith, defense, without abandoning its designs on on the part of the non-nuclear powers, as its UPCOMING EVENTS AT Taiwan. The U.S., in turn, would comparably alternative entails the steady practice of bad increase its “defensive” weapons and its faith by the nuclears. Butler’s reasoning also “offensive” weapons too, and the world calls for just the kind of muscular enforce­ would once again be in an proliferative arms ment action the U.S. is now about to under­ THE BCKKERy race with a new propellant. It is not as though take in Iraq, and his thinking might lead him our masters are trying to prevent one. to favor a preemptive strike even if the smok­ Seeking to persuade Putin to keep the ABM ing gun of WMD is not found, scientifically Mary Beth Norton treaty while they broke it, they actually urged identified, and officially docketed. (He Russia to maintain large, war-worthy nuclear accepts the old report that Iraq may have —rassr-rrnsEBs— Mary Beth Norton will read from In the Devil's Snare, her arsenals; trying to allay Chinese fears of MD, tested a crude A-bomb in 1989 and the some­ unique account of the events of the Salem witchcraft trials. In rut they said there would be no U.S. objection to what better attested story that Saddam was Describing the situation from a seventeenth-century per­ D i v i i ’i S h a r k its enlarging its arsenal or resuming nuclear just six months away from exploding a spective, Norton examines the crucial turning points, the «* f** lw«* 4im> tests. In the narrative-business of govern­ nuclear device in January of 1991.) But accusers, the confessors, the judges, and the accused, ment, nuclear proliferation is a good story “walking the hard yards” of disarmament, among whom were thirty-eight men. that leads to good business. with an army and a navy if necessary, is The kind of proliferation just described is the working diplomat’s only alternative to “vertical,” within a single nation’s arsenal; “hunkering down to unilateral defense—the nr» x+*r+x Richard Butler’s Fatal Choice shows how fatal choice.” vertical proliferation and “horizontal” prolif­ Maybe the chance for that choice has eration can trigger each other and how strate­ passed, at least for the moment. Maybe the Steve Kress gic prophecies can be relentlessly self-fulfill­ fighting faith necessary to break the ing. It also shows how hard it is to break the MacGuffin’s spell will come not from gov­ Steve Kress will read his new multicolored and multi­ logic of MacGuffinism from outside of its ernments but from the people of the still cultural children's book Saving Birds which was written own terms and how dispiriting the alternative (however marginally) democratic nations— with Pete Salmansohn.The book focuses on the expe­ can look and sound. Butler’s story is in part a those underwhelmed by the abstractions of riences and efforts of grownups and children, scientists personal narrative of service to Australia and arms control but able to respond to the imag­ and volunteers, working to save birds in very different to international bodies, as a delegate to the inative challenge of what the U.S. govern­ corners for the world.The team also wrote Project Puffin and Giving Back to the Earth. Conference on Disarmament, as his country’s ment has in store for the world, as Caldicott ambassador to the United Nations, and as the and Grossman present it. For there is at least executive chairman of the UN Special one more chapter to the story, one yet ulteri­ Commission for disarming Iraq between or motive for MD, and here the MacGuffin 1997 and 1998 (of whose last days his The takes flight for the stars—“in theory,” still, Greatest Threat, also published in 2001, is a but with a (literally) exorbitant sublimity. melancholy account). It is also a reasoned It is not news that the military has always Allison Lurie defense of what he calls “the nonproliferation hoped to rule space and to rule from space. regime,” the tissue of international conven­ But it was not until the 1989 publication of Allison Lurie is the Pulitzer Prize winning local author of tions established by the Non-Proliferation John Collins’ Congressionally commissioned Foreign Affairs, Imaginary Friends, Familiar Spirits: A M em oir o f Treaty of 1968, which Butler helped shep­ Military Space Forces: The Next Fifty Years, James Merrill and David Jackson and many other books. She herd through its last two endangered renewals copiously cited by Caldicott, that the practi­ will read from Boys and Girls Forever and other recent work. in 1995 and 2000. That regime is perennially cal details—of controlling near space from threatened not only by the actions (or inac­ orbiting stations and rocket-powered bat- tion) of its signatories but by its own contra­ tlewagons, of the relative advantages of dictions, for it binds both nuclear and non­ directed-energy and biological weapons, of nuclear states to halting nuclear proliferation extraterrestrial mining and spacebome and also—this is a condition of its exis­ warfighting—had been so concretely dis­ tence—binds the nuclear states to good-faith cussed outside a work o f fiction or as explic­ progress toward the elimination of their own itly proposed as a subject of competition. weapons. That, of course, they have signally U.S. space hegemony, Collins wrote, All events are co-sponsored by and held at failed to make, so every multilateral renewal “could culminate in bloodless total victory, if the Tompkins County Public Library. of the treaty seems to skate on a thinner lagging powers could neither cope nor catch Books are available at 10% off the day of the reading. layer of confidence—belied by big-power up technologically.” And it was not until 1997 measures that Butler terms “counter-prolifer­ that the U.S. Space Command, headquartered 273-5055 • WWW.THEBOOKERY.COM ative,” by which he means the opposite of “anti-proliferative.” continued on page 11 April 2003 The BOOKPRESS page 11 October Journal continued from page 8 with the Innu man and the chief, too, and insect hatch while I was fishing. The feeling of gratitude for the fullness of the one with Thomas, who visited me the morn­ moment the coyote and I looked at each day. After “Taps,” as the stillness of evening An Article ing I left. It cheered me that he had returned, other. The tiny flycatcher that flew into the deepened, came the solitary call of the her­ I took with me to Nemaska copies of an and also that I had left something of myself side of the boat, falling into the water and mit thrush up in the woods. article I had written, a long review of the in the village, and that in it I would be seen then resting (its eyes blinking) in my cupped new edition of Richardson’s book. more or less clearly. hand after I scooped it out, until it revived Divided Richardson had been quite friendly and Today the weather is colder, and in and flew off. The in-between snowshoe Today the wind is blowing the fog in interested, and had sent me striking photos searching the duffel for my heavy sweater, I hare, always here, it seems, to greet me in dense swirls over the lake. The mice are set­ he had taken of Job Bearskin and others realize I have left it in Nemaska, too, in my the spring and bid me adieu in the fall. The tling in. I see an albino red squirrel in one of when he was living with the Cree in the room in the Grand Council building. When bear’s den. The savaged fawn, swinging its the hemlocks this morning, and wonder if he bush. I felt uncertain about giving the article friends come to visit here at the lake for a head from side to side as I took aim to kill it will inhabit the camp while I’m gone. The to the Cree, for, in addressing an audience in few days, they often leave items, as though with the maul. This year, though, I will tell place is an absence, an emptiness for me New York about their struggle against the saying they didn’t want to leave, or assuring them about the new road and the flags on during the winter. Sometimes the squirrels dams, and their long tenure on the land, I anyway that there would be a little P.S. to the the trees. toss things about and I like the feeling that was presuming to encapsulate their lives in a visit coming to them in the mail. I will write I can’t remember now who told me the the place has been used while I was gone. foreign tongue, applying a foreign code of to thank J-P when I return and send him a story about the beaver. It has become a leg­ Well, I do not want to return to Ithaca to conscience. I hoped there was nothing copy of my article on Roy, and ask that he end in the Cree world, a story that a hunter fish in the truck. But the boat is up, the glaz­ grossly inaccurate in the piece, though cer­ send the sweater in return. It’s odd to think told the people after returning from the bush. ing and painting done, the floors swept, the tainly it would be no new experience to read of it sitting there in the drawer in the middle Soon after the damming of the La Grande he gutters cleared. The waterlines and pump are lies about themselves. At least I could con­ of the bush. Interesting too that I completely found a beaver lodge that was thirty feet disconnected. The woodshed full for spring. sole myself that they were functional, inno­ unpacked and put things in drawers when I high. It was surely the biggest lodge in all The fishbones and guts and head are out in cent lies, if they were lies—that is, meant to was to be there only a few days. the Cree land, and it was empty. He had the woods for the raccoons, which I am hop­ move people to action, to help them think, in never seen such a lodge, and he realized, ing will come back with their new family in their luxury, about what subsistence means, Stories inspecting it closely, what had happened. As the spring. A Cooper’s hawk settles heavily, and about the importance not of empty I come here in the edge times, and take the waters rose, day after day and week after its wings flapping, on a small bird near the wilderness but wilderness with humans who back stories of things seen to my family. week, the beaver built higher and higher, edge of the shore. When I move near the knew how to live in it—and also that I had That the blackberries were blooming, or the trying to keep the living room above water, window it sees me and takes off with the not done it for money. But I keep thinking red trilliums, or that the black-and-white until Finally the day came when it gave up. bird in its talons and flies through the woods about photographs and the idea of people’s male merganser was here, soon to leave, or I to whatever copse it will feel safe in. spirits being sucked from them into the cam­ tell them the story about the hooded mer­ Taps era. The media routinely do that to everyone ganser’s mystifying confrontation with the Once for a few weeks, several summers they touch, though it no longer seems to beaver. Or about the lake literally covered ago, a man across the bay played ‘Taps” Joel Ray is a former editor of the bother anyone. with tree swallows for a very short period of every evening as the sun was setting. We Bookpress. He lives in Ithaca. (But, ah, the Quebec lawyers insisted, you time, and then they're gone. Or the hundreds thought it strange, hearing those solemn can get used to anything.) Still, when of cedar waxwings perched on the iron rail­ opening notes, but the military association Freddie gave me a copy of his poem, I had ings of the bridge above the river, diving all quickly gave way, as we listened that first something to reciprocate with. I left copies around me in the evening air during an night, to a sense of approaching peace and a The Ultimate MacGuffm Once Two Heroes a novel continued from page 10 ma, we’ll target his grandma.” “I am a grand­ of its own weight before being built. (In CALVIN BAKER mother,” she cried: “How dare he talk like prospect it certainly provides a dramatic at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado, had that?”) But can such literally totalitarian image of imperial overreach.) In any case, the face to issue its Vision for 2020 in lurid dreams be realized? This is a question with space weapons, once realized in pictures like comic-book form, with scarifying pictures which the MacGuffm wants to tease us, and it those of the U.S. Space Command, will lose showing space-governed wars on land, sea, might better be avoided. But societies with the last shreds of the defensive disguises they and air and promoting the “full spectrum the ingenuity and resources to put hundreds have hitherto worn; it will be hard to “proj­ dominance” which the Space Command of thousands of bits of serious junk into near ect” (in both the imaginative and the military offers the nation by adding its power to those space, permanently or transiently, cannot be senses) aggressive force into space without of the other armed services. counted on not to be able to shoot some of revealing it for what it is: aggressive, offen­ Caldicott and Grossman cite much lan­ those bits down or to shoot down from them. sive force. To recur to one of the key narra­ guage from the Space Command’s Long Perhaps they can be dissuaded from doing so tives of Missile Defense, it is rather hard to Range Plan of 1998, written in an all-too- by shame or fear or even inspiration—by the go on talking like a Jedi while you’re build­ common dialect of stragegySpeak, at once pediatrician-activist Caldicott, founder of ing the Death Star out there in the blue, for all antiseptic and prurient, just holding back Physicians for Social Responsibility and the world to see. Maybe MD and its “seed” from the exertion of limitless violence that more recently of the Nuclear Policy Research can bring us to the point where we can, at Two American soldiers, one black, Collins’ “total bloodless victory" pretends to Institute and a longtime speaker and writer on last, see the Empire and realize that it is us. on white, return home to find that forestall. The LRP is mostly about looking the medical and environmental threat of and knowing, occasionally about holding nuclear arms; by the investigative reporter war has been no preparation for the y power just short of the fighting it promises. It Grossman, whose particular concern is the Stuart Davis is a Senior Lecturer in violence of peace. anticipates “a seamlessly integrated force of space program's nuclear threat to the planet; English at Cornell. References to further theatre land, sea, air, and space capabilities” and by the redoubtable organizer Bruce information sources can be found at Viking to enable “the combination of worldwide sit­ Gagnon, whose influence in Caldicott’s and http://instruct 1. cit. Cornell. edu/~sad4/mdJ. Hardcover»>$23.95 uational awareness and precise application Grossman’s books is strong. Gagnon, who o f force from space” (all the italics are mine). spoke at Cornell in October and whose Its inert noun phrases try (and fail) to buffer Global Network Against Weapons and the actions they portray: by 2002, “a robust Nuclear Power in Space is an excellent Listen to and fully integrated suite of space and terres­ resource for organization and teaching, does trial capabilities will provide dominant bat- not hesitate to appropriate the chiliastic lan­ for tlespace awareness enabling on-demand tar­ guage of space colonization for his own pur­ progressive geting and engagement of all ballistic and poses; far from renouncing the whole space WEOS cruise missiles... and the ability to identify, program as the military MacGuffm that it and track and hold at risk designated high value arguably is, he captures its story in another 89.7 FM/88.1 FM alternative terrestrial targets.” And the obsession with one, calling for “a global debate on what kind “seamless integration” (words curiously of seed we’re going to carry on our inevitable Geneva/lthaca news programs recurrent in documents like these) gives away journey into the heavens, the good seed of the extreme fragmentation—of the means of international cooperation or the bad seed of making this fantasy real, of the earthly agents greed, environmental exploitation, and war.” Democracy Now!, m -f, 9-10 am caught up in it—which it really implies. Two more predictions are possible. First, These are the sex dreams of empire, and space weapons, once on station below or the object of their desire finally stands out in beyond the moon’s orbit, are remarkably vul­ Free Speech Radio News Unwelcome Guests all its specular power—power applied at a nerable to the threat they pose to each other Pacifica reporters against a program about wealth, distance, of course, in the phallic reveries of and to earthbound “assets” (ships, cities, power and people's censorship magical thought. (Caldicott is a fine gender grandmothers). A regime that depends on resistance to the critic as well as a superb polemicist; fasten­ satellite communication and surveillance, on Monday-Friday, New World Order ing on the phrase “hold at risk” at Ithaca celestial threats and counterthreats, may 6-6:30 p.m. Sundays, 9-11 p.m. College, she quotes a military strategist, “If come to look, even in the planning stage, like he [the gendered adversary] values his grand­ such a mass of vulnerabilities that it will fall page 12 The BOOKPRESS April 2003 The Bungee Jumper seconds but may suffice for the larva to van­ between its third pair of legs. When the larva there predators able to catch the larva? Our Tom Eisner ish from the site. Even the littlest Ypsolotha completes its climb it relinquishes the pack­ two Uruguayan collaborators, Carmen are programmed to wiggle when disturbed. age, leaving it stuck to the leaf margin the Rossini and Andres Gonzalez, as well as my There is something reassuring about hon­ Poke a larva while it is hidden in its retreat, moment it is back on home base. By discard­ wife Maria, may well look into some of these eysuckle bushes. They are among the first to and it will quickly wiggle away. ing the silk, the larva may be squandering a unknowns. come to life in the spring, and they never fail Bungee jumping is put into effect by the resource. Spiders are more conservation-ori­ As with all research, one inevitably won­ to bloom no matter how harsh the preceding larvae when they have wiggled their way to ented. When they take down their web, they ders whether a project, as conceived, is of winter. One takes delight each year in the the edge of a leaf. They then plunge into eat it. sufficient importance to be of general interest. early unfolding of their blossoms, and won­ space, suspended by a silken thread that they There are dozens of questions that remain Does anyone really care about a caterpillar ders what it is about their flowers, whether squeeze from a tiny spigot that projects from unanswered about Ypsolotha. Several stu­ that is neither a pest nor a vector of disease? coloration, scent, or a combination of traits, just below the mouth. The spigot is the outer dents have joined the project, and it looks as Does the fact that virtually nothing had been that attracts the pollinator. Driven by curiosi­ “faucet” of a pair of large tubular glands that though there will be no shortage of problems done with this animal mean that it had been ty, one takes a closer look, and finds that take up a considerable portion of the body to be solved. Lynn Fletcher, with the quiet judged to be worthless or uninteresting? I honeysuckles have an enemy, a little caterpil­ cavity of the animal. Bungee jumping does persistence that is her mark, has video-taped generally work on the assumption that if it lar that makes its living feeding on the leaves not require that the larvae take time to anchor the wiggling behavior and will try to see is alive it is interesting, a view which as a of the plants. One is reminded that the inter­ the silken thread to the edge of the leaf before whether by analyzing the high-speed footage naturalist I find easy to espouse and justify, action of insects and plants is complex, and jumping. The silken thread is fastened to the she might be able to decipher how various but difficult to impart. Does Ypsolotha have that plants derive both benefit and injury retreat itself and the larva needs only let out forces interact to effect the propulsion. Josh general appeal? from insects. The answer came to light from an unex­ Eager to learn more about the larva, one pected quarter. Ypsolotha—I was told by my checks the entomological periodicals, only to friend Jim McConkey—had been spotted by find that the species has been largely ignored. a poet, by a writer of immense talent who, This is surprising, because the animal is having found himself eye to eye with the lit­ abundant and therefore ready-made for study. tle larva, was moved to report on it in verse. Why not look into the life of this insect? I Archie Ammons discovered Ypsolotha quite found the prospects of becoming intimate independently, and giving rein to his curiosi­ with a caterpillar tempting, as did some of my ty and genius for expression, took the animal student associates, and together we have to heart and wove an account of it into one of begun to document this insect’s remarkable his narrations. Here, in the words of the great activities, including its feeding behavior, poet, is a poetic view of the bungee jumper: architectural habits, and defensive strategies. The result is that the little denizen is no “...... there is a web-worm falls longer entirely shrouded in mystery. We sometimes aslant the honeysuckle hedge in spring -learned early that the animal had a Latin breeze or other dislocation and finds itself name: Ypsolotha dentella. To us it became asquirm dangerously dangled in the open air (I’ve known as the bungee jumper. seen hornets trim those babies right out o f the Here is what we have learned so far about air): this one I paused to view was wrestling the animal. It is restricted in its diet and feeds up the single thread of web, nipping and tucking, only on honeysuckle. Like honeysuckle itself, reaching up for a hold on the tight and bringing it is a native of Europe. It makes its appear­ itself up till the bit length could be added ance in early April (right now, in fact, in your to the tiny cotton ball gathered at its very own gardens!), feeding on young leaves head: but this is mere mechanics: down its at night. It hides in the daytime, usually in a back was a purplish streak exactly the color loose silken retreat, which it spins between o f honesucklebushlimbstems, the top part (buds) leaves near the growing tips of branches. By o f the stems: his feet, his laterals, were the end of May, virtually all have pupated. Tom Eisner exactly the color o f the lateralhoneysucklebush Their slender cocoons are well camouflaged limbstems: while this waits explanation, among the surrounding leaves. The adults, an additional length of strand to cover the Ladau, our mathematical whiz, will also look hold it a sufficient miracle, on which, tho, irregularly patterned in brownish tones, stretch to the leaf edge. It is therefore secure­ into the escape behavior, and particularly into I posit no faith of a kind but faith of another appear fashioned to blend in with bark. ly connected to its home base at all times and the trigger mechanism that initiates the wig­ kind: that is, maybe some spooky agency does Larvae are most easily spotted by the tell-tale free to wiggle away and take a bungee plunge gle. Alex Bezzerides, the indefatigable manage all..." feeding injuries they inflict on leaves. They at a moment’s notice. molecular naturalist, will look into the effec­ are also given away by their tiny black fecal When they plunge, the larvae drop some 10 tiveness of the various defensive strategies of (from Part 11, Garbage, by A. R. Ammons, pellets, which may accumulate outside their to 20 centimeters or more. In essence their Ypsolotha, following up on his discovery that 1993. W. W. Norton, New York, pp. 71-72.) retreats, unless blown away by the wind. plunging is another vanishing act, a trick the wiggle behavior is dramatically protective The larvae are neatly camouflaged. which in combination with wiggling enables against jumping spiders. Predominantly green, they match the color of the larvae to avoid trouble by leaving the But there is so much more that comes to Tom Eisner is a biologist at Cornell. the leaves they eat. A reddish streak on their scene. When the larvae plunge, they drop vir­ mind. Exactly how far do the larvae drop, and back is of the precise hue often manifested by tually instantaneously. The rate at which they how long do they remain suspended before the petioles of honeysuckle leaves. are able to produce silken strand—that is, they ascend again? How costly is the use of «. Aside from camouflage and the benefit of convert liquid gland content into the solid the silk? The thread is most likely made of the retreat, the larvae have two additional thread they squeeze from the spigot—is protein, and its use must come at a price. And Alice rather spectacular defenses—they wiggle and therefore quite astounding. at what price comes the time invested in the they bungee jump. Wiggling is an escape The suspended larva does not remain hang­ suspension? How quickly do the larvae grow, strategy they share with many small caterpil­ ing from its thread for long. Within minutes it and are they forced often enough to bungee M cDerm ott lars, but Ypsolotha may hold the Guinness begins the slow process of climbing up the jump to be slowed in their development? record for the “sport.” Put a Ypsolotha larva cord to return to its retreat. To ascend, the Does bungee jumping have an effect on the on a smooth kitchen counter and touch it with larva pulls itself up along the cord, a few mil­ pupation process? The larvae build a cocoon a toothpick and you are in for a revelation. limeters at a time, using its mouthparts to of silk when they pupate. Does a high inci­ The larva instantly becomes a visual blur, as exert the pull and to tuck away the loops of dence of attack leave the larvae with an inad­ it propels itself at high speed over the count­ slack reeled in as it proceeds upward. The equate supply of silk for cocoon construc­ er, twisting and turning along an unpre­ process is very elegant. The entire cord is tion? And there are other questions. Are the dictable path. The response may last only stuffed by the larva into a holding space defenses of Ypsolotha impregnable? Are

The Rape of Baghdad C lildofm IH eart The farther back she jnoves the further he swings. At the edge of himself what he meets is uncannily familiar. He keeps on touching her against the wall beneath the crucifix and candle where the blue light from the silk lampshade is no light at all. “...evocative, gently funny and resonant with a sense of impend­ The candle-glass gutters red, flared white from its center. ing loss, as all stories of youthful Her firelight about, above, around him, astride summers must be.” she swings her legs counterclockwise, keeps her feet off the ground. — Publisher’s Weekly

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