Paid in Full

A reader offered Billy Beck a penny for his thoughts on the Nick Berg events in Iraq.  Billy has obliging complied, and his thoughts are worth more than the penny offered, in a post titled “To Start At The Beginning."

A couple of excerpts.

"At the hands of posing savages, putting on a show with some innocent person’s life, Nick Berg died screaming. At what? The only conceivable answer to me, having listened to it, would be the utter horror of being deliberately killed in such a primitive way by things looking like human beings, and what a complete contradiction of his life experience that might have represented.

Monsters really are real, after all."

Followed by this further into the post.

"It’s really important for everyone to realize that there are monsters alive in the world who would step right through the front door and dice them up right there on their couches, just like they did to Nick Berg, if they had an angle on the thing. That means that they’re going to sneak around with larger schemes in mind, which they’ll pop on us now & then, with the very same blood-curdling deliberation of a knife working its way through the shock of never having felt anything that catastrophically invasive of one’s own body just before the lights go out."

Posted by on 05/13 at 03:15 AM

  1. Billy certainly observes that different contectualities provide different levels of intimacy: “I suppose a bomb is a very difference experience, in certain intimate ways.”

    But he doesn’t seem to OWN these people, as fellow human beings, these “monsters”.

    I use the term “own” as a substance abuser who is in wholly and deeply in denial of his substance abuse and has come to terms with it, thus “OWNING” it.

    I recognize that these people are human - in spite of their monstrous behavior. Thats all I have to understand. Intimacy
    can be deduced, even though it belies any first person experience.

    Is that a minority viewpoint ? I mean doesn’t every person in uniform realize his paycheck is to ... kill ? ? Or do our uniformed fellows/madams always have to keep that intimacy at arms length ( monsters ) - or even further away “

    “The monsters are really loose, and they must be destroyed.”

    It’s called Life ( in War ) Deal with it.

    Posted by  on  05/13  at  07:34 AM

  2. Billy Beck: It’s really important for everyone to realize that there are monsters alive in the world …

    So little Billy Beck believes in Demons after all.

    I still say Mr. Beck is waiting for something ... perhaps his next life?

    Posted by  on  05/13  at  12:50 PM

  3. Serpent - Your comment displays your inadequate powers of comprehension, again.

    Posted by  on  05/14  at  06:09 AM

  4. That’s possible Mr. Venlet, of course I wouldn’t know.

    But what I can tell you is that your comment isn’t helping me to comprehend things any better. 

    Posted by  on  05/14  at  08:52 AM

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