[Buddha-l] a question

[Richard P. Hayes]

On Tue, 2005-05-03 at 02:41 -0400, Dante Rosati wrote:

> what would the Buddha say to Walt Whitman?

Gotama would start with something like this: "Don't write any more
disgraceful propaganda rationalizing the unjustifiable American
aggression against Mexico, and stop referring to Mexicans as
uncultivated savages." 

Of course that was 160 years ago. If Whitman were alive today he would
be trying to justify the illegal invasion of Iraq in about the same
terms he once tried to justify the illegal invasion of Mexico. And
Gotama (my Gotama, at any rate) would still be remonstrating with him
about being such a knee-jerk patriot. I can't imagine Gotama having any
sympathy at all with any kind of patriotism, especially the totally
diseased sort of blind patriotism that has conquered the American mind.

-- 
Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico