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Ocracoke
Lookout
141 Posts |
 Posted - Jan 04 2010 : 11:51:58 PM
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Having read this article in the most recent NY Times edition to
this date I think of the ongoing reality of piracy
to our world. Literally against all flags again.
How does this renaissance of the new age of piracy
change your perspective on the pirates your portray
or read of?
We do tend to cheer on the pirates yet can
we now empathise more with their victims?
I think the study of pirate's victims have been
comparatively neglected.
It seem though schools in general didn't teach children much about pirates and peers would laugh at pirate enthusiasts.
Now look who's laughing?
To me pirates of old seem less cartoonish and
history less abstract. One might feel uncomfortably
close to the past in the so-called "modern era".
That is why we study history after all? To prevent
it's return. |
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Ocracoke
Lookout
141 Posts |
Posted - Jan 10 2010 : 12:32:07 AM
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"An observation by St. Augustine in "City of God", proposed that what governments coin as "terrorism" in the small simply reflects what governments utilize as "warfare" in the large. Yet, governments coerce their populations to denounce the former while embracing the latter. In the City of God, St. Augustine tells the story of a pirate captured by Alexander the Great, who asked him “how dare he molest the sea”. “How dare you molest the whole world” the pirate replied. “Because I do it with a little ship only, I am called a thief; you, doing it with a great navy, are called an emperor”.
Pirates once formed a bulwark against imperial expansionism
in the same way that today's pirates contest globalism's
excesses.
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Edited by - Ocracoke on Jan 10 2010 12:34:52 AM |
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Ocracoke
Lookout
141 Posts |
Posted - Mar 02 2010 : 03:06:23 AM
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Further articles in today's press also seem evocative of the golden age of piracy. That of Somalian pirates raiding inland and ambushing overland convoys.
This seems much like what Bart Roberts had done in roughly the same vicinity or his predecessors Francis Drake and Henry Morgan had wrought before.
"Somali Pirates Taking Trade to Terra Firma"
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
NY Times. Published: March 1, 2010
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Edited by - Ocracoke on Mar 02 2010 11:42:13 AM |
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ipirate
Stowaway
USA
5 Posts |
Posted - Apr 06 2010 : 8:42:34 PM
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I have really mixed feelings about all this. Several of my friends, knowing my passion for pirates, take great pleasure in telling me the details whenever Somali pirates get killed.
I love the romance and myth and mystery of the GAoP, but I tend to gloss over the reality. Pirates are not nice people, never were and never will be. They kill and terrorize for personal gain.
Yes, the same can be said for many (most) governments.
Put the fantasy aside for moment and I have to consider what kind of man I am. I am a Christian, but the morals I value are not unique to my faith. Many religions hold the same ideas of virtue and even many without religion can still be called good and moral people.
I'll keep to the romance of fantasy of a world where it was possible, like Bootstrap Bill, to be a good man AND a good pirate...
but I can't support the reality of what modern pirates are doing. |
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"Heroes in a Land of Pirates" NY Times
