Saturday, November 29, 2003
Give Thanks
Baghdad was honoured with the presence of its occupying power's commander-in-chief yesterday. Oh glory to his turkey! I think what he said he has said before, but that didn't seem to ruffle his soldiers' feathers. They lapped up the empty words of justification, they adored the feeling that what they are doing is worthy, that 'no thug is going to stop the mighty U.S. of A. from moulding the world in its faulty image.' It's amazing how kitsch his whole being is becoming, like he gets the joke of his existence, his place in the grand scheme of American hegemony. He seems content to play the puppet of neo-cons and oil barons and the religious wrong. They keep him in power as they hold him to ransom with that very power. The rest of the world watches, dismayed. The rest of the world tries to get on with the task of living, ignoring as best they can the uncle with his wandering eyes and treacherous hands. Sometimes it is made difficult by the overt, the arrogant, the simplistic and the dismissive. Sometimes it is made downright impossible.
Last week, Australia held its premier film awards night, the AFI Awards. As each winner rose to accept their recognition they added to the chorus bemoaning Australia's lack of cultural identity, and implored the Howard Government not to swap such unique culture for 'a couple of lamb chops'. I don't want to besmirch our pitiful film and television output in the face of such a mechanism as Hollywood, and I do appreciate the very real dangers of such a simplistic trade-off of culture-for-agriculture (kind of like a first-world version of food-for-oil). But if Australia can open up the huge U.S. market for primary industry (currently protected by massive subsidies), The Castle will stand as a martyr for our free trade stance. And perhaps a continued inundation of Hollywood pap is just what we need to wake us from our consumer daze.
Baghdad was honoured with the presence of its occupying power's commander-in-chief yesterday. Oh glory to his turkey! I think what he said he has said before, but that didn't seem to ruffle his soldiers' feathers. They lapped up the empty words of justification, they adored the feeling that what they are doing is worthy, that 'no thug is going to stop the mighty U.S. of A. from moulding the world in its faulty image.' It's amazing how kitsch his whole being is becoming, like he gets the joke of his existence, his place in the grand scheme of American hegemony. He seems content to play the puppet of neo-cons and oil barons and the religious wrong. They keep him in power as they hold him to ransom with that very power. The rest of the world watches, dismayed. The rest of the world tries to get on with the task of living, ignoring as best they can the uncle with his wandering eyes and treacherous hands. Sometimes it is made difficult by the overt, the arrogant, the simplistic and the dismissive. Sometimes it is made downright impossible.
Last week, Australia held its premier film awards night, the AFI Awards. As each winner rose to accept their recognition they added to the chorus bemoaning Australia's lack of cultural identity, and implored the Howard Government not to swap such unique culture for 'a couple of lamb chops'. I don't want to besmirch our pitiful film and television output in the face of such a mechanism as Hollywood, and I do appreciate the very real dangers of such a simplistic trade-off of culture-for-agriculture (kind of like a first-world version of food-for-oil). But if Australia can open up the huge U.S. market for primary industry (currently protected by massive subsidies), The Castle will stand as a martyr for our free trade stance. And perhaps a continued inundation of Hollywood pap is just what we need to wake us from our consumer daze.
Monday, November 24, 2003
Respite
I have been a little distracted this past week, so apologies to all my loyal fans...It's been too much to even drag myself to the computer. The world outside of my view just hasn't really entered my consciousness this week. It's been a refreshing break, and I thank my present location that I even have the opportunity to step back and ignore the world for a while. But I'm back into it now. And I'll be in the thick of it soon enough.
P.S. I found an excellent journalism site, The Institute for War and Peace Reporting which documents the reality of war-zones around the world, and aims to train local journalists in the tenets of fair, balanced reporting (not the type Fox News advertises).
I have been a little distracted this past week, so apologies to all my loyal fans...It's been too much to even drag myself to the computer. The world outside of my view just hasn't really entered my consciousness this week. It's been a refreshing break, and I thank my present location that I even have the opportunity to step back and ignore the world for a while. But I'm back into it now. And I'll be in the thick of it soon enough.
P.S. I found an excellent journalism site, The Institute for War and Peace Reporting which documents the reality of war-zones around the world, and aims to train local journalists in the tenets of fair, balanced reporting (not the type Fox News advertises).
Saturday, November 08, 2003
I certify that this entry is a wholesale theft of content from a fellow blogger. I hope he is happy with a link on my site. This sort of debauchery should be aired for all the world to see.
He called it...
The Planet of the Insane
<<Now I know we're all supposed to get along, but there are times when we must point out the insanity of those obsessed by politics and ideology.
Such a time has arrived once again. Last night, a poster named "Starpass" over at Democratic Underground("DU") posted a screed that can only be described as a cross between the repulsive and the callous. The post was picked up by some observant lurkers from FreeRepublic.com and started winging its way around the internet at something close to the speed of light. The Admin Moderators at DU didn't pull the post until Andrew Sullivan picked up on the item and posted a link to his blog. Within an hour of Sullivan picking it up, the DU mods pulled it and killed it.
What follows is the text of Starpass' message from last night:
“I hope the bloodshed continues in Iraq.
I won't be hypocritcal. It is politically correct, particularly in any Dem discussion to hope and pray and feel for our troops and scream 'bring them back now'. I'm fighting something bigger.
I'm a 58 year old broad and I can tell you that what is going on in our country isn't the usual ebb and flow of politics where one party is in power and then another; where the economy goes through ups and downs.......yawn, yawn--just wait a bit and things will turn out peachy keen. That stupid la-la land is over.
I realize that not every GI Joe was 100peeercent behind Prseeedent Booosh going into this war; but I do know that that is what an overwhelming number of them and their famlies screamed in the face of protesters who were trying to protect these kids. Well, there is more than one way to be "dead" for your country. They are not only not accompishing squat in Iraq, they are doing crap nothing for the safety, defense of the US of A over there directly. But "indirectly" they are doing a lot.
The only way to get rid of this slime bag WASP-Mafia, oil barron ridden cartel of a government, this assault on Americans and anything one could laughingly call "a democracy", relies heavily on what a shit hole Iraq turns into. They [American soldiers in Iraq] need to die so that we can be free. Soldiers usually did that directly--i.e., fight those invading and harming a country. This time they need to die in defense of a lie from a lying adminstration to show these ignorant, dumb Americans that Bush is incompetent. They need to die so that Americans get rid of this deadly scum. It is obscene, Barbie Bush, how other sons (of much nobler blood) have to die to save us from your Rosemary's Baby spawn and his ungodly cohorts."
No wonder this got pulled. This is one of the more hateful and contemptable things one American could write about the members of their Armed Forces. Understand the reasoning here: if more Americans die, Bush might lose. Therefore, I am in favor of more Americans being killed in action because I want George Bush to lose the election.
It is highly embarrassing to the "progressives" who dominate that website. I grant you, as Sullivan insisted, that this must be a fringe view, even on DU. Yet there were "understanding" responses to the post from fellow DU'ers. Thus, I must come to the conclusion that there are a significant number of people on the Left who desire more American combat deaths in the hope that their side will win the election and get to divvy up the swag.
Thankfully, the efforts by DU to suppress this have failed. James Taranto picked it up for his "Best of the Web" column at the Journal. No turning back now.
>>
To add a little bit of context to Section 9's analysis, an entry earlier he admitted to US falterings, but painted a broader, more comically apocalyptic. "There is plenty the Administration has got wrong, to be sure. But this campaign is part of a larger war to defend Western Christendom against another outbreak of Islamic imperialism. No part of that campaign can fail."
His friend Andrew Sullivan is a seemingly intelligent, diabolically conservative compulsive blogger/editor of net dribble.
He called it...
The Planet of the Insane
<<Now I know we're all supposed to get along, but there are times when we must point out the insanity of those obsessed by politics and ideology.
Such a time has arrived once again. Last night, a poster named "Starpass" over at Democratic Underground("DU") posted a screed that can only be described as a cross between the repulsive and the callous. The post was picked up by some observant lurkers from FreeRepublic.com and started winging its way around the internet at something close to the speed of light. The Admin Moderators at DU didn't pull the post until Andrew Sullivan picked up on the item and posted a link to his blog. Within an hour of Sullivan picking it up, the DU mods pulled it and killed it.
What follows is the text of Starpass' message from last night:
“I hope the bloodshed continues in Iraq.
I won't be hypocritcal. It is politically correct, particularly in any Dem discussion to hope and pray and feel for our troops and scream 'bring them back now'. I'm fighting something bigger.
I'm a 58 year old broad and I can tell you that what is going on in our country isn't the usual ebb and flow of politics where one party is in power and then another; where the economy goes through ups and downs.......yawn, yawn--just wait a bit and things will turn out peachy keen. That stupid la-la land is over.
I realize that not every GI Joe was 100peeercent behind Prseeedent Booosh going into this war; but I do know that that is what an overwhelming number of them and their famlies screamed in the face of protesters who were trying to protect these kids. Well, there is more than one way to be "dead" for your country. They are not only not accompishing squat in Iraq, they are doing crap nothing for the safety, defense of the US of A over there directly. But "indirectly" they are doing a lot.
The only way to get rid of this slime bag WASP-Mafia, oil barron ridden cartel of a government, this assault on Americans and anything one could laughingly call "a democracy", relies heavily on what a shit hole Iraq turns into. They [American soldiers in Iraq] need to die so that we can be free. Soldiers usually did that directly--i.e., fight those invading and harming a country. This time they need to die in defense of a lie from a lying adminstration to show these ignorant, dumb Americans that Bush is incompetent. They need to die so that Americans get rid of this deadly scum. It is obscene, Barbie Bush, how other sons (of much nobler blood) have to die to save us from your Rosemary's Baby spawn and his ungodly cohorts."
No wonder this got pulled. This is one of the more hateful and contemptable things one American could write about the members of their Armed Forces. Understand the reasoning here: if more Americans die, Bush might lose. Therefore, I am in favor of more Americans being killed in action because I want George Bush to lose the election.
It is highly embarrassing to the "progressives" who dominate that website. I grant you, as Sullivan insisted, that this must be a fringe view, even on DU. Yet there were "understanding" responses to the post from fellow DU'ers. Thus, I must come to the conclusion that there are a significant number of people on the Left who desire more American combat deaths in the hope that their side will win the election and get to divvy up the swag.
Thankfully, the efforts by DU to suppress this have failed. James Taranto picked it up for his "Best of the Web" column at the Journal. No turning back now.
>>
To add a little bit of context to Section 9's analysis, an entry earlier he admitted to US falterings, but painted a broader, more comically apocalyptic. "There is plenty the Administration has got wrong, to be sure. But this campaign is part of a larger war to defend Western Christendom against another outbreak of Islamic imperialism. No part of that campaign can fail."
His friend Andrew Sullivan is a seemingly intelligent, diabolically conservative compulsive blogger/editor of net dribble.
Tuesday, November 04, 2003
Healing Iraq?
I'm always interested in finding new blogs as I source my daily allowance of 'public opinion' on our worldwide hyperhighway, and I have been proud to link two Iraqi bloggers, Riverbend and Salam Pax, on my blog for some time now. It is infinitely important to hear of life on the other side (as if there even is an 'other side' on a spherical globe') and the internet and blogging has gone a way to making distant voices more accessible.
Recently, I have been reading a third Iraqi blog, titled 'Healing Iraq'. It has been an interesting and intelligent read, although I have not agreed with all the sentiment. That's fine. Today, however, there was a elongated translation from a friend of Zeyad (author of Healing Iraq) who didn't want to blame every calamity currently befalling Iraq on the American occupation. This was a very interesting read, and I would like to highlight some of my favourite passages with comments. Link on the title of this entry to read the full spiel.
"...as if Saddam was just an innocent child or a pure angel before he established contact with the US. Or as if the US was the only power in the world who provided him any support or assistance..."
Maybe not, but find a country in the world that has been touched by the good hand of American foreign policy that has not subsequently discovered a tyrant in their midst, who is able to control the population and willing to kowtow to the master. Undoubtably this is the leader that America places in power to enforce democracy and its cousin capitalism. They are not the first, and they will probably not be the last imperial nation. Britain did it in India, France did it in North Africa, Spain (and later the US) did it in Latin America, etc.
And other countries did sell Hussein arms, but they didn't then tell their own people he was armed to the teeth with 'weapons of mass destruction' so a 'pre-emptive strike' was the most logical action in the world. And companies from these arms-selling countries aren't vying for lucrative reconstruction contracts either. That's a purely Yankee affair.
"Also these people incorrectly assume that Islamic extremism was born today, or that it was the US that caused it to exist. Some even go far to try to convince us that these terrorist acts are the direct response to American policies in the region."
No, it was probably the Crusades that first got on a good Muslim's goat.
Again, I wouldn't say these people are far wrong, only their arguments (regarding US blame for terrorism) have been simplified. Islamic extremism was (possibly) around before the US started causing trouble on the world stage (in the late 1800's). But that doesn't preclude the social, economic and political effects of massive US intervention in the Mid-East. I would say that one response to American policies in the region (take their position in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, their efforts in Lebanon, threats to sanction Syria, Gulf War I and II, etc, etc) would be rising anger and resentment amongt the young. Y'know, those who still have a life to live and see it being sold down the river so American gas prices remain reasonable. I can imagine a Palestinian or Iraqi my age would be pretty annoyed that they had little to no prospect of a stable, secure future due in no small part to the actions of a properous nation on the other side of the world. I would also posit that an older generation might see the opportunity in utilising this angry generation for their own political devices.
"Just like they are trying to convince us today that the horrendous actions against Iraqi civilians today by militants/resistance/mujahedeen/terrorists are due to the American presence or occupation in Iraq. They forget that this sickened ideal would readily target other secularists/infidels/kafirs/reformists or any other creed that is different to theirs in the absence of an enemy such as the US in their way."
I don't know if this is a particularly well-thought out line of argument. I don't think a 'resistance mindset' is needed when there is nothing to resist. But I think the reasons why neighbouring states might not wish Iraq success (that they might be next) are ignored or glossed over by media conglomerates that have no regard for history or the future.
-------
I would love to know or hear from bloggers anywhere that are writing 'clean copy', so if you know someone, or you are that someone, let me know.
I'm always interested in finding new blogs as I source my daily allowance of 'public opinion' on our worldwide hyperhighway, and I have been proud to link two Iraqi bloggers, Riverbend and Salam Pax, on my blog for some time now. It is infinitely important to hear of life on the other side (as if there even is an 'other side' on a spherical globe') and the internet and blogging has gone a way to making distant voices more accessible.
Recently, I have been reading a third Iraqi blog, titled 'Healing Iraq'. It has been an interesting and intelligent read, although I have not agreed with all the sentiment. That's fine. Today, however, there was a elongated translation from a friend of Zeyad (author of Healing Iraq) who didn't want to blame every calamity currently befalling Iraq on the American occupation. This was a very interesting read, and I would like to highlight some of my favourite passages with comments. Link on the title of this entry to read the full spiel.
"...as if Saddam was just an innocent child or a pure angel before he established contact with the US. Or as if the US was the only power in the world who provided him any support or assistance..."
Maybe not, but find a country in the world that has been touched by the good hand of American foreign policy that has not subsequently discovered a tyrant in their midst, who is able to control the population and willing to kowtow to the master. Undoubtably this is the leader that America places in power to enforce democracy and its cousin capitalism. They are not the first, and they will probably not be the last imperial nation. Britain did it in India, France did it in North Africa, Spain (and later the US) did it in Latin America, etc.
And other countries did sell Hussein arms, but they didn't then tell their own people he was armed to the teeth with 'weapons of mass destruction' so a 'pre-emptive strike' was the most logical action in the world. And companies from these arms-selling countries aren't vying for lucrative reconstruction contracts either. That's a purely Yankee affair.
"Also these people incorrectly assume that Islamic extremism was born today, or that it was the US that caused it to exist. Some even go far to try to convince us that these terrorist acts are the direct response to American policies in the region."
No, it was probably the Crusades that first got on a good Muslim's goat.
Again, I wouldn't say these people are far wrong, only their arguments (regarding US blame for terrorism) have been simplified. Islamic extremism was (possibly) around before the US started causing trouble on the world stage (in the late 1800's). But that doesn't preclude the social, economic and political effects of massive US intervention in the Mid-East. I would say that one response to American policies in the region (take their position in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, their efforts in Lebanon, threats to sanction Syria, Gulf War I and II, etc, etc) would be rising anger and resentment amongt the young. Y'know, those who still have a life to live and see it being sold down the river so American gas prices remain reasonable. I can imagine a Palestinian or Iraqi my age would be pretty annoyed that they had little to no prospect of a stable, secure future due in no small part to the actions of a properous nation on the other side of the world. I would also posit that an older generation might see the opportunity in utilising this angry generation for their own political devices.
"Just like they are trying to convince us today that the horrendous actions against Iraqi civilians today by militants/resistance/mujahedeen/terrorists are due to the American presence or occupation in Iraq. They forget that this sickened ideal would readily target other secularists/infidels/kafirs/reformists or any other creed that is different to theirs in the absence of an enemy such as the US in their way."
I don't know if this is a particularly well-thought out line of argument. I don't think a 'resistance mindset' is needed when there is nothing to resist. But I think the reasons why neighbouring states might not wish Iraq success (that they might be next) are ignored or glossed over by media conglomerates that have no regard for history or the future.
-------
I would love to know or hear from bloggers anywhere that are writing 'clean copy', so if you know someone, or you are that someone, let me know.
Saturday, November 01, 2003
Halloween
I'm struggling, I really am. It was a long night, full of wigs and atrocious makeup. I really should have watched The Rocky Horror Picture Show again. It felt so good to catch up with some old friends that might just have been gone an eternity. For a minute there, I lost myself. And special thanks to the people that throw in a mix tape. I hope you all got one back. Sometimes it doesn't seem so strange to be talking to the emptiness of cyberspace. Sometimes it does.
I wonder what is happening in the world today. I'll just go find out.
I'm struggling, I really am. It was a long night, full of wigs and atrocious makeup. I really should have watched The Rocky Horror Picture Show again. It felt so good to catch up with some old friends that might just have been gone an eternity. For a minute there, I lost myself. And special thanks to the people that throw in a mix tape. I hope you all got one back. Sometimes it doesn't seem so strange to be talking to the emptiness of cyberspace. Sometimes it does.
I wonder what is happening in the world today. I'll just go find out.
