George Orwell introduced me to the concept of words being used to defend what is indefensible, saying that our language “becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.” The reality of life for those suffering in Iraq provokes different reactions within our culture, covering ground from empathy to resentment, with words acting as the catalyst for what we choose to accept individually as the truth. I’ve never agreed with the notion that it is our right as a nation to impose our will by force onto others when nothing has been done to warrant it. To understand what I’m getting at here, let me say that a nuclear bomb droped on Osama’s location in Afghanistan following the 9/11 attacks wouldn’t have offended me, but the occupation of Iraq always has.
Innocent people have been kidnapped, mutilated, tortured, executed and their bodies tossed aside like garbage by the hundreds for months now, at the hands of insurgents and ethnic militias fighting for political power . Now they are being burned alive. The amount of needless suffering our selfish actions have prompted in Iraq should naturally ashame every one of us. This is not the case though, as the psychological trick of dehumanizing all of it is one that we Americans have mastered. To the tune of a phrase like “war is hell” we trick ourselves into honestly believing that apathy is a virtue, bestowed upon the evolved mind. And so, the details of an Iraqi’s smoldering demise, or that 200 of them were murdered on the same day, either has zero effect or it prompts indignant contempt towards the messenger. At the end of the day it’s still the foolishness that Orwell describes taking hold, but in terms of our culture and this war, our humanity resides in the frigid depths, far away from the light.
“To understand what I’m getting at here, let me say that a nuclear bomb droped on Osama’s location in Afghanistan following the 9/11 attacks wouldn’t have offended me, but the occupation of Iraq always has.”
Interesting in that I too, wouldn’t of cried for Osama if he had been killed in such a manner. He is evil incarnate. But so is Bush in many respects.
It certainly would have been hard to second guess that decision had it happened, since the ones dropped on Japan kept us from being attacked for more than half a century.
Made a visit to Control Congress. I can see how you’ve been busy over there!
I don’t know what it is…captain menace, karl and Right Thinker followed me back to this site from one called Right Thinking From the Left Coast where I spent a couple months battling it out, until the main guy started blasting Cindy Sheehan and I took off the gloves, getting banned…it’s the natural ebb and flow of my internet debating, to walk into the lion’s den, put up a good fight, then get banned when I start making too much sense.
Control Congress isn’t going to ban me anytime soon, but the chance to duke it out with full fledged right-wing heads gets me excited for some reason.
I’m either hitting up that site or working on school…almost near the halfway point in this semester, 92 & 94…I’ve been pouring everything I have into these assignments, if it calls for 2 pages, I write 4…I want to get the highest possible grades throughout, so the resume is head and shoulders above the rest once the degree is finally mine. It’s a kick in the balls though, as three nights last week had me hitting the sack at 2AM.
Can’t wait for all this to be over with – – – I’ll post some of my work here, maybe that will get the discussion going, at least on technical topics, since the long political/social piece isn’t in me at the moment…even sports, I’m completely removed from the “news” aspect of it, no NFL shows, no radio, no ESPN, just the games. Which is how I like it anyway to be honest. The chatter tends to turn me off on most days.
blah blah blah – – – talk about self absorbed. Hey, anyone want to know what I had for breakfast last week?
Dude, blogs are all about self-absorbtion. Is that even a legittimate term? Well, you know what I mean. Virtually all I blog about is me…blah,blah. Cheese sandwich baby!
You have to have a lot of patience to battle it out with them right wingers. It can be like a Twilight Zone episode.
Tube steak, smothered in underwear? Pervert!
I still check out right-thinking every now and then. I just check in, fire off a couple of cheap shots and get out. Not enough time to get into lengthy bash sessions.
Lee has recently gone the route of “Bush betrayed us conservatives.” Typical of most Republicans these days. Not inclined to take responsibility for the actions of their leader. Not a single fucking apology… “sorry I voted a complete ass-fucker into the White House.” No indeed. Still very much “the only thing worse than Bush is liberals” mentality.
That is certainly the resounding theme, and for the sake of specific points the people at RTOTLC made on Iraq all the times I was there, I’d have to figure them to be hypocrites of the highest order. After Katrina they were still as combative as ever, but since the election, it has been a run for cover, big time.
The economic ones had a good idea to bust out over a year ago, William F. Buckly had his day as well, and the writing was on the wall, though the run had been so euphoric, so many of those right-wing guys were just living on ether and bullshit.
Ether and bullshit…good way of putting it.
From what I’ve seen of political debate, there are a fair amount of right wingers out there that will never veer off course or abandon Bush and all of his strict doctrine. You simply have to be amazed at them.
The easy way to tell one of these from someone else is to bring up Somalia. Take their abstract comments about that military action and then ask whether it applies to Iraq. Being in the military during that period really caused me to see how much of a double standard there was for when a Republican engaged in foreign policy and a Democrat. That has hurt us overall as I see it. As the patriotism-first crowd certainly changes their tune the second it’s a Democrat calling the shots…at that point, they’ll wipe their ass with patriotism.
Good point. I’ll have to take you up on it. The thing is, and as I have mentioned previously, I am never confronted with debate from a Republican in real life. Only in cyberspace. Hmmm…
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