Joe Responds
This is a response to Ben's blog from 9/20, which was itself a response to my response of an original blog of his from 9/04. So if you're interested you can catch up there or just catch up here or perhaps ignore the whole bit because it's a bit silly. (If the links don't work for you, just search for Ben on myspace.) Join in if you wish.
Also, please excuse me if I seem to use a flagrant amount of verbosity or nimbly balanced clause constructions. You see, I am in the thick of reading Jane Austen and one does tend to turn a particularly flippant hand with English when one thither dallies. You try reading _Pride and Prejudice_ and not talking like this for a week!
The response is the following:
Ben you're no doubt more well read than myself on current affairs and policy, so I cannot hope to defend myself by generating the impressive news-item lists to which you seem so well disposed. Perhaps the best I can hope for is to defend myself on a sentence by sentence basis and perhaps fill in the details of the spirit of my cursory initial remarks.
"How do we know the enemy is as real as Bush & Co. say it is? They've lied about so much else." (me)
What I did not mean by this statement is that the US has no enemies. Undoubtedly we have many. What I am questioning is Bush's assessment of the enemy--his estimation of their special qualities. Bush & Co. are completely dishonest and untrustworthy. This must be the case of anyone who maintains that we are winning in Iraq and it was a good idea to go there in the first place. The administration's conduct during the last 6 years necessitates taking everything they say with a block of salt. This includes estimations that our enemy is everywhere, that they hate freedom, that they will stop at nothing, that this is about religion, etc. It's all baloney and I think the first step in fighting is a thorough understanding of your enemy. I believe the whitehouse, with their retinue of intelligence advisors, most likely does have an accurate understanding of their enemy. But again, the public only gets the spin that is most politically advantageous.
I tire already of this sentence by sentence business. What can I say? I have to use scare quotes around "war on terror" because I don't believe such a war exists. You must quote false titles. We are an empire. This war is about protecting and securing the empire. Iraq certainly isn't the "war on terror." We never went in there for terror. It only became as such months and months after we invaded. Now, with recent reports legitimizing what we all took to be common sense, the Iraq war is actually bolstering the "terrorists."
I don't even know where to begin with all this. It's such a huge fuck. A huge mash up. Bush is a liar. A big fat liar. And he's a buffoon. I'm not attacking him from a democrat's perspective. They're mostly buffoons too. Politics is completely corrupt and debased. Everyone in congress is either a buffoon, a rich asshole, or totally insane. The government doesn't speak for us. They don't serve me or anyone I really know. And now they're fucking up how our country is perceived around the world with their illegal war.
Concentrating on Bush as the crux of all this is not a distraction. He and his administration put all this into action. They invented the game. It's all been stewing for a while with various people adding ingredients to the pot--yes, including Orwell, and I'm not sure what you're insinuating with him. But it will be impossible to talk about this in the future without referencing Bush.
I don't need to be a total news junkie to understand a few things that are self evident: we shouldn't have gone into Iraq, we shouldn't be there now, Bush is a buffoon, something is fishy with 9/11, the war on terror is not what meets the eye, we are not being told nearly enough of what is actually going on, America is in a worse spot now globally than they were during anytime in the last 25 years, and there begins now a rollback of certain primary civil rights that represents one of the scariest trends in American history. Each of these things can be attributed more to the administration than I think it can be to protection from our enemies.
Also, on the issue of innocence. You say that no one is claiming innocence in this fight. I disagree. My conception of media portrayal and popular culture is that the prevailing attitude is that we are innocent. Why else don't they have a war channel, broadcasting nothing but footage from Iraq and various other US military operations worldwide? You know they have cameras shooting all that stuff. Why don't we see any of it? Why don't they show footage of the plane that crashed into the Pentagon? There are at least 4 other cameras that should have good footage of that attack. What is the security threat in releasing those tapes?
Beyond these two obvious examples is the greater guilt--why do people hate us so bad in the first place? It's not religion, because there is no more diverse country on the planet than the US. I don't buy that shit that people just hate us because of the way we are. There are a lot of countries that are way more like us than they are like the terrorists. Why are there no jihad videos saying they're really gonna fuck up new zealand or the netherlands (Theo van Gogh was not a terrorist attack) or Japan? This isn't about religion and it isn't about culture. This is about money. I don't know the answer to this puzzle, but I know we're not emphasizing the right questions. For example, why haven't we done anything with Saudi Arabia in all this? That is where Osama is from; that's where most of the hijackers were from. That is where Mecca is. That is where all the money is. Maybe that should be a focus. Another example: who profits from the invasion, from the """"""war""""""? Follow the money again--it goes to big companies.
I'm suspicious. I don't know what's what, but I know what some people say is what isn't what actually is what. Hmm?
Ok I better make a tasteful exit soon. This is clearly ramble shamble diatribe. Clearly I'm not as well organized. The debate is yours on that point. But hopefully I have raised (more like repeated) the "shadow of a doubt." Hopefully I have poked at least a small hole in the idea that this is all about "us" "fighting" our "enemy." Hopefully I won't drink anymore coffee today.
Also, please excuse me if I seem to use a flagrant amount of verbosity or nimbly balanced clause constructions. You see, I am in the thick of reading Jane Austen and one does tend to turn a particularly flippant hand with English when one thither dallies. You try reading _Pride and Prejudice_ and not talking like this for a week!
The response is the following:
Ben you're no doubt more well read than myself on current affairs and policy, so I cannot hope to defend myself by generating the impressive news-item lists to which you seem so well disposed. Perhaps the best I can hope for is to defend myself on a sentence by sentence basis and perhaps fill in the details of the spirit of my cursory initial remarks.
"How do we know the enemy is as real as Bush & Co. say it is? They've lied about so much else." (me)
What I did not mean by this statement is that the US has no enemies. Undoubtedly we have many. What I am questioning is Bush's assessment of the enemy--his estimation of their special qualities. Bush & Co. are completely dishonest and untrustworthy. This must be the case of anyone who maintains that we are winning in Iraq and it was a good idea to go there in the first place. The administration's conduct during the last 6 years necessitates taking everything they say with a block of salt. This includes estimations that our enemy is everywhere, that they hate freedom, that they will stop at nothing, that this is about religion, etc. It's all baloney and I think the first step in fighting is a thorough understanding of your enemy. I believe the whitehouse, with their retinue of intelligence advisors, most likely does have an accurate understanding of their enemy. But again, the public only gets the spin that is most politically advantageous.
I tire already of this sentence by sentence business. What can I say? I have to use scare quotes around "war on terror" because I don't believe such a war exists. You must quote false titles. We are an empire. This war is about protecting and securing the empire. Iraq certainly isn't the "war on terror." We never went in there for terror. It only became as such months and months after we invaded. Now, with recent reports legitimizing what we all took to be common sense, the Iraq war is actually bolstering the "terrorists."
I don't even know where to begin with all this. It's such a huge fuck. A huge mash up. Bush is a liar. A big fat liar. And he's a buffoon. I'm not attacking him from a democrat's perspective. They're mostly buffoons too. Politics is completely corrupt and debased. Everyone in congress is either a buffoon, a rich asshole, or totally insane. The government doesn't speak for us. They don't serve me or anyone I really know. And now they're fucking up how our country is perceived around the world with their illegal war.
Concentrating on Bush as the crux of all this is not a distraction. He and his administration put all this into action. They invented the game. It's all been stewing for a while with various people adding ingredients to the pot--yes, including Orwell, and I'm not sure what you're insinuating with him. But it will be impossible to talk about this in the future without referencing Bush.
I don't need to be a total news junkie to understand a few things that are self evident: we shouldn't have gone into Iraq, we shouldn't be there now, Bush is a buffoon, something is fishy with 9/11, the war on terror is not what meets the eye, we are not being told nearly enough of what is actually going on, America is in a worse spot now globally than they were during anytime in the last 25 years, and there begins now a rollback of certain primary civil rights that represents one of the scariest trends in American history. Each of these things can be attributed more to the administration than I think it can be to protection from our enemies.
Also, on the issue of innocence. You say that no one is claiming innocence in this fight. I disagree. My conception of media portrayal and popular culture is that the prevailing attitude is that we are innocent. Why else don't they have a war channel, broadcasting nothing but footage from Iraq and various other US military operations worldwide? You know they have cameras shooting all that stuff. Why don't we see any of it? Why don't they show footage of the plane that crashed into the Pentagon? There are at least 4 other cameras that should have good footage of that attack. What is the security threat in releasing those tapes?
Beyond these two obvious examples is the greater guilt--why do people hate us so bad in the first place? It's not religion, because there is no more diverse country on the planet than the US. I don't buy that shit that people just hate us because of the way we are. There are a lot of countries that are way more like us than they are like the terrorists. Why are there no jihad videos saying they're really gonna fuck up new zealand or the netherlands (Theo van Gogh was not a terrorist attack) or Japan? This isn't about religion and it isn't about culture. This is about money. I don't know the answer to this puzzle, but I know we're not emphasizing the right questions. For example, why haven't we done anything with Saudi Arabia in all this? That is where Osama is from; that's where most of the hijackers were from. That is where Mecca is. That is where all the money is. Maybe that should be a focus. Another example: who profits from the invasion, from the """"""war""""""? Follow the money again--it goes to big companies.
I'm suspicious. I don't know what's what, but I know what some people say is what isn't what actually is what. Hmm?
Ok I better make a tasteful exit soon. This is clearly ramble shamble diatribe. Clearly I'm not as well organized. The debate is yours on that point. But hopefully I have raised (more like repeated) the "shadow of a doubt." Hopefully I have poked at least a small hole in the idea that this is all about "us" "fighting" our "enemy." Hopefully I won't drink anymore coffee today.
posted by j0eb0t-xj9 at 8:43 AM
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