OSAMA BIN LADEN ANNOUNCED DEAD BY OBAMA (renamed thread)

[JackRiddler]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ve-TV.html

How many lies in this graph? We know the entirety of #7 is a LIE as they have already admitted this whole part they put out was bullshit propaganda.

This one can never be posted enough times!

[Nordic]

WOW, that looks disturbingly like the comic books my 8 year old son is into right now. Superheroes and all of that. Man, that graphic is pure pro-military propaganda.

And yes, there are plenty of lies in it. Like .... satellite dishes? I thought the whole reason the place was suspect was because it had no "normal" high tech communication gear that we expect houses to have now.


ON EDIT: YES, JACK! That's what I couldn't quite place, the similarity to that also!

Same artist maybe?

[IanEye]

No instead Uncle Bomb makes yuck yuck with roadkill head, making fun little allusions and smirks about his big announcement the next day.
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=31302&p=400377#p400377

Now all we need to do is sit back and watch the mushroom clouds, get out our flags and seig heil our glorious coming 2012...the "magical negro" president will save us, as he does in every apocalyptic movie.
viewtopic.php?p=399575#p399575

Seems like the elite only wanted their house negro in there, not a real American hero who happens to be black. They lost 15 men, and I know many other fire companies lost a crapton of people.
Obama, Bush just grandstand on the rubble of the dead, while it was 9/11 truthers and citizens who fought tooth and nail to get awareness for the fallen and stricken first responders.
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=32004&p=400356#p400356

8bit, you should definitely work this "negro" angle into the narrative a little more, see what develops.

Keep fighting "tooth and nail"! It really shows how much you care about the fallen and stricken when you refer to the masses of bodies as a "crapton".

It's very rigorous, and certainly intuitive.

[norton ash]

Thanks, Ian. I love 8bit, but there are certain rhetorical motifs that bear thinking about.

Just like all the momma and poppa bears who jes couldn't help from killin a guy.

[82_28]

That graphic. What a load of fucking, embarrassingly fucking, embarrassing shit. Who the fuck makes this shit up? Weapons, intelligence, propaganda, it just works. We don't need to see no fucking graphic about how it was "daringly" pulled off. Fuck you, motherfuckers. Nice action pose on your motherfucking oakley wearing soldier too -- in an awesome patriotic sprint. Fuck you. And your NBC alien TV show graphic of those "in the know" gathered around a conference table. What a load of fucking shit.

We don't give a fuck about this O(BS)ama motherfucker. We give a fuck about you and yours and what you have done to every last soul on this planet. I'm not gonna lose any sleep tonight, but why do you do what you do? Just drop the motherfucking charade. See what happens. For crying out loud.

[8bitagent]

No instead Uncle Bomb makes yuck yuck with roadkill head, making fun little allusions and smirks about his big announcement the next day.
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=31302&p=400377#p400377

Now all we need to do is sit back and watch the mushroom clouds, get out our flags and seig heil our glorious coming 2012...the "magical negro" president will save us, as he does in every apocalyptic movie.
viewtopic.php?p=399575#p399575

Seems like the elite only wanted their house negro in there, not a real American hero who happens to be black. They lost 15 men, and I know many other fire companies lost a crapton of people.
Obama, Bush just grandstand on the rubble of the dead, while it was 9/11 truthers and citizens who fought tooth and nail to get awareness for the fallen and stricken first responders.
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=32004&p=400356#p400356

8bit, you should definitely work this "negro" angle into the narrative a little more, see what develops.

Keep fighting "tooth and nail"! It really shows how much you care about the fallen and stricken when you refer to the masses of bodies as a "crapton".

It's very rigorous, and certainly intuitive.

Oh I fully understand how unimaginably racist to the core so much of America still is, you see it in Tea Party signs and the way things are framed by Fox News, Rush, etc.
The whole birther/questioning if he's a "real American" or presidential material is all meant to emasculate him as a male and to play the card that only a white man can be in charge.
No, I can't imagine how deep the genuine joy it must have been to see Selma marcher vets see him win it all in 08', a surreal scene no doubt.

However, it's also painful to see a man lovingly serving the very racist(dare I say fascist) machine that has nothing but pure hate for blacks. I reluctantly have to agree in retrospect with Nader with his controversial comments that pretty much ended what remaining support he had. Why is it countless black scholars, writers, pundits, etc have all said he's let down the African American community?
It makes me sick knowing how far America has sunk from MLK's original dream...and while I know Obama's hands are tied at every corner by trickster republicans and the right(like the ACORN stunt),
two years in Obama needs to start taking a stand for the poor and working poor. I guess I am butthurt we don't have a real progressive minority in power, and I shouldn't used ugly charged rhetoric like that.

[8bitagent]

We don't give a fuck about this O(BS)ama motherfucker. We give a fuck about you and yours and what you have done to every last soul on this planet. I'm not gonna lose any sleep tonight, but why do you do what you do? Just drop the motherfucking charade. See what happens. For crying out loud.

It is pretty infuriating. Knowing the wars will morph, evolve, etc. Afghanistan is partly about experimental battlefields for communication and high tech toy development. You what what it is 82?
It's the fact that unlike Bush, Americans seem united on the war/military front. Tea Partiers and right wingers take no issue with war or defense under Obama, and the left has to in their blind worship.
That's what's so maddening. It's like, hello liberals! What about all those endless deaths the US continues to cause, the insane amount of money wasted? And for Obama to go on tv, and tell our children
how glorious it is to kill someone in cold blood..and all the celebrations, and that smug solemn tone he takes. Seeing "no more war" stickers next to "Obama 08" stickers on yuppy prius and other cars is the ultimate joke.

That anti war protest at DC had what, maybe 20 people? Including Ellsberg, the man who helped blow the lid off the whole LBJ/Nixon horror in Vietnam. SPEAKING of LBJ, back in the 1960's liberals had
the balls to stand up against Democrat warmongers.

This "iRevolution" meme of twitter/texts/facebook etc is what the US government counts on. Look at the post OBL celebrations. Instead of being used to expose the government, our wonderful leaders know they can count on the braindead tech obsessed public to keep the faux patriotism going. The "green revolution", Arab spring...the "twitter revolution". Im beginning to get real sick of this whole social network/smart phone/instant streaming clusterfuck ADD period we're in.

[tazmic]

This "iRevolution" meme of twitter/texts/facebook etc is what the US government counts on. Look at the post OBL celebrations. Instead of being used to expose the government, our wonderful leaders know they can count on the braindead tech obsessed public to keep the faux patriotism going. The "green revolution", Arab spring...the "twitter revolution". Im beginning to get real sick of this whole social network/smart phone/instant streaming clusterfuck ADD period we're in.

We have entered an age of constant conflict. Information is at once our core commodity and the most destabilizing factor of our time. Until now, history has been a quest to acquire information; today, the challenge lies in managing information. Those of us who can sort, digest, synthesize, and apply relevant knowledge soar--professionally, financially, politically, militarily, and socially. We, the winners, are a minority.

For the world masses, devastated by information they cannot manage or effectively interpret, life is "nasty, brutish . . . and short-circuited." The general pace of change is overwhelming, and information is both the motor and signifier of change. Those humans, in every country and region, who cannot understand the new world, or who cannot profit from its uncertainties, or who cannot reconcile themselves to its dynamics, will become the violent enemies of their inadequate governments, of their more fortunate neighbors, and ultimately of the United States. We are entering a new American century, in which we will become still wealthier, culturally more lethal, and increasingly powerful. We will excite hatreds without precedent.

http://www.carlisle.army.mil/USAWC/parameters/Articles/97summer/peters.htm

When we speak of a global information revolution, the effect of video images is more immediate and intense than that of computers. Image trumps text in the mass psyche, and computers remain a textual outgrowth, demanding high-order skills: computers demarcate the domain of the privileged. We use technology to expand our wealth, power, and opportunities. The rest get high on pop culture. If religion is the opium of the people, video is their crack cocaine. When we and they collide, they shock us with violence, but, statistically, we win.

I wonder how much of this 1997 article is still relevant. And how the last highlighted sentence would translate for today.

[8bitagent]

Oh very relevant. I'm sure you remember reading up on Darpa's TI/Digital Angel, IAO, etc. I love this quote another user has in their sig:
"World War III will be a global information war with no division between civilian & military participation ~ Marshall McLuhan "

Think about the era we're in. Cyber warfare, Mitre, Sony hack, Anonymous, Wikileaks, twitter revolution, instant communication, Obama speaking at Facebook HQ with Zuckerberg,
the white house saying twitter/facebook is great for social revolution(only, in the Muslim world of course!) Hell they tout Obama's win in courting the youth vote coming down to social media.
integrated systems, converged access management system, unified risk intelligence/risk management, risk architecture, reactive realtime predictive analysis on the battlefield/cyberfield.
Ptech...

Responding to my other post...

IanEye and Norton rightfully pointed out a racist streak that emerged in a couple of my posts, intentional or not. It's like the unfortunate remark I made in the craigslist thread, I think it's hard to escape programming sometimes. Many of our tone in addressing issues with the President seem to be getting increasingly angry...I wonder if that's by design. This amazing thread made me wonder if that is indeed by design. some have said Obama is meant to be this blank canvas we are suppose to feel extreme emotion about, be it hopes, aspirations or disgust.
Good thread on Obama/Osama mimetic dualism:
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=32008

[kelley]

sort of a long piece but very descriptive in an abstract ontological way:



http://www.popmatters.com/pm/post/140675-/


There are lots of plausible and interrelated explanations for why the pop-culture future can no longer occur.

I went to a talk last night at NYU by Mark Fisher about “hauntology,” which refers to a kind of intermediate space-time between places palpably shaped by organic time and nonplaces (shopping malls, etc.—see Marc Augé), which are wrenched out of time and posit an unending nontime, the end of history, an undisruptable retailing present that perpetually recurs. I didn’t really get what hauntology was all about: it seemed to have to do with cultural productions that are aware of the nonplace/nontime crisis—the way neoliberalism has foisted non-space/time on us, along with a subjectivity without depth that must flaunt its requisite flexibility by shuffling the deck of floating signifiers—and are “reflexive” and “critical” and “negative” about this condition. Fisher made this point with music: British pop music now is blithely appropriational of the past without foregrounding that in any particular way; retro has ceased to be a meaningful descriptor. So music made now would not be at all disruptive, he argues, if someone living in 1979 heard it. There would be no retroactive future shock. It doesn’t sound like the future; the future that should be occurring now has been thwarted, lost, effaced. The sense of cultural teleology is gone, vanished, perhaps, in the now pervasive relativism that regards all culture product as potentially valuable.

There are lots of plausible and interrelated explanations for why the pop-culture future can no longer occur, including:

(1) The demise of a hegemonic culture industry (and the rise of digitization and peer-to-peer distribution) brought the end of a shared sense of the cultural moment. We’re not all watching the same TV show at the same time and hearing the same records on the radio. Instead we have access to all culture all at once, on demand—whether it’s, say, Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, the complete works of Margaret Cavendish, yesterday’s episode of Survivor, or all of them at once. This AV Club article by Steven Hyden about Def Leppard’s Hysteria gets at the idea:

As everything changes rapidly around us, we as music fans in many ways still think we’re living in a Def Leppard world, where winning a Grammy means you’ve arrived, and going to No. 1 on the charts makes you a pop star. In reality, we live in a culture where the terms “mainstream” and “underground” have become virtually meaningless, as practically every song by every band ever is equally accessible, frequently at no cost, to anyone with an Internet connection and the interest to seek it out ... It’s clear that music rarely unites us under the banner of mass-accepted artists anymore; even in a concert audience, we’re all just a bunch of individuals, with little connecting us to one another beyond a shared interest in the artist onstage—one artist among hundreds on our abundantly stocked iPods. Sounds lonely, doesn’t it? Sometimes I yearn for the old world, the one I grew up in, a place where dinosaurs like Hysteria stomped around pop culture for months, if not years, leaving sizable impressions in the hearts of a generation, whether they liked it or not.

The availability of everything means that particular works of pop music lose “symbolic efficiency” to use (and possibly misuse) a term from Žižek. Nothing successfully connotes the zeitgeist; everything invokes a desire to one-up with a better reference or a new meme or detournement of the contemporary. We are too knowing and skeptical to accept anything as unproblematically representative of the now.

(2) Neoliberalism/post-fordism/late capitalism has projected itself as the end of history, normalized nontime, and generalized the reception of conditions of ontological insecurity as freedom. We lack a subjectivity that can experience or recognize historicity.

Fisher links the idea of a “missing future” with the disappearance of negativity and criticality in contemporary pop culture, which (as I interpret it) has no space for anything oppositional or which transforms oppositional gestures into postures that circulate only as signifiers of personal identity. It reminds me of Douglas Haddow’s “Hipsters are the dead-end of Western culture” argument:

An artificial appropriation of different styles from different eras, the hipster represents the end of Western civilization – a culture lost in the superficiality of its past and unable to create any new meaning. Not only is it unsustainable, it is suicidal. While previous youth movements have challenged the dysfunction and decadence of their elders, today we have the “hipster” – a youth subculture that mirrors the doomed shallowness of mainstream society.


Hipsters don’t experience non-time negatively, as a loss, as melancholic, as indicative of deep alienation. Instead they seem to be thoroughly subjectivized by neoliberalism to the extent that they regard it as opportunity to show off how creative they can be in their cycle of appropriations. That last thing they want is to be reminded of how their personality is conditioned by the times they live in; in nontime, one can feel transcendent and immortal, one can permanently defer adulthood.

Hauntological music (like Burial) tries to at least evoke the feeling of loss, tries to register the missing future as a kind of catastrophe, Fisher argues, though it can’t actually instantiate this missing future. It tries to at least restore meaning to the concept of retro, foregrounding the appropriations of the past by sounding like a scratchy record, and so on. (I don’t know; all electronic music literally sounds the same to me.) I wasn’t persuaded that a work’s reflexivity about how symptomatic it is itself of the impossibility of escaping non-time made it viable as a mode of resistance. I’m probably too skeptical of reflexivity to ever regard it as resistance; I see reflexivity as the quintessential mode of neoliberalist subjectivity—a calculating self-consciousness that can’t be escaped, that forces us to be considering our identity as an alienated thing to be developed and invested entrepreneurially. (The following is highly provisional and may ultimately prove embarrassing): Whatever is reflexive needs to become collective. The problem of non-spacetime is that of an isolated individual subject who admits of no possibility for intersubjectivity, which is perhaps the primary way we experience history, through how our relations with others subjectivize us in particular, contingent ways. Reflexivity about our loss of that intersubjectivity seems to still cling to the individuation, to see and secretly cherish one’s isolated uniqueness and incontingency in the recognition of it as a loss.

In my view, social media have become the extension of non-spacetime, where nothing, no identity or incident, is necessarily contingent or organic, and one is doomed to the “freedom” of endless ontological insecurity, the forever search for a grounding authenticity that can only generate more memes. Social media are where we go to protect our experience of nontime, which is threatened by the Real, by historicity, by death. Facebook is the ultimate nonplace. Being on it is to enter non-time, to maintain a continual pseudo-presence.

The non-spacetime crisis, I think, is a crisis of presence. When we exist in non-spacetime, presence becomes impossible—or it is known by its absence, in a kind of negative theology. To put that less cryptically (or maybe not): technology has basically dissolved the unity of the subject in a particular place in time. Smart phones, etc., let us be in many places at once, conducting any number of conversations and self-presentations asynchronously. This casts an air of provisionality over everything we do; our lack of total commitment to a that place at that moment is always implied, always understood. No one is even bothered anymore when someone they are talking to looks at their phone. There is no ethical requirement to be fully present, and without that, there is no genuine (I know, how can you even ever define “genuine”) intersubjectivity. The refusal to be fully present is a restatement of the refusal to permit our identity to be socially contingent or to be palpably collective. The smart phone reserves our right to check out of any collective identity formation at any time. This is the essence of contemporary “convenience,” which I have long interpreted as being able to avoid interaction with other humans and being forced to empathize with them and recognize their existence as other. (We can only tolerate other people when we regard them as extra in our movie.)

Fisher referred to Jameson’s distinction between psychological nostalgia and formal nostalgia, between the ability to evoke a real lost past and being trapped in pastiche. What I took from this is that the postmodern/neoliberal subject cannot access psychological nostalgia, but can only simulate it through pastiche, as this sort of subject has only existed in nontime as opposed to historical time. My sense is that this subject doesn’t yearn for historical time at all but worries about historical time erupting into nontime via some sort of terrible Event. When something that threatens to be an Event happens, subjects rush to assimilate it to nontime by mediatizing it, “sharing” it in social media, or meme-ifying it. I’m not sure if this holds, but it may be possible to interpret the ad hoc celebrations of Osama bin Laden’s execution this way—an effort to experience a historical moment in a way that dehistoricizes it—puts the partyers back at the center of their personal hermetic history, claims the Event as just an event in their individual story.

Because we have no access anymore to psychological nosalgia, we end up nostalgic for the capability for nostalgia, we feel homesickness for a home we never had. These leads to a compensatory attraction to childhood kitsch, to moribund objects (joining a typewriter club is an extreme manifestation of this), to anachronism, atavism, whatever seems genuinely and indelibly marked by a past. This perpetuates the cycle that denies the creation of a distinctive future, guarantees that the future is a more attenuated and annotated reconfiguration of detritus from the past.

[IanEye]

well 8bit, I certainly agree that you have had an opportunity over the years to express equal amounts of hatred towards both George Walker Bush and Barack Hussein Obama, with all of the depressing articles that have been posted about both men here at Rigorous Intuition over the years.

I'll tell you what, I am going to post this depressing article about John Yoo:

John Yoo: Obama Afraid To Capture Bin Laden

Now let's see how much you hate Yoo, and how easily phrases like "shifty chink" or "slant-eyed gook" come rolling off your keyboard when it comes to you expressing that hatred.

For me, it's like you started off way back when expressing your unease at who Obama was turning out to be, and did a careful job of explaining your distaste for him eagerly serving people who undoubtedly owned "house negroes" as part of their legacy and heritage.

But somewhere along the line, you lost the artifice of quoting the privileged upper class as they referred to Obama as a "Stepin Fetchit", and now it's all you.

I don't like living within the American Empire any more than you do, but it sure is funny how neither one of us can manage to find the energy to actually leave this country like Mike Ruppert did. Well, perhaps that's a bad example, although Mr. Ruppert's travels over the years certainly does a good job revealing how the reach of American Empire extends far beyond the 50 States. Mr. Ruppert could never seem to land anywhere that the Empire hadn't already gained a foothold.

You know those films like "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" that take place in a psych ward? And how there is always that guy who constantly paces the halls of the ward?
I am sure in his mind when that guy reaches one wall, he sees big glowing letters that say "Liberal". He realizes he isn't comfortable standing next to this wall, so he shuffles along until he reaches the other wall, and sure enough, big glowing letters, same font, "Conservative". The patient recoils at these letters too, and is left to constantly wander, back and forth, more and more with the certainty that the walls are getting closer.

I understand this frustration, intimately.

I visit many blogs daily to attend to this growing frustration, one of those blogs is called "Hullabaloo", and it is run by a woman who calls herself Digby.
Recently, a man named Chris Floyd, who runs the fittingly named blog "Empire Burlesque" diagnosed Digby as suffering from "moral schizophrenia".

There is always that one patient in the psych ward who carries the DSM around like a totem. Their copy of the DSM is well worn, in tatters really. Truth be told, they don't even need to carry it around as a physical manifestation anymore. They have eaten the document many times over and can quote it from memory like scripture.

But they go around, diagnosing all the other patients, never quite reaching the stage where they can gaze into the mirror and diagnose themselves. For to gaze into that mirror would be to acknowledge that they have no more moral authority than any of the other patients. And while there may indeed be morally compromised individuals who stride the halls claiming a similar authority, they at least get to leave the ward and go home at night.

Because these individuals hold the keys to the Empire.

I don't think Chris Floyd holds the keys that would allow him to leave the burlesque confines of the Empire. I think he is a patient just like the rest of us, and his need to diagnose another is just a symptom of his growing frustration. I say this quite confidently because I do the same thing all the time.

But if there was ever a time where I had possession of the keys, well I long ago misplaced them in the misty caverns of my mind. So, I ramble on, endlessly criss-crossing the well traveled terrain, ricocheting off of one border, only to hurtle toward another border.

I imagine Osama Bin Laden once felt he held the keys. But at some point I am sure it dawned on him that he was living inside of a padded cell. For us to quibble back and forth about just how plush the padding was in his cell seems like a waste of time.

I used to have a strong love for the United States of America, but I haven't been able to find it for quite a while now.

Has anybody seen my love?

[8bitagent]

Kelley, my mind has been blown. Thank you. Between this and the "Obsama", I can safely say RI is back to it's heady mind effery luster.
(will take awhile to wrap my head around all this stuff) That article deserves its own thread I say.

Funny, in that article talking about how we're in a non future, and hipster indie music and culture reflecting us...
it's like society truly ended on 9/11/2001, and nothing new has been born since other than more technology.
So in essence, it's just cultural cannibalism hurdling back in some strange entropy, stuck on repeat.

Festivals end, as festivals must

[8bitagent]

well 8bit, I certainly agree that you have had an opportunity over the years to express equal amounts of hatred towards both George Walker Bush and Barack Hussein Obama, with all of the depressing articles that have been posted about both men here at Rigorous Intuition over the years.

I'll tell you what, I am going to post this depressing article about John Yoo


Now let's see how much you hate Yoo, and how easily phrases like "shifty chink" or "slant-eyed gook" come rolling off your keyboard when it comes to you expressing that hatred.

No problem! Even though that psychopathic nut shares my same last name, and looks just like my father(thankfully, a good man), and even though I spent most my youth hearing every variation of "chink/slanteyed gook/etc" I have no problem calling John Yoo a sellout Uncle Chan. This guy doesn't represent my heritage anymore than Bush represents white people on here, and it's sad how the only Koreans we hear about are psychos like John Yoo and Kim Jong Il.

Yes, I can hate a man with my last name and heritage...John Yoo definitely brings up a lot of anger, simply for the fact he used his legal know how to legalize Hostel-like horror as normal.
And NOW, we hear that "hey folks, torture worked! It got us bin Laden!" Ugh.

but nice try...Im an equal opportunity disliker:)

For me, it's like you started off way back when expressing your unease at who Obama was turning out to be, and did a careful job of explaining your distaste for him eagerly serving people who undoubtedly owned "house negroes" as part of their legacy and heritage..

A charismatic, attractive self ascribed comic book nerd...why WOULDNT I want to love Obama? Hell I tried to kid myself for awhile, apologizing for every mis step. "Well, maybe he's only increasing the Afghan war to end it soon and wrap it up". Do you think for ONE SECOND that the racist elites who have always controlled America would ever let a black man run this country? People really believe he was "elected"...he's part of the elites gameplan. It pains me to dislike Obama, I mean shoot...just the image of him and his family is picturesque and a good role model. I've seen enough photos and videos of lynchings and firehoses to know the never ending scar that runs through America's narrative.

But somewhere along the line, you lost the artifice of quoting the privileged upper class as they referred to Obama as a "Stepin Fetchit", and now it's all you.

Yeah that's me...Let me just put on my Skrewdrive LP and seig heil away

I don't like living within the American Empire any more than you do, but it sure is funny how neither one of us can manage to find the energy to actually leave this country like Mike Ruppert did. Well, perhaps that's a bad example, although Mr. Ruppert's travels over the years certainly does a good job revealing how the reach of American Empire extends far beyond the 50 States. Mr. Ruppert could never seem to land anywhere that the Empire hadn't already gained a foothold.

Well Rupert is definitely a hero to me. I like how he talked about just being happy about making people smile, toward the end of Collapse. I'm glad he's back, but I also wish he could just find happiness since he's fought the good fight. I saw a story after 9/11 about how planes diverted to Nova Scotia, and how the towns people took people in no questions asked in open arms. I want to live in a world like that.
I want to live in an alternative community, with smart energy, co-opt markets, and a creative indie spirit. But I also want to travel the world...obviously minds and ideas expand and shatter the more places you visit. My best friend just got back from South Africa, and a few other places before that and he told me how getting away from his office cubible job really made him think about things in a new way

You know those films like "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" that take place in a psych ward? And how there is always that guy who constantly paces the halls of the ward?
I am sure in his mind when that guy reaches one wall, he sees big glowing letters that say "Liberal". He realizes he isn't comfortable standing next to this wall, so he shuffles along until he reaches the other wall, and sure enough, big glowing letters, same font, "Conservative". The patient recoils at these letters too, and is left to constantly wander, back and forth, more and more with the certainty that the walls are getting closer.

Funnily enough, Rumsfeld said it's the last movie he ever saw, if ya can believe that(especially given all the movies the Pentagon advises in)
But excellent point

understand this frustration, intimately.

I think I know why I, as well as Pilger, Nader and other people frustratingly use loaded racial baiting rhetoric...because it's a sledge hammer. It conjures up the image that
a powerful black man has power only in illusion without seeing the glass ceiling. Bush filled some of his most senior war mongering positions with blacks and other minorities...so he definitely had a "diverse" cabinet...yet the disconnect was so absurd that they might as well have been all white men. I'm not saying every minority should be some super leftist progressive. there's many conservative blacks and latinos I like, but it just feels disappointing to see people serve those who despise them. How I can feel emotionally drained reading about Selma and Rosewood, yet make race baiting remarks doesn't sit well with me either.

I visit many blogs daily to attend to this growing frustration, one of those blogs is called "Hullabaloo", and it is run by a woman who calls herself Digby.
Recently, a man named Chris Floyd, who runs the fittingly named blog "Empire Burlesque" diagnosed Digby as suffering from "moral schizophrenia".

There is always that one patient in the psych ward who carries the DSM around like a totem. Their copy of the DSM is well worn, in tatters really. Truth be told, they don't even need to carry it around as a physical manifestation anymore. They have eaten the document many times over and can quote it from memory like scripture.

But they go around, diagnosing all the other patients, never quite reaching the stage where they can gaze into the mirror and diagnose themselves. For to gaze into that mirror would be to acknowledge that they have no more moral authority than any of the other patients. And while there may indeed be morally compromised individuals who stride the halls claiming a similar authority, they at least get to leave the ward and go home at night.

Yeah I found out about that, so strange to see someone in a kind of twilight zone bizarro state. It's like stockholm syndrome or some sort of weird dynamic. "I know he's abusive, but what other choice to I have? My other ex, who is even more abusive?"

Hell, I HATE how some of the most anti war/anti empire(least in rhetoric) people are conservatives who have some "splainin" to do about views on minorities, gays, etc. (like Ron Paul, Pat Buchanan)
It sucks when people that are more anti war/anti empire than a lot of the so called left are also very UN-progressive on civil rights. It's like how white nationalists attach themselves to anti government conspiracy theories and 9/11 skepticism

Because these individuals hold the keys to the Empire.

I don't think Chris Floyd holds the keys that would allow him to leave the burlesque confines of the Empire. I think he is a patient just like the rest of us, and his need to diagnose another is just a symptom of his growing frustration. I say this quite confidently because I do the same thing all the time.

But if there was ever a time where I had possession of the keys, well I long ago misplaced them in the misty caverns of my mind. So, I ramble on, endlessly criss-crossing the well traveled terrain, ricocheting off of one border, only to hurtle toward another border.

I imagine Osama Bin Laden once felt he held the keys. But at some point I am sure it dawned on him that he was living inside of a padded cell. For us to quibble back and forth about just how plush the padding was in his cell seems like a waste of time.

I used to have a strong love for the United States of America, but I haven't been able to find it for quite a while now.

Has anybody seen my love?

While I find it troubling hardly any liberal blogs or sites spoke out against the bin Laden killing, I also know I have to side with them. The Ugandan gay death squad funding Republicans and anti health care tea partiers are a scary scary lot. I don't care if someone is "willing to fight the jack booted elite", if he's also saving a few in the chamber for "illegals" and "fags".

As I conclude this post I'm realizing how I and others can often come off as the very people we are ideologically opposed to. It's a sickening icky feeling really.

[vince]

Funny, in that article talking about how we're in a non future, and hipster indie music and culture reflecting us...
it's like society truly ended on 9/11/2001, and nothing new has been born since other than more technology.
So in essence, it's just cultural cannibalism hurdling back in some strange entropy, stuck on repeat.

Festivals end, as festivals must

I feel the same way..... I guess I was afraid of saying out loud.

[JackRiddler]

I'll tell you what, I am going to post this depressing article about John Yoo

Now let's see how much you hate Yoo, and how easily phrases like "shifty chink" or "slant-eyed gook" come rolling off your keyboard when it comes to you expressing that hatred.

No problem! Even though that psychopathic nut shares my same last name, and looks just like my father(thankfully, a good man), and even though I spent most my youth hearing every variation of "chink/slanteyed gook/etc" I have no problem calling John Yoo a sellout Uncle Chan.

IanEye, I have to say that (your post) got great and greater as it went, but with what turned out to be an unfortunate assumption at the start that left you open to a gently applied but spectacular jiujitsu move. That is, if I may safely mention an Asian martial art in this context. (All other caveats also apply. In real life I'm actually on the wrestling team of the Turkish army, did you know?)

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