Letters to the Editor
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Before I give myself a Heimlich maneuver... gads this place is interesting. Hope me no two irk'able today.
I remember "In the Beginning, when the High and Commanding Horrible Ones decided to kill, plunder, and steal real estate.... Blood! Oil.
Hegemony. Pax Americana? I not a opera singer.
That there were over 35,000 Bath workers laid off?
That was their federal government... sorta... class?
I am struggling to overcome diminished recall again.
I've forgot to take a pole-cat-bath. No take a Pew?
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jkalos
Funny how teachers can affect you.
I had a ("subversive", I realize now) 8th-grade English teacher introduce me to Noam Chomsky. Then my (CU) Freshman English teacher assigned me a term-long project on George Orwell. (She let everbody else get away with a project of their choosing. Me? I was starting with "Shooting an Elephant". No ifs, ands, or buts.)
I haven't been fit for polite company ever since.
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Baptism by Lies
I still remember watching the cable news on the night of "shock and awe," and the ensuing days of the romp to Baghdad, because it marks my final break with the mainstream media. The last bits of scales fell from my eyes, and I finally understood what was going on. To my memory, the most distinct illustration was when one of the talking heads -- perhaps the loathsome Aaron Brown -- accidentally let Gore Vidal on the air to fire a few choice, well-aimed darts at the bubble of delusion Brown and the rest were so busily inflating. The network spent the next ten minutes falling all over itself in abject apology for this lapse. I swear, they were still apologizing two commercial breaks later.
The utter corruption of the mainstream media is a product of many forces, but there's something else going on too. However much the media may shape our culture, they also mirror it. They are in a sense the collective "us." And they don't want to hear from genuine war dissenters, or from our victims, for the same reason a small town doesn't want to hear from the victims of some mass crime in which its citizens have colluded. It is a phenomenon as old as our species, or at least as old as conscience -- the collective, consensual forgetting-and-ignoring of the unspeakable things we sometimes do.
Whatever its prosecutors' intentions may have been, the invasion of Iraq was a crime against the law of nations, a gross breach of universal standards of honor and decency, and a sin against any credible conception of morality and ethics. That's why Charlie was begging those two guys to give him a crumb of, if not forgiveness, at least moral respect. Of course they could not do that. Who in their position could? Who in any objective position could? The only way for most Americans to feel okay with themselves now is to drive on deeper into the heart of self-delusion and insularity. Which is exactly what makes McCain such a frightening candidate.
All this goes double for the mainstream media, without whose complicity this catastrophe could not have happened. It's well worth keeping the heat on them. If you're subscribing to any of the culprits, stop your subscriptions and tell them why. If you're viewing them, boycott their sponsors and tell them why. But let's don't be surprised if mere logic and evidence leave them unmoved. They're all way too deeply invested now to back out merely because they were grossly and tragically wrong.
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macqupta. @ 11:48.
Someone I deeply respect, once gave me a Sanskrit name. I joked a quip. ' With a name like that, the road to heaven needs to be paved with god darn gold and Pure Intentions'... Wallop! A big welt. kappa. ow. # ten.
bump on the noggin.
o, how about a pint?
no vow two perfect.
sin. o a cup of wine?
Negotiate to heaven.
No plan on any hell.
apologies macqupta.
I fear I misspell you.
I am afraid I smell.
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In defense of academic education
Aycharaych, I believe that you exaggerate the defects of a college education -- as does Chomsky -- while unfairly denying its benefits. Chomsky does so for didactic and political reasons, as he must to make clear what it is he is criticizing. Your reasons are whatever they are, and what they are is none of my business.
Still, I think you would have benefitted enormously from what colleges have to offer. The library I worked in more than half my life contained over two million volumes. Think about that. Never mind that some of the professors were overrated, and some were contemptuous of other opinions, especially those of undergraduates. Many -- many -- were not, and their insights were invaluable, as was their guidance.
Even if my opinion seems based on prejudice to you, consider that despite any defects in the professors, and in the curriculum design, college -- if you can afford it, and sometimes even if you can't -- allows you four years to study whatever you want to your heart's content, in an environment which provides you with virtually everything you need to pursue those studies. It's hard to match that opportunity anywhere else.
You complain here occasionally that you have a hard time getting people to listen to you about things which matter. In college, as a general rule, everybody listens to you, except maybe administrators and significant others. Not only that, they talk back to you, and not about what an obscurantist you are, either.
Like most other complex abstractions, a college education can't be reduced to a single value, positive or negative. It's different for different people. Most of us who have one, though, think more highly of it than you appear to. Perhaps there's a reason for that other than our own miserable capitulation to the brainwashing of a dominant culture. Would you at least concede the possibility?
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Sorry for the O/T request
But will somebody please explain to me how the hell THIS works?
"Bush waives law to give millions to Pakistan's anti-terror fight"
http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Bush_waives_law_to_give_millions_to_03252008.html
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This is very troubling...
The only way for most Americans to feel okay with themselves now is to drive on deeper into the heart of self-delusion and insularity. Which is exactly what makes McCain such a frightening candidate. -- notre druide
given what we've seen these past 7 years of mass hypnosis.
However, as William T is wont to remind us, we must always act as if we have free will, despite such troubling thoughts. Whether or not we actually have free will, is not the point.