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12.9.02
Talk About Comics :: View Forum - Killroy and Tina
More post-Sept.-11 brouhaha on the Killroy and Tina boards...full thread above under "Upside Down."
Here's my mad meanderings:
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akhmed wrote:
I'm writing from New York City, where the general consensus is that the attack last year constituted a casus belli -- for those of you who aren't familiar with Latin or nineteenth century geopolitics, that means a cause for war. We were attacked by an organized entity who will, unless harried and pursued, will continue to wage war against us. There is no effective diplomatic response, especially if one wants to have safety and security in the short term.
(mighty snippage)
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Your points are all good, and well-taken, but I'm afraid I have to differ from New York's concensus view (were you polled?).
I'm not familiar with "just war theory," nor nineteenth-century geopolitics, so you'll have to bear with my wooly thinking, but my problem with your primary statement is this:
Terrorism isn't war. It's terrorism. As Noam Chomsky said, "War is two armies fighting." The idea that war has been declared on America is an unfortunate misunderstanding...war hasn't been declared. War is a state of conflict between two defined groups, and only one group is so far defined: America. By re-defining terrorist acts as "war," the Bush administration is attempting to define the opposing side in the "war" as "anybody that doesn't like America." It takes two to tango, and by saying that "America is at war," Bush is free to roam the Middle East and force people onto his dance card. Spoooooky.
I also have a very personal take on the situation...which goes like this.
Essentially, a bunch of nuts who hated America's foreign policies blew up some very large buildings. America retaliated by bombing the country where a percentage of these nuts and their alleged leader lived (not governed, just lived) "back to the stone age," destroying said country's system of government and creating a new one that was more to their liking.
I live in Quebec, Canada. We have a fair share of nuts, too, very few of whom believe that violence is necessary for Quebec's just and destined separation from the rest of Canada.
It's not hard for me to extrapolate this situation thusly: Quebec separatist nuts blow up a large building that, to them, represents the oppression of Canada's federal government, killing lots of people. Said federal government retaliates by carpet-bombing the hell out of the entire province, killing thousands and thousands of people including, oh, say, me.
They then hunt down and kill the provincial government and set up a new one.
Something about this falls neatly into the "bad idea" category for me.
The extrapolation of the "war" argument is "all those who might harm America must be hunted down and exterminated regardless of any innocents that get killed because they happen to be in the way." Which starts tending away from "war" and more towards, well, "Crusade." Which brings to mind, oddly enough, the last major wholesale slaughter of the citizens of the Middle East by Christian Westerners...funny, that.
Matt Shepherd 12.9.02
11.9.02
Boy oh boy, I've been waiting a while for this. Y'know why? Because from this day forward, people will have to refer to last September 11 as SEPTEMBER ELEVENTH, TWO THOUSAND AND ONE, and maybe that'll mean people won't bloody name-check it so much.
Point two, just for clarification:
Being in a building when somebody blows it up does not make you a hero. It does not make you an angel. It makes you a victim, absolutely yes, but y'know what? As far as I'm concerned, working in the World Trade Center actually elevates your odds of being scum by about 300%. People that worked in the WTC were probably not, let's face it, saints. Odds are good most of them were materialistic greedheads and officially Part Of The Problem. 3,000 people dead? Statistically, a few were most likely rapists. Definitely several mysoginistic bastards in the bunch, perhaps even a murderer or two. Were any of them thieves, charlatans or uncharitable bastards? For Pete's sake, it was a building full of lawyers and stockbrokers. Take a wild guess.
But now they're heroes. Because a building fell on them. Hoorah.
Well, hooray for September 11, 2002, and the growing awareness that maybe America As A Whole Had It Coming. I wouldn't wish such a horrible death on anyone, but if the Yanks are fool enough to let Dubya charge off to war in Iraq, they're gonna get more. A lot more. And I for one won't be surprised an eensy weensy bit.
Matt Shepherd 11.9.02
6.9.02
CIA World Factbook 2001
Something ka-ree-pa-hee...
Just checking out the CIA World Factbook to confirm that the official languages of Togo, Benin, Ghana and Guinea are French (a translation gig at work -- do you translate Ministère de l'Eau or not? You don't if the French is the proper name, HENCE you have to know what the official language of the country is...)
Just for poops and giggles, I decided to see what the CIA was saying about Iraq these days.
404-PAGE NOT FOUND.
Huh?
Refresh.
404-PAGE NOT FOUND.
Holy crap, the CIA have already erased Iraq from their &?%$ Worldbook.
Refresh.
Bingo. Up comes Iraq, and all is well with the world.
It was funny, though, wasn't it?
Well, wasn't it?
Matt Shepherd 6.9.02
5.9.02
Back again! And READY TO RANT!
This'll cross over to I Shall Rule This Planet, for you continuity fiends.
So, for work, I had to watch to translate a hunting video last night, and HOLY FUCKING SHIT, my conviction that all hunters should be rounded up and well, shot, is stronger than ever.
It's porn. Really. Think about it: a short film with bad production values and worse music, aimed at giving frustrated men vicarious gratification. Exploitative and entirely focused on trophies. And penetration, in a sense. Lots of "money shots," too. Cheap, nasty, straight-to-video porn.
The thing that really bothered me was the hunting methods. These guys travel all the way to the Yukon to kill a moose and a bear. How do they do it? They HIDE BEHIND A FUCKING TREE, SIX HUNDRED AND FIFTY FEET AWAY, and SHOOT AN ANIMAL THAT HAS NO FUCKING IDEA WHAT IS GOING ON. Very sportsmanlike, guys. What's next? Gonna lay a few land mines on a deer run? Hey, how about you get your buddies to (a) tranquilize Mike Tyson, (b) cut his arms and legs off, (c) tie him to a chair, (d) gag him, (e) tranquilize him into a coma? Then you can walk into the room, punch him in the stomach, and go to a bar and have beers and talk about your big fucking fight with Mike Fucking Tyson. Fuck, why don't you eliminate the middleman? Go dig up some fucking corpses and punch them a few times? Or run over crippled schoolchildren in a bloody tank? As long as you can do it from an obscene distance with no personal risk of any form of injury to yourself on a totally unsuspecting animal, you're a big man, aren't you?
Did I mention that they shot the bear from across a river? Hiding behind a tree, 650 feet away across a river. Jesus Christ.
So anyway, the movie ends, and our hero René has killed a large moose and a large grizzly bear, probably ejaculated several times into their dead-and-cooling mouths, and is heading back to Quebec with his trophies. "Hey, see that bear? I shot it from 650 feet away with a Remington while it was taking a dump. I'm a big fucking man. Maybe next year I'll buy a fucking SCUD missle and take out a beaver dam."
Please, somebody. Teach the bears to shoot. Or give me my own double-O license and my own high-powered rifle to act as the "animal's advocate." Even child-rapist-drug-dealers get defense provided for them; I think a moose deserves at least that much. Get ready for some instant karma, you cowardly fuckheads.
Matt Shepherd 5.9.02
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