Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Don't Bother Me With the Dead, Part 2

Reprehensible cowardice. Self-imposed blindness.

Thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, perhaps fresh new post-sanctions millions, all waiting to be butchered, phosphorized, napalmed, moabed to death by Barack Obama, and the self-titled progressive, liberal American bloggers can't be bothered to hear about it.

Situation 1: me at democraticunderground.com. I make a small handful of posts, perhaps three or four, in various "support Barack Obama" threads. I basically say--and no kidding, this is all I say--nothing more than "We must support Obama in increasing the size of the military because we must support his goals of escalating the war on terror in Pakistan and Afghanistan."

The end result: I'm banned, censored, shut up and shut away. Don't bother the Americans with the faintest whisper of the dead.

You can't even quote his holiness Barack Obama's campaign positions taken from his website, because it is such a stunning stew of cognitive dissonance for them to have a reminder that he plans on continuing the same war plans as George W. Bush.

They never really hated George W. Bush's actions. All they gave a goddamn about was that it was George W. Bush, a Republican, doing them.

Whether they support or do not support the killing is irrelevant. They're even worse than the Republicans, and just as cowardly as the Republicans accuse them of being: they can't even be bothered by reminders of the people their holy boy is going to kill.

Situation 2: me at bitch PhD. As the blogging team there bloviates about supporting Barack and helping women's rights, I dare suggest that it would help the rights of women in Pakistan and Afghanistan if they were not, you know, about to be brutally fucking killed by their holy boy Barack and his airstrikes, and his cluster bombs, and his tanks, and his checkpoints, and his cruise missiles, and his mercenaries.

While we're at it, they're going to get raped, and driven into prostitution and sex-slavery, just like the girls in Iraq. No, I didn't mention that one at the time, because my posts were already "too long." God knows 2 or 3 paragraphs is too much to trouble the bitch phd hosts about with regards to people who their chosen leader is going to kill.

Guess what the end result is, with these feminists who are so concerned with the rights of women? Deleted, silenced, shut up, shut away.

Cowards; disgusting cowards. They can't be bothered for a minute with a reminder so gentle, so un-controversial, so public that it is on Barack's website, and a key part of his speeches.

Who the hell cares about the women in Pakistan, anyway? About the children in Afghanistan? The elderly in Iraq? Or even the healthy adult men? Don't fucking bother them with that worthless shit. Barack Obama is going to protect their access to contraception, so let him shred the lives of another ten thousand human beings in the middle east, and don't make me think about it.

John McCain? Why, he's the mass killer who's not going to protect my access to birth-control pills. Omigod, can't choose him as president! Better pick the mass killer who is going to protect my access to birth-control pills. That's a super choice!

This truly is the land of the dead and the times of the dead. It is rude, and even crazy, to suggest that mass murder is a bad idea, let alone an immoral one.

Have I gone mad? Is my sense of decency the product of some world outside this one--an insane multiverse where killing lots of innocent people is actually bad? How did the door open that let me into this world, where I have everything backwards? I'm new here, people! Cut me some slack!

Or am I just the only person left who didn't get the memo that collateral damage is no longer a problem in modern warfare? Did God take me off his rolodex, and forget to call me and give me an update on how America really does kill with an honorable purpose?

I am dearly ashamed of my fellow human beings. It is almost incomprehensible that they can't bring themselves to think about what it is they're championing on--and yet, they do champion it on, and they understand it to some degree.

Too proud and afraid to give a damn. Cowards with terrified little souls, who can't be troubled to think about the terrors they are going to inflict on their kinsmen thousands of miles away.

I am so ashamed of my people, and they spit at me when I beg them to reconsider the death and the horror.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

What, exactly, do you think we should do? As I see it, I have four major political options:
1) Vote Obama (= less death)
2) Vote McCain (= more death)
3) Vote some other party (= no effect, they don't win)
4) Don't vote (same as 3)

Also, how is either McCain or Obama doing anything/not doing anything to kill Pakistani women?

Or maybe you're advocating something more radical (take over the country without killing people? And then leave Iraq to descend into anarchy? Move to Iraq to try to solve the humanitarian crisis ourselves?). But ranting that 'killing is wrong' without providing any suggestions for change is kinda pointless. And criticizing the person who kills *less* instead of more also seems a little odd.

Your posts (as far as I can tell) got deleted b/c they were rambling and non-responsive when people tried to engage you is discussion. I'd actually love to hear a response to my comment on your comment about 'anti-choice feminists'.

Unknown said...

Addendum: Not voting rather than voting for Obama increases the risk that McCain wins and kills more people. I would argue that it is morally reprehensible to not try to save as many lives as possible, 'possible' being the key word here.

Manitor said...

You are neglecting to recall all the results of an Obama vote. Here is a little longer list of what you support when you vote Obama:

1) Kill X,000,000 people in aggressive warfare
2) Continue supporting the financial/insurance/real estate gangsters
3) Continue violating personal freedoms, etc.
4) Send a message to Obama, his cohorts, and the rest of the world that all of the above is acceptable to you, as long as it is better than McCain.

When you vote Obama, you are saying, "Pragmatically, I accept that this is the best we can do. This is the best result we can hope for as human beings living together on this planet. I validate and support your platform of mass state killing."

When the elites look to voting turnout, and they see that Obama or McCain (or both, really) have vast swathes of support, they get the message that the people at large are willing to settle for those essentially similar platforms. They do not fear revolution or dramatic change, because it validates the reality of their media message. Practically, continuing to "vote for" (i.e., to SUPPORT) someone who advocates those things gives your approval of it. You are telling them it's okay.

Why should Obama, then, or any other "leftist" politician, ever change? If you're going to give them the vote despite their murder plots, all they ever need to do is make sure they run against someone who advocates slightly more killing than they do--because like a whipped dog, you will always come back and lick their hand.

That all applies on a practical level. On a personal level, as a human being, you should refuse to support mass murderers, regardless of circumstance, simply because it is terrible, inhumane and completely, utterly wrong.

Really--what a sad commentary on our culture it is that it is even debatable whether or not it is right to support a mass murderer. After over a decade of American K-12 education, though, in which "lesser of two evils" is hammered into impressionable brains, it somehow seems the "best" choice to support Killer #1.

Manitor said...

As to your other comment, ask any question you want answered here. It is impossible to carry on a conversation around censors, so with my prior words deleted, I have nothing to point to to show you what I answered before.

And, as censors ever do, my actual words have been replaced with their marginalizing interpretations, which cannot stand up next to what I actually said (which was why it had to be deleted in the first place).

God save us from blogs. At least in the olden days of discussion boards, you could occasionally have a good discussion with a non-moderator that wouldn't get deleted. Now, with blogs, we are all the thought police in our own little fiefdoms, afraid to talk and filled with rules of what we won't allow thought in our mighty internet presence.

Unknown said...

Re: supporting Obama

There's more in response to your latest post, but a few things:

The 2&3 that you list as results of electing Obama are, I think, distortions of parts of his platform that I agree with (if 'raise taxes on corporations' = 'violate rights', etc.) So I have no problem voting for them. As for 4, yes, that is exactly what I'm arguing: Obama should be acceptable to anyone who finds your argument persuasive because he is better than the alternative. And that's what makes 1) acceptable

As to low voter turnout => change, that's nonsense. We have extremely low voter turnout in the US. If 50% of people vote, that's *high*. So no, large swaths of the population are not, and haven't for some time, supported either candidate. But, those who don't vote are assumed to be apathetic, not revolutionary. And that assumption is generally correct.

To truly effect change in the political process, you have to get involved either supporting a candidate you believe in or running for office yourself. Neither of which is going to affect this election. I am also curious who 'the elites' are who supposedly control this country. Because believe you me, the 'elites' sure weren't voting for bush the last two elections.

As to personal support for Obama: I, personally, would feel horribly if the reason McCain got elected was that I didn't vote. And anyone who finds your argument persuasive should similarly be appalled if that was the result of their inaction.

Moreover, I find it a wonderful reflection on our culture that we can and do debate any topic, and do not have certain proscribed 'acceptable' areas of conversation =)

Comment about 'anti-choice feminists':
In order to be an 'anti-choice feminist' you must not only believe life begins at conception, but that that life so far outranks the woman's life as to require her to carry it to term. Generally, we as a society do not believe one is obligated to give up parts of one's body to save lives (this is why kidney & liver donation is optional). It's that part, that women's bodies can be co-opted for other lives, while people's bodies in general can not, that makes the term 'anti-choice feminist' seem like a contradiction.

If you support mandatory kidney & liver donation, then no, there's no problem with being an anti-choice feminist.

Unknown said...

Also, on the 'we shouldn't even be having this debate' - the current resolution nationally for high school debaters is:
"Is it morally permissible to kill one innocent person in order to save more innocent people."
So actually, many people consider this a reasonable topic of debate.