It will be good to get the US election behind us, whoever wins. Things are getting very weird. Apparently rational people believe that a movie is a cause of increased enemy military action rather than the admittedly insufficient war effort - even though it was so put on the ground for ideological reasons opposed in that movie. Conversely, apparently venerable newspapers are implicitly advocating assassination. Both opinions are cowardly, self-satisfied.
These times lack ideas and leaders, these days measure and confidence. It is all fed by fear. What did FDR have to say about that? What now is to be feared that is so much greater than the Nazis or Stalin, Pol Pot or Botha?
Comments
Ben - October 24, 2004 10:52 am
24 hour news stations do it. Do you think that a Churchill or an FDR could act, in a world like today's? Not very likely. Scandals would have forced both out early, for smaller men or women.
Mind you, they faced much greater challenges -- and those tend to focus the mind quickly. :-)
SayNay? - October 24, 2004 1:57 pm
Do you not think that Moore's polemical film incites people to make the commments found in the Guardian?
BTW, is it proper to equivocate Dean's assesment of Moore's polemic, with the Guardian editorial advocating assassination (I don't consider it as "implicit", I thought it was pointedly "explicit")?
Alan - October 24, 2004 2:23 pm
Two wacky ends of the same range is in which fewer and fewer are finding a home in the sensible middle. You know you are in wackyland when suggesting death to the infidel is approporiate or death by the infidel has been caused. No different than when someone blurts out that someone a Nazi - the end of thought is already past.
SayNay? - October 24, 2004 2:37 pm
You're right about the "end of discussion" comment - as you say, calling someone a "Nazi" tends to do that/
As an aside, again, I thought it was rather ironic that Moore wanted to use The Who song "Won't Get Fooled Again" at the end of his film, and he and Pete Townsend had a little spat over that. Did Moore mean to apply the song's message to his film - that anyone who replaces Bush would be the exactly the same? For instance:
"There's nothing in the streets
Looks any different to me
And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye
And the parting on the left
Are now parting on the right
And the beards have all grown longer overnight"
and ends: "Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss"
Alan - October 24, 2004 2:48 pm
...and yet he sold the theme song to CSI and one to a Hewitt Packard ad. I think the remaining members of The Who are actively selling out these days. So far I have yet to hear a song in an ad by The Jam and The Undertones. Even the Ramones sold to a telephone company on CNY TV.
SayNay? - October 24, 2004 3:19 pm
...and don't forget "Happy Jack" (Hummer ad?)
"Yeah, I hope I die before I get old (Talkin' 'bout my generation)": ya, I guess he just got old...
Lisa Howard - October 24, 2004 5:30 pm
I'm with Ben on this one. Few human beings are any match for twenty four hour cynicism and scandal mongering. The west is a panopticon right now. Those who are up to the job of 'spinning' are no good at actually governing (probably because they lack that crucial 'human' quality, fallibility, self knowledge or whatever).
SayNay? - October 25, 2004 9:57 am
Just to follow up on Al's comment about "then end of discussion comment",like calling someone a "Nazi": is it the same as saying someone "stole the election"? And aren't the Dems and the left in America responsible for the current climate of extreme division in propagating this belief(ie. Bush's Presidency is "illegitimate") for four years, to which the Repubs and right have responded in kind?
Alan - October 25, 2004 10:40 am
No - reference Limbaugh and the years 1992 to 2000 in relation to Clinton.
SayNay? - October 25, 2004 2:23 pm
...and Ken Starr.
SayNay? - October 26, 2004 7:02 pm
Guardian apology: "Charlie Brooker apologises for any offence caused by his comments. Although flippant and tasteless, his closing comments were intended as an ironic joke, not as a call to action - an intention he believed regular readers of his humorous column would understand. He deplores violence of any kind."
An "ironic joke"? Surely he meant a "moronic" - and they call Bush a "moron". As Mark Steyn points out, I guess the Guardian doesn't want its entire staff place on the US Justice Dept. "watch list".