(no subject)

[catelin]

Thanks, PJammer for bringing this piece of shit to my attention. The sheer fucking callous ignorance of this just floors me. SHAME ON YOU!

millarca sez:
There was once a big bully that thought it was OK to pick on people, and third world countries. One day the bully's enemies got together and decided there were force in numbers.

The people got together and rallied for social and political change. When their cries went unheard they took measures into their own hands, and started fighting back.

Now the bully is crying, and calling them terrorist.

I call them freedom fighters!

Comments

[chaizzilla.livejournal.com]

cate, that post was over the top but its comparative ignorance to "let's bomb palestina" which i've seen all over the place is minimal. it's history. i'm on the side of the usa b/c i live here and appreciate the enormous advantage living here gives me. i figure enjoying living here with a bit of a reverent understanding where a lot of what i get easy comes from is one way to make something good come of the price paid for my quality of life elsewhere.

the freedom fighters thing might be stupid, bin Laden isn't exactly someone with grassroots interest in anything but himself, he's like a wall street fatcat off on a poaching safari. pretty gross. but when i read "freedom fighters" i think "contras", which is a bit ironic though she probably didn't realise the significance of the term she used. it was a little sickening to see the Contra video game at the arcades. i have little expectation of a monster and his drones, but i raise the bar for my own government, and it fails to meet it. we were already at war in the middle east, we just got hit back on our own turf.

i demonstrated against the gulf war's beginning, but later i supported finishing the job. neither was done. we bombed afghanistan, but never finished the job of going ater who we wanted, we parabolically ramp up the misery for people elsewhere then we back out & leave them to pick up the pieces. one thing i can imagine more Terrifying for the people who've had to take it from a giant on the other side of the world is having to take it from a schizophrenic giant on the other side of the world.

the whole thing is scary and painful but it's been coming, not b/c leftwing pinko whatevers like myself have ever felt anything like that can ever be deserved, but b/c my own fucking government has hurt a lot of people elsewhere, and has needlessly made monsters who have now brought the war here. i am a target, every citizen of the usa is one; i don't like being one, and it's an especially shitty feeling because i know it's not arbitrary. i can't say "well what did i ever do to you?" i failed to push hard enough for change, which is hyperbole, b/c i as an individual probably could have pushed as long as hard as i like and still failed, but i didn't personally end up dead or wounded yesterday either. i/we/america, whatever.

i wish i had something to say that's nice, mostly i'm feeling like i wish i didn't watch tv yesterday, i wish we still had clinton in office, i wish a lot of things i ain't gonna get. it's like having stared into the headlight of an oncoming train so long it attenuated and i forgot the train never stopped coming this way and now it's here. one thing i absolutely don't want, a war, especially one that might keep coming here, and if it does may kill people before they realise they've been attacked with biological weaponry, may send my brother and his wife overseas for something more serious than tossing a few shells around in the persian gulf, just became a serious possibility. fucking great. thanks to all the parties involved, especially the ones who should have known better and aren't programmed with a dorky religious excuse for it.

[catelin.livejournal.com]

I think both of us have spent time in Central America, so we probably have a very good idea of some of what our government's done. I'm not naive about that, although I don't keep up with it so keenly in some parts of the world as much as others. I agree with 99.9% of what you say here, Cris, and I feel very much the same. My problem is that I've never been able to accept that blurring of lines between a "people" and their government. I don't accept that my government acts on my behalf any more than I accept that the Taliban (or insert whatever dickhead psycho junta of your choosing here) acts on behalf of its "people." People DON'T get the government they deserve a lot of the time...the saying is bullshit. So I suppose my problem is with anyone--on whatever side of the equation--who takes faces off people and makes them less than what they have a right to be (yet another one of the children of this earth). As I tried to explain in a subsequent comment to kytty, my problem is not with sides...my problem is with anyone who harms innocent (and, no, I don't buy into the whole "if you worked in the WTC, then you are not innocent" thing) people--period.

I thought about removing this post...after I'd had time enough to get really disgusted with some of the same bullshit on the opposite end of the spectrum. Zealots suck ass...no matter the cause/issue. But I decided to leave it...to remind myself of what sort of ugly feelings I'm capable of and to remind myself (as if I really needed any more of a reminder) of how totally fucking cruel people can be...how hurtful and awful words--especially here in cyberia (as a dear friend of mine calls it)--can be. It's the same as when people are gleeful about cop-killings. Makes me ill. But then again, politics in general make me ill. Boundaries are bizzare things...we are all connected, like it or not, to our little pieces of dirt. Texans are worse about it than most...I know because I can be as clannish as the next dumb ape beating on the ground with a bone to stake my territory. I'm sad, mostly, because I don't have any answers for all of this. And I'm afraid it will get worse...not better...and that breaks my heart when I look at all of us through the other end of the prism knowing what incredible potential we have that's being spilled on the sand.

[chaizzilla.livejournal.com]

yeah, even if one goes with the 'finances is evil' (which would be silly for bin Laden), it's a lame excuse if they're using it, there was other stuff going on the building besides head-of-the-snaking. i think they picked it in part b/c i was an easy & effective target close to boston. if they'd gone the other way and hit the las vegas sprawl coming out of LA, it wouldn't have been the same. nyc is sorta the second capitol of the states (ok maybe after hollywood depending how you see it, growing up in the rather poor northern ny it's considered the capitol of ny b/c they get all the money & we get all the tourists & their garbage & swaths of trees cut to run power lines up to their summer cabins), and it's dense. but that's a tangent, the image of Borders bookstore as being "evil" is an irony that under other circumstances might be funny (thinking of people's reaction to the damage to the starbucks HQ after the quake here, i dunno...)

rage and stuff are masks for fear, fear is a mask for hurt.. i'm one of those idiots that believe even freakos like cuddles (or jeffrey dahlmer for that matter) are in there somewhere under all that wrecked psychology (not saving everyone is a simple issue of resource allocation, i'd rather put more money into noaa or education or helping people who haven't fallen that far yet than fixing dahlmer's (or bin laden's, or probably even most of my neighbours') head, which would have put him through all kinds of the hell people wanted for him, only worse for him -- as callous as that may be). i guess that convoluted statement was me trying to say i grok that emotional energy will snap through the first circuit it finds. it also means i'm one of those hippie dippies who believe everyone is innocent at the core. i get accused of being very b/w on issues but it's mainly b/c i don't see both, i see a long spectrum and a dimensionless point at the same time, making Truth both a decision and a responsibility.

one of my big political issues has always been palestine. why? i met a woman in the plo b/c i was screwing her 2nd husband, essentially. i felt wierd and called it when i found out he was married (and expecting!) and we sat in his car by the beach listening to morroccan music & talking for a while. through abdulla i learned that she grew up in the same area i did and went to school in london where she met & fell in love & married a palestinian, which eventually led to her spending two days hiding under a pile of bodies (including her husbands & son) after israel bombed palestinian refugee camps in beirut. she escaped & met abdulla from morrocco & they came back to my hometown. i wanted to meet her and went to some student group meetings and got hooked on activism. i only met her a couple of times, briefly. she was this terse, fierce, tiny pregnant woman. we are in part our wierd bundle of influences. it's the clash's fault, really. it's bill hicks' fault i swear so much, too.

the reason for that trip down memory lane is just that i have a really unpopular attitude towards israel, against a stance i feel is part of the cyclone of shit policy we've had in the middle east. we freaked out when iran wanted to nationalise it's oil resources b/c a) they'll run out if you pump as fast and cheap as you can for the benefit of a handful of ultra-rich and b) most iranians weren't seeing the benefit of their main resource. we sabotaged their government, installed the shah (think marcos), and sparked off a holy revolution, and an ayatollah. this is even wierder, i don't even know how to be pissed off at some fucked up richass wierdo building a michigan militia in the dust who i can't punch in the mouth myself or at least demonstrate on his lawn. i'm angry at us, for bringing this on. my fingers aren't deep enough in the pie for logic to be the only determinant for where the anger circuit connects up.

[chaizzilla.livejournal.com]

i removed my first reacton for a while but decided shit, even if it was head detached from typing it was sincere freakin out. it was kinna creepy waking up to The Phone Call & The TV after staring at shear turbulence simulation movies all night after sorrento posted a link to that piece about the plane crash in 1985. i dunno if i've ever woken up so fast so slow.

anyhoo, thanks for letting me babble in your journal, mine was getting a little crowded feelin

Mi journal es su journal. : )

[catelin.livejournal.com]

You can babble anytime and anyhow you like here...I like you and I care about you. So I'm always glad to hear what you have to say. And that's how I feel. : )

Re: Mi journal es su journal. : )

[chaizzilla.livejournal.com]

well shucks... *:)*

[angel80.livejournal.com]

Thank you chaizilla for the balance.
I missed the deleted post, but the bully stuff is dead right and the freedom fighter bit is dead wrong. Unfortunately the bully stuff doesn't work. 58,000 Americans died in Vietnam - for what? Saddam Hussein is still in power and ordinary Iraqis are still dying.
Bin Laden wants to start a war and he will get what he wants because the bullies who run your country have their brains in their dicks.
In my country (Australia) we are not exempt from this syndrome. Yesterday some people threw stones at a bus full of muslim school children.