I think Robert's blog is probably the funniest blog I've ever read and although sometimes it's over the top, some times it is right on..... I love that he's an angry smart funny lefty instead of a wimpy dumb toe-the-party line lefty.
The other thing is that I get actually upset when I read his blog. Maybe it's the pictures? I think it has something to do with the combination of humor and truly shocking and appalling things that he is being humorous about. I dunno. But the way things are presented sometimes in the mainstream media (beheadings, gitmo, soldiers dying in Iraq) it's so sanitized that you don't realize that you're supposed to feel something about these things.
Robert's blog is not for the faint at heart and his humor is definately gallows humor but that's the kind of humor that makes some sense right now. And if humor about these things is what it takes to shock people, then so be it.
I haven't asked Robert's permission for this (cause I'm attributing properly and he's a nice guy) but here are some funnies from recent entries:
Get a life, get a blog, get something...
So is this what the civil rights movement has come to? Al Sharpton is like a superhero -- maybe we can call him Blackman -- who, when he sees in the night sky the signal of possible racism in progress -- maybe the signal can be the pointy-headed silouette of a KKK member -- he rushes to the scene to set everything right again?
*****
And if you aren't a conservative white male, you'd better fucking think and act like one if you want to play in any Republican reindeer games.
*****
And the irony of us Americans saying how important it is that other nations don't get nukes and "throw [their] weight around" when we remain the only nation in the history of the planet to have thrown its weight around by nuking another nation keeps me in fucking stitches. When we Americans do something, God is on our side and it's for freedom and democracy and love and butterflies, blah, blah, blah; when someone else does the same exact thing, they're evil.
6 comments:
Except for "sometimes it's over the top," I agree with you -- that Robert is a pretty fucking good blogger.
I think there's more to be said about nuclear proliferation than this. I won't pretend to have an answer to American sin in the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I've been thinking about it most of my life, and I'm not sure I can answer it.
However, I am willing to say without reservation that it's bad idea to allow certain states to have nuclear weapons. It is neither a question of fairness, nor of the morality of such terrible weapons. There are nations under the control of evil men, and no country can be good if it allows these men the power to kill wholesale.
Having known sin we cannot cast the first stone, but we can reach out and pluck the stones from the hands of thos who would do others (and ourselves) harm.
First, forgive me for posting about something I read pre-coffee: I didn't quite grasp to whom I was responding.
I don't believe we dropped bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to 'show the world who's boss.' I'll grant that Japan had already lost the war by the time we bombed them, (though I'm not certain that was entirely evident in 1945). It's certain that the Japanese military leaders were not prepared to surrender, and the Emperor was not prepared to surrender under Allied terms.
Was that important? Maybe. Had the emperor surrendered prior to the first bombing, then a military coup would have been a certainty. That aside, World War I was a pretty good lesson in the result of a less than complete victory.
So maybe it was necessary. Maybe. But I do think it was a sin, one of many in American history.
In regard to Mr. Churchill, I've only read his most famous work, so I can't comment intelligently on all of his works. I can say that I agree that the sanctions against Iraq were responsible for horrific suffering. Part of me wants to point out that those were UN sanctions, although that assertion seems cowardly. As mentioned above, total victory in war seems to be the most humane end to conflict. Once committed to a course of violence we become responsible for every effect.
So you can add that to the long list of sins that stain our national soul, along with slavery and the mass murder of Native Americans. However, there is more to the American experiment than our sins, and I have very little to say about the 'message' of September 11 that you would find useful.
All of that said, my original response was prompted by the glibness of the argument. This is a serious topic, for serious men and women, and I don't believe the original post (on this blog- I haven't read the source) came close to making any useful statement on the topic.
I'm not going to debate the bombing of Japan. I think I made it clear enough that I haven't made up my mind, despite the glories of Wikipedia, the college course I took on the subject, and the thought I put into it from time to time. It's pretty unlikely that I'm going to make up my mind in this forum.
I'm also not going to debate the viewpoint of Mr. Churchill. I haven't read his larger works and cannot comment on them. I will say this, I don't believe that the September 11 attacks were about the cry of the oppressed and the outraged. Even if they were, I don't believe they were justifiable actions.
I don't want to discuss those things, though I'm glad we have. They are outside of the scope of this argument.
What still hasn't been answered is my original assertion: it is too dangerous to allow certain states to have the bomb. Not dangerous to America, dangerous to everybody. We cannot allow evil men this power that we should not have created. What alternative is there?
Again, it's a question that needs real thought, not the flippancy that was praised on this blog.
Actually it doesn't answer my question at all, but thanks for your input.
There is no equivalence. In the sixty years since the first use of this horror, through wars and skirmishes, we have not once reached used it again. Do you think Kim Jong Il will be so temperate?
We must atone for our past sins, but atonement is not punishment. Let our atonement be this: we will use our might to not only close this Pandora's Box we opened, but to place all of the evil that was set loose in the world back inside.
I'm done too.
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