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Last edited Fri Oct 3, 2014, 07:18 PM - Edit history (2)
Stupid Stuff on Steroids Syria and Comic Book Thinkingby William Boardman / October 1st, 2014
This president needs to rise to the occasion before we all get killed. American hysteria is a wondrous thing to behold.
Our hysteria is usually obvious in retrospect, whether the freak-out is over witches, labor unions, or communists. Hysteria is not always so easy to perceive as it happens or, in this case, as it is happening right now with ISIS-centric Islamophobia running rampant around the nations terror-drenched reptilian brain.
This president needs to rise to the occasion before we all get killed.
American hysteria is a wondrous thing to behold.
Our hysteria is usually obvious in retrospect, whether the freak-out is over witches, labor unions, or communists. Hysteria is not always so easy to perceive as it happens or, in this case, as it is happening right now with ISIS-centric Islamophobia running rampant around the nations terror-drenched reptilian brain.
The collective rush to do stupid stuff kicked in with the mass-pavlovian response to cleverly-marketed, ISIS-produced infomercials featuring the beheading of two Americans (earlier beheadings of non-Americans failed to have the same effect). But killing Americans in the collective minds imaginary Islamistan hits the reflexively violent smack in the patriot-plexus and has them screaming for blood vengeance over an horrific but strategically meaningless bit of savagery. [Funny how the equally savage killing of other Americans with a chokehold in New York or a hail of bullets in Ferguson has so much less impact on rampant public moral outrage.]
That psychic selectivity over what savagery is objectionable and what is tolerable has a long American history, as illustrated by natives receiving blankets full of smallpox and all the other gifts of manifest destiny. Given the American pre-disposition for morally selective high dudgeon, the media manipulation of the mindset of the United States by slick snuff films begins to look savvy, strategic, and morbidly effective. From the perspective of ISIS, this bit of theatrical propaganda has succeeded beyond reasonable expectation: it has inflated the threatening image of ISIS from the reality a relatively small, regionally contained, regional band of pathological fundamentalists and their more numerous allies of convenience (which, from time to time, have included the U.S. and other NATO members).
In little more than a month, ISIS (aka ISIL, or IS, or Islamic State, or Islamic Caliphate) has changed little on the ground, while its image in American minds has morphed into a ginormous, imaginary monster capable of throwing a terrifying shadow of fear across the American continent thousands of miles away. This is not a rational perception, even though the president feeds into it (even if he knows better). This is panic, deeply rooted in comic book thinking.
Comic book thinking: never hard to find, but not always dominant
The Governor of Texas and other fear mongers, like Judicial Watch and Fox News, would have you believe there are agents of ISIS, the Islamic Caliphate, crossing the Rio Grande and making themselves at home in the American homeland undetected except by these fearless watchdogs. They also cite a right wing provocateur who crossed the Texas border in terrorist costume and may have gone undetected. Republican Senator John McCain fulminated in comic book style about this imaginary security breach. The Homeland Security people say they detected him and knew he was a buffoon.
The Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee had hear more than enough by mid September. Rep. Howard Buck McKeon of California used the 9/11 anniversary to imagine a worst case scenario: I would much rather fight ISIL in Iraq and Syria today than fight them in Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Kurdistan tomorrow. With considerably bloodier clarity and recklessness, the 76-year-old showed his tough willingness to send young soldiers to die in Iraq yet again, urging our coalition to go all-in now, so that we do not risk having to use enormously more blood and treasure later.
(Sorry for all the Edits..but this is the "Good Stuff" and worth a read for whole article)
MORE READ at.....
http://dissidentvoice.org/2014/10/stupid-stuff-on-steroids-syria-and-comic-book-thinking/
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)You do not have to go to America to terrorize Americans, just make a few videos and let the American major media do the terrorizing for you.
KoKo
(84,711 posts)And it was EBOLA...EBOLA...EBOLA! Be Afraid.."No one is in Charge" (slap at Obama by RW MSM Sources) and we are ALL IN DANGER...
Last week it was "Syria, Syria, Bomb them ...they are Raping, Pillaging, Murdering and WHERE IS THE COALITION..
TERROR ....TERROR ....TERROR. All our little kids, Children are raised with Terror Coming..Men in Black with Flags on their Toyota Trucks ....COMING FOR YOU.
BE AFRAID.....!!!
For some of us......it's the same as "Duck & Cover" and our friends Father building a Bomb Shelter in the Back Yard...who was seen as.....well.... It was that time of McCarthyism in America and the Commies were Coming to get us and Everyone wanted us dead and we should be "VERY AFRAID."
I worry a new Generation will Grow Up like this in FEAR. But...the "Upside is that those kids might grow up skeptical like many of us did when we didn't get bombed by the Soviets and yet we lived to see more WARS and McCarthyism raise it's ugly head ...Once Again in OUR Lifetimes and we will work to beat it back....because of the LIES we were told as kids.
MSM Manipulation is even worse and outlets for PUSH BACK are LIMITED....
Gotta DIG OUT once again...
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)the TV.
KoKo
(84,711 posts)if you remember. What a time it was...and to see a revisit.
Who Could Have Known" (quoting Condi Rice)
pkdu
(3,977 posts)How seriously should he be taken?
wandy
(3,539 posts)Good read .
whatchamacallit
(15,558 posts)if the pants-shitting on this board is any indication.
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)KoKo
(84,711 posts)Had to edit...which I explained.....but REALLY...it's worth READ for us Lefty Progressives.
I messed up the original but this one expresses the Read much better...imho.
truth2power
(8,219 posts)are manipulated.
This phrase stood out for me, "That psychic selectivity over what savagery is objectionable and what is tolerable has a long American history..." Yeah, those so-called "beheading" videos show up right on cue, don't they? Yet, how many people were beheaded by the Saudi government last month? I read, somewhere, 20 or so; some for things like adultery or "sorcery".
But, hey, the Saudis are our friends, (currently), part of the 'coalition of the willing" or whatever it's called these days. So, we're off to another stupid war on a sovereign nation. And, no, it's not about women going to school or human rights or R2P or any other made-up notion.
It's about natural resources, land, water, etc. that we, the exceptional nation, goddamned well have a right to, no matter how many innocent people have to die in the process. You'd think anyone with a brain would have figured this out already.