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=> idel thoughts

idel thoughts
Posted by farid (Guest) - Friday, October 17 2003, 12:07:46 (EDT)
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Cringed to see photos in a paper of Iraqis being trained by US soldiers to make up the first SWAT team in Iraq. Can't be sure but those HAVE to be Christians. As if just in time to prove we don't learn anything here comes a modern version of those damfool Levies we're so proud of. Can Simele be far behind?

Walked by a newspaper stand and read the headline, "Cancer Drug Shows Promise" and the first thought to come to mind was...what's the stock portfolio of the editor-in-chief and the owners look like? News is hype and hype is hardly news.

Saw "Bowling For Columbine" again. Can't get over how frumpy and simple and all the more powerful it is...and Michael Moore too. The part where he lists the US interventions and all the blood and mayhem we wreaked on people who never harmed us reminded me of Christ and how he never hurt anyone either. If it was good enough for the son of god it's good enough for Koreans, Vietnamese, Iranians, Iraqis, Nicaraguans, Salvadorans, Chileans and on and on.

My car radio broke in 1974 and that's the last I heard of any contemporary music...was impressed by Marylin Manson's simple good sense. It never quite dawned on me what the connection was between Fear and Consuming before. Looked at the news and TV programming and newspapers with a new eye after that. It's true...people are made fearful of everything...rattlesnake bites, ticks, African Killer Bees, rapists, the economy, the price of gas...you name it, if it can scare people, it's newsworthy. I used to only think about the big stuff...the Commie Scare bullshit and now Arab Terrorist bullshit. But in and around these big scares is a host of little daily fears that are pumped into people...and how do you assuage yourself in such a materialistic society...you go shopping and eating and fucking till you burst.

But it isn't even fear really...not technically. It's something far worse. The ability to sense danger and feel fear is a healthy thing put in us to warn us off and make us take note. Without fear we'd walk into fires and over cliffs and into the mouths of lions. No one can be brave who feels no fear. Why is Superman a hero? The guy can't be killed so what's it cost him to cross his arms and spread his manly legs wide...defying anything to harm him? It's unnatural to be fearless...and it's the ultimate mark of courage to face what scares the shit out of you.

The 20th century was dubbed the "Age of Anxiety". That's what's driving people nuts now, not fear but anxiety. If people knew Fear...they'd be afraid of Bush and Ashcroft and the rest of them. Instead they're made to feel anxiety over red and orange Terrorists coming for them at their homes...like they used to look under their beds for Commies.

If I look out the window and see a full blown African lion on my street I'd be sensible to be afraid...to stay indoors...to lock the doors. If there wasn't a lion outside and never had been in all the years of my life but I developed a "fear" there COULD be one lurking behind a bush and therefore refused to go out, or locked my doors and windows...then I'd be suffering anxiety not fear. fear is based on something tangible, recognizable. Anxiety is that gnawing feeling that something COULD go dreadfully wrong...and all the more so because you can't see it...can't sense it...can't point your finger in its direction...it's just "there" a dread you carry around inside of you...that exists nowhere on the outside, not till some politician/businessman gives it an Arab or a Black or a Russian face.

I think Manson meant anxiety, not fear. The liklihood of Americans being killed by Americans or dying as a result of industrial accidents or pollution is far greater than any possibility of death at an Arab's hands. Yet we love our CEOs...we adore our politicians who send our children to their deaths and then cut off benefits to top it off. We're not seeing what we truly have to be afraid of...and are instead being made anxious over what MIGHT happen...and when that isn't enough, something gets manufactured to give us the feeling that there really IS something "out there"...but our own politicians and salesforce made it happen...worked long and hard to give half the world good reason to fear and loathe American government policy...for which we want to blame THEM...like the Iraqi children who caused their own deaths by not being able to force their hard-hearted and cowardly parents to overthrow Saddam.

It scares me that something as simple as that documentary turns out to be so profound...especially if the reason is that there's no competition...nothing else as sane and sensible out there. Either way...it's genius.



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