the mainstream news media, the blogosphere, and all your friends on facebook have one thing to talk about over the past couple of days, it seems: the passing of the King of Pop. by contrast, while the usual suspects in the news services continually spouted out the same regurgitated over-careful reports [except for this one, which was pretty shockingly informative], i would guess a much smaller fraction of your friends on facebook mentioned a brutal massacre of unarmed, peaceful demonstrators by the iranian theocracy’s home-grown Sturmabteilung. i can’t tell you what the blogosphere had to say about the massacre, because quite frankly – i don’t care.
the cloud of unknowing that truncates the perceptions of most americans can not be more blatantly exposed. remember when there were hundreds of thousands of people in the streets of nearly every city in america protesting bush’s planned invasion of iraq? oh sorry – according to the tv news, it was tens of thousands, or even just thousands. or if it was fox, hundreds.
and then most of us quit after one demonstration. not all of us, but most of us.
this isn’t entirely our fault – it’s human nature. as a mass entity the american bourgeoisie is terminally resistant to any kind of radical change because every atrocity that happens here happens in slow motion, while we are misted down with the liquid narcotic known as “the real housewives of new jersey”. real health care reform legislation is being gutted before our very eyes by the real rulers of this country, our overlords of the medical-industrial complex [the ones who manufacture and sell me the drugs that keep me functional, for example, at a rate that prevents me from saving any money; i can't rail against my insurance company any more because i've joined the ranks of millions who don't have one.] look! over there! paris hilton and perez hilton are giving birth to a baby and naming it PEZ (in all caps!!!1)
what will it take to make the sleeping giant awaken and start a pot of coffee going and take a shower and put some pants on? any iranian on the street will tell you the answer: sometimes the only thing that awakens you is blood. and you’d better pray it’s not yours.
we rolled over and went “huh? uhh – what?? huhhh….” the last time we got hit. then we grunted, rolled over again, and went back to sleep.
[pardon my cynicism - i haven't started a pot of coffee yet.]
2 responses so far ↓
Sean McGovern // June 26, 2009 at 10:03 am
To be fair, Iran and the U.S . are in very tricky places. Any action (even gun running or economic sanctions) taken by the U.S. against the sitting gov’t is going to look like more cowboy stuff. I don’t mean this in the sense of the last eight years, but the last century. We toppled their government once, propped up the Shah, and…uh…didn’t go over so well in the eyes of the Iranians. Yeah, if we woke up and did something about the slaughtering of peaceful protesters, it would be great. But it’s happening in a part of the world that cripples us, and in a section of that part which doesn’t really care for us at all.
Just my two cents, man. Great post. Keep your eyes open.
r@d@r // June 26, 2009 at 2:53 pm
you are absolutely right on all counts. i am certainly not of the “OBAMA MUST DO SOMETHING!!!!!!!” camp. to tell you the truth i wasn’t even part of the “BUSH MUST DO SOMETHING ABOUT DARFUR!!!!!!” camp, because i was afraid that anything he tried to do would be worse than unproductive.
the people who have “got to do something” are us. it’s not the kind of thing that’s done with drones, special forces teams, long range missiles or cyberwarfare. it’s the kind of thing that involves looking, listening, and talking. good heavens! how positively 1960’s! there it is.