The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
    jollyroger's picture

    I am morally humiliated. How 'bout you?

    By jollyroger on Tue, 02/17/2015 - 4:05pm |

    Chris Matthews says that the American People are morally humiliated when, in Syria, ISIS burns an allied pilot alive, or in Libya a gang not actually part of the Islamic State (but soi-disant nonetheless), beheads 45 Egyptians for being Christian.

    And that's before today's episode in Iraq, where some captured members of the Iraqi government forces were burned alive.

    There is not a moment's introspection into the monstrous hubris this entails.  

    It is the flip side, of course,  of regarding ourselves as exceptional, and thus entitled to  impose  "regime change" when and where it suits us.

     We are so  large and in charge, that any shit that goes down anywhere is on our ticket.

    It makes us pathetically easy to manipulate in the age of viral video.

    I wish I could enlist Matthews to broadcast the personal humiiiation I feel at a million homeless children HERE IN AMERICA, and the countless innocent people imprisoned HERE IN AMERICA, and the uneducated children of the 90% HERE IN AMERICA, but you get my point!

    Comments

    Not a sparrow falls, but we see all...

     


    by jollyroger on Tue, 02/17/2015 - 4:20pm

    You are so right.  

    That fact we have so many people in the country dying because Republican Governors have refused Medicaid for their states.  Or how about the sequester that took away so many meals on wheels to our disabled.  We are being told that there is no money for us to take care of our own.

    But by God we the money to bomb the hell out of ISIS.  Let the middle east police these people up.  They have armies and planes. Besides we don't need their oil because we don't even have storage right now for all the oil we are pumping out of the ground. 

    Tweety went into the Peace Core to stay out of the draft in the 60's. I have never been able to take him serious.  


    by trkingmomoe on Tue, 02/17/2015 - 5:51pm

    It is a good thing that Tweety didn't go to Vietnam. No one should have.


    by Aaron Carine on Wed, 02/18/2015 - 7:10am

    Yeah, but I'm over it.


    by Michael Maiello on Wed, 02/18/2015 - 9:57am

    I get your point, and agree.  They don't spend nearly enough airtime talking about the things that matter to the people who are suffering in this country because of our domestic policies.  I can't think of a time when Tweety has talked about poverty or homeless kids or or the effort to defund social programs like food stamps, etc.  It's just not a MSM priority.


    by Ramona on Wed, 02/18/2015 - 2:32pm

    Of course, I ended up citing leftie priorities, but my real focus was meant to be geographic...I suppose to be consistent (since Matthews is complaining about beheadings abroad, I should have declared myself morally humiliated by the poor junkie who got his head taken off in Bed Stuy a while back...sort of a law and order thing.
     


    by jollyroger on Wed, 02/18/2015 - 11:48pm

    Bottom of page.


    by Oxy Mora on Thu, 02/19/2015 - 10:58am

    We are large and in charge of a lot of things. The Bush Doctrine is the operating program of the moment.

    With all of the fallout of the war that hopefully did/does not happen between the parties who could quickly put the hurt on each other, ownership of war has gotten to be one of those Baudrillard/Orwell kind of things, especially focused upon people outside the means of production that allows us to see this comment.

    A process of alienation...


    by moat on Wed, 02/18/2015 - 10:52pm

    Great blog, Jolly.


    by Oxy Mora on Thu, 02/19/2015 - 10:59am

    You are so right. Between WAPO asking IN AN ACTUAL INTERVIEW if Scott Walker thinks that our President LOVES America, (because that has so much relevance in the next election, and is incredibly stupid anyway) and the collective teeth-gnashing about "What we should do about this...or that...(as if the intended audience has any solution other than BOMBS AWAY!!!!)"  

    And NOT ONE GODDAMN QUESTION  about why it is considered a "train wreck" or "slavery" to help people get insurance!!!!!  And THOSE getting help with the ACA are the WORKING class...and they still call them moochers!   

    How about the innocent poor?   How about the Common Good?  No questions about the value of living in a community of educated people; of healthy people; of people who make a decent living. What will it take for those questions to be asked?

    Honestly, I would really love to have Tweety in front of me with a gag in his mouth for a full 24 hours. Even at my ripe old age I would stay up all that time just to set him straight. Of course, he would stroke out from the stress of not being able to interrupt, but that's his problem. 

    Anyway, thanks for posting this, JR. It needed to be said.  


    by CVille Dem on Sun, 02/22/2015 - 6:55pm

    Word.

     


    by synchronicity on Thu, 02/26/2015 - 5:55pm