Thursday, July 31, 2008

Time for a rant.

It is unfortunate that this blog post will go almost unread on the interwebs, but as the history of this great institution of online communication has shown me, that's hardly to the point now, is it?

So, McCain. A war hero. A patriot. A veteran. Gotta say, the man has the political chops needed to convince just about any American that he is worth voting for. I mean, what could make for a better leader? Especially in a country so devoid of understanding of its own military history that romantic militarism isn't just a problem, its THE problem. "He understands our world is dangerous":



Isn't this beautiful? Can't you see the craftsmanship that has gone into this particular piece of political garbage?

Now, don't let me put you offside and get words unceremoniously shoved into my mouth. He was a victim of one of the more horrible places to be in the world: a POW camp. The place on this earth that hasn't got "Geneva" in the dictionary. And that makes him a remarkable spirit, make no mistake. I'm a bit miffed in the above ad as to why voluntary imprisonment through denial of early release counts as an honourable, American thing to do. "Sure, I'll stay in for another round of solitary!" Wow, shows the guy definitely is canny. That'll show em. I think?

Back to my point, the juxtaposition of the war against the "summer of love" is a masterpiece of spin. Of course, while the hippies were out taking drugs and banging each other senseless in an unchristian show of prurient, lustful action, John McCain was out fighting for your freedom. But wait, wasn't part of this strange lefty movement a protest against your unjust war? And if that's the case, then every thing McCain says is up for question, isn't it? Well, unless you are a conservative, military realist. So I suppose its all okay, right?

But that wasn't what got me into this rantin' mood. Well, if I'm going to be honest, my recent Bill Hicks pilgrimage may have something to do with it, and it is terribly unfortunate that I'll never have the skills in dark poetry and satire that Bill did. But while reading this post in (to my mind) the quite respectable Framing Science Blog by Dr. Matt Nisbet, I came across this:



Isn't this great? Gotta love them always honest, considerate American politicians. I'm so ignorant! Of course the only solution to the oil crisis in America in a world with dwindling supplies of this natural resources is to invest even more money in creating an entirely new site where we can dig up the planet and kill a whole bunch of land, using a resource that is going to run out very soon! Wow! Thanks John McCain, for enlightening me. As for Obama, well, the fact that he won't endorse the offshore drilling projects or new oilfields is obviously because he has absolutely no policy on energy!

Or maybe, because he isn't on the payroll of the oil industry.

To at least try to introduce some ethics into this diatribe, consider the very basic ethical problem we encounter when the money of lobby groups impacts in such a way so as to not educate the public on the issues at stake in their voting, but instead lead to lead to what Nisbet refers to as "playing fast and loose with the truth" in order to fulfill the preferences of the said lobbyists. Truth, Justice and the American way indeed.

1 comment:

Catherine said...

I think he meant "early release" from military service, not from the POW camp :) But otherwise I agree entirely! I love how it's Obama's fault for rising petrol prices especially!

God this sort of thing makes me cringe.