She'd probably throw a Fesbian Leminist Fit and choke on her own bile.
Myself, I like to see the young folks have a good time, and if pretty ladies on the nose make the pilots happy, good on 'em!
. . . whew, she's ugly, isn't she?
Posted on 05/07/2003 5:15:08 PM PDT by Leisler
I knew that the wave of anti-Americanism that would swell up after the Iraq war would make me feel ill. And it has. It has made me much, much more ill than I had expected.
My anti-Americanism has become almost uncontrollable. It has possessed me, like a disease. It rises up in my throat like acid reflux, that fashionable American sickness. I now loathe the United States and what it has done to Iraq and the rest of the helpless world.
I can hardly bear to see the faces of Bush and Rumsfeld, or to watch their posturing body language, or to hear their self-satisfied and incoherent platitudes. The liberal press here has done its best to make them appear ridiculous, but these two men are not funny.
I was tipped into uncontainable rage by a report on Channel 4 News about "friendly fire", which included footage of what must have been one of the most horrific bombardments ever filmed. But what struck home hardest was the subsequent image, of a row of American warplanes, with grinning cartoon faces painted on their noses. Cartoon faces, with big sharp teeth.
It is grotesque. It is hideous. This great and powerful nation bombs foreign cities and the people in those cities from Disneyland cartoon planes out of comic strips. This is simply not possible. And yet, there they were.
Others have written eloquently about the euphemistic and affectionate names that the Americans give to their weapons of mass destruction: Big Boy, Little Boy, Daisy Cutter, and so forth.
We are accustomed to these sobriquets; to phrases such as "collateral damage" and "friendly fire" and "pre-emptive strikes". We have almost ceased to notice when suicide bombers are described as "cowards". The abuse of language is part of warfare. Long ago, Voltaire told us that we invent words to conceal truths. More recently, Orwell pointed out to us the dangers of Newspeak.
But there was something about those playfully grinning warplane faces that went beyond deception and distortion into the land of madness. A nation that can allow those faces to be painted as an image on its national aeroplanes has regressed into unimaginable irresponsibility. A nation that can paint those faces on death machines must be insane.
There, I have said it. I have tried to control my anti-Americanism, remembering the many Americans that I know and respect, but I can't keep it down any longer. I detest Disneyfication, I detest Coca-Cola, I detest burgers, I detest sentimental and violent Hollywood movies that tell lies about history.
I detest American imperialism, American infantilism, and American triumphalism about victories it didn't even win.
On April 29, 2000, I switched on CNN in my hotel room and, by chance, saw an item designed to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam war. The camera showed us a street scene in which a shabby elderly Vietnamese man was seen speaking English and bartering in dollars in a city that I took to be Ho Chi Minh City, still familiarly known in America by its old French colonial name of Saigon.
"The language of Shakespeare," the commentator intoned, "has conquered Vietnam." I did not note down the dialogue, though I can vouch for that sentence about the language of Shakespeare. But the word "dollar" was certainly repeated several times, and the implications of what the camera showed were clear enough.
The elderly Vietnamese man was impoverished, and he wanted hard currency. The Vietnamese had won the war, but had lost the peace.
Just leave Shakespeare and Shakespeare's homeland out of this squalid bit of revisionism, I thought at the time. Little did I then think that now, three years on, Shakespeare's country would have been dragged by our leader into this illegal, unjustifiable, aggressive war. We are all contaminated by it. Not in my name, I want to keep repeating, though I don't suppose anybody will listen.
America uses the word "democracy" as its battle cry, and its nervous soldiers gun down Iraqi civilians when they try to hold street demonstrations to protest against the invasion of their country. So much for democracy. (At least the British Army is better trained.)
America is one of the few countries in the world that executes minors. Well, it doesn't really execute them - it just keeps them in jail for years and years until they are old enough to execute, and then it executes them. It administers drugs to mentally disturbed prisoners on Death Row until they are back in their right mind, and then it executes them, too.
They call this justice and the rule of law. America is holding more than 600 people in detention in Guantánamo Bay, indefinitely, and it may well hold them there for ever. Guantánamo Bay has become the Bastille of America. They call this serving the cause of democracy and freedom.
I keep writing to Jack Straw about the so-called "illegal combatants", including minors, who are detained there without charge or trial or access to lawyers, and I shall go on writing to him and his successors until something happens. This one-way correspondence may last my lifetime. I suppose the minors won't be minors for long, although the youngest of them is only 13, so in time I shall have to drop that part of my objection, but I shall continue to protest.
A great democratic nation cannot behave in this manner. But it does. I keep remembering those words from Nineteen Eighty-Four, on the dynamics of history at the end of history, when O'Brien tells Winston: "Always there will be the intoxication of power… Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - for ever."
We have seen enough boots in the past few months to last us a lifetime. Iraqi boots, American boots, British boots. Enough of boots.
I hate feeling this hatred. I have to keep reminding myself that if Bush hadn't been (so narrowly) elected, we wouldn't be here, and none of this would have happened. There is another America. Long live the other America, and may this one pass away soon.
Gee, what a surprise. The freak is anti-Israel as well.
The lady has elicited little rant in return so far (up to #21) She is not worth slapping or getting one's blood pressure up to redline but she is worth a condescending chuckle or two.
It is grotesque. It is hideous. This great and powerful nation bombs foreign cities and the people in those cities from Disneyland cartoon planes out of comic strips. This is simply not possible. And yet, there they were.
Priceless comedy! It just doesn't get any better than this!
She'd probably throw a Fesbian Leminist Fit and choke on her own bile.
Myself, I like to see the young folks have a good time, and if pretty ladies on the nose make the pilots happy, good on 'em!
. . . whew, she's ugly, isn't she?
I suggest that she put some ice on that.
Evidently not enough. You still seem to be breathing.
Who is this A-Hole?
FMCDH
No you don't...you THRIVE on it.
FMCDH
But, apparently, the terms "dictatorship", "torture", "political prisoners", "corruption", et al don't phase her at all.
Silly woman.
Sucking in the 70's (An old Rolling Stones LP)
Stick a fork in her, she's done...
The writer must be an expert on infantilism as this is the most infantile piece of crap I have read in some time. Lets just let people write about things they can't understand and publish it.
When people with the spines of MS Drabble rule, they don't rule long and what comes after rule are the Pol Pots and the other criminal rulers. Suffering then becomes manifest.
War is ugly. War is supposed to be ugly. War is sometimes nessessary so as MS Drabble dosen't have to cringe in a damp cell somewhere.
Oh, and Viet Nam, we will eventually have some sort of hand in freeing that country, too. Americans are winners by providence and cannot coexist with that other America.
So there!
I can hardly bear to see the faces of Bush and Rumsfeld, or to watch their posturing body language, or to hear their self-satisfied and incoherent platitudes. The liberal press here has done its best to make them appear ridiculous, but these two men are not funny.
As disgusting as I think this woman is, you have to admit, she is honest. She also speaks for most of the libs in this country.
Our libs beat around the bush ( no pun intended, well maybe a little). "The carrier stunt was too expensive", "Where are the WMD's", " The wonderful museum was looted",etc.
What the libs want to say is exactly what this woman expressed.
"I loathe America"
That's probably why she's pissed.
![](<http://www.sptimes.com/2002/09/02/photos/911-keith.jpg")
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