Repost: Torturing the cat

The following was originally posted on May 20, 2003 on my old Blogspot site. The permanent links to those archives have gotten bloggered, and since I'd like to be able to link to this post in the future, I'm reposting it here.

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"The most critical time in the history of the world"

What happens to a man to whom all things seem possible and every course of action open? Nothing of course. Except war. If a man lives in the sphere of the possible and waits for something to happen, what he is waiting for is war -- or the end of the world.

-- Walker Percy, in The Last Gentleman

Jeanne d'Arc at Body and Soul lately has been fruitfully drawing on Chris Hedges' book War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning.

The truth expressed in Hedges' title is true both forward and backward. Just as war can provide a sense of meaning, so too a lack of meaning -- or the desire to fill that absence -- can provide the cause for war.

A while back, Josh Marshall posted a nasty little piece of hate mail he received that illustrated this point.

It's the typical supercilious undergrad tone -- the kind of thing written by people who want to be Ben Shapiro when they grow small. But one sentence in particular (and yes, this is all one sentence, if not quite one thought) stood out:

This may be the most critical time in the history of the modern world much less of our country; and it is my fervent hope that the American People will remember and appropriately reward those, like you, who have chosen to use this opportunity to forward a political cause, and not incidentally their own careers, by attempting to sabotage an honorable effort to make the world a safer, better place.

You have to love the uppercase "American People" -- and I'm guessing this guy never expresses a hope without it being "fervent." But the important part here is the section I've put in bold -- that ours is "the most critical time in ... history."

Like many people who blindly support[ed] this war -- including perhaps many in the White House and the Pentagon -- the writer is desperate for his life to have some greater meaning or purpose than it apparently does. He hasn't quite managed to stare into the abyss, but he's taken a quick glance in its direction and seen something deep and dark and frightening that he doesn't quite know how to deal with.

"All flesh is grass," the prophet Isaiah said, and "the grass withereth." This guy, understandably, doth not want to wither. He wants his life to matter, to mean something. He wants to be remembered after he is gone.

He has given this war a metaphysical, religious significance. For him, the war isn't about oil, or "liberating" Iraq, or overthrowing an evil dictator. It's grander than that -- grander even than the dreams of empire that seem to be motivating Cheney, Perle and Wolfowitz. This war is an attempt to give his life meaning by turning our times into "the most critical time in the history of the modern world." If our times are meaningful, he hopes (fervently), then our lives must also be meaningful.

The writer gives his life meaning by taking a part in this great, epochal, transcendent struggle.

And note how easy, how undemanding of sacrifice, it is for him to play a role in this epochal, historic event. All he has to do is watch Fox News and fire-off the occasional sophomoric e-mail -- maybe even wave a flag, attend a corporate-radio rally, or rename some snack food.

This letter-bomber is not the only one narcotizing his existential crisis with an enthusiasm for "shock and awe." This is widespread -- it's one of the reasons it is nearly impossible to have a civil conversation with our fellow Americans who believe -- or want to believe, or need to believe -- Bush's baseless arguments for capricious war.

In terms of pure shock and awe, however, nothing in the Iraqi adventure compares to the gut-wrenching, paradigm-shattering, constitution-shredding shock and awe Americans experienced on September 11, 2001. As we watched the towers fall and the Pentagon burn we experienced shock, awe, and a powerful, inseparable admixture of fear, anger, sorrow, pride and love. But there was also something else, unseemly and almost unmentionable -- the perversely giddy rush of vicarious significance.

On September 10, 2001, as in Thoreau's day, the mass of Americans were living lives of quiet desperation but then -- as nearly every observer proclaimed -- everything changed.

A few writers took advantage of the anonymous forum provided by Salon's "forbidden thoughts about 9/11" feature to express this:

When the towers started collapsing and all chaos broke loose, I felt actual excitement. Here was an event that broke banality. Finally, here was something meaningful. I had grown so tired of the meaningless fluff our continent had become so enamored with. Here was an issue of raw emotions. I was glad that this was happening to snap people back into reality, to snap them back to mortality. My last sinful thought was that of genocide -- lets just send nuclear missiles to all of the Middle East and let it be done once and for all.

-- Name Withheld

Such feelings were of course taboo, but they were hardly unique to "Name Withheld." Josh Marshall's letter-writer, like many supporting the war on Iraq across the blogosphere, expresses the very same perverse thrill:

"I felt actual excitement ... here was something meaningful ..."

"This may be the most critical time in the history of the modern world ... "

The voices are different, the sentiments the same. Both are driven by a similar need to break through banality and ennui with the vicarious thrills afforded by war.

A whiff of something similar can be detected in the strangely envious plaudits baby boomers heaped upon the "greatest generation." Look a little closer and there's a hint there of something like "They're lucky. I wish we had a Hitler we could go fight." Little surprise, then, that mingled in with the horror of our own Day of Infamy was that taboo thrill and something like an unspoken, "At last."

We Americans are the wealthiest, most educated people the world has ever seen. We are a people and a nation to whom all things seem possible and every course of action is open.

What happens to a people to whom all things seem possible and every course of action open? Nothing of course. Except war. If a nation lives in the sphere of the possible and waits for something to happen, what it is waiting for is war -- or the end of the world.

The great struggle being waged by President Bush and his supporters is not really about making "the world a safer, better place." It's not even really about an imperial "Pax Americana." It's about the search for meaning by a people so bored, complacent, comfortable and desperate for significance that for them war gives birth not only to terrible beauty but to terrible joy.

This is why even dispassionate, prudential questions about foreign policy provoke outraged invective. Such questions are not merely seen as a threat to a policy position, but as a threat to a metaphysical, religious belief system.

"There comes a time in the late afternoon, when the children tire of their games," G.K. Chesterton wrote. "It is then that they turn to torturing the cat."

It is late afternoon in America, and tired at last of our meaningless games, we're looking for a new source of excitement.

Comments

[85% Duane]

I've never met a dog I didn't like. I even harbor a sneaking fondness for the nasty little mini-Dobie

I'm surprised to hear that based on the way you've been going on about the mini-Sobie. When Ms. Thang woke up from surgery we had the following conversation:

Me: (winding down) *gasp* and then Hapax's house caught on fire.
Her: I bet she was chasing that damn mini-Dobie around with a flame-thrower. You know how she hates the vile beast.
Me: No, she was baking ocokies.
Her: Probably poison cookies to kill the dog.
Me: Yeah, probably.

[85% Duane]

BTW, she actually said "ocokies". I think it was the medication.

[85% Duane]

BTW, she actually said "ocokies". Probably the medication..

[Spalanzani]

ako: "Arguing with something not in the original post. Does that get me a bingo square?"

That actually gets you like eight different squares. It's all sub-categorized. For instance, arguing with imaginary anti-capitalist stuff is one thing, while arguing against never-mentioned legislation is another.

"(Is there one for "Scott being intentionally funny instead of ideological"? Because I spotted that on the Left Behind thread.)"

No, all the bingo squares are for things Scott does often. The shots are a bit more complicated. They exclusively cover everything that Scott does rarely or never, for one. "Actually being funny" is abour five shots normally, and ten if he's funny while arguing his usual shtick. Also, if Scott does something typical of him, but you don't have the proper square on your card, then you have to take a shot. The more extravagent the example, the more shots you have to take. "Compassionate" is one shot, " Compassionate " is two, and " Compassionate (tm) " is three.

[Salamanda]

We could fill up the grand canyon with styrofoam peanuts and then take turns jumping off that glass bridge.

Dude. I'm so in.

[Boze]

"There are three stages in the life of a great nation. First, it is a small power, and fights small powers. Then it is a great power, and fights great powers. Then it fights small powers, but pretends they are great powers, to rekindle the ashes of its ancient emotion and vanity. The next step is to become a small power itself."
- Chesterton, "Heretics" (on the Spanish-American War)

[Mike]

I miss Body and Soul terribly myself. It pains me deeply that her archives are not available

Technology appears to have guaranteed us a future with no past. Two hundred years from now, you'll still be able to read an original Gutenberg Bible, but have absolutely no idea about anything that was available on what used to be called the 'World Wide Web', whatever that was.

I'm a post-apolcayptic fiction fan as well - the idea of society being erased, and humanity being reduced to mere survival and/or possibly getting around to re-structuring & fixing some past errors is very nice.

The cure for this idea is to go to your library and rent the first episode of James Burke's first Connections series. Watch it. Especially the bit about trying to figure out how to grow food after you've managed to escape from the city and find a deserted (!) farmhouse and a — ah, but I won't spoil it for you. Suffice it to say, when civilisation goes, we're all fucked.

[scottbot_with_laser_eyes]

Scottbot to the rescue.

Scott has actually made an insightful comment, related very much to what the original post was about.

Unfortunately, unlike Scottbots, people have bothersome and faulty memories, which means that people now often read the Original Programmer's (tm) words with their own overlay, a sin which Scott has mastered in practice. One which all Scottbots aspire to, by the way.

All bow before Scott, who has shown the way to prejudge and distort so severely, that even a decent point gets marred in the eyes of others.

And yet, it is a decent point - 'The world is full of people who want to drag the rest of us, willing or not....' Is evil a personal or a mass problem? Do numbers create virtue? What happens when a group of overweight, indebted, ignorant people continue to indulge themselves in a life they decry, arguably living empty and meaningless lives, in a life they may see no practical escape from in?

Support our troops by driving SUVs with stickers? Shopping as defending the American way of life because Americans don't know how to live differently? The Rapture? Greenpeace sponsoring trips to islands for donations? These elements have been building for decades in America, and all tend to have the same wellspring - not changing how one lives while part of one's soul knows how wrong that is.

Even a Scottbot can see just how precarious the state of America is, and Scott's caution is actually very true - there are a lot of big projects just waiting for Americans to get behind. Notice, for example, how America has now decided wiretapping, torture, and secret imprisonment are fine and dandy. Scottbot would be glad to help, except he has something called 'Dick Disease' - I have something better to do, sorry. Which makes Scottbot proud to have been made in the U.S.A. (though without the union label, of course).

These days, many of us are disgusted with even our apathy or our ineffectivesness - meaning that getting behind something worthwhile looks like something worthwhile.

Scottbots just want to have fun - let's go round up those 'illegals' since even a Scottbot knows how to instantly tell the difference between a real American and one of the 'them.' The real Americans know how to organize a lynch mob.

[Jesurgislac]

LMM: Because "freedom from" is insufficient for happiness. Happiness requires a sense of meaning, and belonging, and both of those emotions aren't natural for our society.

This is what people join The Society For Creative Anachronism for, isn't it?

[Emily]

Was it really that universal a perception that 9/11 changed everything, that nothing would ever be the same? I remember feeling at the time that it was a horrible and tragic catastrophe, but it didn't occur to me that it was of a nature that had never been seen in the world before, or that it was going to transform American life or the world like WWII or something (yes, I heard it said on the news and read quotes in the paper, but figured they were just drama). Yet since then that rhetoric has not gone away, and I'm starting to think, six years after the fact, that it isn't just the media and politicians, this was what most Americans really felt and I'm the odd one out, minimizing the significance. (This means that I didn't feel the thrill of excitement of history happening, or the sense that it was giving my life meaning, either.) What do you all think? Did you, and do you know, think it changed everything?

[Jos]

Yes, it changed everything, while no, it didn't change a thing.

The world didn't change. Terrorists didn't become a bigger threat, peace wasn't suddenly under a lot more fire, freedom didn't suddenly become more threatened and Western civilisation didn't enter a struggle to survive any more than it already had.

What it did do was make a lot of people (well... probably just mostly Americans and the extremely America-fixated) think that Everything Has Changed. Politicians (pretty much all of them) then easily exploited that viewpoint and reinforced it to, basically, get power. So in the sense that a culture of fear is now carefully tended and harvested when previously it wasn't, yes Everything Did Change (in America).

That's my take on it anyway.

Then again, I live in the Netherlands. The biggest threat to my country is our eternal friend and ally, water.

[andlorr]

@Ako: I think part of the reason it work so well in fiction is the way fiction conventions work; all the important characters either survive, or die in a way that means something.

It's true that that's the way it usually works, but check out George R.R. Martin's series A Song of Fire and Ice for a rebuttal of that presumption. Important main characters die or are maimed for stupid reasons, or none at all. It's amazing. I couldn't believe it, the first couple of times a viewpoint character died, but dead they were, and they weren't coming back.

[Jos]

Important main characters die or are maimed for stupid reasons, or none at all. It's amazing. I couldn't believe it, the first couple of times a viewpoint character died, but dead they were, and they weren't coming back.

I admit, it was bold, but for me it backfired terribly. Since everybody could just die at any given time I found myself just not caring about any of them. I mean, why care if there's a good chance the character's only there to die pointlessly?

[rozzen]

Was it really that universal a perception that 9/11 changed everything, that nothing would ever be the same? I remember feeling at the time that it was a horrible and tragic catastrophe, but it didn't occur to me that it was of a nature that had never been seen in the world before, or that it was going to transform American life or the world like WWII or something (yes, I heard it said on the news and read quotes in the paper, but figured they were just drama). Yet since then that rhetoric has not gone away, and I'm starting to think, six years after the fact, that it isn't just the media and politicians, this was what most Americans really felt and I'm the odd one out, minimizing the significance. (This means that I didn't feel the thrill of excitement of history happening, or the sense that it was giving my life meaning, either.) What do you all think? Did you, and do you know, think it changed everything?

I agree with you with the "it didn't change everything" reaction. But then, my "forbidden thoughts" on 9/11 were "hey, people die all the time, this isn't the first terrorist attack, big deal". I tell myself it was exceptional, because of the scale of the thing, the symbolism, etc, and people dying is always bad, but I don't get any emotional kick in the gut about it.

On the other hand I'd say retrospectively that it did change everything, because it completely changed the worldview of the Americans, it launched the "war on terror" and all its international and domestic consequences... and we still don't know how far-reaching those consequences will be.

[Jesurgislac]

I slept badly for months after 9/11 because I knew it had changed everything.

It scared a lot of Americans witless. It gave Bush & Co their excuse to roll back civil rights in the US, establish a fascist state, set up gulags in which people are tortured, and make war in the Middle East.

For a long, long time after 9/11 - years, not months - my sleep patterns changed. Not because it was, as some of my American friends told me, the worst terrorist attack ever, or (sometimes) the worst attack on civilians in the history of the world (Dresden, I said: Hiroshima; Nagasaki; the Blitz, during 14 months of which as many British civilians were killed as US soldiers were killed in 15 years in Vietnam...) but because I could see for myself how scared they were, how much they were willing to allow their government - and what advantage the Bush administration, never legitimately elected in the first place, were willing to take of this license.

I'm not quite sure when my sleep patterns went back to more normal. I'm not sure they have, altogether: I'm a lot more insomniac than I was before 9/11, and I drink more coffee. But it's better than it was, proving, I guess, that you can get used to anything.

Though the thought that in 2008 the Republicans will run a dishonest election, just like they did in 2000 and 2004, and the Democratic candidate will be elected and again not permitted to take office, and not seriously attempt to contest this, and the American people will, by and large, shrug it off with "hey, these things don't happen here" as they did in 2000 and 2004... well, that gives me cold chills, because if that happens, the US will really be a fascist state - and can only fall in three ways: armed uprising from within; total economic collapse; or attack from without. (In fact, my guess is it would be all three ways: economic collapse, civil breakdown leading to armed uprising, with attack from without when it was clear that the government was no longer functioning. But we're looking at the 2020s, I would think...)

[Jesurgislac]

And just so you know: this is not schadenfreude. For one thing, I have a whole lot of American friends, still, and Americans who aren't friends but whom I like/admire/respect, whom I do not want to see living in a fascist state or think about what will happen to them when it goes down the tubes.

For another, the total economic collapse of the US is something that will do a lot of damage to other country's economies, too...

On the whole, I'd much rather you just ran an honest Presidential election in 2008 and ensured that the candidate who's elected, this time gets to take office.

And just so you know: this is not schadenfreude. For one thing, I have a whole lot of American friends, still, and Americans who aren't friends but whom I like/admire/respect, whom I do not want to see living in a fascist state or think about what will happen to them when it goes down the tubes.

An other reason why your belief wouldn't be schadenfreude : if the most militarily powerful country in the world (and generally the major world power) becomes a fascist state, the whole world will be in for a rough ride.

As far as I'm concerned, the sign of the End Times isn't terrorists or wars, but voting machines. Or rather, untraceable, privately made, unrecountable voting machines. And they're spreading. *cue music from psycho*

[Jesurgislac]

Anon: : if the most militarily powerful country in the world (and generally the major world power) becomes a fascist state, the whole world will be in for a rough ride.

The US is becoming a fascist state, and the rest of the world (if you can still read external news) is in the rough ride. (See Naomi Klein's Fascist America in 10 easy steps.) The question is whether the winner in 2008 will (a) be allowed to take office and (b) will be willing and able to roll back the fascist developments the Bush administration has instituted.

[Nenya]

9/11 changed a lot of Americans' perception of invulnerability--"it doesn't happen here". Even I, living in the next country over and on the other side of the continent from New York, felt my sense of default safety in the world shaken, and kept hearing over and over in my head the refrain that really, it isn't unusual for people to be violently attacked--what's unusual is that we had gone so long without having it happen to us.

That, in itself, didn't have to change the world, at least not in a negative way. 9/11 didn't change the way the universe worked, didn't mean that suddenly the rules of ethics or morality or warmaking were suddenly different.

But. It was used. People's reasonable fear and anger and worry that it would happen again was used to make them willing to hurt other people in large numbers ("carpet bomb the ragheads" was an attitude that should have been discouraged, not encouraged). So our reaction to 9/11 changed the world.

[rozzen]

My best hopes for the world changing for the better are in some of the non-violent revolutions. They're really a new phenomenon; before the twentieth century, I don't know of any instance of people peacefully overthrowing a tyrant.

One scene in Hotel Rwanda that gave me the chills is when the good guy tries to talk the general into protecting the tutsis in his hotel, even though he has nothing left to bribe the general with. In the end he says "if you help us, then when the Americans and the International Court come for you for war crimes, I'll speak for you". The general goes "Hey ! I'm not guilty of any war crimes !" and the other goes "maybe, but who'll believe you ?"

And it works !

I've got no idea if this scene actually happened, but if it did it means we're actually at the point where genocides happen, but there's an actual glimmer of accountability now...

[Jesurgislac]

Rozzen: but if it did it means we're actually at the point where genocides happen, but there's an actual glimmer of accountability now...

No, not really, if you think about it.

"if you help us, then when the Americans and the International Court come for you for war crimes, I'll speak for you"

The US is itself guilty of war crimes: the US has refused to be part of the International Criminal Court.

No, not really, if you think about it.

I have thought about it. This is why a said "a glimmer of accountability", and not just "accountability".

“Was it really that universal a perception that 9/11 changed everything, that nothing would ever be the same?”

It looked like the opportunity for endless "Too soon" jokes. We'd started before the second tower came down. That evening the whiteboard in the sitting room in my house had an estimate of how long it had taken the US population to replace the (at that time still estimated) dead, and my colleagues were trying to find out if there was a decisive "first attack" of this sort, in which an aeroplane is deliberately flown into a building in a suicide attack. I happened to know that an RAF pilot did it to a German radar base in World War II but he was never awarded a posthumous medal because it was impossible to prove which of two planes lost in the mission was responsible - and so for the moment I won.

So, no. Things will be the same. America and a lifetime may feel like the whole universe and forever, but they aren't.

[Bugmaster]

I admit, it was bold, but for me it backfired terribly. Since everybody could just die at any given time I found myself just not caring about any of them.

Hmm, and how do you feel about real people ? They could also die at any given time, you know. Especially if they're old, or reckless, or both.

[Spalanzani]

Real people aren't the same as fictional characters, though. Anyone who consistently treated the two as the same would be crazy.

I think that placing too much emphasis on realism in any work of fiction is a mistake. I mean, if your goal is to make the story just like real life, what's the point? We already have real life. Fiction is different, and should be treated as such.

(Which isn't to say that A Song of Fire and Ice is a bad book or anything, just that its tendency to kill off characters as randomly as if it were happening in real life isn't necessarily a plus)

[Bugmaster]

Real people aren't the same as fictional characters, though. Anyone who consistently treated the two as the same would be crazy.

Agreed, but the principle in this case is the same. If you're afraid of caring for fictional characters solely because they might die, I see no reason to start caring about real people, because they also might die.

Obviously, fiction shouldn't be as boring as real life is (for most people), but if you make it too different, it will be difficult for people to relate to it. Sure, you can have magic and dragons and fairies and such, but if they are completely alien, why should I care about them ? I can't relate to them, so they're really more like furniture than anything else.

Anyway, I'm going over the list of characters in Song of Ice and Fire in my head (it's been a while), and I don't think any of them died arbitrarily... SPOILER ALERT Not even The Hound, though he came close. For example, let's face it, both SPOILER ALERT Eddard Stark and Tywin Lannister had it coming, though for different reasons; and Viserys pretty much had "omg kill me lol" tatooed on his forehead from the start. If Syrio is indeed dead, then at least he died in a classically heroic way. I think you could make a case that Robb Stark died arbitrarily, because his reckless marriage was not foreshadowed in any way whatsoever, but he's the only one I can think of.

[Geds]

Robb:

I wouldn't assume you're willing to sit out history, I just personally respond to that attitude with hesitation.

I made the original statement in response to nieciedo's original claim that he got the same thrill from those massive historical events that others get from going to ball games or concerts or whatever. I'm just saying that, over all, I much prefer the rush that comes from being in a group of people who are all in one place to experience something that's, at worst, neutral but probably very good.

At some point in the near future I'm going to end up writing a blog post comparing a Roger Clyne & the Peacemakers show to church. I used to like church, until I realized that a good concert or a World Series win brings the same sense of unity and accomplishment without the guilt.

And, y'know, tequila and Corona go down so much better than non-alcoholic grape juice...

'keep it copacetic'

You'll learn to accept it.
You know you're so pathetic.*

Emily:

Was it really that universal a perception that 9/11 changed everything, that nothing would ever be the same?

Yes and no. I think that somewhere in the back of the average American's mind there was a thought that went, "Nothing in my life is ever going to be the same again," and that was turned in to something it wasn't by the 24-hour news cycle and widespread love of insta-history. It was one of those things that sounded good, so people just kept saying it over and over again.

Historians (at least the level-headed ones) and those who didn't really have a dog in the fight (which became an increasingly shrinking pool right up until March of '03) were probably more aware of the fact that 9/11 was just another event in a long string of events that happen and that it was significant but didn't necessarily presage some sort of paradigm shift.

Unfortunately, it did become a paradigm shifting event precisely because there were forces that took advantage of the momentary event to effect drastic changes. It's odd, because the world did change in the wake of 9/11, but were it not for the Iraq Occupancy and the terrible precedent set by the Patriot Act and willingness to turn a blind eye to torture, 9/11 would probably have had about the same long-term effect as the '93 bombing of the World Trade Center or the attack on the USS Cole. At most, I believe it would have had the same sort of effect as the assassination of JFK in that it would have created a generational touchstone and in 2041 everyone in my age bracket would be telling their kids or grandkids where they were on the morning of September 11th, 2001.

However, I think Jesu is being a bit too fatalistic, in my humble opinion. There is no Karl Rove in the 2008 Presidential election. We have no kingmakers and, if anything, everyone looks equally unelectable. I don't think it will be possible for there to be 1876 or 2000-style shenanigans and I don't think there's going to be anyone who can organize a widespread electronic vote tampering system.

I can't see the religious right that backed Bush getting behind Romney (fundies hate Mormons more than Catholics) as a bloc. I can't see Guiliani getting a widespread consensus and I keep forgetting who else is out there aside from Ron Paul, who's campaign is the equivalent of a Nicholas Sparks bestseller statistic: mostly smoke and mirrors. Except, unlike the world of "literature," there's no way for the Paul campaign to actually hit a critical mass. If, by some miracle, he gets the nomination, he's going to get steamrolled by any one of the three main Democratic candidates. Hell, Paul v. Kucinich is the only real fair fight in that one.

Meh. [/rant]

*For those uninitiated in the ways of Local H, those are three lines from "Bound for the Floor." I'm not openly mocking Robb...

[Jos]

Hmm, and how do you feel about real people ? They could also die at any given time, you know. Especially if they're old, or reckless, or both.

Don't much care about real people either, though not for fear of losing them.

In any case, I read stories either for characters, concept or setting. Plot is usually a very distant second (or third or fourth). When my fave characters get killed off and there's a good chance the rest of them will too I lose interest.

[Bugmaster]

Don't much care about real people either, though not for fear of losing them.

Ah, a fellow misanthrope. I dislike you slightly less than other people. Though I still dislike you, of course. Bah ! Bah I say !

Anyway, I think there are enough characters in the story to keep anyone satisfied. Personally, I do enjoy the plot -- for me, setting and concept are a distant third and fourth -- but I enjoy characterization, as well. The fact that the author manages to create characters whom we actually want to survive, on an emotional level, is evidence of his superior skill, IMO.

[Jos]

Ah, a fellow misanthrope. I dislike you slightly less than other people. Though I still dislike you, of course. Bah ! Bah I say !

Sorry to disappoint, but I'm not a misanthrope. I like humanity, by and large. I just don't much care about being around them.

[hapax]

@Jos: I like humanity, by and large. I just don't much care about being around them.

In the immortal words of Linus Van Pelt: "I love humanity! It's people I can't stand!"

Which offers me the opportunity to segue into this very odd manga-style re-imagining of the classic Peanuts characters. Linus is surprisingly bishi, and the Peppermint Patty/Marcie vibe has never been so yuri...

[inge]

Salamanda: I remember when the world was fraught with hidden meaning, with significance, and I was a crucial part of it all.

I always waited for meaning to happen. Sometime around fifteen I realized that, if I was lucky, it wouldn't, and started to write stories, played role-playing games and joined a historical re-enactment group. All of the fun, none of the tears.

Jesurgislac: I slept badly for months after 9/11 because I knew it had changed everything.

Word. And exactly for those reasons. My thoughts were, "OMFG, it's 1977 all over again, only this time with people who like war."

[Jeff]

And, y'know, tequila and Corona go down so much better than non-alcoholic grape juice...

Together? Eww!

There is no Karl Rove in the 2008 Presidential election.

Sure there is. Rove's not out of power just because he's not in the White house. He still controlls a LOT of Republicans and a LOT of the Right Wing Noise Machine.

I don't think it will be possible for there to be 1876 or 2000-style shenanigans and I don't think there's going to be anyone who can organize a widespread electronic vote tampering system.

Diebold is still the number one source of voting machines. There will be fraud at 2000 levels unless there's a LOT of scrutiny put on them.

I keep forgetting who else is out there aside from Ron Paul

Thompson has taken over Guilianni's spot as the Man's Man (aka Big Daddy) who will take care of all of us. Although he seems to be sputtering too. I could be Huckabee who gets the nod.

[Jesurgislac]

Geds: I don't think it will be possible for there to be 1876 or 2000-style shenanigans

What do you see as having changed since 2004?

and I don't think there's going to be anyone who can organize a widespread electronic vote tampering system.

Why do you think that? It was done successfully in 2004 and 2006 (2002 lacks exit poll data) - what do you see as having changed since 2006?

[Drak Pope]

Well, I've been looking at voter turnout rates and they seem to reach their peak worldwide during 1) wartime and 2) the end of the term for an incredibly unpopular leader. The reason why the government gets away with a lot of this torture and robbery despite its unpopularity is because every-one is too busy whining and poking fun to actually go out to the voting booths and tell their representatives to knock it off. Notice when they actually do -- such as the rather cruel chastisement that Republican incumbents received during the last Congressional elections, a lot of politicians on both sides of the aisle realize that they'd better start at least pretending to oppose the eternal occupation of Iraq and the president's attempts.

To be honest, I don't get why our voter turnout is so low. Unlike in Europe, the American system of gov't was designed from the start to all but force eligible citizens to participate in the political process. Barely more than half of them do, which is pretty awful when you compare it to Britain's usual turnout of over 70% and Australia's (admittedly coerced, but still) voting rate of just under 100%.

[Ecks]

"OMFG, it's 1977 all over again, only this time with people who like war."

why, what happened in 1977? Other than some totally awesome people being born? And Star Wars? And Elvis snuffing it?

[Ecks]

Just went to look up "carpetbaggers," on Wikipedia (guys from the north who went wandering down into the south in the mid 19th century it seems). The carpetbaggers would hook up with freed slaves and republicans (then the anti-slavery bunch) to take power in many states... until:

"In the 1870s, many switched from the Republican Party to the conservative-Democrat coalition, who called themselves Redeemers. This group used terror and extra-judicial killings to disenfranchise their opponents and African Americans. By these methods, Conservative Democrats replaced all Southern state Republican regimes by 1877. Southern Unionists were killed, encouraged to emigrate to other states, or threatened with reprisals if they spoke out or entered into politics."

Yay-zus Kristo. So in 150 years, other than the rethugs and the dems switching names, the only other thing that seems to have changed is the relative subtlety of the thuggery.

Plus ca change...

[Jesurgislac]

Drak: To be honest, I don't get why our voter turnout is so low. Unlike in Europe, the American system of gov't was designed from the start to all but force eligible citizens to participate in the political process. Barely more than half of them do

When you have a choice between a right-wing party and an extremist right-wing party, I confess I would find it hard to muster the enthusiasm to take time off work to get to the polls, stand in line, and hope that in this instance my vote might be counted for the party that is against my interests a bit less than the other one.

The US needs a fundamental reform of its electoral system, just for starters - a federal-level, independent agency to run all elections in an unpartisan and effective manner. Funding to pay for electoral workers in the weeks before and on the day itself would doubtless also help. And making Election Day a federal holiday and making it unlawful for the employers (the ones who don't have to let their employees have it as a paid day off) to prevent employees taking it as an unpaid day off (it's one day every two years) would also raise voter turnout.

Of course, this means more low-income people would vote. And if more low-income people voted, there would be a better chance of a party that represented their interests against corporations and wealthy people. And as that would suit neither Republicans nor Democrats, I think the US stands a flea's chance in hell of getting electoral reform any time in the near future.

[Rosina]

Funding to pay for electoral workers in the weeks before and on the day itself would doubtless also help. And making Election Day a federal holiday and making it unlawful for the employers (the ones who don't have to let their employees have it as a paid day off) to prevent employees taking it as an unpaid day off (it's one day every two years) would also raise voter turnout.

With the exception of the electoral workers, of course, who will be forbidden by law to take the day off...

[inge]

Ecks, why, what happened in 1977?

You know, the usual. Terrorist shooting people, abducting air planes, talking big and killing themselves. Politicians talking bigger, mongering fear, curtailing civil right, declaring anyone who critizises them a terrorist, and grabbing power. Barely made a blib on the radar.

[Jesurgislac]

Rosina: With the exception of the electoral workers, of course, who will be forbidden by law to take the day off...

It does have a lovely Kafka-esque twist if you put it that way, doesn't it? The sort of contrived paradox of "who shaves the barber" that is supposed to send big computers into lockdown.

[cjmr]

With the exception of the electoral workers, of course, who will be forbidden by law to take the day off...

I believe that the electoral workers in our state vote in the five or so minutes before the polls 'officially' open. Certainly they get to go first in line.

Terrorist shooting people, abducting air planes, talking big and killing themselves. Politicians talking bigger, mongering fear, curtailing civil right, declaring anyone who critizises them a terrorist, and grabbing power.

In the US we got the insanely high gas prices, too.

[cjmr's husband]

In the US we got the insanely high gas prices, too.

Beats the rationing we got in the U.K.

[cjmr]

Actually, proper rationing would have been better than waiting in line for two hours for gas, only to have the pumps close because the station was out before you got to the front of the line. (No, we didn't sit there with the cars running the whole time.)

[Geds]

Me: And, y'know, tequila and Corona go down so much better than non-alcoholic grape juice...

Jeff Together? Eww!

Of course not together. Those were just the alcoholic beverages of choice at the Roger Clyne & the Peacemakers show on Saturday, so it was what was on my mind...

Why do you think that? It was done successfully in 2004 and 2006 (2002 lacks exit poll data) - what do you see as having changed since 2006?

The Republican Party is splitting apart at the seams. Less than a third of the country is even remotely happy with the Neocons and none of the current candidates are anywhere close to Gee Dubs in the religious vote department. The main issue in 2000-2006 was the Bush/Cheney/Rove axis of corruption and I can't see anybody in 2008 being able to repeat that, at least not enough to overcome the Democratic field.

Fred Thompson (thank you, whoever reminded me of him, I knew I was missing a big name) was being hailed as the one guy who could pull everything together and get the Republicans unified behind one candidate. That's gone really well...

And Diebold or no, vote tampering on a national level is really, really hard to do. There are too many districts and too many machines. If you want to tamper and have it make a difference you have to either do it in a smaller election or have enough clout to get it done in a lot of places at once. I don't think there is a Karl Rove-like figure in 2008.

I'm not saying there's not corruption. I'm not saying there won't be people who try, but repeating 2000 moves from fraud and corruption territory to conspiracy territory and most conspiracies are little more than wishful thinking (at least the popular "9/11 was caused by the CIA," "the moon landings were faked," "JFK was assassinated by the CIA/KGB/Castro/LBJ," etc. sort of theories).

[andlorr]

ASoIaF SPOILER: I was counting Robb Stark's death as a nonmeaningful death, yeah. Ako's original post said that either a) main characters didn't die, or b) main character deaths were filled with meaning and were heroic. Whether they were foreshadowed isn't the point, the point is the manner of death. In that view, I think only Eddard's death counts. Robb and Caitlin, Drogo, Lysse, the loss of Jaime's hand, the deaths of the direwolves, none of those were the standard "You go, I'll stay behind and hold them off" deaths.

It's like Battlestar Galactica or Farscape. Your guys aren't necessarily safe.

[Foreigner]

We Americans are the wealthiest, most educated people the world has ever seen.

*sigh* No, you're not. Maybe you should stop comforting each other with these little myths. America is insolvent and you are among the poorest-educated people in the developed world.

[Ecks]

Even I can hear the notebook whispering urgently about whether CJMR's husband is actualy a brit by origin (as he hints obliquely here), and I'm living, I believe, at least 3 states away from it.

America is insolvent and you are among the poorest-educated people in the developed world.

Depends how you measure it. They have by far the largest GDP and best funded *university* system (not so much the lower schools - or at least, very unevenly so).

OTOH, Bush has spent a fortune on war, and then made a bunch of mores that rack up huge future financial loss for benefit now - and on the strength of this America is experiencing an extremely modest bounce in its economic fortunes right now (other than employment, and currency strength)... So give them a few years, and then they'll see some pain. Which will naturally be blamed on the democratic incumbent... Grrrrr.

[Ecks]

moVes, not moRes. Double grrr.

[cjmr]

Ecks, no, but his little sister is.