La la la...
Apr. 14th, 2003 10:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
camwynThose of you who've known me for any length of time are aware of the fact that I am too stupid for my own good. I don't know when to be afraid (New York City on Sept. 11/12, 2001? Bring it on. On-ramp to the Queensboro or Manhattan Bridges? Eeek eek help.) I don't know when to stop reading things I shouldn't have found in the first place (like specially requested medical textbooks on the subject of teratology, for example), and I mouth off more than I should. I'm pretty sure I'll never be able to get a security clearance; aside from having a penpal in mainland China, a penpal in Hong Kong, and a sometime penpal in Sri Lanka, I pester my congressbeings every four to six weeks and occasionally fire off to other people in Washington. I do my best to read the news and to act on it whenever and wherever I can, because not being an informed citizen is a fast way to wind up with worse people than the President in charge.
Therefore, please understand me when I say that I am going to be avoiding the news as much as possible over the next few days. I've had enough; I've had it right up to my eyebrows. Any further and I'll go nuts.
I've been reading the news, listening to the news, seeking the news out on the Web, ever since Sept. 11. Hell, I was seeking it out before that, but I've kept my eyes open since then even though it's been horribly painful. I've read the liberal-inclined articles talking about the terrorists we're breeding all over the world right now. I've read the conservative-inclined articles about how we need to increase our security and seriously consider the use of beatings and other forms of low-level torture to get information out of terrorists. I've been told over and over again by the BBC that my country's military is apparently making a hobby of blowing up civilians and journalists just because they can, that my president not only has his head up his ass but is in the pockets of people I wouldn't trust with anything more dangerous than string. I've read article after article and LJ post after LJ post saying that nobody listens to my voice, that nobody cares, and that unless I start some kind of large-scale violent revolutionary cell right now or come up with some world-shattering massive peaceful protest movement, my entire country will be marching around singing Nazi anthems and doing fruity bent-elbow salutes to pictures of Der President.
You know what? All of you can go stuff yourselves.
I've been a responsible citizen and I will continue to be one, but I can't take it any more. Everyone - everyone- who has anything to say about any aspect of the news is telling me that I am either a vapid cow who pliantly goes along with my leadership, or a head-in-the-sand 1934 German, or a violent jackass thug, or a pie-in-the-sky liberal. Screw you all. The news media can go to hell, the reporters can go to hell, the LJ Folk of Dire Warning can - well, okay, not go to hell, some of you are on my friendslist, but dammit, I can't take it any more. I already know what you're telling me. It's bad. It's scary. Something needs to be done.
I am DOING WHAT I FSCKING WELL CAN, okay? And I can only take it for so long. You've warned me often enough that I'm about ready to reflexively lash out and break the hyoid bone of the next person who solemnly warns me that the President is going to drag us into a war with Syria so that he can build his goddamned empire. Shut up. All of you. Leave me alone. I'll get back in the fight when I have the strength to do it, but right now I've gone twenty-four smegging rounds with Gentleman Jim Corbett and I think I've earned the right to step away and not think about it for a while. Show me that your file of protest letters over the Patriot Act is thicker than mine, or that you've been writing to dictators on behalf of Amnesty International longer than I have, or even that you fed soldiers, shepherded refugees, or comforted frightened emergency room personnel, and I'll consider listening to you... but right now I've heard all the news I can, I've taken all the action I can take, and I'm not gonna read or listen to news more topical than 'hey! Cloned banteng!' until I feel that it's safe to do so again.
I'm really sorry, guys. But I'd like to have some shred of sanity. Right now I'm on the edge of losing Lovecraft's Mercy* when it comes to matters political and geopolitical.
*"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a dark new age."
Therefore, please understand me when I say that I am going to be avoiding the news as much as possible over the next few days. I've had enough; I've had it right up to my eyebrows. Any further and I'll go nuts.
I've been reading the news, listening to the news, seeking the news out on the Web, ever since Sept. 11. Hell, I was seeking it out before that, but I've kept my eyes open since then even though it's been horribly painful. I've read the liberal-inclined articles talking about the terrorists we're breeding all over the world right now. I've read the conservative-inclined articles about how we need to increase our security and seriously consider the use of beatings and other forms of low-level torture to get information out of terrorists. I've been told over and over again by the BBC that my country's military is apparently making a hobby of blowing up civilians and journalists just because they can, that my president not only has his head up his ass but is in the pockets of people I wouldn't trust with anything more dangerous than string. I've read article after article and LJ post after LJ post saying that nobody listens to my voice, that nobody cares, and that unless I start some kind of large-scale violent revolutionary cell right now or come up with some world-shattering massive peaceful protest movement, my entire country will be marching around singing Nazi anthems and doing fruity bent-elbow salutes to pictures of Der President.
You know what? All of you can go stuff yourselves.
I've been a responsible citizen and I will continue to be one, but I can't take it any more. Everyone - everyone- who has anything to say about any aspect of the news is telling me that I am either a vapid cow who pliantly goes along with my leadership, or a head-in-the-sand 1934 German, or a violent jackass thug, or a pie-in-the-sky liberal. Screw you all. The news media can go to hell, the reporters can go to hell, the LJ Folk of Dire Warning can - well, okay, not go to hell, some of you are on my friendslist, but dammit, I can't take it any more. I already know what you're telling me. It's bad. It's scary. Something needs to be done.
I am DOING WHAT I FSCKING WELL CAN, okay? And I can only take it for so long. You've warned me often enough that I'm about ready to reflexively lash out and break the hyoid bone of the next person who solemnly warns me that the President is going to drag us into a war with Syria so that he can build his goddamned empire. Shut up. All of you. Leave me alone. I'll get back in the fight when I have the strength to do it, but right now I've gone twenty-four smegging rounds with Gentleman Jim Corbett and I think I've earned the right to step away and not think about it for a while. Show me that your file of protest letters over the Patriot Act is thicker than mine, or that you've been writing to dictators on behalf of Amnesty International longer than I have, or even that you fed soldiers, shepherded refugees, or comforted frightened emergency room personnel, and I'll consider listening to you... but right now I've heard all the news I can, I've taken all the action I can take, and I'm not gonna read or listen to news more topical than 'hey! Cloned banteng!' until I feel that it's safe to do so again.
I'm really sorry, guys. But I'd like to have some shred of sanity. Right now I'm on the edge of losing Lovecraft's Mercy* when it comes to matters political and geopolitical.
*"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a dark new age."
no subject
Date: 2003-04-14 05:25 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2003-04-14 07:10 pm (UTC)