Slaughterhouse Jive
The massacre last Thursday at Fort Hood has resulted in a more tamped-down xenophobic reaction from the Right than I expected. Oh sure, Fox News and talk radio have all weighed in with bitter grumblings about how political correctness prevented someone or other from sending this guy to Gitmo while we had the chance. Still, the the fact that Michelle Bachman hasn’t intorduced a Constitutional ammendment to have all Americans of Arab descent loaded into a space shuttle and shot into the sun may be the first sign that Obama deserved that peace prize.
Of course, it could also be because another shooting rampage took place the very next day in Orlando.
That shootin’ gallery turned out to be a less sexy story, since the gunman only killed one and wounded five; the piece probably appeared in your paper right below a coupon for Ragu. But it is a reminder to anyone who  thinks that Nidal Malik Hasan is a terrorist because he shouted “Allah Akbar!”*  during his spree instead of “Yippee kai yay, motherfuckers!” that workplace slaughter is as American as apple pie.
Or maybe the reason the Republicans have moderated their tone ever so slightly is the purported reason Hasan snapped: he didn’t want to go to Afghanistan. Who the fuck would?
And speaking of the residue of 9/11, last Monday the Navy unveiled a new assault ship built with steel salvaged from the World Trade Center. And while it is too bad that Ground Zero remains an undeveloped pit after so many years, it is good to know that the building that once stood there has been turned into such a nice weapon of war. Now if only our enemy had a navy…
* still unconfirmed
Our enemies barely have armies… Or land.
This kind of hypocrisy extends as far back as Columbine and possibly long before even that. The problem with these kinds of shootings is that they spark a sort of collective psychosis in the mainstream. The fingers are pointed in the wrong directions at EVERY turn. YES, the man could have gone to his commanding officer to report the problems that he faced. No he was absolutely not justified for killing ANY of those people. But that is no justification for a system of discrimination that continues to perpetuate even after the dust has settled. He was facing harassment just as long as those Columbine twerps. Were they justified? No. But you better believe that the scapegoats for their perceived influence were insufficient.
So welcome to a NEW spike of anti-Muslim sentiment in this country awarded to us by the corporate media!
It infuriates me to no end how narrowminded most people can be,but it’s not much I can do about it but 1up their asses and get them steamed when I choose not to fully agree with their insipid views.What Hasan did was dead wrong,but like any other shooting in the country,it was more or less a breakdown than actually being terrorism.But like I said,most folks are not going to see that,and are just going to insinuate the perceived idiocy that goes along with not being able to grasp something you do not understand.
Captcha: Endure Chilean
I’m pretty sure there’s one somewhere in the states having to put up with some stupidity of their own right now with being flat out called a “mexican”.
For what its worth, the New York isn’t intended to fight other warships. Its role is to provide support to Marines conducting amphibious assaults (invasions) with Harriers and helicopters, and landing craft – so in a sense it is directly aimed at the new kind of low intensity warfare that seems to be the modern condition.