Even the TROOPS hate the troops now?!

As if having the sweaty, freedom-cursing weight of the Fourth International-run New York Times and the People's Front-managed Newsweek pressing up against poor delicate America wasn't already enough to cripple any patriot's fightin' spirit, apparently now Stars & Stripes has smoked the peace pipe with Saddam bin Laden and is actively reporting news to dispirit our boys abroad. That's Stars & Stripes as in "the Department of Justice's official paper", folks.

It looks like the onus is now solely on George Bush and his Merry Warblogger Brigade to singlehandedly will this battle on to victory. Tally-ho, boys!

Been To An Antiwar Protest?

Because the military (to little surprise by many of us) might have been monitoring you. NY Times has a short piece on this program that involves a database of over 13,000 entries of possible "threats."

Of course, they call the monitoring "tips" so as to not make it seem like they are files on antiwar activities, which is what common sense would seem to call them.

To the reporters' credit, they do end the article a little wryly: "'Veterans for Peace is a peaceful organization,' the entry said, but added there was potential that future protests 'could become violent.'"

Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away

Open-ish thread: Music For War-Torn America

It occurred to me yesterday that despite the enormous political and international impact that the Iraq War and its contingent opposition has had on this decade, it's dredged up pretty little in the way of cultural flux. American popular culture cruises on, largely undisturbed by the large-scale catastrophe in Iraq, secure and happy in its comfortable prosperity.

I mean, if we're going to have a shitty war, we ought to at least get some good music out of it, dammit.

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On frustration

In my VES class the other day, the venerable Professor Stilgoe suggested that the idea of normalcy is not something determined by the actions of the crowd, but rather but by what we expect to be normal. If all of Rhode Island were to jump into Narragansett Bay tomorrow, he noted, the simple numerical companionship of all the Ocean Staters would not make their act in any way 'normal'. Normalcy, he said, requires a sense of historical information, a postmark by which we may measure actions against other times.

I agree with largely but would like to suggest a twist—historical information is all but dead, and, in its absence, the crowd can determine normal by fiat.

Why do I bring this up? Flip to find out.

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