The Isolated Blurt Thread IX: Insurrection

[Aquagal]

Per Johnny's post, I'm now on episode 5 of The 100.

 

[TwinkleStars]

~That was dumb.

~I should be asleep. Hopefully soon.

~I feel a little like a pervert playing this game.

~Ugh. Not again!

 

[pete]

Per Johnny's post, I'm now on episode 5 of The 100.

so... 95 more to go?

 

[Wings]

What the fucking fuck. Ugh.

 

[PeteHulbert37]

The dishes........why would anyone want to do the dishes?

 

[pete]

i like how i walk faster when a prodigy song's playing .

of course, now i want to tear someone's limbs off, but whatevs

 

[Garnate]

OMG Zumi, that's astounding.

 

[Learnsmith]

I can't not say that word (shillelagh) without using Mike Meyer's Scottish accent.


You should goggle that movie.

A former coworker of mine is named Shaina. Very quiet, very meek. I keep telling her she needs to join Roller Derby, so her derby name can be Shaina "The Shillelagh." I think it would be great anyway.

 

[Learnsmith]

ha, don't kid yourself.
any involvement by the u.s. gov't, at even the most egregiously overestimated levels, amounts to half a percentage of the colossal volume of the central and south american narcotics economy.

its folly to try and spin the scintilla of impropriety into some sort of shameful level of responsibility.

its more accurate to say we've enabled the drug lords' power by supplying such an enormous sellers market for their product

But that's exactly what I'm referring to.

 

[Learnsmith]

has it changed anything? a temporary *shock* before people return to porn & chat. those who feel & think & care will do so without the image.

human nature is to enjoy the horror, ''this is terrible! something must be done!'' and then carry on as though nothing happened.

in a way it almost dehumanises them more... nobody shows crime scene images of rich, white folks. that would be disrespectful. but the news is full of cheap lives providing momentary cheap thrills.

if you want to fight then choosing effective weapons helps your cause.

the key to making people care, if manipulation of 'give a damn' is the goal, is to create empathy rather than 'ew!'. that is why the people we are supposed to care about, the dead western kids, are shown smiling and vibrant, with a description of the worthy and unique individual who is a loss to all.

reduction to a slab of distorted meat is a cheap thrill and has no more lasting impact than a roller coaster. that's why the media only shows brown kids from far away dead, starving, dying, flies on faces or mutilated. because they are 'other', so they can be exploited, they don't require to be depicted with dignity.

I've been chewing on this since last night. I'm conflicted - on the one hand, she at least gave us the name of the deceased, which is a lot more than many such posts commonly include. On the other hand, what was the point? There ARE class discrepancies, as you point out, and as I've noted, most Americans just flat don't give a shit about Mexico until Spanish comes up as an option on their customer-service phone lines.

 

[AllyRose]

I didn't get my beauty sleep.

 

[pete]

But that's exactly what I'm referring to.

ah, my fault then.
i thought you were referring to half-truths perpetuated by some that the u.s. gov't had a hand in allowing the drug monarchs to flourish, as if somehow they were culpable.

anyway, i still think your brown people comment was a bit of nonsense.

 

[Killswitch]

I didn't get my beauty sleep.

You stayed up too long on the intrenets.

Mornin.

 

[pete]

I didn't get my beauty sleep.

you're fired.

we can only have beautiful people in the GB.

 

[trysail]

Is it possible that he was the first rabbi I've ever met? I can't remember having ever met another one. I suppose I should just treat him as yet another delusional religious nut.


​

 

[AllyRose]

I did stay up late last night, and it's killing me this morning.

Two cups of coffee in and I still feel like killing people with my shillelagh.

 

[neci]

i understand. this is where i come to process and write out, before going to the street. it upset me that that was where i found the name. i get emotional and push it through onto screen here without regard for other viewers. there are days i will sit and pour through books and images of bodies found in mass graves looking for patterns in the way the figures have been dumped. bruise patterns in a game of name that object. it's just the honest truth of what is happening. of what one person thinks they can do to someone else without repercussion. and silence falls and people hide in their houses at night, feeling they can do nothing to change their circumstances. i want to test the borders and see how far out i can reach. i don't want to disrespect anyone, but in a court of law, you have to show the truth of what the perpetuator has done. given they will most likely never be brought to justice, where else to show the injustice. on saturday, i will honor him for who he was.

 

[neci]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBQ-IoHfimQ

 

[Killswitch]

I did stay up late last night, and it's killing me this morning.

Two cups of coffee in and I still feel like killing people with my shillelagh.

I make a damn good cup of coffee. Hope yours is tasty.

Whats the big seller today? Books or fishing worms.

 

[AllyRose]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBQ-IoHfimQ

And not just in Syria.

 

[Wings]

I live in fear every single day. I try explaining that to him and I know he wants to understand but he never will. It's not that the fear paralyzes me, just that it's there, whispering to me in the quiet times.

 

[Learnsmith]

ah, my fault then.
i thought you were referring to half-truths perpetuated by some that the u.s. gov't had a hand in allowing the drug monarchs to flourish, as if somehow they were culpable.

anyway, i still think your brown people comment was a bit of nonsense.

Funny story: I was in Iraq, evening sometime, after a long day in the motor pool at Balad. This would have been early 2007. I was out at the company smoke-shack, and this chick named Nasby, E4, is out smoking with all the rest of us. Total hick, this girl. Up the street from the direction of DFAC 3 come a couple Indian guys in a pickup - very dark-skinned, two of them are Sikhs wearing the usual orange turban. They've all got KBR lanyards and badges, and they hop off their truck and start grabbing tools. Doing work on the nearby water-line. Watch them for a few minutes, go back to minding my own business. Nasby says, "Shouldn't somebody be posted on them?"

I look up. Nasby's referring to a little detail we all call hajji-watch, where we pay local nationals a couple dollars a day to perform menial labor. Move sandbags, clear debris. No badges for this detail, it's all frisk-in and frisk-out. Locals are posted with a soldier or two, weapon at condition Amber, in case somebody decides to get froggy. These guys though? They're badged and vetted as contractors, have in most cases lived and worked on-base for a couple years. We can hear them talking, and it's mostly likely Bengali or Hindi, not Arabic or Urdu. I say "Nasby, they're not local."

She says, "So?"

"So?" I say. "They're not Muslim. Hell they're not even Arab. They're contractors." Contractors - the military depends on them everywhere nowadays. The Filipino laundry girls. The Thai hairstylists. The Ugandan mercenaries who guard our facilities.

"I don't give a shit," Nasby says. "I don't like how they look, I think somebody should have a rifle on them."

I laugh. "So, what, you're saying 'I can't tell between my brown people, and so I'm threatened by them?'"

"Yeah, and what if I am?"

*****​

My point here is that people in this country are stunningly ignorant about race, culture, politics. Most often, they're the ones we issue a rifle and tell to go make Uncle Sam proud. We have a series of drug wars going on south of the border which have been enabled not only by our buyer's market, but by the power-vacuums we've cultivated since at least the 1970s (And this is not conspiracy bullshit, mind you; this is public, declassified info that US agencies have freely owned. This is Iran-Contra. This is FARC. This is every right-wing death squad we've funded because we didn't like Honduran nuns and journalists protesting our affairs). And yet in the face of such humanitarian crises, what is the response of most Americans? To believe that illegal immigration is a front for ISIS - a completely unrelated set of movements, driven by a completely different set of regional concerns. If you call my assessment of that foolish, I say go pick up a newspaper.

 

[dolf]

ftr, I don't for an instant doubt that neci's integrity. I can be strongly opposed to the action and still fully support the motivation behind it.

neci feels too much for her own good, and suffers for everyone else's ability to chose to feel too little.

 

[Learnsmith]

ftr, I don't for an instant doubt that neci's integrity. I can be strongly opposed to the action and still fully support the motivation behind it.

neci feels too much for her own good, and suffers for everyone else's ability to chose to feel too little.

My experience with her has been unsolicited insults and shock-porn. I'm waiting to see something more than a troll.

 

[Killswitch]

My experience with her has been unsolicited insults and shock-porn. I'm waiting to see something more than a troll.

Kiss my ass. Shes maybe the deepest sexiest smartest most read between the lines eloquent heartfelt sincere posters you'll ever meet on your life on the web.

Pay attention son.