a curious piece on trolls

[winterbadger]

http://www.helsinginsanomat.fi/english/article/1101978425335

A college friend of mine did her doctoral dissertation on the Roman augurs and their system of divination. People can do some cool thigns for doctoral projects.

In other news, I'm skipping soccer class tonight because my throat is sore, I want to audit the Head Shrub's SOTU speech, and I need to do some reading for my class. Ugh. None of that sounds in the least fun. Fun will, sadly, have to wait.

Comments

[sujata.livejournal.com]

I had night class. How did the SOTU turn out?

Long reply follows

[winterbadger]

I only just finished watching it, as I got delayed talking to my housemates and making dinner (thank heavens for TiVo!)

I'd like to go through a copy of the text and annotate all my arguments with his propositions and therefore with the conclusions he arrives at, but I have a feeling that might be giving it more time than it's worth.

It was (is it just my imagination?) an attempt to model GWB as FDR, or at least to make references to him, as I seem to (vaguely) recall RMN tried to model himself on Abraham Lincoln.

The domestic portion: What you would expect, given this was a SOTU address by a conservative Christian Republican speaking to a captive Congress. The Federal government is too big and spends too much mnoney--except where conservative programs have become popular or successful or where the desire of conservative moralists is strong. I think, more than ever, I belong in the Victorian era, where conservatives were pragmatic and cynical and effective, and liberals were moralistic and impractical and full of dreams. I think he outright lied about Social Security, and I hope he gets truth-squadded on that (or did that stop with the end of the election?) I think as long as the budget doesn't include...well, whatever it isn't conveneint to include, like the war, it isn't honest. I can draw up a budget for myself, but if I routinely leave off emergency repairs to my car, vet bills, and my charges at the ABC store, is it really worth bothering to draw it up?

[winterbadger]

The foreign policy portion: Some parts were very affecting; some were just his own vision that, as hard as I try, I just can't see jibing with reality. The really unexpected part of the speech came here, though, and I would be interested to know what bargain had to be struck or who was outraged. The United States, the President, in the SOTU address no less, praised Palestine and called on Saudi Arabia and Egypt to become more democratic. Of course, no mention was made of exactly how undemocatic they are, not a breath was spoken about Pakistan and how it is ruled by a military dictator, the speech quickly moved on to Assad and criticisms of Syria and Iran. But for one brief moment, the President of the United States actually pointed out that Saudi Arabia and Egypt are undemocratic tyrannies. Maybe it's true--only Nixon could go to China.

There were the usual callouts to the gallery. One was to a woman who is a political activist in Iraq (and could whoever works with the president on verbals please make the small concession to our allies of training His Shaved and Suited Monkeyness to actually say "Eeerahk" instead of "irak"? I suppose we should all be grateful he doesn't say "Eye-rak"). I thought that it was a fitting tribute to Iraqis that she was recognized, and that POTUS took the time to acknowledge the courage of Iraqis who went to vote. The second callout was to the parent of a Marine sgt. who was killed at Fallujah, and I really wished that they had been helped to meet some Iraqis and then released, as one releases a fish, instead of forced to stand and listen to applause (including whoops and hollers) for their son's death in combat. Dad shook the hand of a nearby Marine and looked stoic; mom hugged the lady from Iraq and looked as if she wanted to collapse and weep (and who would blame her?) but was holding it together because, well, the whole world was watching. JMO, but that's a crap thing to do to parents who have lost a kid.

I'd really love to believe POTUS's fantasy vision that what the disenfranchised and militant hate about us is our love of freedom. But, despite his mention, we don't love freedom enough to *force* Saudi Arabia to be more free. We don't love freedom enough to invade Zimbabwe or Equatorial Guinea. We don't take the 101st Air Assault Division into the Sudan to stop the slave trade or the janjaweed massacres. We don't *really* stand up to China about their treatment of Christians, let alone of Tibetans, Uighurs, and political dissidents. We don't tell Israel we'll cut off their aid until they stop illegaly stealing Palestinian land. We try to encourage people to get rid of leftist Venezulean cracknut leaders, but we support rightist Colombian death-squad -supporters. The president really voiced aforeign policy that declares out support fo freedom...except where it's inconvenient.

So, it was a pretty typical SOTU. :-)