This talk may be too stereotypically TED-ish for some readers’ tastes. But I happen to have a weakness for plummy accents and theaterical delivery. And even though it’s not even in theaters, I believe an antidote to Zero Dark Thirty is in order.
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Yup ..
Thanks for the post. I see the need apply her approach to the way I read the comments on this board … read in good faith, and look beyond my prejudices.
This is an academic doing what too many academics do: exuding hot air. She argues against prejudice and stereotyping.
Who can possibly disagree? What’s her next trick going to be: advocating virtue?
But she has great delivery. Nicely worded phrases. A great theatrical performance. And 99% of the population fall for that.
Excellent idea Ralph: Let’s encourage ‘cold air’ advocacy in favor of prejudice and stereotyping!!!!
The antidote for Zero Dark Thirty is to keep your money in your pocket and not go see it. Who actually pays money to be propagandized like that anyway? Then refuse to discuss it with anyone who brings it up (nobody I know now has, maybe I live in an exceptional community). Don’t bother telling them the truth of the matter – that Obama had long since been dead by other causes and was in fact always only a fictional boogeyman to cover for the inside job that was 9-11 – cause they won’t listen anyway. Besides, the MICC doesn’t give one rat’s a** what anyone thinks about anything anyway, and their opinion is the only one that counts in any case. They know that if they merely yell Boo! Americans will all dutifully jump under the bed and rubber stamp any hair-brained scheme they come up with to enhance their “security.” When it comes to Americans’ faux security, no amount will EVER be enough.
that Obama had long since been dead by other causes…
Freudian slip…
A zombie, undead President?
Whocouldaknown?
I think there is a great deal of truth in what you say – just look in his eyes ….
It’s a classic tribal revenge story. They got us in a dirty cheater way, and we went after them in a tough heroic way and blasted their guts out. USA! How could you resist
Yep. Especially since it was all fabricated from the start. Too good to be true? We should have sniffed this one out from the start. Unfortunately, our American sniffers have been bought and paid for. Capitalism.
The revenge fantasy is big in our collective psyche right now, and for the last number of years, from way before 9/11. How many movies have you seen with the “bad guys murder hero’s family, hero kills/tortures a shit load of bad guys” plot in the last couple decades? I don’t think we’ve always been so obsessed with this particular archetypal plot. Maybe older folks can speak to that, but Christopher Booker, in The Seven Basic Plots, thinks that it is a recent and troubling phenomenon, and I tend to agree.
The bankers screwing over the 99% is the reason the revenge fantasy is getting so popular.
Mostly, that revenge fantasy is being deliberately displaced onto other targets. But see “Leverage”.
And yes, it fits the timeline; the 0.1%’s attempt to make everyone else paupers started in earnest in the 1980s (some would say the late 70s) so people have had plenty of time to start stewing over this.
Our addiction to oil is the root cause of both the “Zero Dark Thirty” propaganda and Hazleton’s pap.
Leslie Hazelton is a good public speaker. Basically a good message. But notice how she slips in that Syrian Bashar Assad is waging a war against his people as if it was a fact. My take is the US is trying to do regime change like it did in Libya. It seems clear to me that what had been peaceful protests against an authoritarian regime have been hijacked by the US, French intelligence agencies and using the support of oil kingdoms of Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The result has been 10s of thousands of deaths and the disruption of the lives of everybody living in Syria. I wonder what the quid pro quo was for Turkey to be taking such an active part.
This was a welcome tonic this weekend – thank you for posting it, Yves.