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| Fifth Column |
| Headhunters |
| 2005-12-29 |
| The dainty stench of burnt envy drew me to the comments section of Little Green Footballs, where I found my reputation and personhood under mass grubworm assault. I don't know you've ever ventured into the subterranean underworld that is LGF's comments section, but it's sort of like a disorganized Nuremberg Rally, a lot of angry ruffians with nowhere to go lacking something better to do. The catalyst for this impromptu rally was my clinical diagnosis of Daniel Pipes as "a patronizing little shit," which seemed to displease the footballers, not that any of them bothered to acquaint themselves with the causus belli (Pipes' pipsqueak character smear of Muhammed Ali). Then again, the poor dears don't seem to know the difference between an ocelot and an ocicat, another indictment of the limitations of home schooling. This one sentence amid all that writhing distemper leapt out at me: "May he [i.e., me] be kidnapped by 'insurgents' in Iraq then appear on an ugly net broadcast. I wonder, if in the moment before the knife started sawing into his fleashy neck if he might rethink his opinions on the GWOT." He later corrected the spelling to "fleshy," lest anyone think I possess a flashy neck. This sentence leapt out not only because it was directed at yours truly but because it fits a pattern of measel spots I've discerned. More and more the rightwing militant "anti-idiotarians" (as they deludedly think of themselves)have been relishing the prospect of antiwar figures undergoing the Daniel Pearl treatment. They keep bringing it up as the retribution that'll deliver certain choice heads on a platter. In a sick irony, Daniel Pearl's marytrdom has provided a negative inspiration to certain super patriots professing to fight for truth, justice, and the American way. For example, Anna Benson, the bodacious wife of a Mets pitcher, recently burst her bodice giving full lusty cry to an aria painting the glorious prospect of Michael Moore's neck being used as a log. "You are a selfish, pathetic excuse for an American, and you can take your big fat ass over to Iraq and get your pig head cut off and stuck on a pig pole. Then, you can have your equally as fat wife make a documentary about how loudly you squealed while terrorists were cutting through all the blubber and chins to get that 40 pound head off of you." And just this morning, the day after Christmas and the second day of Hannukah, blogdom's zestiest Zionist party girl elevated the discourse by dismissing the concerns of legal scholars perturbed about Bush's domestic spying thusly: "Someone ought to tlell those legal scholars not to worry.......it's smooth sailing once those Radical Islmonazis saw through their jugulars." (Her excitable italics.) Civilized people were appalled, disgusted, and sobered by the vicious execution of Daniel Pearl, and the beheadings that followed. But many of the warbloggers are not civilized people. It is clear that despite their sincere protestations of horror, rage, and pity, the execution of Daniel Pearl aroused them on some primitive, subconscious level. They got off on it. It functioned as death porn to their seething, frustrated psyches. (Frustrated, because the war in Iraq simply hasn't gone the way they thought it would or should. They have been denied the glorious clearcut victory they craved.) The beheading ritual tapped into their sadistic impulses, and excited their own fantasies of torturing their foes. When rightwing bloggers and posters conjure that under Islam, Democrats--which they've come to call dhimmicrats--will get what's coming to them (i.e., the business end of a butcher's blade), it's as if it's a horrible fate that couldn't possibly happen to them*--because it's a death wish directed outward. The Islamic terrorists serve as proxies and stand-ins in this imaginary theater of cruelty, enacting what they (the warbloggers) would like to mete out to us (their domestic adversaries). Sometimes the punishment they seek is more Jacobean, as when Michael Fumento greeted Cindy Sheehan's threat to tie herself to the fence in Crawford, Texas to protest the 2000th military death in Iraq with the sentiment, Good, let her lash herself to the fence: "Leave her there and maybe the crows will do the world a favor and eat her tongue out." It's no accident that it is the rightwing bloggers and pundits who have been avid about defending the use of torture against suspected terrorists. Nor is it an accident that many of them pooh-poohed Abu Ghraib, sluffing it off as no more harmless than fraternity hazing. But what their decapitation odes reveal is that what they'd really like to do is permit torture closer to home. Domesticate it. Trivialize it. Completely destigmatize it as a tool of the state. I don't worry about this being actually implemented, though I worry fractionally more every day. I'm interested in it more as a pathological rash afflicting the more rabid warbloggers. It's a sign of impotence, this lurid fury of theirs. It bugs the hell out of them that those of us who opposed the war have turned out to be right. It thwarts the hell out of them that Ward Churchill still has tenure, that they couldn't convict Sami Al-Arian down in Florida, and that their latest purple-finger festival fizzled out so soon. If postwar Iraq swirls down the drain, they'll be looking for someone to blame, and since they never blame themselves for anything (a bedrock neoconservative trait), they leaves nobody here but us chickens. I dread to think of the imaginary punishments they'll devise for us appeasers, turncoats, and traitors; I'm sure they'll be quite vivid. I may have to quarantine myself from these sites to preserve my serene disposition. (*as another LGF poster put it: "Funny thing, the liberal mindset: expend all energy on phantom 'enemys', meanwhile the real enemy pounds at the fucking gate, ready to chop off their heads." Note: "their," not "our." LGF'ers have a touching faith in the undetachablility of their own heads under the grisly Islamofascism they spend so many hours daydreaming about.) To paraphrase the inimitable Lileks, Jimmy Wolcott's work not only defines the word "arch", but reminds you why no one uses it anymore. |
| Posted by:ryuge |
| #7 Daniel Pearl was not executed. Exactly right, Sea. Calling Pearl's slaughter an "execution" in an article on terrorism is what finally convinced me to cancel my decades-long subscription to National Geographic. I miss the photography and archaeology articles, but I won't support that sort of vile "objectivity" any more (not to mention their Chicken Little global warming litany). |
| Posted by: xbalanke 2005-12-29 17:41 |
| #6 Daniel Pearl was not executed. He was murdered. Murder most foul. And yes, that did reach a deep chord within me. Did it not touch Mr. Wolcott at all? He allegedly shares an avocation with the late Mr. Pearl. They are authors, writers, reporters. If Mr. Wolcott had decided to report on events first-hand in Pakistan, had arranged for an interview, and then found himself abducted, humiliated and slaughtered like a sheep on video for thousands of jihadiwannabees to cackle over, would he wish his death to be ignored and tut-tutted over with a knowing glance at cocktail parties? Christopher Hitchens also writes for Vanity Fair. He harbors no great affection for President Bush. But he is honest enough to open his eyes and understand that America's choices are limited right now. We must fight this battle NOW, or try to explain two generations from now that we didn't want to hurt the Islamists' self-esteem. |
| Posted by: Seafarious 2005-12-29 17:02 |
| #5 It's really nice to have the likes of a Jimmy Wolcott drawing attention to himself. All you do is shoot a back azimuth from any position he takes and you can't be too far off morally. |
| Posted by: anymouse 2005-12-29 16:59 |
| #4 Who is this self-important, overly urbane twit? Iâve never heard of him.... and I certainly donât spend a great deal of my valuable time contemplating the proper torturing or snuffing of liberals. Well, not physically anyhow. Let me get this straight Mr. Effete Yankee Author: 1) âIt bugs the hell out of them that those of us who opposed the war have turned out to be right.â Are you insane? You havenât been âprovenâ to be right. Far from it. Oh, right, youâre the author of Attack Poodles and Other Media Mutants: The Looting of the News in a Time of Terror, currently #94,760 on the Amazon sales list. Which doesnât exactly make you Gore Vidal, does it? 2) âBut many of the warbloggers are not civilized people. It is clear that despite their sincere protestations of horror, rage, and pity, the execution of Daniel Pearl aroused them on some primitive, subconscious level.â You sir are confusing what you WANT your political enemies to be with what they actually ARE, which is pretty disappointing coming from a self-professed intellectual. Of course, so is calling other intellectuals âpatronizing little shits,â but lets not split your thinning hair(s). 3) âThe Islamic terrorists serve as proxies and stand-ins in this imaginary theater of cruelty, enacting what they (the warbloggers) would like to mete out to us (their domestic adversaries).â We prefer to beat you in elections, actually. So far weâve been rather good at it too. There will (naturally) be setbacks at some point in the future, but itâs likely we will continue to win in the long run. If you dislike us so much, why not outwit us politically rather than boring us with your condescending, impotent prose? Oh, thatâs right: itâs all you can do. 4) âI dread to think of the imaginary punishments they'll devise for us appeasers, turncoats, and traitors; I'm sure they'll be quite vivid.â Iâve got one: I cruelly condemn you to read the Constitution (with out closing your eyes and skipping over the first two amendments of the Bill of Rights), The Federalist Papers, and Professors Allen and Schweikartâs A Patriot's History of the United States. Or would that compromise your âserene disposition?â |
| Posted by: Secret Master 2005-12-29 16:46 |
| #3 I thought Anna Benson wa a lusty nut....turns out she's got some redeeming qualities after all. People who, by their deliberate or ignorant actions increase the amount of risk to me and my family, are due a spit of mucous in the face and a bitchslap of reality, not civilitty. Moore is just such a pig, and he does it for profit |
| Posted by: Frank G 2005-12-29 16:29 |
| #2 Hey ryuge: If a drunk driver is going to careen down the road and kill someone - does it make me a bad person to hope that he only kills himself? Just wondering. |
| Posted by: 2b 2005-12-29 16:19 |
| #1 In the end this supercilious fop is going to lose, and the blogosphere is going to win. |
| Posted by: Dave D. 2005-12-29 15:03 |