...or... "all your freedoms are belong to us..."
and as it is a slow day on Vo...
On April 1, 2003, in Sturgis, Michigan, seven young guys, not an
A-rab amongst-'em, did the almost unspeakable - they placed
homemade signs all over little-ville saying:
"All your base are belong to us. You have no chance to survive
make your time."
No misspelling (this time). Never mind that these two sentences
above do not make much sense to the English major, and wouldn't
give even a milquetoast-pansy-coward-liberal-dove much more than a
quiver - except for the little issue of... I-raq.
[side note] why do good-ol'-boys isolate and emphasize the opening
vowels in such words as Iraq and Arab? Is it an unconscious way of
saying this is "too unspeakable to pronounce correctly."
Police in Sturgis were fast on the scene and arrested all 7 as
potential terrorists. This was serious stuff. Never mind that they
missed the significance of the date... and the exceedingly poor
grammar. We must uphold the Patriot's act !
Wooo... sounds like real scary terrorism in the heartland right?
(well, maybe they should have been charged with muttering the
mother-tongue).
Local pundits were quick to opine that no further demolition of
"Engrish" will be tolerated ;-) Unfortunately, this incident did
not turn out to be the abuse that it could have been.
Actually, the kids were playing an April Fools joke by mimicking
the famous game animation and internet hoopla which ubiquitously
depicted the slogan at the time. It even appeared on Vo. However,
not many people in Sturgis who saw the graffiti got the joke, even
on April-one. A few residents were upset that the signs appeared
while the U.S. was "at war," and police chief Eugene Alli [yup
Alli] said the signs could be "a borderline terrorist threat
depending on what someone interprets it to mean."
Ain't Wiki great. They even have an entry now for AYB now:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_your_base_are_belong_to_us
The end of November is a celebratory day in certain parts of the
world. And the Janus-like seasonal transformation from nice to
nauseous, often gets one thinking about other contrasts and
self-contradictions. As the other Janis oft-opined, Freedom's just
another word for.... "nothing left to loose".
What does that mean, exactly, and shouldn't it be "everything"
instead of "nothing" left to loose?
Other semi-famous November self-contradictions:
On November 28 in 1777 - San José (yes, I know the way) became the
first recognizable town in the West (the Spanish colony which
became California) ... and only 9 months after a famous signing.
The "gold rush" of '49 bypassed poor No-Joe, but showed up (with
compounded interest) 125 years later- in the form of silicon. Go
figure - sand more precious than gold.
1890 - The Diet of Japan (no, not sushi ;-) first met - modeled
after the German Reichstag - the start of a misguided half-century
friendship.
[side note:] Why do people who can make the best cars turn out to
be so warlike? Is it as simple as "discipline"... Or is the answer
implied in the question?
1947 - The United Nations General Assembly voted to approve the
"Partition Plan" for Palestine, a plan to "resolve" the hostility
of British Mandate of Palestine.
That last November self-contradiction is probably the "nexus" of
this entire neo-cynical posting. Why was Palestine so important,
that the British did what they did, and so on, and we continued to
multiply this error down to today's quagmire in Iraq....?
Almost forgot: Liberation Day in Albania...
... which is kind of an off-again, on-again kind of thing. Pretty
soon, like all such days, it will deteriorate into Libation-Day.
As for Albania - on November 28, 1912: Albania declared its
independence from Turkey at the height of the first Balkan War,
but lost it in on the same day in 1944 when the communist-led
National Liberation Front (NLF) eliminated other smaller,
non-communist resistance groups and gained control of the country.
Now they are somewhere in between Muslims and Christians,
Communists and Free-men.
... are we (USA) on that same course?
"Freedom's Just Another Word for Everything to Lose" is a piece
Doug Thompson wrote a couple of months ago about the most
oxymoronic law in American history - the so-called "Patriot Act".
I guess its as patriotic as a Japanese Diet of German Worms.
Thompson said "Sometime in the future, when historians write the
definitive analysis of the terrorist attacks of September 11,
2001, they will talk about the day freedom died in America.
Freedom took a hit on that day, but it died on the operating table
45 days later - on October 26 - the day Congress passed, without
reading, an onerous piece of legislation called the USA Patriot
Act... snip... From the ashes of that day rose the Patriot Act,
the single-most dangerous piece of legislation ever devised by an
American politician, passed by Congress or signed into law by a
President. In 342 pages, the act dismantled the Constitution,
wiped out due process and eliminated the traditional privacy
protections of all Americans.
But will the law really last? .... thankfully, probably not long.
We are just waiting for the next big abuse before voters toss out
this regime and liberalism comes back into vogue. The Sturgis
seven was not even close and now Padilla seems to have been
de-fused (unless it turns out that the case was as weak as his
lawyers are implying).
NoWay Jose (Padilla) a U.S. citizen held in a Navy brig as an
"enemy combatant" for more than three years, was charged Tuesday
with being part of a terror cell with intent to "murder, maim and
kidnap."
However, absent from the indictment were the sensational
allegations made earlier: that Padilla sought to blow up U.S.
hotels and apartment buildings and planned an attack on America
with a radiological "dirty bomb." Apparently that was little more
than bar-room chatter.
The actual charges are the latest twist in a case pitting the Bush
administration's claim that the war on terrorism gives the
government extraordinary powers to protect its citizens, on one
side, against those who say the government can't be allowed to
label Americans "enemy combatants" and hold them indefinitely
without charges that can be fought in court.
By charging Padilla, the administration is seeking to avoid
another "black eye" showdown over the issue. Jenny Martinez, a
Stanford law professor who represents Padilla at the Supreme
Court, said, "There's no guarantee the government won't do this
again to Mr. Padilla or others. Padilla's appeal argues that the
government's evidence "consists of double and triple hearsay" from
secret witnesses, self-serving drug-pushers and bar patrons, along
with self-contradictory "confessions" obtained under torture from
Padilla during his two years of incommunicado interrogation.
In an historical context all of this reversal of our hard-fought
freedoms seems to run contrary to the ideas of Francis Fukuyama,
who theorized in "The End of History and the Last Man" that
worldwide democracy is inevitable because of man's natural
striving for dignity and liberty.
Fukuyama was derided by many historians for his assertion that
history is directional, with a progress and a path that can be
discerned, and to my thinking he is correct, but the timing and
the remnants of world Islamic radicalism has become a compelling -
but temporary - alternative ideology to American-style democracy.
Janis (and Janus) notwithstanding, freedom and democracy will
prevail, but this time it may be "later rather than sooner."
Jones
Tricultural pun: does "no way san Jose" means "coffee first and
ask questions later?" ...
