Propaganda
I was watching Conan O’Brien a couple of nights ago. Now, I know that for those of you in the U.S., his show has been off the air for a while now, but I live in Europe and this was a rerun from last November.
I don’t really understand that. We live in a world of instant communication so there is no technical barrier whatsoever to showing American TV programs in real time in Europe. I could understand a delay of a few hours, since I don’t really feel like watching Conan at 10 o’clock in the morning.
Same with films. Sometimes they are issued simultaneously and sometimes we have to wait 6 months or so. I don’t understand the logic of it at all.
But that’s not the point of this post. One of Conan’s guests was a marine recently returned from Iraq. Which disturbs me on an entertainment program. This isn’t the news. This isn’t a documentary.
Then, when he comes on, everyone applauds politely. Because of course we support the troops. Of course, that doesn’t have to mean we support the war. But it does.
Anyway, the pretext for having him there was that there was a story about how he had adopted a dog while in Iraq. Nice. I like dogs. However, I like people more. Being nice to dogs does not, in my opinion, make up for killing people.
Anyway, the dog at some point had had his ears cut off. We don’t know why. Maybe someone had just cropped his ears as a fashion statement, the way we do with boxers. Maybe he’d had a flea or tick infestation. Maybe his ears had been used in a soup. We don’t know.
The part of the interview that bothered me most was when the marine talked about his conversation with the man who had cut the dog’s ears off. Now, the fact that he was talking to American soldiers at all indicates that he was not the enemy. Of course, you never know, but chances are good that he was on our side.
The marine said (on Conan) that when the man told him he had cut off the dogs ears, he (wearing a military uniform and showing a very large knife) had said “How would you like it if I cut your ears off.” The crowd loved it. Very Jack Bauer, Dirty Harryish.
But it was the wrong question. It was a question that absolutely guaranteed an unuseful response. It was a bully’s question.
The right question to ask would have been “Why?”
www.gurukalehuru.com 
yes, bullies is what we have been raised to be here in the US the last 60 years. Someone posted a quote to the effect of “I will be glad to let you have my way”. I replied, “i.e. bullying”. I have not heard from them since. I thought our bullying was a military thing…then I watched “shock doctrine” on TV and it all made sense…the greedy, harsh culture that I and my children grew up in, and is still active today in Iraq, Afganistan and “Coming soon to a country near you….” Iran..if Sarah gets her way !!! Scary stuff. We got a majority of Democrats in office, told them what the country needed, and look at what they have not done. Sad indeed. What is that new jingle going around, “Hey Mr. Gorbojav, rebuild the wall…” Military bullying has morphed into economic bullying with the same top 2 percent profiting and the other 98 percent of us just surviving worldwide. Sad indeed.