On Irony

Let's talk about irony. Not real irony, mind you, but the faux irony that's replaced humor and imagination in this culture. The justification of "I know X is lame, that's why I'm not lame for enjoying X!"

The Guild is a good example of this, despite being a good show in its own right. It follows six hilariously inept gamers as they deal with very mundane concerns like money, romance, and overly protective mothers. It's funny and well acted and never tries to excuse or redeem the characters - who are pretty terrible human beings all around.

But there's this niggling thing in the back of my mind every time I laugh at a scene because I know somewhere, someone is going "Dude, that's soooo us!" and then typing the high five command in World of Warcraft. It's like that blog Stuff White People Like - funny, occasionally sharp satire, but you know the fanbase is the one being savaged by all the jokes. And they're okay with that because...?

Because irony, it seems. It really came together when I saw this -

"Oh ha ha! It's a cheesy pop song but about MMOs! We know it's lame so we're not actually lame! Irony!"

I know language is fluid and changes depending on time, place, and context but this is not irony. We may call it that but it's really rationalization. Someone knows the thing they like is looked down on in polite company, so they claim to be enjoying it because it's bad. Somehow. Like people who pay money to see The Room.

But the truth is, they really do like whatever lame thing they claim to be enjoying ironically. They really are as inept and ridiculous as the characters on The Guild. They really are that dull and miserable - but they can't admit it, to themselves or others. Therefore, they say they like X because they know X is bad.

This whole phenomenon really gets back to how soviet American culture is. We can't enjoy things on our own terms - like, I can't just load the latest Call of Duty and giggle as I blow away foreigners in increasingly brutal ways without putting on this air of being above it all and only enjoying the jingoistic undertones of the whole violent spectacle "ironically."

No, all our terrible indulgences have to fit back into the status quo. So we get people watching The Guild, seeing themselves in the parody, and trying to excuse their own embarrassing behavior as self-aware self-abasement. Because we're not allowed to just like stupid shit.

Fiction Friday

"A man who has seen death and survived is satisfied with a flu," Eli repeated to himself for the umpteenth time. He'd read it... somewhere back in college, a little pessimistic gem he'd been more than happy to throw around. He'd never given it much thought then, or at least no more than some self-serving claim that it meant something to him beyond its power to shock. Thank God he'd since gotten perspective.

He'd thought of that little saying off and on since moving in with Gramma. After all, what red-blooded twenty-something wants to spend his days looking after some decrepit relative? Of course things were never all that bad and she always seemed more interested in him going out then he did. "Why would you sit around at home on a nice night like this?" and "What do you mean you've got no plans for the weekend?" And even trying to set him up with the sweet Korean girl down the hall - at least before that last round of INS sweeps. Good, benevolent meddling.

He hated it all, of course. "Jesus, it's none of your business!" and "I can live my own life!" That sort of good natured bickering that no one ever really likes until it ends...

*    *    *

"Gramma!" he called out into the apartment. He stomped up and down the hall a few times, hoping to jar her awake if she'd fallen asleep in the tub again. That had been one awkward evening.

No response. He knocked at the bathroom, still a little weary. No answer. He tried her bedroom - again nothing. He tried his own room - hell, why not - and again not a sound.

"Gramma?" he tried again. The apartment was quiet and static as always, but the old lived-in smell had left. He crinkled his nose, it almost smelled sterilized now. Like someone had been through and scrubbed every inch of the place with bleach.

In the kitchen he found a letter, typed. Gramma was hopeless with a computer - and that typewriter hadn't worked in fifteen years!

"Dear Elly," sweet Jesus, he thought. "After careful consideration, I have opted to return to our Homeland. Israel needs us all in these troubled days and I would be a poor example to you if I shirked my Jewish duty -" Jewish duty? Really? "You are free to make your own decisions but I implore you to follow me as soon as possible. Israel needs strong, young men such as yourself if it is to weather the Final Days -" The fuck!? "Your loving mother, Sheila."

"Her name is Anzia!" he screamed, nearly ripping up the letter. The cynical bastards didn't even bother to remove the Emigration Office letterhead!

*    *    *

"A man who has seen death and survived is satisfied with a flu." Eli understood those words now, at least in a backwards sort of way. It would be melodramatic to call his life up until now miserable, but looking forward to the future - and a future in modern Israel was a death sentence, no question - he'd been very satisfied with that old flu. All a matter of perspective, really.

Finding the plans hadn't been difficult. Even with the libraries falling apart and charging for their internet use, they hardly policed anyone's reading habits. Too worried about stumbling on porn. Eli had stacks of papers, bordering on a thousand, with the information he needed - and all printed at The Commons.

Material... That had been much more difficult. He'd decided from the start it could be nothing conventional. If the bitch weren't close enough he might only singe Her and what would be the use of that? He had to be certain he would get Her - and everyone else in a fifty block radius. Fucking sheep.

Conventional would be too bulky. He'd be stopped for sure. Well, what about... Yes, that could fit right in a backpack, at least according to the sources he found. But the materials... not so easy to come by. Had this been an earlier point in history with more industrial regulations he might have been forced to call it quits - or get a plain old rifle. But thank God or whoever saw fit to place Eli in the same state as a disposal site staffed by cynical entrepreneurs. And thanks also for all the money Gramma had squirreled away throughout their apartment – safe from those Emigration bastards.

*    *    *

"A man who has seen death and survived is satisfied with a flu," had been on his mind for a while, but since setting to work on this... project, he'd been remembering something else. A catchy little song he heard in a movie once. Eli sang it to himself while putting the finishing touches on his bomb: "I'll take you with me to the stars! They're gonna find your anus on a mountain on Mars!"

Buy my book! It's da bomb!

Another Flash Crash

Can we admit already that all the rich Wall Street wizards are just lucky morons?

Ever since they ran the economy off the cliff, there's been all this noise to excuse the obscene paychecks they write themselves and the utter failure of any prosecution for their culture of systemic fraud. The argument has gone that they're all so special and clever and we just don't understand their labyrinthine get rich quick schemes so that's why they still get a bonus when their own company tanks...

And then shit like this happens.

"Durr..."

A hacked Twitter account made the entire money changing system piss itself with a fake story of the White House blowing up. While that's some ballsy marketing, it again highlights the instability of high-frequency trading - where "complex" algorithms buy and sell stocks automatically. It's caused sudden crashes before over one data hiccup or another and no one is doing a goddamn thing about it.

And why is that?

...

No, I'm really asking - why? Why can't we call all these dumbasses on their constant failure? Why do even Congressmen smile and nod when a self-inflated poof like Jaime Dimon goes on about how he deserves to piss on Chase customers? Why do so many Americans bitch and moan about the tax and spend Big Gub'mint when there's a bunch of ivy league yahoos turning their 401(K)s into hash with some new cockamamie scheme? Why do we pretend the financial system isn't being directed by nothing more than gambling addicts in fancy suits!?

Hell, if we can't admit the emperor is naked then can we at least tax the shit out of him?

War on Errorism

Betcha didn't see that coming, did ya? Muslim terrorists again, but Chechen Muslim terrorists. I'm betting you don't even know what a Chechen is.

Here are two of them. Fighting for the Taliban.

You should know of course. And we all shoulda seen this coming because Chechen rebels have a long and loud history with Al Qaeda - thousands of them went to Afghanistan in the early days of the war to fight alongside Osama bin Laden and the Taliban, just for starters. But Chechnya has been a blind spot through the entirety of the War on Terrorism for the stupidest of reasons, like old Cold War prejudices.

Russia: "American friends! Please help us with Chechen-Al Qaeda!

America: "Up yours, commie!"

Russia: "We do not understand. You say you fight terrorism and is terrorism in our backyard. Rebels -"

America: "Oh, rebels you say? Well, we'll just send our Special Forces to train them!"

Russia: "...But they murder children at school..."

America: "Let freedom ring, Stalinistas!"

Russia: "o.O"

That's paraphrasing of course, but not too far from the reality. Chechnya has been a hotbed of terrorism for years but knee-jerk Russophobia has made it invisible to Washington, which went out of its way to dismiss any argument that Chechen separatism, with its Al Qaeda ties, was somehow part of the grander War on Terror. "It's just a war of indepenence!" the particularly dumb pundits claimed. Another war, technically. They sorta won the first one in 1996 and celebrated their newfound liberty from the Kremlin with kidnappings, Sharia law, and invading Dagestan.

The Washington response to all of this? Cozying up to the Chechens. This was back in the Bush years and as an appropriate counter to Democrats always being the best on national security, Republicans always do what's worst for the country. Even last week, with the FBI and Boston PD on a manhunt, Senate Republicans voted against any sort of gun regulation. Because God forbid we have a national gun registry that, say, could've helped identify the Tsarnaevs when they armed themselves for their impending shootout with police.

Playing kissy face with a crowd that openly brags about its AQ ties is stupid enough, but to then make it easier for them to kill Americans because you want to keep getting NRA kickbacks? That's a whole new grade of stupid right there. Really, the entire War on Terror has just been one stupid bungle after another. It focused the reflexive racism of many Americans on the Middle East since the 9-11 hijakers were almost all Saudi trust-fund brats, which allowed a natural transition to Iraq because all those darned wogs look alike. The entire culture has conflated "terrorism" with Islamic fundamentalists in a desert shouting and hollering and being dirty oriental stereotypes so that when a serious threat shows up we're all caught with our pants down.

And Chechens are serious. They've been giving Russia the business for twenty years now, no matter how many of their apartment blocks get swiss-cheesed by ZSUs. They've got a generation of young men raised in urban guerrilla warfare - as demonstrated by the Boston bombers putting up one hell of a fight against police. Arab and Af-Pak holy warriors are way more suicidal, typically using themselves as a delivery vehicle and getting blasted to Paradise. While sad and awful and blah blah blah, that approach does make them something of a self-correcting problem.

ZSU: For all your anti-aircraft and urban pacification needs!

Chechens, in contrast, conduct themselves like proper soldiers. When confronted by police, the Boston duo responded with gunfire and tactical retreat and I don't doubt they had plans for more attacks if they'd gotten away. And taking the worst case scenario that this wasn't an isolated incident, we should all be fucking scared.

Except this time we've got Obama. Not to sound like a fanboy but the guy really is excellent at irregular warfare, as much as I despise his Chicago Schoolboy fiscal policies. If Bush were still in charge he'd probably invade Greece, the dumb cokehead.

Filler Friday

How a Lie is Born

It's a testament to how far we've come as a nation that it only took three hours before we were blaming each other for Boston. A few have speculated that this was a domestic terrorist - a not exactly far-fetched hypothesis - while the bedrock conservatives over at Free Republic have been shouting "false flag" conspiracy theories and getting overly defensive about the domestic terrorists theory. At least when not trying to hang it all on some Saudi.

That last part is what I really want to talk about, because however else this goes he's already been convicted. Some foreign kid on a student visa ran for his life when the bombs went off - wouldn't you? - when he was tackled by a patriotic bystander. The Feds and the Boston PD are on record as saying he's not a suspect now, but that doesn't matter. The New York Post, that bastion of ethical journalism, jumped the gun and got #Saudi trending so all the other networks followed suit.

And that's how a lie was born. Too many Americans right now believe a "Saudi National" is the primary suspect and may already be in custody. Hell, this kid may turn out to be the culprit - rich Saudi students have a history of blowing shit up for God - but even if he isn't he'll still get the blame thanks to the great social networking echo chamber.

Access to information doesn't make people more thoughtful. In the immediate aftermath of the bombing, for every person counseling patience there were a dozen idiots eagerly parroting the "Saudi National" story. Now it doesn't matter if it's true, because it's already #true - it's been repeated enough and nobody cares to really follow up on the story even when joining the chorus.

This is how the internet makes you stupid.

USA: United Sovoks of America

The soviet culture of the United States is always at it's most overt when someone dies. We get to see flashes of it during election season but it really takes death to expose how vigorously we lie to ourselves. About everything.

This is what "freedom" looks like...

Margaret "Iron Twat" Thatcher, who helped lay the foundation for the modern economic crisis through the usual "Government Bad! Business Good!" bullshit, is just the latest catalyst for this depressing show. All the conservatives are naturally hailing her and depicting her boinking Reagen in Heaven but the progressive response hasn't been much different. Lots of bullshit "middle ground" nonsense and outright lies as nobody can break the long established taboo of speaking ill of the recently deceased. The same thing happened when Andrew Breitbart's heart exploded from too much cocaine, with only the eXiled and eXile alum Matt Taibbi daring to say they were glad to see the rotten bastard gone. Taibbi, being more mainstream these days, took a whole lot of flak for being "indecent."

But decency's got nothing to do with this. Americans were just as happy to cheer the deaths of Osama bin Laden and Gaddafi back in 2011. There was dancing in the streets when Obama announced he'd capped Osama - which is understandable to a degree. But the same reaction to Gaddafi? Besides being the target of a NATO airstrike, why the fuck did anyone even care about that sad old queen!?

The Brits have been far more honest about Maggie - hilariously so. And it's got their colonial cousins all flustered. "Insensitive," "Heartless," and some other adjectives popular with the professionally offended have cropped up at the sight of a people expressing their honest opinion of a former leader. You'd think Americans would be all for that sort of thing because democracy and all.

"How dare you express yourself freely!"

And you'd be wrong. American democracy isn't about honesty, it's about a bland groupthink. Everyone weeping at the Official Heroes, snarling at the Official Villains, and smiling dumbly to one another while filled with a seething contempt that occasionally manifests in mass shootings.