MONSTERS

Ineffable Sean Hannity discovers the Phelps family. In shock and awe, but not so moved as to drop the fair and balanced headmaster-like, apocalyptic priest Fox News tone. In shock and awe, but not so moved by their need to burn the fags as to outrage the memory of the fallen in Iraq.

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/114818/thank_god_for_september_11/

Ineffable poster ineffably called Hurleyfantasyworld (to mock the illusions of another one) obediently (and ineffably) cried out on the ineffable IMDb F9/11 board, where everyone has turned his back on the movie and practice the opposite of what it stands for and conveys : “Just look at this nutcase ! This could be something both conservatives and liberals can agree on. That this lady must be banned from military funerals.” I couldn’t have thought of a better cue for a satirical piece if I had tried.

Something both conservatives and liberals can agree on. A fucking MONSTER. You betcha.

Such a rare instance. Such a positive proposal from the pro-Bush uniters. Really doesn’t happen every day, does it ? Except for that Muslim carrying a threatening sign lately. Except for Zacarias Moussaoui. Except for that woman who killed her baby because God told her to. Except for Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris who bowled for Columbine, because of… another rare, exceptional monster (Marilyn Manson), what else ? Yup, such a RARE occasion for ALL of us to agree on something. Brought to you by Sean Hannity and Fox News.

Let's ALL look at THIS nutcase and rejoice in the warm certainty of the world going round as we read in each other's virtual eyes the proof of our own sanity. Let's just ALL stone the Phelps woman - libs and cons - and feel the power of the daily Two Minutes of Love.

Why not, after all ? She is a freak. Why not accept to be floored, why not marvel in a chorus that such people actually do exist, just because it was a topic from Fox News ? Wouldn’t it be childishly partisan ? After all, more power to them if they perceived that the Phelps were nuisances. After all, looking at her doesn’t prevent us from remaining critical toward Minitrue’s official propaganda. No ?

No. As a matter of fact, no.

My point is not that we should or shouldn't look at that woman. My point is that, and why, we are ordered by Fox News to look at her on this occasion. The heading of this thread, "Just look at this nutcase!" shows that Hurleyfantasyworld faithfully conveys exactly what Fox News wants us to do : look THIS way, not THAT way. And no, it's NOT possible to do both. By accusing the Phelps woman of what Bushco does every day in a less spectacular and more encoded fashion, Hannity operates a DICHOTOMY and a SUBSTITUTION : look at them, THEREFORE not at us. He distances himself from the caricature of what he is, and we buy it because it makes us SANE - sane for having elected monsters or doing nothing to bring them down. SO sane.

Bushco are often insulted in various ways but rarely called "monsters". That's because the "monsters" are SHOWN every day on TV. "Monster" etymologically comes from Latin "monstrare", "to show" : a monster is a huge thing that was hidden and suddenly comes to light. It’s not something bad in itself. It’s just something that you got to look at because it is shown. It only gets evil connotations because of the tight interconnections between what is hidden and what we fear. And the media decide of who is a "monster" and who isn't.

Michael Moore has been speaking out against monsters like the Phelps family for ages. Did Hurleyfantasyworld and Fox News give the slightest shit then ? Who cared as long as those freaks JUST harassed the burials of gays who had died from AIDS or been beaten up to death ? What did Fox News have to say about Matthew Shephard's death ? Where were the pro-Bush talking heads then ? Uh ?

I'll tell you where they were !

WAR IS DECLARED: The president launched a war today against the civil rights of gay citizens and their families. And just as importantly, he launched a war to defile the most sacred document in the land. Rather than allow the contentious and difficult issue of equal marriage rights to be fought over in the states, rather than let politics and the law take their course, rather than keep the Constitution out of the culture wars, this president wants to drag the very founding document into his re-election campaign. He is proposing to remove civil rights from one group of American citizens - and do so in the Constitution itself. The message could not be plainer: these citizens do not fully belong in America. Their relationships must be stigmatized in the very Constitution itself. The document that should be uniting the country will now be used to divide it, to single out a group of people for discrimination itself, and to do so for narrow electoral purposes. Not since the horrifying legacy of Constitutional racial discrimination in this country has such a goal been even thought of, let alone pursued. Those of us who supported this president in 2000, who have backed him whole-heartedly during the war, who have endured scorn from our peers as a result, who trusted that this president was indeed a uniter rather than a divider, now know the truth.

NO MORE PROFOUND AN ATTACK: This president wants our families denied civil protection and civil acknowledgment. He wants us stigmatized not just by a law, not just by his inability even to call us by name, not by his minions on the religious right. He wants us stigmatized in the very founding document of America. There can be no more profound attack on a minority in the United States - or on the promise of freedom that America represents. That very tactic is so shocking in its prejudice, so clear in its intent, so extreme in its implications that it leaves people of good will little lee-way. This president has now made the Republican party an emblem of exclusion and division and intolerance. Gay people will now regard it as their enemy for generations - and rightly so. I knew this was coming, but the way in which it has been delivered and the actual fact of its occurrence is so deeply depressing it is still hard to absorb. But the result is clear, at least for those who care about the Constitution and care about civil rights. We must oppose this extremism with everything we can muster. We must appeal to the fair-minded center of the country that balks at the hatred and fear that much of the religious right feeds on. We must prevent this graffiti from being written on a document every person in this country should be able to regard as their own. This struggle is hard but it is also easy. The president has made it easy. He's a simple man and he divides the world into friends and foes. He has now made a whole group of Americans - and their families and their friends - his enemy. We have no alternative but to defend ourselves and our families from this attack. And we will.

http://www.andrewsullivan.com/index.php?dish_inc=archives/2004_02_22_dish_archive.html#107764340071973047

The same Michael Moore has been explaining AT THE SAME TIME that "monsters" were red herrings, and his message is, for a great part, "Don't LOOK at these monsters, follow their trail and FIND the real monsters". And a monster you cease to look at ceases to be a monster. This way, you can see the BIG monsters that they hide.

The media do that all the time, every day. They choose a monster and by doing so keep us out of touch of the real monstrosity by moving it on harmless (ie powerless) targets. The Phelps woman has suddenly BECOME a Fox News freak just because she has distastefully attacked a forbidden taboo, instead of sticking to acceptable ones like "Fags will burn in hell". The troops are a taboo because nobody mocks and outrages them and their memory more than Bushco, so the Phelps family's rants are a wonderful opportunity to convert the tags and the labels of hatred into a DIFFERENT CODE than theirs.

"Bowling for Columbine" started from the "monstrous" act of two "monster" kids and then brilliantly spread its attentions increasingly wide, considering and concocting connections among Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris and the Lockheed Martin missile-making plant that provides much of the employment for Littleton denizens, as well as the bullets sold so cheaply by K-Mart, the NRA's birth just as the KKK was declared a "terrorist" organization, South Park, Cops, and U.S foreign policy. Which made things somewhat more complicated.

Here is an excerpt from one of his interviews at the time :

MM: I'm not drawing an A to B connection, that because they build missiles in Littleton, that's why these kids did that. It's not that simple. I'm just saying that it's worth looking at, how all these things weave into each other. If you were from another planet, and you came here and observed, it would not be lost upon you that in the town where this school massacre took place, the parents of these kids build weapons of mass destruction. It's not just a coincidence. Just as plopping my camera down in Flint, within a two hour radius, you find Charlton Heston; Eric Harris, who grew up there; the Nichols brothers, from the Oklahoma City bombing; and the Michigan Militia. But you could plop that camera down any place in America and within a two-hour drive, draw a similar pattern of insanity.

CF: Insanity that becomes so normalized...

MM: ...That you don't even think about it, you just accept it. Nobody would think about Lockheed Martin and Littleton, nobody did. All those reporters were out there, all these satellite trucks. Did anybody notice that the Lockheed Martin plant was down the road? Hmmm. What's the lesson we're teaching our children here?

CF: You demonize the individuals who commit violent acts, and contain the fear, not having to consider the systemic underpinnings.

MM: We don't want to think that Eric and Dylan are "normal." We need them to be "monsters." It's why we were taught to call them Nazis in WWII, instead of Germans. Germans are "normal." If the guy out in the woods with the Michigan Militia is a real estate negotiator, instead of some crackpot, and has a normal life, that's unnerving. You don't want to think it's as normal as the guy next door, hedging his lawn. It's easier to demonize or separate them off from "us."

http://www.morphizm.com/recommends/interviews/mikecolumbine.html

And now just think of the implications and the ramifications when the "monsters" are terrorists...

Of course we agree to look at the Phelps woman, ALL together, where would we be without her ? We couldn't snicker at those, erm, other freaks who scream blue murder about the Bush regime being a fascist regime. We couldn’t pretend that what we’re living through doesn't really exist. Thanks to the Phelps woman, we know where fascism is, and thank God it isn't in power. The cons can be sure that the government holds the troops in high regard. The libs can have cheap thrills wondering where gays would be if the Phelps freaks had their way, and disregard where gays ARE with the Bush freaks ACTUALLY having their way.

I fuck the Phelps family every day of my life, EXCEPT WHEN SEAN HANNITY TELLS ME TO. I’m just an antisocial leftist freak who only wants to rain on consensual parades and who just can’t be pleased, but I know what I like.