ROCK THE HITLER STASH BRO, IT LOOKED GOOD ON HITLER

I had to embed this from ebaums instead of youtube because, well I dont know why but anyway.

I really loved the TV show "Generation Kill" and really enjoyed Evan Wrights book by the same name. Everyone should see it because it is good and it is good to see good things so just to get that out of the way. Anyway on to this ridiculous video:

   I remember back when I was, I dont know 16 or so when the columbine shootings happened. I was sitting watching cnn in the living room when the story broke (why the hell was I home?). I remember, I think it was wolf blitzer, after running down the list of facts concerning the story and coming back from commercial. He had a moment to sort of reflect on these facts, just moments after we had all found out about it. He uttered this absolutely absurd line, something to the effect of "This is inconceivable, how could anyone do something like this? We cannot understand why this would occur." Being 16, in high school, watching this on television it immediately, to me, made complete sense. The inability of the talking heads on television, immediately afterward but also in the weeks and months afterward to comprehend this event thoroughly confused me. Again and again I heard this ridiculous rejoinder "We cannot understand". There seemed to be then, and now, as displayed in the video at the beginning of this post, this complete inability to sympathize or even attempt to sympathize with the subjects of the discussion. It struck me again when 9/11 happened. The same story. Watching television, CNN, Wolf Blitzer, terror, "We cannot understand". It seemed, again, obvious to me why people would commit acts of terror and almost inconceivable that anyone couldnt understand. Thinking about this now, and then, I realized that there was not actually any attempt to understand. I had misunderstood the statement, assuming it was some kind of searching question when it was in fact not a question but a statement of ideology, "we cannot understand", a statement of affirmation, "we will refuse to understand" refuse to even attempt to come to understanding.

   It was then, and now, an obvious line in the sand. It reminds me of the (completely fallacious) quote from Marie Antoinette "let them eat cake". It, though fictitious, illustrates this willingly ignorant stance. As if wolf Blitzer was drawing this line between himself, the columbine shooters, the "terrorists" and saying, "I cannot understand them, I refuse the validity of their ideology by not even acknowledging its existence"

   We see this same kind of willful ignorance in the report above. The reporters strongly segregate themselves from the soldiers in the piece. Stereotyping and pigeon holing them as a "digital media generation at war". They are digital, I am analog, they seem to say, completely incongruous mechanisms of communication. The best line though is the one by Even Wright "One thing about them is they kill very well in Iraq." What a completely ridiculous revision of history. The war in iraq has been one of the lowest "intensity" conflicts the united states has ever been a part of. Never mind the atom bombs of old, the my lai massacre, these kids listen to RAP and HEAVY METAL, they are inhuman! Complete animals! They listen to music about violence and this is apparently enough to condemn them as "An ultra-violent culture" "generation kill" etc. etc.. I suppose it was the 18yr old listening to drowning pool that fabricated the weapons of mass destruction as well? I suppose if they wrote "PEACE" on the lower receiver of their m4s it would somehow humanize them? I suppose the private military in the US was opposed to the war in vietnam? I suppose that in the lead up to the war in vietnam there where nationwide protests? There where of course no protests, only untill the end and some of the worst fighting had occurred, only then did anyone protest the war in vietnam. "Generation Kill" (my generation) actually started protesting the war in iraq before it even began. I would argue we had a greater show of pacifism than before any other war in american history (to my knowledge). Even the ideas of pacifism and "anti-war" is more common and more alive than it ever has been. The idea that no war is a just war is in fact so common it is almost a parody, almost empty rhetoric. But of course these mindless journalists are completely out of touch with the greater american reality, living in their magnificent fantasy lands of NPR, Gap sweaters, toyota priusis and thinly veiled class-ism. Because of intensified communication technologies we are hyper aware of violence, in any form in our society and it juts out uncomfortably, but taking this awareness as a pandemic reality is completely naive. I love rap and used to listen to Pantera when I was 16 but this is the same sort of ridiculous accusations that where made after columbine "Marylin Manson and DOOM caused columbine" or whatever nonsense. Im not saying media doesnt influence behavior (I quite emphatically agree that it does) but tupac and the battle of fallujah are completely coincidental.

   It is not the lyrics or aesthetic of the music, or the violence of video games, or the anonymity of the internet we should really be concerned with, though they are infinitely interesting. It is again, not the message but the medium itself that is the message. This intellectual "walling off" is a weak attempt to segregate the messages within a medium (and their effects) from one another. The intention is, for me, obvious. The intention is to show that the reporters, or writers or whatever, are not like these "killers" or "terrorists". And this intention is manifest specifically because these reporters are just like the people they are reporting on. They are the terrorist. They are "killers". "It's the ultimate rush -- you're going into the fight with a good song playing in the background," Do you think a reporter would have anything different to say riding into "battle"? Sure he might listen to the doors instead of ice-cube but it is really the same difference.

   In fact I would argue that this defense mechanism "we cannot understand" is part of the very ideology, the same very defense mechanism, at play in columbine and 9/11 and the war on terror itself. So by way of example: these bullies refuse to understand or sympathize with these weird kids who like DOOM or whatever and so they pick on them ("Trench coat mafia? Thats fucking GAY!"). So then these kids getting picked on respond in turn: "Oh everyone belittles me and denies my humanity so I will deny theirs and shoot them". So then they shoot up the school or whatever. Then Wolf Blitzer again "we cannot understand this!" denying again, the humanity of all of the students. "I cannot imagine what it would of been like to go through that" they say. "I cannot even imagine your humanity".