Obama & Denmark Vs Stupidity

I can't believe the whole nonsense about those Danish cartoons is still going on. It seems to me that a cartoon of someone, say a religious leader of some kind, depicted with a bomb in his beard/turban/fanny pack might be trying to point out that there are some nutters out there committing violent acts in the name of religion. If I were of that religion and I saw these pictures, I'd possibly think, 'You fucker — what do you know about me and my people?' and maybe write to the newspaper that published the picture saying, 'You've got the wrong end of the stick, mate, it's like this…'

If that had been the reaction, people the world over would have said, 'Gosh, those people aren't at all the way we imagined — I'm glad this provocative cartoon was able to begin the dialogue that is leading towards our mutual understanding and eventual enlightenment as a species.' The cartoonists might not be living in 'safe houses' for fear of their lives and we might all, as one, realise that we have more in common than not and… Sorry, just me getting silly again!

"Stephen, you're just going to cause trouble. You and your crazy belief that we should all just get along because there's no real reason why we shouldn't, you're going to piss people off!"

I know, I know…

Unfortunately, what actually happened was that people in the West watched people in the Middle East and Asia start burning shit and screaming for blood. Em… Not to be a dick here, but isn't that rather proving the point the cartoon was trying to make? You can't get offended if someone says, 'You are a violent nutter,' if your behaviour up to that point has involved burning shit and screaming for blood — both, I'm sorry to say, signs of violent nutterism.

The news that Osama, mythical King of the nutters (whose name is, interestingly enough, an anagram of Obama Sin Laden… Rush Limbaugh can have that one for free. Actually, it's already out there, so much for my witty wordplay, huh?), has released a new single in response to the, ahem, two-year-old cartoons comes as little surprise. I love this:

'[The message] showed a still image of bin Laden aiming with an assault rifle.

"The response will be what you see and not what you hear and let our mothers bereave us if we do not make victorious our messenger of God," said a voice believed to be bin Laden's, without specifying what action would be taken.'

Wow, this guy really makes sense, doncha think? Fucking hell…

Speaking of violent nutters, the U.S. election is still fascinating me. Obama, while I don't believe he's any less a corporate puppet than McCain or Clinton, is at least a corporate puppet willing to say things nobody else dares. His speech the other day, in which he addressed racism in America and the various reasons for it has gained him fans around the world, saying it's like a Kennedy or Lincoln speech. Eh, they're both famous examples of U.S. Presidents ASSASSINATED WHILE IN OFFICE! Jesus, Barack, my friend, you might want to reconsider this whole president thing.

I'm reminded of Dave Chappelle's bit on the first black president, and how nobody wants to be that guy. Second black pres, sure, but first? Let's not forget they shot the first Irish president, and he was white!

Anyway, Obama has made his point about racism in the U.S., that everyone just has to fucking get over it and, to semi-quote Bob Marley, until the colour of man's skin of of no more significance than the colour of his eyes, everywhere is this fucked up distrust of people with different skin tones. He also addresses the religious nutjob, sorry, Reverend Jeremiah Wright Jr. who has lately been saying wonderfully inflammatory things about how Americans are all shits. From the International Herald Tribune, "Wright has accused the U.S. government of being corrupt and racist and has said that the country might have deserved being attacked on Sept. 11, 2001."

Ouch!

So, the Senator from Illinois took on the elephant in the room, pointing out that it affects everybody and needs to stop so everybody can step back from each other's throats and get on with life. Most people lapped it up, praising its bravery and honesty as a speech (not something you get too often in a presidential campaign), but there were some who felt a little differently:

'[Some] commentators expressed a kind of disappointed sense that Obama, in delivering the address, had succumbed to the heightened racial tensions and not simply ignored them.'

Yeah, what a great idea — ignore the biggest issue facing American society! Let's pretend that the historical divide between whites and blacks doesn't exist, cos if we ignore it it'll go away and not fester until we have race riots in the streets. Carole McDonnell, the woman quoted in the piece (her full article is HERE) doesn't seem quite as against the speech as the IHT suggests. The amount of Christian nonsense in it and the following comments worries me… The fact is, you simply can't have a black president in a predominantly white country without addressing the issues surrounding why this is A Big Deal — even if it shouldn't be.

It is a big deal, no matter how much it shouldn't be, and I'm glad Obama has finally realised that, stopped hedging his racial bets and drawn attention to an issue that IS extremely divisive. Perhaps if the U.S. can get over this hump, the rest of the world can too…