Postmodern classic?

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Posers and problems

Got the day off! Yay! So I can waste time on the Internet!

One interesting thing has been the Swift-boating of antiwar hero Jesse MacBeth. Who is Jesse MacBeth, you ask? Ah, I guess it has not been in the papers. Jesse MacBeth is the former Special Forces/ 3rd Ranger Battalion slaughterer of Iraqis, now working as a conscientious antiwar advocate in the Seattle/Tacoma area, Washington State.

Let me just stop there before I make myself sick. This loser made a few webpages and put a video up on 'The Socialist Alternative' site and other antiwar affiliates. I guess he thought he could put out these easily checked lies and no one would catch him? Well, didn't work out that way. I first read of him the other night at Blackfive, a great milblog (where the stories are at least 50% more truthful, haha). Now he's an internet superstar, even has his own Wikipedia page. Another comprehensive collection of links to people dissecting this story is found at Hot Air. Interested parties all across the vast Web are getting all up in this guy's various frauds and mistakes, such as this thread at QandO. I don't think anybody reading this site would need to know, but for reference, here are some tips for fraudulent impersonation of military folks. Iowahawk has the first draft of Jesse's response. Here are some other 'fake but accurate' stories circulating around the Internet about the military and Iraq.

Anyhow, enough about that. There are enough interesting things going on in the world. Like Iran: wonder how that place will end up. Evidently, in the midst of these high oil prices they are having money troubles. Maybe it's not much, but their 'allies' in the Lebanese Hizbollah are also disavowing them. Doesn't look good for them. I'm reading an interesting book called 'The Case for Goliath' at the moment, about America's present dominant role in the world, and one of the interesting parts is how bad we are at nation-building. Which kind of refutes the whole 'imperial' accusation, we really don't have the desire or experience to do it, as a traditional empire would. One of our threats could be- don't make us pay too much attention to you, you don't want us to 'fix' your country. If the Iranians could've just kept a lower profile with their terrorism and regional aspirations, they would be in a very easier place than bordering US-allied countries to their east and west, but I digress.

There's always something about China being the next superpower, ran across this one at the Futurist, a blog devoted to following the trends of the future. Broad predictions are fun, but there needs to be something to support them. Here's an interesting perspective on the Korean/US relationship, something a bit troubled in recent days. And domestic political observers might be interested in the ramifications of this article on Google's information control...

I can't end this post without a link to the Belmont Club. IMHO, this site just has a great grasp on bringing events together, putting them in the political context of our times. How these cultural and intellectual trends battling in the papers affect the world we live in. In the post I linked to, they are discussing how modern countries fight and what for- using the interview of a current author to compare his outlook to what's going on in the world. Check it out.

Now I'll relax a little- watch some movies, go to the gym, etc. Enjoy!

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