geezer

All fanatics must die!

I'm planning my next big project, something to think through, to write while I'm travelling. My time here in the States has definitely prepared me to talk about Americans, Europeans, Brits, and the differences between them. The mutual disdain between Americans and Europeans is palpable here in DC, thick enough to cut with a knife. The Brits remain aloof and faintly amused by it all, but it's worrying too.

According to some of the more radical Americans I meet - people who are asked to address groups because of their supposed erudition - the nations of "old Europe" - France and Germany mainly - view the world purely in terms of realpolitik, only getting involved when they have something to gain, supporting whatever dictator or democrat can give it to them.

Americans on the other hand, they posit, have a Wilsonian tradition of intervening to make the world a better place. America is a great liberator, a great democratiser, it has core values that other countries don't have. America hasn't always acted that way, they admit, but the reason for that is because the realpolitik-thinkers at the State Department and the CIA have made America act like a European country, betraying its roots, they say. These kind of evangelical democratisers revel in the "missionary spirit" of America.

I don't think the sort of Americans who talk about value-led foreign policy, about democratising the Middle East, speak for most Americans. I think most Americans are still sitting on the fence, I think they'll be hard converts to Imperialism, I think they'll reject the label and the responsbilities of the job of being the world policeman, even if they like the benefits of Empire. I guess for a lot of them there are no benefits - their jobs are being outsourced to Delhi or wherever. What do they care about the outside world? With oil prices at $40 per barrel, what has it done for them lately?

At this moment of skyrocketing anti-Americanism, I think it's of great importance for Americans to decide whether this government, and the foreign policy evangelists that influence it, are speaking for them. It has to be put more fairly than I have put it here thus far, so I'll briefly lay out a more balanced view.

Should Americans seek to make other countries democracies, or at least pluralities, where all men and women are equal, where power is derived, to some considerable extent, from the people? Should America use its great might in the service of right? Should it prevent genocide, for often it can be prevented. Should it prevent wars of aggression? Should it remove dictatorships that are too entrenched for their people to overthrow?

I suspect most Americans would answer yes to some or all of these, qualifying their answers with "depends ..."

This is an eminently sensible and moral viewpoint. We should try hard to help others when we are confident that we can succeed, that we won't do more harm than good, and that we won't destroy ourselves in the process. We need to be better at communicating and implementing our good intentions.

But I also detect a belief in Americans that people in other countries should solve their own problems. This is actually rooted in a widely-shared sense of humility in Americans that foreigners would be rather surprised to discover. Contrary to the evangelists, who believe that America is a beacon of light in a dark world, most Americans believe that people of other nations are absolutely capable of freeing themselves, of eschewing the desire to conquer or slaughter each other. Most Americans have very little of the missionary in them. Unsurprisingly, most of the foreign policy evangelists are white Anglo-Saxon males.

In the flabby liberal fringe of the American middle classes, however, I tend to meet the most despicable, and worst-informed of all the types of isolationists present in this country. Mindless anti-authoritarianism and deep-seated hostility towards pragmatic people of all kinds (leaders, soldiers) are their defining and only features. Though they read the Washington Post every day, all the liberals in America combined boast less intellectual curiosity and analytical honesty than one Washington cab-driver.

Who will reclaim the hallowed middle ground between radical evangelists and kneejerk liberals?

Who will advocate the realistic idealism that could make America both great and good?

Not Takoma Park liberals, and not those lunatics in Rumsfeld's office either!

Ranting on Iraq

Well,

I spent most of the day at Congress, attending the Rumsfeld hearings, in which he got a pretty light going over. That might change in the future as people focus on why it took a whistleblower to uncover the abuses at Abu Ghraib, and at what levels the psychological and physical preparation of prisoners for interrogation was recommended. But this is all too reasonable to constitute a proper rant, so to hell with moderation and here goes ...

There are smarter ways to build rapport with a prisoner prior to interrogation; it takes time, which the US didn't have in October-December when most of the abuse took place and insurgent attacks were spiking. It was also not smart to get caught roughing up and humiliating prisoners, for business or pleasure - this will cause a major increase in anti-Americanism, the nail in the coffin of a terrible hearts and minds effort since 9/11.

BUT

I guess I have to admit - with some hesitation - that I don't really see too much wrong, in principle, with roughing up prisoners or war, playing on their worst fears, and generally softening them up. It is truly tough luck for any poor sod who gets incarcarated by some twist of fate, I'll agree. Ultimately though, I have no real sense of moral outrage - people are people - and the sanctimonious crap at Congress today stuck in my throat as usual. I can understand how:

- bored and ill-trained reservists and soldiers can receive sloppy advice about "enabling" effective interrogations by conditioning the inmates, and then - over months of utter boredom and depression at being stuck in the most psychically polluted place in Iraq - this advice germinated into a bizarre titilation-driven piece of totalitarian street theatre.

- US army chicks can get a kick out of leading a Muslim guy around on a chain (or at least posing for a moment with the chain that the unit sadist was using to take the prisoner for walks). Ever since 9/11, all through Afghanistan, Americans have had a fascination with the idea of western women fighting Muslim men - it is as close to the war of the sexes as we've seen so far. Oddly for me, I find myself falling in line with Charles Krauthammer on this issue. He stated in today's Washington Post:

Jihadists, like all totalitarians, oppose many kinds of freedom. What makes them unique, however, is their particular hatred of freedom for women. They prize their traditional prerogatives that allow them to keep their women barefoot in the kitchen as illiterate economic and sexual slaves. For the men, that is a pretty good deal -- one threatened by the West with its twin doctrines of equality and sexual liberation.

Which is what made one aspect of the Abu Ghraib horrors even more incendiary -- the pictures of female U.S. soldiers mocking, humiliating and dominating naked and abused Arab men. One could not have designed a more symbolic representation of the Islamist warning about where Western freedom ultimately leads than yesterday's Washington Post photo of a uniformed American woman holding a naked Arab man on a leash.

Right on Krautmeister.

What am I advocating? Let's just scale back on the sanctimoniousness and accept that people do things for reasons. And let's be aware of how SURREAL this is all becoming, when George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld promise justice for, apologise to, and arrange compensation for those abused at Abu Ghraib, even though odds are that a number of those shown were killing Americans weeks before, and were professional fingernail-pullers in the good old days.

Revenge: A dish best served cold? Or just leaves me cold?

I had an outburst last night as I stepped out of Kill Bill - granted I was in a bad mood, granted I had low expectations, but nonetheless, it counted as a Rant.

If I met Quentin Tarantino, I wouldn't know what to say to him. A bit like Donald Rumsfeld. If I were stuck in a lift with either or them, I would find it hard to utter even a word. Perhaps because what would come out of my mouth, for either of them, would be a garble of unsustainable criticisms. The first is an artist, so he's on holy ground when it comes to being criticised - everyone has a god-given right to criticise him, but no-one has the right to condemn him for making his art. The second is a politician, so - again - criticism is hard to apply. Like all politicians, he has been dealt a hand of cards, and now he's got to play them. He'll never please everyone, and everything he does will be subject to second-guessing of the counter-factual "what might have been" kind. Neither will ever be completely right, or completely wrong.

I'm very angry at both of them.

For now, I'll contain my comments to the former, though, on account of the fact that he just released a new movie, is trying to get it back, and needs my 19 hits an hour (thanks Mum).

My thought were racing as I left the cinema - it felt like mercury in my veins - it was nice to feel angry, really fucking outraged, for a change. I couldn't help but feel insulted. Because Kill Bill, and other films like it, are killing the cinema and turning it into a big television. I won't pretend there has ever been much quality control in the cinema - thank God, or half my favourite films would be banned - but let's face it; Kill Bill and films like it (Matrix Reloaded, Terminator 3, Star Wars Episodes One and Two) are slowly morphing into video games that lack any thought about dialogue, character, tempo, or the real - rather than perceived - needs of the audience. They think we are a bunch of fucking morons, and they're beginning to convince us they're right. If you want to make a car commercial, make a car commercial!

Compare Kill Bill to some of the Jap movies that Tarantino raves about - like Ran -. Aside from Uma Thurman's wailing scene, there is hardly a moment of compassion, a moment that really moves you to give a damn - in the whole movie. Spoilers be damned, Tarantino already spoiled it. ... take the snow garden fight. Lots of moody music to tell you how to feel (it failed), lots of sombre pouting expressions of slight regret and mutual reverence, but not an emotion in the house.

The director of the Sopranos decided that he didn't want theme music to be intrusive, so he made it natural - it came from things, people. He decided that scored mood music was the bad director's way of telling you how to feel. Say no more.

The fight scenes were too long - they meant nothing, they had almost no tension.

But what bugs me most of all are the ways that the ideals of heroism and strength are portrayed. The hero employed little guile or tactical awareness; when faced with multiple opponents, the ideal approach is to defend the defile. Haven't we seen the 360 degree defence scene from Kill Bill in the Matrix Reloaded? And wasn't it too long then as well? To be spectacular you have to do more than create a spectacle, don't you?

Rick in Casablanca was a hero, flawed and selfless to the last.

Victor Laszlo , the Czech resistance leader from the same film classic, was a hero. When he rouses the French officers and citizenry to sing the Marseillaise it always sends shivers down my spine, and brings a tear to the eye.

One could follow these two very different men through the flames of perdition and back. Where did their spirit go?

Every day, the tyranny of a blank sheet

Is a blank sheet of paper terrifying or liberating? I guess it depends whether you are allowed to just screw it up and throw it in the bin; whether there is another piece of blank paper underneath it.

Sometimes my life feels like a blank sheet of paper. More precisely, each day feels like a blank sheet. Pushing the analogy until it snaps, I generally finish the day having scribbled all over the paper, spilled some coffee on it, and not written much.

I find real blank sheets of paper intensely liberating, so why don't I find life, the opportunities manifest in every new day, intensely liberating. Is it because I have an endless supply of paper, but feel short of days? Is it because I'm good at filling a sheet of paper, but bad at filling days?

I struggle to create something lasting and meaningful, whilst my job means less and less to me. I cannot remember the last time I felt as if my "to do" list was shorter at the end of the day than it was at the beginning.

Apparently my lifelong "sheet of paper" has some interesting things on it; it looks much neater than my recent daily "sheets of paper." But there are some messy bits. Between the time I dropped out of Uni in 1992 to reentering it in 1996, I was in flux. I can't help thinking that I have reached another period of flux - when life is no longer linear. In fact, my life - my work life - feels like a fever. And my relationship is like the deep sanctuary of sleep that you drop in and out of when fevered.

When I was a child and I was in a fever, I would sometimes dream that I was in a small room where the floor was covered by a few inches of marbles. In the dream, I had to clear the floor of marbles, but the more I cleared them away, the more they would run back around my hands and fill up the cleared space.

This dilemma feels familiar to me now. I generally try to advance in all directions at once, which is chaotic. If such a path succeeds completely, one can congratualte oneself. But it usually won't, and even if it did, it is a frantic and unsettling way of life. I think I am still getting used to opportunity. For the last five years I have tried to take almost every opportunity I have been offered. It's time to stop and focus on one or two, because in trying to get them all, I'm missing them all, and I'm becoming a neurotic mess in the process.

With that in mind, I must return to today's piece of paper, which might still be saved.

Avanti!

Ranting

The Ranting thread is where I will rant and rage against The Man, and generally Fight the Power. I am a non-conformist. Laugh if you like, but my words ring true. So most of my rants are probably going to be anti-authoritarian. I rarely get morally outraged these days, so traffic will be low. I'll be interested to see if I can still manage a really good, heart-rending rant ...

The Beginning

This is a beginning, but not The Beginning that I'm going to write about. The Beginning that this blog will talk about is something I think a lot about. By 'The Beginning', I'm referring to something that I feel slowly happening to me - the start of my real adult life, the start of a lifelong relationship, the start of a family, the start of a career. At the same time, it feels like the end of something - the end of my real pre-adult life, the end of singlehood, the end of selfishness, the end of childhood, the end of directionless wandering.

As I write, I can't help but feel self-conscious. But fuck it! I find myself interesting. At least I have that in common with other bloggers. I'm a Brit. I'm 30. I live and work in Washingtion DC. I come from London. I live with my American girlfriend, Maria. We're serious about each other. I have a great crew of friends in London, and I miss them a lot. I'm very close to my family. I work in journalism and consultancy dealing with Middle East security. I'm a nerd - always was - I roleplay (you know, like Dungeons and Dragons), I play wargames, I daydream a lot and I love sci-fi and horror films. I'm very romantic. I like to break rules - I hate being told off. I used to be a workaholic, but now I'm a lazy bastard. I still have the expectation that I should be a big success, but I feel like I'm running out of steam. I run up against rules a lot - I find the moral codes and legal rules here in the US really infuriating. I like to travel to dangerous places. I'd probably have loved to be a spy - but like a lot of things, I never stuck with any one path for long enough to make it a reality.

I'm young, healthy, white, and well-educated - I have the luxury of choices. This blog is about those choices.