When Your Culture is Mad…

the sanest news is often fake news:

It’s mad to suppose that people who are congenitally unable to give up the fantasy that Obama is a Muslim Kenyan would be satisfied with photos of bin Laden’s corpse. It’s also made to suppose, as Stewart points out, that release of such photos would serve the common good in any way. The main demand for such photos is from ghouls, as the thousand fake, “CHECK THIS OUT! BIN LADEN’S CORPSE!!!” spams on Facebook attest. The ghouls who click on these (and get their well-deserved virus as a reward) are not forenisc pathologists called by duty to examine the evidence. They are ghouls who want to delectate over gore.

I think Stewart, while he probably means well in suggesting that we should publish photos of all the dead and wounded (particularly maimed civilians) in our wars of Empire and Nation-Building, may be mis-guessing the temper of our times. It’s possible that such images might awaken a revulsion and help a Paris Hilton people realize what others are enduring, both in our volunteer military and in other countries subjected to the geopolitical plans of our Ruling Classes as we go shopping and watch “Dancing with the Bread and Circuses”. But it’s also possible that we might just numb out and treat it like a video game or, worse, like a splatter film.

My hope is the former, of course. But it’s not a confident hope. Something has changed when a people can turn “Saw” into a hugely profitable franchise.