Insurgoterrmilitia Ideogangs

[marct]

Marc,

I think this is what some of your "colleagues" actually believe the HTTs are doing.

Not at all! I'm shocked and appalled that you would think an Anthropologist would come up with this .

Here's the Anthro version - from the extreme Post-Modernist Syndrome side. Bear in mind that none of the real people on the HTT's would ever spout such sierra...

**********

Scene, a street in Baghdad, Ahmad the garbage man has been stopped and surrounded by an American patrol.

Patrol Leader (Through interpreter): Now Mr. Ahmad, can you tell us how you, as an enlightened individual, feel about the immediate after effects of elitist, Imperialist American aggression?

Ahmad: Hunh? Uh, you guys are US troops aren't you? I ain't got no involvement in jihad let me tell you! The empty 155 shells in the truck are on there way to the scrap metal dealer, I picked them up yesterday, they were doorstops at Sadaams old place.

Patrol Leader: So that means that you are feeling as if the naked grab for economic power by US multinational corporations has led to a decrease in your personal libety?

Ahmad: (looking totally confused) Umm, well, sort of. I used toi be a palace architecht but, like I just said, I don't do Jihad!

Patrol Leader: Mr. Ahmad, you shouldn't consider that the perfectly normal expression of moral outrage at having your livelihood destroyed, your neighbours slaughtered and your country occupied by foreign crusaders, this "jihad" in your culture's equally valid terms, is anything but a matter of non-violent protest against an undeniably oppressive occupation.

Ahmad: (looking totally confused right now) Ah, are you saying that being involved in an anti-American jihad is okay?

Patrol Leader: (sounding indignant) Not only is it "okay" Mr. Ahmad, it is the moral duty of all persons of good will to resist the imposition of a crypto-fascistic, neo-imperialist, ideological hegemony when it is thrust upon them by the unthinking lackies of the capitalist Globalization conspiracy!

Ahmad: (looking around for the video cameras to make sure that he isn't being filmed for Americas Funniest Home Videos) So, um, I said I didn't do Jihad but you seem to be saying I should.... I am getting confused, here!

Patrol leader: (speaking sternly) Mr. Ahmad! Really, there is nothing confusing about the issue! Clearly, you have been oppressed by the occupying crusaders to the point where you have suffered what Gramsci referred to as an internalization of the ideological hegemony that has been thrust upon you!

Patrol Leader; (speaking to the rest of the partol) Mr. Ahmad, I'm sorry to have to inform you that your T-Score is 88.5 which means that there is a high probability you are have been brainwashed and might actually support the illegal occupation of Iraq and the attempts of crypto-fascist ideologs to eradicate your unique and extremely valuable culture! Guys! Cuff him and take him in for re-education!

[Ron Humphrey]

Not at all! I'm shocked and appalled that you would think an Anthropologist would come up with this .

Here's the Anthro version - from the extreme Post-Modernist Syndrome side. Bear in mind that none of the real people on the HTT's would ever spout such sierra...

**********

would be coinsiderably funnier were there not such a corrolation with the thinking of some fairly well known people

[marct]

would be coinsiderably funnier were there not such a corrolation with the thinking of some fairly well known people

Unfortunately, I think you're right <sigh>. Remember, these are my colleagues - I have to deal with them; you guys just gets the splatter . On the plus side, I have been really impressed by what the HTTs have actually achieved and by the response to that success by a number of my more reasoning colleagues.

[Steve Blair]

Re-education? No! It would be cultural sensitivity education and orientation. Since obviously the poor fool doesn't have the sensitivity to grasp the unique aspects of his culture that can only be divined by over-educated outsiders with polysyllabic capabilities.....

[wm]

Marc,
Your version reminds me of the scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail were Arthur introduces himself to the peasant, wrongfully identified initially as "Old Woman," who is collecting muck.

My only question is why no quotations from Habermas Adorno, or some other Frankfurt School wizard?

Well done.

[marct]

Hi WM,

My only question is why no quotations from Habermas Adorno, or some other Frankfurt School wizard?

Well, I suspect it's because part of my mind has been spun off analyzing the rhetoric of some of my colleagues, so it seemed more appropriate to use a bricolage rather than a structural analysis . 'sides that, I find that Habermas actually had some really good ideas; he was just hampered by an incredibly clunky, overly mechanistic theoretical model. Let's just leave Adorno out of it for now (I've been working on a book review where he comes up a lot).

Marc

[SteveMetz]

Marc,
Your version reminds me of the scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail were Arthur introduces himself to the peasant, wrongfully identified initially as "Old Woman," who is collecting muck.

My only question is why no quotations from Habermas Adorno, or some other Frankfurt School wizard?

Well done.

I often use the "She turned me into a newt" episode from the witch trial to explain American politics.

[wm]

I often use the "She turned me into a newt" episode from the witch trial to explain American politics.

Steve,

I see the connection with Sir Bedevere's logic. The only problem I see with that comparison is that, unlike the peasant, American politics can't say ,"Well, I got better." (At least not yet and I'm not holding my breath waiting for it to happen )

[SteveMetz]

Steve,

I see the connection with Sir Bedevere's logic. The only problem I see with that comparison is that, unlike the peasant, American politics can't say ,"Well, I got better." (At least not yet and I'm not holding my breath waiting for it to happen )

I'm convinced that last week when the question was posed, "What can we do about the decline of the dollar?" Rush Limbaugh's answer was, "A duck!"