Michael Moore Plays in Baghdad
I'm not a big fan of Moore myself. Overheated rhetoric and junior high video pranks only go so far. But here's a perspective on it that I hadn't yet heard...good reading although it makes me sad. She comments on the movie in her 15 September entry. The 7 August entry is powerful too.
What must it be like to live in a place like that?
4 Comments:
Somehow, I'm not sure it's all that different. The physical responses to the situations are certainly more profound, but given the state of the current political environment here, I'm not sure we are that far removed.
The philosophy and the hatred and the desire to squash those who hold different opinions is all here. The difference being we have a well functioning police force which keeps us all in line, and most of us don't have automatic weapons or explosives.
Break down the thin walls which keep our society 'civilized' and America would be no different.
Curiously, the blog you mentioned and http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/ exhibit the same kind of partisan distinctions on similar situations we see in our country.
Well, yes, it is true that deep down inside we are all members of the "great Family of Man" (or Mankind or whatever you're inclined to call it), but between us there ARE some subtle differences...
For example, we don't have a foreign army dropping bombs willy-nilly on the roofs of our suburbs. Rocket-propelled grenades don't very often come bouncing in through the kitchen windows. We are very rarely dragged from our cars by armed gangs while stopped at a traffic light. Cars aren't likely to explode in the parking lot at Ralph's. Apache helicopters aren't shooting out the lights down on Colorado Boulevard. Our teenagers aren't usually rounded up during random traffic stops and hauled off to prison to be beaten and raped. I haven't heard explosions and automatic weapons firing or seen a tank roll down the street in my town for a couple of weeks at least.
I'm just saying...things are a little different over there and I think the people who are living in the middle of it all deserve a little respect. It must be pretty hard to go about living a normal life.
According to Fuller standards, it's the great family of humanity or 'people'. The first flows off the tongue.
And yes, respect is due. Bombs dropping, things crashing, society a crumbled mess, is not something the US has known since the US Civil War.
I guess what came to my mind was the not so distant LA riots, where the second largest city in our country was lost for a few days.
It makes our partisan battles seem petty, and our wrangling over 'rathergate' silly. That we are, in effect, both the cause for pain and hope is indeed sad.
Your point is well taken... and urges me to be less partisan, and more prayerful.
Tanks rolling down the streets, no... but if your street is like mine a significantly higher number of humvees than an idyllic society would accept.
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