Just gross
Joseph Duemer wonders, partly tongue-in-cheek, whether his reliance on a drug is a “vast conspiracy to keep [his] political anger in check”. “Still” he says “this substance has allowed me to get on with a life that had gotten stuck in anxiety & obsession & pointless anger.” Perhaps I could do with some of that as no matter how hard I try, I can’t get rid of my urge to reply John Gross’ blimpish splutterings in the New Cretin.
He confirms my suspicion for the real reason for the ridiculous accusations thrown at the BBC: fear that by spreading to the US market, it will threaten, among others, Murdoch’s Faux News network and its neo-Fascist agenda. (Revealingly, Glenview State Bank’s own faux pas has clearly touched a neo-con/Zionist nerve). But Gross also laments the “unremitting campaign” being waged against the Great Helmsman of our nation: “the BBC goes about its business, Alastair Campbell mounts a counter-attack, Tony Blair looks haggard - and Saddam Hussein, wherever he is, must be laughing.”
Er, well, never mind that the fact that the government moved the goalposts until the ball rolled over the line, and now appears to have lied in the process - and how dare anybody point this out! - but Saddam Hussein has just seen his two sons and 14-year-old grandson killed, as told by Lisa Walsh Thomas but very few others. Yes, nobody will cry over the first two (and let’s not forget Uday began his career under our goverments’ patronage because, we are told, we had to “live in the real world” by supporting dubious regimes. The terrifying and titillating story of him and lions must have coincided with this time). But what - without alluding to Nick Hornby - about the boy?
“Were it not for the pathos of Mustafa’s still being a child, the events would evoke the last scene in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. It’s not, however, very comfortable to laugh at the image of a brave 14-year old boy, his dead father and uncle at his feet, mustering the courage of legendary heroes to fight off two hundred men from the world’s mightiest military, all armed to the teeth against whatever small arms one boy could grab.”
Gross is comfortable with that it seems. So does he think Saddam is too, enough to be laughing? Perhaps he is like his own characterisation of Saddam: able to ignore the death of children because of his psychopathic solipsism, or maybe it’s just that his monocle has conveniently fallen out.
Other Splinters posts of interest:
- Most wanted
- What it all means …
- Bloke down the pub
- In the background BBC Radio 4 was on in the bac…
- Oh well-ian
