and at long last--diane goes on another rant.
Nothing today.
Had I had more of a clue about me, I would have joined in on the general April's Fool hilarity of the Archipelago gang; however, I ausgespaced, and this is just a straightforward entry.
I went back and checked; I've never done an April's Fool entry. Perhaps next year.
The Matrix is a great-looking movie. Virtual reality, Hong Kong-style action (both martial arts and bag-of-guns type setups), stylish settings and off-the-wall behavior.
Its plot, as you might imagine, leaves something to be desired. Darin leaned over mid-movie and said, "I've never seen a fantasy story so obviously dressed up in science-fiction garb before."
Keanu Reeves plays Thomas Anderson, a programmer who has the hacker name Neo. He's sought out by an group of über-hackers who want him to join them in their rebellion, because Neo might be the One. (Whoo hoo! An anagram!) Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) introduces Neo to the Matrix--"No one can be told what the Matrix is, you have to see the movie for yourself"--and teaches him what he needs to know in order to fight the powers that be. There's a lot of martial arts (the best scenes are the fight scenes) and Zen nonsense and introduction of virtual reality rules, all of which get bent when need be.
There are a lot of cool ideas in The Matrix, most of which come from other places. Fantasy, science fiction, Tron. Part of the problem is that the rules of the virtual reality world are so damn malleable. Another problem is, as someone--Ted Elliott on Wordplay?--said, no one asks the obvious question: how do they know the real reality is anymore real than the Matrix?
I definitely enjoyed watching The Matrix. I'm just sorry I spent any time at all thinking about it during or afterward, because it's gossamer-thin.
I've been thinking about Kosovo all day. I don't know what to say about it. Well, I do, but should I? I tend to think that anything I'm going to say is going to get people mad at me (and I'm going to hear about it); I guess the best I can do is explain the reasons why I believe what I do.
(Everything I'm about to say, by the way, is predicated on the belief that what we've been told about what's going in Kosovo and the Balkans is true. I happen to believe it is. Your mileage may vary. But considering the natural resources of the region--copper and iron--aren't of great strategic importance to the US, you'll have to tell me why we've been given the Big Lie on this one.)
A few years ago, when I visited Tiffany in Chicago--which would make this 7+ years ago, I guess; she hasn't been there for years--I went to the Art Institute to see the exhibit "Degenerate Art of the Third Reich." If you've never heard of degenerate art, it's what the Nazis called art made by Jews, modern art, Cubist art, etc. Pretty much anything that wasn't neo-realism and for the glorification of the Aryans. It was a great exhibit, except for one thing.
I was really, really annoyed that they used the term "Third Reich."
Why? Because that was a term the Nazis used to describe themselves. A flattering term. A respectful term. Instead of "Nazi Germany," which means the same thing and gets the point across just as well. It's perspective, it's taking control of the language.
I feel the same way about the term "ethnic cleansing." That's Milosevic's term. A nice, sterile, meaningless phrase that we can toss off without thinking about it.
We have a much better one: "genocide."
No one will use it. Not our government, not NATO, not the media. It makes people really nervous. Why? Not because genocide is a horrible thing, but because if genocide's really going on, we might have to do something about it.
A favorite philosophical question is, If you had lived in Germany when the Nazis came to power, what would you have done? Most people like to think they would have resisted somehow. I doubt this. Because it goes on all the time and not only do we not get involved, people come up with really great reasons for why we shouldn't. National interests! Our boys might get killed!
What are all those much-vaunted national values worth to you, anyhow?
There was a great Frontline a few weeks ago named "The Triumph of Evil." It was the story of the genocide in Rwanda, and how the world stood around and did nothing, knowing full well what was going on. We knew what was going on, we knew that they were slaughtering one another, and we fiddled. It makes me sick. It makes me angry. It's the kind of thing I remember when it comes to vote.
The fact that we did not intervene in Rwanda, or in Bosnia, or in East Timor, or in the godawful hellhole of your choice is not a good argument against getting involved in Kosovo. In fact, I'd say it's a pretty good argument for getting involved. We fucked up once in the Balkans; we shouldn't do so again. Instead of "Why not Bosnia?" I say, "Kosovo because of Bosnia."
We didn't know what we were doing in Somalia, we wouldn't know what we're doing in East Timor. Being in an alliance where the other members are right there, involved, on the scene, makes this whole enterprise a lot more worthwhile. It's not just us; we may not know the area, but they do.
They're not going to do anything without us. That's the thing about being the biggest dick on the planet--we tend to cast a shadow over everybody else. We don't like to stomp in on places without friends; our friends don't want to do anything without our muscle behind them. Who's going to go first? The British? No one will go with them. The Germans? Did that enough this century; they'll hang back. The French? Not likely.
Pretty much they all agree something has to be done about Milosevic. He's a liar, he's a scumbag, he's a mass murderer. Milosevic can not be trusted to tell us which day of the week it is, let alone that his promises are worth jack.
I know that this will lead to ground troops. Reportedly there are no contingency plans to send ground troops in, but they're coming, everybody knows it. (The three soldiers the Serbs are putting on trial? Give NATO an excuse on a platter, why don't they.) People are pretty much going to die in much larger numbers than they have been so far. And that's when it's going to get hard.
For us, at any rate. It's pretty fucking hard in the Balkans for the Bosnians and Muslims and the Albanians already.
A few years ago, on Talk of the Nation, a caller opined that modern weapons had made it easier to kill people. A panelist pointed out that 250,000 people had been killed in (what was then) four years of modern warfare in Bosnia; it took approximately twelve weeks, using machetes, to achieve the same total in Rwanda.
I think about that, sometimes. What it would take to slaughter people up close and personal, with only a big knife?
Yes, that's the kind of thing I think about.
I'm having back problems. But these back problems go way beyond my usual back problems, which are usually centered in my lower back, near my herniated disk. The muscles across the middle of my back are achy and sore. I don't know why--I didn't do my back exercises last time I was in the gym. (I was in a hurry, okay?)
All I want to do is lie down and make them go away. Doesn't seem likely though.
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Copyright 1999 Diane Patterson
Send comments and questions to diane@spies.com