osama bin laden is dead

[postrodent]

And I hear that Emmanuel Goldstein ain't doing so well, either.

Comments

[paka]

I was talking about this earlier and I think I finally figured out my metaphor for all this...

The War on Terror is a little like if you were watching a feature length zombie movie. The first five minute segment was horrifying and new, but as the movie continues, the zombies get less and less scary thanks to the screenwriters being inept. And besides, there's a live, somewhat hungry saltwater crocodile lose in the theater, so how scary are screen zombies gonna be anyway?

[chipuni]

Oldthinkers unbellyfeel Ingsoc.

I got too caught up in the "WE GOT 'IM" of last night. I need to write out my thoughts about Bin Laden's capture...

[prickvixen]

Nobody gives two fucks for BELA

[postrodent]

You're not treating this solemn, yet joyful moment with the gravitas it deserves. :>

[bossgoji]

I admit I'm actually pretty goddamn happy about this. I mean, I guess it's weirder to grow up with all that junk for more or less your entire adult life. I mean, like, brain tape since small times, Osama is the Bad Guy. In terms of weirdness, imagine the FBI releasing a statement saying they caught, like, Keyser Soze. "But wait," your brain goes, "isn't he a made-up person?" So in one sense, WOO, GO TEAM, but in another sense, was this guy an actual person for reals, and not something imagined? And he's dead now?

I feel good about it, but also profoundly odd about it as well.

[postrodent]

Yeah, that was part of what I was trying to express. It's kind of like they've found Keyser Soze, but also like they've caught Jesus. There probably was a Jesus Christ, and there probably was an Osama Bin Laden (choose whatever spelling you like), but their actual _lives_ are so wrapped up in myth and legend, all of it serving the cause of one interested party or another, that it may be literally impossible to get to the actual truth. And perhaps the truth doesn't even matter, because the myths are so widespread, and will only be exposed long after they have ceased to be important.

I'm not selling 9/11 conspiracy theories here; I have no pet theory about what happened on that awful day. I'm just saying that I'm not inclined to trust anything that anyone else says happened either. Some planes crashed. Some buildings collapsed. America invaded Afghanistan. Everything else is, to however small a degree, uncertain.

[bossgoji]

Pretty much this, yeah. It was really horrible and unfortunate but it also happened a very long time ago(from my perspective anyway, 10 years is a LONG TIME when you're in your twenties), and by this point any emotions I can feel about it are so muted and filled-in by gut cultural reactions that this all has a weird, far-off air to it.

[ff00ff]

Have you seen the pictures of the Administration assembled in the war room watching the raid? It's not quite the same as it was envisioned in Dr. Strangelove.

[prickvixen]

More like 'Patriot Games' maybe?

[ff00ff]

I haven't seen it. Though I think the difference between the Dr. Strangelove war-room and the photographed war room is similar to the difference between killing bin Laden and having an official state enemy like Goldstein.