The Hollow Men
By Steve Hynd Friday Sep 05, 2008 12:30pmGraphic By Driftglass [click image for larger]
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
Andrew Sullivan pointed out that few at the Republican conference - and certainly not George Bush or Fred Thompson - seems to have been able to bring themselves to say outright that John McCain was tortured. Lots of descriptions of what McCain went through but no actual T-word, because Republican policy right now is that none of it is "torture".
And that sad fact made me think of this.
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellarShape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.
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Hollowness and vacuousness (yeah...95% of Americans can't spell it, much less know what it means) are appealing political attributes.
"Urrp...I lke that guy/gal...I wanna by 'em a beer."
Let us create an economic plan then,
for a patient etherized upon a table...
My health care plan?
Oh, do not ask what is it!
Let us go and make our visit!
In the room the pundits raise a din
About new belle Sarah Palin
(with apologies to T.S. Eliot)
If the GOP wants to really connect with the American public, they'll have McCain break wind during the debates.
By the way, I've always loved the "The Hollow Men" references Heart of Darkness, and that Apocalypse Now, based on Heart of Darkness, quotes the "The Hollow Men"... Dennis Hopper's photographer character also quotes "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." Apt comparison, and great pic by driftglass!
STOP THE WHINING AND LETS GET BUSY.
If the prospect of President Palin staring you in the face isn't enough of a jolt-motivation you may as well book your reservation at a reeducation camp in advance and this week.
Been busy, LA.
Busy trying to even FIND Obama in the news.
Didn't the Germans also mythologize Adolf Hitler's WWI service? All great future totalitarian regimes focus on patriotism, nationalism, duty, honor (especially in war), religiosty and scathing derision of those who oppose their views.
That's what I saw at the Republican National Convention.
Liberal AND Proud @ 6:
Yes indeed I hear you trying to find Obama in the neocon "America Second" war party controlled media good luck to us. Now let's all kneel and pray for the return of Jesus.
theWalrus @ 7:
It Can’t Happen Here?
How the heck could T.S. Eliot have known about Diebold, ES&S or Sequoia voting machines?
Long time Eliot fan.
Never saw Apocalypse Now.
Thanks for drawing the connection to my attention.
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Very Powerful Image by DriftGlass - Definitely CLICK to enlarge.
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The difference in this election (as always) will be turnout.
In the 2000 & 2004 elections only a bit more than 50% of eligible voters voted.
And only a bit more than 50% of them voted for Bush.
In other words, the virulent 25-30% CAN and DO win the election.
Register. Vote. Make sure everyone has a ride to the poll.
Here in rural Virginia the Churches (yup! the Evangelical Churches) have free pancake breakfasts on election day and make sure everyone gets to the polls.
That's the competition. Think about it.
The American Public called...they want to know who T.S. Eliot is.
Liberal AND Proud @ 12:
Duhh I duuno he plays for Brewers?
Damn...just got a call from the middle class. It's gonna be difficult to vote, they gotta work that day...and when they get home, they're gonna be too tired.
Liberal AND Proud @ 12:
He wrote the Broadway play, Cats.
Dick Cheney says Russia's actions in the conflict with Georgia are an "affront to civilized standards."
Only a madman would utter something like that.
Beef Jerky @ 15:
Duuuh lemme see he was on Idol? Survivor?
In roughly 5 years or so, America will no longer have any real journalists.
Great post. WTF has happened to my country.
i am puzzled that a nation of afterlife believers is so terrified of death that it will trade truth, dignity and freedom for the false security of jackboots and wiretaps . . . perhaps, one day, our lives will be so devoid of real meaning that the terrorists will lose interest in us . . . then we will be safe
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper
MountainMan23 @ 11:
Beware of the Rapture
These guys could win the White House. We could all wake up January 20, 2009 to that potential nightmare. If that happens consider it an ominous warning any one of these jokers starts dropping to their knees jubilantly proclaiming “It’s finally here the Rapture!” because of a failed foreign policy effort.
That’s your cue to start running for the hills.----
wtf, it isn't your country anymore.
It is now controlled by the same type of people that led our forefathers to actually form this country.
should have said.."drove"...not "led".
Poetry ? Pretty elitist, if you ask your local yokel.
I never thought I'd be thanking Andrew Sullivan but i was so pleased to read his fine point last week(or so). i had just finished Jane mayer's book but had not made the obvious connection that Cheney and Addington had essentially redefined John Mccain's experience. He can no longer claim to have been tortured in the press, though he can still rub our noses in his captured soldier status. I did notice how they had to change the meme, the marketing to not include the icky torture thing, again, oddly, thanks to Andrew Sullivan.
Speaking of DENIAL, John McCain's son, Andrew, whom he does not even acknowledge is his son, is Neil Bush AND Charles Keating in one. And the GOP faithful can see no evil:
http://money.cnn.com/2008/09/05/news/economy/bank_closure.ap/index.htm
McCain is NOT FIT TO SERVE:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdJUCU1UH2w&eurl=http
In addition to consistently creative photo artwork, Driftglass's prose is also some of the best (and most scathing) political commentary on the internet. I highly recommend you all check out the site (why has it become a cpu hog though?...). Again:
http://driftglass.blogspot.com/
I'm very glad he's getting more play on this site.
I think the original caption was worthy of being left on the artwork:
Dear Traitors --
You're gonna need a bigger flag.
There's a different backstory to why McCain has dropped the discussion of torture... Because it didn't happen to him! He was known as the whiniest, singin'est POW of them all, as reported by others who were there at the same time. The kind of guy who would call back the interrogators saying, "Oh, yeah, and I remembered something else!"
He's also the guy who started the fire on the USS Forrestal (144 dead servicemen), wet-starting his fighter while another was immediately behind him... evacuated immediately by helicopter, even before the many wounded. And somewhere in my emails is a report from a subsequent crew-member responsible for the maintainance of his (and other) aircraft, reporting that he wasn't shot down... but was sabotaged by his own crew.
Because once they define what McCain went through as torture then they're bang to right's because what they have been doing is much worse than what McCain went through .
Brando and Eliot... my two favs... McCain? Can't stand the next President of the United States... can't stand him...
I'd love for a repeater, uhg, reporter to ask Dana Perino if the Bush WH believes McCain was tortured. Lets have it on record.
[Deleted. Leave then-Sitemonitor]
Anyone who watched the convention knew exactly what John McCain went through in Viet Nam. He still bears the effects of his torture and as he mentioned in his speech, it changed his life for the better. You don't need to use the word "torture" to see how this negative event shaped John McCain in a positive way. It made him love his country more than self. I've experienced this myself - not because I was tortured but I served my country in foreign lands.
After McKeating/Nutjob are appointed by Diebold we'll have no more of that fag poetry by TS Elliot, Stephen Crane, Allan Ginsberg, Mary Oliver and others; those books are unpatriotic and will be burned in a torchlit ceremony on the national mall.
Everybody will get free Sandi Patty discs and moral books from the Left Behind series.
Rocky 5723 @ 34:
Yeah, I felt like I was being tortured trying to make sense of the convention too.
Beef Jerky @ 15:
Cats??? Did someone call my name?
On a serious note, T.S. Eliot's words ring true. John McCain is a hollow man, still fighting the Vietnam war. He doesn't seem to know how to let go and he seems to have this need to fill his life with young, attractive women. Could it be that he is still trying to recapture the youth that he lost while in a prison in North Vietnam?
Hmmm, that is sort of a problem isn't it? The Republican Candidate having been tortured while the present Republican holding office condones it and even pushed for it. How does John McCain support a party that tortures when he himself had lived through it?
This like everything else about the Republican Party leaves me scratching my head in wonder.
MaryK@29 I'd read about Johnny Clueless' wet start and "songbirding;" I did not realise that his capture was due to the fragging of his plane.
Makes sense, after his "cute flyboy prank" caused all of those deaths on the Forrestal. Who would want to work around a murderous feeb like him?
Rocky 5723 @ 34:
I must disagree. John McCain does not love his country more than himself. If he did, he would never have asked Republicans to take off their "Party hats" and put on their "American hats" because they would always be wearing their American hats. John McCain craves power, control and attention. He always did. His record at the Navel Academy supports attention craving behavior and his rebellious ways are also a form of attention getting behavior. No, John McCain has John McCain first, Party second and Americans last. Not once did he mention how he was going to help the middle class in his acceptance speech.
Jeanne @ 38:
Can anybody say Manchurian Candidate?
Thanks for the Driftglass link, Cernig, I've added it to my favorites.
Ron @ 41:
Well, that explains that. McCain fits right in. The guy who owns Blackwater must be drooling.
Yes, only those who have served their country in foreign lands in uniform, toting a weapon have the capability to love their country, right Rocky? The rest of us putzes - nurses, teachers, firemen, community activists are just so much offal who are not entitled to an opinion.
Look up the word "hubris" you bampot - and then go boil your oversized head.
Fantastic photomontage! Way to go, Driftglass!
I think its unfair to label just the republicans as tortures, the democrats are as guilty as they are complacent.
Rocky 5723 @ 34:
Anyone who watched the convention knew exactly what John McCain went through in Viet Nam. He still bears the effects of his torture and as he mentioned in his speech, it changed his life for the better. You don’t need to use the word “torture” to see how this negative event shaped John McCain in a positive way. It made him love his country more than self. I’ve experienced this myself - not because I was tortured but I served my country in foreign lands.
And we "honor" his and your own selflessness and courage at having done so.
But do you honor the constitution?
Do you honor the noble work of the millions of non-military men and women?
Do you honor the grave sacrifices of fathers and mothers?
Do you honor the freedoms that were granted us by the Constitution?
Do you honor the stupefying loss of the Native Americans?
Do you honor the struggles of African Americans still attempting to free themselves?
Do you honor the free will of all peoples on earth?
Do you honor those that are fighting to preserve these rights by objecting to the misuse of power?
Do you honor those that are struggling to preserve the peace by objecting to war driven by misguided patriotic fervor and horrors of 9-11?
Do you, Rocky? Do you honor anything beyond a military service to country and those that chose to do so or were drafted?
Surely there is more honor within you than that...
Eliot seems right on target with the GOP here:
...their only monument
the asphalt road
and a thousand lost golf balls
Hollow men. That's IT -- go with it.
*
Boy, it would sure change the McCain creation story if someone came out on record and said that McCain's jet was actually sabotaged by his own crewmen because they hated him and blamed him for the deaths of all those sailors. BTW, one of the very few laudable things about Hitler (I think the other was that he liked dogs, although god knows what he used them for) was that he had actually served bravely in WW1 as a combat courier. McCain, on the other hand, had to deal with what was done with him after his plane was brought down. He didn't volunteer to become a POW, and it seems the jury's out on how he handled his captivity.
The graphic by Driftglass cries those thousand words about the current administration.
BobFlash @ 46:
guilty, yes, but equally guilty? the democrats' failure to stop the bush administration's torture program, while a grave breach of their duty to uphold the constitution and a clear moral failing, cannot be compared to actually ordering, orchestrating and performing torture
what is more, most democrats have at least tried to stop the torture (all but one democratic member of the house supported a ban on waterboarding) . . . the same cannot be said of the republicans (except the 5 brave house republicans who voted to stop the waterboarding . . . though john mccain was against torture before he was for it!)
This is how the world ends. . . .
"honor" is also a word of convenience, just like "prisoner" "patriotism" "pride" just words to sling to the choir like red meat for effect and when needed in a pinch.
which is why we need to hold obama to his "hope" and "change" platform/agenda/approach so that these aren't just pushbutton words.
[Deleted. Stick with copiers. You're horrible at flamebait-Sitemonitor]
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