Franchised
The world’s most technologically advanced military keeps missing. When it comes to the barbaric act of stoning people to death, chances are there are more hits than misses. The Iranians plan to put that theory to the test. Others are merciful enough to wash clean their conscience by employing lethal injection.
Death’s a franchise.
In the UK a parliamentary oversight committed has come to the conclusion that the British government should no longer accept on blind faith American assurances that it doesn’t use torture. It’s a little late, of course, but at least the guy that coined the phrase ‘better late than never’ is getting royalties.
Black basements, cages, a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling, some guy in Dockers patiently typing on his Blackberry, occasionally eyeing the slumped figure in the chair across the room covered in sweat and blood too exhausted to say anything coherent, willing to give up anything to make it stop. Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny have been given up as al-Qaeda financiers. Attach jumper cables to a man’s testicles and he’ll tell you the world’s flat and that the moon’s made of cheese. The guy in the Dockers doesn’t much care, he’ll take the absurd and pass it along and somewhere along the line it might just become fact. The next thing you know there’s a Delta Force team storming some remote weather station in the Arctic Circle whose employees thought it might be funny to adorn it with Christmas lights and a large red and white striped pole.
Every morning it’s the same. Story after story worth commenting on knowing that by that afternoon the words produced will be washed away like that ugly feeling you get the morning after the night that lasted until the morning after.
Little fish, big fish, swimming in the sea.
The truth is a fractious thing, despite being promoted otherwise. Far from universal, it serves liars just as amiably. Truth is, the truth isn’t for us. It’s a warm gun in the hands of happy fingers, an ice-cream cone on a warm day melting to remind you that even though it tastes good it ain’t about to hang around.
The truth’s a franchise. Greeters at the door, isles of abundance, smiles at the cash register - where everyone ends up eventually.
I mean, you’ve gotta pay, right?
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July 20th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
“everyone needs to see the prisoner
they need to make it even easier
they see me as a symbol, and not a human being
that way they can kill me
say it’s not murder, it’s a metaphor
we are killing off our own failure
and starting clean”
— Ani Difranco; Crime for Crime
A way with words you have Matthew.
“Death’s a franchise.” A franchise established everywhere you go.
Makes you sick doesn’t it??? Or does it even make us flinch.
Torture; murder …
Heading to work yesterday I caught a view of a body laying beneath a white cover; only its feet exposed. Later I find out it was a boy I went to school with, shot over an argument. When I saw the body I felt nothing; nothing. When something becomes a franchise it no longer phases you. It’s like the McDonald’s you expect to see in every city you ever visit. Its something so integrated into our lives. Its only until we go without that we start to see the problem.
“I mean, you’ve gotta pay, right?”
How about some resistance???
Just wow! And amazing post!
July 20th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
“Little fish, big fish, swimming in the sea.”
Made me think of this image:
http://www.anarchistblackcross.org/images/library/images/fish.jpg
July 20th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
Everything’s a franchise. Look around. Health, Love, Peace, War, Family, Pet’s, Imagination.
You’re right Amanda, it no longer phases us, but why is that? I think saying it doesn’t phase us is part of the problem. It puts the focus on something outside of us, something external to us that made us this way. It’s up to each and every one of us to stand up and say I’m not going to take this anymore.
There was an old homeless guy walking down the street at Dundas Square in TO last Monday. It’s one of the bussiest intersections in TO. He was swaying as he walked and then he fell to the ground and lay there. I looked around to see if anyone would help this guy who just passed out and landed on the ground. Nothing, it didn’t phase a single person. I made it phase me.
We are the begining and end of everything. Everything starts with us.
July 21st, 2008 at 5:15 am
Awesome post. Are you sure about the Blackberries? I thought it was handwritten notes…
July 21st, 2008 at 6:26 am
Truth is a funny thing. I always thought that just because you say something forcefully and repeat it enough times, that doesn’t make it any truer. But, maybe I’m wrong.
July 21st, 2008 at 12:13 pm
Good on the UK, and certainly better late then never. Its a shame they probably wont extend that finding to simply state that they should no longer on blind faith accept American assurances on anything when it comes to the War on Terror and pretty much the whole of the middle-east. One can always hope though…
Sadly, truth is a relative and subjective thing. It always has been, and always will be. One person’s terrorist is another person’s patriot. One person’s good is another person’s evil. Yet no matter which side of the line you stand on, no matter the debate, you know what the truth is (relative to you). Our individual notion of truth is so powerful that even when we are forced to confront the falasy of what we consider to be true, we will slip into denial about it.
So why do we cling to this notion of truth? What is it about this idea that draws so much of our attention and energy? Perhaps it is simply a desire to have complete and total assurance about something, to know that regardless of anything else, that in regards to that particular something we know the truth and that the truth will remain fundamentally unchanged. Even though we know that the universe is constantly changing, we do not logically extend this to the idea of truth. Instead we seperate it and put it on a petistal to worship as some sort of complete and perfect diety.
Perhaps the only truth in this existence which is constant and unchanging is death. In the end, death will find us all, and someone will probably be there to make a buck or two when it does.
July 21st, 2008 at 12:38 pm
ket…truth doesn’t make a noise.
July 21st, 2008 at 5:52 pm
“The truth’s a franchise. Greeters at the door, isles of abundance, smiles at the cash register - where everyone ends up eventually.”
http://www.chomsky.info/debates/20060906.htm
Some thoughts by Noam Chomsky and Robert Trivers on the role of mass media and education in our society. Basically the media is used to promote ignorance that favours the interests of the wealthy and education serves as a kind of indoctrination to self-deception that allows otherwise intelligent people to spend their lives advancing the interests of a priviledged minority.