![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Oct. 20th, 2002
Attack on Australia? Please.
Oct. 20th, 2002 01:13 amSpeaking as an Australian, I was outraged that there was blatant emotional manipulation to get the people of Australia to support a war on Iraq/Terrorism/Al Qaeda/whoever Bush doesn't like by claiming that the attack on Bali was an attack on Australia. Um, hello? Last I checked, Bali wasn't an Australian state or territory. I can support it as an attack on Western civilisation/people who support Bush, but an attack on Australia alone? No. There are a lot of people who dislike Westerners for reasons not related to the US's current president (although that isn't winning them any favours either). Western civilisation has been seen as a corrupting influence in many places, but SE Asia is definitely one of them (I knew that article sPacific nOceans would come in handy one day...).
I don't want to deny the terror of the attacks, but we need to look at them in a more rational way. I don't know about you, but when I saw the first news broadcast whinging about what the attacks did to Australia, I raged into the kitchen screaming "What about Bali? Last I checked, tourism was a primary source of their economy, and that's sure as hell going to go down the toilet!" Several news broadcasts later, the potential problem for the Bali economy was mentioned.
I have never supported a "War against Terrorism", nor have I supported a war against Iraq. I have no desire to see school friends disappear in any conflict that may arise. I have no desire to see my hard-earned money frittered away via a War Tax on the massacre of a foreign people simply because one extremist group within that country decided that didn't want to put up with the US any longer.
When I was in high school, we examined emotive language by looking at a vocab listing of words used to describe the US and Iraq, to show how the media manipulated public opinion. Exactly the same thing is being done today.
What's worse is the way that everyone assumes that bin Laden is behind it. Where's your proof? Couldn't it have been some psycho whose mother ran off with a tourist one day leaving him stranded, so he's decided to get some revenge?
I am increasingly of the opinion that people are stupid.
I don't want to deny the terror of the attacks, but we need to look at them in a more rational way. I don't know about you, but when I saw the first news broadcast whinging about what the attacks did to Australia, I raged into the kitchen screaming "What about Bali? Last I checked, tourism was a primary source of their economy, and that's sure as hell going to go down the toilet!" Several news broadcasts later, the potential problem for the Bali economy was mentioned.
I have never supported a "War against Terrorism", nor have I supported a war against Iraq. I have no desire to see school friends disappear in any conflict that may arise. I have no desire to see my hard-earned money frittered away via a War Tax on the massacre of a foreign people simply because one extremist group within that country decided that didn't want to put up with the US any longer.
When I was in high school, we examined emotive language by looking at a vocab listing of words used to describe the US and Iraq, to show how the media manipulated public opinion. Exactly the same thing is being done today.
What's worse is the way that everyone assumes that bin Laden is behind it. Where's your proof? Couldn't it have been some psycho whose mother ran off with a tourist one day leaving him stranded, so he's decided to get some revenge?
I am increasingly of the opinion that people are stupid.
An airport sign
Oct. 20th, 2002 02:28 amJust because it amused me. I should go to bed soon; mother is taking me shopping tomorrow.
( Please don't lick other passengers' luggage )
( Please don't lick other passengers' luggage )
The Argument
Oct. 20th, 2002 09:18 pmI'm confused as to the kerfuffle that the Nazi!Riddle fic of so long ago caused in the HP fandom. Isn't eugenics precisely what Riddle follows in his obsession with purebloodedness?
This person was highly offended, and compared Nazi!Riddle fic with a hypothetical fiction in which Draco was a follower of bin Laden (or, as she spelt it, "bin Lauden"). For one thing, although bin Laden has become the 21st Century's villain's villain, he has very little in common with Hitler in terms of aims. Bin Laden hates America for the bombing etcetera, Hitler tried to reunite Germany so it was a master race and massacred millions of people; not only Jews, but homosexuals, Romany and political dissidents. And I'm sorry, but bin Laden is a pre-schooler when it comes to causing terror and fear in generations. September 11 does not match up to the Holocaust by any means. Perhaps in years to come we will be able to compare him to Hitler in terms of wastage of human life, but I truly hope that does not come to pass.
I understand if you find the topic of Nazism so repulsive that you don't want to read it, but I read the fic and enjoyed it. I love pieces that challenge me, that show moral shading; not only black and white but grey as well. No one is purely evil or purely good: Hitler, for example, was a vegetarian.
At no stage was![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
marvolo or company Nazi apologists; if anything, the Nazi!fic gives some depth to Riddle's "evil" beyond the merely cartoonish two-dimensional evil we've viewed so far in canon.
How can you not draw parallels between the Voldemort reign and Hitler's reign in Germany when JK herself puts the defeat of the Dark Wizard Grindlewald in 1945? Isn't it fascinating to look at things in a wider perspective and realise that as these characters are growing up they are being influenced by the world around them? Riddle's status on purebloodedness only looks shocking from a 20th century viewpoint; those sort of arguments were being levelled against "half-castes" (half Aboriginal, half "white") and so forth in Australia in the 19th century and probably later. The English have been guilty of that sort of obsession with purity since time immemorial. Early British and Celtic histories were essentially stock books, naming all the illustrious forebears and what great works they did.
By no means am I claiming what the Nazis did was right; one of the things that is scariest about them is that you could find yourself agreeing with them. I remember one of the scariest passages I ever read when younger was in a Robert Ludlum book that had NeoNazis as "baddies". There was a speech given by the leader of the party, and I started to fall under the spell of the writing and agree with him. That was one of the scariest moments of my life. Hitler was by all accounts a very charismatic speaker (although I have watched a video of one of his speeches and I think it must lose a lot in the translation); exactly the sort of person who a young Tom Riddle would aspire to.
There's lots of other people's opinions on this matter. Here, and
here.
I think I understand wherekissaki is coming from though. While I can stomach a thoughtful, well-written fic from the likes of people like moritari or even if cairnsy was to write one, I dread to think what the little fandom monkeys might write. (Maybe a song fic, using the songs from the early career of 5ive!)
I think I've said my piece.
This person was highly offended, and compared Nazi!Riddle fic with a hypothetical fiction in which Draco was a follower of bin Laden (or, as she spelt it, "bin Lauden"). For one thing, although bin Laden has become the 21st Century's villain's villain, he has very little in common with Hitler in terms of aims. Bin Laden hates America for the bombing etcetera, Hitler tried to reunite Germany so it was a master race and massacred millions of people; not only Jews, but homosexuals, Romany and political dissidents. And I'm sorry, but bin Laden is a pre-schooler when it comes to causing terror and fear in generations. September 11 does not match up to the Holocaust by any means. Perhaps in years to come we will be able to compare him to Hitler in terms of wastage of human life, but I truly hope that does not come to pass.
I understand if you find the topic of Nazism so repulsive that you don't want to read it, but I read the fic and enjoyed it. I love pieces that challenge me, that show moral shading; not only black and white but grey as well. No one is purely evil or purely good: Hitler, for example, was a vegetarian.
At no stage was
marvolo or company Nazi apologists; if anything, the Nazi!fic gives some depth to Riddle's "evil" beyond the merely cartoonish two-dimensional evil we've viewed so far in canon.How can you not draw parallels between the Voldemort reign and Hitler's reign in Germany when JK herself puts the defeat of the Dark Wizard Grindlewald in 1945? Isn't it fascinating to look at things in a wider perspective and realise that as these characters are growing up they are being influenced by the world around them? Riddle's status on purebloodedness only looks shocking from a 20th century viewpoint; those sort of arguments were being levelled against "half-castes" (half Aboriginal, half "white") and so forth in Australia in the 19th century and probably later. The English have been guilty of that sort of obsession with purity since time immemorial. Early British and Celtic histories were essentially stock books, naming all the illustrious forebears and what great works they did.
By no means am I claiming what the Nazis did was right; one of the things that is scariest about them is that you could find yourself agreeing with them. I remember one of the scariest passages I ever read when younger was in a Robert Ludlum book that had NeoNazis as "baddies". There was a speech given by the leader of the party, and I started to fall under the spell of the writing and agree with him. That was one of the scariest moments of my life. Hitler was by all accounts a very charismatic speaker (although I have watched a video of one of his speeches and I think it must lose a lot in the translation); exactly the sort of person who a young Tom Riddle would aspire to.
There's lots of other people's opinions on this matter. Here, and
here.
I think I understand where
kissaki is coming from though. While I can stomach a thoughtful, well-written fic from the likes of people like moritari or even if cairnsy was to write one, I dread to think what the little fandom monkeys might write. (Maybe a song fic, using the songs from the early career of 5ive!)I think I've said my piece.