SuperWeed

Condoleeza Rice announced strict economic sanctions against Iran today, arguing that the state sponsors terrorism and is a nuclear menace. For all of you who use the word “ironic” when what you mean is “odd” or “striking,” this is actual irony. The only state currently engaged in both overt terrorism (attacks on civilians in two countries that have not aggressed it) and nuclear proliferation (plans to not only make but actually use new “bunker-busting” nukes), not to mention covert aid to death squads and torturers in numerous nations, is, of course, the USA. I must say that Rice handled the delivery flawlessly, not even cracking a smile when making patently absurd statements. (The trick to truly effective irony is keeping a straight face.) I love how she calls people who resist the occupation of their country by a foreign power “insurgents.” Let’s start using that word when we talk about the French Resistance!

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson got in on the act, asking banks and other companies not to do business in Iran because the military and commercial enterprises are so entangled that “it is nearly impossible to know one’s customer.” You might think you’re doing business with a harmless entertainment company like, say, NBC but then it turns out that it’s owned by GE, which turns out to be a military contractor reaping profits from the adventurism of an unelected warlord so it turns out you’re supporting terrorism every time you turn on the TV. OOOPs — wait — that’s here. Again, you’ve gotta give it up for the straight face.

For a long time, I’ve been calling for economic direct action against the Bush regime. And, certainly, the complicity of the military-industrial-complex in the crimes of this rogue state is one more reason to be as freegan as possible. But I’ve got to face the fact that the consumers of the world aren’t (yet) ready to slap economic sanctions on our CO2-spewing, mountaintop-chopping, waterboarding state.

Someday, maybe. Meantime, I’m boycotting irony. The next time Hillary Clinton tries to get a giggle by schoolmarmishly demanding that Iraqis take responsibility for their own country or Barack Obama tries to get a belly laugh by threatening to keep the peace by bombing Pakistan, I’m not going to crack a smile, no matter how good they do at keeping a straight face.

Here in the USA, where “liberation” means occupation and a judge can’t hope to be named Attorney General unless he proclaims support for torture and disregard for the rule of law, Orwell’s Doublethink and Newspeak are alive and well in chicken country.

The fabulous Karen Dawn of the always useful DawnWatch service has alerted us to a remarkable article in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette. Published in the heart of Tyson territory, this mainstream newspaper has taken the bold step of parsing and challenging the language used by the poultry and egg industries to make cruel and unusual industry practices seem normal and humane. The article reports on an industry meeting at which executives openly discussed their reasons for adopting euphemisms, such as “knife operator” for the job previously known as “killer,” much in the manner that the Bush regime likes to call torture by partial drowning “waterboarding,” as if it were some kind of surfing.

Speaking of Arkansas, this is a good time to alert new readers that this blog was begun in honor of the memory of Arkansas poultry worker turned animal advocate Virgil Butler, whose death late last year left so many of us bereft. Follow the About SuperWeed link for information about Virgil and links to a few of his remarkable blog posts about his experiences within the industry.

Speaking of this blog, when I began I swore to myself that I would never be one of those bloggers who explains and apologizes for not posting, as if readers were waiting with bated breath for every word. But somebody actually called me “a lazy blogger” last night just because, for the first time, I let a couple of weeks go by between posts. So, for the record, I’ve not been a lazy blogger, I’ve just been in a phase of starting posts and then going off on tangents that took me so far from my original aims that I became dissatisfied and abandoned them. I was in an oddly indecisive frame of mind in general, so maybe that explains it. Anyway, the phase seems to have passed, so I guess I’m back.