Vicious Self-Interest

T

The stories keep cascading through the brain; fully formed mini-soap operas that are gone the next. Realisation after realisation swamps me, and I keep thinking, yes, Peter was right. Maybe it is all about vicious self-interest. Nobody else is doing you a favour. You fantasise about the proletariat, just another working Joe, making the world a better place, and in fact all that happens is they hold parties without you, they snatch the main chance and treat you like dirt, you, the odd one, who allowed yourself to be kicked around, who always thought you were working or writing for some bigger cause; whatever that cause was.

They stand in the garden of the magnicent stone pile at Point Piper, with views up and down the harbour, the glistening lights telling you, telling everyone, you've made it. Nobody invited me. Nobody even mentioned it to me. Not, do you mind doing the night shift, you wouldn't enjoy it anyway. And I realise, terminally, that nobody cares and nobody will ever care, and the oddities you have fashioned into a curious, eccentric exterior, at the heart of it all they couldn't give a rats about you. And so Peter was right, look after yourself first. Write your own books. Finish your own projects. Save the world another day.

These times that were so dark, that spiralled so rapidly out of control, which now seem a thousand years ago, not a few thousand days, a few thousand minutes; as if, already, it all happened to someone else in another lifetime; another historic period altogether. Taking Joyce to the movies today, I think we're going to see Becoming Jane, or whatever it's called, some sweeping period piece with stunning costumes and sweeping landscapes; hoping, between us, to be swept away from our own lives and our own annoying little heads which never shut up. It's still strange, somedays, being friends with an 80 year old woman, but we look at each other and know exactly what we're thinking. She tells me, it's just the body, I don't feel old. And I say, you're 26 years older than I am and I feel old. We laugh, and I reach out; I never reach out; the masks were too firmly in place, the screens of invisibility behind which we hid.

That was a self image I always had; that I was hidden behind screen after screen and nobody, absolutely nobody, could get to me. If you broke down one wall, there was another. And if you broke down that wall, there was another. But as I grew older, that creature, hiding behind those screens, had atrophied into a tiny, terrified character. And then one day someone broke down that last wall to find this terrified, furless, deformed rabbit. They threw hot water over it; and it ran screaching in pain, straight into oblivion.


THE BIGGER STORY:


http://www.attytood.com/2007/03/the_heartbreaking_blogs_from_i.html


The heartbreaking blogs from Iraq that Bush didn't read today

"They have bloggers in Baghdad, just like we've got here."
-- George W. Bush, speaking earlier today to the National Cattlemen's Beef Association.
I was listening -- mostly tuning out, frankly, as I tried to get some work done -- to the president this morning, but I perked up at the mention of the word "bloggers," the first time I'd ever heard the word uttered by the commander-in-chief. Less than three years ago the man was talking about "rumors on the Internets," and just last year we learned he reads "the Google," but mainly for the pictures.
Now Bush is cruising the sphere o' blogs? Here's what he said:
To back up his point that pulling out of Iraq would be a disaster, President Bush has quoted opinions from the secretary of defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the top U.S. general in Iraq — and now, two bloggers from Baghdad.
Bush made a surprising reference to the blogosphere during a spirited defense of his war strategy on Wednesday. The mention seemed even more unusual because the president didn't identify whom he was quoting, so he seemed to be leaning on anonymous commentary.
Here's the passage he then quoted:
Then he began to quote: "Displaced families are returning home, marketplaces are seeing more activity, stores that were long shuttered are now reopening. We feel safer about moving in the city now. Our people want to see this effort succeed."
His point was that Iraqi people are seeing signs of progress — and what better example of their unbridled expression than blogs.
More on that unbridled expression in a moment. First, we won't bore you with a long digression on this, but the AP story makes a bit of an issue of the fact that Bush wasn't really quoting from a blog but from an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. Whatever -- it's true that the authors blog from Baghdad: Their names are Mohammed and Omar Fadhil, and their site is called Iraq the Model.
The Fadhils are not really your typical bloggers, though. For one thing, they have actually met with Bush in the Oval Office, in 2004. I happen to know quite a few bloggers -- none of the ones I know have met with the president. The larger point of Bush's speech today, of course, was to put a new spin on the same old tired message, that there is good news from Iraq, and people are just overlooking it.
But I was curious. Other people continue to blog from Iraq, people who didn't get a free trip to the White House. What are they saying about the current situation? I decided to find a random sample of five Iraqi bloggers who are still in Iraq, and who have posted recently.
Now, I consider myself someone who pretty much keeps up with the situation in Iraq. But frankly I never expected the reports to be as glum as what I found. They read as if written from a different planet than the one that Bush and his self-selected bloggers apparently reside on.
I went to the new site IraqSlogger, which has links to four Iraq blogs, including Iraq the Model and another well known one called Baghdad Burning. The last post there was from over a month ago, not a good sign. Here's what Riverbend wrote in the second from last post:
It takes a lot to get the energy and resolution to blog lately. I guess it’s mainly because just thinking about the state of Iraq leaves me drained and depressed.
From the same post:
Let me clear it up for any moron with lingering doubts: It’s worse. It’s over. You lost. You lost the day your tanks rolled into Baghdad to the cheers of your imported, American-trained monkeys. You lost every single family whose home your soldiers violated. You lost every sane, red-blooded Iraqi when the Abu Ghraib pictures came out and verified your atrocities behind prison walls as well as the ones we see in our streets. You lost when you brought murderers, looters, gangsters and militia heads to power and hailed them as Iraq’s first democratic government. You lost when a gruesome execution was dubbed your biggest accomplishment. You lost the respect and reputation you once had. You lost more than 3000 troops. That is what you lost America. I hope the oil, at least, made it worthwhile
OK, you can see why Bush didn't mention that blog. Another one linked on Iraqslogger is called Treasure of Baghdad (the source of the picture at top). Here from the top post:
My aunt’s words are still in mind since that day. She is right. Iraq is destroyed. People are displaced. No more schools are open. No more jobs offered. Markets are no longer welcoming customers. Barbers are killed. There is no longer water and electricity. There is no safety. People sleep with guns next to their pillows. Is that what people were dreaming of?
In the blogroll here, I decided to click on a site called Healing Iraq, again knowing nothing of the politics of the author. The top post at the time (since topped with a fresher entry) shows a picture of a long line of displaced Iraqis seeking asylum in Jordan. And right below that:
Hometown Baghdad is a new website that features short, compelling video documentaries of the lives of several Iraqi youth in Baghdad. Filmed completely by Iraqis, it follows the lives of Adel, Ausama and Saif, three college students, and their families, as they brave the streets of Baghdad, people who have nothing to do with the conflict going on in the country but who were sucked up in the madness nevertheless. They are the people behind the headlines and the numbers you so often see in Iraq coverage (50 Iraqis killed, 100 Iraqis wounded, 600 thousand Iraqis dead, 3 million Iraqis displaced, etc). It is classic citizen journalism from the front in Baghdad, despite Adel's slightly annoying Americanised accent. One of them is a despairing dentist!
Searching through Google, again not trying to prejudice my search, I came across a site called Baghdad Chronicles. The top entry here is called "My Friends," and it starts with this warning:
No one dies in this story so please do not worry.
Later in the lengthy post, she writes:
It was another turning point to our group when D was kidnapped from his house. Thankfully he was returned back safely because at that time, a year ago, kidnapped people were delivered safely after receiving the ransom money. Nowadays they take the money and throw the body in Tigris. Yes in that Tigris which once was sparkling under our suspension bridge, the bridge which is taken away from us and is invaded now like everything else in our life by some weird people who have different language, different blood and different culture.
Finally, I discovered hnk's blog, which is based in Mosul and, I though, might offer a somewhat different perspective. From the top post:
And BOOOOM that's what we heard, my mom jumped from her place and I was too busy watching my mom. my dad as usual did what he always does when we heard an explosion.
He went out of the house. At that time there was a shooting so I go after him and pleased him to come inside and when he came back he was followed by 3 women and a child. they were walking in the street and the explosion made them crazy so they ran into our house. They sat for a little while and then left after the shooting stopped.
the situation is always getting worse. one day ago, we heard about 2 big explosions each hour.We didn't even fix the kitchen's window that broke last month. because every day we heard an explosion which is big enough to break the window over again.
By the way, that post, and I'm not making this up, is entitled "My Vacation."
Five random blogs, five bleak portraits of a nation pushed into the abyss -- and that won't have a prayer of getting better until we start to get real about what our presence there really means to these poor people. The only sign of any progress that I saw anywhere today is that George W. Bush says that he's reading blogs.
He's just not reading the right ones.