The only reason why I even bother commenting on this is that SonyBMG found this essay significant enough to remove from their web site. They are the honourable record company in the privileged position of sporting such drivel as System of a Down releases - or at least some of them. The vial of poisoned hatred I have for record companies and SonyBMG in particular (ask me about rootkit software, I dare you) is far more potent than the Mickey Mouse one I have stashed for Mall-core, so in this Serj and I are on the same side of the fence.You can find the entire essay which resembles one of my poorly assembled blog posts more than an actual essay here. I will only comment on the particularly poor parts.
BOMBING AND BEING BOMBED ARE THE SAME THINGS ON DIFFERENT SIDES OF THE FENCE.Terror is not a spontaneous human action without credence. People just dont hijack planes and commit harikari (suicide) without any weight of thought to the action.[sic]
This raises the question how violence started in the first place. Is it really safe to assume that our prehistoric ancestors were less spontaneous than ourselves? I don't think so. I would love to think that ever since our neighbours saw something we worked for and were too lazy to work for it themselves, there was violence. This violence would have been thought through. Somehow, I do not think violent acts are necessarily thought through, in fact, in my personal experience of violence most of it is not thought through and quite spontaneous.We are violent beings in the same vein as we are sexual beings. I am not suggesting that violence is always necessary, but that violence is part of our nature.Electricity and cars kill people, and in much greater numbers than guns, but we do not moralise them. No, we moralise guns and video games and pornography and the Alice Coopers and the Marilyn Mansons and the Ozzy Osbournes of the world, because they spawn high school shootings and terrorists. Right...
Hari-kiri in particular occurs without much weight of thought to the action. It is a spontaneous thing to avoid falling in the hands of the enemies. It is not particularly beneficial to the person committing hari-kiri, but it is preferred by his superiors who do not like him having his guts spilled in a metaphorical sense, since state secrets could be revealed then. Point being, it is spontaneous.
After WWI, secret back door deals by our State Dept. yielded oil rights from then defeated Turkey to fields in what is now Iraq and Saudi Arabia, in return for looking the other way at a crime against humanity, the Genocide of the Armenians by the Turks. Oil profits have been the motivating factors behind many attempts at counterinsurgency of democratic regimes by the CIA and the U.S in the Middle East (such as Iran in the 1950s, where the Shah replaced the Prime Minister who refused to give up oil rights to the U.S., and since the people couldnt deal with the Shah, an extremist government headed by the Ayatollah Khomeini ultimately prevailed). [sic]
It is speculated that WWII was also based on controlling oil, but since we are making a case against the current status quo, Serj needs at least a
[citation needed]. Supposedly this essay is less spontaneous than human violence, so this speculation had to originate somewhere. In his treatise on the history of the SS, Heinz Hohne speculates that Germany wanted to send all its Jews back to Israel first, years before their Final Solution was even on the cardsI know, [citation needed] but I am appealing to fans of Serj, so what's good enough for him is good enough for me.Germany was met with considerable opposition from Britain with this plan, because the Brits controlled the oil fields at the time and feared an influx of Jews could render the area unmanageable. Would it have been a better plan to send the German Jews back to Israel? Arguably, a less violent plan if Britain did nothing about it.Would WWII be avoided by such action? I do not think so. We would have had a Gulf War in the fifties instead of in the nineties, and perhaps Germany would have been an ally to Russia in the Cold War against the allies. Hey, we are speculating here.
PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST WILL LEAD TO HIGHER OIL AND GASOLINE PRICES. Lets not also forget the power of the Arms industry, disguised as defense, that still sells billions of dollars of weapons to the area. [sic]
The world buys oil in American dollars. This means - yes, higher oil prices means a demand for more dollars. Stability in the middle east usually leads to lower oil prices. The middle east raises oil prices to raise funds for war it wages against America. It is true that America supplies arms to the Middle East, to who it deems allies - friendly guys like Saddam and Osama. You know, guys trained by America as CIA agents and then it turns out they were Muslim extremists after all. Doh! So, what we have here is an America that wants an unstable middle east because it wins when oil prices go up: on one hand there is an international demand for more Dollars and on the other hand there is a Middle East in demand of more weapons - both which benefits America. It follows that peace in the Middle East does not benefit America.
During the war between the then Soviet Union and Afghanistan, the U.S. armed and supported the Taliban, a fundamentalist Muslim organization, and allowed them to export opium and heroin out of their country to pay for those weapons.[sic]
Yes, that is an Internet conspiracy theory. I would love to see some credible sources on this. Come on Serj, your music proves that you have a gullible audience, why not back up your talk? Oh wait, you don't have to with a gullible audience.
People in Serbia, Lebanon, Iraq, Sudan, and Afghanistan to name a few have seen bombs fall, not always at military targets and kill innocent civilians, as the scene in New York city yesterday.
Innocent civilians? Civilians in America vote for their president. Civilians in Iraq can't vote for their leader because America puts up a puppet government for them. Civilians are responsible for their leader, but in reality, when is a leader ever accountable for his actions? The World Trade Centre is the symbol of where the middle east gets exploited by the west. These are not innocent civilians, but hapless accomplices in the latest chapter of the age old crusade saga. The only difference is that the west does not march in on noble steads, they march in with indoctrination highlighting the benefits of Democracy and equality of the sexes to nations who have no need for it and have not needed it in thousands of years.It is immoral to teach those people the benefits of political correctness for their own good. We have no right to stipulate to them what is right and what is wrong, it is disrespectful to their culture.If we could do that, then we as Westerners should be executed for portraying caricatures of Mohamed the Prophet. Our rules do not apply to them, because their rules do not apply to us. To assume that America has innocent civilians when they choose their leader in a Democratic fashion is absurd. OK, I will meet Serj half way - only Republicans are not innocent American civilians.
This does not mean that we should not find the guilty party(s), Bin Laden, or whoever they may be, and not try them. Put simply, as long as a major injustice remains, violence precipitates to the surface of life.
Wait a minute, "BOMBING AND BEING BOMBED ARE THE SAME THINGS ON DIFFERENT SIDES OF THE FENCE", remember? Serj, surely you mean turn the other cheek on Osama? That's the way to prevent major injustice! Or not. Actually, we do not have corporal punishment to teach people morality. We have it as a big old finger wagging in their faces. It is a kind of blackmail, and it works. This is why bombing and being bombed are not the same thing at all. Yes, you do need to try those who commit major injustices, but not because it clears the moral tabs. If that were the case, there would be no turning cheeks, but an eye for an eye and a tower for a tower. Trying guilty parties is a means to maintain superiority and to instill the ideology that justice prevails.
Native American folklore, the Bible, Nostradamus, and many other major religious beliefs point to this era with the visuals of yesterdays disasters, and conditions of ecological disasters we experience daily in our lives today.
Last time I checked, there were only four major religious beliefs in the world, and Native American folklore and Nostradamus were not among them.
The U.S. should stop sidestepping the U.N. Security Council, and allow U.N. Peacekeeping troops and missions to the Middle East. Stop the violence first.
Newsflash: the U.N Security Council IS the U.S. It is the way the U.S abolishes itself from accountability. If the U.N does it, it is perceived as sound because the richest nations in the world agreed to it. If the U.S does a peacekeeping mission on a limb, it is not sound? Despite having veto powers in the U.N? Same pudding, different sauce Serj.
As shown from yesterdays events, you cannot stop a person whos ready to die.[sic]
You can, by killing them. The more people who are ready to die in the middle east, the more likely the war will carry on. The longer the war carries on, the higher the oil price climbs, the stronger the dollar gets, the more pissed off people who are ready to die in the middle east buy weapons... the longer America has its coffers full. Simple, eh?
The truth is that someone like Serj has to thank his lucky stars and his hammer and his sickle that there are civilians who are willing to fight this war on his behalf. It enables him to sit and bitch and moan about it back home, produce his cacophony and brandish his label-tarnished clothes, of which each item has a virtual genocidal story of exploited labour to tell. These brave souls put him in a position where he can tell fans to steal his albums. By being part of the American dream, exploiting it to its full capacity and then pretending to be against it, Serj doesn't have much moral leverage over his fellow innocent civilians.
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