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Electronic
Americans
April 9, 2003
By Leilla Matsui
The word "robot," according to one joke making
the Internet rounds, is no longer acceptable. From now on,
robots should be considered "Electronic Americans."
In keeping with the spirit of these socially incindiary times,
I will henceforth refer to this particular demographic of
former humanoid Republicans as EA's. I'm less afraid of giving
offense than I fear for my physical well-being. EA's are very
sensitive. Give-them-a-flagpole-and-they'll-tear-you-a-new-you-know-what-with-it
kind of sensitive.
EA's, though, prefer to call themselves "75ers."
A 75er, according to them, is someone who counts his or herself
among the majority of Americans who support the Bush-led invasion
of Iraq. For what it's worth, a "55er" belongs to
that elite corps of EA's, percentage-wise, who believe that
Saddam Hussein himself was personally responsible for what
British comedian Ali G describes as "the horrible events of
7-11." A 55er, in other words, plays dumber to a 75er's
just plain dumb.
EA's on either side of the stupid divide draw a large measure
of comfort in being perceived as a majority. Knowing how they
feel about minorities, it only follows that they gather strength
from the lynch-mob mentality of their own artificially inflated
numbers.
For the most part, EA's don't look much different than you
and me - only whiter, less brighter and more likely to get
their news from the Fox News Network. EA's, contrary to popular
belief, were not artificially conceived in some secret, off-shore
Sony lab but rather programmed here at home.
How much easier it would be if, say, they all dressed in
rented gorilla suits with metal buckets on their heads like
the unpaid extras in an Ed Wood movie. Unfortunately, they
don't always wear baseball caps or little flags on their lapels,
either. Again, they are just as likely to wear Brooks Brothers
as they are to listen to Garth Brooks.
EA's are generally recognizable by their propensity to recite
ad nauseum every absurdity being spun by the corporate led
media currently embedded in the White House.
In all fairness, EA's, can just as easily be found among
the so-called "liberal elite." Liberal, that is,
on the kind of softcore social issues that the Oxygen channel
deems fit for soccer moms, but otherwise hawkish on foreign
affairs. CNN's Aaron Brown, following the example of The Simpsons
smug and droning Reverend Lovejoy, heads the pack of EA theologians
delivering the news. The reverent Mr. Brown speaks for that
kinder, gentler demographic of Judeo/Christian footsoldiers,
cheering on the genocide in Iraq.
For the majority of EA's though, Divinity Studies, or at
least higher learning, is comprised of the three R's of Rumsfeld,
O'Reilly and Rush. For Ann Coulter, it's the rubber-walled
institution where she graduated Magna Cum Estee Lauder.
Ivy-league EA's are more likely to quote the undead, mostly
white males who dominate the op-ed pages of the Wall Street
Journal and USA Today then they are to dust off
a volume from the Canon of Western Civilization. The ones
who might have actually read something from it, obviously
snoozed through the bits where the hubris and folly of a corrupt
administration ushered in the end of an Empire.
When they're not napping in their Ivory Snow towers, op-ed
EA's collaborate with the administration to obfuscate meaning
in purposefully misleading but important sounding phrases,
stooping even to co-opt Bart Simpson with the desperate-sounding
"surrender monkey." Luckily for them, EA's have
a passive tendency to accept anything and everything that
is deemed fit to print without challenging or even examining
the accuracy of such oft-repeated phrases imbedded in the
fine print.
The following are just a few examples of the phrases EA's
are programmed to recognize and repeat verbatim followed by
the definitions they are incapable of grasping, thanks to
recent technological advancements:
a failure of diplomacy - to describe the Bush administration's
repeated sabotage of the inspection process they knew would
only yield Palaces of Mass Decoration as opposed to Weapons
of Mass Destruction; what Noam Chomsky described as "a
failure of coercion" on the part of the US to bring the
UN into line with its Messianic mission to liberate the Muslim
hordes from their own resources.
a coalition of the willing - otherwise known as "check
book diplomacy" or what happens when coercion fails and
you have to start waving money around. If you happen to be
the president of South Korea it means choosing between what
is morally wrong or risking almost certain nuclear annihilation
at the hands of your trigger-happy neighbors in the North.
allied forces - unlike the first Gulf War when the
US succeeded in mobilizing the world community to create a
multilateral force to do its bidding, the allied forces in
italics here are the US, Britain and a dozen or so Australians.
When that fails to impress, they'll also bring up that one
cleaning crew from Krakow - the crown jewel of international
cooperation. EA observers of the Arab media take exception
to what al-Jazeera et al term "invading" as opposed
to "allied" forces, citing this as yet more proof
of inflammatory rhetoric from the flaming turbans at Mosque
Central.
the irrelevancy of the UN - the irrelevancy, in other
words, of countries outside Planet USA and its orbiting satellite,
the UK.
supporting the troops - what EA's claim to do when
they applaud the administration's decision to send an expendable
force of mostly underprivileged youths to slaughter and be
slaughtered in a country that poses no threat to the US or
any of its former allies; the thing EA leadership claims they
are doing as they cut veteran's benefits while rewarding billionaires
with yet more tax breaks; the trite rallying cry of EA's everywhere
whenever anti-war protests look like they're making inroads
into public consciousness; the non-sequiter Hollywood activists
have to tack on to their anti-war messages in order not to
end up, ironically, like the C-list celebrities mostly unknown
outside of their pro-war activities; those irrelevant and
cash-strapped whoremongers hoping to resuscitate flat-lining
careers any way they can.
embedded reporters - khaki-clad mascots who stand
on the hoods of tanks waving the corporate logo of whatever
news agency they happen to be working for. Occasionally, they
climb off the tanks to report that they can't reveal their
location and conveniently slouch off to the safety of the
nearest trench when things get a little too bloody. For EA's
this is journalism at its finest.
French cowards - what passes for humour among EA's
who think its funny to mock and trivialize the millions of
French people who perished in two world wars, dying alongside
American soldiers for the very things les Americaines Electronique
have been programmed to forget. For AE's, liberty doesn't
ring any bells so it may be useless to remind them - the school
children of the country who sent you the Statue of Liberty;
the government and the people who put aside their shock and
awe at your ignorance and dreadful table manners long enough
to offer their heartfelt condolences on September 11th (yes,
I happened to be there that day and witnessed first hand so
many gestures of kindness, unspeakable now as shame creeps
into memory - shame for how we've rewarded them since); the
democratically elected leaders who listen to the almost 90%
of its citizenry who oppose this invasion because they know
more than we ever will - the human toll of something worth
dying for and can't imagine exacting the same toll for something
that isn't.
When artificial intelligence turns on itself and starts thinking,
it may be the time to reboot the "Saddam gassed his own
people" program by repeating this phrase non-stop until
your EA starts reciting it on his/her own.
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