So, that happened...
...during the last ten or so days:
1.) The "birther" hysteria culminates in Obama producing his birth certificate (longer version, as apparantly the White House already released a shorter version eons ago). My possibly unfair thought on this was "only in America". More seriously, I also thought about our last president (note: German presidents are only heads of state, not heads of goverment, i.e. they're only there for representation, not for actual governing, that's what the chancellor does), who flounced off (it can't be expressed differently) because he thought the media was too mean to him. I kid you not, and thus forced Ms. Merkel to come up with an emergency replacement. And he never, ever, would have been asked to present his birth certificate.
2.) Then I gathered through fannish osmosis and newspaper articles that there is now a new Superman story in which he - not Clark Kent, Superman in his Superman persona - renounces his American citizenship, because people around the globe keep blaming the US goverment for his actions and see him as a tool of same. Well, if you drape yourself in the flag colours, they would, Supes. (Also, ask Dr. Osterman and Mark Milton about this.) Anyway, so Kal-El, immigrant from Krypton, is no longer an American. Apparantly this was the second most talked about thing after Obama's birth certificate and caused much indignation. Again: only in America. I don't mean that in a negative way. As a comic book reader (though more Marvel than DC), I find it endearing they care that much.
Footnote: now the Doctor, despite also being an alien with an exploded home planet, does not have British citizenship to begin with despite mostly hanging out on the island. And our own most successful sci fi hero in Germany was originally American to begin with (in the 60s, when the pulp fiction series Perry Rhodan started), not German, and immediately renounced American citizenship once the plot kicked in with a vengeance and he discovered an alien ship with high tech that no single nation on Earth should have. Basically: aliens and nationaless cosmopolitism are a very European thing.
3.) And then a high profile terrorist died after, I'm told, more than 500 billions of dollars were spent on a decades long manhunt. To no one's surprise, he hadn't gone very far, just to the neigbouring country from where he was last seen before ordering the death of about 3000 people in the World Trade Centre. The way this event was presented in the media felt a bit as if Obama was an action hero played by Samuel Jackson, at last firing the decisive shot that kills the film's villain. And then there is a happy ending. It occured to me that if Osama bin Laden had been captured alive, it would have been incredibly inconvenient and messy for all parties concerned. Would he have ended up in Guantanamo? Would he have gotten a trial? If so, would he have used all the money from his very rich (and quite familiar with American business) family to hire a team of lawyers, or would it have been a military tribunal? What would the defense have brought up? It was all Mohammad Atta's idea, and our client can't be judged by any unbiased jury because there can't be any? The US was fine with our client as long as he was busy agitating against the Russians in Afghanistan? Or maybe he'd have insisted on defending himself and would have behaved as contemptously of the court as Slovodan Milosevic did when they tried him in Den Haag.
There is a reason why so many films prefer to kill off their villains. (Unless they're already planning the sequel.)
But. I can't help but remember. Fiction, again, one of Terry Prattchet's Discworld novels, one of the darker ones, Night Watch. At the end, our hero, copper-turned-watch commander Sam Vimes finally has caught up with the story's main villain. Who is a repellent individual, responsible for many deaths. Both directly and by influencing other people, showing them new ways to torture, more ways to kill. And as a last act, once he figures out he's well and truly caught, he tries to provoke Vimes into killing him. It would fit his own narrative: that they're really not that different, that it just matters who has the upper hand, is the better killer. But Sam Vimes does not. He's making an arrest instead, grimly sure that this man will face what he did - in a trial.
Well, you know. That's fiction. Out of this world.
This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/677052.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.
1.) The "birther" hysteria culminates in Obama producing his birth certificate (longer version, as apparantly the White House already released a shorter version eons ago). My possibly unfair thought on this was "only in America". More seriously, I also thought about our last president (note: German presidents are only heads of state, not heads of goverment, i.e. they're only there for representation, not for actual governing, that's what the chancellor does), who flounced off (it can't be expressed differently) because he thought the media was too mean to him. I kid you not, and thus forced Ms. Merkel to come up with an emergency replacement. And he never, ever, would have been asked to present his birth certificate.
2.) Then I gathered through fannish osmosis and newspaper articles that there is now a new Superman story in which he - not Clark Kent, Superman in his Superman persona - renounces his American citizenship, because people around the globe keep blaming the US goverment for his actions and see him as a tool of same. Well, if you drape yourself in the flag colours, they would, Supes. (Also, ask Dr. Osterman and Mark Milton about this.) Anyway, so Kal-El, immigrant from Krypton, is no longer an American. Apparantly this was the second most talked about thing after Obama's birth certificate and caused much indignation. Again: only in America. I don't mean that in a negative way. As a comic book reader (though more Marvel than DC), I find it endearing they care that much.
Footnote: now the Doctor, despite also being an alien with an exploded home planet, does not have British citizenship to begin with despite mostly hanging out on the island. And our own most successful sci fi hero in Germany was originally American to begin with (in the 60s, when the pulp fiction series Perry Rhodan started), not German, and immediately renounced American citizenship once the plot kicked in with a vengeance and he discovered an alien ship with high tech that no single nation on Earth should have. Basically: aliens and nationaless cosmopolitism are a very European thing.
3.) And then a high profile terrorist died after, I'm told, more than 500 billions of dollars were spent on a decades long manhunt. To no one's surprise, he hadn't gone very far, just to the neigbouring country from where he was last seen before ordering the death of about 3000 people in the World Trade Centre. The way this event was presented in the media felt a bit as if Obama was an action hero played by Samuel Jackson, at last firing the decisive shot that kills the film's villain. And then there is a happy ending. It occured to me that if Osama bin Laden had been captured alive, it would have been incredibly inconvenient and messy for all parties concerned. Would he have ended up in Guantanamo? Would he have gotten a trial? If so, would he have used all the money from his very rich (and quite familiar with American business) family to hire a team of lawyers, or would it have been a military tribunal? What would the defense have brought up? It was all Mohammad Atta's idea, and our client can't be judged by any unbiased jury because there can't be any? The US was fine with our client as long as he was busy agitating against the Russians in Afghanistan? Or maybe he'd have insisted on defending himself and would have behaved as contemptously of the court as Slovodan Milosevic did when they tried him in Den Haag.
There is a reason why so many films prefer to kill off their villains. (Unless they're already planning the sequel.)
But. I can't help but remember. Fiction, again, one of Terry Prattchet's Discworld novels, one of the darker ones, Night Watch. At the end, our hero, copper-turned-watch commander Sam Vimes finally has caught up with the story's main villain. Who is a repellent individual, responsible for many deaths. Both directly and by influencing other people, showing them new ways to torture, more ways to kill. And as a last act, once he figures out he's well and truly caught, he tries to provoke Vimes into killing him. It would fit his own narrative: that they're really not that different, that it just matters who has the upper hand, is the better killer. But Sam Vimes does not. He's making an arrest instead, grimly sure that this man will face what he did - in a trial.
Well, you know. That's fiction. Out of this world.
This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/677052.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.