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Showing posts with the label Hedges

Rich White Families

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Racism is such a difficult thing to discuss. Wait, nangga un ratu. It isn't a difficult thing to explain necessarily. Esta meggai matuge' put este. Guaha diferentes na theories put hafa este na fuetsa gi lina'la' taotao. We can clearly explain its role in creating structures of inequality and normalizing systems of violence. Lao hafa i minappot? I patten tinaotao. Racism is not difficult to explain. Ti mappot maeksplika. It is difficult to discuss, because discussion assumes a conversation and this is limited by what the person you are talking to is able to process or able to admit to. I mina'mappot i diniskuti i chi-na i hinasso i ume'ekungok yan i kumukuentos tatte. Discussing racism means engaging in a number of topics that people would rather not address. The idea of post-racism today is predicated on the belief, hope that if we just don't mention it, all is well. Ya humuyongna, ayu i manangan put rasa pat rinasa, guiya i "raci

Sniping for Jesus

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Chris Hedges stitches together so much troubling truth about both the film American Sniper and the book it is based on. It is a sobering reflection on the film, the mythology of Chris Kyle and how those things relate to the soul of a nation. After reading this is does make you wonder, for all those people who feel patriotic or a swell of national pride after watching the film, what type of nation do you imagine you are a part of? The film is incredibly effective at focusing the viewer on the sentimentality and sacrifice of one character, much to the detriment of rest of the ideological universe of the film ultimately being unquestioned or unexamined. One is too busy tearing up or saluting the heroism of Chris Kyle, that few seem able to question the rest of the film and what it is hiding or proposing. People crave someone like Kyle as being the tip of their national spear, but don't think about what kind of nation would want that type of person there. That type of person represen