Unfortunately, words don't fail them.
“We’re extremely careful not to claim that we’re going to take a problem and solve it. What we’re saying is that from time to time, in certain situations, a problem needs a little push.” - Lakhdar Brahimi.Words seem to be all they've got.
A quick set of clicks around the Interweb Tubes show that old Lakhdar was critical of the Iraqi provisional government following the fall of Saddam. No doubt he was critical of the US Marines as well. It's hard to say just where he stood on Saddam's agents feeding people into shredding machines in the years prior to the invasion. Probably well outside the splatter zone, talking, talking, talking, his voice drowned out by the sounds of the machinery and the screams.
Oh well. It's not like he and the rest of The Elders are around to solve problems. So if you've got a problem that doesn't need to be solved, but needs someone to talk at it, give Lakhdar and Jimmy Carter a call. They'll be on the job in no time.
Pre-posting Update: Mary Robinson, the Elder, adds this bit of genius: “Part of the wisdom of the Elders is to remind the world that we actually have universal values that are accepted by every government in the world and yet they are not being implemented.” Good effort, Mary. Why don't you sit down and have a nice, cool drink? Apparently the heat from Global Warming has you a bit disoriented and you've forgotten about the not-quite-so-filled-with-universal-values atheist regimes of Pol Pot and Chairman Mao.
15 comments:
Are you quite all right, KT? I mean, you seem to be going out of your way to find people that you can be furious with. And this is less than a day after posting that you want to "let go of hate". From here, it looks like wild, uncontrolled mood swings, and I'm a bit worried about you.
Maybe you should try posting about people and things that you don't despise, at least for a day or so.
Quite a collection of loathsome individuals. I wonder if Aung San Suu Kyi had any say in whether she would be an "honorary elder." She and Tutu are the only two on that panel to whom I would pay any attention.
Thanks for linking to this. Contra Eisele, this has been the funniest thing I've seen all day.
No recreational snarking?
I'm blown away by the pomposity of this gang starting with their, I'm assuming, self-appointed name.
Link forthcoming.
Thanks in advance for the link. Yeah, the pomposity struck me, too.
I'm blown away by the pomposity of this gang starting with their, I'm assuming, self-appointed name.
Well they ARE old. Actually very very old!
So where is thing showing. Haven't even heard of it until KT announced its existence.
You know on second thought, I love the table with the globe in it. It reminds me of a villainous version of the super friends in their lair planning their next dastardly deed. ;)
Narrator: "In this episode, The Elders steal the world's supply of Metamusil!"
Here's a little thought experiment.
If the eight Elders were on a ship that wrecked, and they were all drowning, and you came by with a lifeboat and you had room in the boat to save three of them...
... how would you explain that you'd only let Nelson Mandela in the boat?
KT: I don't know as I'd call this "recreational snarking". You've found a bunch of elderly has-beens, making a pointless group to try to convince themselves that they still matter. It isn't so much funny, as sad and pathetic. And instead of making fun of their lack of relevance, you were acting as if they were actually a bunch of dangerously evil monsters.
Look, all I know about you is what I see on the blog, and what I see is you becoming yet another of those guys who spend most of their time specifically looking for stuff to be offended by. And when you periodically worry that the blog is often mean-spirited, I have to agree. Back when I first started dropping in here, you often had stuff that was genuinely funny, or seriously thought-provoking. But these days, it's mostly just pleasure at the discomfort of others, or anger at people who are, at worst, irrelevant.
Sorry to give you that impression, Tim, but I wasn't offended by them. I think they're both funny in a pathetic sort of way and damaging at the same time. Their ideas aren't just goofy, they're wrong in a "hurt people" kind of way.
The multiculturalist idea that all governments have shared values is the kind of thing that weakens the resolve of civilized nations to resist the barbarity of places like Mao's China or Pol Pot's Cambodia. These aren't kindly old greybeards who cling to an outdated, but innocent dogma, these are former world leaders who are trading on their past glories to convince us to do things that are bad for people around the world.
Mocking them is a way to stand up to the notion that the Christian West is just the same as the atheist dictatorships or the Islamofascists. I'm not angry or offended so much as having fun at the expense of a group who serves evil by trying to eliminate the differences between it and good.
Back when I first started dropping in here, you often had stuff that was genuinely funny, or seriously thought-provoking. But these days, it's mostly just pleasure at the discomfort of others, or anger at people who are, at worst, irrelevant.
Point taken. I'll try to do better.
Some are dangerously evil monsters. Mary Robinson, for instance.
Jeff:
This Mary Robinson?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Robinson
All I see is what I said earlier: a formerly-popular has-been living on the remains of former fame. Maybe it's just me, but I regard the title "Monster" as something that you have to do something pretty reprehensible to earn, generally including some deaths. So what's she done or said that is so uniquely evil?
KT, I have to say you have been remarkably consistent over the years when it comes to dishing out snark and sarcasm... especially seeing how in 99% of the cases it is entirely warranted.
I don't see people like Jimmy Carter, Kofi Anan and Mary Robinson as bad people... quite the opposite - I truly do believe these people care about making the world a better place.
Unfortunately, quite often their views on how to do this represent the height of fecklessness and unseriousness.
It always seems to me that you don't have to scratch too far below the surface with the international do-gooder set to find anti-semitism, anti-Americanism and anti-free market capitalism as what informs their world view.
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