Decius wrote:
An odd thought occurs to me as I contemplate this. How do you kill a scene? How do scenes actually die? Scenes die because they cease to be cool. Because they get coopted by the thing they exist to resist, so that participating in them no longer means what it once did. Because the Gap opens up on the corner of Haight and Ashbury. Because the gangster rappers have million dollar video budgets and all drive luxury cars. If there is anything that can take the cultural iconography of radical islam and shuck it of any possible meaning it is our consumer marketing system. Jihadi Cola, indeed.
This idea seems too trite to be reasonable. Its the sort of thing Gibson would use for irony. Maybe you can offer a better one...
I don't think it's trite. I think it's right on and it's exactly why it's been giving the WoT planners and administrators and bureacrats fits. They're thinking is still rooted in cold war politics and tactics. Even with better intelligence, their responses and tools are still oriented around a definable enemy and decapitaing the command and control systems. Those don't exist in this case, which is why we've ultimately failed at defeating Al'Q.
You're right: to kill a scene is to make it irrelevant or dull. This is *EXACTLY* the reason why we invaded Iraq. It wasn't WMD's. It wasn't participating in 9/11. It was the ability to influence a mid-eastern state with our culture. It just so happened that Saddam was a really really bad guy, so we could justify our own cultural imperialism. But the reality is that Iraq makes a really good place to do this. They are fairly secular. Saddam never gave a shit about Islam, unless it broadened his power. And the rest of the country is not oriented in a theological way (vs Saudi Arabia, or Iran). Their populace is highly literate (something like 90%!). Women are not second class citizens and could vote and own property even in the Saddam era. In effect, Iraq was already the most 'progressive' mid-eastern state going. So let's just ignite the fires of capitalism and western culture by removing the biggest impediment.
When Bush says he wants to "spread freedom, liberty, and democracy" this is exactly what he means. He's saying that the more we can put The Gap on the corner of Height Ashbury, the more we will subdue the 'scene'. Muslim young males today have nothing to tap into. They're jobless. They're immasculated in a world that is highly confusing compared to their fore-fathers. Al'Q *IS* their punk rock. The quicker you give them a more attractive alternative, the quicker you quelsh the rebellion. The risk is that giving them jobs, money, bling, and endless supplies of American style pussy will somehow get them to stop hating America. That's a big risk in my mind.
Another thing that kills scenes is a massive influx of poseurs. What killed punk rock? It was endless masses trying to break into the scene that didn't understand the point. All that they could grok was the fashion and music sensibility. They didn't understand the gestault. In my mind, this would be a better strategy for the West. Keep Bin Laden alive. He'll end up like Glen Matlock. If you murder him, you'll just turn him into Sid Vicious.
