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Jingoistic paeans we love to mock
Fri, 2011-05-20 10:28
#1
Boom Boom
Jingoistic paeans we love to mock
Fri, 2011-05-20 10:34
#2
Boom Boom
The Americans are unquestionably masters of the genre, but Canada has its own: O Canada. And, as part of the Commonwealth: God Save the Queen.
I found this from the San Francisco Bay Guardian from 2009 interesting, mostly because I thought I was the only one nowadays who often uses the expression "jingoistic paean".
excerpt:
Most of the putatively titled "war on terror" pictures, solidified as a genre in the aftermath of 9/11, fulfilled one of several bog-standard paradigms: the preening, ideological propaganda of Michael Moore (2004's Fahrenheit 9/11) and Errol Morris (2003's The Fog of War and 2008's Standard Operating Procedure), with its leftist moralizing thinly camouflaged as real "documents" of war; the quasi-jingoist paeans to American imperialism in Black Hawk Down (2001) and We Were Soldiers (2002); and the grid-skipping, pan-global tourist thrillers Syriana (2005), The Kingdom (2007), and Body of Lies (2008). Regardless of their ideological positions, all of these war on terror films linked cinematic politics with moral engagement and the need for historicizing the truth of combat.
Fri, 2011-05-20 11:35
#3
Obama receiving the peace prize is like me receiving a prize for good taste.
Fri, 2011-05-20 12:20
#4
Boom Boom
Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize speech – an exercise in American triumphalism
excerpt:
As if the choice of the winner had not been surprising enough, President Obama accepted the Nobel for peacemaking by delivering, in his usual eloquent style, a grim treatise on the nature and necessity of warfare. Standing on the podium at the Oslo City Hall, he defended the idea that some wars were necessary and just, and reminded the world of the burden the United States had borne in the fight against oppression: "We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth that we will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations - acting individually or in concert - will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified."
According to Alfred Nobel's will, the Peace Prize should be awarded to the person who "during the preceding year [...] shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congress." [Excerpt from the Will of Alfred Nobel, Nobel Foundation.]
The criteria hardly fits President Barack Obama with barely a year in the office, no foreign policy or domestic success stories, unless one counts some of his eloquent speeches, and who landed in Oslo just having sanctioned after a considerable deliberation with his „peace congress‟, a military surge to the war in Afghanistan and attacks on Pakistan.
Obama:
"I'm responsible for the deployment of thousands of young Americans to battle in a distant land. Some will kill, and some will be killed ... We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes ... Evil does exist in the world ... It will require us to think in new ways about the notions of just war and the imperatives of a just peace ... I reserve the right to act unilaterally ... force can be justified on humanitarian grounds ...."
excerpt:
For all its rhetorical thoughtfulness and reasoning, Obama's speech, rather than being a recipe for a tryst with peace, was an exercise in jingoism, a paean to American triumphalism that all humanity must subscribe to and "that is the hope of all the world."
Fri, 2011-05-20 14:16
#5
Northern Shoveler
Obama receiving the peace prize is like me receiving a prize for good taste.
I always thought it was like appointing Bernard Madoff to sit on the Board of Directors of the Securities Industry Association