UNITED STATES OF MADNESS
April 2, 2003
Madonna pulled her video, the one in which she tosses a grenade into George W.'s lap and he uses it to light a cigar. According to MTV News, she said she "originally wanted the video to convey strong anti-war, anti-materialism and anti-fashion industry statements." But it was filmed before the war and she felt it was no longer appropriate. "Due to the volatile state of the world and out of sensitivity and respect to the armed forces, who I support and pray for," she said. "I do not want to risk offending anyone who might misinterpret the meaning of this video." Last week she was more inclined to stand up for it. She said, "I feel like with everything I do, there's always gonna be that handful of naysayers, regardless of what I do. They've made their decision before they've seen it. And that's human nature. So I accept it. Obviously, it irritates me. I would like people to watch it, and I don't want to tell them what to think. I don't think it's offensive."
Close Up of the Mad Dog. Expatica.com, news and community for the expatriot, ran a piece about the Bush "feel good" incident as he was getting ready to announce the bombing was beginning, and it's a more personal piece than the more mainstream piece where it originally slipped into the public dialogue, seemingly out of context. It was an image, a meme, of such power that it would not be -- could not be -- suppressed. The writer Kevin Lowe openly expresses his horror -- it's the view of the sane man as opposed to the deranged world of US corporate media. "Bush, the so-called leader of the free world, was sitting behind his desk going over his speech, as we would expect," says Lowe. "But then it got weird. I felt like I was looking behind the curtain, and it was uglier than I ever imagined. Like some class clown trying to get attention from the back of the room, he started mugging for his handlers. His eyes darted back and forth impishly as he cracked faces at others around him. He pumped a fist and self-consciously muttered, 'feel good,' which was interestingly sanitised into the more mature and assertive, 'I'm feeling good' by the same Washington Post." That is Bush, isn't it. He's the imp, clowning for his handlers. Performing for his handlers. He is a performer. That's why he can be this relatively affable guy, and carry out such a monstrous, inhuman agenda. He's as close to just a face, an animated face, as a living human can be. What he represents is in essence the personality of the corporation. A corporation is a cold, calculating machine with all its power focused on the single objective: to maximize its bottom line. That's what is behind the face of George W. Bush. The same mentality of the massive corporation, like General Electric or General Motors, which will do virtually anything it can get away with to enhance its profits. Now history will see what happens when that tendency goes too far, gets out of control.