In a
while I think I'm just going to have to shut off my DSL modem and
sit in peace for a little while. I am totally addicted to this war,
in a rather unpleasant, perverse, voyeuristic fashion. If anything,
it's a testament to the kind of world we've created on the
Internet, where any Joe Yahoo can post their comment for the world
to see. I have spent most of my waking hours outside of the
hospital following via trails all through the blogosphere, sifting
through various strands of The Truth, in a hopeless search akin to
Diogenes' to find an honest man or woman.
Despite the fact that I
knew it would happen, I am still shocked by how strange the
world is.
Take L.T. Smash
for example (link found on popdex), a blog by a reservist who has
been called into active duty. I find it hilarious that he chose the
moniker of a character from The
Simpsons. This character was pretending to be a record
executive, recruiting the next big boy band called The Party Posse,
which includes Bart, Milhouse, Nelson, and Ralph. L.T. Smash is
eventually discovered to be working for the U.S. Navy and inserting
subliminal messages in The Party Posse's videos in order to
brainwash people into enlisting.
To be sure, I think it's becoming increasingly
difficult to determine what is real and what is a parody on the
Internet. I've already mentioned R.Robot is Making Sense,
a blog literally written by robot (meaning a script running on a
webserver—and check out
R.Robot is Right!) as well as whitehouse.org. Then there is Neal
Pollack's The Maelstrom
where he deliberately takes on the persona of someone who is in
complete support of W and his splendid little war, occasionally
slipping out of character and creating a very schizophrenic blog.
(OK, I know. The real term is Multiple Personality Disorder, but,
you know what I mean.)
And then we come to Vote To Impeach Bush, a site
dedicated to the expulsion of our beloved W and his henchmen (or
are they puppeteers?) I can't help but think this is some bizarre
parody.
Oh well. I think I've gotten used to being lied to
anyway. As Philip K Dick once said, "Reality is that which, when
you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." If you're so-called
elected leaders are delusional, is it delusional to be equally
delusional? Whatever that means.