What is obscene? I am not a good judge, because I seem to find more and more things in my everyday life as obscene. I find the unnecessary close-ups of ghastly wounds on television obscene. What is the purpose of showing brains being blown out of someone’s head in slow-motion? What is the purpose in the blood and the gore? Is it in humanity’s best interests to inure their fellow human beings to gore? Do young people in their formative years need to see autopsies performed and a chest cavity exposed like flaps of a bedspread? What possible good comes of that? Are we preparing our young people tp deal with dead, dismembered bodies in case they have to deal with some in the future? What’s the point? I am a former EMT and I can't stand the blood and gore.
Another thing that I’ve noticed is that television shows are sinking to the same standards that this actual regime in Washington has lowered itself too. I saw an episode of “The Unit” in which an Army Unit that engages in “Black Ops” for the President, has one of their own threatened by a person that was going to tell his wife of an extra-marital affair. In this particular segment, instead of showing the heartbreak and drama of a spouse cheating on his partner, the “Unit” grabs the would-be informer and threatens him with being “rendered” by the government. Since in the show they are cast as a government unit that “renders” people, they make it seem authentic and drive the would-be informer away. What are we learning from this? What are we teaching our children? Is it OK to lie and cheat to cover up a something that was immoral to begin with? To me it’s obscene.
There are so many things that could be considered obscene. This war in Iraq is obscene. The bodies in the streets of Baghdad every morning are obscene. This Presidents use of “signing statements” are obscene. The recent appointments during the Congressional recess where Bush appointed three people to posts in areas that they are in firm disagreement with is obscene. To put a person in a regulatory commission when she belongs top an anti regulatory group is obscene. To put a man that champions privatization of Social Security into a sensitive Social Security post is obscene. To appoint a man who paid for the “Swift boat Veterans for Truth” ad campaign against Senator Kerry in the last presidential campaign is obscene.
