I'm a big fan of Tom Lehrer, the Harvard professor and political satirist who skewered everyone in the 50s and 60s with WASP-y little piano ditties about nuclear war, racism, and pollution.
He also famously remarked that "political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize." And perhaps he's right. Certainly, it seemed during the Bush years that the Worst Administration Ever was one step ahead of both political satire and dystopian fiction.
Things are different now, right? We don't just have a president who makes better speeches. We have a president who does things that make us proud to be Americans again, right? He even tells the occasional joke, and he's pretty funny. Though maybe sometimes he's deadpanning and it's going over our heads.
But if someone doesn't tell me the punchline to this I may start screaming.
Obama administration will not sign land mine ban
Follow me below the fold if this horrifies and angers you.
Really? President Obama's administration? Maybe someone at the State Department made a mistake. I mean, after all, Obama would never consent to this. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and said:
"I will accept this award as a call to action, a call for all nations to confront the challenges of the 21st century."
So you see, this must be some kind of joke. The political irony is palpable. Unless you don't believe land mines are one of the challenges of the 21st century.
This is the part where I show you graphic pictures to tug on your heart strings. Fuck that. If you want pictures of dismembered children, google: "Land mine victims pics". Showing you pictures will do nothing. It has not yet done a thing to get the US to sign on to the landmine ban, even though all reputable countries (and some disreputable ones) have signed to it already. Perhaps if American children were stepping on them in baseball fields, or American cows were exploding in the pastures, we might put some pressure on our government.
State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said Tuesday that the administration recently completed a review and decided not to change the Bush-administration era policy.
Ah, I see.
?!?
Is there any particular reason why the U.S. won't sign the land mine treaty? Is there some undeclared War on Pedestrians going on? Is the State Department making these kinds of decisions outside of Obama's authority? Did someone slip it past him and he'll soon set things right? Or is this really the change we voted for?
Meanwhile, back in the blasted hellscape outside the U.S.:
A report this month by the International Campaign to Ban Land mines found that mines remain planted in more than 70 countries. It also said mines triggered by accident killed at least 1,266 people and wounded 3,891 last year.
More than 2.2 million anti-personnel mines, 250,000 anti-vehicle mines and 17 million other explosives left over from wars have been removed since 1999, the report said.
I'm so pissed off right now.
Way to go, Mr. Nobel Peace Prize.